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Excel Sheets, Beauty, & How To Find God in Exodus
36 Plays6 days ago
In this episode, Dan Sanchez and Pastor Ridley Barron dive into the book of Exodus, exploring how God's character is revealed through Israel's journey. They discuss how reading Exodus multiple times shifts perspective—from judging the Israelites' doubts to recognizing our own struggles with faith and trust. The conversation also covers the importance of administration in the church, the often-overlooked spiritual gift of organization, and how God values beauty and creativity, as seen in the craftsmanship of the Ark of the Covenant. Along the way, they touch on personal stories, the role of the Holy Spirit in guiding believers, and what we can learn from God's detailed instructions to His people.
Timestamps:
01:17 Seeing ourselves in the Israelites' struggles
02:50 God's plan and how He allows trials for growth
07:37 Jethro’s wisdom and the importance of administration
14:46 Bezalel, the artist of Exodus, and the role of beauty in worship
22:35 The stigma around men and the arts in Christian culture
27:15 The origins of the Mosaic laws—were they responses to real issues?
30:34 The Holy Spirit’s movement in giving and decision-making
33:55 Preview of next week's discussion on Leviticus
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Roles in Church
00:00:00
Dan Sanchez
Welcome back to the Grove Hill Church podcast. I'm Dan Sanchez, and I'm joined by Ridley Baron, the senior, not senior, the the pastor of Grove Hill Church. I guess you are the senior pastor, right? Because I don't know if we, do we call other staff pastors?
00:00:10
Ridley
Yeah.
00:00:13
Ridley
Yeah, we we have an associate pastor and a youth pastor, so yeah.
00:00:13
Dan Sanchez
And we have Pastor Kyle, associate pastor. Yeah.
Exploring Topics Deeper Through Podcasting
00:00:17
Dan Sanchez
And this podcast series has been really fun for me, Ridley, because I like in your sermons, you have to kind of get to the meat, you have to get to the most critical parts of the book.
00:00:26
Dan Sanchez
But in this podcast, I get to go anywhere I kind of like I'm interested.
00:00:30
Ridley
That's right.
00:00:31
Dan Sanchez
You get to cover the like the core things that have to be covered the most important parts of the book, like the plagues of the Exodus and all that stuff, since we're talking about Exodus today. And get I get to pull out a grab bag of all the other random stuff that's in Exodus, because there's a lot.
00:00:45
Ridley
Just whatever rabbits we went to.
00:00:46
Dan Sanchez
There's so much stuff. So it's kind of like it's it's so many things to go through.
00:00:50
Ridley
Yeah.
00:00:50
Dan Sanchez
So we got a lot of things to cover. But first, I wanted to start with a general, like, my understanding of Exodus is I've read it a couple of times now. And you mentioned this in this sermon, but I thought it'd be worth talking about here.
00:01:03
Dan Sanchez
But I find that the like reading through kind of the Old Testament, but especially in Exodus, you start to get some time with the the Hebrew or Israeli people. I find the first time you read through it, you're like, man, those people are dumb.
00:01:17
Dan Sanchez
He literally just saved them. Like, what the heck? How could they be thinking that? And the second time through, you're like, wait a second. That's me.
00:01:24
Ridley
Yeah.
00:01:25
Dan Sanchez
I've done that. We've done that. Shoot. This happens all the time. The third time through, I'm starting to find I'm asking questions like, okay, what does this not just say about Israel? What does this not just say about me?
00:01:38
Dan Sanchez
But what does it say about God that he's doing what he's doing in this story?
00:01:44
Dan Sanchez
And that's kind of what I've been
00:01:44
Ridley
yeah
Lessons from Exodus: Timing and Reliance on God
00:01:45
Dan Sanchez
pulling out. And I'm gonna have a bunch of ah subsequent questions that I'm going to ask to try to essentially learn about God's character. But how do you find that progression goes when you're reading through Exodus now?
00:01:55
Dan Sanchez
is that how Is that where you've gotten to? You've been reading like it like that for years now?
00:01:59
Ridley
Yeah, absolutely. um think it kind of reminds me of of ah ah a novice taking on a professional in a chess game. The more you play the game with that professional, the more you understand, oh, he's actually seven steps ahead of me and what I'm trying to do. And so the people of Israel, as they're working their way through the wilderness, they are. They're step by step. They're moment by moment. It's always what's right in front of us right now. But after you've read the book,
00:02:27
Ridley
three, four, or five times you begin to go, you know what, God i was way ahead of them with his thinking. And many times he's allowing some of the the the struggles and the trials and whatever that's going on because he knows what's ahead. And so he's trying to create a relationship between him and these people where they are fully dependent on him.
00:02:48
Ridley
You know, we we talked a little bit about the Red Sea and I offline a minute ago and that made me think about this. I think one of the things that God accomplished at the Red Sea by not showing what was going on and and not revealing, hey, there's an Egyptian army coming after you ahead of time that it all just popped on them. Because if he had told them ahead of time, human nature would have been that the Israelites would immediately started trying to manipulate their own escape and it would have created a greater problem rather than fixing the problem.
00:03:16
Ridley
And so by waiting to the last minute and showing up and just being God for them like you wanted to be, it kept it from getting in their hands and getting very messy and he just was able to handle things the way he needed to. And again, just created a greater reliance of Israel on their God.
00:03:32
Dan Sanchez
That was one of the things that popped out to me that God seems to not give them all the details ahead of time Which would have been helpful might have curbed some of their grumbling.
00:03:37
Ridley
Yeah.
00:03:40
Dan Sanchez
I think not telling them that the army was gonna chase him You know they so he's like hey that he just got to let them freak out for a minute And then the other one is they got hungry, but I'm like I mean if we were following Moses, and we we're walking through the desert It's kind of like well like
00:03:40
Ridley
yeah
00:03:47
Ridley
Right.
00:03:56
Dan Sanchez
Moses, where's the food? There's no food out here.
00:03:57
Ridley
Yeah.
00:03:58
Dan Sanchez
Do we got a plan for that? Like you got anything?
00:04:00
Ridley
Right.
00:04:01
Dan Sanchez
But of course it's not like they have modern communication where they have like some kind of slack channel where they're talking to each other and Moses is seeing it responding to it, you know, they're like, they're just in the back. Some guys in the back. I mean, there's a lot of people.
00:04:12
Ridley
right
00:04:13
Dan Sanchez
and So like they're all wandering this massive group and like, I haven't seen Moses, but like, what are we doing?
00:04:18
Ridley
Yeah.
00:04:18
Dan Sanchez
Like I could totally see it happening, right?
00:04:20
Ridley
Yeah.
00:04:20
Dan Sanchez
Where you're like, I'm getting really hungry. My kid's getting hungry. My wife's hungry. Man, when when she gets hungry, it's a problem.
00:04:28
Ridley
I think it's interesting because
00:04:29
Dan Sanchez
So I could see it.
Trust and Guidance in Spiritual Journey
00:04:30
Ridley
if you think about this, you know, the best comparison I could come up with is this would be like Dan Sanchez going out and taking the city of Nashville metro area and saying, hey, I'm going to lead you down to the tip of Florida and you're going to follow me.
00:04:44
Ridley
Well, if you start thinking about that mass of people moving around, There are people in the back, probably almost a day behind you as far as traveling, who are going, I don't even know if Moses is still up there.
00:04:54
Dan Sanchez
Goodness.
00:04:57
Ridley
He may not even be in charge anymore at this point, but it's been a couple of hours since we've eaten. I don't see any food in sight. What are we supposed to do? And I do think that's part of the reason why God provided this the Shekinah glory, this thing that all of them could see to say, hey, I'm always with you.
00:05:14
Ridley
You don't have to worry about that. But getting down to practical terms, you're dragging your four kids and wife and cattle across the desert floor in the wilderness and you're going, I need some sustenance right now. You probably are starting to grumble complaints about the time that word gets to Moses. It's worked its way through the crowd of 2 million people and they're all on the same page going, we need to drive through right now. because this This is bad news. We've got no place to eat.
00:05:39
Dan Sanchez
So after reading it, I'm realizing, okay, they're grumbling, but like, they're concerned about it. And we're going to get concerned in our life with the same thing. We're going to end up following God and there's going to be places where we go. We're like, well, what, like, I'm at a dead end.
00:05:50
Ridley
Right.
00:05:51
Dan Sanchez
I'm at a place. I don't, I don't have what I need. I don't, what am I supposed to do God?
00:05:56
Ridley
Yeah.
00:05:57
Dan Sanchez
And I'm realizing like, okay, like I'm in their shoes. I'm not feeling what they're, I'm not feeling the pain they're feeling. What is the logical thing to do? It's kind of like, well, like they could have prayed.
00:06:08
Ridley
Yep.
00:06:09
Dan Sanchez
and asked with humility. And I'm like, man, God, it helped me to under remember to remember that so that when I get to that point that they're at right now, which is going to happen, I'm going to get back to that point again someday.
00:06:21
Dan Sanchez
Help me to be thankful for what I have.
00:06:23
Ridley
Yeah.
00:06:24
Dan Sanchez
Trust God, calmly ask him for help and trust that he's going to take care of things.
00:06:30
Ridley
That's a great point because,
Value of Administration in Church Settings
00:06:31
Ridley
you know, human nature as you're walking around with this crowd of people is, as you start to get hungry, you probably grab three or four guys around you and say, hey, we might need to form a hunting party and see if we can go out and find some food for our families or something. Well, think about the, for lack of a better term, the idiotic nature of that thought.
00:06:49
Ridley
There's two million people you can't possibly kill enough to to feed two million people. The only person who's gonna be able to provide for this is the God who's in that cloud in front of you.
00:07:00
Ridley
And I right and i think your point is well made here that you know in our modern time, we can forget that same God is the one who's promised he's gonna provide for us and we can try to
00:07:00
Dan Sanchez
Yeah, at that place, it's the desert. There's not enough food around.
00:07:16
Ridley
control the situation, we can can try to manipulate the the events of our lives, but man, it'd be so much easier if we'd just stop and go, okay, God, I'm in one of those moments where I really need you to do something for me here and let him have it.
00:07:32
Dan Sanchez
There's another place, in the book that I wanted to dive into where Jethro steps in Moses's father-in-law.
00:07:38
Ridley
Mm-hmm.
00:07:39
Dan Sanchez
I sent you a link this weekend, but I'm sure it was on Saturdays. You probably prepping for Sunday, but some, some people made like this fantastic little mini series.
00:07:44
Ridley
yeah
00:07:48
Dan Sanchez
I think they might've only gotten one or two episodes down. I don't know if they got funding to make the rest of it, but it's like in the style of the office.
00:07:51
Ridley
Yeah.
00:07:54
Ridley
How do you stay part of it?
00:07:55
Dan Sanchez
But with Moses in the Red Sea, it man, it it is hilarious.
00:07:56
Ridley
I watch some yearly. Yeah.
00:07:59
Dan Sanchez
It is funny. I'll drop a link in the show notes for those who want to find it. It's all it's it's a creative riff, but in a way that's honoring to the passage. But I didn't really get like Jethro's role until you watch it, because you're like, like who who wants to get advice from their father-in-law, right?
00:08:12
Dan Sanchez
That's always like, ugh.
00:08:12
Ridley
Right.
00:08:14
Ridley
Yeah.
00:08:14
Dan Sanchez
OK, come give me your wisdom. But you can see the scene where like Moses is trying to just deal with a long line of people. And Jethro's like, dude, what are you like? Like, what are you doing?
00:08:24
Ridley
Yeah. yeah
00:08:25
Dan Sanchez
And I realized there's this little talked about topic in Christianity, especially in just and ah ah even evangelical circles around this spiritual gift of administration.
00:08:38
Dan Sanchez
It's one of those ones that, I remember reading it when I was like 18 and being like, ahh nah, I don't got that one. i'm not the paper pusher excel wizard person in the in the background and i feel like it's one of these gifts that jethro brings that makes everything run more smoothly for the israelites that i feel like is it's it's it's not like neglected there's people with it and they're serving in capacity but i find that it's not it's not frequently mentioned most of the time you have like more of like the the ministry gifts of like
00:09:09
Dan Sanchez
evangelism and leadership and even hospitality like these are these ones where we live and we serve and we love others. How do you how do you feel about administration you come brushed brushed across the same?
00:09:22
Dan Sanchez
I don't know it's not a hesitancy but like it's just not mentioned much.
00:09:25
Ridley
Yeah. Well, quite frankly, it's the less glamorous. you know I mean, everybody wants to talk about the others because they're more prominent, typically a little bit more out front. But administrators, absolutely. I mean, first of all, God wouldn't have given the gift if it wasn't important. And he clearly has given that gift to some people. You start looking at many of the churches in America that struggle. It's in part because administrative people have not stepped forward to do their part.
00:09:53
Ridley
And God says in his word about himself, he says, you know, I'm not a i' not a God of chaos. I'm a God of order. Well, what he was basically saying is here's where the administrative people are in their keep.
00:10:04
Ridley
They are the ones who keep the, if you will, keep the flock head again in the right direction, showing up at the right time, doing the right things. You know, back in Moses' day, it was a scroll.
00:10:15
Ridley
Today, it's an Excel spreadsheet what to do and and how to do it.
00:10:18
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:10:19
Ridley
So yeah, they're a huge gift to the church. And we have several in our church that just They're a blessing to me as the pastor to have them, you know, doing the things that they do for our church.
00:10:29
Dan Sanchez
I find there's even sometimes a feeling against that runs against administration and in local churches especially. And it runs and and ah the way you see it in conversation is like, well, I just think church should be organic.
00:10:44
Dan Sanchez
AKA don't have a plan. Don't organize anything. It's just going to happen. You're like, uh, I'm like, there's a reason why I actually like mega churches because that's, that's just called good administration.
00:10:55
Dan Sanchez
Usually, usually a really, really, really good speaker thought on top of it too.
00:10:58
Ridley
know
00:10:59
Dan Sanchez
But I'm like.
00:11:00
Ridley
And you're being very very kind not to bring this up, Dan, but many times our churches couch that opposition to administration
Artistry in Worship and Challenging Stereotypes
00:11:06
Ridley
in spiritual language and say, we like to be more spirit-led.
00:11:11
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:11:11
Ridley
And that's not, there's, spirit-led does not mean no administration.
00:11:15
Ridley
In fact, again, where does that gift come from? It comes from the Holy Spirit.
00:11:19
Dan Sanchez
Yep.
00:11:19
Ridley
Spirit led does not mean you don't have the ability to be flexible or are whatever. Being a major straighter just means that you channel things in the right direction and you trust the spirit to lead you where that direction is going to take you.
00:11:34
Dan Sanchez
We need it to happen. i've but I've worked in a few different places even in the marketing departments. I'm literally working in like a business type function within a nonprofit Christian ministry and things things happen. they're They're bad and you're like, oh my gosh, let's get together because we're facing spiritual warfare. I'm like,
00:11:51
Dan Sanchez
This isn't a spiritual word for a problem. we We are literally the ones in our own way right here. This is just a bad management problem.
00:11:55
Ridley
Right. Yeah, exactly.
00:11:58
Dan Sanchez
like We're just not communicating. We don't have a project management system.
00:12:00
Ridley
Yeah.
00:12:01
Dan Sanchez
We're not we're not getting things done. People aren't showing up. It's administration.
00:12:07
Ridley
Absolutely. And you know, even in a church our size, huge, huge responsibility to manage people and resources and monies and things like that. And many people I don't think realize how gifted we are as a congregation to have people that are doing things like that with our financial ministry team and our human resources team and building management and stuff like that. these There's administrators who are handling those responsibilities to make sure that people who aren't gifted in those areas don't have to worry about that. They can go and express their gifts and use them where they're needed.
00:12:43
Dan Sanchez
is really the true, there's a book that really turned me on to like why I love business so much. it was this It's a fantastic little book called The E-Myth by Michael Gerber. I feel like anybody trying to build anything, whether it's a church or a business or nonprofit, it doesn't really matter. But if you're trying to build something that's beyond you, you really need to read the book because he lays the vision for like what administration really does, which is providing consistency.
00:13:10
Dan Sanchez
because if you come in on a Sunday morning and it's like wildly different every time, even if it's good, people are gonna come back and they just never know what to expect. And people like consistency to the point that we, you know, even glorify it and make it a tradition that we like have to stick to in order for and for salvation, right?
00:13:21
Ridley
Yeah.
00:13:28
Dan Sanchez
Hence the Catholic church, but right? But we love we love consistency. And if you're not consistent in a business, well, you'll lose clientele. If you're not consistent in a nonprofit, you'll lose donors.
00:13:37
Ridley
Yeah.
00:13:40
Dan Sanchez
And if you're not consistent enough in a local church, then and people will probably go somewhere else.
00:13:46
Ridley
Well, and that's why the Bible is very clear. There's a balance to all of this. God knew exactly what he was doing, surprise, surprise, when he put together the church and he said, it's like a body. First Corinthians 12, there's all these different gifts that are working. And so while you got guys over here that are the the administrators who are great with the Excel sheets, that kind of stuff, you got people who at the other end who are prayer warriors who are leading the church by the gift of the spirit, they are in that direction. You've got the creative types, the artistic types who are a little bit more free thinking, free flowing. You got, you know,
00:14:20
Ridley
Preachers teachers there's there's all different kinds of and when they're all working together symbiotically in the body then the body is doing what it's supposed to like a will will machine like a like a fine athlete that's pushing his body to the ah ah top so.
00:14:37
Dan Sanchez
So that's a great bridge for the next topic I was going to bring up, because there's a whole other character in Exodus, and is he's he's joined by an assistant.
00:14:39
Ridley
but
00:14:45
Dan Sanchez
I forget his his assistant's name, but they're the only two of their kind to kind of mention throughout the whole Bible. I know I looked. These are the two guys that are considered the artists of the Bible. So if you ever meet a Christian artist, they always know the name of Bezalel.
00:14:59
Dan Sanchez
This is the main craftsman that's in charge of building the Ark of the Covenant. And everybody gives him their stuff and he orchestrates all the other craftspeople and artists trying to build this thing. And as somebody who was an artist, like i was i was ah ah that was like the only subject that I excelled in high school is just making stuff. And I'm like, I'm going to go to art school. I was like, I'm going to be God's artist.
00:15:18
Dan Sanchez
I studied this guy and there was a few interesting facts that I learned about him. It doesn't say much other than God like like anointed him for this skill. Like God made like blessed him and empowered him to to do the to do the work.
00:15:33
Dan Sanchez
But I always ask like, well, why? What was it about him that made him special? But if you break apart his name a little bit, it's Bezel and El, right?
00:15:40
Ridley
White.
00:15:40
Dan Sanchez
El is God like El Shaddai, right? But Bezel is shadow. You're like, oh, and like If you're someone's shadow, I mean, if you're in God's shadow, it probably means you're pretty close, right?
00:15:53
Ridley
Right.
00:15:53
Dan Sanchez
Cannot run your shadow, right? I mean, that people say that like, oh, like this dog keeps following me around. It's practically my little shadow, you know? That's my something my mom used to say about one of our pet dogs, is my little shadow was it was the nickname.
00:16:04
Dan Sanchez
and It made me think of that. I'm like, oh, this guys this guy just spends a lot of time with God. But I thought it'd be a fun topic to bring up because we spend a lot of time in Exodus on building the Ark of the Covenant and God is like super detailed. He's got very specific things he's making.
00:16:18
Dan Sanchez
breast played and the way the arcs laid out, it's very detailed. And it brings me to the topic of like God and beauty. And I find it's not something we talk a lot about, especially as Protestants, that it's something that used to be a big focus of for the church in making art and beauty and magnificent cathedrals and, I mean,
00:16:42
Dan Sanchez
priests even used to wear like these pretty elaborate robes and all that kind of stuff but we've kind of gotten away from that. Can you speak to like where where is it gone? Have we gone too far away? Is it better to be pragmatic and not focus on that kind of stuff and be more focused on the simple which I think has a beauty in and of itself? Where do you think we are with that?
00:17:01
Ridley
Well, first of all, I think the, you mentioned the other guys, and I think it was Olaya Hab or something like that, the the two guys that are mentioned there.
00:17:08
Dan Sanchez
Sounds right.
00:17:10
Ridley
I think both of those guys were intentionally gifted to be a reflection of God in the sense of being a shadow of God, because we are most like God when we are creating.
00:17:22
Ridley
And that's that's exactly what these guys are doing. They're taking something that created would when when it's finished would be an honor and a tribute to the God who had created them. You brought up the Catholic church, man, some of the greatest cathedrals in the history of the world built by these these churches in Europe over the ages there. Still many of them standing, incredible tributes to the ability of mankind when they give their gifts to God. And then we had this conversation, I think just this weekend, a friend of mine and I about this idea that
00:17:54
Ridley
We have lost a true sense of the arts in our world today because we have stopped giving God glory through what we do and instead have pointed to ourselves when we're doing it. Now in the church, I think what happened is, for at least from my perspective, is that we saw this pragmatic backlash against the extravagance of the Catholic Church.
00:18:20
Ridley
One could argue that extravagance is because God deserves our very best, but many people, I think, thought it was a little bit over the top, some of what they did. So there was this movement back away from the Catholic Church during the you know the Protestant Reformation and that kind of stuff that said, not only we not only are we rejecting the theology and the doctrine they've had,
00:18:42
Ridley
were also going to reject some of the practices they had. And so we started going to simplistic worships, simplistic forms of buildings, even just almost being repulsed by art a little bit during that Enlightenment age. So I think Hopefully what we're starting to see in the evangelical church and the Protestant churches is this turn back towards this idea that we can honor God by the things we create. I think i think quite frankly the charismatic Pentecostal movement is leading the way there. they're They're bringing more and more arts back into their worship. I feel like as a church that there's a place for all of that that we can
00:19:24
Ridley
We can take our drawings, our writings, our music, all those things and kind of give them to God as a gift. And I think it's high time we did that. It's overdue. I mean, God was the original creator, the original artist. All you gotta do is step outside your door and take a minute and you'll see that. So I think that was what was given Bezalel and Olaya have. they These guys were given the responsibility, reflect me, be a shadow of me, take these directions I'm gonna give you and give your very best And of course, these aren't the only two artists.
00:19:55
Ridley
It says they had other guys that helped them, but these were the two guys who led that charge and obviously are still recognized this day but because they did it absolutely impeccably well.
00:19:56
Dan Sanchez
Yep.
00:20:07
Dan Sanchez
I find that there is a stigma against those, especially this is more of like a masculine thing, right? Like, or maybe a de-masculating thing.
00:20:14
Ridley
Right. Yeah.
00:20:17
Dan Sanchez
And I'm gonna get a little personal here. I think this is becoming a trend on the podcast. ah ah I tell Amy sometimes that I'm like, hey, I got personal today. And she's like, oh my gosh, what did you say?
00:20:26
Ridley
It smells like my wife when it's done.
00:20:27
Dan Sanchez
She's like, I'm going to have to go, listen, I'm so nervous right now. I'm like, babe, when you're talking, you you got to be personal. I mean, Ridley does it on stage all the time and looks at Lisa.
00:20:34
Ridley
That's right.
00:20:35
Dan Sanchez
We all look at Lisa.
00:20:36
Ridley
That's right. That's exactly right.
00:20:38
Dan Sanchez
and There's something about you communicating with a group of people and then looking at your wife when you're talking about personal stuff. I guess so that's this the thing.
00:20:43
Ridley
You need to let Amy sit in the room with you while you do your podcast.
00:20:51
Dan Sanchez
but I was, I was a artist in high school. That's what I, those was only, like I said, the only subject that I was into. And it's interesting that I, I gravitated towards that. I spent a lot of time in it. yet still like my, my dad confessed to me later on in life after I was married and like had a kid. He's like, yeah, Dan, for a second there, I thought you might be gay. I was like, excuse me.
00:21:18
Dan Sanchez
I was literally the kid in high school that like dated way too many girls. i I needed the talk we had last Wednesday at youth group about dating. I needed that like in high school, because I didn't know.
00:21:25
Ridley
Yeah. this Boy, how yeah.
00:21:30
Dan Sanchez
I was doing all the wrong ways and all the wrong stuff, but it's it's just funny that he had that perception, and I think a lot of other people have had that perception too. around men specifically pursuing art design.
00:21:43
Dan Sanchez
They're considered more feminine and even studying God's beauty. there's I've seen there was a school in Minneapolis, the John Piper's school, Bethlehem Seminary.
00:21:52
Ridley
o yeah
00:21:53
Dan Sanchez
They have ah ah a course there and I had a friend who who taught there and he told me he's like, they have a course there around God's beauty. but the professors all made fun of it. Like, Oh, did you go to boot beauty school today? Like there was a joke that they had all the time.
00:22:03
Ridley
Bye bye.
00:22:05
Dan Sanchez
And I'm like, this is a pretty normal thing of stereotyping this subject with femininity. And I'm like, but it wasn't always so, and it and it really shouldn't be because these two things just, they don't, they don't go together.
00:22:18
Dan Sanchez
It's like my, my, it's funny, my dad's perception of it. I'm sure many others I'm like, I, that's, that is not a sin I struggle with. And I, you know, I know there's many out there, but I'm like, that wasn't one of mine.
00:22:31
Dan Sanchez
Far from it. And, but I've even heard it. I've heard mothers say it about their sons who are into things that are more feminine.
00:22:36
Ridley
yeah yeah right Yeah.
00:22:37
Dan Sanchez
And I'm like, no, it's, or, or they're just artists or making stuff, creating things has nothing to do with, with that. but I thought I'd take a chance to talk about it here because I didn't know where else in the Bible this was going to come up.
00:22:52
Dan Sanchez
But since we're talking about God's beauty, how does, how does that all hit you?
00:22:56
Ridley
I see exactly what you're talking about. I've never lived outside of the south. I've lived in Texas and Georgia and Tennessee, places like that. but But in the South, I see a prevalence of that idea that if you are an artist of some kind that it somehow lowers your manhood, makes you trade in your man card, those kinds of things. And it's interesting to me that it's only certain things. If a man takes the time to take a piece of wood and make something incredibly beautiful out of it, somehow that's manly. But if he picks up
00:23:27
Ridley
pastels and paints a beautiful drawing or whatever on ah ah it's somehow less manly. So I'm not sure why that is and why we have that feeling. It's sad to me because to me it's abdicating just another place where God can be worshipped. I would much rather put the building of a building or the painting of a painting or the writing of a song into the hands of a godly man who's going to honor God with that than to entrust it to somebody else who's chosen different lifestyles than the ones that honor God. So yeah, I feel like sadly we don't encourage that. And again, that may be part of the area where the church has lost the lead in the development of art in our culture.
Understanding Rules and Laws in Exodus
00:24:45
Ridley
For me, it was kind of a healing thing to express some of those feelings and emotions as I was growing into a man. So yeah, I feel like feel like it's a tragedy that we we approach it that way, see it that perspective, and maybe it's time as parents we start encouraging our kids to express their gifts regardless where they are because they honor God, they're given from God.
00:25:06
Dan Sanchez
The reason why I even brought it up because I know I'm like, there's probably a few people in our congregation thinking about that because their kids into something that is along those lines. And you're, I've thought about it and wrestled with it, because I've heard it a few times now. So I'm like, probably worth bringing up.
00:25:22
Dan Sanchez
One thing I will say is that sometimes those can become self-fulfilling prophecies and they happen sometimes even because you end up in a club of some kind where that is predominant and because it said so much, it ends up becoming a thing.
00:25:27
Ridley
Yeah.
00:25:36
Ridley
Right.
00:25:38
Dan Sanchez
So I do have seen that happen, but there's two things aren't usually exclusive there.
00:25:42
Ridley
Well, yeah. And I think we see that a lot in our culture today, just in general, not just in the area of art, but since we're talking about art, we can talk about this. Where, ah ah you know, a kid comes home and says, hey, dad, i I don't want to play football.
00:25:53
Ridley
I want to go take dance. And the dad immediately assumes some things.
00:25:58
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:25:58
Ridley
Well, dad starts acting that way, thinking that way, even trying to discourage his son because he doesn't want it to be that way.
00:26:03
Dan Sanchez
Yep.
00:26:04
Ridley
Well, the son suddenly goes, oh, well, I must be that way. And there's no truth to it. You know, the the kid's just as manly as the next guy down the road, but because he does that, the kid starts thinking that way. and We've seen that played out in the LGBTQ culture in America over and over and over again. Kids who are pushed towards a lifestyle because of people's thinking, and then they get to be 25, 30 years old and they're going, I was never that way. I just bought into this lie that convinced me and brainwashed me that direction.
00:26:33
Dan Sanchez
Something else I found in Exodus that was fun reading through at this time. And i I took it, I'd gotten behind a few days, so I ended up listening to the audio Bible and kind of going through a stretch on a run. And it was fun to put him together, essentially this administration thing with Jethro, and then hearing about the laws that were created.
00:26:50
Ridley
Uh-huh.
00:26:52
Dan Sanchez
And I had this moment, like the moment you might have when you're reading and a McDonald's cup and you're like, caution, contents are hot.
00:27:00
Ridley
Yeah.
00:27:01
Dan Sanchez
You ever read that or something else, some kind of warning label, and you're like, who got burned?
00:27:04
Ridley
and
00:27:06
Dan Sanchez
somebody Somebody somewhere got hurt, McDonald's got sued, and now this is something that has to be put on every single cup, right?
00:27:07
Ridley
yep
00:27:14
Dan Sanchez
When I read a lot of terms and conditions, if I ever read them or like any kind of legal copy that's out there, you're like, uh-huh. Or when you signed away your mortgage, signed your mortgage papers, it's like you you promise you are not intoxicated right now.
00:27:26
Ridley
Yeah.
00:27:27
Dan Sanchez
You're like, uh-huh. That's because they've been sued and somebody won.
00:27:30
Ridley
Right. Right.
00:27:31
Dan Sanchez
because they were intoxicated while they signed it.
00:27:32
Ridley
Yep.
00:27:33
Dan Sanchez
Got it out. right It's why those are so long. But I had this sense of that reading through the rules, knowing that Moses was standing over so many cases for all the people that I'm like, huh, I wonder if that's where some of these rules came from, or maybe mate many of these rules came from.
00:27:48
Dan Sanchez
I guess it's kind of speculative because we don't know. but
00:27:50
Ridley
Right. Well, I do think two things probably were going on. Number one, God's probably watching all these court cases and hearing what's happening and going, man, these these guys, they're real messed up. But I do think because God knows human nature and he knows the future, he probably was anticipating much of what was going to happen. We talked about that this morning in staff meetings. We're getting ready for Sunday sermon because we're in the middle of Leviticus this week.
00:28:15
Ridley
And there's these this thing that says, do not do not put an obstacle in front of a blind man. And I thought, why in the world would God just randomly throw that in there? Well, because he knew that some ding dong at some point in history was going to do that to somebody and and would have that kind of coldness towards someone who has a handicap. And so he said, I just got to go ahead and head this off at the pass and tell them that's not something you do to people.
00:28:40
Ridley
So there he is, all the way through scripture, especially on these first five books, there are things that I think, when God uttered them to Moses and he turned around repeating the people, they probably scratched their head and said, well, who in the world would, right where mine would do something like that? Well, sure enough, here comes, has a guy over here who comes walking in and goes, this is what I just did today. And they're going, oh, you're the one that he wrote that law for. He he knew you would be that person who would do that, who would sue McDonald's for a hot cup of coffee. So,
00:29:11
Dan Sanchez
It almost made me wonder what that conversation was like. Was it a back and forth between Moses and God collaborating on it? Or was it mostly like God spoke and Moses just listened and wrote down whatever the heck God said?
00:29:24
Ridley
I have to be honest and tell you, the human side of me think would like to think it was a dialogue that maybe Moses kind of said, hey, well, can you explain this further or have you thought about this? But the truth is, I think if we look at it without trying to read between the lines, what we see is that Moses was so scared and intimidated by God, he probably didn't speak a whole lot. He was probably God just saying, write this down, be still, be quiet. I'm fixing to give you some instructions. And that's kind of the way it went.
00:29:53
Dan Sanchez
One last thing I noticed in Exodus, reading through it this last week, where there was a moment when Moses returned and asked for an offering for all the things they needed to make the ark and the tent and all that kind of stuff.
00:30:06
Ridley
Yeah.
00:30:09
Dan Sanchez
And it said they withdrew themselves and waited to be moved.
Guidance by the Holy Spirit
00:30:15
Dan Sanchez
And that's what it says. like a They they wait waited to felt moved to give an offering to what was needed to build the Ark of the Covenant.
00:30:27
Dan Sanchez
which was funny to me is I'm like, that's the most like, it it feels like something that would have come out of a local church so service, right? Because that's how we operate today is kind of like, did you feel the Holy Spirit moving? It's kind of like, we talked about this last week, like, have you felt the Holy Spirit moved and it came up this week's in the reading? Like, how do you know you're hearing the voice of God? So even back then, there was this like, not always audible spoken word
00:30:49
Ridley
Right.
00:30:50
Dan Sanchez
but a feeling of conviction and of of movement in your own spirit to say, this is what I need to do. This is what I need to give.
00:30:56
Ridley
Yeah.
00:30:57
Dan Sanchez
This is what I need to be.
00:30:59
Ridley
Hmm.
00:30:59
Dan Sanchez
So it was interesting to see that back then when God's literally amongst them in a fire, in a cloud, that still the Holy Spirit's going and working in people's hearts and moving on an individual basis.
00:31:08
Ridley
Yeah. Very cool that you noticed that. I do think that's an interesting perspective on that because it it kind of speaks to this whole idea of letting the spirit guide you in your decision making process. Probably in that moment, there were people who were so overwhelmed by what God had done, they just were going to just overload with gifts, might have been the wrong move for their family, you know, that Maybe God would say, no, don't give me 70% of what you got. I only want 30% of what you got or whatever. I do think there's a lesson there for us to learn. Many times we jump to react to something we think is God talking to us and it's wise to withdraw ourselves and wait to see what the Spirit teaches us in that moment.
00:31:56
Dan Sanchez
So it's fun to think that, not fun to think, I think it's just good to know that God moves in that way often.
00:32:06
Dan Sanchez
And that's kind of like even the default way that he's moving moving with us today, since we have his word to read from.
00:32:11
Ridley
Right.
00:32:12
Dan Sanchez
But he can also move in us and guide us through the spirit and just giving us a sense of this direction or that direction.
00:32:19
Ridley
Yeah.
00:32:21
Dan Sanchez
And sometimes it's still unclear and you got to go get wisdom and counsel.
00:32:24
Ridley
Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. that's That's the way it unfolds many times for us. You know, we we seek God's face and I think when we step back, we don't pull back far enough and we're still kind of got our hands and our brain in the world.
00:32:39
Ridley
and there's confusion about what God's really trying to say to us. I think that's why later on as you get into Leviticus, God starts to give them all these days and celebrations and stuff like that where he says, you've got to deny yourself, you've got to take a Sabbath, you've got to step away from things so that we can have that regular routine of listening to God.
00:33:00
Dan Sanchez
And that's what God wants, or at least when I'm discerning what I've learned about God through the book of Exodus, that sometimes he's a pillar of fire, and sometimes he just wants you to withdraw and for you to wait, listen, and feel for his presence.
00:33:06
Ridley
Yeah.
00:33:12
Ridley
Mm-hmm.
00:33:17
Ridley
Yeah.
00:33:19
Dan Sanchez
And that's the way it goes.
00:33:19
Ridley
It's good.
00:33:21
Dan Sanchez
Next week, we're talking about Leviticus, which is a really fun book, and I'm looking forward to actually talking about what can we learn about, what what does it say about God to have these dietary laws, these cleanliness laws, that the blood is so important to dive a little bit deeper into it.
00:33:37
Ridley
Yeah.
00:33:37
Dan Sanchez
So
Preview of Next Episode on Leviticus
00:33:38
Dan Sanchez
that's next week, and I'm looking forward to it.