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Made in God’s Image, Living in Cities, and the Power of Praise: A Deep Dive into Genesis and Psalms
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In this episode, Dan Sanchez sits down with Ridley Barron, Jon Ballard, and Kyle Hess to kick off Grove Hill Church’s year-long chronological Bible study. They discuss the unique structure of the reading plan, the concept of being made in the image of God, Cain's actions post-judgment, and the purpose of praise focused solely on God. The conversation dives deep into theological insights and real-world applications, setting the stage for an engaging year of biblical exploration.
Timestamps:
00:02 – Introduction: Launching the chronological Bible study.
03:29 – Understanding humanity’s creation in God’s image.
09:30 – Cain’s post-judgment actions and theological reflections on cities.
20:09 – The context of Psalms in the reading plan and their purpose in worship.
24:29 – The emotional power of music and its role in praising God.
26:00 – The value of context in understanding biblical psalms and their relevance.
27:10 – Looking ahead to more discussions on the year-long journey through the Bible.
Recommended
Transcript
Podcast Introduction and Study Kickoff
00:00:01
Dan Sanchez
Welcome back to the Grove Hill Church Podcast. I'm Dan Sanchez, and I'm joined by John, Ridley, and Kyle. And today, man, it's an exciting time, because we're kicking off our year-long study into the Bible as we're all reading through the chronological Bible together.
Challenges and Excitement in Bible Reading
00:00:15
Dan Sanchez
And Ridley, this was, I don't know, like i i've read i got I've started the chronological plan once before.
00:00:21
Ridley
Right.
00:00:21
Dan Sanchez
But I think eventually I got stuck on it because I don't know, like it I really shouldn't have. But honestly, like flipping back and forth between the chapters and I'd get lost sometimes they're like, wait, where are we?
00:00:30
Ridley
Yep.
00:00:32
Dan Sanchez
What am I reading today? But the this book, and I'm holding up a book, if you can't see it on the camera, like this day to day chronological Bible makes it so simple because it's all like packaged right there for you.
00:00:42
Dan Sanchez
I just go to my bookmark, I open it up, and I'm surprised how little I've had to read each day.
00:00:48
Ridley
Yeah.
00:00:48
Dan Sanchez
And then today, like today, day seven, it is nothing. It was like a little summary.
00:00:52
Ridley
Right.
00:00:53
Dan Sanchez
I'm like, are we, is this actually go through the whole Bible in a year? Cause I thought I was going to have to read five chapters a day or something like that.
00:00:59
Ridley
Right.
00:00:59
Dan Sanchez
And I was prepared to do it, but it's like three chapters a day, sometimes four.
00:01:03
Ridley
Yeah.
00:01:04
Dan Sanchez
It's, it's really lovely, lovely to work through the plan. You just open it up, turn the bookmark and move through. So I've really been finding it a lot easier than I thought I was going to be to actually do it every day.
00:01:16
Dan Sanchez
Now we'll see where I'm at three months from now, but.
00:01:17
Ridley
just yeah i don't I don't want to intimidate anybody who's listening to this because I'm a couple of weeks ahead of everybody is and doing sermon preparation and stuff like that. There are some places where you will read four and five chapters a day, but many of those are still lengthwise.
00:01:33
Ridley
They're about the same because it's shorter chapters or it's stories that you just connect so well that it just kind of flows better to to go ahead and read it all at one
00:01:34
Dan Sanchez
Yep.
Community and Accountability in Bible Study
00:01:41
Ridley
time.
00:01:41
Ridley
so Yeah, i've i've the response, and I think the whole staff agrees, we've all gotten just really, really favorable response from the congregation just being excited about this.
00:01:53
Ridley
There's obviously the power in numbers, the energy of everybody doing this together and the accountability that comes.
00:01:57
Dan Sanchez
Oh, yeah.
00:01:58
Ridley
So many people kind of like you who have said, hey, we started reading this years ago, but man, we got bogged down or you know got frustrated and quit, those kinds of things. So hopefully as a church doing this, it ah it'll be a great response.
00:02:13
Dan Sanchez
Yeah, I think it's going to be a great year.
Deeper Insights and Theological Explorations
00:02:15
Dan Sanchez
So in this podcast, we're going to be focusing on what we're reading so that we're kind of covering in multiple different facets. I mean, you're covering it in the weekly sermons. We're going to be covering it with, is it two men in a Bible?
00:02:25
Dan Sanchez
Are we at two guys right now?
00:02:25
Ridley
I guess that's what we're calling it.
00:02:27
Dan Sanchez
Two guys in a Bible?
00:02:29
Jon
ah
00:02:30
Dan Sanchez
then on this podcast of which I'm hoping to highlight some things to talk about that aren't covered in the other sessions. Of course, I'm staying away from the topics covered in the sermon unless there's something to unpack more of because there's so much scripture we're covering. It's a lot to pack it all into a single sermon or even a sermon plus a Bible study. So here I'm trying to find the things that I think are going to be missed in the two in order to get more insight into what we're reading.
00:02:53
Dan Sanchez
because we're all reading this together oftentimes in the morning i i read it and you know i'm a little sleepy sometimes i have to read it multiple times to get it in there still you read it you have a question about something and then you you move along right because the day gets busy and you don't circle back onto that that obscure thing you wanted to look at or
00:02:58
Jon
Mm-hm.
00:03:00
Ridley
Mhm.
00:03:06
Ridley
Right.
00:03:10
Dan Sanchez
that story that you had a thought about. today I wanted to jump into a few theological topics and a few like, huh, what's this here for kind of ideas, starting with in Genesis 1 with 126.
00:03:25
Dan Sanchez
the passage where we're talking about man being made in the image of God.
00:03:30
Ridley
Yeah.
00:03:30
Dan Sanchez
Big concept. One that I did a deep dive into early in my my my walk and I felt like was huge. like once the more The more I think about it, the more I'm just reminded of how, ah ah it's funny because you read the whole first passage and you talk like how big everything is and God made everything and he made it in a day and made this in a day and just like bam, bam, bam.
00:03:53
Dan Sanchez
yet there's something special about man. So why is that an important concept to understand that we are made in the image of God? Can y'all elaborate on on that concept?
00:04:05
Ridley
Well, I think it's an important important thing you have to acknowledge and recognize first off the bat because it's our primary goal, primary purpose in our creation is that we reflect the image of God. So we're made in the image of God to reflect the image of God so that we bring glory to God.
00:04:23
Ridley
so when we when we acknowledge that tie or that connection to us, it kind of helps solidify and simplify our our purpose for existence. everything we do if we're living a righteous life is done in the character of the God who created us.
00:04:40
Ridley
and you know We'll probably unpack this a little bit here, but there' there's a lot of different questions or angles that you can come out from. What is exactly does it mean to be in the image of God?
00:04:52
Ridley
The one thing we can rule out for those of you who don't know this is that God is not a physical being. So it's not like we have noses and feet and hands like God. did that's That's not something we have.
00:05:04
Jon
Mm hmm.
00:05:05
Ridley
But the you know the ideas that center around things like we have rational thought or that we have emotional capabilities, those kinds of things. There's all kinds of reasons we can be in the image of God. And I'm one of those who says maybe it's not an either or, maybe it's a both and. Maybe there's a lot of different things that are bound up in that fray being made in the image of God.
00:05:26
Kyle
I think it think it starts the love story because we're we're made like nothing else. So we can't be compared to the animals, we can't be compared to the sun or the moon.
00:05:37
Kyle
Those things don't have the soul. They don't have the capability to live a righteous life. They don't have a capability to fall. And so when he creates in his image like Ridley saying, we're we're designed to be in that community or that communion with him, have that fellowship with him. Sin obviously entered and kind of messed things up. But then it's it's why Jesus died on the cross. He died for his people, not for the animals, not for creation.
Debating Cain's Actions and Urban Legacy
00:06:03
Kyle
He died for the human being and so it's it's just that showing that beginning of that love story saying hey I created you uniquely and I want you to be mine and let's work on that together.
00:06:15
Ridley
Yeah, yeah.
00:06:17
Jon
Yeah, that um the image of God, I think about what separates us from every other aspect of creation. And it's the fact that we have, you know there's many things that have a brain, pigs have a brain, you know all these different things, but the way that God gives us the ability to process and to have a conscience, to have those things that separate That is God giving specifically, just as He gave to Adam, the separation of His love for humanity versus His love for creation. And again, it's just a beautiful thing that He goes and then even reiterates in verse 27 to say male and female, like, man, I'm making something good.
00:07:08
Jon
Uh, so yeah, I would say that's the image of God, the Amago day. Uh, man, it's a beautiful thing and we're, we're blessed because we're living here.
00:07:20
Dan Sanchez
And for me, it kind of reminds me of that thing where you're thinking about like, we're being God's children, right? Because your children are in your image, hence they they look like you, right?
00:07:28
Jon
Yeah.
00:07:29
Dan Sanchez
It's almost in one way, not in physical appearance, but in a lot of other ways we we look and feel like like God because we're a little, we're not little gods, but we're made in his image and have his it's likeness in a way.
00:07:40
Dan Sanchez
so it just brings me back to his love for us, why things are different, why even in the vast universe of all the things going on, you as an individual amongst, you know, seven billion people on their earth, you're still significant and you're still important.
00:07:44
Jon
yeah
00:07:55
Dan Sanchez
Oh, moving on into the, the reading.
00:07:58
Ridley
Can I say one other thing there real quick?
00:08:00
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:08:00
Ridley
Being made in the image of God, and we say this a lot and I hope we understand what it means, means that we are the pinnacle of God's creation, which by definition means that we are there's an unbridgeable gap between animals and humans.
00:08:09
Dan Sanchez
Hmm.
00:08:17
Jon
Mmm.
00:08:18
Ridley
And the reason that's important is because to me, that is one of the biggest arguments against evolution. No monkey's ever gonna evolve to the point of becoming a human being. No giraffe, no turtle, no whatever you animal you think it is, will ever be able to bridge the gap to become in the image of God. That was something that God specifically put his finger on and said, this is what makes you the climax of everything I've done here.
00:08:47
Jon
And i think I think to your point, Ridley, and it's you said it on Sunday, that's why so many people outside of believers in Christ will try to hit that topic first and foremost, because they they know if they can somehow build a ah fake bridge.
00:08:47
Dan Sanchez
Even angels, right?
00:08:59
Ridley
Mmhmm.
00:09:04
Ridley
Yeah.
00:09:05
Jon
Obviously, there isn't that possibility, but they'll make it seem like it is.
00:09:07
Ridley
Mmhmm.
00:09:09
Jon
Then they can deteriorate every other thing throughout scripture.
00:09:13
Dan Sanchez
and
00:09:14
Ridley
Mmhmm.
00:09:14
Dan Sanchez
In chapter four, we learn about Cain and Abel.
00:09:20
Dan Sanchez
And we usually talk about the first section of that story where Cain kills Abel, you know, and God delivers the judgment.
00:09:26
Ridley
Right?
00:09:28
Dan Sanchez
But I often spend a lot of time wondering about the second part of the story. God gives Cain a judgment that says you will be a wanderer throughout the land. Yet when we read what happens to Cain, it seems to be the opposite.
00:09:41
Dan Sanchez
And the reason why I also wanted to bring up this this passage is because it's actually like all the Ramsey people know a book that Ramsey promotes a lot called the Thou Shout Prosper. Have you guys ever read that one?
00:09:50
Ridley
Mm-mm.
00:09:51
Dan Sanchez
It's written written by a rabbi talking about why Jewish people like prosper financially quite often as a high percentage of like the population. One of the things they do is look at this passage in in a in a different way than I've seen Christians look at it. and that They say that Cain learned his lesson before he was trying to take away people from the from the world and then by building cities and pulling people together, he's doing the opposite now.
00:10:20
Dan Sanchez
Which is kind of interesting take it's the jewish take on Why you should pull why city building and why wealth creation comes from that is one of the the standing Theologies they have on why jewish where he was claiming on why jewish people are successful in business and finances and all that kind of stuff What do you think what's your guys's take on the actions of kane after god's judgment?
00:10:45
Ridley
I think I understand what you just shared about this and I think I completely disagree with that whole theory. he Here's why. God said I want you to go out and I want you to multiply and I want you to fill the earth and subdue it.
00:11:00
Ridley
When God created Eden, wherever Eden was, Eden was a limited spot on the earth that Adam and Eve were given control over. Think about it.
00:11:10
Ridley
Two people could not possibly have controlled the whole world. So he gives them Eden and he says, you're going to rule over Eden.
00:11:16
Jon
Thank you.
00:11:17
Ridley
And I think God's plan, this is the way I interpret it, God's plan was as you continue to multiply and have descendants, then we'll expand the reaches of the garden so that more and more of the earth is part of this territory that you subdue and rule over for me. Well, Cain gets sent out, and and the way I read it, Cain didn't show remorse, because if you look at his words there, he says he couldn't handle the punishment. He didn't ever say, I'm sorry for the sin. He said, I'm mad because you made me be punished for this.
00:11:47
Ridley
And so he goes out and what we what we see constantly happening is people trying to congregate together and work together. And i I would argue work to subdue God, not to subdue the earth they were sent to subdue. And that's why God comes down and scatters them from the Tower of Babel scene. He says, you know what, this is not what I asked you to do. I asked you to spread out, multiply and subdue the whole earth. And you keep wanting to come together and build trophies for yourself.
00:12:15
Ridley
And to me, I think Cain was the king was the one of the first ones to kind of start that process. He went out and started building his own kingdom. So that's my theory.
00:12:28
Dan Sanchez
That's got me thinking that I need to go do a word study on cities now and start looking throughout the Bible on how that's going to play out.
00:12:31
Ridley
yeah
00:12:34
Ridley
I would love to hear what you find out.
00:12:34
Dan Sanchez
that Now I'm like, huh, it's making me think.
00:12:40
Ridley
Think about it. just in modern terms today. Where is the biggest crime problems in the country? Where are the biggest moral issues we face in the world?
00:12:47
Dan Sanchez
That's why I was starting to think about it that way. Yeah.
00:12:49
Ridley
Yeah, where do we face the biggest problems with hunger and disease and ills?
00:12:49
Kyle
Yep.
00:12:52
Ridley
It's because we keep congregating in the today in these giant metropolitan areas and we squeeze a thousand people into a building that's called a high rise and somehow that's supposed to be a good thing.
00:13:03
Jon
Thank you.
00:13:04
Ridley
If you look at studies, generally, people who live out in rural areas are happier. They're healthier, they're they' they live longer, just all those kinds of things. And I think in a small way, it's a reflection of the fact that God said, man, I've given you this entire ball to go out and inhabit and live in and y'all keep wanting to get piled on top of each other and try to endure each other in a way that I never meant for you to do.
00:13:30
Dan Sanchez
even today. i I'm actually really fascinated by urban design as a topic, which is like, how do you design a society?
00:13:34
Ridley
Yeah, right.
00:13:36
Dan Sanchez
Because there's these massive projects. I don't know if you've heard there's like these massive mega cities people are trying to build, especially in Saudi Arabia, they're trying to build like multiple, like it just googled the line.
00:13:42
Ridley
Yes. I thought the Arabia's crazy with it.
00:13:46
Dan Sanchez
And you're like from Saudi Arabia, and it's there.
00:13:46
Ridley
Uh-huh.
00:13:49
Dan Sanchez
They're literally working on it with like, thousands of dump trucks and trying to move dirt around and build this massive hundred hundreds of mile cityscape thing that they're building. But there is something wrapped up in the human heart of building massive cities, even Walt Disney, right?
00:14:03
Ridley
Uh-huh.
00:14:05
Dan Sanchez
Like Epcot started as a massive city project before it became a World's Fair type of thing.
00:14:05
Ridley
Yep. Right. Uh-huh.
00:14:10
Dan Sanchez
So I'm going to have to do a deep dive on that and come back next week and tell you what I find because you got me thinking about it.
00:14:16
Ridley
Please do. Please do.
00:14:19
Ridley
I'm curious what Kyle and John think because I i just kind of threw that out there, but I don't know.
00:14:24
Jon
You know, ah the and and this kind of presses up on your your theory, Ridley, but in it's not because I'm a ah ah city connoisseur.
00:14:24
Ridley
we've ever
00:14:32
Jon
This is not. I think in light of what we've talked about, I think it was a couple, maybe it was sometime last year, talking about this topic of depression and suicide, how it's so prevalent in some areas that have great desolation.
00:14:51
Jon
Again, I know that that can play out. It really goes back again to what is at the heart of man? Depraved nature, no doubt. But what is at the heart of man and who is a man submitting or being obedient to?
00:15:09
Jon
Cain submitted to the selfishness of, I don't really want to deal with this, like as you said Ridley, I'm just gonna avoid this all in total and just go about my way. And then you have the opposite, and yeah of course, in the other lines of genealogy. But yeah, it is it's a tough, and that's an interesting theory. And I would probably agree with that more so, but I just thought of that right now of,
00:15:35
Jon
where people's direction lie in the the city theory as far as people collecting and have that Tower of Babel type of mentality.
00:15:46
Ridley
Kyle, you're a big city boy, you lived in a big town.
00:15:49
Jon
ah
00:15:50
Kyle
I think that is like an obvious assessment. as far as the big city mentality compared to rural, you see that and I don't want to go full on political, right?
00:15:54
Jon
Yeah.
00:16:00
Kyle
But you look at, you look at the political map of how things turn out and there's just a stark difference between the open area of farmers and the congregated areas of people.
00:16:02
Jon
yeah
00:16:11
Kyle
And if you look at per mile when you get the congregated areas of people, how they supply their peace officers or their county deputies, it's way higher than your rural areas. Whereas in your rural areas, one cop will manage 15 square miles. And in a city area, you have 18 cops in 15 square miles. And so and there's an obvious contrast between congregated people and people who are spread out as far as behavior, how they handle themselves, crime rates, all that kind of stuff.
00:16:46
Ridley
I don't think we can say that cities are inherently bad.
Urban vs. Rural Living: Societal Perceptions
00:16:49
Ridley
I don' don't want anybody to misunderstand me because obviously there is one city that was very precious to God, the city of Jerusalem.
00:16:51
Jon
Uh huh.
00:16:56
Ridley
But I do think there comes a line that we cross when we keep piling people on top of each other and drawing them in instead of letting the natural ebb and flow of life cause, like for instance, ah ah if John's a certain kind of guy who says, you know what?
00:17:02
Jon
Uh huh.
00:17:12
Ridley
give me an acre, give me a piece of you know a a piece of land, a little piece of land and I want a house and I'll be content. Then that's fine for him. But then there's guys like Kyle who says, man, I need 15 acres.
00:17:23
Ridley
I want to roam. I want to have freedom to spread out and do whatever. Then he should be equally honored and encouraged in those kinds of things. But somehow, I think society looks at people who are rural as some substandard of of of the
00:17:37
Jon
Yeah.
00:17:39
Ridley
of the society or something.
00:17:40
Jon
Hmm.
00:17:41
Ridley
Like maybe those couldn't people couldn't do any better. They couldn't hack it in the city or whatever. but and And I have to be honest, this is all about transparency. I've used this argument with my kids too about trying to get them out of the city to move closer to mom and dad.
00:17:54
Ridley
I'm like, listen, it's better out here in the country.
00:17:55
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:17:55
Kyle
But, but you'll find it that people who live in the city oftentimes don't have community.
00:17:59
Dan Sanchez
Yep.
00:18:02
Kyle
and They're surrounded by people surrounded by chaos and they're typically isolated in their apartment.
00:18:03
Ridley
Absolutely.
00:18:07
Kyle
And so, whereas you go into other, other outer communities and you find a lot of community, whether it be in church or just in general, uh, people saying hi to each other and enjoying each other's company rather than not wanting to talk to people.
00:18:08
Ridley
with
00:18:08
Dan Sanchez
Yep.
00:18:16
Ridley
Mm hmm.
00:18:21
Ridley
That it would be interesting, Dan, in your deep dive this week, if you could find a study that's ever been done on what Kyle's talking about here. You know, just how how many people in the city really feel like they have connection with other people as opposed to people in in more rural areas, even the suburbs, I feel like probably better off so.
00:18:44
Dan Sanchez
Pretty confident. I already know the answer to that, but I'll, I'll be looking at that too.
00:18:50
Dan Sanchez
man, I grew up in LA and now living in chapel Hill.
00:18:52
Ridley
Come on, goodness.
00:18:53
Dan Sanchez
I never thought I would live in a town this small.
00:18:55
Ridley
That's not lower Alabama, right?
00:18:55
Dan Sanchez
Honestly, it's way better.
00:18:57
Kyle
yeah not lower alaba
00:18:57
Dan Sanchez
It's what I
00:18:58
Ridley
Not lower Alabama, right? You're talking about VLA.
00:19:01
Dan Sanchez
don't know. I'm talking about Los Angeles. That's where I grew up. Uh, in the, in the giant cement jungle where the only Creek you have is a dressed up storm drain.
00:19:04
Ridley
Whoo.
00:19:05
Jon
Your hand?
00:19:10
Ridley
I visited that that city once.
00:19:13
Ridley
That's all I needed.
00:19:15
Dan Sanchez
gosh No, Chapel Hills, it's almost like it's easier to just build a relationship because I'm just bumping into the same people all over the place.
00:19:21
Ridley
Yeah, yeah.
00:19:22
Dan Sanchez
like I could go to the hardware store and run into you guys there.
00:19:23
Kyle
Yeah, not lower Alabama.
00:19:24
Dan Sanchez
It's it's easy because there's but only one hardware store here.
00:19:25
Ridley
Mm-hmm.
00:19:27
Dan Sanchez
So like there's the only one grocery store, unless you're going to a Dollar General, then who knows?
00:19:27
Ridley
Right. Right. Kind of simplifies things.
00:19:33
Jon
yeah
00:19:33
Ridley
Yep.
00:19:33
Dan Sanchez
so Yeah, moving on, there is a great passage.
00:19:36
Jon
Yeah.
00:19:37
Dan Sanchez
I love that the chronological Bible mixes in Psalms throughout. And it puts some of the Psalms in much more context, because I had never put this particular psalm, which is Psalm, what is it, eight?
00:19:41
Ridley
Yeah, yeah.
00:19:48
Ridley
12 or 8?
00:19:50
Dan Sanchez
104 as tied to Genesis and I was like oh my gosh it just gives a different reading because if you're reading through Psalms and you're knocking them out back to back they kind of all start to blend together and you don't understand the nuances of them but to put them in context of what's going on really helps them come alive a lot more and Psalm 8 and Psalm 104 this week were really impactful for me but I wanted to bring up a bigger topic with them
00:19:51
Ridley
8.
00:20:00
Ridley
Right. Right. Yeah.
00:20:14
Dan Sanchez
I had a friend call me one time. He's like, Hey, Dan, can you think of any worship songs where it's not about the singer? And it's literally just talking about how good God is. He was looking for worship.
00:20:24
Jon
Thank you.
00:20:24
Dan Sanchez
And I, I could think of like, one song called Holy by Matt Gilman. And then I just struggled and I found more since then. But I'm like,
00:20:33
Dan Sanchez
In the Psalms, you have full full passages that are not about the speaker at all. It's just purely about the Lord and his greatness and his goodness and who he is and his attributes.
00:20:44
Dan Sanchez
And it but brought me to the question to ask in this podcast, like, what is the purpose of praise
The Role of Praise in Worship
00:20:50
Dan Sanchez
that's purely focused on God and not on us at all?
00:20:50
Ridley
No.
00:20:54
Jon
think the purpose of praise is continually mentioned obviously through Psalms, but I think sometimes we get in this motion, I think specifically a prayer. We go to it as a self-gratification, what's in it for me? And it is, it's you're breaking the mold. And that's what God does from the beginning of creation. in And I don't want to let too far into this week's sermon, but that's what God sees. He sees the need for humanity
00:21:27
Jon
to be broken and he will say, hey, I can put this thing back together, but you have to come to me and you have to acknowledge where praises do and it's not you. And that's hard for us as humans to say sometimes and for that praise aspect, acknowledging the creator. We looked at that first and then beyond that, acknowledging not just the character, but what is the character of God done and how has he proven himself? And we'll see that continually as we look at more of the covenants that God has fulfilled, that he is promised and fulfilled. so
00:22:05
Kyle
yeah I would say just establishing that connection between you and him, realizing that you have nothing to offer on the side of the relationship. It's all coming from him. And so that's where it turns into the holy, holy, holy and the glory on his part, because it's just us really just standing before him. And the only thing we have to offer is our obedience or our life.
00:22:26
Kyle
And so it's to establish that connection, but it's really one sided and that he's provided everything. And then we get to and we get to step under his care and enjoy that.
00:22:37
Kyle
And so there's nothing left but to praise him when you when you narrow it down.
00:22:37
Ridley
ye
00:22:44
Ridley
A lot of people already know this. I'm colorblind. This may scare you a lot to know this, but when I am riding through a city, from a distance, green traffic lights and street lights look the same to me. And the only way I can determine the difference is to get close enough to see the characteristics of the light itself.
00:23:04
Ridley
To me, that's what praise does for us. It draws us closer and closer to the presence of God so that we see better the character of God, which allows that relationship that Kyle's talking about to just go that much deeper because it helps us to understand, man, I'm not capable of any of this without God. I'm just not.
00:23:22
Ridley
And so the more you praise, the more you're drawn in, the more you can identify God's hand working in your life, God answering your prayers, God working in the lives of your friends, it just becomes easier to identify what he's up to.
00:23:35
Dan Sanchez
I was just listening to some music this last night. i My kids, every once in a while, if I want some semblance of peace in the household, I turn on some Disney music as it calms the littles down a little bit.
00:23:46
Dan Sanchez
They get into the music and smack each other less.
00:23:49
Ridley
Yeah.
00:23:50
Dan Sanchez
In this Disney mix, a song came on that I hadn't heard before, and but it was so powerful that I was like, oh, this is a banger. How come how have I not heard this song before? And I realized I'm like, oh, this must be from the new Moana 2 movie that it hasn't come out to rent yet.
00:24:04
Dan Sanchez
And I didn't see it in theater, but I'm like, this is this is it.
00:24:05
Ridley
No. No. No. No.
00:24:07
Dan Sanchez
Because this has that, I don't know, you could tell they put a lot of energy into this one song because it's emotional. I don't even know what the plot line of the movie is. I could just hear the words and the way she's singing it.
00:24:18
Dan Sanchez
And I'm not not not even interpreting the lyrics on the first pass listening to the song, but the way that the song happens hit at a different emotion that I was like, wow, at that one that one moves.
00:24:30
Ridley
yeah
00:24:30
Dan Sanchez
And I realized the power of music and why. like God is the inventor of music. like The evolutionists can't even explain what like why people like music. And every time I hear an explanation for why we like music, it just sounds like just sounds bogus. it just It just doesn't pass muster.
00:24:47
Ridley
yeah
00:24:49
Dan Sanchez
So I love what you guys are talking about and talking about praise, realigning ourselves back to God. But I also love that a lot of praise happens in music because it brings this level of emotion and power and it takes it from your head.
00:24:56
Ridley
Yeah. Yes.
00:24:59
Ridley
yes
00:25:03
Dan Sanchez
And I think it like pulls it down to a place where it's getting to your heart in a way that's much more powerful.
00:25:07
Ridley
yeah
00:25:10
Dan Sanchez
And I think God made it that way intended for music and praise to like sit together.
Integration of Psalms and Bible Stories
00:25:16
Ridley
You know, you were talking about the value of these Psalms being put into context of stories. I think one of the things it does is it it gives deeper meaning to what they've written.
00:25:29
Ridley
It's kind of like you know going and visiting a church and listening to a lady stand on the stage and sing and have a really powerful song like you're talking about. But then you hear the story of her own testimony and why she is so emotionally engaged with that song.
00:25:41
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:25:42
Ridley
And you go, oh, that makes more sense. you know So some of these songs really do, they just hop off the page and come really to life because now they've been seated in the context of what they're being right written from.
00:25:57
Dan Sanchez
So I'm looking forward to reading more of the Psalms and I wish I had music set to them because I would just listen to them.
Podcast Conclusion and Future Outlook
00:26:04
Ridley
I bet you know an AI program that could do that for you.
00:26:07
Dan Sanchez
I mean, I'm trying to, I got a few of them loaded up, but like now I'm like, oh, I need to get Psalm 8 and Psalm 104 in the mix so I can be listen listening to it.
00:26:12
Ridley
There you go.
00:26:15
Dan Sanchez
But man, this has been a great conversation with y'all and I'm looking forward to having lots of conversations. This is going to be a fun year because we're going to be able to talk about a lot of different points throughout the whole Bible.
00:26:24
Ridley
Yeah.
00:26:25
Dan Sanchez
So gentlemen, looking forward to this next week. Thanks for joining me this time.
00:26:29
Ridley
Thanks, Dan.