Jeremy Jernigan [00:00:00]:
Welcome back, friends, to another episode of Cabernet and Pray. Before we begin today, a little bit of housekeeping. I want to let you know about an event coming up in case you happen to live near me in Arizona. For those of you who are watching or listening from afar, we're so grateful that you're here. But we do have an in person event happening in Gilbert on September 9. And we're going to have my friend Caleb Campbell. He wrote a book called disarming Leviathan, and the subtitle says it all, loving your christian nationalist neighbor. And so we're going to talk about what does it mean to love your christian nationalist neighbor? What does it mean to believe in christian nationalism? This is, in a nutshell, when you start to merge your political ideas, what it means to be a citizen of this country with your faith in Jesus, and when you kind of merge them together and they become one thing together.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:00:59]:
And so a lot of Christians, you know, have this idea of America that we got to become a christian nation or get back to when they thought we were a christian nation. And a lot of these ideas about how we use power, how we use influence really get to the heart of christian nationalism. And we've got an election coming up. And in case you hadn't noticed, this is kind of a big deal. And so I'm super excited. So that's going to be September 9. That's a Monday at 07:00 p.m. and if you want to get be a part of that with us, tickets are $25 per person.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:01:31]:
That gets you four different glasses of wine. So not only do you get a custom wine flight, we're going to teach you about the wines that you're drinking that night. You're going to get enjoy incredible wines. But then we're also going to have Caleb and a discussion and take Q and A from you as well. So hopefully you can join us for that. We've already got a number of people signed up, and, and I am looking forward to that on September 9. Now, today we've got episode 28. The word became speechless.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:03:49]:
As we begin today's episode, I want to begin with the wine that I'm drinking. It is still hot in Arizona, so I'm keeping with my theme the last few podcasts of not going to the darker red wines, keeping it light and fresh. Today I'm drinking a 2021 Arabella Shenan Blanc from South Africa. And this is just light and nice and great on a warm Arizona afternoon. The notes that I'm getting on this are lemon peel, pineapple, and honey. And so again, just a refreshing white wine. Chenin blanc is the grape. A little fun fact for you.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:04:34]:
Much of the Shenin blanc that is grown in South Africa, where this is from, is actually used for brandy. So who knew? But cheers to you. If you are enjoying today's episode with your own glass of wine, that's super cool. If you are. If not, if you're driving or exercising or something else, that's great as well. We're so glad to have you be a part of this with us. Now, I want to begin with a little theology today. We have a little theology course here and some things that I've been hearing about that, I love to just kind of address and help christians recenter a few things.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:05:11]:
One of them, let's talk about the word of God. You hear this phrase a lot. If you've been in any christian circle, you've been in church, you've been. I mean, just anything you listening to a christian leader, they're going to talk about the word of God. And a lot of people get confused on what that is. Now you might hear the phrase the word of God and you immediately have something you're probably picturing. If I said, what is the word of God? You are likely to say the Bible. That's what probably most christians would say, right? Isn't the word of God the Bible? That's how it's predominantly used today.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:05:47]:
That's how most people refer to the word of God. But if you've learned nothing else and your time on this podcast with us, hopefully it's that just because a lot of christians believe something doesn't make it any more accurate than lesser known views or views that maybe have, have gone out of style in the current times. And this is one of them that I would say just because it's popular doesn't mean it's very accurate. And there's one passage that I go to that's it's not an obscure passage. It's not like I cherry pick something random and forcing this in this is a pretty, pretty pivotal passage, I think you'll agree. I want to begin with John. Chapter one, verse one. Okay.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:06:31]:
This is John's gospel. This is four books into the New Testament. Again, this is a great gospel. Lots of people love the gospel of John. And this is how it begins. Says in the beginning, the word already existed. The word was with God and the word was God. He existed in the beginning with God.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:06:59]:
God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him. The word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. Friends, it's pretty clear. What is the word of God according to John? It's not the Bible. In fact, when John's writing this, there was no the Bible. It didn't exist. And so when John uses the phrase the word of God, again, what we now call the Bible, John is saying it's Jesus and it's very clearly Jesus and it's always been Jesus. And this is how John makes sense of it.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:07:40]:
Now, here's what I would tell you, because you may be going, Jeremy, who cares? Who cares if it's the Bible or it's Jesus? It's just a phrase we use. Does it really matter that much? And here's a little test I would encourage you to run. I have found that this is very accurate. There is a huge difference in how Christianity looks when people think the Bible is the word of God versus when people think Jesus is the word of God. Because basically what you're saying is, what is your ultimate authority in your life? And for many people they would say it's the Bible. And in fact, some may even argue that's a christian view. To have that, yeah, the Bible should be the ultimate authority. I'm going to push against that and say, no, it's, it's not because the Bible doesn't point to itself, it doesn't reinforce itself.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:08:34]:
Over and over again, the Bible points us, especially as you keep reading it and you get to the New Testament and you see what all this is heading toward. The Bible points us to Jesus. And John's very clear here, the word of God is Jesus. And so the Bible will point you to Jesus. And I would submit to you that Jesus as your ultimate authority is far better than saying that some text is your ultimate authority, because ultimately you will interpret that text the way that you interpret it. We all do this, and your interpretation of that text will then become your ultimate authority. And with that you can make the Bible say all sorts of things and you get some funky stuff like christian nationalism that I began this episode with. That all comes from the way in which we interpreted different ideas.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:09:22]:
And so I would suggest to you it's a huge difference from the word of God being the Bible and the word of God being Jesus. Just, just evaluate it for yourself. Ask Christians, you know, how they would define it and see if there's any difference in the way they live out their faith. Now, recently I came across a phrase that I had not seen before, and it was one of those phrases that kind of stopped me in my tracks and I went, whoa, that's a good phrase. That's one of those I'm going to be thinking about for a little while. The phrase was this. The word became speechless. Now, again, we have to begin with our understanding the word of God is Jesus.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:10:02]:
It's not the Bible, because if we apply the Bible to this, it would make no sense. This is an idea based on the word being Jesus. But the word of God became speechless. Now, I was reading a book from Michael Ward. That's the phrase, that's the author I got the phrase from, the idea being that Jesus is the word of God. And then Jesus came into the world, unable to speak the word, became speechless. It's actually a beautiful paradox, like, how can the word of God, everything God wants to say as expressed in the person of Jesus, is also into this human that at the time of birth can't speak. So you've got the word of God, who's speechless.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:10:52]:
It was just one of those ideas that got my imagination going. I'm like, this is fascinating. What does it mean that the word of God became speechless? And more importantly, what does that teach us about this God? This God revealed in the person Jesus? So these phrases is helpful to us in a number of ways. One being, it's a way to remember that God is still God. Even when we don't see God doing God things right, even when God's not doing the kind of things we expect God to do, the supernatural, the wow things, even when God's not doing that, God is still God. And I think this is an important distinction to make and to keep room for, because otherwise we start ending up with some weird things. When it's impossible for the word to become speechless in our way of understanding it, then you have some funky theology that may emerge from that. One of the phrases I was thinking about as I was wrestling with this idea, the word became speechless is lions, not sheep.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:12:03]:
And I don't know if this is affiliated with Christianity at all, to my knowledge, it's not. But it's an interesting little, you know, play on words there. Lions, not sheep. And I looked up the website of, like, okay, about them. Like, what? What do they say about this brand? And this is what I got from the website. It says, we exist to show people that it's possible to live your life as a lion, not a sheep. You get to choose who you become. Because of this, we've been able to build a community of lions that declare who they are and what they want from life.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:12:38]:
The question we ask you, are you a lion or a sheep? No. On a side note, if you have to run around telling people that you're a lion for them to believe that you're a lion, maybe you're not the toughest lion out there, right? It's kind of like, you know, if you're confident who you are, you don't need to keep telling people that you're, you're this big tough thing. So I always find it funny, the people that are, you know, wearing these lion shirts, these lion clothing, to try to tell you, like, hey, I'm not a sheep. Like, don't even think of that. You know, it's this very macho, machismo type idea of lions, not sheep. Here's a fun fact that you. You may have noticed or you may not have noticed. I have a tattoo on my arm of a sheep.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:13:25]:
I went the opposite direction with this one. I actually have a sheep on my arm with a crown on it, and it represents Jesus, because it's actually super important to me that when we talk about Jesus, we don't use these huge machismo images. We use the images that we get in scripture that are, like, literally the contrast of that. They're the opposite of that. And one of my favorite images that the New Testament writers use of Jesus in particular is of a sheep of a lamb. And you may go, that's. That's weird. And so, like, literally, I'm giving you the opposite.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:14:01]:
Like, you know, sheep, not lions. Like, right? Like, that's. This brand is not going to go anywhere. No one's going to buy these shirts. But theologically, there's something there, and it's really a powerful idea. Now, the idea comes from revelation, chapter five. And I'm going to give you a brief synopsis of this, because this is such a powerful idea of who we imagine Jesus to be. Now, there's this image throughout the Old Testament of the lion of Judah.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:14:27]:
Maybe you've heard of that. And so a lot of christians, there's even a popular worship song, we worship the lion and the Lamb. And this idea, like, yeah, we know that the New Testament writers called Jesus the Lamb, but there's also these lions. You know, we're gonna talk about the lion, and the lion image is the one that most of us, like, we resonate with the lion, and there's power in that image. And so you have this lion of Judah all throughout the Old Testament, that the deliverer, the messiah, would come and would be the lion of Judah, the one that finally could break the power of all the oppressors of Israel, could finally liberate them, finally free them, finally do all the things that they've been waiting for their messiah to do, and then they get Jesus. And Jesus didn't act the way most jews today, or at that time, expected the messiah to act. They were literally thinking of a lionesse type messiah. This.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:15:22]:
This conquering messiah, kick the Romans out, liberate us. We become more powerful. Like, that's. That's the image. That's the idea. And then Jesus comes on the scene and, like, does things that don't look like a lion, that. That are not very lionish. In fact, he doesn't fight, and when he's attacked, he lets them win and he dies.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:15:42]:
And I don't know if you know the end of the story, but, like, they kill him, they win. It doesn't look good. Uh, if you're following Jesus, and then you get to the book of revelation, and revelation is a confusing book, and so a lot of people are just like, look, I don't know. It's. It's John again, our same guy. I don't know what John was on, you know, when he was, you know, writing this down, maybe tapped into some mushrooms or something weird, because this book is all over the place. But before you get to some of the. The crazier prophetic images, because it is a genre of writing, a prophetic writing, before you do some of that crazy stuff, you have chapter five that I think is really easy to understand.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:16:25]:
And it's so important to who we imagine Jesus to be and then how we are going to follow this type of God. So I want to read the first, let's see, eight verses of this chapter because they are so good and so powerful. John writes this. Then I saw a scroll in the right hand of the one who was sitting on the throne. There was writing on the inside and the outside of the scroll, and it was sealed with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel who shouted with a loud voice, who is worthy to break the seals on this scroll and open it? So we have a question of power here. Who is strong enough, who is big enough, who is good enough, powerful enough to open these scrolls, to wield the power of God is kind of the context we're looking at here. And they're all looking around, who's going to do it? Who can open this scroll, verse three.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:17:23]:
But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll and read it. I mean, what, what a sad reality. They look around, who can do this? Like, no, no one's strong enough. No one's able to wield the power of God. John says. Then I began to weep bitterly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll and read it. Like, we're not going to find anybody. No one's this strong.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:17:54]:
But then get to verse five. Then one of the 24 elders said to me, stop weeping. Look, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the heir to David's throne, has won the victory. He is worthy to open the scroll. And it's seven seals. Oh, yeah. And at this point, like, if you're jewish at the time, you're like, yes, yes. The lion.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:18:17]:
Where is the lion? We've been waiting for the lion. That's what the elder says. Like, look at. It's got to be the lion. The lion's the one that can do this. And then in the ultimate record scratch moment, John writes this verse six. Then I saw a lamb that looked as if it had been slaughtered. Not just a sheep, not as a lamb.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:18:46]:
It's like a lamb that's not looking good, that it's, like, bleeding still. It's covered in blood. It looks like it had been slaughtered, but it was now standing between the throne and the four living beings and among the 24 elders. Like, what's this little lamb doing? Like, we're waiting for the lion. What's this lamb doing? The lamb had seven horns and seven eyes, which represent the sevenfold spirit of God that is sent out into every part of the earth. He stepped forward, and he took the scroll from the right hand of the one sitting on the throne. And when he took the scroll, the four living beings and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb. It wasn't the lion that they were all looking for.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:19:36]:
It was the lamb. Fun fact, the song we sing, the lion and the lamb, completely misses the point that John is saying in revelation five here, that you all have been looking for a lion. That's what you wanted your messiah to be. And guess what? Jesus doesn't fit that. He's not the lion. He's the lamb. And it's the slaughtered little lamb that is the only one strong enough to open this scroll, to wield the power of God. And if you keep reading on and on and on, I mean, like, I can see, like, eight more times in the next two chapters, God is referred to, or Jesus is referred to as the lamb in the book of Revelation.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:20:20]:
From that point on, he's referred to as the lamb. Never again do you have a reference to the lion. Turns out we were all looking for the wrong image. You see, the word became speechless. This. This Jesus was. Was fully God and yet also came into this world speechless, because that's the kind of God we follow. That's the kind of God revealed in the person of Jesus.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:20:52]:
Now, I bet you've experienced God this way yourself. Let's just make it personal for a second. I would suspect that you have gone through something difficult where you haven't necessarily got the reaction from God, the response from God that maybe you were hoping for, that you were waiting for, maybe you lost a loved one and you couldn't figure out why God wouldn't have intervened. You lost a job, and you had to figure out financially what's going on. Why? Why did this happen? You got some type of devastating news that completely altered your world and your life, and you go, God, what? What's going on here? Maybe you have been trying to get pregnant and you can't, or you did get pregnant, and you find out you miscarried. And all these moments you go, what's going on? And you pray prayers. And then the prayers don't seem to be answered, at least not the way you prayed them. But the word became speechless.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:22:01]:
This is how God is sometimes, because this is the kind of God we see revealed the person of Jesus, a God that doesn't always show up doing God looking things. Sometimes it shows up as a lamb when we're all looking for a lion. So the word became speechless. I was sitting in church this last weekend, and our pastor was going through a passage in the book of Daniel and reading this famous story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and these three guys that are following God, and Nebuchadnezzar's this tyrant dictator that's like, everyone's got to worship me. And these three guys are like, look, we're not going to worship you. And there was this moment in the story that I thought, this is how you follow God if you make room for the word to become speechless. So I want to read. This is Daniel, chapter three, verses 14 through 18.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:22:59]:
NebuchadNezzar said to them, is it true, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you refuse to serve my gods or to worship the gold statue that I have set up, I will give you one more chance to bow down and worship the statue I have made. When you hear the sound of the musical instruments. But if you refuse, you will be thrown immediately into the blazing furnace. And then what? God will be able to rescue you from my power? Now, this is a little foreshadowing. It's also just like smack talk, right? Like, what God, then, can stop you from the power that I have? It says, shadrach, meshach, and Abednego said, o Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God whom we serve is able to save us. And then notice this next line. This is so good.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:24:00]:
This is the line that stood out to me. He will rescue us from your power, your majesty. But even if he doesn't, we want to make it clear to you, your majesty. That we will never serve your gods or worship the gold statue you have set up. Did you catch that? Did you catch the tension there? The way that they kind of say two radically contrasting things at the same time? He will rescue us, but even if he doesn't. Wait, what? See, they fully believe God's able to do it. They know God can rescue them. But then they also believe, hey, there's no guarantee that God's going to show up here, and we completely make room for that.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:24:49]:
And we're not going to be fazed if God doesn't show up here. See, this is a great posture in which to follow God. You can believe God. You, you can show up here, you can do this, you can change this, but you also make room that God, even if you don't, even if you're speechless, even if I don't see you show up the way that I want you to show up. And there are, these three are saying this, literally facing death. I mean, this is like the end of the line for them. If you keep reading the story, there's a fourth person that shows up, whether that's Jesus or an archangel or whoever, but they don't end up dying. And Nebuchadnezzar has to ask them to come out of the fire.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:25:35]:
He can't even get them. He's like, hey, please come out. Let's talk. Because I don't know what on earth is going on with, with you guys. This is such an interesting posture. He will rescue us, but even if he doesn't, the word became speechless. One of my favorite books is the prophetic imagination from a theologian named Walter Brigham. And if you follow my, my writings and my podcast, you hear me reference this guy a lot.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:26:05]:
I read this book multiple times every year, over and over and over again. It's one of my faves. But he has an idea that he teases out that I think is helpful for us today, Walter Brigham, and says this. In responsible biblical faith, the freedom of God is always in considerable tension with the accessibility of God. Now, let me explain this, giving you these two opposite images. You have on one hand, the freedom of God, that God can do whatever God wants to do, and we have no idea what God's up to, and we can't predict God, and we can't control God, and we can't maintain God. That's the freedom of God. On the other hand, you have the accessibility of God when God can be relatable to us and we feel like we have a grasp of who God is and we can converse with God.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:26:56]:
And so you have these two kind of opposing images here. And, and this is attention that, that Walter Brigham and is teasing out. Now, we want God to be accessible on our terms. And I would say especially this is, this is big in, in Christianity in America, because a very american thing. We have. We have the power. We have the control. We like that.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:27:18]:
We like, you know, to be able to control all these elements. So when it comes to following Goddess, we want to follow God. Who's accessible? Who responds when we call, who does the things that we do, who can be predictable, who can respond. If. If we do this, then God does that. Like, these are all images of being accessible. God, if I pray this, if I do this, you know, then you are, you know, contractually obligated to. To show up and to be accessible and to do the thing that I'm accepting, expecting you to do.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:27:51]:
Now, this can also become the tendency in church when every sermon ends with application points rather than questions to explore. Like, there are some churches where it's truly. Just boil it down to, like, here's the things you go do this week. And again, the idea being you just do your part and everything you have is going to get worked out. God's going to be accessible to you. And then there's other preachers who would, like, not necessarily tie a bow on the end and kind of leave you hanging a little bit or leave you with a question or something. You got to work out with God. And I've always leaned toward that, like, just the way I'm wired.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:28:28]:
That's always felt more genuine to me because of what we're talking about. Like, hey, I can't give you three steps that somehow are going to make all this make sense to you, but I can give you a question. You know, that maybe you ask God this week, and you and God wrestled through that. And yet one of the criticisms I got when I was a lead pastor and I was preaching week in and week out, if you were like, hey, we don't like the way you're ending your sermons. Like, literally, I would get this feedback, just give us some application points. You just kind of leave these things hanging too much. And it was like this tension for me because it didn't feel real. Like, you want me to make God so accessible and yet at the same time acknowledging, I don't think we own God like that.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:29:11]:
I don't think there is a formula. There is no algorithm of, you do this and then God shows up. And so when we, when we really want that we say, hey, I want God to be accessible. What we have to realize is you're usually going to trade off the cost is God's freedom, that no longer do you have the God that we find in the scriptures who can do what God wants to do and sometimes baffles us and sometimes confuses us. And sometimes the word is speechless. I mean, you just go, I don't know how to make sense of that, but. But if you make room for the freedom of God, we have to just acknowledge, like, yeah, sometimes God does stuff that, that we don't understand, but when we make God all about this accessible God, it often becomes merely a genie in a bottle. And if you rub the lamp, you see the genie and the genie pops out and says, what do you want? What can I do for you? And that's, you know, if we're honest, that's what a lot of us are looking for out of God.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:30:10]:
And yet the word became speechless. And if we make room for this idea, I think it'll open some doors for us. It'll allow us to use our imaginations in new ways to imagine what might God be doing when we don't hear from God, when we don't see the tangible signs of God moving the way we would expect? When the word of God looks speechless, what do we do then? When we're looking for the lion and there's no lying around, but there's a slaughtered little lamb, and it turns out that that lamb is the one that's actually able to do what we genuinely need. And this is the beauty of Jesus. And if you follow God like this, it'll give you far more questions than it will answer, which is why you're not likely to hear this preached in church a whole lot, because this is not a feel good, rah rah rah, go home and have an awesome week type message. But this is a game changing pivot. When you go, okay, the word became speechless. And if I follow a God like that, what else do I need to make room for? And what else might God be up to when I least expect it? Now, I want to close with this thought.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:31:37]:
It's worth noting that Jesus was still the word of God even when he couldn't speak as a baby. So just consider that, that just because the word of God, Jesus became a baby who could not speak doesn't mean until he grew up and he could talk, he wasn't the word of God. He didn't cease to be the word of God until he hit puberty. Right then you get some facial hair and all of a sudden now maybe. Maybe you're eligible to be the word of God now. He didn't have to grow into being the word of God. That's who Jesus was even when he was speechless. Which means Jesus is still who he is even when he's speechless in your life, he is still good.
Jeremy Jernigan [00:32:32]:
Even when you don't get the answer to that prayer the way you prayed it. Even when something bad happens, even when you get that devastating news, the word of God is still Jesus, still good, even when the word becomes speechless. I'll see you on the next episode of Cabernet and pray.
