Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to the Life Refresh podcast. My name is Ryan Robinson, and if you are looking for a podcast that is designed to uplift, encourage, and revive your heart, mind and spirit, you're in the right place. Welcome to the journey of becoming the version of you God designed from the foundations of the earth.
[00:00:21] Speaker B: Hello, we are back again. Life refresh list, sinners. We are back. This is me. It's Ryan Robinson, back again with part two of Life to Life. We've been just started this session talking about the glory. Now today we're actually going to talk about the messy.
You know, when we have friends, we have connected with them, we talk about we'll be there at their highest moments. And sometimes we don't have friends that are there in our highest moments, but if we do, God bless it. It's a great thing for us to have those who are with us in the top parts of our game. Again, it's easy for people to show up when you're the number one draft pick. Your team is going to the championship, you're getting all the accolades, you're in the front paper, you're doing all these amazing and great things. It's easy for people to follow you when the glory is on you, when the greatness is being expressed. But unfortunately, with the friendships we have, sometimes we can't be our true authentic selves because we also don't know who's all around us. So if you have a day one that's with you. I gave some examples in the last podcast, so check out the last one before you get to this one because it sets up the stage for everything else. But we're going to talk about the messy middle.
Yeah, the messy middle.
There are highs and there's lows, but there's also this middle time where you're like, I don't know if we should be friends, or your friend may say something peculiar or something that's your put the Dwayne, the Rock Johnson people's eyebrow up in the air. It's like and get your Scooby Doo on and ask questions and like, wow, that was different.
But these are the times when your friendship is actually being developed, it's being cultivated, it's being built up because you're starting to learn the character, the attributes, the tendencies of an individual that you care about deeply. And again, we're going back to the book. We're going to stay in the book of Mark particularly because there's some things between the glory and the grief that we got to really capture and there's a lot of things in the middle. So I'm going to pull about maybe two or three examples really of Jesus, the relationship that he has with the disciples. Now, he's amongst the twelve in this point, right? So you start to see Peter, James and John maybe enter and engage in some kind of conversation, but not at those high highs like we talked about in our last podcast. So there's three areas I'm going to talk about and it's important for us to kind of glean on some of these. And one, I want you to kind of put an earmark this, if you will, but I'll tell you when. So first one we're going to talk about, let me provide some context here. We're going to be talking from Mark chapter eleven.
We'll start at verse 15. I'll go back to verse twelve because there's some things I want to touch on there.
But contextually. What's going on is Jesus has continued to do miracles and signs and wonders amongst people.
He has delivered a young boy of an unclean spirit. He has healed blind eyes. He's done incredible things so far after we've seen what we talked about in Mark chapter nine.
But at this point he's entering into Jerusalem, which Jerusalem is the time by which an area really by which he is going to be crucified in front of individuals and people that are there.
But when he arrives there, there's a couple of things that take place. But I'm going to pull out a couple of these and one of them is cleaning the Temple at this time. The temple is the church, basically. And really there are individuals that were there that were selling sacrifices.
So if you want your cleanse exolved, here's $20 for a dove or 250 for a goat or a lamb or whatever the case is. So Jesus has a moment where he does a Jesus thing and he's not gentle Jesus in this moment. So let me read it so you guys can get some context. Okay. And they came to Jerusalem. Jesus went to the Temple and began to drive out those who sold and bought in the Temple. And he overturned tables of money changers in the seats of those who sold doves. He would not allow anyone to carry any vessel through the Temple. And he taught them and said, is it not written, my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations, but you have made it a den of thieves. The scribes and chief priests heard it, heard it and looked for a way to kill Him, for they feared Him because all the people were astonished at his teachings. When evening came, he went out of the city. Okay, so this is one messy middle attribute that you have to have friends that are with you when you are getting angry.
These are things and attributes that people don't attribute to Jesus at all. Jesus was pretty straightforward. He was pretty gangster when it came to communicating effectively the truth.
And the thing is, it's okay to be angry. And this is the thing I want people to understand, believe. I believe that Jesus was a man who walked this earth, but without sin. So at all points the Bible says he was tested just as we are, yet he did not choose to sin. Therefore, anger expressed in this moment was not a sin.
So he's basically saying if you're angry and you have a righteous anger that is rooted in something that is distasteful to what you feel is right, or actually what is right, not what you feel is right. Let me correct that, because that can be subjective, because most people think that they're right, and because they think they're right, they think they can take action.
There are some things that have happened in our past and in our history where people thought that they were right and did something completely wrong to individuals and people. So let me correct that.
But Jesus did exactly what he felt was he was trying to make sure that the temple was not a scandalous place for money changers because it actually took away from the purpose of coming to the church in the first place. But imagine being one of the twelve disciples watching this rabbi who has been healing people flip tables, flip tables, y'all, and whipping people to get out of the space and say that this isn't my house. Isn't this supposed to be a house of prayer for all nations? But you have turned it into a den of thieves, which means that people that were buying their sacrifice were getting undercut.
So Jesus did what was right.
People were stealing people's money for a sacrifice that they probably couldn't afford. And you know how we get, we mark it up.
So like, hey, listen, I got this dove. You know, that dove cost you one dollars and then you sell it for 250.
But the thing is, what's important about the sacrifice is that the sacrifice was a representation of an individual's ability to make atonement for their sins at the time. So the thing is, depending on where you were economically, the cheapest sacrifice you can get was a dove, okay? Because you had lambs, you had goats, you had, oh gosh, oxes, I believe.
But that's like if you had big livestock, it's because you had a lot of money. But what God was able to do was he was able to meet people at their socioeconomic status. So if you're able to get a dove, you can have the dove be a sacrifice unto God.
And the thing is, these people were taking advantage of those who didn't have the means to pay for something that was more expensive. So Jesus was like, no, you ain't going to take advantage of these people. Now the thing is, you're sitting back as a friend watching your boy go in here and flip the tables and saying these things. I'm like, okay, that's kind of I don't know what to really do with that. And when you start messing with people's money, people start acting funny. And as you can see, the word says the scribes and the chief priests wanted to find a way to kill him because he disrupted what was at this point, it seems like a thriving business for the church.
So you got to be okay with your friend being having a rights in many cases a true north of what they feel is right and be able to stand by. And that's messy.
The Bible didn't say Peter, James and John and the twelve were flipping tables alongside him.
They were probably watching like, okay, what do we do? Because typically he doesn't usually do that. He's usually healing people, not flipping tables and pulling chairs out and throwing them at you. Like he's not generally doing that. But when you do something like that, do you still have friends that are alongside you?
Especially when you're doing something that you're passionate about and really believe in? And because you believe in it, they got to respect that.
And because you followed your convictions in the messy middle, will they turn away or will they stay around?
That's a question for you.
Okay, another one. That's part one.
The other one here is I will actually speak to this because it was a little bit of a different one. It's actually before verse twelve that we talked about, before Jesus reaches into the temple and I got to turn the light on, y'all, I can't see, I got the light on. I'm trying to do everything I can, but I literally can't. My eyes, y'all, your boy's getting old anyway.
My eyes are getting old. I'm not getting old. My eyes are okay. So before they entered into Jerusalem, going to the temple, jesus actually does this thing, it's called he cursed a fig tree. Now let me read this first and then kind of pick it up.
The word follows up with this, after the cleansing of the temple. So verse twelve, Mark, chapter eleven, verse twelve, says this on the next day when they returned from Bethany, he was hungry, seeing from afar a fig tree with leaves, he went to see if perhaps he might find anything on it. And when he came to it, he found nothing except leaves, for it was not seasoned for figs. Jesus said to it, may no one ever eat fruit from you again. And the disciples heard it.
Strange, right? Like why you talk bad to the leak, like the fig, it's not even season for it, right? So you start seeing that, right? But they heard it. Okay, now we're going to skip over the cleansing and we're going right to verse 20 now, same chapter, Mark eleven. Verse 20 says, in the morning they passed by and saw the fig leaf withered from the roots. Peter, calling to remembrance, said to him, rabbi, look, the fig tree which you cursed has withered. Then Jesus answered, have faith in God, for truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain be removed and be thrown into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you will receive them and you will have them. And when you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone so that your Father who is in heaven may also forgive you of your sins. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father who is in heaven forgive you. Forgive your sins. Okay, so I'm going to say that part now.
This is a new one.
When your friends are you standing by your friends in the messy middle?
When you do something that's out of character but really part of their conviction, but also, do you have friends that will stand by you when you speak and say things that haven't happened yet and not call you crazy?
Do they stand by you? When you have faith for something, do they believe alongside you?
Jesus said, have faith in God. Jesus gave them an example, literally real time. He said, this tree is going to die. No one will ever get fruit from you ever again. Okay, I'd hear that and be like, okay, but I come back to that tree again and again.
One of the disciples that was listening said, rabbi, that was the tree that you spoke to.
There was a lesson in it. And the lesson was, you need to have faith.
Jesus exercised faith towards something that should have been doing what it was supposed to do but wasn't.
It was supposed to have fruit in it. It didn't.
And what I think is important is when you have a friend, you're living life to life with someone.
You need to be with someone that has faith in you, that believes you in what you say.
It's hard to be with someone, because this is the thing.
Messy middle things like this can actually disqualify a friendship. If a friend of mine is flipping tables, sometimes you'd be like, and if I hear my friend saying something about a tree for this example is no longer going to bear fruit, or I'm no longer going to pursue this particular path, I'm going to go this path of my life. Now, at this point, you're kind of in the middle listening to these things. Now, the thing is, you could call your friend crazy, but no one says that. The Bible doesn't say that. It says the disciples heard, but they didn't say anything. They might have their thoughts like, oh, why'd you say that to the pig leaf? We're just going to keep walking.
But what ends up happening is there's an observation that something had changed.
And many times many of us don't have friends that acknowledge the changes that are happening when we are making progress.
Now, do you have a friend or actually, let me reverse it. Are you a friend that acknowledges when individuals in your life are making progress?
They said they want to go after this particular dream of theirs, but you haven't encouraged them, and when they start making progress, you're like, oh, I heard what you said. You did what you said you were going to do. And you don't give them the encouragement or you don't even acknowledge acknowledgment does a whole lot. If you're not the kind of rah rah kind of person, that's fine. Most people don't need cheerleaders like that. I'm one of those people. Like, I'll get hype for anyone doing anything great, because at the end of the day, there's too much opportunity, there's too much blessings, there's too much out here in this world to be achieved for me to be jealous of what you're doing.
I just really don't have that.
I'm just not that kind of guy. But if I have a friend who is doing well and they speak like, hey, I have a dream to do this, I have faith for this, then why don't I just tie my faith with theirs and say, man, I believe you. I'm going to be with you, man, I'm going to push you. I'm going to help you, because I believe in you and I believe in what's been given to you. Because typically those desires don't just pop up in our hearts and our spirits. They have to be God given. God gives us the desires of our hearts, which means not only does he give us what we desire in our heart, he gave us the thing that's driving us to accomplish the thing we're trying to get after.
So I want us to be really mindful of that is that you need to have someone who's going to have faith alongside you.
Because the thing is, I can get to glory if I just come in on the glory phase, that's cool. But I haven't been a part of that messy middle phase where I've seen some characteristics that I didn't think you had. But the thing is, they're still noble. And I've been alongside you when you were looking and dreaming for having faith for something, and I hadn't seen it come to pass yet. But things happen in the middle. Things happen, and then I come back to it. And then what you said actually happened.
Let me see. Not actually what you said, what you believed God for came to pass.
Let me clarify that because some of us get into this manifest language, and I'm not really about that.
I'm about trusting God for the outcome. Okay?
So these are some of the things, y'all, that we need when we're in a messy middle.
The last piece here, I'm just going to kind of gloss over this a little bit, but people were trying to kill Jesus.
Let's not pretend that Jesus was everybody's fan.
He had a fan group of people that were not accepted by the religious leaders of that time.
He hung out with the leper, with the poor, with the deaf, with the blind, with the sinner.
He hung out with people that were trying to that were getting ripped off, but the people who were in position were trying to kill him.
Now, this is the thing.
This is where you talk about your ride or die people.
I mention this in football often, but when I played football, we had some we didn't get in fights, but one of the things that we did or we would talk about is if one of your teammates gets in trouble, you jump in and you'll figure out the mess later.
Because at the end of the day, they're our brother first.
And then you figure out, man, what were you doing that started that? But the thing is, because they're our brother first, that's the first thing you do. You keep the relationship over everything.
None of us considered, was he right or was he wrong?
We'd figure that out later.
We would figure that out later.
But I think that's important in the context of relationship, because the thing is, if I evaluate everything that you do and then decide when I should jump in, listen, I'll figure it out later, but, man, I'm going to give you the blues once I found out it was something stupid.
But at the end of the day, you're my guy, and I signed up to be your brother.
Now, if you're my brother or you're my sister, I'm with you. I'm with you. For real? For real. No jokes. 100%.
And that goes in with the faith part of this. It goes in with even when you're out of character, quote unquote, out of character, but you're being yourself, especially when there's an injustice being done. Are you going to be there if it makes you uncomfortable? Are you still going to be my boy? Are you still going to be my homie? You're still going to be my friend?
And again, I'm going to ask the question to you, Listener. Will you still be a friend? Will you still be there to help push someone to their dream? Will you, even if it makes you feel uncomfortable, will you still be there for them?
Again, jesus, really? Again? Following Jesus was hard.
You got crowds showing up, people trying to crucify him and get him killed. And then also, you got people just like, never seen a guy like this before, but you're still hanging by him because you believe in him.
You believe in who he is. You've seen what he's done. You've seen how he's changed your life and how he's been changing the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
Listen, that's what friendship is all about.
Will you be with me when it gets rough or when we're in the messy middle, when you really don't know? Should I stay or should I go? I've seen you in the glory. That's really cool. That's really, really great. But when you come down the mountain, are we going to be able to hang out then?
And there's plenty again, I just pulled from a couple of examples here by which the disciples had opportunity to drop off flipping tables and cursing fig trees is just the top is just a little bit of all the things that Jesus had done between the transfiguration moment to the grieving moment, which will be part of our next podcast. So just to recap, be a friend or have friends that will be with you when you feel extremely justified and have this internal drive for justice for people.
It may pull out some characteristics and passion out of you, but you need to have people that understand and experience that passion in the middle because at least they know what you stand for and what you won't stand, what you won't stand for and what you will stand for.
And then the last part is the belief system that you have. Like I said, Jesus cursed a fig tree and they didn't see the results of that till they passed that same tree the next day.
But he says, you have faith in God, believe you, speak to this mountain go and it will be done for you. If you have faith and don't doubt, these are things that people that Jesus was teaching.
But if you have a friend who has a faith dream that's bigger than them that you don't even know how they're going to get there, will you have the courage to believe alongside with them?
Will you be the friend to do that for someone?
But also make sure you have friends that will have enough faith in you and what God's given you to cultivate that they believe you and they'll walk alongside you. They don't have to be there, but they'll also also be there to observe when you make progress in that dream that they will continue to exhort you. They'll continue to encourage and build you up as you're making progress towards it.
Those are the kind of friends you need in the messy middle, especially when you're misunderstood.
All right, now, next podcast, we're going to talk about the grief part of Life to Life. Keep it locked here again, share it. Let someone know that this pod cast is out here, especially if it's reaching and reaching to you and you think you have some friends that would be able to help benefit actually from this particular message that you've been able to listen to today. So with that being said, we'll catch you in the next pod. Peace.
