Welcome to the Daily Disciple Podcast, where we seek daily to be with and to become like Jesus, our teacher. Welcome to the Daily Disciple, my name's Travis, and I will be your host for just a few minutes. And we're going to talk about what I'm going to call conversation nuggets. Now, nuggets, why use that word?
Well, because my kids have always kind of made fun of me for throwing out nuggets of wisdom. And somewhere along the line, I just started calling these nuggets of wisdom. And if I thought I had something wise to say in this particular situation or that particular situation, I'd say, hey, here's a nugget of wisdom. Well, Jesus taught some pretty powerful and profound conversational nuggets of wisdom.
And he taught those to his students, to his disciples. And so we're going to take a look at a few conversation nuggets of wisdom from Jesus, our master. Now, let me set the stage this way. I was talking to someone the other day about politics.
And I don't think we were on the same page. And of course, therefore, that's a very dicey and challenging thing to do in our modern democracy. But I like entering into things that are a little bit dicey and a little bit challenging sometimes. You know, you might like to do so as well.
And this person that I was talking to is a serious student of Jesus, as am I. And I happen to believe that mature, serious students of Jesus can talk about anything and disagree and continue to love in the midst of disagreement. I'm getting way ahead of myself. And I know that might be idealistic, right?
Especially when it comes to the arena of politics. So anyway, we're talking. Well, I'm listening. This other person is talking a lot.
And I'm listening and listening. And I'm trying to listen to Lee. And I'm trying to kind of feedback to make sure that I hear what he is saying. And then after a while, I felt like I had listened enough and I wanted a talking turn.
And so I said, you know, can I have a chance to share my perspective on that? Well, he said yes. And so I started to talk. But it wasn't very long.
In fact, it wasn't more than a few seconds before he interrupted me and started talking again. So I tried to listen, tried my very best. But then I said, you know, I've been listening. So can I have a talking turn?
So he said yes. And so I started talking. And it wasn't a few seconds before he interrupted and started talking again. And so I got irritated.
I got irritated. And I'll just be honest. When I get irritated, I provoke people. I know what's wrong.
Don't judge me. You have your issues too. It's sin. It's my flesh.
But sometimes I get irritated and I got irritated. And so I started provoking him to anger. I started saying things that I do would make him angry. And I hate to admit this, but I rather enjoyed it.
But I admit that because serious students of Jesus will be honest. So the conversation, well, it didn't end terribly. But it did make me think. And I've been thinking a lot over the last few days about this conversation.
And as daily disciples, we live in America and America, as you probably know, is a modern prosperous and in many, many ways wonderful, wonderful nation. Right? We often sing, I'm proud to be an American and I am. And you probably are too.
And as daily disciples, we must ask the question, what does it look like to be students of Jesus in the midst of a nation that is divided on political lines? And even in the midst of a church within a nation that is often divided over red or blue. And as a result of thinking a lot about this conversation, I think the reason why we Christians can't talk about politics is because we're actually not trying to take seriously the basic conversation nuggets that Jesus taught his disciples to employ in any conversation that they find themselves in. And I just want to say that one more time because as a result of thinking about this conversation and many conversations, whether it's about politics or something else, I think one of the reasons why we Christians can't talk about many things, including politics, is because we're not actually trying to take seriously the basic conversation nuggets of wisdom that Jesus said to his students, this is how you talk.
This is how you have conversation. And so we're going to go to the Sermon on the Mount, which is an incredible, you know, cluster of teaching that Jesus gave and was kind of collected and written up by Matt. One of Jesus's disciples and the Sermon on the Mount is not a list of a whole bunch of dudes and a whole bunch of don'ts. Whether it's the kind of life that will naturally begin to flow when God's spirit is having his way with students of Jesus.
And that's a whole other podcast in and of itself. But Jesus is very clear about how to conduct ourselves in conversation. And one of the things that Jesus says is, hey, ask and seek and knock. Ask.
Seek. Knock. But when it comes to politics, we don't. Since Jesus says, don't throw your pearls before swine.
Don't offer unsolicited advice. But when it comes to political dialogue, we do. Jesus says, love your enemy. You know, right there in that moment, love your enemy.
Pray for your persecutor. But when it comes to politics, we don't. Jesus says, don't judge. You're going to be judged.
And when it comes to politics and political dialogue, we do judge. And then we're judged. And so the judgment just kind of goes back and forth and back and forth. No wonder so many dialogues among Christians about politics or other things are such a train wreck because we're not really trying to do the things that Jesus said were actually best.
And I think this is an incredibly important topic. And it's an important topic to talk about. Because incidentally, or I guess not so incidentally, when we refuse to practice the basic conversation, nuggets that Jesus gave us disciples, it's actually impossible to learn from other people. It's impossible to grow and understand and to have compassion.
And so I've been thinking about this a lot and I want us to think about this just a little bit and daily disciples. Let's find someone today with whom we disagree politically and let's seek to love them unconditionally. Let's find someone today that we disagree with politically or disagree with about whatever and seek to love that person unconditionally. Let's really, really listen.
Ask. Seek. Knock. Let's really love the enemy that's standing right in front of us and talking to us about something that we do not agree with them about.
Let's never throw our pearls to swine, right? Let's never give unsolicited advice. And let's never judge. Never presume.
I mean imagine the conversations we could have. Imagine the learning that could happen. Imagine the compassion that we could live with and walk with if we begin to understand that, you know, the things that people stand for, they stand for those things because of where they've sat. And instead of judgment, we try to hear where they've sat instead of judgment.
We live with compassion. We would change everything. We would change every political dialogue. We would change every other dialogue.
And that's not a bad thing to consider before we finish chatting this morning. But think about bringing these conversation nuggets into every single conversation that we get the privilege of having with our child, our boss, our employees, our spouse, our friends, our neighbors, our parents, our parents. Our enemies. It would transform everything.
It would actually contribute to, as Jesus put it, building our house upon the rock. And so with daily disciples, let's try to take seriously the conversation nuggets that our master said were best. And let's find someone. And it's not hard to find.
Let's find someone with whom we disagree politically or in some other area and then seek by the power of the spirit to love that person in conversation unconditionally. And let's do that as daily disciples. We'll check soon. Thanks for listening to the Daily Decycle Podcast.
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