In this episode, Bryce interviews Pastor Judah Smith about the love of God and current struggles Bryce is facing.
Chapter 1: How did Pastor Judah Smith's sermon impact Bryce?
what's going on guys welcome back to another episode of the bryce crawford podcast i'm bryce and today i have a very special guest i'm so excited for this episode we've got pastor judah smith on judah how are you doing so good thanks for having me on bryce yeah i'm excited i want to start off with a completely honest confession okay okay um uh tanner was telling you earlier about how he watched jesus love and barabbas yeah when he became a christian yeah
So Tanner was the one that introduced me to this video a year ago, and I've never heard the gospel communicated in that way before. So I took it and ran with it. So if someone tells me to give a 10-minute gospel presentation at a church, I quote you word from word. So I just want to tell you it has impacted me. I have to make a confession.
I have taken your sermon from 10 years ago and ran with it super hard. So thank you.
Somehow, I think you probably improved on it. So thank you.
No, no. It changed my life kind of in a similar way. Like there was a period of time where, I don't know, for me, I guess when I became a Christian, my faith was very emotional and Jesus was real. Right, right. And then something happened where he came very like logical and it was all like facts. Like how much can I know about Jesus to outsmart someone or things like that?
And then Tanner had shown me Jesus loving Barabbas and I would listen to it every day and I go hunting. So I'd be hunting and I'd have my AirPods and listening to your sermon on a repeat because it made Jesus so real to me. And so that's kind of what I want to talk about. I want to talk about God's love because I feel like that's something I'm still struggling with today. Wow.
Is viewing God as a loving Father, viewing God as God's love, receiving God's love. So I really want to talk about that today. Sounds good to me.
That might be my favorite subject.
Okay, perfect. Well, this is good. But I want to learn a little bit about you, too. I mean, where are you from? How did you come to Christ? How long have you been a Christian? Those kind of things. Yeah.
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Chapter 2: What is Pastor Judah Smith's background and journey to faith?
While he's still a long way off, the father runs to him. In those ancient days, distinguished men did not run. So even the story that Jesus tells, the man runs, the father runs, is like, nobody runs. He runs to him. And what does he say? Instantly, he starts to put in motion sonship. And he says, get out the robe, get out the ring.
All those, by the way, are really, really symbolic, massive imagery of acceptance, favor, and blessing. I am telling you, the love of God The irony is our biggest challenge with the love of God and not feeling the love of God is because we feel unworthy because we are.
And the only thing I can tell you is when we move from worthy world to Graceland, if you will, our entire orientation of life changes. And if I could say it this way, the reason we like worthy world is because worthy world adds up like a math equation. It makes sense. It's how this whole world works. It's how my marriage works. It's how a lot of my parenting works.
But with God, Bryce has changed everything. He does not work that way. You are not a son by worth. You're a son by birth. That's why Jesus said you must. be born into my family. You don't earn your way into my family. You don't deserve your way into my family. You can only be birthed in my family. And once you're birthed, you can't be unbirthed. You're mine.
And so this imagery of scripture is emphatic and it's, I mean, how can Jesus on the cross, one of his last dying gasp, seven statements, father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. They don't know what they're doing. They certainly knew where to put the nails and where the crown on. I mean, they crafted a crown of thorns to dig into your skull. They don't know what they're doing.
Jesus, they look like they know exactly what they're doing and they hate you. They don't know what they're doing. That's love talking. That's grace talking. That's how God sees us. They don't know what they're doing. They really don't know what they're doing. They're eating each other alive. They're destroying each other. They're destroying their lives.
They choose sin every time, but they don't know what they're doing. Father, forgive them. Let me take the penalty in my body. Forgive them. I am obsessed with this because if you can tell me anybody on the World Wide Web, tell me where there's a better story and where there's acceptance and love and forgiveness like this. So for me, I realize in my lowest days.
My only shot, Bryce, is that I have to embrace not love as I see it and define it, but love as defined by Jesus. And here's the image, and I promise I'm done because I'm preaching a sermon, but the image to me is so radical because all I can see is this kid He's smelly. He's dirty. He's out of money. And suddenly a robe comes over him. A ring. A ring was a credit card. That's all it was. Sandals.
And all of a sudden he's sitting there. And imagine the employees come out. The older brother, which we know that doesn't go well. And everyone's like, what? What? And that's how I feel a lot of the time, Bryce. People are like, bro, you think you can be a preacher? Not really, to be honest. I don't think I should be a preacher. I think it's scandalous that I'm a preacher.
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