[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Come Follow Him Podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: This podcast is created by the Boise Nampa Institute of Religion for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here, we hope to help young adults find relevant principles each week as they study the Assign Come Follow Me in Scripture Block as outlined by the Church.
[SPEAKER_00]: This episode is simply two institutors talking about what they see in the Scriptures that might be relevant to your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is not intended to speak for the church or to definitively define doctrines or policies.
[SPEAKER_00]: Any opinion shared here are just that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our opinions as we have learned to come follow him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host Matt Swanson.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's jump in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back everybody and welcome to the first week of school if you live at Boise State.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, with Brother Felix that was that was by design want him here that this first week back and Brother Felix welcome.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's good to have you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it's great to great to have a new semester.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's always a rejuvenating thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: You come out of a summer where things are a little bit lighter and just get right into it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We if we haven't already announced this.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're a little different.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're called the Treasure Valley Institute.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just before summer started, we added the Ontario campus.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're the Treasure Valley Institute with the Boise Nampa and Ontario campuses.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've got a couple of assistance that take over various parts of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the first week of school, always exciting, always fun to see new students that are new at each of these campuses.
[SPEAKER_01]: experience and some new things sometimes and then to see the old friends friends that we've been gone for the summer working FSWIs are doing other things they're great and they're back with us and oh it's just such a good time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah it's fun you know every year we kind of track analytics of who's coming to the institute and whatnot and it's always fun because the summer is you know small if everybody's going away we have we have incoming students from BYU and BYU Idaho and people back from school wherever they're at
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we hit the fall and there's this massive group that just shows up right there.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're all here and we kind of work.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's easy to keep them throughout the fall and Christmas is easy to get people to.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we hit the spring and it's like, wow, wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm back.
[SPEAKER_01]: And for some reason, yeah, maybe some other assignment in the Luster of school is worn off and finals have taken people out of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But for right now, we're excited.
[SPEAKER_01]: What a great time of year, new things and new classes and so come come be involved.
[SPEAKER_01]: Each campus has has a council that can is part of finding activities and so on and so there's every reason to just be involved and be with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, now we don't really know what to say about this, but when we last week, we had it in the Boise Valley a, why I say conference.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so there, you know, there's lots of fun things going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think all over the Valley all over the country.
[SPEAKER_00]: The church is trying to reach out to young adults and give you places to be gathered and to be together and find each other and all those things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hopefully you're taking advantage of those institutes, one of those ways, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Come down and be gathered in, be part of the group here.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a way to find your people or find new people, find aid people if you're looking for help.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lots of things down here.
[SPEAKER_00]: looking forward to seeing y'all come down this semester with that brother Felix we are in section ninety three of the doctor and covenants so they're so much here I don't want to spend a whole lot of time outside of it but let's let me just give you the reins and you take us in tell us what we should know yeah whenever the church for company has one section yeah it's you know it is it is full yeah and this isn't even
[SPEAKER_01]: one of those sections that's that's a long it's not an eighty eight it's not a seventy six fifty three versus but the church knows it it has enough in it to keep keep you going all week long pretty many expensive time so so as we jump in it's interesting we don't find the purpose for the section and toward nineteen versus in but
[SPEAKER_01]: We can go that purpose in verse nineteen and then go back to the first of the section and see how those first verses and the ones afterwards are going to accomplish this purpose.
[SPEAKER_01]: So would you read nineteen met and would just have the listeners look for two purposes.
[SPEAKER_01]: For the reason he's giving section ninety three.
[SPEAKER_00]: So ninety three verse nineteen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I give on to you these things that you may understand and know how to worship.
[SPEAKER_00]: and know what you worship, that you may come unto the Father in my name and in due time receive of His fullness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so the two things, Matt, are how to worship and work.
[SPEAKER_01]: Very nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's the blessing associated with it when we're able to do those two things that you may come unto the Father in my name and in due time receive of His fullness.
[SPEAKER_01]: The word fullness is throughout this section.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we're going to spend some time with
[SPEAKER_01]: what receiving a fullness of the Father means.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the whole purpose of this section is how to worship and to know what you worship.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we don't really know why this section came to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's not a lot of background on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not a lot of reason.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't give us any reason as to what this what happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: It does take place in Curtin, Ohio.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But as far as background to context, don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's interesting when the Lord's like, okay, I'm going to tell you the purpose of why I'm giving you these things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, here you go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's some stuff you need.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's go to the very first verse and we got to figure out is this a how to worship or is this a so you know what you are worshiping.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, very first verse is barely the set the Lord is shall come to pass that every soul who first sake of his sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: and come us into me and call us on my name and obey us my voice and keep us my commandments shall see my face and know that I am.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, is that a how to worship or is that a we can come to know what to worship or come to know the Savior obviously is what we worship.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I would say it's a how we worship we do we do learn and there may be that he has a face right that there's a man speaking face to face right, but yeah, I think generally it's a
[SPEAKER_00]: a how we worship.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Very nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: So which of these is hardest for a young adult?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know we're not young adults.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe the listeners out there can kind of think and engage for yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: So every so for sake of the sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: Come unto me calls on my name, which I would assume is prayer obeys my voice and keeps my commandments, which which what a young adult
[SPEAKER_01]: struggle with most or which would you know be most successful with too.
[SPEAKER_01]: We could we could look at the process.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say when I was a young adult, I struggled with.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I still struggle with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or taking my sins, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say that's the the hardest one to find a a reprieve from.
[SPEAKER_00]: So maybe maybe that's still true for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I think it's probably.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's interesting because I don't think it's a it's a
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not that I don't abhor my sins, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's it's not that I don't not want them.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's that I'm having a hard time forsaking them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think I was back then too.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do I walk away from the stuff I enjoy and that I get some whatever out of, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: What what a young adult be best at and what do you say calling on his name?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, prayer or are young adults good at prayer?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it was funny.
[SPEAKER_01]: We were in a, we were meeting with a faculty meeting a couple, couple weeks back and and somebody invited one of our faculty members to say a prayer and this faculty member just quipped.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, definitely what I've been practicing morning and night.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is kind of a kind of a joke.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'll pray.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been practicing morning night.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do our young adults practice prayer and and have that relationship with God morning and night.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope so.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's, that's one that can be
[SPEAKER_00]: I can help them all the rest.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think so.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say one of the things that I've been impressed with as I pay attention and around young adults, their conversational prayers with the Savior and with God are different.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not as formal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not that that's bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: Formal needed, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're even taught and recently taught that we need to maintain formality in our prayers.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's something about
[SPEAKER_00]: proximity maybe or a frequency that allows for someone listening in to hear how often a young adult is praying.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, think you can hear it.
[SPEAKER_00]: When when young adults pray today, many of them, you can tell they're conversing with the Lord because they've done, they've come to do that more often than at least I did.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think at their age.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a beautiful sincerity and we could all get all learned that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so some definitely is how to worship in there.
[SPEAKER_01]: If we go to verse two, I think it's a know what you worship.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what we worship, obviously the Savior, but we're going to see various things, various things that describe him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Verse two, and that I am the true light that light at every man that come into the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we know he is the light.
[SPEAKER_01]: How has he been a light for you?
[SPEAKER_00]: So good question.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I
[SPEAKER_00]: I think just as example, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, like, I'm so grateful for the atonement and that he wrought and the opportunity I have to gain and develop and become because of that atonement and his powers that come from that, obviously, that I can be forgiven of my sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: But ultimately, that he is an example of the perfect mentor.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm pretty big in my life about men.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't having mentors that helped me learn things I don't feel like I'm very good at.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think the Savior is just really, really good at being a mentor and all things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he knows when to say something, when not to say something, I think to the Spirit, he's a light, just in that thing that like, I know I'm going to get what I need when I need it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if I'm not getting it, it's because I don't need it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can trust that and have a little bit of faith that I'm okay with my own right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I don't feel like he's right next to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but the light doesn't ever go away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, it's just maybe not as focused.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, it's maybe not as brilliant as it is at some points.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm kind of glad it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I think sometimes if it was a constant bright light, it would be, uh, well, like it is with bright lights, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: You, you way because it's uncomfortable living in my life with the savior that bright.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, obviously,
[SPEAKER_01]: We know that you follow the light.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've seen them, the life you lead, the effect that you have on your adults.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so thank you for being person that reflects the true light.
[SPEAKER_01]: Reflect the flesh of the Savior.
[SPEAKER_01]: The next couple of verses, perhaps have been debated for centuries.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's still not understood about Jesus Christ and what he is and how he's both the Father and the Son.
[SPEAKER_01]: Would you read verses
[SPEAKER_01]: Ooh, let's see, should we go three and four?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, let's go three and four.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that I am in the father and the father and me and the father and I are one.
[SPEAKER_00]: The father because he gave me of his fullness and the son because I was in the world and made flesh my tabernacle and dwelt among the sons of men.
[SPEAKER_01]: A little bit of this understanding of he is the father and he is he is son.
[SPEAKER_01]: What difference does it make to to know this?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is it
[SPEAKER_01]: a significant thing to have a section that says, I really want you to understand who I am and what you are, who you are worshiping.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think it's interesting because that verse three is the one that I think is confusing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And verse four, he tries to clarify it gives a little bit of reason why father and why he could be called the son as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And ultimately, if you have
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're a, you're a Felix, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: You have a dad who came before you who is also a, and in a very similar role in life, even, right, with with the occupation you have.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so maybe in some ways you are a fuller Felix than your dad, in some small things, when your dad is the perfect fullness of everything, then there is no, there's no outdoing dad, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so Christ saying, I can be the father because I literally have everything he's given me.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a cross reference on the word in in verse three, as in that I am in the father.
[SPEAKER_00]: It takes us to John ten.
[SPEAKER_00]: twenty eight thirty one says I give unto you them eternal life and they shall never perish neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand my father which gave them me is greater than all
[SPEAKER_00]: And no man is able to pluck them out of my father's hand, and I am my father or one.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that idea is, you know, they're just referencing that Christ has used that in the Old Testament and the New Testament and the doctrine of countenance.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think it's imperative to note that when Christ was living and walking on the earth, He called the Father greater than He,
[SPEAKER_00]: even Christ, the perfect son, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So anyway, I just think that there's some clarity that can be found if you cross-reference all these, but interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to another, another cross-reference that is not necessarily, I don't believe it is down there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll scan it, scan it real quick.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not down there, but it does give us some insight into how Christ is the Father and it's Mosiah chapter five.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Convention.
[SPEAKER_01]: and started his great discourse with, I brought you here to give you a name, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in verse seven it says, now because of the covenant, when they take the name, they make the covenant because of the covenant which he had made, each of it called the children of Christ, his sons, his daughters.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll behold, this day he has spiritually begun you, where you say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name.
[SPEAKER_01]: Therefore, you're born of him and have become his sons and his daughters.
[SPEAKER_01]: Christ truly is
[SPEAKER_01]: the father of a spiritually as we take upon his name as we utilize his atonement to become different and to become born again.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is the father of that rebirth because of what he has done.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I can I share a thought that just occurred to me as you're reading that I had read something.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, let me find it really fast.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had read something.
[SPEAKER_00]: In John, a couple of weeks ago, that is right in line with this.
[SPEAKER_00]: John, fourteen ten says, believe us now, not that I am in the Father and the Father in me.
[SPEAKER_00]: The word that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth in me.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doeth the works.
[SPEAKER_00]: The idea of that, you and I are objective is to become like Christ, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That we're trying to be like Jesus, that's right, the song.
[SPEAKER_00]: And even even Christ's invitation to be like Him, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Be there for perfect, even as I, or the Father.
[SPEAKER_00]: that the tying that into the concern that we generally hear about which is what if it's just me thinking that thought and what if it's not the Holy Ghost and how do I know the difference and you know we get wrapped up in that another bed and I would say stop worrying about it the idea occurs to me that if if my ultimate objective is to become like Christ
[SPEAKER_00]: then I could, at some point, and the father, at some point, my thoughts should become like theirs.
[SPEAKER_00]: My ways should become like theirs.
[SPEAKER_00]: What Christ says, I speak things not of myself, but I'm saying what the Savior's, or what the father's telling me to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why I'm saying what I'm saying, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's John.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the idea that you and I could go throughout our life and have
[SPEAKER_00]: The Holy Ghost prompt and direct guide us until we're on our own enough to make those choices by ourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: Isn't that the ultimate objective?
[SPEAKER_00]: And isn't it true then, the father is in me, if I'm making the choices that he would have me make without him having to come and tell me to do it, then on some smaller piece, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I have obtained some knowledge or capacity that the father has.
[SPEAKER_00]: So maybe if we just look at it like that, the savior had perfectly obtained his fullness.
[SPEAKER_00]: He knew how the father would, what he would say in every situation, he knew how he would act in every situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he really was,
[SPEAKER_00]: acting as the father while on earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I think we see that change where he deceives the fullness because in Matthew, a sermon on the mountain, he says, be there for perfect even as my father.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then sermon on the mountain, third Nephi, it's even as I. And so he received a fullness of the physical resurrection fullness.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's a great time to just go into the fullnesses that are here in section, section.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, let's do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Go to verse sixteen.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I, John, and this is John the Baptist, we're going to see that earlier, and we'll come back maybe to some other verse.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we've got to come back to some things that he testifies early on.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I, John, bear record that he received a fullness of the glory of the Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so what exactly is glory, if you go over to thirty six in this chapter, the glory of God is intelligence, or in other words, light and truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Jesus comes to receive a fullness of light and truth, fullness of glory.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, this is the result for us as well, that promise in nineteen end-to-time receive of his fullness.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is ultimately what we are shooting for, what the potential is for us as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, sixteen we have fullness of glory.
[SPEAKER_01]: Verse seventeen, and he received all power, both in heaven and on earth, and the glory of the Father was with him for he dwelt in him.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we have a fullness of power.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's there's two.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you go over to verse twenty six, the Spirit of truth is of God, and I am the Spirit of truth, and John, but a record of me saying he received a fullness of truth, yeah, even all truth, a fullness of truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the last one, and this one has to do with that change that between what he said in Sermon on the Mount versus Sermon in the Nephites.
[SPEAKER_01]: Verse thirty three, for man is spirit, the elements are eternal, and spirit and element inseparably connected,
[SPEAKER_01]: receive a fullness of joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Only in a resurrected body where you have spirit connected to element, inseparably connected as a resurrected being, is a fullness of joy possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we have four different fullnesses that are mentioned.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have glory, power, truth, and joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And all of that is possible, as we know, verse, as verse six, nineteen says, we know how to worship and know what you worship.
[SPEAKER_01]: that we worship the Savior.
[SPEAKER_01]: When we do, when we have those two things, we can progress onto the Father and His name and in due time receive it of the Father.
[SPEAKER_00]: What a wonderful way of pointing that up, putting that all together.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's interesting that he says what you worship, not who you worship, but he says what you worship.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's interesting, as you've talked through that, that I think, man, those things are the things that I worship about him, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That he is the all of those things.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is a fullness of glory.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is a fullness of mercy.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is a fullness of all of that stuff, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And at any given moment, I'm worshiping one thing, maybe more than the other thing, because that's what I might need right then.
[SPEAKER_00]: But ultimately, what I worship is a God who is all the things
[SPEAKER_00]: perfectly and in full, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's interesting if that word was who you worship, then obviously it's a personage which is good and that that would maybe help me understand that it is a personage.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what you worship opens the door for it to be so much more of a visual view of who God is, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Tying all the just taught us together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Glorified.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I look at verse twenty?
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: For you to keep my commandments, you shall receive his fullness and be glorified in me.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's through Christ that you're glorified.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am in the Father.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, I say unto you, you shall receive grace for grace.
[SPEAKER_00]: That idea of his fullness being all those things together, I really am never going to be able to access that all by myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: So through Christ, I can do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: By doing that, I will then be given grace and by acting in grace, I'm given more grace.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I can become, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's that process of grace for grace, line up online, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what's top beautifully here in the early verses of this session.
[SPEAKER_01]: And very unique doctrine that we believe, and one that John the Baptist is testifying of, we don't have this record that John, whatever John the Baptist said this or wherever he said this, we don't have the full record.
[SPEAKER_01]: We just have what is being quoted here by the Savior saying, John, more record of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: But unique things like verse twelve.
[SPEAKER_01]: I John saw that he, meaning the Savior, received not of the fullness at the first, but received grace for grace.
[SPEAKER_01]: You receive not of the fullness at first, but continued from grace to grace until he received a fullness.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what he called the Son of God because he received not of the fullness at the first.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this concept of Jesus Christ didn't have it all at the first.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus Christ started as a babe in the manger.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so didn't have all of it there, absolutely had all the potential to become and did become and so on.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we know from, from profits of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, let me just, I'll just share, President Joseph Filney Smith said, our savior was a God before he was born into this world and he brought with him that same status when he came here.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was as much a God when he was born into world as he was before.
[SPEAKER_01]: But as far as this life is concerned, it appears that he had to start just as all other children do.
[SPEAKER_01]: and gain his knowledge line up online.
[SPEAKER_01]: Without doubt, Jesus came into the world subject to the same conditions as was required of each of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: He forgot everything and he had to grow from grace to grace.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: What a great explanation of it there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love the phrase grace for grace.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's taken me a long time to learn what that means.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there's a couple of visuals that help me and I think the best one is a staircase.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, as Christ learned things, it was a little bit of grace given to him that he obtained some new knowledge, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you look at that, that new knowledge as the step, Christ stepped up on the step and took that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then because he had acted in grace and done that thing that God had asked him to do, he's given more grace and given another step and so he steps up on the next step.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the difference between Christ and me, and there's a lot of differences, but one of them is that every time Christ was given a new step, he stepped up on it and never stepped backwards.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, what?
[SPEAKER_00]: Read back five, up six, back seventeen, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm all the time up and back, and I learned some things, and hopefully it towards the end of my life, I move in my way up the stairs more frequently than backwards.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're trending.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right up.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think that idea of being given grace and then acting gracefully in that thing and then being given more grace Christ was perfect and was able to obtain perfection in life Even having started at zero like all the rest of us did because he was perfect at stepping up in grace every time and never step back You know, I we step backwards all the time There's a little video that's one of my favorite ones to trick put out during Christmas this little short video of
[SPEAKER_00]: of Jesus, they're like, I don't know, eight, nine-year-old boy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're working on a wheel.
[SPEAKER_00]: You remember what I'm talking about here?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we're working on a wheel or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all in Hebrew.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't understand them and he comes up.
[SPEAKER_01]: From Jesus perspective from the Father perspective.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so Christ, the little boy Christ, comes out and kind of yells for dad to come in his time for dinner.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they come in, they sit down around the table and
[SPEAKER_00]: and Mary's hustling and bustling, getting food ready, and she puts it in front of Joseph, Joseph eats, she puts it in front of Jesus, and Jesus sits there and looks at it, looks at his dad, his dad's eating, and just not paying attention, and then he like glances up in his mom, and she's still working in the kitchen, and eventually she brings her own plate, she sits down, she takes breath, and then she takes a bite of her food.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, at that moment, the little smile on Jesus's face, now I can eat, and he throws the food in his mouth, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Pop's a grape in her, whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why I love that is because it paints a picture of Christ the day he learned, I should wait for my mom.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he never didn't wait for his mom again, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I probably learned that at eight or nine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody taught me, hey, you should wait for mom before you eat.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then like three days later, I'm like, I don't care.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm eating, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's the grace for grace.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christ was so good at stating honest and true to the truth he had been given.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, Elder Maxwell said,
[SPEAKER_01]: After quoting Jesus himself did not receive of the fullness at first but continued from grace to grace until he received a fullness.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said his progress was incomprehensibly more rapid than ours, but the pathway is the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it can be the pattern of grace, to grace.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we have kind of two accesses and the bottom access is time and fullness is the top access.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then ours just is going along time up and down and hopefully trending up.
[SPEAKER_01]: But for it's house or long.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And versus his is like straight up, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it takes a little bit of time, but his is just so.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the incomprehensibly more rapid.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so obviously we are different than the Savior, but he shows us that it is his grace and it's by that grace that we eventually receive a fullness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, one of those he's going to, he does for us for free.
[SPEAKER_01]: We mentioned earlier that the fullness of joy when we have spirit and body inseparable beginning.
[SPEAKER_01]: If that's a free gift, you came to earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for playing.
[SPEAKER_01]: You get your free, free resurrected body back.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's going to come.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of these other ones, though,
[SPEAKER_01]: It's relying on Savior's grace along the way to have that growth.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that that bell curve of the Savior is what we compare ourselves against too often.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the aggregate one percent talk where we're slowly improving one point of an age is enough over the course of the three hundred sixty five day year.
[SPEAKER_00]: is sadly like depressing when you look at it compared to Christ's thirty-three year life where he went from zero to perfect and all not.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's part of the problem, and sometimes, especially young adults, how we view ourselves and how we compare.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we look left to right instead of looking up that idea, that the slope, that we're a aggregate increase, and that we're a slow increase is okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: That we started in a certain space, that we end higher than where we started as the goal.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it can become overwhelming when we
[SPEAKER_00]: we think I've got to keep pace with Christ's perfection and his capacity to stop.
[SPEAKER_01]: It isn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that is one, as you mentioned, I think very relevant to our young adults that today so much stress, so much anxiety.
[SPEAKER_01]: And part of that is this perfectionism that the world would have us buy into and that somewhere along the way
[SPEAKER_01]: It sneaks into the gospel of Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yes, are we to be perfect?
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Elder Holland stocked be there for perfect eventually.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there is, and President Nelson stocked, while I'm before he was president, perfection pending.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there is a, there's a patience that's there.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a reliance on the Savior that needs to be there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Elder, or President Lorenzo Snow said this, do not expect to become perfect at once.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you do, you will be disappointed.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we could just stop there with the quote.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to be disappointed if you just think it's going to happen all once.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, be better today than you were yesterday and be better tomorrow than you are today.
[SPEAKER_01]: The temptations that perhaps partially overcame us today let them not overcome us so far tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thus continue to be a little better day of my day and do not let your life wear away without accomplishing good to others as well as to ourselves.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't be disappointed.
[SPEAKER_01]: be learning, be growing, be taking what happened today and say, okay, I'm not going to fall quite as far as I did today.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to be, I'm going to use his grace to become become better.
[SPEAKER_01]: We just, I think if this expectation there that can be almost paralyzing the folks that are perfect.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the one percent, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the Jordan Peterson has a talk where he talks about just getting up and fixing one thing in your room.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like you live in your room.
[SPEAKER_00]: You spend so much time in your room.
[SPEAKER_00]: And most of us have all kinds of stuff in our room that we don't like.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's out of place or it's not the thing I'd actually want.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if we just got up and fix the one thing, one thing today, make it better.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then tomorrow you do a one thing again, that idea of looking at our lives and picking one thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think part of the problem is we tend to pick the one thing, like the massive one thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been like five years in our lives worth of trying to overcome.
[SPEAKER_00]: And because we can't overcome that one thing, then we don't try other things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think we'd be a lot better off to find a smaller thing and say, I know I can do that thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me handle that first.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually, you'll obtain the capacity to overcome the one thing and get back to thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe a little invitation for our listeners.
[SPEAKER_01]: Take a moment to ponder.
[SPEAKER_01]: Think of yourself two years ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: And is there something that used to be a part of your life that shouldn't have been a part of your life back then?
[SPEAKER_01]: That isn't now.
[SPEAKER_01]: that you kind of overcome.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or is there something that you used to do that you no longer do as much?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or is there something that you were okay at?
[SPEAKER_01]: And now you're good at it.
[SPEAKER_01]: How is grace for grace been a part of the last two years of your life?
[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe take a moment to appreciate it, appreciate the growth, appreciate going up a step.
[SPEAKER_01]: And not having to not going back down or just making a little bit of progress, but I don't often think
[SPEAKER_01]: Oftentimes, do we ponder on, I wasn't like I was two years ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: Certainly not what I was ten years ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: And thank God, thank his son's grace for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, and I think, you know, you and I know some young adults who really struggle, I think depression and some things that way and they have a hard time seeing.
[SPEAKER_00]: growth in their life or goodness in their life where they are, where they came from, where they're going.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's interesting to me because I think if you if you just have them sit back and say, well, where are you now from two years ago?
[SPEAKER_00]: they would say, I'm in the same place.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the exact same place.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would say, well, I don't think that's true because two years ago, you couldn't see yourself into the next wheat, like alive into the next wheat, and you're here two years later.
[SPEAKER_00]: So something has gone okay enough in your life to get you there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think even in our most darkest doldrums,
[SPEAKER_00]: When we look backwards two years, we can see, okay, something happened after this really bad week that I thought I was having something happened the next week that kept me going enough that I then could go the next week.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I've had all these experiences along the way that maybe I didn't learn great, happy positive things, but I have learned some things in those last two years.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, I think sometimes it's that we only see joy when we look for happy positive experiences.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I don't know that joy
[SPEAKER_00]: is supposed to be without sorrow.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think those things have to coexist.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you mean, look at God, his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, he watches each of us every day.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't imagine he's not sorrowful every day, watches me and sees the stupid things I do.
[SPEAKER_00]: But at the same time, he has joy because he knows to save your cover, the sins that I commit and that my heart is in place where I know I want to try to be there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he finds joy, even while sorrow exists in his life, I think too often we're trying to get rid of the sorrow.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if we don't feel joy without sorrow, then we aren't feeling joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's a sad way to look in our life.
[SPEAKER_00]: But looking back, I think we can find joy when we can find things we've learned and grown in.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you're not able to see it, ask somebody around you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes we're so close to the situation, we don't see it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's always been.
[SPEAKER_01]: And because we just are so close and we see each other in the mirror, we see ourselves in the mirror every day.
[SPEAKER_01]: that we don't see the growth, the others.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then obviously ask Heavenly Father, how do you feel about me?
[SPEAKER_01]: That was one of the things that's the last conference.
[SPEAKER_01]: The ask him, how he feels about us.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we'll see him give us that encouragement of how we've grown praise to grace, how we push through some of those sorrows and felt true joy and become different.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because that's really, it's about transforming.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's about becoming.
[SPEAKER_00]: Becoming, that's it, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Becoming, love it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love it.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, keep it moving in the ninety three.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, geez.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where do we go?
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's go to this, this would be real quick, just four titles of the Savior as part of John's witness to the Savior.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to go back up to eight.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to go eight through eleven.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to go eight nine and then I'll go ten and eleven.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're just looking for four titles of Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, knowing what we worship, these titles can be instructive on what we're worshiping.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, in the beginning, the word was for he was the word, even the messenger of salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's in verse eight.
[SPEAKER_00]: And verse nine, the light and the redeemer of the world, the spirit of truth who came into the world because the world was made by him and in him was life was the life of men and the light of men.
[SPEAKER_01]: First ten, the worlds were made by him, men were made by him.
[SPEAKER_01]: All things were made by him, and through him and of him.
[SPEAKER_01]: First eleven, and I, John, bear record that I beheld his glory as the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, even the spirit of truth, which came into wealth in the flesh and wealth among us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Alright, so titles in there that would be instructive about how to help us know what we worship.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the word,
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: The word is the first one in verse eight there.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, that's how the book of John opens up right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Getting was the word was was God and that title of the word.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot you could study in there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But but I think ultimately the I love I love the depiction of visual of looking at that word thinking it is literally everything God has said to man on earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: through Christ, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: He is everything I need, every inspiration, every motivation, every counsel, every help, every access to the toning powers, everything is wrapped up in Him because God spoke it to Him and gave Him that assignment, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, his words are amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I think of the word and Jesus Christ being the word, I often think of that wonderful him about Lee Heiz dream.
[SPEAKER_01]: The iron rod is the word of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Often we think of, yeah, iron rod is scripture.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to hold tight to those scriptures.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, but Jesus saw some of the word.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm going to hold tight to Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think there's there's so much there that
[SPEAKER_00]: The Greek word logos being that word, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: The word being logos, highlights Christ's role as the divine messenger of God, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the expression of God on earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's pretty cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just think it's more than a title.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's everything, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: All wrapped up into the word.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe one other from there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, there's a few in there.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's certainly the creator and so on.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it says the Redeemer of the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I testify that he redeemed us and he fills the gap and he is able to reconcile us back with the father after the things that we do that certainly separates from God.
[SPEAKER_01]: He redeems us and puts us back in his presence.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I appreciate that testimony redeemed.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's interesting if you win a prize and you have to go somewhere to redeem it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You obtain something, you have to go somewhere to do something, then you obtain the gift or whatever it is that you've obtained the concept of him being my redeemer.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is the one that comes and gets me as the prize, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm the prize to him the redeemer.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's not the redeemed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm the redeemed.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's the redeemer.
[SPEAKER_00]: The one coming to get the prize.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't see myself as a prize, but he does.
[SPEAKER_00]: The idea would be his prize.
[SPEAKER_00]: He would come and redeemed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And seek after my, it's pretty humbling.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is.
[SPEAKER_01]: And with all, where we don't deserve any of this, and he's willing to give all of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yet through this section, it is about us receiving of his fullness.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's about us learning grace for grace, being glorified in him so unselfish, so generous to say, come, be a part, you don't deserve it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But because of my atonement, you can't deserve it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just envision him saying that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know often in this podcast, you talk about the section about the doctor comes by him being the advocate and advocating for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: We do not deserve it.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's nothing he says about
[SPEAKER_01]: things that we do or accomplished or callings we held or things that we've done.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is all him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is the way.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we rely upon him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, thank you for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, uh, that is one of my favorite sections.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, we just read that recently with my children and and spend some time talking with them about that doctrine and that Paul principle of him being my advocate.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just love that idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I move us forward?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, please.
[SPEAKER_00]: First nine, what we read, the title of him being the light of the, and the redeemer, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That the light, man, there's other sections in, in doctrine, comments where we're going to learn about him literally being the light of the world, the light that shines the sun, the light that feeds the plants, the light that lights the moon, everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's all the light.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a light that existed in Adam when light was, was breath was breathed into him.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of my favorite little little things in the little temple video when we're watching that is Adam's, his personage gets lighter.
[SPEAKER_00]: As soon as he's breathed light into his body, his personage gets lighter.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's light shown down on him.
[SPEAKER_00]: The eye of Christ being light.
[SPEAKER_00]: And not just figuratively, but literally the power of God on earth through Christ to light the sun, to create the stars.
[SPEAKER_00]: That power to be the light of the world is more than just a spiritual light.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is literal light.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was learning something scientifically, and I don't learn scientific stuff, so this was like saying it for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was watching a thing about the speed of light and they've actually learned to slow the speed of light completely down.
[SPEAKER_00]: They can stop a photon like in its track so it doesn't move.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's literally just stuck and they can speed the speed of light up past what the natural speed of light is.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this thing that they've thought was a constant for so long that we, I mean, we gauge distances by the speed of light.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, based on what the standard speed of light or the, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: It's interesting to me that the scientific world uses light as a constant, even though they can manipulate it, they still use it as the constant in their research.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the thing that nothing else moves around because in its natural form light is always this fast.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is always coming at us in that direction.
[SPEAKER_00]: And at the same time,
[SPEAKER_00]: we know that like a black hole can bend light.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, if that's true, then it's slowing the light down in some way.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we have learned how to study that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we just know that it can happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there is a constant, and there's very few constants in the world of science.
[SPEAKER_00]: But light is one of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: That light is a constant, we gauge everything else by light.
[SPEAKER_00]: So interesting to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a section about light.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know who you're going to, who you've recorded section eighty eight with, but that's the section about life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, so you might go back and review that podcast and review those scriptures that talks about that light, but when it gets into light in here, it's some, there's some beautiful teachings.
[SPEAKER_01]: If we jump to verse twenty eight,
[SPEAKER_01]: We figure out how to increase the light.
[SPEAKER_01]: If we know the Savior is the light, then how do we increase the Savior with us in us?
[SPEAKER_01]: Increased the light unit with him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says in verse twenty, he that keepeth his commandments, receive a truth in life until he is glorified in truth and knoweth all things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Man was also in the beginning with God intelligence or the light of truth was not created or made neither indeed can be.
[SPEAKER_01]: we we know that when we keep his commandments we receive it truth and life we are truth and light and when you have more light you see things more more clearly and that light can become brighter and brighter and we become more and more like the Savior that it who we who he is and we can become we can become light him like him
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm reminded of a talk man.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been, I don't know, ten years, Elder Christopherson, and evening with a with a general authority speaking young adults, and they're sorry to seven or an instant teachers, as twenty eighteen, I've just found it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Talks about truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you just read how when we are obedient to commandments, we receive truth and light, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: and really truth is an expression of light.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think the idea that we live in our world where light can be suppressed, that we can push it down, that we can keep it down.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe just forgive me for reading for just a minute, but other Christopherson quotes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, let me just read it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Twenty years ago, J. Budzizuki, a professor of government philosophy at the University of Texas, Austin, wrote an interesting piece for the Catholic Journal first thing titled The Revenge of Conscience.
[SPEAKER_00]: His book of conscience has part of natural law and law written in the heart of every human being.
[SPEAKER_00]: We would of course describe it as the light of Christ in any case his observations about attempts to squelch consciousness are insightful.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, our knowledge of the core principles such as those that embody the ten commandments is ineffisable.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are laws we can't not know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Moral relativism denies that those core principles exist or if they do denies they are right for all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Moral realism argues that we don't really know truth, but we honestly search for it and do the best we can trying to see on a foggy night as it were.
[SPEAKER_00]: We do know better, but Suzuki declares, we are not doing the best we can.
[SPEAKER_00]: By and large, we know right from wrong, but we wish we didn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: We only make believe we're searching for truth so that we can do wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: Condone wrong or suppressor remorse.
[SPEAKER_00]: For having done wrong in the past, our decline is owed not to moral ignorance, but to moral suppression.
[SPEAKER_00]: We aren't untutored, but in denial.
[SPEAKER_00]: we don't lack moral knowledge, we hold it down.
[SPEAKER_00]: The idea that we suppress light, that we take the light of Christ, we call it Jiminy Cricket, and we give it a fictitious little character that then we can push off to the side and not have to listen to.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've created whole movies about not listening to the light of Christ, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: The ideas that are espoused in our culture today are, you be you, you do you, you only live once, mean right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Your truth is your truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: My truth is my truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, that's a suppression of light knowledge.
[SPEAKER_00]: Things that you know and you can't not know as Elder Christopherson might say.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just think there's it's interesting when we think of Christ as light and truth and knowledge that we suppress him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't suppress the light almost ever kind of an interesting concept to wrap grapple with a little bit
[SPEAKER_01]: It is.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, maybe some verse is going to help with that grapple.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so somewhere in here, maybe where it says, he had to keep in the commandments, receive a truth in life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you give a cross reference over the section, fifty of the doctrine, covenants.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll start in verse twenty three, that which does not edify is not of God and is darkness.
[SPEAKER_01]: But verse twenty four, that which is of God is light.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he that receiveeth light and continueeth in God, receiveeth more light.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that light growth, brighter and brighter until the perfect day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, barely I say into you, and I say it, that you may know the truth, that you may chase darkness from along you.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can increase in light.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can face the darkness, have that light.
[SPEAKER_01]: And because the Savior is light, we can increase in the Savior.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we see more clearly.
[SPEAKER_01]: We receive more of the Savior.
[SPEAKER_01]: We receive more of the light and it grows and it grows.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think verse thirty-six ties us right into that, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: The glory of God is intelligence, or in other words, light and truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't, you can't gain intelligence and not be gaining in light and knowledge and truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: If man were more willing to just be obedient to what they feel is true, then what they see around them, we're here around them, then we would be in a way different culture, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Just knowing right from wrong, we all know that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet, we want to condone wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: We want to suppress the bad actions.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to make myself not feel so guilty for things I've done.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I fight against the things that are wrong, that I know are wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody, the other day I was listening to something and somebody was saying, people hate the flood.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't want to talk about the flood.
[SPEAKER_00]: Scientists especially, they don't want to point to the flood as a thing that actually happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it proves God's condemnation on man when we aren't living the way we're supposed to.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that at the core of it is this desire to suppress knowledge, to suppress this idea that God does have control and will make the final decisions.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if I am pridefully looking at what I know and what I can do, man, it's pretty easy to throw all that light out the window and just hold on to the darkness that I've got.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pretty sad.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, along those lines, so what should we do to get more light?
[SPEAKER_01]: What can we do?
[SPEAKER_01]: verse three seven light and truth for sake that evil one and I don't know about you there's there's times when when I am feel was light and like I want to send it all ever ever again You know you walk out of this amazing meeting and you're just feel with light you're filled with truth you're like I just don't want to make a wrong choice Yeah, because I just it for sakes that evil one and but it's amazing when we when we do make some long choices and and let a little bit of darkness in or or
[SPEAKER_01]: maybe more importantly, not have the light in, then it's harder to forsake than even one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it may be something to do when we have it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, maybe coming out of every meeting where you felt like that, verse thirty eight, every spirit of man was innocent at the end of the meeting.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says in the meeting, and God having redeemed man from the fall, men became again in their infant state, innocent before God.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe that when we come out and we have those desires
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're worthy of protecting the sacrament, we're the Lee.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think we're forgiven.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we're in a place where God knows us and we know God, I think that's why we feel that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know that there's more for us than what we're currently living.
[SPEAKER_00]: But verse thirty nine, the wicked one come and take it the way the light and truth through disobedience.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how you lose it from the children of the men.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because of the traditions of their father.
[SPEAKER_00]: We just fall right back into the same stuff we were doing on Monday.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you know, after a Sunday experience, we walk into Monday and just back into it, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the behaviors in behaviors.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's take a moment with those, those two things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Disobedience.
[SPEAKER_01]: So these are the two things that the wicked one you use arises.
[SPEAKER_01]: The wicked one come up and take it away, light and truth through disobedience.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's one.
[SPEAKER_01]: And from the German, and because of the traditions of their fathers, obviously we know disobedience, whenever we're choosing to go against God, we're going to
[SPEAKER_01]: to lose a little bit of light.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that second one, and because of the traditions of their fathers, may not invite our young adults to think, is there any tradition that I'm holding on to?
[SPEAKER_01]: By my father's meant whether it be your actual father's or it's part of your family lore or a family tradition or whatever that doesn't bring light.
[SPEAKER_01]: And how can we get rid of that?
[SPEAKER_01]: And how can we make steps?
[SPEAKER_01]: Grace, by grace, does go overboard and say,
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to have that be a part of my tradition.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to have that be a part of me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even though it's been a part of my family and this is what we do on Sunday or this is what we this is how we talk in our home or whatever can we just say no that tradition does not bring light and so I'm not going to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to say this and I'll probably get in trouble.
[SPEAKER_00]: You love it when I say stuff like that don't you.
[SPEAKER_01]: You get text messages every now and now to get one or listen to a podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Really?
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey Matt, that one maybe.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would venture to say sisters are a little better at doing that than the brethren are.
[SPEAKER_00]: A little better at saying, hey, you know, that's going on in my house and that doesn't really bring this spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to stop doing that or whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know my wife is a thousand times better at it than me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe it's because she's there and she's nurturing the home and she's trying to protect that environment, the nest, the nest that she's got for children.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the other thought that I had is, I do wonder if in our efforts to cut out that which isn't good.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we cut so far that we don't do it measured, we don't do it in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, I'm cutting it all out because I had a Sunday experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now I'm going to be perfect on Monday.
[SPEAKER_00]: to pick up so much so we just we just can't there's no way you're going to do all that stuff so maybe we go back to that idea of line up online what is the thing you walk away from you have that I don't ever want to send again feeling well what one thing what one thing do can you can you actually control that you're going to stop doing I think of our young adults and I think man there's so many things in their lives where they can they have control right there at a place where they can say I've learned a stuff from my fathers
[SPEAKER_00]: And now I've got my own place and I don't have to do it that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the same time, let me ask you a question for the Felix and have you count a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now maybe put your priesthood hat on a little bit here too.
[SPEAKER_00]: As a seminary teacher, I once had a parent come in and we had been talking about for strength of youth.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's back when there was a bullet list of things to look at, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had definitely done that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had gone in and we had looked at the bull list and not only had we looked at it, we'd made our own.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'd gone through and we'd said, okay, this sentence says this about dating.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's all the things that it says.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's write them all down.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's identify how many specific things it says about dating.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's like, fifty seven things in the two pages on dating.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you ask the young people back then, you said, oh, how many how many things about dating do they give you counsel?
[SPEAKER_00]: And they'd give them up like three, sixteen and going group, something like, you know, basic stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there were fifty seven very clear instructions in there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I wanted them to see that, you know, we remember three or four, but there's a whole lot of cat profits and deposits are giving us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I wasn't really creating a list as much as I was trying to help them see there's a lot in there that they're giving us to look at.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, because I mean, and probably did it in the wrong way, I had a parent in my office by the end of the day.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she was saying something to the effect of, you know, the young men that my daughter is being raised around
[SPEAKER_00]: are not who she needs around her.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she's found this boy who treats her very well and everybody else in her award treats her like garbage.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this young man is who she needs to be around right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as a parent, I was sitting there like, yep, probably you're exactly right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have no idea right.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what all I had done was train and counsel about what the first strength of the youth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I, you know, probably got more defensive than I needed to and said, oh, all I was doing was helping
[SPEAKER_00]: helping her understand what prophets and apostles are saying.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in my head, I'm like, but she should probably not listen to her mom right now because her mom's telling her to do something that's not in line with, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a line there, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a balance between mom and dad doing something that is true and right for their daughter based on what they know about her experience in her life and the counseling direction given from prophets and apostles, that it will likely never be so contrary to the prophets and apostles' counseling direction,
[SPEAKER_00]: I think is obvious, but occasionally there's stuff like that where I think we struggle sometimes to see, okay, well, when is the pattern of the church in the structure that's given an outline and I'm supposed to stay within the lines?
[SPEAKER_00]: And when is it like very clearly stay in the lines?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there a difference?
[SPEAKER_00]: How would you counsel a, maybe a stake member coming to you saying, this doesn't fit my life right now,
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's what the general counsel from the churches, what counsel would you give them?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I probably utilize just some praises from this section.
[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe it's just because it's on my mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the remainder of this goes into some commands that were given to early members of the church about their families.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the things that were said between verses forty and fifty things like bring up your children and light and truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you asked that parent, are the things that you're teaching and the things that you're allowing to have happen and so on?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you feel like they're light and truth?
[SPEAKER_01]: And measure those, measure those things because that's the command of the Lord, verse forty three, set in order your own house.
[SPEAKER_01]: It may be that my house is a little different than your house and we're, we're, it's that, that slope talk where we might, we might just be farther along.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or we might not be as far along.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I can't be judged up against the Swanson's or whatever, but I'm going to sit in my own house in order.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then perhaps a couple more, verse forty-nine, pray always.
[SPEAKER_01]: As a mom and dad that has a stewardship over those children, pray and seek that, seek that direction.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then verse fifty.
[SPEAKER_01]: be more diligent and concerned at home.
[SPEAKER_01]: If it's just a matter of ease and like, well, I just didn't want to have the fight with my daughter about this or whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if that's diligent and concerned, whereas that's just a little bit of laziness and I don't want to do that, but be fully and fully in, full on diligent and concerned.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's what I think my wife would teach me something here too that, you know, she talks often about how the patterns of the church are found in the family proclamation and the restoration proclamation and all those things, there's so much pattern there and in the ideal, those things are described, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It is as if those things are
[SPEAKER_00]: the equivalent of a sewing pattern where all of the stitches are laid out on a piece of paper and you know exactly how to cut the thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: But each of us are given a different level or layers of clothing material.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not all given the same material.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes we don't have enough material to make the whole shirt with long sleeves and a pocket in colors.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes we're given enough materials to make a shirt with no shorts sleeves and a pocket in a color or whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so with what we have, the house is my house and I can put that in my order.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we should make a shirt still, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, if the instruction is making a shirt, make a shirt.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't make a set of pants because you got enough material to make pants and you want pants on a shirt.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's the council is, you know, within the council and the direction that you've been given within the fabric that you have in your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do your best to hold to the line of the pattern, but where you have to diverge from it, not because you want to, but because you don't have the pattern materials in place, then yeah, the Lord work with the Lord in doing that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think prayerfully considering your circumstance, you'll come to a different thing, but that's maybe where I should have gotten with that parent was, yeah, you know, you're receiving revelation for your daughter, and as long as you're cautious and careful at home,
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you know, the things that your daughter's going to struggle with before I do might my objective to help or know what's in the words of the profits.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that tie-in throughout there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who he said it to?
[SPEAKER_01]: First person, Frederick G. Williams, second counselor in the first presidency.
[SPEAKER_01]: You bring up your children, line truth, set your house in order.
[SPEAKER_01]: You haven't done those things.
[SPEAKER_01]: The first counselor in the first presidency, Sidney Raiden.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then Joseph Smith, president of the church, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: All of these are set your house in order or set your house in order.
[SPEAKER_01]: You need to, you need to bring up your children in line truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then New OK Whitney, the Bishop and Kirlen.
[SPEAKER_01]: So no one is immune to, I guess no one's a perfect parent.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we all have opportunities to grow.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we can certainly just bring up our children in line truth a little bit more and to be more diligent and concerned.
[SPEAKER_01]: home as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well said, you know, it's interesting as we read through this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I kind of wonder, if the Lord were to sit down with Brendan Felix, obviously there would be some things he could tell him to improve in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's interesting that in in the doctor and comments, we mostly get that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We very rarely get a Joseph.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're doing so well at, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I'm sure that there are some living around these guys who are told get your home in order and focus on your family.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are some living around them that are focused on their family, that we're having their homes in order, that we're doing it right in that thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's interesting to me that the Lord never says, get your home in order like, this guy, next door, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't give us an example of who to get an order like, or who to have, you know, who to be like in any individual thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he lets me work through that on my own and with him, I can help.
[SPEAKER_00]: He can help me figure out what that looks like, done correctly and we all know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: In his injury that he puts this in section ninety three after his whole section about grace for grace and becoming like saver receiving a fall listen what's the best and most ideal unit to do this the family that's the that's the unit of light and truth that's the unit's gonna help us be a grown grace for grace and So that's why we're here and that's why we're here and families kind of the family proclamation spells that out
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the best possible situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: That really is.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just maybe I'll share two things and I will have you close.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've looking at forty five and forty six.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's forty five says, barely I say unto you, my servant Joseph Smith, Jr.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now this is Joseph, probably receiving this revelation, receiving for himself about himself right here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I say unto you, my servant Joseph Smith, Jr.
[SPEAKER_00]: or in other words, I will call you a friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: For you are my friends, and you shall have an inheritance with me, then verse four, six, I called you servants for the world's sake, and you are the servants for their servants for my sake.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are different, there are different assignments we have where the Savior looks at us differently.
[SPEAKER_00]: You Brendan Felix, the Institute Director.
[SPEAKER_00]: He would give you very specific counsel different than he would.
[SPEAKER_00]: You Brendan Felix and the State Presidency of the Napa State, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: He's going to give you very different counsel and instruction when he's calling you a friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're doing so well at, right, or at home, X, Y, and Z.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what I think we do is we pigeonhole him into Christ, my Savior, always thinks of me in this way.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I don't think that's true.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'd see it right here that sometimes he's seeing you as a friend and sometimes he's seeing you as a servant.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in a servant role, you're lacking a little bit in a friend role.
[SPEAKER_00]: Man, you're my friend, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it would be good to see him a little bit different light, sometimes a little less daunting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, brother Felix, is there anything else in here you want to touch on and if not, what should we close with and how should we leave the people?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, let me close with maybe a homework assignment when the Lord says to be more diligent and concerned at home.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is a whole talk by Elder Bednar called more diligent and concerned at home.
[SPEAKER_01]: There he gives.
[SPEAKER_01]: He gives three suggestions is from October, two thousand nine is three suggestions for families.
[SPEAKER_01]: I many people remember this talk.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's when he talked about as one of his suggestions is be consistent.
[SPEAKER_01]: He talked about sister Bednar and and the family and
[SPEAKER_01]: how they hear things when they did family night like he's touching me and making stuff looking at me and mom he's breathing my hair and just kind of the real reality of reality of when you have family you're gonna it's not gonna go great but still be consistent but so anyway I would suggest that what a great talk give three great suggestions about how really to be more diligent concerned at home whether you are married young adult whether you're a single young adult I think that those things can still can still apply to us
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, as far as just closing this section, it's an amazing section.
[SPEAKER_01]: So many beautiful truths all throughout.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe I'd just end with the truth in twenty.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or if you keep my commandments, you shall receive of his bonus and be glorified in me as I am in the Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: Therefore, I send to you, you shall receive grace, for grace.
[SPEAKER_01]: I testify it is through the grace of Jesus Christ and it is in him and through him and by him that we become what we need to become and we become ready to be back in the presence of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a grace by grace thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a this life next life.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how long it takes, but it is through him and of him and I'm so grateful that he restored these marvelous truths that
[SPEAKER_01]: Give me hope and teach me how to worship and who to worship and it is him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen, brother.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: What a wonderful episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate your time today.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will definitely have you back.
[SPEAKER_01]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks, man.