In this bonus For God and Country episode, Reverend Joel Mooneyhan joins Jenny Beth Martin to explore what it truly means to live as citizens of Christ’s Kingdom first—before politics, parties, or national identity. Drawing from Christ the King Sunday and Jesus’ encounter with Pontius Pilate, Joel explains how Christ’s Kingdom is “already and not yet,” why Jesus’ upside-down model of authority still transforms lives today, and how Christians can navigate division, suffering, and cultural conflict with hope, humility, and courage. This powerful conversation challenges believers to see the world through the lens of Christ and to live out a faith that brings light, truth, and compassion into a broken world.
In this For God and Country devotional episode, Jenny Beth Martin is joined by Reverend Joel Mooneyhan for a powerful discussion on what it means to live as citizens of Christ’s Kingdom above all earthly identities. Drawing from the themes of Christ the King Sunday and Jesus’ conversation with Pontius Pilate, Joel explains how Christ inaugurates a Kingdom “already and not yet,” one that reshapes how believers view authority, politics, suffering, and their daily lives.
Together, Jenny Beth and Joel explore:
• Why Christ’s Kingdom is fundamentally different from worldly power
• How Jesus’ encounter with Pilate reveals the true nature of His authority
• What it means to place faith before politics
• How Christians can navigate cultural division with truth and compassion
• The hope, peace, and purpose found in following a resurrected King
• Why suffering, doubt, and hardship are not signs of God’s absence
• How community, service, and love reflect the Kingdom already at work in the world
This episode concludes the four-week devotional series and prepares listeners for a new Advent series beginning next week. Whether you are seeking encouragement, clarity, or a deeper understanding of Christian citizenship, this conversation offers timeless truth grounded in Scripture and the hope of Christ.
Watch all past and upcoming For God and Country episodes at JennyBethShow.com.
Joel Mooneyhan | Instagram: @southernreverend
Jenny Beth Martin | Instagram: @jennybethm | X: @jennybethm
Narrator (00:14):
Welcome to the Jenny Beth Show.
Jenny Beth Martin (00:18):
Welcome to the Jenny Beth Show. We've got another bonus episode called Forgotten and Country, and we are doing a devotional today and we're joined by Joel Mohan, who is going to finish up this devotional series that we've been doing the last three weeks, and this is the fourth week in it.
Joel Mooneyhan (00:34):
Yeah, so interesting little trivia tidbit is that today is what in the Christian calendar is known as Christ the King Sunday. So there's a Christian calendar that doesn't line up with January to December and it's basically, it starts with advent, so that would be next week. And it takes you through the whole ministry of Jesus and in parallel with the Old Testament. And so it goes on a three year cycle, it's called the lectionary, but the final Sunday of the Christian year is Christ the King Sunday. And it's there to remind us that Christ inaugurated a kingdom that exists even now. And it is something that we are also looking forward to as Christ renews the world. And it's something that theologians kind of refer to as the reality of already, but not yet. So we believe that Christ's kingdom has begun, but we also believe that Christ's kingdom is to come. And so we kind of exist in that mysterious tension. And Christ the king Sunday is there to remind us that whatever else is going on in the world, we serve arisen savior who is indeed enthroned in heaven, and that is the kingdom that we serve. So that in mind, I want to look to the screen real quick and the passage that we're going to read is a momentous meeting. And so I want to just for a little bit of fun, talk about a couple momentous meetings and history. Do you know what this is?
Jenny Beth Martin (02:10):
I don't, but I'm really bad with culture and movies.
Joel Mooneyhan (02:13):
Okay, so this is a shot from the movie Heat and Film Buffs out there will know this as the first time that Al Pacino and Robert De Niro ever appeared on screen
Jenny Beth Martin (02:27):
Together
Joel Mooneyhan (02:28):
At the same time. So they had been in the Godfather part two, but they never shared a scene together. And so for a long time they kind of circled each other and they were all in the same kind of movies, but they never had a scene together. And so Al Pacino plays a detective. Robert De Niro plays a criminal and they have this tense standoff and the whole movie's kind of about their pursuit of one another, but in this particular scene they confront one another. They lay all their cards on the table, they share who they are and what they're about, and basically agree that our worlds do not collide. And because of where we stand on different sides of the law, the next time we meet something terrible probably will happen. It's a really good movie Heat. I mean everybody if you know movies, you know that movie, but I could go on, but I'm not going to for the history buffs. Here is another one. Now this one might be a little more familiar to you. This is Churchill, FDR in Stalin at the Yalta Conference towards the end of World War ii.
Jenny Beth Martin (03:35):
And
Joel Mooneyhan (03:36):
This is the moment where these three very influential, maybe great, maybe not so great world leaders, got together and decided what they were going to do with Europe in the wake of World War II and what they're going to do with Germany in particular. And so you have these three giants of their nations coming together and discussing things that will have ramifications that frankly we're feeling today. But big important meeting of what's known as the big three in history. So that's just a little fun. One is a meeting of culture significance. One is a meeting of historical significance. The meeting I want to talk about today is one of eternal significance. So before we begin, I do want to open the rest of the discussion with prayer and then let's see where this takes us. So Almighty, God, thank you for these conversations that we've been having.
(04:40):
We thank you again for the opportunity to sit at our leisure and simply enjoy each other's company and enjoy exploring your word and your teachings. We thank you for your son Jesus. We thank you for his life, his death and his resurrection, and we thank you that we live in a light of that even today. And so as we have this conversation, we pray that you would remind us of that, that you would reveal your truth in the conversation that we have and help us to learn from each other as we learn from you. We pray the seed in Jesus name, amen. So we're going to look at the gospel of John. Now, this whole passage is quite long, so I don't know that we need to read the entire thing, but I'll at least narrate our way through it. Okay, so this is right before Jesus is to be crucified. He's been arrested and now he's been after he's been kind of dragged around by the religious leaders to figure out what they're going to do with him and how they're going to silence him. They are now taking it up with the governor of the province of Judea named Pontius Pilot. The only reason we know who Pontius pilot is is because of this conversation right here. Now, he was a governor of Judea as governor. He had the power to collect tax, but he couldn't raise tax.
(06:21):
He had to enforce the law and he had to deliver news from the empire to the far reaches of the empire. So there was official business that there were official declarations. Pontius Pilate had the job of making that known to the people under his governorship. In doing so, anything that he wrote down or commanded to be written down was sort of understood to be the unofficial official policy of Rome on whatever matter it was. That's going to be important in a little bit, but we're going to get to that. So without getting into any more weeds and details, just know that Pilate had been in trouble already for how he handled things in Judea. He broke with a lot of tradition and a lot of convention just because he wanted to kind of flex his muscle. And so he had already been in trouble with the empire for how he was running things in Judea.
Jenny Beth Martin (07:23):
Was he breaking Jewish customs or was he breaking Roman customs?
Joel Mooneyhan (07:28):
Both. Well, he wasn't breaking Roman customs, but governors of that area before had been more or less mildly tolerant of the kind of quirks of the Israelite religion, and they kind of had a loose grip on it. And Pilot came in with a much tighter grip, heavy
Jenny Beth Martin (07:53):
Hand,
Joel Mooneyhan (07:53):
Much heavier hand. And so he did things that were intentionally to rub their nose and what his job was, so much so that he actually got punished by the empire for how he handled things. Shortly after this event, he'll get in trouble again and he'll be called back to Rome and we don't really know what happens to him after that. So now he's here in Jerusalem and he gets word that they're bringing in this itinerant carpenter rabbi, and he probably has a little bit of understanding of what's going on, but he'd have to be confused by their customs. He'd have to be confused why they're bothering with this kind of nobody. And what he doesn't know is who's walking in the door. And so what we have is Jesus who is the son of God, the Lord of heaven and earth coming in and squaring off against the most powerful empire that the world had ever seen. And so a very momentous occasion now we get from the conversation, and again, I don't want to go through all of it, and we're in, I'm sorry,
Jenny Beth Martin (09:25):
Chapter,
Joel Mooneyhan (09:25):
We're the 18th chapter of the Gospel of John.
(09:28):
And so they lead Jesus in there they want, they say, we want to have this guy killed. And pilot says, do your own law. I don't want to have anything to do with this because I think in reading this, I think he can already sense that he's in a no-win situation right now because he's already stepped in it with these folks and now they're coming to him with another problem to solve and he doesn't want to deal with this. And so they said, we can't put somebody to death. And he's like, wait a minute, time out. You're talking about executing this guy. Bring him in. And I want to pause here because there's something interesting that happens when Jesus goes into Pilate's house in another account of the crucifixion, we learned that the curtain in the temple is torn from top to bottom, and that's the curtain that separates the holy, the holies from the rest of the temple.
(10:35):
And it's understood that that was the moment when Christ removed the separation between God and humanity. Jewish custom forbade Jews from entering the house of a Gentile. So the members of the Sanhedrin and the religious authorities wouldn't even go into Pilate's house. Jesus does. And what I find interesting about that is almost as if Jesus walking into pilot's house is Jesus removing the separation that exists between each other, that he's breaking, that God himself is coming in and breaking down this custom to show that we should have no division with one another any more than there should be any division between us and God. So that's a freebie we're going to keep on going. So Pilate enters his headquarters. He calls Jesus to him and he says, are you the king of the Jews? And Jesus says, do you say that in your own accord or did somebody else ask you to say that?
(11:39):
And so Pils a little indignant, am I a Jew? Your own nation and chief priest have delivered you to me? So what have you done? And Jesus says, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom more of this world than my servants would've been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews, but my kingdom is not from this world. Now the conversation will go on and we get I think a pretty clear impression that Pilate doesn't, he doesn't want to go through with this. He even says, I've not found any fault with this man. I mean I'll have him flogged for you, but I don't think he's done anything that raises to the level of the capital crime and they want his blood. And so again, he's kind of caught between this rock and a hard place where I clearly don't find anything wrong, but I have to do. If I don't give into these people, then they're going to cause more trouble for me than I'm already in. So he has this tense conversation, and you have Jesus with all the power of the Almighty talking to Pil who has all the power of the empire, Rome behind him and it's pilot who's outmatched. I mean on paper you have a Jewish carpenter and you have a governor of Rome, and
Jenny Beth Martin (13:05):
Rome is the most powerful.
Joel Mooneyhan (13:06):
It is the most
Jenny Beth Martin (13:07):
In the world and very strong.
Joel Mooneyhan (13:13):
And everything Jesus does is to subvert expectations. Jesus doesn't come into Jerusalem on a white horse. He comes in on a donkey which is a symbol of peace and not conquering when he's born, he's not born to a wealthy family. He's effectively born out of wedlock in a stable. So you remove Jesus's identity and just look at it on paper and everything always seems like it's imbalanced. And the balance is always in Jesus' paper because God chose to be humble and yet managed to be great. And that's part of the point. So this whole conversation, I think the key phrase is Jesus, the way it's often translated is Jesus says, my kingdom is not of this world. It's not actually a good translation because the word that's used there that we say of this world is probably better translated as from this world, my kingdom is not from this world.
(14:29):
And the difference is subtle, but I think it's significant. So my kingdom is not of this world means it's a kingdom like you understand a kingdom, but it's not a kingdom like the ones that you're used to. What Jesus is actually saying is it's not a question of degree or kind, it's a question of origin altogether. My kingdom is from a completely different place and because of that you don't have any frame of reference for what I'm about. I mean, I could raise an army, I could take over, but that's not the kind of kingdom I have because it's not a kingdom from here, it's a kingdom from somewhere else. And that confounds Pilate because he doesn't know what to do with a kingdom that doesn't come down with might and with strength. And instead he's confronted with this man whose charge is that he's claimed to be a king.
(15:32):
And even then he won't even quite answer the question directly. So Pilate does what he has to do and he sentences Jesus to die. This is where it gets interesting is because I think there's a way to look at it where Pilate is the one who inaugurates the kingdom of Christ. And here's why I think that he delivers Jesus and he commands that. They put a sign on his cross and it says, Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews. Now the authorities, the Jewish authorities didn't like that. And they go back to Pilate and they say, don't say that he's the king of the Jews, say that he claimed to be the king of the Jews. The Pilate says, I've written what I've written or I said what I said, but the thing was he wrote it down or he had it written down. And I mentioned earlier that if he wrote something down on the commission of his duties, then on that matter he was stating an official Roman position.
(16:42):
And so in this weird upside down way, Pilate and condemning, Jesus has actually declared that Jesus is in fact a king. And again, in another subversive way, what happens when a king is coordinated, they get a crown, they get a throne, and their monarchy is proclaimed and Jesus is indeed given a crown, although it's a crown of thorns, and he is exalted, although his throne is a cross and his kingship is proclaimed by the mightiest empire in the world. And people were looking for that his whole life. I mean, the Wiseman came looking for a king and it took the Roman governor to finally declare it and make it an official policy. And it's just, again, to me, it's this odd subversive way that Christ comes in and conquers without firing a single shot and ends up making the most powerful empire in the world. His first messengers,
Jenny Beth Martin (17:54):
Right?
Joel Mooneyhan (17:55):
The first people, I mean, when Jesus dies, there's a Roman soldier at the cross who says, surely this man was the son of God. And throughout Jesus's ministry, he makes it clear that his mission isn't complete until he is laid down his life and his kingdom isn't again, until that and throughout the narrative, it's the people you wouldn't expect who are the first people to make the declaration. And so Jesus is subverting the whole thing. He's turning the whole thing over. And so now the people who are the mightiest are actually the people who are doing his work. Now what does that look like? It's already a cool story on its own, but if that's all that it is, if it's just the story of a man getting crucified, it's not that great. As Christians, we believe the story doesn't end there that Jesus resurrected and not, he wasn't a ghost, he wasn't a resuscitated corpse, but he resurrected in a completely new and different way than anybody had ever seen before that they were expecting it later on.
(19:05):
They expected everybody to be resurrected at the end of the age. They weren't expecting that one man would be at some random point in the middle of history. And that's where kind of the rubber hits the road for us because we don't serve, we dead king. We serve a resurrected king who lives in reigns even today, and that's the kingdom that we're a part of. So before, if we're Christian, before we're American, before we're Republican, before we're Democrat, before we're anything else, we're members citizens of the kingdom of Christ. And that's a kingdom that has no end, and it's a kingdom that calls us to do radically, radically different things.
(20:04):
It's this message of a resurrection and a good news that causes a few women to run away and proclaim the resurrection of Jesus to a group of men. And it's the same gospel that drives Peter who was famous for holding a sword and waving it against the people who came to arrest Jesus, to then later go into the house of a Roman soldier and proclaim the gospel to him, someone who was his enemy, somebody he would've drawn a sword against. He goes into his house and baptizes his whole family. It's the same gospel that causes Saul of Tarsus to start going by the Greek version of his name just so that he can have an audience with Gentiles and break down that barrier. And it's the same gospel that throughout history has driven people to go to dangerous places to protect the vulnerable, to speak truth when it wasn't expedient or when it might've even cost them their fortune or their lives.
(21:20):
And it's the same gospel that we're called to proclaim and live even today, even as we face division, and even as we live in a culture that is constantly trying to tell us that we belong on this side of the line or that side of the line, what the resurrection the gospel tells us is that we actually belong to a different kingdom and our allegiance, it's to somebody else in that kingdom. We do not have to be enemies in that kingdom. We can in fact look out for each other and show kindness to each other and show love to each other even when we don't necessarily align on everything. That's the kingdom that we're called to be a part of and we hold fast to it because we know that Christ holds that victory in what he did on the cross. And then three days later when he resurrected, I'm starting to preach now I got to stop.
Jenny Beth Martin (22:16):
Wow, you learned from the best,
Joel Mooneyhan (22:19):
I guess I did.
Jenny Beth Martin (22:20):
Our dad's a minister also.
Joel Mooneyhan (22:21):
Yes. Hopefully I learned well, but I guess what I'll leave people with is that we have news to proclaim, to be voices for people who have no hope to proclaim truth to people who subvert it, and to be lights that shine in the dark and frightening world so that people can see the hope that we have and hopefully come to know Jesus by the things we say and the things that we do and the way that we orient our lives and the way that we treat others. And so this whole series that we've been doing has been an effort to come look at that, to see what that might mean given the different challenges that we face, but then also to remind us that whatever else we are, we're citizens of Christ's kingdom. And that's an exciting thing to be a part of. Well,
Jenny Beth Martin (23:32):
It is exciting to be a part of it. And when we think of being a part of Christ's kingdom first, then it makes it easier, I think to and harder because some of the things we've discussed in other weeks are easy to do. But Jesus also says, take up my yolk. It is lighter, it's easier on you. And when you, you're doing what you're called to do and you believe in God and you believe in Christ, then it's easier to go do those things that you're called to do even when those things sometimes are very hard, very challenging, and he can face consequences for,
Joel Mooneyhan (24:26):
Yeah, it's usually the things that seem impossible or seem difficult that Christ is actually calling us to do. Because if Christ called us to things that we could do easily, then we wouldn't need him anyway. And I think it's important that we look out for the challenges and invite them and take them on because it's the challenge is that one, remind us of how powerless we really are, but also remind us that Christ is not only capable but also desires to be the help that we need. What King does that? What King cares for his subjects enough that he would die for them. What King would leverage his power for the absolute least in his kingdom and what king would charge his citizens to not look at people in another kingdom as their enemies, but as people who are there to love and to serve. And it, it's subversive, but it's subversive in the best way possible and it's only possible with the power of Christ in us.
Jenny Beth Martin (25:52):
And it really is how you said that Jesus is coming to and knew he was coming to shake things up and turn everything upside down. He wanted people to think of their faith and think of their relationship with God in a way that they weren't accustomed to thinking of it.
Joel Mooneyhan (26:14):
And it changed the world. And I think that for us as Christians, if we really want to see the nation change and the world change, then we have to first look at the world through the eyes of Christ before we look at the world through the eyes of our politics or through the eyes of whatever issue it is. Because I mean, I know that there are people who there's one issue and that's the only issue they have. And they will political
Jenny Beth Martin (26:46):
Issue,
Joel Mooneyhan (26:47):
Political issue and they'll live and die on that hill. And whether or not I agree with them is not the point. The point is that people can get so zeroed in on one small thing that
Jenny Beth Martin (26:59):
It could be a big issue,
Joel Mooneyhan (27:01):
It could be a big issue, but in the scheme of eternity and in the scheme of the fact that we're talking about being part of Christ's kingdom, then if you're looking at things through the lens of what do I think about this and what do people think about this, whether I agree with them or not, instead of I'm part of this huge historical kingdom that has existed and that will exist and who has God as its king, what does my life look like through that lens? And it could mean that you might have to change the way you think about an issue or a person or a people, but if you want to see the world change and you want to see the nation change for the better, then we have to first, if we're Christian, we have to first think of ourselves as Christ citizens and then go out there and be citizens of whatever community that we're in light of what we believe about who Christ is and what Christ has done for us and what Christ can do through us.
Jenny Beth Martin (28:17):
And I think that makes sense. And going back to that single issue, whatever it might be for certain people, as you were saying that, I was thinking that if you look at it through the lens of Christianity as you're looking at it, you said that it may be looking at it differently or thinking about it differently or changing what you believe. And it may also ret
Joel Mooneyhan (28:47):
You. It might it very well might.
Jenny Beth Martin (28:48):
It may make you double down even on trying to pursue a goal and have whatever the change may be, you may actually, I think that there are people who are inside of the political sphere who feel called to be engaged, but you have to make sure that you're checking where you are politically and make sure it aligns with God and making sure that it isn't what you want to do. And it truly is a calling. Yeah.
Joel Mooneyhan (29:24):
Because instead of what I asked is if your politics and your faith don't line up, you need to use your faith as the yardstick
(29:33):
And not the other way around. Because what I find is so many people try, they start with the politics first and they want to put God into this box. Well, God is bigger than your politics. He's not going to fit in that box. He's bigger than both boxes. In fact, he doesn't fit in any one of them. You have to make your beliefs fit into the kingdom economy, for lack of a better term. But you're right, there are times where, and I want to be careful to say that looking at something through the eyes of being a citizen of Christ's kingdom does not always mean that you're going to change your mind because you might find that actually this is probably where Christ would want his people to be. I mean, to pick an obvious example, you'd be hard pressed to say that Jesus doesn't want you to care about poor people at all.
(30:27):
He probably does. It's pretty obvious that he does, in fact. And so if you found yourself with a heart and a passion for working at a soup kitchen or going and giving coats to people on the street who are cold or whatever, you're not going to find Jesus saying, no, that's not a good idea. Obviously not. So there are times where, yeah, we're going to look at something and we're going to find out that actually, yeah, this is where Christ wanted you to be all along. I think, I guess what I was trying to say is that we have to be willing and humble enough to recognize and then act accordingly when we find that maybe I wasn't, even if I was thinking, even if I might've found myself on the right thinking of the issue, maybe I wasn't talking about it the right way, or maybe I wasn't treating people the right way in light of it, or maybe I was just wrong. And there have been times where that's happened to me on different levels and even as simple as just how I read a particular passage of scripture, but certainly with how I am called to treat others. And I think that's something that we're checked by every single day.
(31:45):
But yeah, there is a way to do your politics in a Christ-like way. And I think what the way that plays out is think of yourself as Christ person first and to letting everything else play out from there. If you get it the other way around, then it's not going to sustain itself and it's certainly not going to represent who Christ is accurately.
Jenny Beth Martin (32:16):
And then I want to elaborate on one other thing that is a little bit on a side tangent, but when you were just saying that when you're trying to put Christ into a political box today, it made me think of something that you and I have had discussions about. Sometimes there'll be people who don't believe or they don't understand or they don't understand why something is happening in the world and they're trying to make sense of it, and they try to fit God into their image of what God is rather than accepting God's image of who he is. And when you were saying trying to fit Jesus into the political boxes, it made me think of that. And there may be people who are listening to all this and kind of struggling or going through something hard in life and they don't understand why God does certain things. And I think that that message that you've had before is important.
Joel Mooneyhan (33:22):
So there's an intellectual answer, and then I don't even know a good way to say it. I'll just give the two answers. The intellectual answer is kind of boring and it doesn't offer a lot of comfort being honest. But we have kids and there are times when you're a parent that you have to take your kid to the doctor and they might have to get a shot. Now you're an adult, so you understand that sometimes medicine doesn't taste good or sometimes getting a shot hurts, but it's for the better. Three or 4-year-old doesn't have the wisdom and to understand that this bad thing is happening, but there's actually something good on the other side of it. You can't explain that to a toddler who's screaming because they've had to take nasty medicine or had to have a shot.
(34:56):
How much wiser is God than we are that there are certainly, maybe there are things that happen to us that I could never understand. Now I don't particularly like that answer, but it is an answer when I'm confronted with people who want to know why this awful thing or why that awful thing. One question I want to ask is if you knew, if God came down and gave you the intellectual answer of why would it make the pain less hurtful? Would it make the pain of loss be any easier to deal with or the pain of frustration or the pain of betrayal? If God could give you the, here's the answer, here's the answer you want to know. Don't you feel better? Probably not.
(35:51):
I don't know why, but I know why not. And it can't be because God doesn't love us and it can't be because Christ doesn't care. He wouldn't have died for us. And so whatever else the answer may or may not be, we can't look at the person of Jesus and say, it's because God doesn't care. It's because God doesn't love me. It's because God doesn't understand my pain. That's the point of Jesus is that God could have come and everything could have gone right, and he wouldn't have had to be born of a peasant family and a backwater as subjects of another empire. And he didn't have to be a carpenter. He didn't have to be an itinerant preacher with 12 people who were functionally incompetent together. And he could have raised an army and he could have conquered the world and he could have done all those things. He didn't have to die on a cross, but he did. And what we see in Jesus is that God comes down and he lives every experience that his creation has to live from birth to death. So we can't say that God doesn't know where we are or that God doesn't understand because he absolutely does. Apart from the fact that he made us, he also lived among us and then died to save us.
(37:34):
And so I want to say to people that wherever you are and wherever that finds you, there's not an intellectual answer to injustice that will make injustice
(37:50):
Just will not make it make sense. It will not make it feel better. I think that, I mean honestly, I think that if you tried to have a resolute answer to that, you've run the risk of trivializing the suffering that people go through because the answer, whatever it is, is not going to bring comfort. What does bring comfort is knowing that God sees you and that he cares for you so much so that he would die a horrible death to save you, but that he defeated death itself so that you don't have to, whatever hardship or whatever difficulty you face, it doesn't have the final word,
Jenny Beth Martin (38:50):
And that he can give you peace during that difficult time.
Joel Mooneyhan (38:54):
Yeah, that's the thing is that
Jenny Beth Martin (38:55):
He loves you
Joel Mooneyhan (38:56):
Because he loves you and the promise of, and that's the thing is that we talked about this in one of the, I guess two weeks ago that Jesus didn't spare himself. Maybe it was last week, but Jesus didn't spare himself that difficulty in that pain. And he could have, but he didn't. And so what was it you said that kind of made me think of that peace? Yeah. And so what we find throughout the rest of scripture is that the people who follow Jesus the closest are the ones who suffer the most. And so there's nothing in scripture that should say that Once you follow Jesus, everything's going to be fine and you're going to have all the answers. No, you don't. Paul struggled with it. He writes about the things that He struggles with. Am I doing the right thing? Am I failing?
(39:54):
But then we see in Paul that he finds comfort in his friends. He finds comfort in a community. He has people around him who love him and support him and pray for him and are there for him when he's struggling. And you give him encouragement when he's in despair. And so on the one hand, we know that Christ loves us because of what we see on the cross, and we know that our sufferings don't have the final word because Christ defeated death in resurrection. But then we also have the blessing of these other people who are there to be Christ for us. And if you're a person who's struggling with that, if you're struggling with what you believe about any of it or if you believe it and you're just in a place where you feel lonely or in despair, I would encourage you to find people who can walk with you and help bear those burdens with you.
(40:58):
You'll hear people say, you can be a good Christian and not go to church. I'm like, you can be an avid follower. But I think part of what Christ is doing is he's lifting one, he's asking us to lift one another up. And part of the benefit of being part of a faith community is that you do have that comradery and you do have people who are there to help you bear your burdens and to help remind you that you're not there alone and that they're the people of Christ for you as much as you can be the people of Christ for somebody else. Again, I'm kind of preaching at this point, but yeah, it's one of those things that the older I get there fewer and fewer things that I'm as sure of as I might've been at one point or another. But one thing that I am confident in is who Christ is and what Christ has done, not just in history, but for me and for people who I know and whatever else I may or may not know. I do know that. And my prayer would be that whoever sees this would know that too, and that Christ would reveal himself to them in some way that would be meaningful and let them know that he is there and that He cares for
Jenny Beth Martin (42:37):
They too can be part of the kingdom of Christ
Joel Mooneyhan (42:39):
Welcome in bringing
Jenny Beth Martin (42:42):
It back to your original topic. But it was just something that when you said that it made me, and I think it's important sometimes to remind people of that,
Joel Mooneyhan (42:53):
And that's one of those things I always say what I've attempted to say. So in all of this, what I've attempted to say is that Christ offers the true way to be human the way God intended from the very beginning. And we don't have to look and search very hard to find out what that looks like because we see it in who Jesus is and we learn about it. And what Jesus taught, it's not easy. I'm not saying that it's easy,
(43:33):
But it's there and it's obvious and obvious in the sense that it's written and we have it laid out there now what it takes to live it is an act of God and that's why we need him. But again, what I've attempted to say is that this Jesus who lived and died resurrected and all that he did in his life, in his teachings and all that his resurrection empowered other people to do, is to help show us what it means to really be human and what it means to be citizens of the kingdom that is already and not yet occurring right in our midst. And so it's our job as people who believe in that, to pull back that curtain and reveal it. And that's in how we love our neighbors. It's in how we endure hardships and how we order our lives to proclaim who Jesus is.
Jenny Beth Martin (44:37):
That is the challenge. And the commandment.
Joel Mooneyhan (44:39):
And the commandment.
Jenny Beth Martin (44:41):
Alright, well I think that this was a bit heavier and hopefully people got a lot out of it. And why don't you go ahead and wrap us up in a prayer.
Joel Mooneyhan (44:51):
Okay, let's do that. Almighty God, thank you again for this conversation. Thank you for the conversations that we've had right now. We also lift up to you the people who are hearing this, who might be struggling, who might be enduring hardship, who might be in the depths of despair and doubt. There might be people listening to this who think it's all nonsense and we lift them to you as well. We pray that wherever people are in hearing this, that you would reveal yourself to them, whether it's through our conversation or through a conversation they have with somebody else. We pray that you would give hope to people who are in despair, that you would give peace to people who are in the midst of turmoil, that you would provide companionship to people who are battling loneliness, and that you would lift up your people to care for the least and the last and the lost that you would empower us who call ourselves Christians to speak truth, to power, to bring light and to darkness and to proclaim good news to those who need it the most. And so in all that we do and all that we say, we pray that it is rooted in you and that you would help us remember that we belong to you and to no one else, and that we would live our lives in such a way that that reality would be obvious to others. And we lift all these things to you in the mighty name of Christ. Amen.
Jenny Beth Martin (46:48):
Joel, at the very beginning before we got into the lesson, you talked about the lectionary. And very quickly, in case people don't know, it's explain what the lectionary is because next week we start a new year.
Joel Mooneyhan (46:59):
So lectionary is a set of standardized texts throughout the Bible and not every church uses them, but a lot of churches do. And it's been around for generations. And so there's a couple of benefits to having it. One, it goes into three year cycles, so that in theory, if your church or in your own studies, you went through it for three years, you would basically hit every major scriptural, every and minor scriptural theme throughout the entire Bible. But basically it's a set of New Testament and Old Testament readings each week that go through the different seasons of the Christian years. So you've got Advent, you've got Christmas ti now that I'm being asked to recall them all, I can't. But then you've got common time and Lent and Easter Tide and Pentecost and it carries you through. And so one of the benefits again, is giving you a set structure of rhythms to go through. But another thing is that it connects you to the broader global church and the heritage of the church that goes back through history and
Jenny Beth Martin (48:07):
Regardless of denominations,
Joel Mooneyhan (48:08):
Regardless of denomination, because it's not denominationally bound. So I've been to churches and been a part of churches of absolutely different stripes who use the lectionary at different points in times. Sometimes they use it continually, sometimes it's just a good way to drop in and out of certain seasons. It's always found an interesting way to be timely. So that's something fun. But Advent starts. So in a way it's Happy New Year next Sunday, but Advent is where we begin to anticipate the arrival of King Jesus as a baby born in a manger.
Jenny Beth Martin (48:52):
We are going to do a new series beginning next week.
Joel Mooneyhan (48:55):
Yes.
Jenny Beth Martin (48:57):
An advent series,
Joel Mooneyhan (48:59):
And we're going to basically go through the themes of the advent wreath we would've done when we were growing up in church.
Jenny Beth Martin (49:07):
I always wanted to delight the center.
Joel Mooneyhan (49:08):
Yeah, that's a good one. I got to do that one year.
Jenny Beth Martin (49:13):
I was the older sister and I get to do it a few more times than you. Yeah.
Joel Mooneyhan (49:16):
Well we can set one up if you want. That might be a good way to do it, to kind remind us where we are. But that'll be a good one to go through. It won't be as heavy, and it'll be a lot more, hopefully a lot more cheery,
Jenny Beth Martin (49:29):
Joyous in anticipation.
Joel Mooneyhan (49:31):
Yes, exactly. So we're excited to go through that and then we're excited to bring it.
Jenny Beth Martin (49:34):
Alright, well thank you for this one that we've
Joel Mooneyhan (49:37):
Just, thank you for having me too
Jenny Beth Martin (49:38):
And concluding it and you can still join us. We're going to do another series with our bonus pods starting next Sunday, one o'clock Eastern Time on the Jenny Best Show for God and Country episodes. Then we'll see you tomorrow for the Jenny Best Show with our news and update and updates and an analysis. Looking forward to it. Thanks so much for joining us.
(50:03):
If you enjoy today's conversation, go ahead and hit like and subscribe. It really helps us reach more people who care about freedom and the Constitution. You can find this and other episodes@jennybestshow.com as well as Facebook Rumble, YouTube, Instagram X in your favorite podcast platform.
Narrator (50:21):
The Jenny Beth Show is hosted by Jenny Beth Martin. The Jenny Beth Show is a production of Tea Party Patriots action. For more information, visit tea party patriots.org.