NEIGHBORHOOD CHURCH
Transcript — "You Either Evolve or Repeat"
Brian Ross | April 19, 2026
Series: Accept It — Facing Life's Honest Truths

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What is your favorite show on HBO Max? Not long ago, another professor, FPU and I were laughing about our favorite streaming entertainment on the channel as a little bit of a historical nature to it. And at some point, the conversation changed and he got real serious. And he said, Brian, you know, we are living during a hinge point in history.

We are alive at a time when everything is changing in history, admittedly, can be a little boring in class. Kind of interesting is streaming entertainment. If you have a gifted show writer.

But it's no fun to live through. And congratulations, you live in a hinge point in history. We live in a time where all worldviews, all lifestyles, all around the globe, throughout all time are available to everyone, including your children, in our back pockets. Speaking of children, I don't know if you know this or not, but we're having a whole a whole bunch less of them than we used to.

All the wealthy countries in the world, including the US, have way less children. Do we have I? Will we have jobs in the future? Will any of us other than the billionaires? And there's deep fakes. I mean, do you believe or trust any video that you see online anymore? We have record numbers of people burning to death in fires, drowning in floods, freezing to death in blizzards.

Oh, and and if you didn't notice this, we also have political divisions in our country. Whatever group of people that you are convinced you believe are the problem, they are probably not going away in your lifetime.

And all of this is happening everywhere. Europe, East Asia, certainly the Middle East, South America. Welcome to living in a hinge point in history. Time when everything is changing. And many of us, maybe most of us, are not handling well this hyper change we experience all the time. According to the CDC, we Americans make 60 million doctor visits a year because something isn't right in our minds or our psyches because we're struggling.

95% of university counselors, 95% say that mental health issues with college students are growing. Gallup the public opinion poll regularly asks Americans, do you believe your life will be better five years from now than it is today? And late 2025, they got the most pessimistic results that they have in a generation. They've also asked this question ever since Gallup's been around.

Are you very satisfied with your life? They would say to that question, are you very satisfied with your life? They received the most negative responses in the history of polling in America. What a time to be alive.

As Forrest mentioned, we're moving along with this series. Accept it. Facing life's honest truths. And this morning we're going to explore how we could or should face all the dramatic changes in our world, which means all the dramatic changes in our lives. Now, I always enjoy being here. Many of you have become friends. It's always a treat to be with you on a Sunday.

But I'm especially excited today because I think I have some helpful stuff to share that could impact your life. Now, I know that's a bold statement, but I will. I want to remind you I didn't come up with it. It is divine revelation that I think is exceedingly helpful. So I'm going to read from Saint Paul's profound letter to the church at Rome.

The book we call Romans and the New Testament, chapter eight, beginning in verse five, says, those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires, but those who live in accordance with the spirit have their minds set on what the spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the spirit is life and peace.

The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. A little further, if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you. He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies, because of His Spirit who lives in you.

You know this. I know this because life is difficult and sometimes it's really difficult. If we find something that works, we stick with it. If we find a a way of engaging reality or structuring our time, or are weak or certain beliefs about people or the world or job that pays okay. And it's kind of working, we rightly think, why not double down on it?

And this is the way our being is wired. Whenever you and I do repetitively or even think repetitively, it literally begins to slowly rewire our brain. So if there's something that works and we're like, this works for me, let's double down on it. Our being even physically aligns around it.

So it would be a fair question to say what's the problem? This works for me. I'm doing it. My my being is wrapping around it. The problem is whatever is working for you, you can't hold on to it. At least not for long.

If you have a career that fits you, a job that works. It pays your bills. You're pretty good at it. Over time, you you begin to think, this is who I am. I am the gal or the guy who does this kind of thing, who offers this kind of service to our community. But you can't hold it. Market shift.

And it can be less profitable. New technology can emerge, and you may no longer be needed. But even if you find a job that's recession proof that you're good at, eventually you get older and all the kids around there kind of push you out and you're done. Or maybe we find ways to connect with another person. We we find a meaningful way of doing family.

We enjoy being with them at work, so we feel seen. We have people that we care for. Sorry. That doesn't last either. As much as you and I maybe wish we could. We can't control other people. I can't tell you as a pastor how many times over the years I've had someone say, I've been with this person for years and it's been amazing.

And they suddenly told me they're done. And they left.

Even if that doesn't happen to you, even if you're one of the few people in our culture that find someone to do life with, and you do it together forever, at some point, one of you exits this life and leaves the other one alone.

And then we have kids, and darn it, they just keep on changing all the time. I mean, they start cute and cuddly and then they get a little older and they're not as cute and cuddly. They start off when they're younger, thinking you're amazing in then. And then they start thinking, you're amazing.

You can't hold even to your relationships. This is why Saint Paul said the mind governed by the flesh is death. What's he mean? I think something like a strong commitment to a very specific way of life will eventually lead you to personal turmoil. A strong commitment to a very specific way of life will eventually lead you to personal turmoil.

I want my relationships to always be like this. I like this job. I want to keep doing it forever. I want my weekends to be with these people, doing these sorts of things. That is the mind governed by flesh.

That is what leads to death.

You know as well as I do. We are living in a time where we are surrounded. We are imprinted by technology and part of what our technology does because it's good business. People figure out how to offer this to us is we end up increasingly in, in a place where we can choose the specifics that we like.

My iPhone or iPad forms my soul to always being used to what I want. My playlists, my influencers. My news from the sites where they think like I do. Our wants and desires are always being catered to, and it's shaping us into the kind of people that when we can't have what we want, bro, it's even harder because that's what we're used to.

You remember that line from Tyler Durden, played by Brad Pitt in Fight Club, based on that novel by Chuck Palahniuk? He says advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy stuff we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. Our great war's a spiritual war. Our Great Depression is our lives.

And we're slowly learning that fact. And we are very, very pissed off.

What if what you love now, your job, your special person, your Friday night routine? What if that's taken from you?

What if everything that you're hoping for in the future you can never get, or you can never receive or never experience?

Then what?

Then what will happen within you?

Before it gets better. It gets a little worse.

Going back to Saint Paul. Romans eight seven. The mind, governed by the flesh is hostile to God. A strong commitment to a specific way of life will keep you from what is good. It will keep you from God himself. A strong commitment to I like my life to be just like this. In this way, with these people will keep you from God.

Now, historically, Christian teaching, I want to be clear, has always said that our creator is good and loving and beautiful. If you tried to imagine the most good and loving and beautiful being that you could. God is better. Better than what you can imagine. But Christian teaching always also says that God is spirit. The greatest loving being in the cosmos doesn't hold to a specific physical form, or if he manifests in a specific physical form, it's only briefly, and that keeps changing.

The good God is higher is more than the physical situations or specifics of our life. So if our mindset is I must hold to this kind of life, this kind of way, this job, this relationship I want to be, I want to always have this social role in this community. We are committed to a specific way of being that God is not committed to.

The mind governed by the flesh or specific demands for a specific life is hostile to God.

In about a month, my wife, Stephanie and I will be married for 27 years. We married in our early 20s, which means thank you one person for clapping over here. Which means, we've been together over half of our life. If anyone else has had the privilege of being married that long, you know what that means. Sometimes it's been really good.

Sometimes it's a little struggle. Sometimes there's been a lot of joy. Sometimes there is a lot we have to work through. And Steph and I are exact opposite people. I have three degrees, and she likes to remind me regularly that she knows the practical things that actually matter in life. I like to read. She lifts weights and runs every day.

And you can notice the difference in our physical appearance, if you will.

But God forbid. Certainly. God forbid. But imagine if something were to happen to her. And in some miracle, some poor woman out there wants to marry me, and I remarry. If I were to assume I know how to be married to this person, I mean, Stephanie are very different people. We figured out how to do this for 27 years.

I will just be the husband to this woman like I was to the husband to Stephanie. It would be a disaster. Why? Because she'd be a different person. She'd have a different personality. She'd have a different backstory, different strengths, different struggles. We'd be at a different stage of life. Stephanie, I have had four children together, and I can assure you, I ain't having any more kids, so that alone would create a very different marriage.

It's different if you have children together or not. Let's imagine me in this poor Woman get together in 2035. It would also be a different relationship because the culture would be different. Stephanie married in 1999. Our kids say we have a weird 20th century marriage. If I tried to handle that relationship the same way, it would be a disaster.

The way of the spirit, the way of God is always a call to love, to fidelity in a marriage, to others centeredness. This is spirit. And for me to be aligned with God, I'm opening myself. I'm leaning in towards being aligned to these ways. But different contexts with different people in different historical moments always have different details, different specifics.

Even being aligned with the spirit would look different. This is why if you ever hear someone say, here's what every healthy marriage should always look like in detail. They're lying. No two marriages are the same because no two people or moments in history or cultures are the same. A strong commitment to a very specific way of life will keep you from what is good.

God himself. We see this in the Bible. Go back to what we call the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible, the book of Exodus. God works all these miracles. He delivers the Hebrews out of slavery. They leave Egypt. And what do they do? They complain. Why? They were used to a very specific, detailed way of life. God's answered their prayers.

They no longer have slave masters beating them, treating them horribly. Now they are nomads in the wilderness, and they actually say, I want to go back to Egypt. I miss it. The details of life are different now. I like those details, not these details. This means they were closed to God. Why was Jesus crucified? At least. At least partly.

It's because Israel was accustomed to a particular form of life. They had their own nation state with their own, central religious building here, Herod's Temple. They had their own leaders, the priests, the Pharisees. And all of this was built around people of the same ethnic background.

And to be clear. Jesus in that moment says, I am now offering you a different God than you've ever believed in. And this God has not changed. He says it. Matthew 5:17. Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. He's saying, I affirm the revelation from God that you have heard in ages past.

I hold to. We follow the same spirit. It's not a different God, but the details look different. We're now in a multicultural society. Everybody is not just Jewish anymore. We are led by the pagan Romans. And so Jesus says, if you're going to be aligned with the same God, this God of goodness and love and beauty, the details will be different.

Now we're in a different place, different time, different context.

And Israel's leaders responded in John 11. They had a meeting, said, here is the man Jesus, performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him. And then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation. We'll have a different kind of life. So from that day on, they plotted to take his life.

The good and beautiful God had not changed the higher ways. The spirit are and were the same. But what it look like in detail, in specifics was different, in a different place. And so the state executed Jesus. You see, the best Christian minds historically have made it clear that God doesn't change. Again, always good, always loving, always beautiful.

God does not change. But you and I keep changing. Our bodies change. Our culture changes. Our context or the details of our lives change. And so if we are open to this creator God who is good, he doesn't change. But it feels like he's changing because we're always changing. And so to continue to be open to this eternal, always loving God, it feels like we have to regularly change because he's doing new things that we have to align with.

And friends, everything's going to keep changing.

Our culture is changing and will keep changing. Your job, your career, the industry is changing and it will keep changing. Your relationships are changing and they will continue to change. Someday your career will end. Someday this relationship will end someday. The United States of America will end. Are you staying open to the spirit?

To the experience that feels like God and all that is good and right is calling you to change? Or are you locking in, holding with everything you have to a specific vision of life and experiencing pain and will continue to.

Rick Rubin is probably been the most influential music producer of the last couple of decades. He's brought out the best of everyone from Macy Gray to Metallica to Shakira. And his advice for songwriters is is kind of interesting. Says, if you want to be a songwriter, that puts out art that people really like and that has some legs, don't just follow whatever's dropping on Vevo.

Go Google one of those Rolling Stone lists of, like, the 500 greatest Rock Songs of All time, and listen to those over and over, because according to Rubin, an artist that lasts doesn't just listen to whatever's happening on Spotify right now and try to be like it. No, they go higher than that.

They study music that has lasts. They begin to notice patterns, ways of operating that are beyond the trends of the moment. Think about some of the artists who are dead that people still stream — Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison. The reason that people still listen to them decades later is because they weren't just focused on their moment, but the higher things — values of creating art.

And that's why their music feels timeless. Our creator's spirit is much more than this world. He leads us to consider what is higher than the details of your life. He leads you to what's always true, what lasts, what's universal. And then he calls you to work it out in partnership with him. What's it look like to live accordingly to the specifics you have right now?

This is the opposite of a strong commitment to a very particular way of life.

A strong commitment to what is always good and loving — that spirit — and being open to all the various forms this can take. This is what leads to inner peace. Open to what's good and loving in all of the ways that could play out. This is what leads to peace. Romans chapter eight, verse six. The mind governed by the spirit is life and peace.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle would regularly talk about telos. That can be translated something like ultimate purpose or the end goal. And he said in the Nicomachean Ethics he said every action and pursuit is thought to aim at some good. The end of the medical art is health. That of shipbuilding, a vessel. That of strategy, victory. That of economics, wealth.

So he says again, there's a telos or an end ultimate goal or purpose for everything. So with the medical art it's health. So if a doctor is arranging all of her actions for healing, she is aligned with the telos or ultimate purpose of medicine. Now what does that look like? Well, it could take all kinds of forms. It could be treating people at a free clinic for the poor.

It could be working at a state of the art hospital that's doing latest stage research for serious diseases. It could be involved in medical missions in a developing country. If the goal is health, there's all sorts of forms that can take. But if her primary focus shifts and it's how do I make some more money, maybe I could require patients more often to have these tests done, and I can bill Medicare a little bit more.

Or if I raise my rates, we're fine. But to the place where I want, maybe I could afford that nice office in the swankiest part of town — if that is what she's doing, she loses the whole point of being a physician, which is health.

So how do you and I learn the telos or what it means to connect with the spirit on higher realities? How do we do that and have it mesh up with our little lives? Now, I want to be clear. There's not a particular method. It's primarily an attitude of the heart. So we open. Is that what we desire more than our plans.

But hat tip to my wife, my very practical wife, I want to offer a couple suggestions. Number one, you could try rapid reading or rapid listening to the Gospels. These are the first four books of the New Testament — Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And maybe when you go for a run or your commute to work, you could just listen.

There's free apps online. You can listen to people with a great British accent, reading the Bible to you, and listen to like 4 or 5 chapters straight. Now, if you do that, there will be things you don't understand. But there's lots of things we don't understand in the Bible. But if you take on big hunks, over time you'll start to intuit how God shows up or works in the world.

Second suggestion — you could read or listen to a very old book. My wife would say, I'm going totally nerdy here — over 500 years old. Why? Well, if a book is 500 years old, it's certainly not about whatever's trending in our culture.

But if it's still in print in English and it's 500 years old, that means a whole bunch of people think there are timeless realities within it. Now, if you sit down to read something like that, I'm sure some of it will be weird and won't make sense. But if there's parts that you're like, that was from a long time ago and that still connects with me, then you know it's universal.

Third suggestion — actively serving the poor and the struggling.

Serving hurting people does not directly benefit you. It's not trendy. It's not going to fit your exact plans for your life. It's why it's helpful.

And I think the reality is there are certain insights about ourselves, about culture, about God, that only come to people who actively serve the poor and hurting.

One of my students at Fresno Pacific is certainly a leader in the city of Fresno, but even on the state level, on a bunch of commissions throughout the state. Pastor D.J. Criner from Saint Rest Baptist Church — in one class he was in, we were talking about the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Hard, hard to imagine more suffering for more people over a long period of time.

But somewhere in that conversation, D.J. said, hey, Uncle B — that's what they call me at times. Uncle B said, you know, this is why there's virtually no atheism in the African-American community. He said, for our people to be able to survive this for centuries, there had to be a focus on someone much larger than the daily experience.

This is how our people kept going.

I think there's one more perspective this text gives us — a strong commitment to what is generally good and loving — spirit — and being open to all the various forms that can take, leads to life beyond this life. I teach a course most semesters, a spirituality course to new marriage and family therapy students.

Basically, what we do is I assign them spiritual practices. Kind of like reading the teaching of Jesus over and over, or reading some old books, or serving the poor. And then we come together and we just kind of debrief what happened in the experience, what it made you think about, what it make you think about your life. But my favorite discussion happens after I assign them their first field trip, which is they have to go alone with no one else, no AirPods, in silence, and they have to go to a cemetery and they have to imagine their one day future corpse.

So much fun.

For older students, it's not much of a deal, but as you can imagine, for students in their 20s, it's a bit trippy. But when we have the discussion, there's usually some kind of sense that students maybe have for the first time in a visceral way, that all of this ends eventually. Career, family and friends, bodily existence.

Students remark, it's like you can't hold to your life.

And I will often come back and say, if that's true, then what remains?

Spirit.

God's spirit, but also our spirit that shows up with every intention and choice for what is good and loving. That is beyond the little specifics that we prefer. This is what remains forever.

Saint Paul, verse 11 — if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies, because of His Spirit who lives in you.

Towards the end of Jesus's story in the New Testament, this most loving and virtuous human who ever lived is lynched and murdered. But then he physically resurrects from the dead. And after witnessing this, his disciples, his first followers — they are different. For the rest of the New Testament they are changed. It's like they experienced his spirit and he went through the worst thing imaginable, and he resurrected.

And so it's like they know that the truest, deepest parts of themselves, if they are given over to him, will be okay. And we see a lot of passages like this in the New Testament. I'm only going to read one. Acts 16 says the crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison.

So you have two men who are violently attacked by a whole mob of people, and then a powerful governmental leader has them stripped — public embarrassment — beaten and flogged, and then throws them in prison. But the story continues. About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God and the other prisoners were listening to them. After all that — attacks by a mob, stripped, beaten, flogged, put in prison — they're singing hymns.

They saw Jesus, the most beautiful human spirit connected to the creator. The worst thing happens to him. He resurrects from the dead. They were like, if we have that spirit, it's like, no matter what terrible thing happens to us, it might suck. But ultimately, on a higher level, the deepest parts of us will be fine. Do you know that?

Are you experiencing that?

In 1956, a 28-year-old named Jim Elliot was murdered as he tried to share about Jesus in Ecuador. Later, some people went through his belongings and found his journals. And this is what he wrote when he was only 21: He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.

Have you accepted this?

Have you faced this honest truth? He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose. Or as Saint Paul said, the mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the spirit is life and peace. All the details of life that you think make you, you — if I were to say, tell me about who you are, what you would say.

All of those things are eventually going away. But spirit — what's higher and beautiful and loving — your intentions that are seeking what is good for others, what aligns with your creator — this lives forever.

Are you accepting this? Are you facing this truth?

I'm going to ask you to stand with me, if you will, for a moment of prayer.

Can I ask you to stand with your eyes closed? And this might be new for some of you, but I'm not going to ask you to do anything embarrassing — but maybe stand with your palms face up, kind of a posture of openness.

And I want to ask you to listen to your creator who is within you, even if you haven't thought about him.

Just quietly within yourself, ask him if there is something or someone specific that you are holding tightly, that you need to let go. The job. A relationship. Life plans. Life plans for others. Listen to your creator. Is there something you need to let go of?

And as you listen to your creator, are you being called to reach higher? To focus on what is good and loving and not a specific, detailed life of your choosing?

If maybe even for the first time, say privately within to your creator — I am open to what is good and beautiful, to the spirit. Guide me.

Lord, I thank you that you are closer to us than we are to ourselves, and all the tremendous change that in so many ways feels too much for many of us — you are fully aware of.

Thank you for reminding us to be open to your spirit, to what's higher, to all the many forms that your way may entail, to let go of our specific demands.

Help us to trust you. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.