Latest / Red Couch Theology / Aaron and Alex Share Stories of when they felt like they Heard from God

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Aaron and Alex Share Stories of when they felt like they Heard from God · Red Couch Theology

• 0:00
  Hello, hello and welcome to another episode of the Red Couch
• 0:02
  Theology podcast. Hey, this week Alex and I just
• 0:05
  tell some stories. Someone asked us what is it like
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  or when have we experienced the presence of God in our lives?
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  And so we tell some stories about our lives and how God has
• 0:15
  shown up in some unique ways and spoken to us or gave us a sense
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  of his presence. And then we had address another
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  question about what happens when our faith feels disappointing to
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  us? How do we just continue to plug
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  forward with Jesus? What happens when our faith just
• 0:33
  isn't feeling like it used to? Let's dive right in.
• 0:39
  Love it. Hello everyone, welcome to our
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  Couch Theology podcast where Alex sat down maybe 3 seconds
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  ago. 8 8. 8 seconds ago. So here we are.
• 0:52
  And we're streaming early and so you're not don't expect an
• 0:55
  episode tomorrow. This is a surprise episode.
• 0:58
  It really is. And I've got to tweak the camera
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  really, really quick, and then we're going to just dive right
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  in, tweak. Yeah, and I'll try and remember
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  what we're diving into because it feels a long time ago.
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  Sunday feels a long time ago. And we didn't have a podcast
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  last week, so. Yeah.
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  So we have a few different things going on.
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  We. Could talk about almost
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  anything. We could, but let's be honest,
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  never. John is the same thing every
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  week except for Yeah yeah, except for next week.
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  Yeah, what's happening next week?
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  I won't be here next week. Well, I will, but I'm not
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  important next week. Yeah, I'm preaching that week.
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  Well, no, I'm not. Sure, yeah.
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  So I'll just have that middle chair all the way around the
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  week after your preaching. And that one.
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  Figure out how to do that before.
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  Thanksgiving, especially since I'm probably going to need the
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  podcast in order to not preach for two hours.
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  Absolutely. And then I've also got to write
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  a sermon for after Thanksgiving, before Thanksgiving.
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  Otherwise I'm going to have to work on.
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  Otherwise you won't be thankful. Well, I mean, I can still be
• 2:15
  thankful, but I'll just be pretty miserable.
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  All right, so here's a couple of things we're going to cover
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  today. One, we got another beautiful,
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  kind sweet shout out, which is which is great.
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  Let me pull that up. This was a sort of a question.
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  A sort of a question. Sort of a question.
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  Yeah, this is about about November 2nd on feeding of the
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  5000 Walking in the Water. I just wanted to start by saying
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  how much I appreciate you both. You're truly incredible and
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  exceptional and your ministry, I promise we didn't write this in
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  to ourselves. Wow, it's starting to sound like
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  maybe Alex did we could go hunt this down and confirm.
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  All right, so a very kind word. I really value the way you weave
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  together the Old Testament and other references.
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  That was specifically that week was like.
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  Extra. Cool little intertwining of the
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  old Jesus. Wins, by the way.
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  Yeah, Jesus says. I'm not even playing that game.
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  I don't do the comparison game. I think that locked in my brain
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  pretty powerfully because the big idea again, in my own words,
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  this is a great test for me to like, can I remember a sermon?
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  And it's like so heartwarming when a sermon gets remembered by
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  a preacher because most preachers don't even remember
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  their own sermons a week later. But it's it was like something
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  like or John isn't comparing Jesus to Moses.
• 3:56
  He's comparing. He's saying I am the one who
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  does the thing for most. Yeah, I think I actually how I
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  phrased it in this. Way better phrase than that.
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  But it's the yeah, Jesus isn't doing what Moses did.
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  He's doing what God did for Moses.
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  Yes, that's a great line. Yeah, the principle of a behind
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  it was shout. Out to my wife who helped me.
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  I had two options and she was the one that nudged me in that
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  direction so. There you go.
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  So the real winner here is Laura, Yeah.
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  The real winner is Laura. Yeah, OK.
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  Make sure she listens to this one episode so she gets her
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  shout out all right. Anyway, I also love how you
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  bring in cultural backgrounds such as your connection with
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  England and Canada, and historical context like the
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  remember of the D-Day and how times have changed since then.
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  That was from another I actually.
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  Wondered from this whether this person thinks you're Canadian?
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  Yeah. Do I have a connection with
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  Canada? My connection with Canada is I
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  used to drive through it a lot on the way back from New York.
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  I used to love to wind my wife up by every time we crossed the
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  border I'd go. Smells like freedom and she did
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  not care for it. Wow, that's funny.
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  But but yeah, that's my only connection so.
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  There you go. All right, so then the diagram
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  on Kairos from the last week was especially helpful.
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  Yeah. I was wondering if you might
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  speak a bit more about that. So I actually nearly, I, I'd
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  actually plan to use that again this week because it really fits
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  in well with what we were talking about this week.
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  So I kind of plan to set it up and then go into more detail and
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  then in 25 minutes to cover 45 verses.
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  Anyway, there was no time. Yeah, yeah.
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  Yep. So have either of you had an
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  experience or encounters where you felt Jesus presence
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  strongly? Those deep life changing moments
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  of conversation or renewal? And if also, if possible, could
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  you also mention which section of the Bible we'll be focusing
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  on in the coming week? I understand the next topic.
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  Ah, so we're already a week late to answer.
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  This question. Appropriately, I understand the
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  next topic is baptism and we'll be wondering to see part of that
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  on YouTube if that's available. Yes, hopefully you got to see
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  baptisms on. It was such a fun baptism.
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  By the way, this question is just the gift that keeps on
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  giving me like so many springboards.
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  I know you're doing so much already.
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  I I completely understand if it isn't possible.
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  I just wanted to see to share how much your work means to
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  those of us who live thousands of miles away.
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  So this is someone out of state who checks in on the podcast and
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  Sunday morning services. So whoever you are, welcome here
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  and thank you for your kind words.
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  And the actual question I'm sensing in here is those
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  encounter moments, like stories that you have, I have about
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  really deeply encountering God's presence.
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  So, so the Kairos, the circle is really interesting because it
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  you know, Kairos is one of the Greek words for time, right?
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  I think correct I. Think so.
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  Yeah, yeah. So, so it, it, it, what it does
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  is it presents like a linear view of time.
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  So, you know, picture your Back to the Future lessons in the 80s
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  and 90s. It's like time is like runs on a
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  line and and this pictures like moments where something happens
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  where you hit the presence of God, you encounter it whatever
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  language you want to use and it sends you into a loop where
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  things might change. So actually the first half of
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  the circle is to do with repentance.
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  We're talking time travel here. Maybe, I don't know.
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  Yeah, first up, what, what time change?
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  Maybe like in terms of like you come out of the circle
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  different. So actually what it recognizes
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  is actually it's possible to encounter God's presence and
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  miss it just can continue on as you were before.
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  But actually, if you like, actually all the people that
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  we're talking about that don't receive Jesus teaching are
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  encountering God and missing him.
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  You know, Pharisees, John has this term, the Jews that he
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  usually turn uses for people that have not received Jesus,
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  you know, which seems a bit foreign to us, but it's just
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  he's kind of handy way for describing a group of people
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  that yeah, even though that wasn't every Jewish person.
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  So it hits this like the you land in this moment and it sends
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  you out of normal time, almost holds time in place.
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  And you're given this opportunity to go through a
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  cycle of repentance on the 1/2, like noticing how God has shown
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  up, discussing it like, and then coming back to the other half,
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  like embracing that. So you go from repentance into
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  renewal, change all those things.
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  And then you come back around the circle back into linear time
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  and you come out transformed. So that's kind of the the idea
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  that maps out what it is to experience God's presence, to be
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  transformed because of it. Yeah, that's that's powerful.
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  So yeah, which I had, we could get into all sorts of nerdy
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  questions about time and the sovereignty of.
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  God the the person that came up with a chorus circle would say
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  that happens potentially thousands of times in your life
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  as a follower of Jesus. It's not a one time forever
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  thing. It's a continual encountering of
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  God's presence and changing into the image of Jesus.
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  Yeah, which as we know, takes a long time for some of us at
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  least. Oh man, it's so annoying.
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  Is that? Very annoying.
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  Yeah, human transformation most of the time, on occasion there's
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  like some categorical leaps forward, but most of the time is
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  a slow, arduous process that is much slower than we would like.
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  You know what was an actually interesting like not to jump us
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  too far ahead. I found baptism really
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  transformative. Really.
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  I know other people say that they don't, but I found it to
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  actually like, I felt like I came out of baptism different,
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  like I would say when. Were you baptized?
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  18. OK.
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  So I'd like wandered away from Jesus in my teenage, early
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  teenage years. I'd, you know, had a group of
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  friends that I would go out with, like, we would drink a
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  lot. We would, you know, go crazy a
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  lot, do stupid things a lot. And I had this like gradual move
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  back to Jesus because I started going to a Bible study with my
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  cousins. And that was just where I really
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  would say I'm, it started to experience Jesus for myself.
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  I'd prayed prayers as a kid and started following Jesus.
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  And I, I don't actually feel attention with all of that.
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  I don't worry about whether I was saved and then like, you
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  know, came back or whether I never was or I, I just tend to
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  leave it as it is. That was the story.
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  But I started following Jesus again at 18 for myself.
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  And after baptism I noticed that I had a greater power over like
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  over sin and temptation. I just felt like a new person.
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  So it was really interesting experience for me, which may be
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  why I love it so much. Like when I get so excited about
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  baptisms, I'm like. Yeah.
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  It's a big deal. And I was Baptist, pretty young,
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  and I think it was a genuine understanding of it, but it was
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  also prior to most of my stupid Yeah, I.
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  Do think that's a real challenge because, yeah, my kids got
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  baptized more at the age you did.
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  And so did Laura. She got baptized at six, I
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  think. I think Gigi and Elena got
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  baptized at. What were they?
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  Maybe. Maybe they were 8 and 11 or
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  something, or 7 and 10. Yeah.
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  So I yeah, I think that's absolutely fine.
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  And they were very certain about it.
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  We nudged him off a couple of times and said, hey, you know,
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  why don't you wait till next time?
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  Why don't you? But especially like with Gigi, I
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  think it just kept coming back. You know, I really want to get
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  baptized. And so you can't say no to that.
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  I don't think that's healthy to be like, hey, wait till your
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  whenever. I mean Philippian Jailer gets
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  baptized and his whole family gets baptized.
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  Yeah, right away. But at the same time, you do
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  hear from people over and over again.
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  I got baptized so young I don't feel like I appreciated it.
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  Yeah, and we get a lot of folks here at South who likes who get
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  baptized again. And I guess in our theological
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  framework, because baptism isn't a salvation moment, instead it's
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  a declaration. It's an acknowledgement of our
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  commitment and faith to Christ. It's that's the tradition sort
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  of that S lives in. That's not a huge deal now.
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  OK, Gosh, there's so many theological rabbit trails we
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  could go down so. A couple.
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  A couple other things real quick before we dive into this because
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  we actually haven't answered the question fully yet anyway, but
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  there's a couple other questions.
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  I'm at one of them that came in. I think we can we can jump over
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  because it's going to be wrapped into another future question,
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  but this is the other topic that we'll cover.
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  People, people often feel discouraged about the quality of
• 14:06
  their faith or their mistakes from the sermon.
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  Is there hope you can share about continuing to follow Jesus
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  despite these struggles? Is there anything beautiful or
• 14:19
  praiseworthy and simply sticking with him?
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  So that'll be another topic we can address.
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  But so those are the 2 main questions we can address.
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  And we have to finish a little early because I have some drive
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  time. You got some drive time.
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  This week has been wonky so to to get this episode in well,
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  here we are We're going to dive in to to the previous question.
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  I think the other piece is OK, we talked about this this
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  timeline and chiros circle stuff, but they specifically
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  asked for stories from you and I about moments where we felt
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  palpable presence of God and saw transformation.
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  That's a good one. Any any stories you can tell?
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  Oh. Man, I, I mean for me, I think,
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  and, and I guess for you as well, it's probably like more
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  than I can recall without some tears in these moments.
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  Like I, I have a, so when I, when I started following Jesus
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  again, about 18I, I found it really hard.
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  Like I'd start, I started reading the Bible a lot, getting
• 15:25
  really involved in my local church.
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  Like I was volunteering, you know, 20 hours a week.
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  And then they told me, well, no, we can't volunteer that much.
• 15:34
  You need to be on staff. So they started paying me and,
• 15:40
  and so one that was weird because I was probably too young
• 15:42
  to be on a church staff. Like there's just too many
• 15:45
  quirks to a church staff that is an 18 year old.
• 15:48
  He just like you take those things a bit too seriously.
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  Like, I remember being in an evening service and a youth
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  service and the two pastors preached the same message and
• 15:59
  being like, God told you guys the same things to preach.
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  And then I was like, as I was older, I'm like, oh, no, one of
• 16:07
  them just thought that's a great sermon.
• 16:09
  So they just copied it for, for the other service.
• 16:12
  And we were so similar. They were like exactly the same
• 16:15
  passages and everything. I'm like, you just work together
• 16:17
  on this one. But like those things actually
• 16:21
  were at 1819. I was a little bit like, wait,
• 16:24
  is that right? Like I thought you guys just
• 16:26
  heard from God directly and said exactly what I told you to say.
• 16:30
  Yeah. And and then, you know, people
• 16:33
  just aren't always what they look like on stage, especially
• 16:37
  in the Pentecostal culture that I grew up with.
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  So I really struggle with lots of those things.
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  But I also struggled with the fact that, you know, I was
• 16:44
  supposed to be a follower of Jesus and I'd done all these
• 16:46
  things that now I looked back and said, like, what were you
• 16:49
  doing? And so I actually, it really was
• 16:53
  a struggle for me to believe God could forgive me again.
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  Like I was like, I'm following him and I'm, you know, doing
• 17:01
  like my best, but I actually, like have a lot of doubts about
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  whether God really still loves me.
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  And I was in a church service, youth service or young adult
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  service. And the pastor, Scottish guy
• 17:16
  called Jay just started speaking things over people from the
• 17:23
  front. He just started saying things
• 17:25
  like some of you are asking this and this is what God says.
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  Some of you are asking this, this is what God says and I just
• 17:33
  kept listening and listening. I was just intrigued and he just
• 17:36
  said, some of you are asking how can you ever forgive me again?
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  He says and God says 70 * 7 will I forgive you?
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  And I just remember it was like this wave of love hit me.
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  I remember the tears falling so fast from my eyes, but it
• 17:54
  literally just felt like it was like raining on the floor.
• 17:57
  There was just like a flood of just all of this pressure and an
• 18:02
  amped up sense of like worry and concern and anxiety just got
• 18:08
  washed away in that moment. I remember actually I was sat
• 18:11
  with some friends and this like that.
• 18:13
  One of the girls sat next to me. She just turns around and hands
• 18:15
  me these tissues and you're almost like a little
• 18:18
  self-conscious in because you got like you, you don't realize
• 18:22
  like the people are watching you.
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  And it was just, it was just incredible as a moment.
• 18:28
  And, and, and, and so many of those in different moments have
• 18:31
  a distinct memory of sitting on a, a beach in Hasagora.
• 18:35
  I was out there with some friends surfing and I'd just
• 18:38
  gone for like a sunset walk. And I just remember having this
• 18:41
  sense again of like, God, I feel like you must be pretty
• 18:44
  disappointed with me. Yeah, I can take it takes me a
• 18:47
  long time to learn lessons, a long time to surrender things.
• 18:51
  And and I remember just sitting in the beach and it was the
• 18:53
  voice of God that just somewhere deep in my heart just said,
• 18:57
  like, how can you think I'm disappointed with you?
• 19:00
  I love you. And and again, just a lifting up
• 19:04
  of a So those are often what it's been for me.
• 19:06
  Yeah. There's been times where God has
• 19:08
  told me to do certain things and that's led to more change in
• 19:12
  surroundings or relationships. But the times I remember the
• 19:16
  most of the just that, that very sweet, calm, gentle, peaceful
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  voice deep inside that seems almost like it's like a part of
• 19:29
  you but not. And the life that comes from
• 19:32
  that, the release, the freedom. Yeah, Yeah.
• 19:36
  I think for me, there's been a few of those and they're very
• 19:41
  similar moments. I think I already told the story
• 19:43
  on this on a past episode about my time at sabbatical and I sat
• 19:49
  down with my journal and I said, and you know, I'd had, I had.
• 19:54
  This was probably the most emotional one for me, partially
• 19:57
  because I think prior to this season, for various reasons
• 20:01
  which we don't have time to go into, I was pretty emotionally
• 20:04
  flat lined. And so some of my emotional
• 20:08
  world had been unlocked for through some counseling and
• 20:14
  stuff prior to this experience. And so I'm sitting in this
• 20:19
  little room at Sacred Heart Retreat Center at the desk, and
• 20:24
  I'm journaling. And I asked the question like,
• 20:27
  OK, like, you know, I've been a pastor for a while at this point
• 20:31
  and I'm like, I'm asking the question, why do I not believe
• 20:35
  that you love me? So in, in a lot of ways, like
• 20:38
  things that I've challenged other people, like, you know,
• 20:41
  you just got to believe that he loves you.
• 20:43
  This is like one of the most important things a pastor can
• 20:46
  ever do for someone is to convince them that the love of
• 20:50
  God is upon them, because it's probably the most transformative
• 20:53
  thing in any human being's life is to believe that the living
• 20:56
  God sees them, forgives them and loves them.
• 21:01
  It's no surprise to me that your some of your most profound
• 21:05
  encounters with the presence of God were moments where he was
• 21:08
  speaking bad truth to you. Anyway, so I'm asking the
• 21:11
  question and I concluded I and I was like, no, no, I actually do
• 21:16
  actually, actually do. So then what's the deal?
• 21:19
  I'm like still thinking very much thinking through this
• 21:22
  thing. And then I typed this line.
• 21:24
  I I probably could pull it up in my journal.
• 21:28
  I do believe I just think you're wrong.
• 21:32
  That's. When it burst like the
• 21:35
  floodgates open and I think I cried for six hours.
• 21:38
  I love it. And I never ever cried like that
• 21:41
  in my entire life. And then so like that wasn't
• 21:44
  really him speaking yet, but so I, I cried myself to sleep, woke
• 21:50
  up in the middle of the night, continued to weep, and then woke
• 21:54
  up the next morning and I went back to my journal and I sat
• 21:57
  down. I'm like, where do I go from
• 21:58
  here? Because I just think that God's
• 22:00
  a fool. And I just remember, I don't
• 22:04
  typically feel like I hear words.
• 22:07
  It's usually a facial expression or an image of, of God in
• 22:13
  counting me with more like body posture and facial expression.
• 22:17
  And I kind of got this impression that God was looking
• 22:20
  at me like, deal with it. My love is there and it's not
• 22:26
  going anywhere. And you can disagree with me,
• 22:29
  you can call me a fool, but you're going to have to deal
• 22:32
  with it. It is there.
• 22:34
  And I took me another day of processing with that where I
• 22:39
  kind of just resigned to the fact that even if I disagreed
• 22:44
  with his love and thought he was a fool, it wasn't going
• 22:48
  anywhere. And then I was like, OK, yeah, I
• 22:52
  guess this is the new future that I just have to deal with
• 22:55
  the fact that God loves me even though I think he's unwise for
• 22:58
  doing so. Yeah, I, I, I think I would say
• 23:04
  similar to that story, I have had to repeatedly repent for
• 23:09
  believing my feelings about how God feels more accurate than
• 23:17
  what God actually says. Yeah.
• 23:19
  Like, you know, I just don't feel that you feel like that
• 23:22
  right now. And actually that conversation
• 23:25
  has been. So you think that that how you
• 23:27
  feel about it is more accurate than than what I've said and
• 23:31
  told you. You know, and I think lots of us
• 23:36
  would say as pastors regularly, we are better at counseling
• 23:40
  other people than we are about putting the things that we count
• 23:45
  people to do into practice ourselves.
• 23:47
  Yeah. So if someone comes along and
• 23:49
  says, I've done this and this and this and yeah, I just feel
• 23:51
  like God is with me. You're like, God still loves
• 23:54
  you. This reason, this reason, this
• 23:56
  reason, this reason. And still, as pastors, you can
• 23:58
  be like. Yeah, I don't believe.
• 24:00
  God probably doesn't. Yeah.
• 24:02
  And this is actually so like I'm in this class on mentoring right
• 24:04
  now and one of the things they talk about is like doing some
• 24:08
  self evaluation, all this sort of stuff.
• 24:09
  And the language that I think that's been helpful in that in
• 24:13
  this class has been some language that might be helpful
• 24:18
  for you. And some of this, whoever's
• 24:20
  listening is we have our theology and then we have our
• 24:24
  functional theology. So like we can make correct
• 24:29
  mental ascents to truths about God or about theology and or
• 24:34
  about the Bible. Like the Bible says, God loves
• 24:36
  me, but I live my life as if he doesn't.
• 24:42
  Then our theology. There's a discrepancy between
• 24:45
  our stated theology in our functional theology.
• 24:49
  And so part of seeking transformation, part of
• 24:53
  formation, is putting some practices in the middle of those
• 24:58
  two spaces to acknowledge when our behavior and our life and
• 25:04
  our emotions don't align with our theology, and then to do
• 25:09
  business with God and wrestle with him until he can move us
• 25:13
  from mental theology to functional theology.
• 25:16
  This is actually one of the things that has been a
• 25:18
  conversation in church for 20 odd years now.
• 25:23
  Actually, a lot of Christians are functionally atheists.
• 25:27
  Yeah. They they have a mental belief
• 25:30
  in God, but they go about their lives as though God doesn't
• 25:34
  exist. Yeah, or at least doesn't exist
• 25:37
  in the way that he is described. Yeah, so you'd ask him who's
• 25:41
  Jesus? They're like the son of Son of
• 25:43
  God. How do you get saved?
• 25:46
  You know you believe in the cross and the TC.
• 25:48
  And then you'd say, like, you're short of money this month, what
• 25:51
  do you do? And they're like, well.
• 25:53
  Yeah, we'll work harder. Borrow some of someone I'm going
• 25:56
  to have to like, work harder. Yeah, do some overtime like, you
• 25:58
  know, they, they, they live. We live.
• 26:01
  I'm not going to say they, we. And again, this is a northern
• 26:05
  European American struggle. Primarily we live as though God
• 26:12
  isn't really able to do anything or willing to do anything.
• 26:16
  So yeah, that that that's not a sadly for us, is not an uncommon
• 26:20
  thing in the world that we're presented.
• 26:23
  Yeah, all the world that we occupy.
• 26:25
  OK, so I'd love for you to tell at least one story of beyond
• 26:31
  just him speaking love into your life, where he maybe gave you
• 26:36
  some guidance and you're like, OK, well, that's a little
• 26:40
  strange, but I'm going to like venture out into like doing this
• 26:45
  thing for a person or whatever it may be.
• 26:48
  And and then later it, you look back on it, you're like, that
• 26:51
  was definitely the the voice. Of God.
• 26:53
  Yeah. Is there any moment like?
• 26:54
  That yeah. So I yeah, and again, lots like
• 26:59
  early on, they were probably a little bit more like, I would
• 27:02
  like go giving out gospel tracts because again, I'd be like God
• 27:07
  give me the vision of the right person to go give it do and that
• 27:10
  I never saw any fruit from. But but actually like later on,
• 27:15
  it was just an awareness that like, oh, this is the person
• 27:20
  that you need to ask to step into this role.
• 27:22
  This is the, this is like the conversation, the call this
• 27:25
  person, you know, that happened with an assistant I needed to
• 27:29
  hire in Michigan. I just, I called an old friend
• 27:34
  who now was in the corporate world and I just called and
• 27:38
  said, hey, Bree, would you mind stepping back in to just help
• 27:43
  for a couple of months? You know, just, that's just
• 27:45
  where I felt like I was supposed to call her and just ask her
• 27:48
  that. So I did it, and I put down the
• 27:51
  phone. And as she tells the story,
• 27:52
  picking up from there, she hung up the phone after talking.
• 27:55
  She and her husband were out for dinner.
• 27:56
  And she just burst into tears. She was like, Matt, God's
• 28:00
  calling me back into youth ministry.
• 28:03
  Like, again, it was just this sense of like, you know, and
• 28:05
  that happened all the time with different conversations.
• 28:08
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 28:08
  Just that little prompting to, oh, you need to ask this person
• 28:12
  in. And it just turns out that
• 28:13
  they've been having the same conversation with God back
• 28:17
  behind the scenes. Yeah.
• 28:20
  And those are always like, just beautiful, a beautiful sense
• 28:24
  that you're, you're on the right track with things.
• 28:28
  I mean, like a good example today is Andrea, our executive
• 28:33
  pastor. Yeah.
• 28:35
  I, I had dreamed up a new staff plan, like a year, you know,
• 28:42
  into being here, 2021, something like that.
• 28:45
  Yeah. And I'd circled this role that
• 28:47
  didn't exist with Steve, our old executive pastor, and he just
• 28:54
  said, do you know anyone at the South that could do this role?
• 28:57
  And I'd only met Andrea once, but I just said Andrea Jones
• 29:01
  would be a great fit. I just knew.
• 29:03
  Like I know how I knew. She was not looking for work.
• 29:07
  She was fine. She said she'll never leave Mop.
• 29:10
  So yeah. And and and so I was on elders
• 29:18
  meeting like maybe a month or two after that and Jimmy
• 29:22
  Andrea's husband came in and said, you know, hey, I'm here,
• 29:26
  it's our anniversary. And we all said, what are you
• 29:27
  doing here? And when you go home, you know,
• 29:29
  go out on a date or something. He said, OK, thanks very much,
• 29:32
  guys. I will, by the way, could you
• 29:34
  pray for Andrea? She's praying about taking this
• 29:38
  new job and leaving mobs. And so while we were in the
• 29:43
  elders meeting, I just messaged her and said, hey, can you can
• 29:48
  we get together and talk about starting a MOPS group at South
• 29:50
  with no intention of actually that being the main.
• 29:55
  Wow, so you lied to her? I also wanted a MOPS group at
• 30:00
  South. Yeah, we have one now.
• 30:02
  Yeah. We have one.
• 30:02
  Yeah, but but yeah, it was it was AI mean that that was a
• 30:06
  weird starting point. Like, yeah, two years before it
• 30:09
  happened, a year and a half before it happened.
• 30:11
  Why? I just felt like, yeah, that's
• 30:12
  the person with no clue about how it would actually take
• 30:16
  place. Yeah, so I have a lot of little
• 30:19
  stories like that too. I'll tell a story.
• 30:23
  I don't know if I've ever told this story at South, but it it
• 30:28
  came back to memory last week for some reason or another, but
• 30:33
  one that's a little bit more like out there where I was like
• 30:36
  I felt like the instruction I received was very
• 30:39
  counterintuitive. I told one about painting the
• 30:42
  house in a sermon recently. No, you actually told it here on
• 30:47
  the podcast. Yeah, I told it both places.
• 30:49
  Yeah, But this one's similar where it was like, is that
• 30:54
  really him? But it was actually in a moment
• 30:58
  of crisis. So Allison was pregnant with our
• 31:00
  first child. This was back when I was just
• 31:04
  finished, just graduated Bible college, but was still working
• 31:08
  full time. I was working overnight security
• 31:10
  shifts on campus as a shift supervisor, as a patrol officer,
• 31:14
  and my wife's pregnant. She's probably 8 months or seven
• 31:20
  months pregnant. So something like that.
• 31:24
  No, it was actually it must have been earlier on because it was,
• 31:27
  it was that season where a a a lot of miscarriages.
• 31:32
  OK. Yeah.
• 31:33
  So like 12 weeks? So it was actually early on and
• 31:38
  it was in that season where you're still a little bit
• 31:40
  nervous. Is this gonna stick?
• 31:42
  Is this gonna is there's is the little one gonna survive all
• 31:45
  those sorts of things that that's a very fearful stage of
• 31:47
  pregnancy. And I remember it was like 2:00
• 31:51
  AM and we lived in a an apartment building about two
• 31:56
  blocks off campus. It was like 2:00 AM And she
• 31:59
  texted me and said I'm bleeding, which is sometimes a sign of
• 32:05
  miscarriage. And I just, I did not know what
• 32:12
  to do. I didn't know what to say.
• 32:14
  But she, she's obviously emotional.
• 32:16
  I'm emotional. And so I tell my second in
• 32:19
  command, like I'm going home to check on my wife.
• 32:23
  Just be there for for a second. So drove to the to the apartment
• 32:28
  and the whole way over, I'm just crying out to God.
• 32:31
  Would you please help me know what to do because no words felt
• 32:37
  sufficient to comfort. Not like I was like, I am at a
• 32:42
  loss. I'm an incapable husband in this
• 32:45
  moment to actually bring meaningful comfort to my wife.
• 32:49
  And I was like, I need you. If you were here, what would you
• 32:52
  do? Like help me be you for her
• 32:55
  right now. And I came in the apartment, she
• 33:02
  was in bed just sobbing and uncontrollably like I and I'd
• 33:08
  seen her this cry this way one other time and she passed out.
• 33:12
  She was crying so hard. And I climbed into bed and
• 33:18
  wrapped her up. And then I felt like the Lord
• 33:22
  said, sing, he's got the whole world in his hands.
• 33:26
  I love it. And I was like to my grown adult
• 33:32
  wife sing a little kids song and but I was sort of I had enough
• 33:39
  confidence that it was so not me thinking this thought and so
• 33:45
  counterintuitive. It felt like him and I I felt
• 33:49
  like I was taking a little bit of a like this could be
• 33:52
  insulting. This could be so weird and so
• 33:55
  confusing in a moment of crisis. Like, this is not a time we
• 33:58
  experiment, but I did. So I just started to sing
• 34:02
  softly. He's got the whole world in his
• 34:03
  hands. And she, she just stopped crying
• 34:08
  and fell asleep almost instantly.
• 34:12
  You know, he's got the little bitty babies in his hands.
• 34:14
  And I was like, OK, that's it. I held it for another 5 minutes.
• 34:20
  I got up and went back to work. And obviously, Reese survived.
• 34:27
  Obviously. But it was to this day, I'm
• 34:32
  like, there's no way that was my idea.
• 34:35
  Like there's no. Strange idea.
• 34:37
  Very strange idea to sing he's got the whole world of his hands
• 34:39
  to your adult wife in a moment like that.
• 34:42
  But it was just, I felt like it was him.
• 34:44
  So I, I, yeah, I know that's, that's such a beautiful story.
• 34:47
  I, I, I think like as we get like because we're touching on
• 34:51
  some of what you talked about a couple of weeks ago, which is
• 34:53
  really like some of what listening to God feels like or
• 34:58
  how to, And I think listening to gardener being always has some
• 35:06
  risk to it. Actually, if you're not willing
• 35:09
  to be wrong, you actually may never never actually get to a
• 35:15
  point where where, where it works.
• 35:20
  No works where where you feel comfortable doing it.
• 35:24
  Like, I mean, eventually the risk is that it's wrong.
• 35:27
  We had a pastor at the church I grew up in who was trying to
• 35:31
  step into this as a gifting. And he actually told the story
• 35:35
  of the first time he kind of stepped out and did what God
• 35:39
  said. And he said, you know, who's
• 35:40
  praying for people after the service?
• 35:41
  And there was this lady there and he said, I just feel like
• 35:45
  God, you know, says like you have two sons.
• 35:48
  She's like, no, I've never been able to have kids.
• 35:53
  It's like, yeah, yeah, they're they're like spiritual sons.
• 35:58
  And she's like, that doesn't sound like me at all.
• 36:01
  Like, I don't really. And and I mean, it's just this
• 36:04
  travesty of multiple things wrong.
• 36:07
  But he kind of, you know, apologized and moved on and,
• 36:10
  and, and that, you know, is. Is she never keep?
• 36:12
  Up, Yeah, yeah. And that's, that's what risk
• 36:15
  looks like in some ways. And so how you take that and
• 36:20
  judge like what damage you might be able to do versus who you can
• 36:22
  do that with safely is always like a, a, a challenger thing.
• 36:28
  The lead pastor that I worked with there used to have that
• 36:31
  gift to an extraordinary to a level that I've never seen
• 36:35
  anywhere else. And God used him to do some
• 36:41
  incredible things. I've, I've often said, I was
• 36:44
  actually saying to Dan Elliott, our pastor, our executive, our
• 36:49
  one of our care pass, our care, our care pastor, my goodness,
• 36:52
  what's wrong with me? And I, I was saying this guy to
• 36:56
  me was so such an incredible figure.
• 37:01
  Like there's probably four or five things that he did that I
• 37:05
  would say, I would love to have those giftings of that way of
• 37:09
  being in the world. And probably just as many that
• 37:11
  I'd say I'd never want those things a way of being in the
• 37:15
  world. One was he's actually actually,
• 37:17
  he's care for people that were disabled or special needs.
• 37:20
  He just had a really special close relationship with people
• 37:24
  like that. But the other one was this gift
• 37:26
  of like of knowledge. And he told a story where he was
• 37:33
  at a very affluent Pentecostal church in London praying for
• 37:37
  people. And as he was praying, he was
• 37:39
  kind of looking for people that he was going to pray for down
• 37:42
  further down the line. And he said God told him to say
• 37:46
  to this one woman, you don't need to sell your body anymore.
• 37:50
  And this church is full of like some of the richest people in
• 37:52
  London, that royalty go and attend this church.
• 37:55
  Like it's like that high up there.
• 37:57
  And I have no idea who this woman is.
• 37:59
  She could be a really well known actress.
• 38:01
  She could be a member of the aristocracy, anything.
• 38:05
  And but he said I'd learned over those years what the voice of
• 38:09
  God sounded like, felt like to me.
• 38:12
  And I'd learned to do whatever he told me to do.
• 38:14
  Yeah. And so he said when I prayed for
• 38:17
  her, I said, God says you don't need to sell your body anymore.
• 38:21
  And it turned out she was working as a high class escort,
• 38:24
  had been doing that for, you know, however many years.
• 38:27
  Looked the part, dressed the part, looked like she belonged
• 38:30
  in that community but actually was like, really broken and
• 38:34
  hurting. And God used that moment to set
• 38:37
  her completely free. She got baptized.
• 38:39
  She got. Yeah.
• 38:40
  But but again, like to get to that point of listening to God
• 38:45
  takes a lot of obedience, I think, and a lot of time spent
• 38:49
  listening, but we're not always willing to give.
• 38:53
  Yeah. Now a posture, so a phrase I've
• 38:57
  used when I've taught on like listening to God's voice is like
• 39:01
  a posture of obedience is a prerequisite to hearing God's
• 39:04
  voice. So.
• 39:06
  So there's a phrase I would often tell people to pray as an
• 39:10
  experiment that you have to obviously mean.
• 39:13
  But, and it's a prayer that I pray sometimes when I'm doing
• 39:16
  sort of listening prayer, as I say, Lord, what you say, I
• 39:19
  intend to obey. That's a great.
• 39:22
  One, and it's just memorable to me.
• 39:24
  And so like I'll pray a prayer and I'll ask for some wisdom and
• 39:27
  then I say, Lord, what you say, I intend to obey.
• 39:30
  Now there's times where I pause and actually think about paying
• 39:34
  that prayer because sometimes he says some wacky things and some
• 39:38
  scary things. But that is a prerequisite to
• 39:41
  hearing God's voice because God doesn't tend to try and
• 39:46
  accomplish like more categorical Kingdom activity with people who
• 39:51
  have no intention of participating in Kingdom
• 39:53
  activity. And so he he seeks those who are
• 39:58
  worshipping him, spirit and spirit and truth.
• 40:00
  He seeks those who are like genuinely trying to engage his
• 40:03
  heart for the world, not their own heart.
• 40:07
  Like so that posture is just like literally my will not be
• 40:11
  done. Your will be done what you say
• 40:13
  and tend to obey. It's very similar to Mary in
• 40:17
  John 2. Whatever he tells you to do, do
• 40:20
  it. I mean it.
• 40:22
  Yeah. So.
• 40:22
  So those things come with some cost, come with some bravery at
• 40:26
  times, some trust that it's OK to make mistakes.
• 40:30
  I mean, that it was why safe communities where you can, you
• 40:34
  know, navigate those conversations with people, we
• 40:37
  could talk about that forever. But yes, yeah, that those are
• 40:41
  beautiful Kingdom moments. All right.
• 40:43
  So in our last five minutes before after Jet, let me ask
• 40:50
  this question because I think it relates to some of what we're
• 40:52
  talking about, maybe more to some of the early stories we
• 40:55
  already shared. People often feel discouraged
• 40:57
  about their quality of their own faith or their mistakes from the
• 41:03
  sermon. Is there hope you can share
• 41:04
  about continuing to follow Jesus despite these struggles?
• 41:08
  And is there anything beautiful or praiseworthy and simply
• 41:13
  sticking with him? Like, so how do how do we bring
• 41:17
  comfort to someone who's just like, deeply disappointed, their
• 41:20
  own faith, their own journey? And should they just plow
• 41:23
  through? Yeah, like like any, any
• 41:26
  pastoral wisdom for a person in that space.
• 41:28
  Yeah, welcome to ministry. Yeah, yeah.
• 41:32
  I I think that that could be Peter, right?
• 41:39
  Yeah. I mean, Peter is not in a moment
• 41:41
  of like sky high ministry. He's just seen Jesus feed the
• 41:51
  5000 and, at least according to Mark's account, has woefully
• 41:55
  missed the point of it. He's then been out on the storm
• 41:58
  and had no trust that Jesus is going to keep him.
• 42:03
  Like Jesus actually says to him, didn't you get the message of
• 42:06
  the the feeding of the 5000? And they're like, wait, one
• 42:09
  message like that? I mean that, yeah, these guys
• 42:12
  are not guys that are excelling as a set, as apprentices of
• 42:15
  Jesus. These these are not a listers.
• 42:17
  No, they're not VIPs. You know, they they are people
• 42:20
  that one day will with God change the world.
• 42:24
  But right now you don't see any of that in them.
• 42:27
  So that that could be Peter in this moment.
• 42:30
  And and Jesus says to him, do you want to go away?
• 42:33
  And I mean, for all we know, Peter could have moments of
• 42:35
  like, maybe I should like maybe I'm not cut out for this.
• 42:40
  Maybe this like, you know, I can't, I'm not cut for this from
• 42:43
  this cloth. And yeah, he has this constant
• 42:49
  sense of I don't have anywhere else to go.
• 42:53
  I mean, I think that to me, like if it's exactly this situation,
• 42:58
  like it's us that I was talking about wanting to leave, not
• 43:02
  Jesus wanting to get rid of us. Like.
• 43:05
  One of the great qualities of the 12 of the at least the
• 43:08
  eleven of the 12 disciples is they just don't leave.
• 43:12
  They just stick around believing that one day God will bring the
• 43:15
  transformation in them that they want to see and hope to see.
• 43:20
  Yeah. So I had this moment just going
• 43:23
  into college where that sounds very similar to this.
• 43:29
  I was deeply disappointed in some of my own behavior, some of
• 43:33
  my own brokenness, some of my own whatever.
• 43:36
  And I felt like the Christianity that I inherited and that I've
• 43:42
  been taught was inadequate to deal with said issues.
• 43:48
  So the framework that I'm living in isn't accessing these areas
• 43:52
  of brokenness in my life, which caused me to doubt.
• 43:55
  So I remember like one particular night I walked home
• 44:00
  from some event that in a ridiculous like someone offered
• 44:04
  me to, to drive me and I was like, no, I need some time.
• 44:07
  And so I walked home like 3 miles by myself at night at like
• 44:11
  10:00 PM through like nowhere. And I'm just wrestling with God.
• 44:16
  I'm like, I don't even believe if I'm not sure if I believe you
• 44:19
  anymore. And I remember deciding almost
• 44:22
  when I got home, all right, I'm done.
• 44:25
  I'm done with this thing. Christianity is not real.
• 44:29
  I, I will wake up tomorrow and I'm, I'm done.
• 44:34
  I'm out. And then I woke up the next day
• 44:37
  and I looked over at my Bible and I almost felt, felt like the
• 44:42
  Lord saying you can't, can you? Why?
• 44:47
  Because your faith is not you. I transformed you from the
• 44:52
  inside out and I put my spirit in you and you can't go even if
• 44:57
  you tried. And so I picked up my Bible and
• 45:00
  I spent time with Jesus and it was like it was actually this
• 45:03
  thing that that was like, oh, it was a pretty significant moment
• 45:07
  for me that like anchored my faith deeper because because his
• 45:14
  his, it was his righteousness on me, not might be performance as
• 45:18
  a Christian. And the Spirit of God was
• 45:20
  faithful in that moment to say to keep me in the love of God
• 45:23
  like Jude talks about. Yeah.
• 45:25
  Yeah, I think so. I think I want to make sure
• 45:26
  we're talking about these two different things.
• 45:28
  There are times when we have this sense that God must be done
• 45:32
  with us. We're no longer included in the
• 45:35
  beautiful things that God is doing, and we should just give
• 45:38
  up for those reasons. Yeah, there's other times where
• 45:42
  which is what John and, and this is second one is what John 6
• 45:45
  seems to be talking about, where all of the reasons we might have
• 45:50
  begun to follow Jesus outside of him alone get stripped away.
• 45:56
  Yeah, there was some benefit of. Being more affluent of being
• 45:59
  more well known of this. Cool person I like follows Jesus
• 46:03
  so I want to follow him too. My parents.
• 46:05
  Vibes, college vibes, whatever those things are.
• 46:08
  Yeah, all of those things disappear and we are left with
• 46:12
  this possibility. The teaching gets too hard.
• 46:14
  It's the exact yeah, yeah. Like thing in in jhana.
• 46:17
  We're like, oh man. Yeah, yeah, eat me, Yeah, drink
• 46:20
  my blood. And.
• 46:22
  At this moment, we might say, oh, man, should I just give up
• 46:25
  on this thing? And, and some people might get
• 46:28
  to that point saying, yeah, I'm done.
• 46:30
  But for Peter, his answer is there's nowhere else to go.
• 46:33
  Like, I gotta just keep going. And so you, you, I love the,
• 46:37
  the, you know, the word trudge. It comes up in Night's Tale,
• 46:42
  that brilliant movie, to trudge the resolute yet determined
• 46:46
  walk. Walk of a man who has lost
• 46:49
  everything except the desire to simply trudge onwards.
• 46:55
  Like it's just that it's going to keep going and believe that
• 46:58
  one day God might turn up and change.
• 47:01
  Some of these situations change me, but until then, I'll still
• 47:04
  be walking after Jesus. Yeah.
• 47:08
  Well, and I feel like that's a good way to end our episode this
• 47:11
  week. And, yeah, thanks for tuning in
• 47:14
  and send in your questions and, you know, do all the things
• 47:19
  you're supposed to do, like, comment, subscribe.
• 47:25
  Yeah, we're publishing this early.
• 47:27
  All right. Love you all.
• 47:29
  Bye.