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[WW] Words Matter:Half Truths and Other Things Christians Say. Part 1 · The Wesley Word

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Wesley World.
0:16
SPEAKER_01: If you ever spent much time in James, in one of the chapters that talks about the tongue, right?
0:20
SPEAKER_01: How it can be used to build up, and words can be used to edify and to build folks up, but also talks about how it can just be a tiny spark that can lead to a huge blazing fire, right?
0:29
SPEAKER_01: An inferno of no good.
0:31
SPEAKER_01: You really don't need to read James to know that the tongue can be a good thing and also a dangerous thing, right?
0:38
SPEAKER_01: Um I've learned over the years, I've my if you've done a love language quiz, I've shifted around what mine is, and now I'm like a big words of affirmation person.
0:45
SPEAKER_01: Used to could care less about that, but I've noticed that's big, and it's amazing when someone gives me words of affirmation, how like my day is just lifted, right?
0:53
SPEAKER_01: And then I think about most of the conflict I've had in my life, very rarely, as in, I've never been like physically beat down, right?
0:59
SPEAKER_01: But all the drama, all the conflict in my life has come from things that either I have said that I wish I hadn't or that could take back, or something someone else said, either to me or to a loved one, to a near and dear one.
1:11
SPEAKER_01: We're getting at is our words matter, right?
1:14
SPEAKER_01: Our words matter, not just in how we interact with each other, whether we're kind or sweet or nice or rude or whatever it may be, but even our theology, right?
1:21
SPEAKER_01: And the words that we use to express what it is that we believe matter.
1:26
SPEAKER_01: And so I want to spend the next few weeks looking at a series called Words Matter, uh, loosely based off of a book called Half-Trooths, but these things, what are the things that we say that that matter, right?
1:37
SPEAKER_01: And I like the image of the dominoes because we may think we're doing something to be helpful, it's good theology, but if we tip that first domino and let it progress all the way down, sometimes we don't pay attention to what's at the end of the path.
1:49
SPEAKER_01: And words that we may be using to be helpful may actually end up being problematic for someone else.
1:55
SPEAKER_01: And so I just want to spend some time thinking through this over the next few weeks, examining some words, phrases that I know I think I have said all of them, just about all of them, at one point in time in my life.
2:06
SPEAKER_01: I believe them, I think, at different points in my life.
2:09
SPEAKER_01: You if you haven't said them, you've probably heard them, or maybe someone said them to you.
2:13
SPEAKER_01: You may get through this series and you're like, Steve, you are whack, man.
2:17
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't make any sense.
2:18
SPEAKER_01: I believe all that stuff.
2:19
SPEAKER_01: And that's okay too, right?
2:21
SPEAKER_01: If you were here at the beginning of last semester or the beginning of any fall semester, and if you weren't, I'll catch you up.
2:27
SPEAKER_01: We say and proclaim that it is okay to disagree.
2:32
SPEAKER_01: It's okay to not believe everything that your pastor preaches.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: It's okay to not believe everything that your neighbor believes in.
2:39
SPEAKER_01: But we can have conversation in that, and in growing and challenging each other, we can have find where we are.
2:45
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you may disagree, and that's okay.
2:47
SPEAKER_01: And if something really sparks up and you want to talk to me, I would love to grab some coffee and to listen and to hear it.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: But I think it's important, even if you disagree or have held on to these things, right?
2:55
SPEAKER_01: And also know there's no shame as we talk about each of these different phrases each week, right?
2:59
SPEAKER_01: But it's important to at least consider, right?
3:01
SPEAKER_01: Even if you believe and you stick to what's being said here, to at least consider the impact that your words have on others, right?
3:09
SPEAKER_01: And how others may hear them.
3:11
SPEAKER_01: Because sometimes unintentionally or intentionally, our words can hurt others, right?
3:16
SPEAKER_01: Um, or it can lead to assumptions about God that are just simply not true, right?
3:23
SPEAKER_01: And our goal as people of faith, right, when it comes to God, one of our goals is to draw people to God.
3:31
SPEAKER_01: We can't force them to God, but we want to draw them to, but not just in what we do, but in what we say, right?
3:36
SPEAKER_01: What we don't want to do is repel people from God by the ways in which we act and the ways in which we use our words and such.
3:43
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
3:44
SPEAKER_01: Um, so we're going to that our first one, um, sort of a big one.
3:48
SPEAKER_01: I may have talked on this topic here or there before.
3:51
SPEAKER_01: Um, the first one we're going to look at is everything happens for a reason, right?
3:55
SPEAKER_01: You may have been told that, or maybe you said that, that everything happens for a reason.
4:00
SPEAKER_01: Now, I want to do a quick time out.
4:02
SPEAKER_01: If you are in a place where maybe you have recently lost someone or something's going on in your life and you're clinging to that, and like your last little strand of hope is, Steve, don't take this from me.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: I have to believe that everything happens for a reason.
4:15
SPEAKER_01: Tune me out for the next little bit, okay?
4:17
SPEAKER_01: I try to teach out of season, right, or in the off season, so that when you're in the season of grief or doubt or questioning, you can sort of pull back on the things that we talked about.
4:25
SPEAKER_01: But if you're in a place now where you can't get that, what's up?
4:30
SPEAKER_01: Come on in, Ben.
4:31
SPEAKER_01: Everybody made a face.
4:32
SPEAKER_01: I was like, what's going on?
4:33
SPEAKER_01: If you need to just tune me out, tune me out, okay?
4:36
SPEAKER_01: But we're looking at everything happens for a reason.
4:38
SPEAKER_01: And sure, on the on the front end, right?
4:41
SPEAKER_01: Yes, cause and effect, right?
4:42
SPEAKER_01: Uh Steve, I burned my hand.
4:44
SPEAKER_01: Well, maybe you shouldn't touch the hot stove, right?
4:46
SPEAKER_01: Um, that cause and effect thing is not really what we're talking about, right?
4:49
SPEAKER_01: Oh man, I wrecked my car.
4:50
SPEAKER_01: Well, were you texting?
4:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was.
4:52
SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, what'd you expect, right?
4:53
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we do dumb things and we get dumb results, right?
4:56
SPEAKER_01: What we're talking about here is not necessarily the cause and effect, but oftentimes we, especially as a people of faith, use this everything, well, everything must happen for a reason in response to suffering, oftentimes, right?
5:09
SPEAKER_01: Um, there's a tragic loss of a loved one, something happens in our life, and we say, well, everything happens for a reason.
5:16
SPEAKER_01: Or another thing, up, it must, it must be God's will.
5:19
SPEAKER_01: It must be part of God's plan.
5:21
SPEAKER_01: And so we will go out and doing that.
5:23
SPEAKER_01: And on the surface, I really think when we use this and when people have used this in the past, no one does it out of meanness, right?
5:31
SPEAKER_01: They're trying to comfort.
5:32
SPEAKER_01: You don't know what to say in the midst of the loss or in the midst of the of the tension.
5:35
SPEAKER_01: And so you just say, well, it it must be must be God's God's will, must be God's plan, right?
5:40
SPEAKER_01: But we take it to the end.
5:41
SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna talk about where the problems are, and then we're gonna get to like maybe what's a better thing that we could say, okay?
5:45
SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna get to that on there, right?
5:47
SPEAKER_01: But if we take it to the end, right?
5:48
SPEAKER_01: Um Bella was talking about her love for uh Mendoza, the quarterback at Indiana.
5:51
SPEAKER_01: I'll stretch that, not really love, but um, I was watching him the other day, and at the end of his uh winning the semifinal, right, he was talking about how big, small, I mean he's a handsome dude, right?
6:03
SPEAKER_01: Smiling, talking about how God had got him here and God got that, God got them through and all this kind of stuff.
6:07
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, yeah, I'm sure the other team was praying as well, right?
6:10
SPEAKER_01: And so if everything happens according to God's plan, do you think God's up there like cooking the books and be like, nah, I think I want Indiana and Miami in as opposed to the other people, right?
6:18
SPEAKER_01: Like I have a hard time believing that, right?
6:20
SPEAKER_01: Did God cause, as a part of God's plan, for us to have the worst football season we've had a long time, right?
6:26
SPEAKER_01: Seven and six, and then not quite use the portal like we should?
6:28
SPEAKER_01: I don't think so, right?
6:30
SPEAKER_01: God's a portal guy.
6:31
SPEAKER_01: Um or like, you know, if I were to like go to Julie one day and be like, oh, look, I'm sorry, I forgot it was our anniversary, it's your birthday, I'm sorry, but God's plan, sorry, you know, he meant he meant me to forget it, right?
6:44
SPEAKER_01: No, that doesn't make sense, right?
6:46
SPEAKER_01: Or more serious stuff, right?
6:48
SPEAKER_01: Think about what's happening in our world and around our country and to think, did God cause that?
6:52
SPEAKER_01: When I see yet another school shooting, does God really cause that?
6:56
SPEAKER_01: Is that a part of God's will and plan?
6:59
SPEAKER_01: So what do we do?
7:01
SPEAKER_01: What do we do, right?
7:02
SPEAKER_01: And if I'm honest with you, if I could take one phrase out of the Christian vernacular, it would be this phrase.
7:08
SPEAKER_01: Taking out the phrase where we say meaningfully or trying to be helpful, that everything happens for a reason, that everything happens according to God's plan or according to God's will.
7:18
SPEAKER_01: I know we use it to comfort, right?
7:20
SPEAKER_01: And to do that, but the struggle is what do we do with all the bad things that happen?
7:25
SPEAKER_01: It's troubling.
7:26
SPEAKER_01: And I think at the very least, even if you want to hold on to it and use that, and if you say it around me, I'm not gonna like slap you, right?
7:31
SPEAKER_01: It's okay.
7:32
SPEAKER_01: But I think at the very least, we've got to examine it.
7:35
SPEAKER_01: Examine it and look at why it's problematic, and then you can decide for yourself where you stand and how you want to live into that.
7:41
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
7:42
SPEAKER_01: So, real quick, if everything happens for a reason, and when we say that again, we're not doing cause and effect, we're talking about um the sort of in relation to suffering, is it God's plan, is it God's will, that sort of stuff.
7:52
SPEAKER_01: There's three quick problems that we quickly run into that you have to deal with if you're gonna stick by those words and in those theology.
7:58
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
7:59
SPEAKER_01: Again, we're not looking at the first domino where you just say it and like, oh, it's good, give me a hug, okay, we're gonna make it out.
8:04
SPEAKER_01: We're looking at like 20 dominoes down and to see where that theology could end up if you proclaim that, right?
8:09
SPEAKER_01: The first problem is the problem of personal responsibility.
8:13
SPEAKER_01: If it's God's plan, I'm off the hook, right?
8:16
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter what I do, I cannot be held responsible if I hold to the fact that everything happens according to God's will and according to God's plan, because God did it, not me, right?
8:29
SPEAKER_01: I wreck my car, run my car into someone else, sorry, God's plan, right?
8:33
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I treat someone poorly, sorry, God's plan, right?
8:36
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, anything that happens in life eliminates completely the personal responsibility if we believe that everything happens for a reason in that in that case, right?
8:45
SPEAKER_01: And the second thing that I mentioned, second problem, I kind of mentioned it, is that the problem of God's responsibility, right?
8:51
SPEAKER_01: I keep hearing God about being a loving God, a gracious God, a compassionate God, right?
8:58
SPEAKER_01: A forgiving God.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: But if everything happens because God planned it and made it happen, then what do we do with the bad things that happen?
9:08
SPEAKER_01: What do we do not just with the tragedies that occur, that just seem to occur, but like the way people treat each other, right?
9:15
SPEAKER_01: Does God ordain that to happen?
9:16
SPEAKER_01: Does God cause that to happen?
9:19
SPEAKER_01: I think about just last week or week and a half ago, right?
9:22
SPEAKER_01: It's been all over all over the news, right?
9:24
SPEAKER_01: Um, if we were to follow this plan that up must be God's will, I have a hard time getting on that God would be responsible for having an ice agent shoot a woman in the face in Minneapolis.
9:35
SPEAKER_01: But that's where that last domino would follow if you were to proclaim that everything happens for a reason.
9:41
SPEAKER_01: I have a hard time believing that people should be dragged out from their homes or off the street.
9:46
SPEAKER_01: Just last year, many of us woke up without power.
9:49
SPEAKER_01: We thought a little thunderstorm was gonna be rolling through.
9:51
SPEAKER_01: I walked out and my whole trees were going like this.
9:53
SPEAKER_01: Hurricane Helene came through, we lost power, and we're like, oh man, that kind of stinks.
9:57
SPEAKER_01: And then we find out our neighbors, an hour or so up the road, lost everything.
10:02
SPEAKER_01: If you believe that everything happens for a reason and that everything is according to God's plan, did God plan to say, you know, we needed like a straight shot up that mountain?
10:10
SPEAKER_01: Let's just wipe it all out.
10:12
SPEAKER_01: It's troublesome when you get to the 20th and 30th domino down the road, right?
10:18
SPEAKER_01: Um I thought of uh just this past year, I don't think anybody's in here at school.
10:24
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
10:25
SPEAKER_01: Um, Dan Local High School lost a member of their soccer team who was drowned in Lake Hartwell.
10:30
SPEAKER_01: It was, it was tragic.
10:31
SPEAKER_01: And we had they needed a place to meet.
10:33
SPEAKER_01: I knew some folks on the team, and I was like, hey, um, there's no one in town.
10:36
SPEAKER_01: Come use the Wesley Building.
10:38
SPEAKER_01: This is a great place to meet, you know, holy space, quiet space, you've got it to yourself.
10:42
SPEAKER_01: And they came in and um everyone was grieving.
10:45
SPEAKER_01: And um I remember one of the adults that was there, I mean, it just it just cringed me so much.
10:51
SPEAKER_01: Um they're trying to console, but it was like, yeah, well, it was just a part of God's plan, and we're just gonna have to accept it.
10:58
SPEAKER_01: And I wanted to scream from the mountaintops, like, are you kidding me?
11:01
SPEAKER_01: Right, but that again, that was not the time to jump in, right?
11:03
SPEAKER_01: You kind of prayed a little different prayer at the end.
11:06
SPEAKER_01: But that's part of that problem, right?
11:07
SPEAKER_01: When you look at God's responsibility, if we if we stick to that theology using those words, God then becomes responsible for all that, including the bad things.
11:15
SPEAKER_01: And maybe folks are okay with that.
11:16
SPEAKER_01: I have a real troubling time with that, right?
11:18
SPEAKER_01: If I were to stick with that, I'd probably turn in my credentials because I don't know that I could, I know I can't get on board with that, right?
11:23
SPEAKER_01: So the problem of personal responsibility, problem with God's responsibility.
11:26
SPEAKER_01: And the thing that sort of ties into that as well is this problem of indifference, right?
11:31
SPEAKER_01: Or fatalism.
11:33
SPEAKER_01: What will be, will be.
11:36
SPEAKER_01: Right?
11:37
SPEAKER_01: Why should I worry about working out and eating healthy?
11:39
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm, you know, what's gonna happen is gonna happen, right?
11:42
SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm sick, why should I even get any treatment?
11:45
SPEAKER_01: What's the point of having any medical professional in the world?
11:47
SPEAKER_01: Just get rid of them, right?
11:48
SPEAKER_01: I'll either heal on my own or it's part of God's plan that I'm not gonna heal, right?
11:52
SPEAKER_01: Um, we see this in politics as students.
11:55
SPEAKER_01: If you believe everything happens according to God's plan, and that's gonna whatever's gonna happen is gonna happen, right?
12:00
SPEAKER_01: The problem with that fatalism part, why even study?
12:03
SPEAKER_01: Just show up and see what happens, right?
12:05
SPEAKER_01: Your score is gonna be what it is, right?
12:08
SPEAKER_01: Now you hear a little bit of sarcasm of my voice, and so you know, I'm not trying to get there, but um those are some problems when we take it to that last domino again, right?
12:17
SPEAKER_01: But how does God work in our world?
12:20
SPEAKER_01: Does God work in our world, right?
12:22
SPEAKER_01: And the one end, you've got these two extremes, right?
12:25
SPEAKER_01: Um, you've got God as the ultimate micromanager, right?
12:29
SPEAKER_01: And some of your extreme Calvinists would fall in here with the extreme predestination, right?
12:33
SPEAKER_01: That there is nothing, God has everything planned, right?
12:35
SPEAKER_01: Like I want so bad to take a step to the left, but God is forcing me to come over here and to talk to this side of the room, right?
12:42
SPEAKER_01: Um that's sort of a silly example, but that's that's there, right?
12:46
SPEAKER_01: Um but we quickly run into a problem with this idea that everything happens for a reason that is pre-planned and all that kind of stuff, and we have no control at all because we can't even get through the first chapter of Genesis without hearing the words that God created the animals and the things in the sky and the sea, and that God is gonna then give dominion to the people to watch over them and to be stewards over them, and to make choices and decisions to make sure that they are taken care of and all that sort of stuff.
13:20
SPEAKER_01: And so we see early on in Genesis this idea of us having some free will in the ways in which we go about our lives, right?
13:27
SPEAKER_01: The scripture that Lauren read today, um, thank you so much for reading from Deuteronomy, right?
13:32
SPEAKER_01: The Israelites are they've escaped from Egypt with God's help, right?
13:37
SPEAKER_01: God didn't boot them out, they had to follow, right?
13:39
SPEAKER_01: They get out of Egypt, they're close to getting the promised land.
13:42
SPEAKER_01: God had Moses has once again talked to them and told them about the Ten Commandments, and then he says, uh, hey y'all, you're about to go in the promised land.
13:51
SPEAKER_01: I've laid it out for you.
13:53
SPEAKER_01: Now it's up to you, right?
13:55
SPEAKER_01: You've got your, you know, the angel and devil on their shoulder, right?
13:59
SPEAKER_01: You can choose a way that leads to life, or you can choose a way that's probably going to lead to your own destruction.
14:05
SPEAKER_01: God has spoken through me to you.
14:08
SPEAKER_01: We've laid out the instruction.
14:09
SPEAKER_01: God has sort of laid out, I believe God does have a plan.
14:11
SPEAKER_01: Don't get me wrong on that.
14:12
SPEAKER_01: God has laid out his plan for how you should be living.
14:15
SPEAKER_01: You have the option to choose will you go that way or will you not go that way.
14:20
SPEAKER_01: And so it reminds us that we have a place we're allowed to make decisions.
14:24
SPEAKER_01: And we make decisions all the time, right?
14:26
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we make moral decisions, right, that benefit not just ourselves, but our neighbors and our communities and this world that we've been gifted to be a steward of.
14:33
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we make immoral decisions.
14:36
SPEAKER_01: Decisions that maybe are selfish and that might hurt or cause pain to someone else, right?
14:41
SPEAKER_01: Or take away from someone else in a way that's that's unfair.
14:45
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we just make amoral decisions.
14:47
SPEAKER_01: I chose to go to Jersey Mike's today.
14:49
SPEAKER_01: I don't think it'd affect anybody, right?
14:50
SPEAKER_01: It's just a decision that I made, right?
14:52
SPEAKER_01: Um until I went there and realized I had an SOS, my phone wouldn't work, and I couldn't look at what I want to look at, right?
14:57
SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, maybe God planned that.
14:59
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, dude.
14:59
SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't know.
15:00
SPEAKER_01: Um but what I want to get at, so what we do with this all, right, is that if you're not in a camp of just complete predestination and God has ordained everything that's ever going to happen and knows which, you know, my hand's wiggling that way.
15:18
SPEAKER_01: Um on the other question side is well, is God just completely absent?
15:24
SPEAKER_01: And is it all up to us?
15:26
SPEAKER_01: Right?
15:26
SPEAKER_01: You've got the deist on the other side who say God sort of tinkered and made this clock and made the made the world and just sort of set it out and said, all right, y'all, y'all go play play in the sandbox that I made for you, and it's all up to you, right?
15:37
SPEAKER_01: Complete predestination, just go have at it, right?
15:42
SPEAKER_01: The truth is we're somewhere in the middle, right?
15:45
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm a firm believer that God does indeed influence us, that God does work in the world.
15:52
SPEAKER_01: Um, not too long ago, today is January 14th, just a few weeks ago, right?
15:56
SPEAKER_01: Many of us were on maybe at a service on Christmas Eve, and you held up a candle, and maybe your church read uh John 1, and you talked about God coming to earth and the word becoming flesh and a light coming into the darkness.
16:12
SPEAKER_01: We celebrated Emmanuel, God with us, God and among us, right?
16:18
SPEAKER_01: So we believe that God is at work, but God works mostly in different ways than simply there's a plan we have no choice, and even the good and bad things that must follow.
16:30
SPEAKER_01: Right?
16:32
SPEAKER_01: Almost every time I pray now, I can't stop, I just do it almost like a tick in my prayer, uh here on Wednesday nights and on Sunday mornings when I'm doing the pastoral prayer there.
16:42
SPEAKER_01: If you've noticed, I've almost the last six months began to somewhere in the end of the prayer, I began to pray, God, use us, use me, that in some tangible way we might be an answer to someone's prayers.
16:57
SPEAKER_01: Allow us to be your hands and feet.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: And I pray that knowing that the way that God uses, and the way that God answers prayers most often, the ways in which God works in the world most often, is through his disciples, through the people that he has called, the people he has claimed, the people he influences with the Holy Spirit to shape us and nurture us, right?
17:18
SPEAKER_01: And then sends us out into the world.
17:20
SPEAKER_01: Not and we got to pay attention to that, right?
17:21
SPEAKER_01: Because very rarely has God in my life, maybe like one time, um, where I felt like this strong, strong presence and like voice of like you should do this, right?
17:29
SPEAKER_01: Um part of that was my calling to ministry.
17:31
SPEAKER_01: But most often, it's sort of like this watch that I have here, right?
17:36
SPEAKER_01: Um, y'all might be acting more active than I am, but anybody get the stand notices throughout the day, right?
17:40
SPEAKER_01: Like time to stand up.
17:41
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
17:42
SPEAKER_01: Um, Coleman, my oldest, started driving uh about six months ago.
17:46
SPEAKER_01: I took him on his first ever trip from Clemson to Easley.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: I was like, dude, you gotta learn how to go on 123 before we can get on 85.
17:54
SPEAKER_01: I don't think we got to the Issaquina exit or the Walmart exit before my watch started saying, You need a mindful moment.
18:02
SPEAKER_01: Take a breath.
18:04
SPEAKER_01: Right?
18:04
SPEAKER_01: And it reminded me at least three or four times in that 20-mile drive, dude, you need to breathe, right?
18:10
SPEAKER_01: Take a mindful moment, right?
18:12
SPEAKER_01: Because it knew what was happening, it was nudging me, right?
18:15
SPEAKER_01: I believe most often than not, right, God intervenes in the world.
18:19
SPEAKER_01: And God can definitely work directly.
18:21
SPEAKER_01: I totally believe that and have seen that, but that's a rarity.
18:24
SPEAKER_01: Most of the time, God works through us by giving us these holy nudges.
18:28
SPEAKER_01: And it's up to us to pay attention and to listen to them, or just sort of go on about our day, right?
18:34
SPEAKER_01: It happened to me just the other day.
18:36
SPEAKER_01: I was um, there was someone that had been on my mind, they kept popping to my mind, and I was like, you should call them.
18:41
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I don't need to call them.
18:42
SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't know, not like a voice in my head, but I just this person just kept coming on my heart like I should, you know, call them.
18:46
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, no, no, no, no, no.
18:48
SPEAKER_01: Um so after like two days, I was like, all right, see what's up, right?
18:52
SPEAKER_01: Hey, how's it going?
18:53
SPEAKER_01: You know?
18:53
SPEAKER_01: Um, and like, uh, I'm all right.
18:55
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, you'll sound all right.
18:56
SPEAKER_01: Like, what's what's up?
18:58
SPEAKER_01: Um, and sad news, but their um their their father had gotten sick and was was passing away, like within the 24 hours, right?
19:08
SPEAKER_01: I was able to check on them, and not that I did anything major, but looking back as I was studying and preparing for the sermon, like I was that was a holy nudge, right?
19:15
SPEAKER_01: That God was like, hey, I'm placing this person on your heart, just reach out to them, right?
19:19
SPEAKER_01: Reach out to them, let them know that you love them, connect them, all that kind of stuff.
19:23
SPEAKER_01: But it's those little holy, holy nudges.
19:25
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you've experienced that, where like someone's like popped in your mind, your heart, and like, I should do that, right?
19:28
SPEAKER_01: Or you pass by a situation and you're like, I should stop.
19:30
SPEAKER_01: Nah, nah, I should stop, right?
19:32
SPEAKER_01: Like, pay attention to those holy nudges and where God might be calling you.
19:37
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes God does intervene, I think, in big ways, right?
19:40
SPEAKER_01: Uh, my grandfather's 92, he's still around.
19:42
SPEAKER_01: Keep going, Pepe.
19:42
SPEAKER_01: We love you, man.
19:43
SPEAKER_01: Um, but like that dude over the last several years has tried his best to get himself in trouble, right?
19:49
SPEAKER_01: A few years ago, he was going to the dump.
19:51
SPEAKER_01: What 88-year-old, 89-year-old at the time decides to take a big old truck full of broken glass to the dump?
19:57
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, but my grandfather decided that'd be a great idea to do it and do it alone, right?
20:01
SPEAKER_01: Don't get my uncle who lives right across the street to go with him.
20:04
SPEAKER_01: Go do it yourself, right?
20:05
SPEAKER_01: And so in the process of being at the dump, and this awesome dude late in his late 80s decides to like reach into his truck, and when he does, he doesn't see the clear glass that's sticking out to the side and just like rips, like hits main main gusher here, right?
20:21
SPEAKER_01: It just so happened that there was an ER trauma nurse who also happened to be at the dump that day, right?
20:27
SPEAKER_01: Who had the the the training and the the place of mind to grab some ratchet straps and to do a quick tourniquet and to get him going.
20:35
SPEAKER_01: They get him, thankfully, well, okay, not thankfully, a lot of people get shot in New Orleans, okay?
20:40
SPEAKER_01: They got some good trauma centers there.
20:41
SPEAKER_01: And so they finally they got him to the trauma center, right?
20:43
SPEAKER_01: They got him to the trauma center, patched him up.
20:47
SPEAKER_01: I was here, I wasn't there, right?
20:49
SPEAKER_01: But they the doctor shared with my my dad and my uncles and my aunt, and they're like, if that trauma nurse had not been here, you're not planning for recovery, you're planning for a funeral, right?
20:59
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was like right now, did God tap somebody on the shoulder and say, Hey, I need you to get and go to the dumps, make sure you take care of this old guy who's gonna bring some grass glass, not grass, glass.
21:11
SPEAKER_01: Um I I don't know, but if you ask anybody in my family, we're definitely like, yeah, God showed up that day in big times and reached down and did that, right?
21:18
SPEAKER_01: Um I think God, I know God definitely acts in big and powerful ways.
21:23
SPEAKER_01: But again, more often than not, God works by the gentle nudgings and using us, right?
21:28
SPEAKER_01: All right, so we got all these things, all right?
21:30
SPEAKER_01: And I believe that God does the good stuff.
21:32
SPEAKER_01: Um, what do we do with the bad things, right?
21:36
SPEAKER_01: And here's some quotes, it's not from me, I share from like pastor to pastor to pastor.
21:40
SPEAKER_01: I don't know who to give credit to, but it wasn't my own thoughts.
21:42
SPEAKER_01: That's all I'm saying there, okay?
21:44
SPEAKER_01: But it makes a lot of sense, right?
21:46
SPEAKER_01: It says suffering is not God's desire for our life.
21:49
SPEAKER_01: But the truth is, if you've lived a few minutes, you know that it's often a part of it, right?
21:54
SPEAKER_01: Suffering is not punishment by God, but sometimes the consequences of our own sin create things that feel like punishment, right?
22:03
SPEAKER_01: Our own decisions lead to that.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: Suffering is not given to teach us a lesson, right?
22:08
SPEAKER_01: I don't believe that God gives you suffering to teach you a lesson.
22:11
SPEAKER_01: But oftentimes, if you're paying attention, you can learn through your own suffering, right?
22:15
SPEAKER_01: And suffering, hear me say this, does not happen because you have weak faith.
22:20
SPEAKER_01: Right?
22:20
SPEAKER_01: Suffering does not happen because you need to get closer to Jesus.
22:24
SPEAKER_01: But oftentimes, if we pay attention through it, sometimes and oftentimes our faith can be strengthened even through and despite the suffering, right?
22:34
SPEAKER_01: Uh so so why do why do these things happen, right?
22:38
SPEAKER_01: Um I saw some quote too, so that everything happens for a reason.
22:41
SPEAKER_01: The reason is because you're dumb and make dumb decisions, right?
22:43
SPEAKER_01: I kind of feel like that's almost it, right?
22:45
SPEAKER_01: Um, like that, like we've looked at what it means to be an extreme micromanager if God's the extreme micromanager.
22:50
SPEAKER_01: We looked at what it might mean if God was just an absentee landlord as a future sandbox and go play.
22:54
SPEAKER_01: But I truly hope and pray that we will begin to see that the God that we worship, the God that we just sang, I was kind of smiling in the back, the God that we just sang two songs about in a row about I will trust in you, I will trust in you, right? 'Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, right?
23:11
SPEAKER_01: That the God that we worship and the God that we trust is indeed active.
23:16
SPEAKER_01: But is active in granting us freedom, is active in encouraging us to take holy risks and to do big things, is active in giving us holy nudges that we might indeed be a tangible answer to someone's prayer each and every day.
23:32
SPEAKER_01: Hear me and hope you hold on to know that God does not cause tragedy, God does not cause suffering, but our God is definitely big enough and good enough to work in and through that to bring about good.
23:45
SPEAKER_01: And although things may happen that might be out according to your plan, know that God promises to be with you.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: The Wesley Word is a production of the Clemson Wesley Foundation.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Clemson Wesley, check out our website or follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: Until next time, get out there and love your neighbor.