Latest / Ministry Minded / Fear Not: When God’s Command Is Actually a Promise with Luke Kjolhaug

Transcript

Fear Not: When God’s Command Is Actually a Promise with Luke Kjolhaug · Ministry Minded

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of the Ministry-Minded Podcast,
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: a show that seeks to marvel at the mercy of God that meets us
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: in our messy ministries.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Pastor Brad Gray.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: I serve as a senior pastor of Stone Cold Baptist Church right here in Paximus, Pennsylvania.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: On this episode, I'm delighted to have a friend and brother in ministry, Luke Chelog.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Luke pastors a church in Minnesota,
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: and he also is the author of a brand new book
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: from 1517 Publishing entitled Fear Not, How the We'll see you next time.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: I would say succinctly is to show how those two words, fear not, not only are they so...
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: We can read those times when God or Jesus himself even shows up
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: and he tells his followers to don't be afraid,
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: to fear not, and we can read them as if we're not afraid.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: They are commands.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: He's giving them some sort of law in those moments of crisis.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, those two words, fear not, are a promise.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: They are a promise that we can latch onto knowing that God who shows up wherever we are in time.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is a book that is deeply comforting.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: You can tell it's personal.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Luke is writing not just as someone else.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, read this book.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: In that frame of mind,
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: you're reading from someone who's been there, and that's a very comforting thought.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy this conversation between Luke and I as we talk about this book,
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: talk about his new book,
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Fear Not, and talk about some of the things that prompted it, that led to it.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think this book will be a great resource for you
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: and this conversation will help you understand why.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: So sit back and relax.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy this conversation between Luke and I on Fear Not.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Luke, it's so good to have you back on the show, man.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so excited to have you.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've been looking forward to this particular recording for a while,
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: only because,
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: we saw each other a couple of times through the Preacher's Project we were a part
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: of.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: But every single time I was...
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, man.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: Things are going well.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks so much.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're here out in Osakis,
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Minnesota,
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: which is this little 1800 person town in Lakes Country,
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Minnesota,
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: which swells up to, I don't know, 5,000, 6,000 people or something in the summer.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: So like thriving metropolis.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I'm doing well.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's summertime, but coming to the end.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: So we're starting to gear up here for...
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: For Fall Ministries and all that.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it's fun to finally see like, you know how it is writing books.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like when it finally comes to fruition, like, yeah, you get to hold the hard copy in your hand.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: So it's been good.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: There's this like tension,
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: this paradox of fulfillment,
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: but also like,
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: as an artist,
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: you can always kind of probably perhaps pinpoint all the things
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: that you would have changed if you had had just a little bit more time.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's something to the effect that you could probably tweak something
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: to death or edit something to death.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe it's probably good that it's already in printing and you can't change it now.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was telling my editor that at some point I just got to stop reading it
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: because it's like, man, you're always going to find something.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: There's always more to do.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: And also there's no such thing as the perfect book.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I guess that's good to embrace.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's a relief.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: It is, right?
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, man.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, so before we talk about Fear Not in the book and stuff,
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: actually, I did want to kind of like just pick your brain.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we are part of this preaching cohort called the Iowa Preachers Project.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: We were just kind of, I don't know, graduated out of that.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what the right word is.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: But anyways,
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: as you reflect on a lot of those in-person gatherings and just some of the things
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: that came out of that,
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: What were some of the things that stood out to you,
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: gathering with all these different preachers from all these different denominations
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: and coming together to try to find ways to preach the gospel compellingly
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: in our current, you know, world and climate and with everything going on?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: What are some of the things that really stood out to you from all those gatherings
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: and all that time together?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, man, that's a great question.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know that I've ever had time to just sit down and reflect on
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: that deliberately,
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: but kind of thinking through it now,
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know that I've ever been part of such a diverse group
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: across different Christian traditions before,
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: and I was honestly a little bit leery about that going into it.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's a, it's a quote unquote ecumenical effort, but what exactly does that mean?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: How ecumenical are we?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah,
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: but I was really surprised and really pleased at the,
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: the way that it was almost like,
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't think it would be possible to have the kind of conversations we had
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: among such a wide variety of, uh,
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: people with different traditions and,
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: and different presuppositions and denominations and all that stuff.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: But it's like the gospel actually does have, um,
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: And this power to draw us together in a way that and like kind of centralize
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: and stabilize all the discussions in a way that nothing else really does.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I was, yeah, I was, I was really excited.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: Encouraged,
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: I guess,
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: is maybe the word for it,
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: about the depths to which, like,
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: if the gospel really is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes,
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: let's push that out to, you know, as far as we can go.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I got to see a little bit of that.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: So that was good.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: It was fun.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: Not fun.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: Fun's not the right word.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: It was exciting and interesting to get the feedback on sermons from congregants.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how that process was for you,
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: but like, I mean, yeah, anytime you get feedback on your sermons, it's...
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like, oh man, what's going to happen here?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it can, because these are your babies, right?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like you pour your blood, sweat and tears into these things.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, don't kill my darlings or something.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: But like they, some of them kind of need to die.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: And that's part of, I guess, the theology of the cross a little bit.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: But that was helpful getting like a cohort of people from my church together.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I think one thing I learned was with illustrations how...
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: They're a wonderful thing.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: This is my take.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: Illustrations are wonderful.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: If something has real life tangible traction,
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: like bring that in because if it means something to you,
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: it's going to mean something to your people.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: But I thought like, okay,
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: there's a warning here too because I remember I used an illustration
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: from like Story, which I thought was totally universal.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like everybody's seen Toy Story and, you know, it's going to resonate with everybody.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I got some feedback back from someone who's like, I have never seen this before.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think it's probably landing with people.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe this was just like the one individual or whatever,
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: but it was eye opening to be like,
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: OK, you're always going to miss somebody when you do an illustration.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: Just know that going in.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: So the person that didn't see,
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: does that make you feel old when someone says they haven't seen Toy Story?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's a funny thing.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: It was an older person that said it.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: So otherwise it would have.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, as I reflected on all those,
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: similarly,
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think the talk that stood out was Dave Zoll's,
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: especially the notion of,
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think this is exactly how he worded it,
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: but the notion of, your sermon isn't going to come out of...
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the places of
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: pain or something.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the places of pain.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: And like, if you preach from that place, it's going to resonate more.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've striven to do that, like,
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: not just,
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: you know, hey,
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: here's a lecture about this and let me show you how awesome it is, which is great.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the only one holding the line.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that can be preachers too.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: That can be pastors.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm the only guy holding the line of, you know, of truth of the gospel.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the only one left hanging on to the, to the, like the, Right.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's something that's so, that's so good.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: I love that comparison.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's something so valuable too about having people outside
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: of your denomination that you can actually kind of bounce ideas off of
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: because they're, I mean, let's be honest.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: There are actual vocational hazards to totally wearing your heart on your sleeve
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: in front of everybody in your denomination or something,
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: which you're always using wisdom with that anyway.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: But it's nice to have a place where that's not a concern.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was really good to be amongst people who kind of, quote unquote, get it.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: They understand the,
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: all of the nuances,
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: all of the pitfalls,
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: all of the foibles and problems and all of the joys also that come along
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: with pastoral ministry.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's such a kaleidoscope of emotions oftentimes doing pastoral ministry.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it was good to be around folks that understood that kaleidoscope.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about your book,
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: your second book,
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Fear Not,
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: which is obviously,
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, again, as I said earlier, I'm kind of biased, but I love this book.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's really, it is such a great read.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's such a necessary read to,
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Talk about you've said that this is like a more personal book in a lot of ways.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Can you kind of like unpack what you mean by that and like kind of
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: where this book came from,
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: which is probably the same question asked two different ways.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, kind of talk like where this book kind of came from.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think I was preaching to myself throughout this whole book.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: Which I think is the,
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know about you,
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: but for me that's like the reason that I write is to like remind myself of truths
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: that I am so easy and so quick to forget.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: So like I'm someone who's personally,
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: and I get into this in like the very first chapter,
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: like we've all got our personal journeys and I don't...
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: The book is not like a, I mean, I'm 40 years old.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have the right to be writing a memoir or something.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not that.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: But there is a biographical element to it.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I kind of get into that at the beginning.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like I have these, I've had these personal struggles and it's never just a complete past tense.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like this is all in the rear view mirror.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not fearful anymore.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: I don't battle anxiety.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: I don't fight depression.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: Those things are like I would love to put those in the Smithsonian of my life
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: or something,
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: but they're like the tendrils of that still kind of work their way around my heart
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: and my mind sometimes.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not like I'm past that.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I would say when would it have been after I got after I.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: Right about the time I finished repping,
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: I finished graduating,
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: I graduated from college,
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: which would have been like 2009,
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: 2010 through 2013, probably the darkest season of my life.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: I was in a town, at least for a time, that was a long ways away from family.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: I was an engineer before I became a pastor.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I just got, yeah,
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: it felt like a train wreck,
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: just like a locomotive of depression and loneliness and coupled with anxiety
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: and all these kinds of things.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so I would say like,
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: and there were indications of it before that,
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: but that was probably the darkest kind of bottoming out period of my life.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think you talk about being able to access times of pain,
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: and that was probably one of the most painful.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: God did eventually bring me into a different season of life.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: And even He switched vocations for me.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: I moved into the ministry, which was...
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was,
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: I look back on it and it's like,
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: God just used a bunch of baby steps to kind of bring me into the ministry.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: Because he knew like,
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: if it's just right off the bat,
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: here's a microphone, you're going to be preaching to 100 people.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like the most terrifying part of being a pastor is not going to work.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: So he's like,
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: how about you teach Sunday school with these two,
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: like a five-year-old and a seven-year-old.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, okay, I think I can manage that.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: Which is harder than it sounds, depending on how much sleep they got the last night.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah,
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: so I mean,
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: that was kind of, yeah, personally, like that was part of my journey for sure.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I was writing to myself to remind myself that...
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: One, the kind of temporariness of these seasons,
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: because there is a time and there's a season for everything under heaven.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: But then, I mean,
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: ultimately to remind myself that these words that God speaks over and over again
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: in Scripture,
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: fear not,
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: fear not,
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: fear not, is,
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: and we'll probably get into this too,
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: but like it's not intended to be It's kind of like beat you over the head,
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: like stop being a scaredy cat,
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: get over your fears,
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: buck up,
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: be a man,
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: pull yourself up by your bootstraps,
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: be like King David, slay the giants of your fear in your life.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's not.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: Not that.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: Fear not is not a command in the sense of that.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: Instead, it is a promise.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's a promise that your fears don't get the final word.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's a promise that the one who came to slay our, sorry, I'm preaching this.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: This is what pastors do.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: I guess we fall into preaching.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's a promise that someone bigger and stronger than your fears is here.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: And at the cross, he crushed the source of our greatest fear, death.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: And he crushed the head of Satan.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: And as a result,
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: all of the lesser fears in our lives kind of lose their staying power,
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: I guess would be one way to talk about that.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's a long question,
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: long answer that gets in a roundabout way, hopefully, to kind of what you're asking.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: Keep on preaching, brother.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, SS Baptist say amen, man.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's so – I think – I guess you could say the hook of – I don't know
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: if it's the hook of the book,
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: but I would say the hook of what you're trying to posit is so – Profound
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: and poignant,
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: which of course is what you just kind of iterated,
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: this notion that these words that appear from Genesis all over Scripture is,
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: don't be afraid.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: God shows up to Abraham,
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: to Isaac,
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: to Jacob,
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: and on and on it goes to Gideon, to so many different central figures in Scripture.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: And some of the first words...
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Out of God's mouth or out of the messenger of God's mouth is don't be afraid.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not this command saying don't or else.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's a word of promise every single time.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's a word of promise that because I am here, there is...
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: There's no space for fear.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to fear anymore.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that promise,
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: seeing those words as words of promise just completely flip the way in
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: which those interactions occur.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Another good place to see this,
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: and forgive me,
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: but I can't remember if you get to this in the book,
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: but is that place in Philippians 4 when Paul is talking about worry and anxiety
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: and he says, be anxious for nothing.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we can often do the same thing with that phrase.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: I've often talked about that.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: We can do the same thing.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: We can turn what Paul is saying there in Philippians 4,
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: be anxious for nothing as if it's coming out of a place of law.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: So don't be anxious at all or else you're not really living the Christian life.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: But Paul's just been spending time.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: The better part of three chapters in Philippians talking about Christ and the riches
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: and the glories of Christ alone.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so that comes out of,
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: so be anxious for nothing comes out of just that very point that because of
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: who Christ is and because of where Christ is, he is with you.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: He's not only Christ for you, but Christ in you, as he says in Colossians.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have to be anxious.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: All of those anxieties, they quell, they soften.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: When we are told and reminded over and over again the good news of the gospel,
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: that Christ is for you and he's with you and he's by his Holy Spirit, he's in you.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: And what a great place that is instead of being told, just don't worry, just don't be afraid.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: No, this is a word of promise.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: It comes from a different place,
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: which I think changes the way we ought to read and digest those places in Scripture.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's like it's actually based on something.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's not in Philippians 1.1 where Paul says, do not be anxious about anything.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, no, let's lay the foundation here.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: We'll talk about Christ and what he has done and justification and all of that good stuff.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then based on that, right?
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't know that I get into that passage too much in here.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: I would be surprised if it doesn't come up.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: You write a book and then you forget, like,
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: what did I include in there or not?
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: I know the feeling.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: I think of 1 John 4, 1 John 4, 18.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: There's no fear in love, but perfect love casts out all fear, right?
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of the gospel heart of this book for me.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: If there's one verse that's sort of encapsulated...
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: And the message of the book would be that one.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's that there's no fear in love.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: Perfect love casts out all fear in the sense that
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: a perfect love being perfectly loved by God on account of Jesus Christ,
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: which is what Christians are.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: Being able to rest in that identity and to understand
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: and really like sink your teeth into that belovedness to such an extent
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: that you actually believe Romans 8.1 when it says therefore there is no condemnation
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: for those who are in Christ Jesus.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: Fear has to do with punishment or judgment or condemnation, right?
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like when you're fearful,
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: you're worried of oftentimes of some sort of condemning force in your life,
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: like the quote unquote verdict of a Facebook post that's not going to get the likes
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: that you want it to or...
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: Fear of being perceived in a certain way.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: Fear of not being approved of.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: That kind of stuff.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting because the antidote to fear is not bravery.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: You would kind of expect that.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: That just makes sense.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe there is a place for that.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think there is.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: There's value to...
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: To the boot camp sort of approach.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like when you're going through an actual boot camp, you kind of need a drill instructor.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: He's going to make you into the soldier that you need to be.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: But when it comes to our spiritual lives,
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: that sort of practicing habits,
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: practicing virtues, that sort of thing, it's a sputtery engine.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: Willpower is a sputtery engine.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's only going to get you so far.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas perfect love,
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: if that's your antidote to your fear,
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: like that has some staying power, that has some force, right?
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's not based on me.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's based on Christ outside of me and what he's done for me.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so easy to fall into these ruts or these ditches where we forget that,
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: where we slip into these places where it's kind of like,
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think you said this earlier, Right.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's so it is helpful to remember that there's seasons
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: to these things that's helpful to remember.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: Also, I was talking about this the other day,
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: just the notion of the promise that it's so profound what Jesus says
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: to his apostles.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: But your sorrow is going to be turned into joy, which kind of is not just an illusion.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's a promise of these same sorts of things that all of this is going to be,
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: to use a big theological term,
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: transmorgified into something that is joyful and hopeful and life-giving.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not because of them.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's only true because of what was going to happen in a few short hours,
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: death and resurrection.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's what turns sorrow into joy,
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: not us mustering up bravery,
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: as you said, or mustering up the willpower to get ready.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Rid of anxious thoughts out of our minds.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: It comes back to death and resurrection.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: It comes back to those things being put to death by the power of Christ and Christ
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: in us,
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: freeing us, relieving us by his grace, which again, brings us back to the gospel.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we need the gospel every day.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: All of those things, man,
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: it just fills my mind because when you're writing about Because you get into a lot
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: of different fears,
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: and I don't mean just like phobias,
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: like you're afraid of spiders or heights,
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: but like existential fears,
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: failure, rejection, change, the future, what does God think about you?
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think what makes this so real is that No matter who you are,
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think that we've been right there.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: We've been afraid of failure, rejection, all those kinds of things change.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone, I mean,
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: it doesn't take long to find someone who's fearful of the future right now,
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: no matter what kind of strain of thought you're going to talk about.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that when we come back to,
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: that's why I think this book is so resonant is because we've been there.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: We've been where You were in some places or we've been where other people have been
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: when it comes to scripture and the same promise keeps coming up over and over again.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: So there's probably something to that.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, don't be afraid.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: Fear not.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: I have you.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: I've got you.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: And what a great relief that is.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it's interesting, the fear not.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like the phrase appears once and the disciples are like,
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: oh, yeah, I've never thought of it that way.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I should try not being scared.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: And then the rest of the book, they're good to go.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's a continual thing.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I find a lot of encouragement in that.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's okay
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: that I'm human and I'm a sinner because God came for sinners and he's got me.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, yeah.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a good thought.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like this one and done thing.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally, oh, they put all these pieces together.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is a constant thing.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have the count in front of me,
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: but I'm pretty sure it's more than once and more than thrice that.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: God said, don't be afraid to Jacob.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: This guy who I,
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why,
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: I always keep coming back to Jacob whenever I'm talking about the realities of
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: the Christian life, mainly because Jacob was such a tumultuous, troubled character.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe a jam that even he put himself in, regardless of where he was.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: God showed up constantly, bringing to mind this exact promise.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be afraid.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: I am the God who is going to.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a really, it's a, it's interesting.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's really interesting and very helpful example, I think with, with Jacob there.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I think with,
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: maybe it's just the area that I'm in here,
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: but I'm in kind of a rural blue collar area and I've got a lot of farmers,
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: a lot of mechanics, guys that, um, Yeah, so maybe it's just a guy thing.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's kind of a class thing.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's just a human thing.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: But trying to get a guy to admit That they're actually scared about something or
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: that fear is a real thing that's kind of got hold of their heart right now is
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: a really difficult thing because like there's the macho man.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: It is partly maybe a universal kind of the toxic masculinity thing,
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: which I think is an actual thing.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: It gets obviously goes in the ditch pretty quick.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: But.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we don't want to admit that we're scared.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: We're supposed to be tough.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: We're supposed to be strong.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I think what was helpful for me is coming to understand that fear manifests
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: in different ways, right?
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: We think of fear and The image that comes to mind maybe is somebody sweating
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: or somebody cowering in the corner or knees knocking or,
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: some big,
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: huge wars coming and so families huddle together around the fire,
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: something like that.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: But fear can manifest in other ways too.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: So like,
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: for example,
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: when you come across someone who is angry,
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: which aka all of us, we've all been angry at some point, right?
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: You look at someone there and you think, well, they're just mad.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: They're just frustrated.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: And certainly they are.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't know about you,
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: but like when I look at my own life and the time that I've been angry,
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: underlying that a lot of times is a fear.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm brutally honest with myself,
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: I fear, I don't know, just like even parenting as an example, right?
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: When I lose my marbles at my kids sometimes...
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: Part of the reason that that anger comes out is that I'm fearing losing control of
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: the situation.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: Or I fear that they're not going to do what I want.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: They're going to end up on the wrong path or something.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes stuff that doesn't look fearful,
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: like you keep digging,
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: keep drilling down,
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: you're going to find fear as a motivating factor,
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think, in a lot more things than is at first apparent, maybe.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's going to pop up in all of these different ways.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to manifest in different reactions and reactions.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: And one thing I wanted to just talk about just briefly,
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: because you mentioned a little bit ago,
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: you mentioned when you were talking about how this was a book that you needed
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: to write basically for you.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you mentioned something to the effect
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: that it was almost like you were writing to yourself to remind yourself.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's such a good window and prism to under,
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: like I've often said that this is a good window and prism to understand the book
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: of Psalms as well,
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: that whenever you see a psalmist writing about the joys that he's experiencing
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: because of who God is,
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: or maybe he's writing out of the depths of his discouragement and he's,
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: whatever the case,
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think more More often than not,
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: the psalmist is writing to remind himself of what he's writing about.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the best example of this is Psalm 119,
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: which David is waxing so eloquent about the clueless.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: I've often gone to the longest chapter in the Bible to see...
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: How it's almost you can almost understand as if David is like writing
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: to remind himself,
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: because I think I've used this example in a couple of different places.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, for people who've heard it, forgive me.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: But I think the most important part of that whole psalm is the very last verse.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because for 175 verses, he is extolling the depth and the beauty of God's word.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then in the last verse,
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: and this is a paraphrase,
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: but he's basically like, and yet I still keep going astray.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: So God keeps seeking me.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it's almost like a twist in a movie where at the very end,
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: everything changes your perspective.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because now all of a sudden you realize, oh,
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: he realizes that he's not figured this out,
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: that he's still constantly going astray like a lost sheep.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: And he's petitioning God, the God who reveals himself throughout all of these words and laws.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a helpful way to understand that when you're writing about fear of failure,
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't want to put words in your mouth,
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: but I wouldn't say that maybe you've mastered that fear yet.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's more to remind yourself that these words are true.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if I can be self-referential here, I wrote a book about suffering and disappointment.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I've often had to go back and read because number one,
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: I forgot what I wrote,
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: but also I go back to it and to be reminded sometimes of this is true for me,
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: even as I was writing it for maybe other people,
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: but it's good to be reminded of that.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, in the Psalms,
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: it does almost seem like,
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: you get to be sort of a fly on the wall between these conversations with David
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: and his heart.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: He's like coaching his heart, like, do not be afraid, trust in the Lord.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's almost this like dissociation between,
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: you know, in Pauline terms, like you're old and you're new nature.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: And like, he knows and he trusts in this promise.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: And yet, Yeah, his heart won't believe it.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like,
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: you need to hear that promise because our hearts speak fluent law,
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: but they don't speak fluent gospel.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: And that word has to come at us again and again in a myriad of different ways.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, that's a good thought.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: Was there a particular chapter that was easier for you to write than others?
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, maybe the fear of death, I think, because, um, which sounds really weird.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that's the scariest one of them all.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that maybe because the, um,
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: because it is such a powerful fear that the words of gospel mean so much more, um,
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: and are so much more, um,
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: A powerful, like,
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: you can't really measure fear,
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: but if you were to graph out your fears,
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: like, fear of death is going to be pretty high on that y-axis, right?
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so for the gospel to overcome that, it's going to also have to go corporal.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: The fear of death.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: I can get that truth in my heart.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: All these lesser fears, they're not going to disappear.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: They're not going to like, you're not, you're still going to probably get anxious.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: You're still going to sweat.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: You're still going to walk through the fire and the rivers and the surging waters,
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: but they will not overwhelm you, kind of in the words of Isaiah.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: So fear of death,
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think also maybe part of the reason that that chapter came
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: a little more easily was I had just lost,
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: I lost both my grandpas within like a year's time.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: And we knew it was coming for a while.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: So it wasn't like a sudden kind of thing,
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: but that doesn't take the sting out of death, at least completely.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: So partly it was that the personal side too,
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: where it's like,
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: man, I'm not just, this is clearly not on an ivory tower sort of topic.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: This is like, has traction in my life.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I need to remind myself of...
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: Where God is in the midst of death,
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: which is right next to me, upholding me with his nail scarred hands.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: So he hasn't gone anywhere.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: My awareness of him may have, but he has not.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's good, Luke.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: Especially as, I don't know, as a pastor, I've
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: done way more funerals than I have marriages.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I can understand and relate to that fear of death just in the sense
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: that I've been around it a lot more.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: I've been around families who are grieving sudden loss,
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: and I've been around families who are grieving because even
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: though they knew it was coming, kind of as You were laid.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: It was still stinging.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, that's why in many ways, death is something we fear.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: But when you come to like a funeral or something,
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: I've often had conversations with folks that it's the most level.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: Convey those words of hope precisely in those moments because it's where the gospel is found.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a really good reminder to understand how God meets us in those places
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: of pain and hurt and sorrow and loss.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: And he dispels those fears because of he, you know, what's the verse?
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's in Timothy, but basically that he has abolished death forever.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what Christ has done.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: So praise the Lord for that.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, amen, man.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like fear of death,
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: but then the Easter tomb is kind of where the death of fear occurs
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: because it's there in the empty tomb that Jesus has conquered death.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's been slain.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: The grave clothes are behind.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah,
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: as Christians,
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: we live life with death, like Actually, kind of in the rearview mirror.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think of the Apostle Paul in Romans 6,
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: where he talks about those who've been baptized and baptized into his death
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: and raised with him too.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, fear of death, but then in Christ we get the death of fear.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: So, that's always an encouraging thought.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: The chapter that I think spoke most to me,
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: and maybe this just reveals kind of where I am or who I am,
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: but it's maybe where a lot of people are,
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: which is the fear of the future and this notion that it's like this ball of...
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever that is unable to be deciphered or determined or discerned.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that you can see this a lot throughout scripture.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just I think what is really helpful and I think you kind of get into this,
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: but I think it's helpful as you reflect on not just as what you wrote,
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: but based on what is written in the Bible, too, that this is not unique to 2026.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: This notion of fearing what's going to happen next is I think this has been like
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: a universal human propensity since basically, you know, Genesis three.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: We've been fearful of what's going to happen next and we're worried about it working out and.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I just think it and I don't say that to say like,
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: just find comfort in misery,
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: but to find the fact that God's always been meeting miserable warriors,
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: worriers, people who worry with the same promise.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: And he still meets it, meets us in that same place, too, I think.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_01: You had asked me about the genesis of the book before and where that came from,
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: and it was partly that personal side of things.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_01: But part of it, too,
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_01: was it sprang out of a sermon series that I originally gave at kind of the peak
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: of COVID.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: So at that time,
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: I was at a different church out in Princeton,
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: New Jersey,
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: which was like an hour from New York City,
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: kind of the epicenter, at least for a while, the whole COVID pandemic.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: And at the time, like fear was just rife.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: It was just in the air that like we breathed.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so I preached it kind of as a sermon series to try to steady faltering knees and
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: to bring peace to troubled souls.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I was going somewhere with that and I lost my train of thought.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was a... Oh yeah, I was going to say it was...
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: The way that I did it is I first put out a Facebook post asking people,
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: what are your greatest fears?
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: Just like list your greatest fears.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it must have just been on the surface of so many people's hearts and minds
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_01: because the list I got back was just insanely long,
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_01: insanely like you don't expect, you ask somebody, what's your deepest fear?
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't think they're going to just throw that out into the ether web for like
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: the whole world to see, but they kind of did.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: And the one fear that came up again, again,
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: more than anything,
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think I've still got all of them tallied in a sheet somewhere,
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: but this is this one that you're talking about, the fear of the future.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't always articulated in that way.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: It was more like a fear of what if this happens or a fear of the unknown,
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: which is maybe another way to kind of say that.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I think the fear of the future is certainly like huge, huge,
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: super just Universally human kind of thing,
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: which is an interesting thing to think about because,
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_01: you know, there's some fears that you're fearing something really, really tangible.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: You're fearing spiders or heights or like something actual that exists.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas the future exists,
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: but in a different kind of almost more philosophical meta kind of way, right?
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not something you can wrap your hands around so much.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it's almost fear of a potentiality or an eventuality that may or may not come
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: to pass, which probably makes it even scarier in that sense.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: You can't look it in the eye, right?
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: So that makes sense to me that that was a top one for you too.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it kind of just bleeds right into,
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think where a lot of people are with struggling with anxious thoughts
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: or anxiety itself.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, what is anxiety?
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's like living in a place that hasn't actually contributed.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: We've been there a lot because we want to get ahead of what God's doing.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: We want to know all of these outcomes.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: We want to know how all of these things pan out, how all these things shake out.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: And not to like open another can of worms,
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: but I think this is why so many times, like, well, I'll just say this.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: Why do...
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: Eschatological sermon series often get a lot more hits than
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: if you were just preached through something else.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well,
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: it's because I think we approach those places in the Bible as if they are going
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: to give us a way to make sense of the future.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: So we're going to,
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: Revelation is seen
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: as this like grand timeline that'll help us put everything together and But actually
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: the promise of Revelation or the promise of Daniel or the promise of Ezekiel isn't
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: that it puts all of these things into such plain terms
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: that we can just rest back knowing that we understand how everything is going
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_00: to unfold because we understand where the red line is connecting to all
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: the other dots.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: No, I think what all of that eschatological messages are.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: What they're supposed to convey to us is not that we have figured everything out,
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: but that there's one who is above them,
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: who is above all these times,
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: that is speaking words back to you right where you are, saying, do not fear.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: He says that,
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: to John in the opening chapters of Revelation,
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_00: you know, when he has this incredible vision and John is just dumbstruck.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_00: He's awestruck and obviously probably a little bit fearful.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: And yet God in that moment, God touches him.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: God in Christ touches him on the shoulder and says, do not fear.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_00: We are so overwhelmed by ways in which our world is going to pan out into some sort
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_00: of apocalyptic wasteland,
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: whether it's the economy or whether it's politics or
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: whether it's artificial intelligence.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_00: And yet we think that ours is going to be the one that's going to do in everything.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: it's not rational.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly not rational.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's one who is above all these times that is letting all of,
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_00: he's unfolding this according to his operative purpose,
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: not, you know, not what we have determined.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_00: So anyways.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_01: My mind to that goes to like Job 28,
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: where he's talking about trying to,
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_01: you know, obtain wisdom at all costs and like humans attack people.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm kind of paraphrasing here,
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_01: but it's basically like humans attack the unknown,
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_01: like miners attack the flinty rocks, right?
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like we're going to unearth this thing.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to pull it apart.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to get to the heart of things.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to get the answer that we're looking for.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I think,
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's kind of this human desire for sovereignty sometimes,
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_01: which is obviously not our purpose.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_01: All the mysteries, all the wisdom is found in Christ.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_01: So really, the answer we're looking for isn't a what, it's a who.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's a person.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus Christ is the only thing that's going to give us peace.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's not more knowledge.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's not more understanding.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's not more facts.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's like...
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_01: A personal relationship with the only one who holds all of these questions
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: and has all the answers in his, again, nail-scarred hands, right?
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_01: So like, it's a who, not a what, I guess is kind of what I'm trying to say there.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: No, I think that's so on point, Luke,
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_00: because oftentimes the fear of the future,
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: it does,
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: it's born out of this notion that we need to be the masters of our own fate,
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_00: so to speak, that we need to be the ones that are in control.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: And part of the frustrating part of the gospel is that it kind of rips that out from
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_00: under us in a gracious way.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: But God is telling us that, like, no, you're not in control of anything.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not something to fear.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's actually something, that's actually relieving.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's, you are, no, you are not, you are not the ones who are making the world turn.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_00: You are not the ones who are, you know, turning the hearts of kings and potentates.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_00: You are the one who is resting in the Father's love for you.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so...
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_00: Just be where you are and rest in who God is making you into be.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's the relieving part of the fear of the future is just that God's already...
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_00: The one who's outside of time.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's what makes it so profound that he's speaking these words to us.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: The one who's outside of time is speaking back into our time.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_00: Do not fear.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we can take such solace in that, even if we can't discern the future.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_00: I keep going back.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_00: I forget who is.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think his name was Mark Lilla.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_00: He wrote a New York Times piece.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think you mentioned that piece in the book,
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: actually,
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_00: where he's talking about how we want to figure out what's going on ahead of us,
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_00: but we're really just like people with canes walking through the fog.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_00: That was a terrible paraphrase of that.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_00: But anyways, I keep going back to that because that's kind of where we are.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_00: We want to have everything discerned, but we are ones...
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_00: Walking through the fog with tapping our canes in the fog.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_00: And yet,
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think the great hope of the gospel is that there's one who comes and meets us
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_00: in those foggy places.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he's the one who leads us along.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, man.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's so true.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think, like, for me,
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: a little bit,
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_01: some of the things that I wrestled with,
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_01: maybe more on a personal level was,
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_01: and I think other, I mean,
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_01: this is just a mental health thing,
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_01: generally speaking,
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_01: with Christians, and I think it's true that we often bear this false sense of guilt.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_01: For struggling with mental,
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_01: emotional struggles, challenges in a way that we don't with physical issues.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_01: You break a leg,
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_01: you don't feel guilty for having to walk around on your crutches in a cast
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_01: for however long.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_01: But when it comes to mental issues, it always does.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_01: Always is a big word.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_01: But like for me personally,
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up somehow harboring the belief for some reason,
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: which is kind of weird because like I had loving parents.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up in a biblical, solid Christian home.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: But for whatever reason,
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up with this belief that like it's all if there's something wrong
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_01: with me mentally, emotionally, if I'm having struggles there.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: The only solution to that that's going to work is for me to overcome it
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_01: through self-determination.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_01: And if I don't,
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_01: if I'm unable to do that,
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_01: the only explanation for that is that I'm not trying hard enough.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I have to, this is all, like, I am the culpable party here.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the only culpable party here.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the one on whom everything, everything rests.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, and I think reflecting on that theologically a little bit is in that sort
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_01: of paradigm, there was no room for, it was just like basically me and, you know,
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_01: me and God wrestling with my sin or something,
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_01: but there was no room in that paradigm for Satan,
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_01: for evil,
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_01: for understanding that the reasons we're afflicted
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: in this world is like partly all creation groans, right?
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so there are,
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_01: we're all, I would say it like we're all victims and we're all perpetrators, right?
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_01: We are perpetrators in the sense that we actively break and transgress God's law,
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_01: and so we're guilty parties deserving of eternal death and condemnation,
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_01: were it not for the grace of Christ, who rescues us out of that, right?
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_01: So we're perpetrators,
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_01: but there is also the sense in which we are like,
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_01: we are victims because there are things in this world that happen to us
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_01: that are actually outside of our control.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_01: Not everything.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying like there is a danger when we fall into this victim mentality like,
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_01: oh, woe is me.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not advocating that,
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_01: but I am saying that like,
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_01: There are things that fall outside of our own ability to overcome on our own.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you weren't able to say that, I don't know what need you would have for a savior.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so for me to get to the point of saying,
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_01: man, like I'm struggling here, I'm wrestling with you.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_01: There are probably elements of this anxiety,
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_01: depression or whatever, where I'm just not trusting God enough.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_01: I don't deny that for a second.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like I know how prone my heart is to wander.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_01: But there are also parts of this that are not mine to bear.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like I don't have to carry every single bit of this on my own.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_01: There's a guy named Steve Cuss who he's written some, he's a podcast for Christianity.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_01: And he has written some really good stuff on anxiety.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, a question you should always ask yourself is, what's mine to carry?
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_01: What's God's to carry?
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_01: And what is this other person's to carry if it's a situation that involves another person?
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_01: For me, I was trying to shoulder something that I think totally wasn't mine.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so there had to be part of it where I was able to say, look, This isn't entirely my fault.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't mean that in a way where I'm trying to escape my...
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_01: To say that I'm without sin in this.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm never without sin, even in my good deeds, right?
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_01: But I needed to be able to offload some of that
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_01: because otherwise it was just like I was guilty of not just my own personal sin,
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_01: but the effects of all sin in living in a broken world.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that makes any sense or not, but that was a big part of my own personal journey.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_00: No, I think it makes perfect sense.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's part of what we as human beings are constantly coming to grip with.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean to suggest that every human is borderline anxious.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_00: I do think that it affects us in ways that we don't even know
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_00: or maybe even sometimes care to admit that there are these deeply seated anxieties
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_00: that pop up.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes they pop up and we don't even understand where or where from.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's...
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's precisely what God has come to resolve is by giving us himself,
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_00: which is the most profound answer to what's next or what's going to happen if...
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_00: All of those things find their culmination in what you constantly point people to
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_00: in your book, which is Christ for them.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's the gospel.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not just,
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_00: saying that we are gospel-centered even on places like this or even
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_00: in spaces like this.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about fear and these anxieties and stuff like that.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just because we're, you know, Theo bros who have nothing else to talk about.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's because I think maybe you would admit this too,
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_00: that it's the only thing that I've It's the only thing I have.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's the only thing I have to offer.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of think of Acts chapter 3 where the beggar,
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_00: this guy is outside the temple and he's crying out to be healed and
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_00: to be given some sense of relief.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_00: And he asks, I think it's Peter in Acts chapter 3, give me some money.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_00: And Peter says, I don't have anything like that, but I can give you Jesus.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost like that sense of And that's enough.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we're talking about the gospel in these situations because it's the only thing I have, man.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have anything else to give you.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_00: I can try and give you some tips and tricks and techniques,
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_00: and maybe some of those will work for a while,
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_00: but they're going to be flashes in the pan.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_00: The only thing that I have to offer people that—because it's
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_00: the only thing that— Yeah, that's true.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone needs a preacher because we need to hear these good words spoken to us,
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_00: these words of promise.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_00: Do not fear.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_00: We need to hear those words coming from someone who is outside of us.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because if we tell ourselves that,
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_00: we're often going to turn that into a law as we've been hammering home.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_01: Kellogg, you're looking really good today, right?
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's one way you can go about it.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas if I walk out and my wife is there and is like, honey, oh my goodness, you look amazing.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_01: That hits different, right?
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_01: So when it's like somebody outside of yourself, for sure.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_00: As you've,
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_00: you kind of mentioned this,
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_00: that some of this kind of came from a sermon series you did a while ago,
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_00: but like if there's,
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_00: and now you've kind of written,
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_00: you preached a little bit about it,
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_00: you've written this book about this,
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_00: but if there's, if there's one, how do I ask this?
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_00: What are some ways in which,
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_00: as you've digested This thing that we often read as a law that's actually a promise,
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_00: how has that affected or informed you as a pastor?
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_00: Not just from preaching, but maybe for like counseling, conversations and whatnot.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is there something that you would say that, you know, this is really important?
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe not changed, but maybe adjusted or altered, or it's definitely informed you in some way.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think so.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_01: I reflect back on the Iowa's Preachers Project again,
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_01: and there was a phrase that,
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_01: at the end of the,
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_01: I don't remember in what part of it,
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_01: but in one of the liturgies that we did,
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_01: there was this little phrase,
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_01: and it was referring to the gospel,
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_01: and it referred to it as that little word on which the cosmos turns.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_01: Do you remember that?
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh my goodness, I'm going to latch onto that.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to hold onto that.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_01: the reason that I think sometimes I or others will,
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_01: people will be accused of being antinomians or light on the law is
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_01: that you're not bringing the law.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_01: But I think I don't, I don't want, I don't find that to be true.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like you need the law and all of its Mount Sinai glory in order to hear the gospel
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_01: and all of its like major chords and Um,
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_01: but I think the real reason that like,
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_01: that's the reason that I,
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_01: I treasure the gospel so much is it is a different,
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_01: a categorically different kind of word.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_01: And like you say,
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_01: it has the power in and of itself to unleash,
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_01: um, And set free people, captives, everything, all the stuff that Jesus talks about.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah,
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_01: getting back to,
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_01: so I think that kind of informs, I hope,
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_01: like that informs the way that I minister to people, the way that I care for them.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think for me personally,
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_01: I have one of the gifts,
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_01: you know, Paul talks about spiritual gifts in a number of places.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the ones he gets to is the gift of encouragement.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know that that's one that gets spoken of a lot,
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_01: but I have found that that is one that I'm trying to lean into more and more is,
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_01: man...
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_01: The scarcity of good news in our world today is a real thing.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_01: Not just in our world today, in our hearts, in the world, at all times.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_01: People are dying for a life-giving word, right?
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so if I can offer that word of encouragement and lean into that, like...
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_01: Which is maybe another way of saying that good gospel word.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to do it, right?
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_01: Not speaking exclusively with that word,
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_01: but I am always looking for that because that's the one thing that differentiates
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_01: the Christian faith from Christ.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to lean into that, you know, like crazy.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a good thing.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it's something people are like dying and desperate for, you know?
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_00: They are.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_00: Luke, man, this has been really fun.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_00: Where can people connect with you?
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_00: Where can people find your book?
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_00: Where should they go to pick it up?
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not crazy active on the socials, but you can find me on Instagram or Facebook.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_01: I have a YouTube channel called Foxhole Theology, which I don't update a whole lot.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_01: But as far as getting the book, you can pre-order it on Amazon.com.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_01: You can get it at 1517.org.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_01: Go to the bookstore there.
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's some other places too,
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_01: maybe like, maybe Barnes and Noble or Target, other places like that.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_01: But you pre-order it now, it comes out on September 15th.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome, man.
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely get it.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying that just because I wrote the forward.
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm saying that because I think- Buy it for the
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_01: forward alone.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely do not.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_00: Luke, this has been amazing.
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for hopping on and so proud of your work and your project.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm looking forward to what the Lord lays in your heart next.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_00: But thank you for sharing your fears with readers who perhaps need to be reminded
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_00: that they don't have to fear because of who Christ is for them.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate that, Brad.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much for having me on.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's been an honor.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for watching or listening to this episode of the Ministry Minded Podcast.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks again to Luke for hopping on and talking about his new book,
• 1:05:28
  SPEAKER_00: Fear Not Available, wherever books are sold.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure you check out the links below.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to link to all the places where you can get that book,
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_00: get a copy of that in your I was blessed to write the foreword for this book,
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_00: which I was pretty taken aback by,
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_00: but I can definitely say I can vouch for the fact that I think this is
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_00: an excellent book, excellent read, one that you should definitely add in.
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_00: I guess until then, see you in the next episode.
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_00: Blessings.
• 1:06:26
  SPEAKER_01: Ha ha ha.