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August 6 - Ordinary Time 2026 with Jenna Barber · Abide In Me

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, I am the vine, you are the branches.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you abide in me, and I in you, you will bear much fruit.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Abide in Me podcast.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: This summer we will be hearing from different voices, each bringing you reflections, songs, and liturgy to help us stay connected to the vine.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: This week we are joined by our Chapel Campus pastor, Jenna Barber.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Today is the final segment of my little three-part miniseries in which I hope to share some insight into the transformation God can do using the first three steps of the 12 steps that most of us might associate with groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, but actually first came to life out of the church and still today seem to be a goldmine of transformation for the church, if we really want it to be.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: I borrow from Pastor John Ortberg's pithy way of summarizing the first three steps.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: If step one can be shortened to I can't, and step two to he can, then step three would be I think I'll let him.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Out of step two's aim, which is we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves, aka God, could restore us to sanity, comes the hard-hitting follow-up.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Once we believe God is trustworthy, we decide to actually let Him take over everything.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: In my experience of working the steps myself, steps two and three work almost in tandem.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: God proves his trustworthiness as we give him things to be trustworthy with, which leads to deeper belief that God is, in fact, trustworthy, which flows then into deeper daily surrender.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: This step claims a caring God.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'll be transparent and say that for most of my life, I believed God loved me, yes, but in a committed kind of way.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: A I have to because I married you kind of way, not a deep delighted, I love you and I like you kind of way.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: A let's hang out because we're best friends kind of way, even if it's sitting on the couch doing nothing except watching a movie together, or remembering the events of the day, telling him about the coworker that drives you nuts and asking for his advice on how to handle it.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's likely not everyone carries the levels of deep shame that I do.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: But this step was not only the most difficult for me, it also ended up being the most life-changing.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's like when you get home, who's the person you most want to call and debrief, process, or just chill with?
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's how God feels about you.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's serious and sometimes it's silly, but all of the time he's the safest place in the world.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: We can't reduce God down to simply a friend, but he's very much at minimum the best friend you'll ever have.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because he cares for you and will be gentle with your life.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: While you can't, he can.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: So let him.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: I previously mentioned the serenity prayer, and you may have come into contact with it before, but likely the shortened version.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: The full prayer is as follows God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as the pathway to peace, taking as he did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Trusting that he will make all things right if I surrender to his will, that I might be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with him forever in the next.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: Trusting that he will make things right if I surrender to his will.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: Full surrender is genuinely the only thing that works in life.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's the scariest thing ever, leading to the most freeing thing ever.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: Start small.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: Are you anxious about the results of a test?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Surrender.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean you'll hear back what you prefer, but it gives God the job of taking it from there to make all things right.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: Do you rehearse the conversation with the person in your head a million times over enough to make you dizzy?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: Surrender.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: God will give you what you need when you get there.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: When you let him, he'll make all things right.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: Are you racked with guilt or shame about something that you did?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Surrender.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: You're met with gentle love.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: He'll get you through it and teach you what you need to learn.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: He'll make all things right.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: God can and will use anything, everything, if you let him.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't mean you're apathetic or passive in any way.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone who's actually surrendered knows exactly how active and caring you have to be to do it and keep doing it.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: The biggest challenge here I've found is to wait.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: God doesn't work on our timeline but his, and it often seems to me that God is very rarely in a hurry, much to my general frustration.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: But when you live in the flow of surrender, even that part becomes easier.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: Easier to be patient to act until God makes it clear it's time.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: Or being okay not acting.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: If God never gives you the go, that simply means he's got something better in mind.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: On the first episode that I did, I shared that these three steps are the wash, rinse, repeat of commitments.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's likely you'll never feel like you've actually accomplished them.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: And if you do, you'll soon learn you most definitely have not.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: But every day is a new opportunity to acknowledge that you can't, that he can, and that you have the choice to let him.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: We don't do this alone, but in community.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: We can't do it ourselves.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: So find a buddy or a group and try this stuff together and then wait for the transformation to happen in God's time.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for joining us.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: If you have any questions, comments, or would like prayer, we would love to hear from you.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: Reach out to us at abide at pillarchurch.com.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: And for now, if you're willing, receive this blessing.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: May the grace of Christ, which daily renews us, and the love of God, which enables us to love all, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, which unites us in one body, make us eager to obey the will of God until we meet again through Jesus Christ our Lord.