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A Conviction: Conversation · Beyond the Sermon

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You're listening to Beyond the Sermon, the podcast of First
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Methodist Church in Collingswood, NJ.
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On our podcast, the goal is not just to share our sermons, but
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to go beyond the sermon and talk about what we're learning and
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what God is doing in US and in our community.
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The conversation you're about to join was inspired by our June
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2025 Do It Again sermon series. In this series, we're looking at
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what the Book of Habakkuk can teach us about living in times
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of injustice. You can find more information
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about our church at fumccollingswood.org.
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Thanks for joining us for this conversation.
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Sunday was unique in many ways. Just because I haven't preached
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in so long. Yeah, I forgot where your voice
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sounded. Yeah, I forgot that was the
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first one back. Yeah, I felt a little.
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Rusty in how long? 3-4 weeks.
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Youth did 1, you did 2. I think I did the one before
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that, yeah. It's only like 3 weeks off
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before that. Yeah.
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So I've reached like once in five weeks.
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Felt a little rusty. And then we had our special
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guests 7. Yep, the musical group from
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Messiah University, Which. My.
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Gosh, so talented. Yeah, so anointed.
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First first like notes of them singing.
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I was like, is this a recording? Like the harmonies?
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And yeah. Yeah, they've been working hard.
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Yeah, I was like, how do we get there?
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And then they told me that they practice six to seven hours
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every day together. Well when we become a mega
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church and we can put seven people on full time staff.
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Right, Exactly right. Because that's the thing.
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Like this is their summer job, Like they're being paid to go
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out and represent the the the university.
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And we had such a blessing that they were able to join us in
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Sunday school with the youth. And I talked to Alden Walker
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about like what they do because they like to hang out with the
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youth sometimes. And he's like, we can do
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whatever you want, you know, AQ and A or something.
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I was like, you will regret doing AQ and A with me because I
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will allow everything as long as it's respectful.
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I won't allow anything and I will have questions myself.
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And he's like, yeah, we're ready.
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And so they came in and the kids asked virtually nothing.
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We had like 3 questions from our students, one of which was the
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favorite Celsius energy drink flavor.
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They're all carrying cancer. But one of the questions.
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And might have gone different if they had met with them after
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they led worship. Yeah, but I think it was good
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because you knew the person and where their heart was before you
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saw the talent. Sure.
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Where then I think you'd be hyper focused on like I think it
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had pros and cons to both situation where it's just like,
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yeah, yeah. And one of the questions I threw
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at them two questions, one was how do you balance all the
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technicality of what you're trying to achieve while also
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having a heart of worship? Or do you not count leading
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worship as your personal worship time?
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This is you helping others worship and then you worship on
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your own. And so them talking about how
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through the practice and knowing all the technicality, excuse me,
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So naturally that that's the easy part when you're up there.
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And then you can focus on the worship part while you're on
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stage because all of the playing instruments and the vocals
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you've already done time and time and time and time and time
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again. And so that was really
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beautiful. And then also talking about how
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knowing their sins, knowing their past, how do they wrestle
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with feeling like they aren't good enough to represent either
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Messiah or represent God or eat his people and worship.
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And they had some really incredible answers about, you
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know, trying to be faithful and not sitting in, in shame, but
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repenting and letting God steer them away from those things.
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And it was, yeah. It was a great conversation.
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And then knowing that and knowing their hearts and where
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they are and their walk while worshipping just added another
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beautiful layer. Did you request do it again I'm
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assuming? Yeah, they did me a solid and
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learned it for me. Oh.
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They didn't know it before. It wasn't on their list of stuff
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on their roster because. Yeah, I'd asked Alden to send me
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like a list of their repertoire of worship songs.
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Yeah. And he said, well, we actually
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haven't done a whole lot of worship yet this summer.
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Yeah. And so he's like.
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But here are the ones that like we feel really good about and
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like, here's a couple of that really kind of highlight what
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we're able to to do. And so I kind of worked within
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that. I said, but, you know, I'd love
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for you to learn this one if you're willing to.
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And. And they'd offered, you know,
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like, let us know what you want. Like doesn't have to be from
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this list, but but yes, I asked him to to learn that do it again
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one. Yeah, such a blessing for me.
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And I think the whole congregation and seemed like a
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lot of their families were able to join us as.
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Well, couple of a lot of Alden's family.
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Oh, OK. So like, yeah, so he had people
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from Will's side of the family, Christine's side of the family.
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And then the one other guy, Aiden, his family is like King
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of Prussia area. So they were able to come over.
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That must have been a nice Father's Day for.
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Them. Yeah, the.
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Timeliness of your message. Yeah.
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Is so incredible to me because it's not you and I love that
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it's not you. No offense what do.
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You mean I wrote the sermon? Especially coming off of the
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summer playlist or whatever, what was the?
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Summer mixtape or spring mixtape, I don't know, whatever.
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Mixtapes, yeah, as well as you all lived it where we were doing
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like one off sermons and we've talked on the podcast of like
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Scott's not a big fan, biggest fan of one off sermons.
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That's not his normal zone in which he operates.
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So you may think that it was a oh, he sat down this past week.
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It's like, I need to figure out what this next one is.
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And then all the stuff going on around us in our country and in
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the news and around the world, and he's like, oh, that's why he
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ended up with this. And he did great and he did do
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great. And I was like.
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Jesus did great. Yeah, I don't know how.
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I don't know how you could have done better.
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And so I wanted to give the listeners the context of how
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long God is preparing, been preparing this sermon on your
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mind, on your heart, in practice and practice.
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Yeah. When when was the first time you
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were diving into Habakkuk you? Want the short version of the
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long version? It's a podcast, we can talk all
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day long, all right? I just want to eat food at some
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point. So.
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So when I was still at Trinity, probably back in like 2018, I
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went to a Wesleyan Covenant Association gathering in
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Washington Crossing, PA. And the pastor preached of the
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church who was hosting us that he preached A sermon that kind
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of gave like this sweeping view of Habakkuk, the whole book, all
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three chapters, and just kind of like highlighting a verse in
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each chapter kind of thing. And he, he called it do it
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again. So that's kind of where it
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started, but and and that just kind of lived in me for a while.
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I did some of my own study and in 2021 maybe I was asked to
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teach a couple days of adult Bible study at Delanco during
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their family camp and did like a two-part of Habakkuk.
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And it started to grow like I started to the more time I spent
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reflecting on it and meditating on the more rich it became.
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And so then in 2023 I, I did a six weeks, six week series in
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the Tuesday morning Bible study on Habakkuk, 3 chapters, 6
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weeks. So not quite as in depth as as
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when we did Jude for six weeks, which was only 1 chapter, but
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but did the six weeks of Habakkuk.
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And that's when I kind of really did some, some deeper dives into
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some commentaries, read some books on Habakkuk, all that kind
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of stuff. And then started to think, all
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right, when, when will this slot into this, you know, 2023-2024
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sermon series plan and just never quite felt like it was the
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right time, didn't feel like it quite fit.
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And so I said, all right, well, just let it be and leave it and
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didn't preach it that fall or winter of 23, not in 24 through
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the spring, summer of 24, last summer.
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I try each summer to take a day or a few days over a week to
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spend some intentional time praying and asking God what He
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wants to say to the congregation over the next year.
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Not that I want to be so locked in that He can't change that,
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but because I do thrive on on knowing what the plan is and
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having time to prepare and think about things in advance.
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I don't remember where it originally ended up, but it was
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somewhere much earlier in this 9 to 12 month cycle.
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It might have been last fall I originally had it and then.
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Right before right? I think it was supposed to lead
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up into. Maybe into Advent?
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Into Advent. Yeah.
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And then that didn't seem to be the right place.
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And so, yeah, yeah. So just looking at my little
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CHEAT SHEET here on my whiteboard, we ended up doing
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Mark there instead. We have that four week series on
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Miracles and Mark because I just didn't feel like it was the
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right place for Habakkuk. And then Bush had thought maybe
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I was going to do it where we ended up doing the practicing
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the Way series in that three-week window.
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I. Don't say because this winter
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and spring got mixed around so many times.
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Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I had the plan and God's
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been changing it up and that's OK.
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That's how that's how it works. I thought it was going to be
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there. Then I thought maybe it's going
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to be in the slot where we did Altars of Awakening right before
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Lent. That didn't happen.
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And so continuing to work the, the schedule once I relented to
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doing that six week series of that wasn't a series.
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It's kind of like I was like, oh, we've got three weeks at the
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end of June. We'll just, I'll stick it in
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there and then we'll start the summer summer series because 13
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weeks over the summer seemed like a really long time to be in
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one series. So stuck it in here at the end
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of June almost as an afterthought and a place filler.
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But as you said, feels like it kind of hit in a timely manner,
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almost like Jesus knew what he was doing.
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Yeah, yeah. And so that's, I appreciate you
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sharing that context because yeah, I'm, I'm just, I was just
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baffled as you're going through. And literally after I finished
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reading the scripture as you were walking up, I was gonna be
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like, good luck with that and. That's why I kind of like, man,
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as I heard you reading, I was like, man, that's the end of
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that. It's really kind of a downer.
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Like, yeah, Babylon's come in and here's all the terrible
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things they're going to do and how awful they are.
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Like, right, Happy Father's Day. Yeah, One of the things I wanted
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to clarify, as you talked about God using the unrighteous to
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punish, when you're like that whole ending section, you were
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just talking about the Babylonians sure what they were
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going to do. Yeah.
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Does that mean God caused the Babylonians to sin?
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I'm going to say no, God is not the author of sin, nor can he
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sin. That's what one of the passages
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of the New Testament tells us. The way I wrestle with that, and
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hopefully it doesn't sound like too much of A qualification, but
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I think God used people as they were.
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Yeah. You know he's.
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Not like the Babylonians were all like nice to everybody and
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great and then God was like, now you're the bad guys.
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Right, right. Right.
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Now he just, he used what was already happening on the the
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political landscape. Yeah, in order to accomplish
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what he wanted to needed to with Judah.
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If it hadn't been the Babylonians, you know, he easily
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could have allowed the Assyrians to stay in power.
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And I mean, they had already taken the 10 tribes of Israel
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into exile. It could have easily been Egypt
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as a world power at that point who could have done so.
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Although I don't think because of what God had already done in
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Egypt, I don't think he would have taken them back there.
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But allowing the people to do what they were going to do
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instead of protecting the Israelites, as he's done so many
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times in the past, or help them conquer others, but allow those
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things to pass. And yeah, I just wanted that
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clarification. Yeah, just in case.
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You know, people were like, oh, God made them do all these
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horrible things. It's like now they were already
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doing. Like if you leave a stake out
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for a dog, it's like, dog's gone for the stake, right?
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You're not forcing it to eat the steak like you know what it's
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going to do. So once you make it available
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for them to do it, that's what they're going to do.
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How did you feel this past week going through?
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Because I know you were talking about the last time you taught
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on this section. It was two hours and so bringing
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it down, what was that? Oh yeah, cuz then last I didn't
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put that in, but last summer I was invited to teach Bible study
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at South Seaville and did it over A5 day period.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. So how was it crunching down the
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material and sifting through things?
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And did the events on the news affect not necessarily change
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what was in there, but changed how you viewed God using it and
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working it? Like were you like, oh, OK, I
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see what you're doing now, God. And you're just like, I don't
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know. It was tricky.
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It was tricky to to take all the material that I had and granted
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in the context that I had done it before.
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Some of the space was for like Q&A.
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Let's talk about this. You know, we we talked about,
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you know, what do you know about Josiah and his reign as king?
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You know, and like let some back and forth happen about all that
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where in the sermon I just summarized it in, you know,
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three to five sentences. This is who Josiah was and and
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what led to the context that Habakkuk was speaking into as
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far as current events go. I mean, I can't say that I was
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oblivious to what was happening, but it wasn't like I wrote any
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specific part of the sermon in response to any of that.
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Like even that opening part where I was trying to paint that
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picture of the world, which was the Second Kings 2324 world.
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I think that was almost word for word what I did last summer in
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24 and then in the fall of 23 to kind of draw people into our
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conversation. And interestingly, it it hit
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people differently at those times and then they were seeing
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different things happening at that point that felt just as
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relatable. The world being corrupt.
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Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, it doesn't take a
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stretch of the imagination to to see the the parallels there.
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But it did feel, I think, particularly poignant preaching
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it on Sunday after all that had taken place in the world, in our
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nation the day before and the week before, with all the
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parades and the protests, all that stuff with stuff happening
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even, you know, in the Middle East between Israel and Iran,
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all the things. Yeah.
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When you're saying about like that, you weren't oblivious, but
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like, I think it's almost helpful to then just be.
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Then you're not wrestling as much of what does Scott want to
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speak into this situation versus what God wants to speak into
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this situation. And.
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Because if you really want to know what I think politically, I
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think both sides get a lot of things wrong and neither one of
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them lines up with or represents the Kingdom of God in America.
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And so if we are looking to either political party to be our
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savior, we're missing it. We're missing it.
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And so I don't want to say I don't care what happens in the
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political realm, but it's not my first concern.
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It's not my primary concern because I think the story of
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Scripture all throughout is that the Kingdom of God and the
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Kingdom of the world are pretty much always in opposition.
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The world, the devil, sin, self, all kind of teams up together.
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These powers that then in, you know, enslave us, but that we
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also cooperate with the real things that are happening in the
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world, but they're always in opposition to the Kingdom of
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God. Yeah, yeah.
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I was talking to one of our youth today because they were
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asking me about like, I don't know what's going on.
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I just know people keep talking about no king.
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Yeah, what's that about? And I was like, well, I
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explained what's been going on. And then it was like, but if
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everyone was honest with themselves, nobody wants a king.
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And we need King Jesus. We need him to be the Lord of
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our lives. And so if everyone's extremely
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opposed to having right, they're talking a political king, but
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we're talking about like an absolute ruler overall.
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Is that we need Jesus to be our king.
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And so that's why I was like, no king but Jesus, yeah.
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When I think we what we miss sometimes as American Christians
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is that democracy was never baptized in Scripture, all
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right. Like Scripture never lays out a
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way a political model for government that the church is
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supposed to strive for right. Unless you're going to go back
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all the way to. Judicial law and.
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Yeah, the the. The Levitical.
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Law and all that kind of stuff, and theocracy that was kind of
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mediated by the prophets like Samuel, right before the people
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of Israel asked for a king so they could be like the other
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nations, right? They didn't want to be this
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unique representation of God's presence in the world.
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They wanted to be like everybody else.
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And so God said, great, I'll give you a king.
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Now, I will argue that I do think a monarchy was in God's
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plan for the people of Israel. I think they wanted it sooner
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than they were ready for and sooner than God wanted to give
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it to them. And that's a whole nother
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conversation. But all through the New
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Testament, you know, we're kind of given this vision even from
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Jesus himself. He says, or he's asked about
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paying taxes and he says, render to Caesar, what's Caesar's
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render to God? What's God?
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He says, yeah, they they say, should we pay taxes?
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And Jesus looks at the coin and says, well, whose image is on
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the coin, right. And obviously it was Caesar's
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image. So give that to Caesar.
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The implication is right, whose image are is stamped on you,
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right? So if we're supposed to give to
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Caesar, what's Caesar and to God, what is God?
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Well, we're marked with the image of God and so, or we're
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supposed to be. And so that should change the
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way we interact with the political governments of the
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world. And as we're wrestling feelings
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and culture and community and all of these things, I thought
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you did a really great job at clarifying the difference
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between grief and lament and biblical lament.
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Could you give us a quick touch up on what that is?
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Yeah, so a really helpful quote. So a really helpful quote I read
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from Taylor Turkington in a book she wrote on Habakkuk was that
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Lament is seeing what is right and true about God and what is
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true and wrong about the world, right.
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And so it's, it's this recognition that the world, it
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doesn't reflect God the way he intended it to, that it doesn't
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share his character and nature the way he designed it to when
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he made humanity and then place them in the Garden of Eden.
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And so when we see those things humanly, naturally, they grieve
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us, right? We, we, we recognize the world
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isn't the way it's supposed to be.
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And that's true whether we acknowledge God's intention or
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not, right? Even if someone doesn't believe
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in God, they can look around at the world and say this isn't the
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way it should be. For whatever reason, as
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Christians, we don't just stay in that place of grief.
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We allow that then to to push us into lament, which is then
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bringing that to God and asking Him to do something that only He
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can do to remedy that situation. Yeah.
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How, how has that looked in your life and how can that look in
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like in practice in our lives on a daily basis?
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Because it seems like there are things daily that we should be
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lamenting over. Oh, gosh, yeah.
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So many things. So many.
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Like, yeah, I don't, I don't think that there's a day that
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goes by where I read the news and I don't feel some level of
24:50
this grief of based on what different groups and different
24:54
people are doing. You know, it stirs up all kinds
24:57
of things, some of the things that we prayed about in the
25:01
service history. But there that was just the tip
25:03
of the iceberg. And the reality is it can be so
25:09
overwhelming in this day and age, like we are constantly
25:15
being inundated by the newsfeed, right?
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And it's always bringing what what they think is either the
25:24
most relevant thing that's happened in the last five
25:28
minutes, 24 hours, week, whatever, or what they think is
25:32
going to get the biggest response.
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Because let's be honest, the the news is trying to get you to
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read more news or watch more news.
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And so, you know, there's, there's an aspect of good
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journalism to it, but there's also an aspect of sensationalism
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to it. That constant flood from the
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whole world is just constantly coming at us and, and it's
25:58
overwhelming. I don't know about you, but I'm
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not God. And I still haven't figured out
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how to carry all of that because I was never made to, right?
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You think back even just 50 years ago, you know, kind of.
26:17
Remember it well. 50 years ago, yeah.
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I mean, I don't know. That's probably not even long
26:23
enough at this point. 70 years ago.
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I'm thinking like 1950s, which is really 70 years ago now, not
26:31
50 years ago. We're talking the the beginnings
26:35
of broadcast news and stuff. And there was a certain time
26:41
people would TuneIn and watch the news.
26:44
Yeah, that was like a big deal. You know, you've got Walter
26:46
Cronkite and all of us like. Names I don't know.
26:49
Yeah, yeah, sure. You don't know Walter Cronkite
26:52
as a name. Come on, man.
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Cultural icon for what? News?
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He was the Voice of the American people.
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Like he was the voice and the face of the American news.
27:07
Everybody knew. But you turn on the news to
27:11
watch because that and newspapers were the only way you
27:16
had to get the news. And, you know, newspapers,
27:21
they've got a certain time where they have to cut off and you
27:23
have to go to print and then to be distributed and blah, blah,
27:26
blah, blah, blah. Like a lot of the news people
27:31
were reading was a day or two old at that point because it
27:35
takes time to do the interviews and do the reporting and write
27:39
it down and get it edited and then published.
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And so then the switch to broadcast news where you were
27:47
getting far more up to date news in the moment, but it was still,
27:52
you'd watch for 30 minutes or an hour.
27:55
Yeah. And then that was it.
27:57
Now we've got I don't know how many dozens of news channels on
28:02
cable TV where you just turn on all day long.
28:05
You can watch news and people talking about the news. 24/7
28:08
YouTube channels. Yeah, 24/7 YouTube channels,
28:11
there's, there's all kinds of. Independent.
28:13
Digital print stuff where people are writing and it's being
28:16
updated and we just can't. Our souls were never meant to
28:23
carry that much news from that wide, Yeah of a swath of the
28:29
world and it's overwhelming. So I've learned the only thing.
28:36
Well, I've got 2 choices every time, right?
28:40
I can either start spiraling thinking about all the terrible
28:44
things that are happening in the world and do these deep dives
28:47
into the details of these things that often by and large have
28:51
very little effect on what I do day-to-day, even if there's
28:57
significant things. Or I can take those things, feel
29:04
the grief of it because I think that's an important part of it,
29:07
and then offer it back to God and and ask him to work in those
29:12
situations. Often times in ways I don't even
29:16
understand. He needs to, but trusting that
29:21
he knows and he's able to do what he needs to do to bring
29:27
those things toward his ultimate purposes, which I might not be
29:34
able to, to see how he can use those things or how he can work
29:38
in the midst of those things. And so just turning it back to
29:43
him, quick little prayer that I picked up from John Eldridge
29:49
somewhere along the way is, you know, just Jesus, I give
29:52
everything and everyone to you. That's a just a quick, I'll pray
30:01
multiple times every day. Just jeez, I don't know how to
30:07
carry all this. I don't know even what you need
30:10
to do in the midst of this. And so I just give it back to
30:14
you, give everything and everyone to you.
30:19
And that could be for things as as big and global as Israel and
30:26
Iran. It could be the friend who
30:28
shoots a text and says, hey, this is going on in my life and
30:33
I want to walk with them in that.
30:34
I want to bear their burden with them.
30:37
But I can't actually carry it. And I can't actually do anything
30:42
about it most of the time. Yeah, but I can take it to the
30:46
one who can. And in the grief of it,
30:52
recognizing what's wrong in the world and holding on to the
30:57
conviction of who God is. Yeah, and being faithful to
31:04
where he wants you to act, because I don't want people to
31:07
hear that and think like, oh, so you just pray and then you don't
31:13
do anything at all for anything in the world, right?
31:16
But we couldn't possibly be a part of every single issue
31:19
that's going on in the world. It's literally impossible,
31:21
right? So.
31:22
It might not be our specific assignment, yeah.
31:24
I so I had a friend that's grew up ish in the church, no longer
31:30
part of the church, and I was like, what are you guys doing?
31:35
And I was like, you know, we try to equip people to find out
31:39
where God wants them to serve. And yeah, all of them grow and,
31:45
and, and serve where His Spirit leads them.
31:47
Because I would rather have everyone in the church working
31:52
on one injustice or thing that God has put on their heart and
31:56
LED them to in this season, then everybody just repost about
32:02
1,000,000 problems and not do anything about it.
32:05
If we actually utilize our time to help with the things that God
32:09
has put us in a specific place, context, resource, whatever it
32:13
may be in order to help, and that's where Spirit is leading
32:17
us, then like that's much better time spent than four hours
32:22
online grieving and grieving and grieving and grieving, letting
32:25
people know that we're grieving, grieving and grieving and
32:28
grieving and then. Yeah, it's.
32:31
Being the hands and feet. So we've got people from our
32:34
congregation who are doing great things about local food
32:38
insecurity right through our food pantry.
32:40
They're trying to help provide for people who are experiencing
32:45
that level of food insecurity. We've got other people who go
32:51
out and help drive the, the mobile ultrasound and pregnancy
32:57
counseling truck or van or whatever it is to get to places
33:04
to offer people an alternative to things like Planned
33:07
Parenthood and other things in that vein.
33:11
So people have an option. They know that there's another
33:14
choice they can make. And I love to see our people out
33:17
actually doing something about the specific thing God calls
33:21
them to, rather than just sitting in, yeah, spinning about
33:27
the news and talking about the news and not doing anything
33:31
where they actually can. Yeah, so there's the challenge
33:34
to you listening. What is God leading you to do
33:39
with the days that He's given you to draw closer to Him, to
33:43
draw others closer to Him, and to be His hands and feet in the
33:47
world? Walk it was it walking humbly?
33:51
Micah 6-8. I know what you're talking
33:53
about, just letting you flounder a little bit.
33:56
Well, it's because in my version I always say skating humbly with
33:59
my friend who's their favorite first, but we switch them
34:01
because we both skateboard. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
34:03
It's skating. Seek justice, Do mercy.
34:10
Walk humbly with your God. Just imagine I said it.
34:18
Well, that's our conversation for today, but that doesn't mean
34:21
the conversation is over. We'd love to hear your thoughts
34:24
on these topics as well. To ask a question about anything
34:27
we've discussed in this episode or to join the conversation, you
34:30
can head over to fumccollingswood.org/podcast.
34:36
Thanks for being part of this conversation.