Latest / The Extra Mile Podcast / Can We Really Be Made New? (With Pastor Ty Beckman)

Transcript

Can We Really Be Made New? (With Pastor Ty Beckman) · The Extra Mile Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_00: We don't focus on just how detrimental sin is to our lives.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: That literally, sin separates us from God.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: God wants it's almost like if you can get a vision of God standing on one side of a chasm and us on the other, and his arms are outstretched and he wants so bad to reach and bring us across.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: But the sin is what's separating us.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: And he and his kid is on the butt, but the limitation of God is that God is saying it's everybody.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: Good to have you, man.
0:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was a good Sunday, man.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: I know when I when I got the memo you were giving me my tag team partner, I'm like, this is gonna be fun.
0:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we'll we'll have uh plenty of content, plenty of laughs, probably, and uh we'll try not to keep everybody too long.
1:05
SPEAKER_01: But man, excited to go the extra mile with you today over some of the content because this series has been great.
1:11
SPEAKER_01: And I think uh to kind of end this series, you know, I I think we we we kind of ended the series on this place where we're we're talking about what's really important as a Christ follower, living out the life that God's called us to live, going from death to life.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm looking forward to how Pastor Steve's gonna wrap this up this next week.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be really, really great.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I had the privilege and the honor to share the message from death to life this past Sunday.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: And Pastor Stein, let me ask you something.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: What's your relationship with you know having to kill an animal like hunting or fishing or when you like I even cringe when I drive down the road and I see like a turtle on the road, I'll try not to hit it.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: I am so anti, I've never hunted.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: I've fished before.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: And one time I had a fish that died on my hook and I felt bad about it.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm I'm the I'm the suburban boy that doesn't like to kill animals.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: Where you where you at?
1:58
SPEAKER_01: I grew up in the country and uh there were obviously moments.
2:01
SPEAKER_01: Uh I've been hunting a number of times.
2:03
SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm not the world's uh biggest hunter, and I do not come against people that are um of that opinion.
2:10
SPEAKER_01: And hey, that's their hobby.
2:11
SPEAKER_01: I I I go play golf.
2:12
SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm hunting for birdies.
2:13
SPEAKER_01: There you go.
2:14
SPEAKER_01: Um every time I go out.
2:15
SPEAKER_01: Um every now and then an eagle if I'm lucky.
2:18
SPEAKER_01: But uh for the most part, I'm dealing with a bunch of bogeys.
2:20
SPEAKER_01: So I'm not really um, I'm not a big, big hunter by any means, but uh definitely I do not gloat.
2:26
SPEAKER_01: I do not cheer on, you know, if I ever see on the side of the road, you know, like there's been a couple times.
2:32
SPEAKER_01: I actually I hit a deer one time, very sad.
2:34
SPEAKER_01: Uh also messed up my vehicle.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: I've got all kinds of stories I could get into.
2:39
SPEAKER_01: Um, we will get canceled if I tell them all.
2:41
SPEAKER_01: Uh so I'm gonna I'm gonna avoid saying that.
2:43
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I think there's something in all of us that, you know, sure, we might get a fly swatter out.
2:48
SPEAKER_01: But um, for the most part, I think everybody feels some type of just that that grueling, you know, like letdown if you see something like that take place, uh, that moment of death is, man, it it still it still affects us.
3:03
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and that's not even, you know, the life that we would say of a loved one or something like that.
3:07
SPEAKER_01: Like it, it still affects us.
3:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was where I was going, is that when you when you have that much of an impact on something that's, you know, not family or not a friend or not a significant loved one in your life.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: And then when you think about the perspective of losing that person that you've invested so much of your life into, or they've invested so much of their life into you, it really does hit you.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: I recently lost my dad over a month ago.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it's the moments when normal has now gone out the window, when that person's no longer there, that you really get a better understanding and almost respect for what the effect death has on a person.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: And so when I was preparing for this message, I was really trying to get inside God's heart of how does how does the the concept of death, especially spiritual death, yeah, how does that impact him as a father?
3:56
SPEAKER_00: Because as a father, he's watching his children that he loves and he's and he created.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of them, unfortunately, as we see in life and as we see through the even the context of just what's in the Bible, a lot of times the children of God choose death over life.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times God has to sit back and and his heart is broken, wanting so bad to give them life.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: And I love, you know, the concept of this of this sermon was that Jesus made the way to overrule death, to take the to take the effect of death away, to give us a hope and give us an eternal life.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: And um, I don't know if you've ever read the book, but John Bevere, one of his best books, I believe, is a book called Driven by Eternity.
4:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: And and I love that book because it talks about how a believer's life would dramatically change if they always had eternity in their mind.
4:40
SPEAKER_01: There's no doubt about it.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: If they always knew that the way I spend my money, the way I have a conversation with somebody, the way I raise my children, the way I talk to my spouse and have and the way I conduct my marriage, how if I had eternity in mind that I'm going to answer for all these decisions and answer for all these words and answer for all these thoughts I'm having when I stand on the other side of this very limited, what James calls a vapor of life, that it's here one day and could be gone the next.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: That when I think about these things, how much is eternity impacting my life?
5:08
SPEAKER_00: And one of the first things I talked about on Sunday, how mortality is just the death of our human body, but eternity is determining if we're gonna have life forever after with the presence of the Lord or life forever after separated from the presence of the Lord.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: So when we got into that conversation, you know, what were your thoughts when we talk about more our mortality versus our eternity?
5:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I think um all of us is it's kind of like the whole thing, there's uh two things is guaranteeing life, death, death, and taxes.
5:34
SPEAKER_01: Like well, we we have to experience the death of you know loved ones and again and it affects us.
5:39
SPEAKER_01: But then obviously in in the recesses of our mind, it's kind of like a numb, you know, just pressure point is I I'm heading in this direction towards the end of my life here on earth.
5:54
SPEAKER_01: And I think from the secular mindset, that's why everybody lives it up now.
5:57
SPEAKER_01: It's the YOLO like you only live once and yet while you're young.
6:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, I'm gonna live it out and I'm gonna I'm gonna live this way and I'm gonna spend it up and I'm gonna spend my my time and yet they're not investing it.
6:09
SPEAKER_01: And I think for us as Christ followers, the conversation is backed all the way to Genesis that whenever God He created humanity, He created it to live.
6:19
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
6:20
SPEAKER_01: Uh He never created us to die.
6:21
SPEAKER_01: No.
6:22
SPEAKER_01: Um, and He He still keeps that that bargain with us and He He desires us.
6:27
SPEAKER_01: Um, obviously, because of sin, we're gonna get into this here in just a moment.
6:31
SPEAKER_01: Uh, sin does something to our spirit that is no longer alive, you know, whenever we're we're found in sin.
6:38
SPEAKER_01: And that is the the nature and uh the the kind of environment we live in until we come in contact with a new environment, which is Christ and his kingdom, uh, unless the blood of Christ covers us, that is how we're defining ourselves.
6:53
SPEAKER_01: I just think it's it's so interesting if you look back and you think about all these people in the old testament live for hundreds of years, and you're like, man, that's crazy.
7:01
SPEAKER_01: But if you think about it, every one of us were designed not for a short amount of time, but for longevity.
7:09
SPEAKER_01: And so I think these people, these uh patriarchs of the faith, you know, it's interesting.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: Oh man, they were a hundred years old and they did this, and yeah, you know, all the way up to um Methuselah, uh, you know, lived 969 years old.
7:22
SPEAKER_01: Uh it's just crazy if you look at all these people that live these long expanses of life, and yet it's just a dot on a piece of paper that's eternity and how much grander that is.
7:31
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's beautiful that God wants us in eternity with him.
7:35
SPEAKER_01: Yes, but not for a short amount of time, not just for a moment or a vapor like our lives.
7:40
SPEAKER_01: You know, our days they feel long, our our years feel short here on earth.
7:44
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
7:45
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I I think it's it's so beautiful that we're gonna get to spend every single moment experiencing true life, which is in his presence.
7:52
SPEAKER_01: That's that's true life, that's life abundantly.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: I love the illustration Francis Chan loves to use where you have that one strand of piece of rope that's this long that's like red, and then you got like links and links and links of rope.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: That's good that that's your real, that's the eternity.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: But yet I I keep thinking back, how many even believers focus way too much on this one strip of red?
8:14
SPEAKER_00: So easy to fake it, focus way too much on just what this life is.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: And and we were having a conversation before we hit record on this podcast about so many times as believers, we get so caught up and we we do need to maximize the life God's given us here, because we only get one, and we do need to make sure that every single day counts for him.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: But we can get so infatuated and so focused on just what we're experiencing on earth that we it's almost like we push heaven to the side and just wait for it to happen.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus distinctly said, store up for yourself treasures in heaven, that that needs to be what your focus is and your treasure is.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: And then that brings up the question, well, then what does God call treasure?
8:52
SPEAKER_00: It's surely not gold because in heaven that's pavement.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: And it's and it's surely not, you know, abundant water or whatever, because the rivers of life and it's and it's but the treasure of heaven is souls.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: And that because that's the only thing we can take to heaven with us is people.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: So good.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: And so if we need to be investing our lives every day, is how many more people can I take with me?
9:09
SPEAKER_00: How many more people can I help pass from death into life?
9:13
SPEAKER_00: And I just, as I was preparing for this message, I was really uh praying about that.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: And I got a chance to actually speak to Pastor Steve before I walked on the platform.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: And I said, It's amazing to me, Pastor, how many times we don't focus on just how detrimental sin is to our lives.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: That literally, sin separates us from God.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: God want it's almost like if you could get the visual of God standing on one side of a chasm and us on the other, and his arms are outstretched and he wants so bad to reach and bring us across.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: But the sin is what's separating us.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: And he and is and God is all powerful, but there, but the limitation on God is that God and sin cannot coexist.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: Correct.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: And if I think if if Christianity, people that observe it and live it out, if we truly understood the poison that sin is.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: And you were mentioning how people lived longer in the early days as opposed to now.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: It's because the longer sin has eradicated our society and the longer we've had to deal with it, it's the same thing as a patient.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: The longer they have to deal with the sickness, the weaker they become, the more painful it is for them.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: And I can only imagine as God is getting closer and closer to the day Jesus finally comes back and we wrap up this whole thing, how much more creation is is urging.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says it's it's quaking like in childbirth, waiting for the something to um you know to rise up and discover who they truly are.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: And and I and I'm I'm just anticipating as I've been as we were talking about this, just when is the church going to understand just what Jesus did for them?
10:40
SPEAKER_00: And that that death on the cross was not just for this life.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was, it was a lot of it was for this life, but the majority of the death of Jesus was for the the lengths of rope that's coming.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
10:51
SPEAKER_01: And that we need to let that be where our focus is.
10:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:53
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Jesus' purpose is to give us life and life abundantly.
10:57
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I love that.
10:58
SPEAKER_01: I love what the apostle Paul said too.
10:59
SPEAKER_01: You know, he said, uh, if I'm gonna live, you know, we that's what everybody wants to do.
11:03
SPEAKER_01: They want to live it up.
11:04
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
11:04
SPEAKER_01: You know, they're like, hey, I I'm giving maybe 70, maybe 80 years.
11:08
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna sold my uh I'm gonna sell my wild oats.
11:11
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna have all this fun, I'm gonna get a family, I'm gonna get the finances in order, I'm gonna go enjoy my hobby, I'm gonna drink this and be merry, I'm gonna, and that's how they live their life.
11:20
SPEAKER_01: But the apostle Paul said to live is Christ, but to die is gain.
11:23
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
11:23
SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, I think a lot of us, we think the gains that we're we're gonna have is like whenever the paycheck hits and I get the bonus and man, I can finally install the pool.
11:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and there's nothing wrong.
11:34
SPEAKER_01: I believe that everything that it that we can experience that's good, that is the grace of God.
11:39
SPEAKER_01: Even people that aren't believers, they're experiencing the grace of God, the common grace of this earth.
11:44
SPEAKER_01: And sure, this world has got a lot of evil in it, but there's a lot of beauty.
11:48
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I just got to see some incredible, you know, clouds yesterday.
11:52
SPEAKER_01: And as the sun was setting, I was at Robert Trent Jones.
11:55
SPEAKER_01: And if you haven't been out to schoolmaster, uh it's it's in great shape right now.
11:59
SPEAKER_01: It's awesome.
11:59
SPEAKER_01: But I'm looking out over the cascading, you know, trees and the hills, and I'm like, man, this is beautiful.
12:05
SPEAKER_01: And I was golfing with a guy that you know I just met that day, and he kind of joined our group, and we were just talking about, man, this life really is beautiful, but think about how much more we have to gain.
12:15
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
12:16
SPEAKER_01: Because not only are we, you know, the the presence of God is living within us, but the presence of God surrounding us 24-7, and there's no amount of earthly, worldly, fleshly sin corrupting that's right and polluting it.
12:30
SPEAKER_01: Man, that fullness of God that we're gonna get to experience in eternity with Him is something I think we're all uh looking forward to.
12:36
SPEAKER_01: And again, it just all boils down to again, what what Jesus wants for all of us.
12:41
SPEAKER_01: And this is just a short plug because we always want people here at Faith Church to find their place, find their people, but we also want them growing.
12:49
SPEAKER_01: One of the ways that people can grow is through victory.
12:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and the whole idea of victory, the reason why it was birthed through Pastor Steve's heart, not that I want to speak for him, but what I know about that curriculum is that Pastor Steve wants every single day to be a win.
13:02
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
13:03
SPEAKER_01: He wants victory in the day-to-day.
13:05
SPEAKER_01: And that's exactly what uh Jesus offers.
13:08
SPEAKER_01: And uh, I think you you were speaking to some of that on Sunday.
13:11
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you want to just touch on like what that means to you, that the Holy Spirit is helping us be renewed.
13:16
SPEAKER_01: You know, obviously regeneration takes place in our spirits, but then we're growing in that direction.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: So what we talked about was, of course, getting back to the basis of what salvation is, is because of what Jesus did, that gave the the opportunity for us to enter into the work he already accomplished and let that work by faith take over in our hearts and regenerate us, making us renewed again.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: Or, or as Jesus said to Nicodemus, being born again.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: And we had that whole conversation of how can a grown man go back and be bold again.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: And and and and again, that's what religion does.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: It tries to it tries to paint it into terms that make you feel confused, or I don't know what this means, but it's it's actually very simple that the Holy Spirit makes you alive in Christ.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: That the what the work that the what the work of cross has, what the work of Jesus did on the cross can be applied to your heart by faith.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: And the Holy Spirit then, the Bible says, comes and makes his dwelling in us and reaffirms in us that what just happened did happen, and that you are no longer who you used to be.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: If anyone be in Christ, they are a new creation.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: That's why here at Faith Church, when we baptize people, we wear these made new shirts.
14:19
SPEAKER_00: So even in that moment, as you're being baptized, you're reminded you are not the person you used to be.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: You are brand new in Christ.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: And you're not, your life has just really begun in this new era of following Him and learning what it means to be as Christ.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: And so as we talked about that, a lot of uh, a lot of belief systems within the Christian faith unfortunately kind of stop there and they focus so much on getting people saved.
14:43
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's great.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: And I and I've told forever in my discipleship classes, it's it's awesome to get people saved.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: But last time I checked, when my babies were born, they didn't leave them on the table and say they're gonna be okay.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: Somebody's got to feed that baby and grow that baby and protect that baby and nourish that baby and shelter that baby and clothe that baby.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times it's the follow-up to that.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: And we have to help people who are walking out their Christian faith.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not just talking about teenagers that you work with every week.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about people in their 40s and 50s that are like, okay, well, teach me how to pray.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: How do I read my Bible?
15:16
SPEAKER_00: You know, if when I come back, when I go back into my workplace, how am I new there?
15:20
SPEAKER_00: How do I how do I how do I how do I change the way I think?
15:24
SPEAKER_00: How do I change, you know, if I have a if I have a language problem, how do I help, how's the Holy Spirit going to help me get that under control?
15:30
SPEAKER_00: And that's where the daily Bible says renewed by faith.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: Paul even writes about it in 2 Corinthians and he and he says that outwardly we don't lose heart.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: We're wasting away.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: The body is still facing its mortality, but inwardly, we're being renewed day by day.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: So regeneration, one time, one time process.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: You accept Christ, he comes in, he makes you, he makes himself Lord of your life, Holy Spirit comes in and makes his dwelling inside of you.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: But then every day after that, it's like hitting the refresh button on your screen.
16:00
SPEAKER_00: Every day there's new information, there's new things to learn, there's new ways to talk, there's new developments and thinking patterns.
16:07
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that we stopped on, and I wish this could have been a whole series in itself, but one of the things I stopped on that I really would love, especially for you to help me talk about, yeah, is when you're faced with that decision, now you have a choice to make.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: Do I accept what Jesus did in my life and choose life today?
16:23
SPEAKER_00: Or do I go back into what's comfortable and who I used to be and choose to speak death or choose to think thoughts of death like I used to before Jesus made me brand new?
16:32
SPEAKER_00: So you what do you think about that?
16:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I definitely think that, you know, the conviction of the Holy Spirit, it's gonna illuminate what's wrong.
16:38
SPEAKER_01: You know, that's what the word of God does.
16:40
SPEAKER_01: And I believe the Holy Spirit as He leads us into all truth.
16:42
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna show us what's wrong, but He's gonna try to illuminate this path.
16:45
SPEAKER_01: The Word of God's like a lamp into our feet.
16:47
SPEAKER_01: And so I think we know whenever we're taking a step, uh, either down the path that leads to eternal life, or we're taking a step towards our flesh, taking a step towards maybe where we used to gravitate towards.
16:59
SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, I was writing down just a couple of these things that you uh you kind of mentioned the other day, like whenever you go in for a checkup, you know, there there's these signs of life.
17:08
SPEAKER_01: Right.
17:08
SPEAKER_01: Uh and I think for a believer, if they're really pursuing godliness and they're allowing the Holy Spirit to renew them day by day, uh, I believe there should be some of these signs for life.
17:17
SPEAKER_01: Like I said, uh you need to be in the word, in community, and on mission.
17:21
SPEAKER_01: If you're not, if you're not really living those three things out, you're there's probably not gonna be a ton of signs of life.
17:27
SPEAKER_01: That's good.
17:28
SPEAKER_01: Um, whenever I I get with teenagers or maybe even young adults that I'm I'm helping along in their faith journey, the way that I can tell they're there are signs of life is that they're saying, Hey, I recognize where I'm at, I can't stay here.
17:41
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
17:42
SPEAKER_01: I'm thankful for what the Holy Spirit did.
17:44
SPEAKER_01: He led me to repentance, the kindness of God, the love of God, we all love it.
17:48
SPEAKER_01: But it is also the love of God that disciplines us, that molds us, that shapes us.
17:52
SPEAKER_01: A good father will always show his child he'll train him up in the way he ought to go.
17:56
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
17:56
SPEAKER_01: And and we're we just gotta remember we are his adopted sons and daughters.
18:00
SPEAKER_01: So whoever you are on this podcast, the Lord is so intentional.
18:05
SPEAKER_01: He wants the Holy Spirit in your life and he wants your ears open, your eyes open, so you see things through the lens which he wants you to see them.
18:12
SPEAKER_01: I I wrote this down as well.
18:14
SPEAKER_01: You know, our mission here at Faith Church is to reach people, connect them to God and to others.
18:18
SPEAKER_01: Right.
18:18
SPEAKER_01: And I think there is a way you can tell whether or not our church is alive or not, or whether it's dead.
18:25
SPEAKER_01: Think about this.
18:26
SPEAKER_01: We whenever we're reaching people and we're connecting them to God and to others, there's gonna be signs of that, even whenever you enter into a campus on a Sunday.
18:34
SPEAKER_01: Now, the church isn't limited to Sunday, that's where we come to get refreshed.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: Right.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: But that should be one of the days as a faith community that we are linking arms together.
18:42
SPEAKER_01: We're worshiping God.
18:44
SPEAKER_01: I put on here, uh, a church that's alive will be singing, uh, they will be giving, they'll be serving.
18:50
SPEAKER_01: A church that's dead will probably be a church that just shows up.
18:54
SPEAKER_01: Uh, they'll be a church that just sits there, they'll probably shut up for a a lot of the time.
18:59
SPEAKER_01: And at the end of the day, they'll end up being stale.
19:01
SPEAKER_01: I think we've all been in environments like that.
19:03
SPEAKER_01: We've been in workplaces or conferences or workshops, is like, oh man, this is a dread.
19:08
SPEAKER_01: And my heart, whenever I was getting into ministry, is I I didn't want that to be a part of my life anymore.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:14
SPEAKER_01: I I, you know, in the denomination that I grew up in, whenever I thought about church, I was like, I'm gonna have to go and endure another service.
19:22
SPEAKER_01: But whenever I got into ministry, the Lord like He was showing me that church does not have to be endured, it can be enjoyed.
19:29
SPEAKER_01: Right.
19:30
SPEAKER_01: Uh there should be, we should be doing it in joy, you know, in everything that we do.
19:34
SPEAKER_01: And so I think it's uh it's a hard thing to find, but I think finding those signs of life, uh, you need to be asking yourself, like, do I have a pulse?
19:42
SPEAKER_00: So no, that's great.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: And as we said, when the Holy Spirit comes to live inside of you, what is what's one of the biggest verses we read about in Galatians is if the Holy Spirit lives in you, he's going to produce fruit.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: And I talked about how the Bible says that we've been grafted in, and the individual, and the reason you graft a piece of a plant or a tree into another tree is because you want it to live.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: Come on, and in its current situation, it's not going to.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: And so it's what and I brought I just thought about the moment when Jesus walked by the fig tree and he wanted to eat of the fruit of it, yeah, but he found no fruit.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: So when Jesus cursed the fig tree, it wasn't because it was a bad fig tree, it was because it was not serving its purpose, which is to produce life and produce fruit.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: And so if I'm a believer and a follower of Christ and I say the Holy Spirit lives inside of me, where is the fruit?
20:31
SPEAKER_00: Where's the love?
20:32
SPEAKER_00: Where's the joy?
20:32
SPEAKER_00: Where's the peace?
20:33
SPEAKER_00: Where's the patience?
20:34
SPEAKER_00: Where's the kindness?
20:35
SPEAKER_00: Those are the signs of life in the heart of a believer.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: We should be exuding that.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus even goes on further to say they're gonna know your mind by how you act, by how you love each other.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: And so there's gotta be this, you know, this um, this example of I shouldn't have to do, I shouldn't have, I love what St.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: Francis said.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: He said, You preach the gospel everywhere you go and open your mouth if you need to.
20:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there should be no doubt in my mind, I see fruit in this person's life.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: I see life in this person's life, that there's no death there.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: They're they're not the person they used to be, or they're not, they're not the same as the world around them.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: They stand out, they're a light in the midst of the darkness.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: And as, and just as we start to bring this in for a landing, you know, one of the last things that I said to wrap up the message was, and believers need to hear this, is that old self and the things about you that you cut off when you became followers of Christ, leave what's dead in the grave.
21:24
SPEAKER_01: Leave it in there.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: And I think so many times we we look back and we feel guilty about the things we used to do when Paul literally says in Romans 8, there's no condemnation anymore to those who are in Christ Jesus.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: I love what Jesus said in John, where he said, though what he said that those who obey me and follow me, they've already passed from death to life.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: That there is no even reason to look back at the old person.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: You've become brand new.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know, I don't know about you, Ty, but one of the biggest things that I struggled with even as an adult believer is constantly looking over my shoulder as to is that stuff gonna come back in?
21:56
SPEAKER_00: Am I am I ever gonna go back to that old life?
21:59
SPEAKER_00: And and a Lot of times we we we've we kind of like Peter, we look around at our circumstances and we get reminded of I'm still struggling or I'm still human or I'm still imperfect instead of just keeping our eyes on Jesus who said we've already passed from death to life.
22:11
SPEAKER_01: That's so good.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: That's so good.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think everybody's got different struggles.
22:14
SPEAKER_01: And I think for me, the biggest one in this conversation, and you alluded to it just for a brief moment.
22:19
SPEAKER_01: So if we can just go the extra mile this last time, this is the last thing I I've got, and we'll be ready to kind of close down.
22:24
SPEAKER_01: But uh for me, for a long time, and I I see it week in and week out in the lives of teenagers and from our team.
22:31
SPEAKER_01: Um, most people, even if you're listening to this podcast, if you listen this long to me and Pastor David uh talk about this subject, man, you might want to go ahead and share it with somebody uh just to go ahead and bless them.
22:40
SPEAKER_01: But one of the things you can do um so easily, even as a Christfather, is to speak death.
22:46
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
22:47
SPEAKER_01: And um I think it's because in our mind, like we are just programmed that way.
22:52
SPEAKER_01: Uh I think, you know, out of the bun is the heart, the mouth speaks.
22:55
SPEAKER_01: I think our hearts sometimes feel defeated.
22:57
SPEAKER_01: I think our our hearts kind of sometimes feel that death about certain situations.
23:02
SPEAKER_01: I know from for me, it's really easy to speak death over my own life.
23:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
23:06
SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's not like, oh, like I think I'm gonna die.
23:09
SPEAKER_01: I that's not what I'm talking about.
23:10
SPEAKER_01: I'm I just like I don't think I can do what God's called me to do.
23:13
SPEAKER_01: That's the death I speak uh over myself.
23:15
SPEAKER_01: And so one of our core values in our in our ministry for our youth, uh, our youth ministry is uh to encourage.
23:22
SPEAKER_01: We we really want you know our ministry to stand out.
23:25
SPEAKER_01: If you're coming through our doors, we want every single student leaving encouragement.
23:29
SPEAKER_01: Man, this world is doing enough of a job, discouraging them.
23:33
SPEAKER_01: If you scroll on social media long enough, you compare yourself to other people, you don't feel discouraged.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but as a Christ follower, we there's so much we should be encouraged about.
23:42
SPEAKER_01: We should be encouraged about the future and the hope that we have in Christ.
23:45
SPEAKER_01: But I think it's really easy uh as you're gossiping, backbiting, uh, even if you're a self-reclaimer, you're like, I'm a Christ follower, it's so easy for your words to be laced with death.
23:56
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
23:56
SPEAKER_01: And we we gotta remember what the uh the writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews chapter 10.
24:01
SPEAKER_01: He goes on, he says, like, don't be don't forsake the assembling together that some people do, but instead think about ways to stir one another up, to speak life, to encourage one another.
24:11
SPEAKER_01: And if we were to be able to do that, think about what we would be able to do.
24:14
SPEAKER_01: Think about this.
24:15
SPEAKER_01: If you're listening to this podcast, how would your your life, your life of faith, be changed if all you did is spoke life over yourself, over your situations, and over others?
24:26
SPEAKER_00: That's so good.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Paul writes in Ephesians 4 29, don't let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth, but only what builds others up.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: And I love, I mean, if James drives it home, he says, Life and death is in your tongue.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: I mean, so and I I think if people could see in the spirit what happens when they talk, come on, maybe they would, maybe they would choose their words very differently.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: And I think the same is true when it comes to decision making, even our thoughts.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you can trap yourself in your mind and think I'm not good enough.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: God can't forgive this.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm gonna always struggle with this because my dad did or because my mom did.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm I'm never gonna be able to be what my pastor's like.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm never gonna be able to read the Bible as well as so-and-so.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: I can't pray like so-and-so can.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: And the more you rehearse the negativity and rehearse the death, the more your your more your body takes that stuff on.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing how when you just speak life and think word uh thoughts of life, how your your body reacts to that.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: Some of some my my my granddad's a perfect example.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: You know, Henry Melton, at his age, to have the vitality he has.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: You can't stop him.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: And the reason because is when you're around him, he only speaks life.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: He only thinks life.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: And it is the ultimate example to me that this is the this is the example of a person who understands how much Jesus did for them and gets to celebrate it every single day and spread that same joy to people around them.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: So as we bring this in for a landing, I just want to encourage all of you out there that the work of the cross was not just for your salvation and your eternity, it's also for every day.
25:51
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, I've come to give you life and life just life in the in the in the afterlife, but life here and now.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: But don't let don't let the life you have on this earth be the only place you focus.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: Take as many treasures to heaven with you as you can.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: There are people in your family and in your circles and friendships and schools and universities and workplaces and everywhere you go.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: They need to pass from death to life.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: And God placed you in that circle to be that light in the darkness and be that source of life.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: And who knows how much spiritual CPR you can give to people and bring them out of the darkness that they're in and bring them into a place of life.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: So Pastor Time, we're gonna throw it to you if you have the last word.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: If you have anything else.
26:27
SPEAKER_01: Hey, I'd just like to encourage everybody again.
26:29
SPEAKER_01: We've mentioned a couple of next steps for you.
26:31
SPEAKER_01: Hey, if you if you've never been through victory, get in a victory group.
26:34
SPEAKER_01: Those groups are incredible, they're led by some of the most intentional leaders.
26:38
SPEAKER_01: Um, they're not all staff, man.
26:40
SPEAKER_01: These are just men and women of God that's want to open up their life.
26:42
SPEAKER_01: They want you to experience victory.
26:43
SPEAKER_01: And the last one is this Sunday.
26:45
SPEAKER_01: If you're listening to this podcast uh before Sunday, if you've never taken that next step of baptism, that's how we associate with that moment of going from death to life.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: Thank you guys so much for leaning in for the Extra Mile Podcast.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: We thank y'all so much, and we'll see you Sunday.