Latest / The Church Renewal Podcast / Graciousness, Self-Awareness & Christlike Character 🌱

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Graciousness, Self-Awareness & Christlike Character 🌱 · The Church Renewal Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Church Renewal Podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Jeremy.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Community spiritual discernment asks more of us than good intentions.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: It requires people who can recognize their need for grace, understand what is happening in their own hearts, and respond to others with the character of Jesus.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: In this episode, we'll examine how graciousness and self-awareness shape the kind of community that can discern faithfully together.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_03: You write that if a person doesn't realize they have have a need for forgiveness.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_03: They're going to walk in the lack of humility.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_03: You talk about the fact that he has been forgiven little loves little.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_03: And you say, Why would anyone want to work in a community?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_03: Live in a community where that's the case.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_03: Why would we hire people?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_03: Why would we put people in the leadership?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_03: Because they get stuff done.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_03: Because they get stuff done.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_03: And that that's I I that's not even a question.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_03: That's a reminder as to what leads to this.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_03: You argue that Jesus cares much more about how a person loves than the what than what they get done.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Jesus is much more concerned about who you are than what you do.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: Because who you are will lead to what you do.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so, what I would say that my own experience of leading and of being in ministry for over 30 years, some as a missionary, some work in the church while in seminary, and many years of ordained ministry, and now eight years of leading flourish, 15 years of doing coaching of pastors and churches, is that there's a paradox.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: I do much less, but get much more done.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: My spiritual effect is far greater now because by God's grace, the person who is at work is a very different person.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the paradox, right?
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: We think it's all about getting things done.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: When we're there's a book by that title.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm I'm all for efficiency and getting things done.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying that we need to just slack off.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: There's lots of good gospel kingdom work to do.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: But Jesus desires that we go about it a certain way as a certain kind of people.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_03: And you argue that when a person doesn't exhibit that quality that they are dangerous to have in leadership, that they can block the progress, the work of community spiritual discernment.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_03: You're fundamentally saying that at least a major possibility here, a reason that CSD is not happening in a congregation, is in fact because of the leadership.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think that if the leadership is not all um gospel humbled, uh, and they're trying to make decisions out of pride or position or that I'm right, you're wrong, and then they're not trying to actually discern, they're a danger to their own sheep.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: And you see this in the scriptures, right?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: The unfaithful shepherds, right?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: Was that Jeremiah 34?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: That is scary, scary business to realize that doctrinally orthodox people could actually be a danger to the very sheep that they're trying to teach the right doctrine to, because they're not gospel humbled and they're not trying to be discerning.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: The little bit they're trying to do, they're doing well.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: There's just more things that Jesus is concerned about than they are.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: So there's an irony.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: They're concerned about some things more than Jesus is.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: But there are swaths of things that Jesus is concerned about that they're not concerned about.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: And unless you do that step back and that evaluation against the scriptures, you don't realize, oh crap, I was reflecting with somebody this week.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, maybe it was Robert, who works with me, that you know, a Pharisee comes up to Jesus and says, you know, I tithe all of these things, you know, I even tithe my spices.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: And it's very interesting what Jesus says.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: He doesn't say don't tithe your spices.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: Nope.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: He says, Good, but don't forget the weightier matters of the law.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: So tithe and spices is a minor, less weightier matter of the law.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: Good thing to do.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: Part of the produce the Lord gave you.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: So tithe it.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: But what he's saying is if you do that, but if you neglect love, mercy, justice, that is a real problem to Jesus.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: That's what he's saying.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: And we, in our kind of heady circles, we can do that, right?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: We can get it right.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: And in the areas where we're looking, we've gotten it right.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's just that Jesus is looking in more areas than we are.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_03: Which is something that talking about Paul makes me think of.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_03: Because when God sent Paul to school, he first blinded him.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_03: Which is an interesting metaphor, isn't it?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_03: It's a very interesting metaphor.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_03: Here's a guy who spent his years with his eyes working to read these scrolls that he's later going to ask Timothy to bring to him.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_03: And now he's lost that thing, which he I guarantee you depended on tremendously to accomplish all these things, and God took that away.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_03: In order that Paul might more clearly see himself after more clearly seeing Jesus.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_03: Which is what which is what Jesus is after.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_03: So we've talked a lot about gospel humility.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_03: I'm going to move on.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_03: We're going to move to gentleness.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_03: And the reason that I talked about love is because I think it's a natural natural psychic.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_03: Uh-huh.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_03: But I want to set this up for you because the trait of graciousness is the one that challenged me the most.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_03: You wrote if a person believes God is mad to them, they will have a harsh attitude towards those around them.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: One of the things my old associate pastor, Ediko, used to talk about, which I loved, is how the way that you believe that God is treating you is the way that you're going to treat other people.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: That's what hit me the hardest with this.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: Personally, as I was reading this.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: So you automatically reflect the way that you believe that God is treating you.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: For example, this trait is graciousness.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: So if you believe that God is that harsh taskmaster talking to the, you know, who hid his talent in the ground out of fear.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: And this is, of course, the wrong view of God.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: That's in Matthew 25.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's the one that Jesus says that God is not like.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: But if you view God this way, right, you're on the performance treadmill, you don't think you've performed, and God's got lots of things that He's pointing out to you, and He's a harsh taskmaster, and you believe that it is your job in life to point things out to other people.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: That breaks the possibility of conversation.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: That breaks the team.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: Because you're not genuinely gracious towards other people.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: Because you don't think that God's been genuinely gracious towards you.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: You reflect what you think you've received.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's just wrong.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: Because God is genuinely gracious to his children.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_03: This is what killed me, Matt.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_03: As I was reading this, and I reread this several times.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_03: Just had to sit with it.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_03: Because I could read that first part.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_03: Do I believe God is a task, a harsh taskmaster?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_03: No, I don't.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_03: Not at all.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_03: Do I believe God has given me the responsibility of keeping people in line?
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_03: You bet your bottom dollar I do.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_03: Really?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_03: I got halfway through and I was like, I know this isn't who God is, but I know God has called me to raise my children this way.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_03: What started in received grace turned into me stepping over that line, as we've talked about last season.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_03: Trying to take the reins from the Holy Spirit and say, hey, yeah, uh, you're not doing such a hot job.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_03: Excuse me while I take care of this mess for you.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: But I have an article, actually several related articles that I've been working on, but one of them is it's the title's along the line, Why do you feel the need to correct me?
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: Because you're wrong.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and and the basic nugget of it is I feel the need to correct you because the difference between you and I produces a feeling of dissonance in me that I don't want to live with.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: Ouch.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: And the way that I try and relieve that dissonance by the difference between us is by me trying to bring you into line.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: When, unless it's a very clear scriptural principle that you can open up the Bible and you can point to the page and you can show me, that's good biblical, kind, encouraging exhortation.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: If you can open the Bible and you can show me something, but the vast, vast, vast majority of the time, that is not what Christians are doing with each other.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: They're not opening up the Bible and pointing to a verse and saying, brother, sister, lovingly, you're not living in light of this.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_03: So, Matt.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_03: Defining moment.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_03: Let me ask you this for my sake and for the sake of the people I love.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_03: When you combine a lack of graciousness with a lack of humility, it's a very dangerous combination.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_03: It's an incredibly dangerous combination.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_03: What can I do to begin bringing that more under the corrective power of the gospel through the Holy Spirit?
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm asking for a friend.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: Asking for a friend.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I know.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um asking for a friend.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: For me, the way that I try and go about that is that I'm asking the Father to give me a true sense of his fatherly care and graciousness towards me, that I might reflect that to others.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_03: I love that.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_03: That's a definition.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_03: Graciousness is me treating you the way God has treated me.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so if I ask God to help me understand how he's actually treating me, which is that I am in the family and that can't change because he's looking at Jesus' righteousness, not my screw up in this, then if he receives me for Jesus' sake, am I willing to on that basis, or am I still trying to get in and stay in based on what I do or what I keep from?
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: And am I really trafficking in grace even with the Lord?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: Or am I still performing and pretending?
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: And if I'm willing to be received by God on the basis of Christ's righteousness, then I can receive my wife, I can receive a child, I can receive a fellow team member, someone in my business or my nonprofit on my staff or my board, somebody in the church that I work with or that I'm on a team with, I can receive all of them just as I've been received.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: But if I doubt the Father's love for me, if I doubt that I'm secure, if I'm still trying to measure up, instead of recognizing that the only thing that I bring to my salvation is the sin that necessitated it.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: If I'm willing to be received by grace and live, swim and enjoy the grace that I've received, then I can exude that to other people.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: But if I'm resisting that, if I'm allergic to the gospel, if I only believe it because I'm supposed to, or because I have to, or because of course that's what Christians believe, but it's not actually what's penetrated my heart, then I'm just not going to be a gracious person.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: Because I'm not the worst sinner I know.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, you are, which is why I'm going to correct you, because I'm right and you're not.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_03: If I'm willing to live by the gospel, if I'm willing to accept the grace of the gospel.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_03: Because the understanding of what you're saying there is there are many people who claim that they are, but they're not willing to accept the grace of God.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_03: I'd rather stand on my own.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_03: I'd rather build my own foundation here.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_03: I'd rather prove my own righteousness.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_03: And God looks at it and says, Okay, you may.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_03: And I will judge it.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_03: Uh a question that came from one of our listeners asking for a friend again.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_03: How could one approach an elder, a leader, in whom they perceive a lack of graciousness in a way that's both truthful and wis winsome?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_03: How how do we approach this in a way that can come with the aroma of the gospel?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: So I think in approaching an individual, I think that much care should be exercised.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: That's Galatians 6, 1.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: You know, restore generally the one that's that's fallen into sin.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: So if we go to somebody superior to them, uh wanting to correct them, get them back in line, that's un unlikely to be helpful.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: So I think you pray much before you go talk to an individual.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: Pray for your heart, pray for their heart.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: Pray about how you go about it.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I think many times that I have had the opportunity to do this, thinking of different examples in my mind.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's been some of my most prayerful times because I sense my frailty in trying to help another person change.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: And yet, having done this many times, the Lord has been faithful to answer those prayers and to produce something in someone else's life as a result of having the courage by grace, by the power of the Spirit, to go to a difficult person after a difficult interaction.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: Many times what I find in those interactions is I'm trying to have a coaching conversation.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: Not a correction conversation.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: So, um you know, Brother Bob, we're in that meeting that other night.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, it got really heated.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: I got heated, you got heated.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: Man, what do you what did um what do you think was going on there?
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's an open-ended sort of coaching.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: You're trying to let somebody else talk.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_02: Because if the Lord's already answered your prayers, then and the person's heart is open.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: And notice notice very precisely the way that that I put that.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't put myself above the person that I'm talking to.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: I put themselves on a I put myself on the level of the person I'm talking to.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: We talk about how the ground is level at the foot of the cross.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: If you're going to someone who's difficult, most difficult people, most, not all, but most difficult people who are church leaders know they're difficult.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: And they don't know how to stop being difficult.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: Some of them don't know that they're difficult.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: We can link to a page from a different unpublished paper that I've got where I have a diagram about this.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: Because some people, it's um, it's kind of one of those four quadrant boxes, right?
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_02: And the two axes are know and care.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: And the ideal is that if you're a difficult person, I'm a difficult map bowling, is a difficult person.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: And if you know you're a difficult person, uh, but you care to not be difficult to other people, that's the safest place to be, to know and care and to be in that box and to be to really be asking the Lord to show you your heart and your actions and your words.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um every other week, I apologize to somebody, very freely apologize because I know how much of a mess up I am and that I can be a difficult person.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: But because I know it and I care about it by God's grace, I go back and I very freely apologize to people.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: The second box is uh care but don't know.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, this is another one that is semi-safe because you're open to people telling you, hey, you were really difficult in an interaction, and you can go back, you're willing to go back and apologize because you know yourself to be a difficult person and that that happens sometimes, right?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: So those two boxes are are safe and good.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: Below the line, you have a box where someone knows but they don't care.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, these are the jerks of the world, and then we employ them in businesses and and nonprofit ministries and we set them up as leaders and pastors and churches because they get stuff done.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: But they are difficult people, they know the difficult people and they don't care that they are.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: I had a leader say to me one time that difficulty that I was working with is like, Do you want me to stop being myself?
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: No, I'd like you to bear the fruit of the spirit towards others.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I'd like you to do.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and these are difficult people because they they know but they don't care, and their path is actually repentance, because when they hurt people, they don't care that they do.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: They don't care what impact they have on other people.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: And that is a problem.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: That's sin to be repented of.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: And then the fourth quadrant is people that don't know and don't care to know.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: And these are typically the sociopaths of the world.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: And um hopefully we have very few of them in the church, but it does happen occasionally.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're going to somebody who knows themselves to be difficult, many times difficult people know that they're difficult people and they're actually humiliated that they were difficult in a meeting.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: And they actually need someone to come alongside gently and say, How can I pray for you?
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: How can I help you understand the gospel that we both don't end up being difficult people in meetings?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you will go to people and they will feel completely self-justified that they do not believe that their anger was that something really vital was at stake and that they were completely justified in the way that they acted.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_02: And to that person, I think you can say, Well, I for myself, I'm asking the Lord to help me review my own heart and to see where I did not bear the fruit of the spirit towards others in the meeting and encourage you to do the same.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: So even that is a courageous, bold thing to sort of say.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: But the fruit of the spirit draw me up short.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: I want to dependently relying on the Holy Spirit, because it's it's the fruit of the Spirit, right?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: The fruit of the flesh is the other list there in Galatians 5, and it's pretty obvious.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: I I'd bear those really easily.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: I'll motive about you, Jared, but fruit of the flesh, man.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: I I got those down.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but the fruit of the spirit consistently born to other people in a group, that if that's what I'm shooting for, then I'm quickly repenting if I'm impatient with somebody else.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: If I am not gentle, I'm repenting to them.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_02: If I'm not gracious to somebody, then I'm repenting of that.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: And if you have a group that can repent to each other because they own the gospel together, that's a group that can work together.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_03: So I said it starts with my own attitude, my own posture towards this person, being a posture of prayer, right?
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_03: Saturated in gospel truth.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_03: You're saying yes, and it requires your own self-awareness.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_03: And it requires your approaching that person in a gospel humble way.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_03: And it also requires them to have some level of self-awareness, yep, and gospel humility as well for it to be a successful endeavor.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_03: Which moves us squarely into the third trait here, which is self-awareness.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I told a story a little bit earlier about the board member that taught me that I served with about not making decisions from fear.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: That was a trained response by him because he had become aware of his own fear.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: And when he would make decisions based out of fear, and when he would lead his own elders or other settings to make decisions out of fear.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so he became self-aware when he was fearful and became aware of seeking the habit of not making decisions based on fear.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: Knowing that you are fearful is an aspect of self-awareness.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: So to be self-aware is to know why is something important to me, and to know many times that is maybe it's overly important to me, like more important to me than it is to Jesus.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: So being self-aware of my own feelings, of my own motivations, best I know them.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know, in James, that inner theology of James, part of the reason why, even as we might humble ourselves and come before the Lord and say we need the wisdom that comes from above, part of the reason that it's difficult, you just have to go to James 4 and find out why there are fights and quarrels among you.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's because you have these desires inside.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: So knowing what my own passions and desires are, and be actively mortifying them and bringing them into subjection to Christ.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: And even saying to the people that I'm gathered with for discernment, hey, I am really trying to mortify this because I know that it won't help us, and just disclose that.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: But those are all aspects of being self-aware.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's helpful to be self-aware if you're a difficult person.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: Some people are difficult.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: Mrs.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: Bowling is not a difficult person for which I'm grateful.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_02: Her husband is my shorthand for my wife for years trying to describe to me what the effect was when I would walk in a room, whether it was with her, with the kids, or in a church meeting or whatever, was I distort every room I walk into.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_02: That was a very important shorthand for me to figure out how to capture.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: Because by God's gifting of personality and experiences and traits, the packaged together, um, I can be a very powerful, dominant person.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that is a great danger to every group that I'm a part of.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: So I have to be really careful to not distort rooms and to stay humble and to tell people, I don't want to distort this.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: Tell me when I am.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: That's self-aware.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: You talk about that.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_03: You talk about how the Holy Spirit has brought insight to you, yeah, such that you can see that and go back and as you've already said, regularly repent.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_03: And I wonder if maybe there's a distinction here between insight and the enablement of the Holy Spirit as you've experienced it.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I think that the part of it is a habit, right, of self-reflection.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: Like I go back and think through my conversations and whether I need to go back and talk to somebody.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: Like I actually review my days with the Lord and sooner even review conversations after them, not obsessively, not people pleasing way, but more Lord, are you displeased with the way that I conducted myself or what I said?
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: And do I need to go back and make anything right?
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I think that the enablement part is the praying ahead and then actually experiencing in the moment of the meeting, shutting up for me and praying.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: And quietly, like I many times I will pray in a meeting, particularly where I'm not the leader.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: Lord, I have something that I think needs to be said.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, would you have it come out of someone else's mouth that I would know that it's not from me, but from you?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: And that is an active way that I seek not to be dominant.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: And many, many, many times I've seen the Lord answer that prayer where something gets said that I think needs to be said, but I didn't have to say it.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm and I'm thankful for that because if it needs to be said, it probably doesn't have to come from me.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_02: But even if it comes from me, it has to be humble.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the way that I try not to dominate rooms if I'm not leading the conversation.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_03: So, in what way is that both like and or unlike the work of community spiritual discernment, especially as we're moving from an individual?
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just on the edge of contracting with a group of people that were trying to answer an incredibly difficult, complex question for their church.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll be participating, and I already know ahead of time that this is going to be a thorny one.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so that involves a lot of praying for me and a lot of restraint from me, a lot of me saying, I actually don't know.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: I might have an instinct, but my instinct may well be wrong.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: An instinct is an instinct, that's all it is.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: If you count it for more than an instinct in my profession, that's a great danger.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: So to me, the enablement of the spirit is in the moment for someone like me to be restrained.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: For other people, the enablement of the spirit in the moment is for them to actually speak up and to have the courage to believe I have the spirit.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: I think that there's something that the Lord has given me.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: I do have a hundred pieces in my pocket and I do need to put them on the table.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: And their enablement looks very different than mine, which I think is fascinating and wonderful, right?
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: That manifest grace of God, right?
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: Peter talks about manifold.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that that there's uh in a sense, people need the spirit to work in them in different ways.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_02: So that's my self-awareness, right?
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: That I think is important.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: As important is my other awareness.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like, am I genuinely paying attention to other people?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: And this is the fourth trait that you outline.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: Am I genuinely aware of other people?
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: Am I trying to understand how they're feeling?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: Because we feel ahead of what we think.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: And that is true whether that's the way that people commonly conceive of it or not.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: We feel first.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: And if we understand how a person feels and we are trafficking with them in what they feel, it's commonly a far better conversation.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: But that's uncommon for us.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: We're usually talking about concepts and ideals and ideas and not how this other person's feeling.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: I think the other aspect of other awareness for me that I think is really important, and and this is gonna sound, I'll try and describe it well, is um how are other people experiencing me?
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_03: Which is something you spent a lot of time considering and working.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I spent a lot of time considering it because if I'm aware that the way that I'm acting is shutting you down, but I care not to do that, then my other awareness that you're feeling shut down causes me to change and to change the way that I'm operating so that it opens you back up again.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: Because that's me loving you and saying, I need the hundred pieces that are in your pocket.
• 25:36
  unknown: Right.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_02: And if I'm shutting you down, then I'm actively saying the eye doesn't need the hand.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: And that's wrong.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: So that other awareness is how is this person like am I loving this person as they're talking?
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: Am I loving them as a person and valuing their viewpoint?
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: Do I think their hundred pieces are essential?
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_02: And am I aware of what this interaction for them is like?
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: Aware enough that if the dynamic is going bad, that I call a timeout.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: I teach groups anybody has the right to call a timeout at any time.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: And if we call a timeout, we turn over what we're working on and we say we need to work on us before we get back to what the thing is that we were trying to discuss.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I like to give groups the freedom to talk about us.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: There doesn't have to be a motion on the table for us to talk about us.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: We can just say we're calling a pause because the the us-ness, the we-ness, the way that we are operating and transacting is not honoring the Lord.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: If we're not doing Ephesians 4, 1 through 3 with each other, it's it'd be almost impossible for us to make a God-honoring decision or discern something dependently if we're not actively loving each other.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_02: And the so the only way to do that is I have to have some sense of what your experience is like in this group.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: I have to have some sense of to be aware of others in the group and not just aware of myself and care.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: Care too.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like that I actually love my neighbor because everyone around the table is my neighbor.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: They're a very close neighbor, but they're my neighbor.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: So what does it look like for me to love my neighbor in the midst of us trying to discern something?
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_02: That's where I'm trying to get to.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: What are my neighbor's needs right now?
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: What's hard about this for my neighbor?
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: Have I drawn his fears and concerns out?
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_02: Have I listened to hear, not just listen to respond to my neighbor?
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_03: So all of this is in the context of what are the traits necessary in a group of people where CSD, community spiritual discernment, can take place.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_03: We've talked about gospel humility, we've talked about graciousness, we've talked about self-awareness, others' awareness.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_03: And the last one here, and there may be more, you know, by the time that we finish this, but the last one is an active, passionate pursuit of living out the gospel.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_03: Did I say that accurately?
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I think in particular, living out the gospel by seeking to bear the fruit of the spirit, all of them.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_03: Which is the natural outworking of these four things.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_03: It is just kind of line.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: So love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's right.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: If my active pursuit in the midst of a group meeting for discernment is that I want to bear the fruit of the spirit towards those that I am meeting with.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: Again, whether this is a a Christian business or a nonprofit setting of staff or board or church staff, church team, church uh elder board or session, if my desire is that I consistently bear the fruit of the spirit to everybody who's around the table, and everyone else's desire is that we would consistently bear the fruit of the spirit to everyone else who's around the table, that lays the foundation for a group that can discern together.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_02: Who wouldn't want to be in a group where love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control?
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: Who wouldn't want to be in a group like that?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: Why would we even want to shoot for something different than that?
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_02: One of the interesting features about the Fruit of the Spirit is I've meditated on them, is that most of them are what you perceive, not what I perceive.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: So if I'm sitting here um Jeremy and I are recording, I may have sought to be gentle, but he's the one who can evaluate whether I actually was.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: I can try and be patient, but Jeremy's the only one who can evaluate whether I actually was patient with him.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: So I can try and be loving, but Jeremy's the only one who can tell me whether I came across as loving.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry, Matt, if you misunderstood me as being unloving.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so I think that one of the interesting things about the fruit of the spirit is that most of them are actually other people's perceptions of us.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: And the only way that we can understand what other people's perceptions of us are is to have the humility to check them and to ask, was I gentle there?
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_02: Was I gracious there?
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: Was I loving there?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_02: Was I patient in that meeting?
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_02: Was I forbearing?
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: I think a group that wants to traffic in those ways of being, of living out, of the implications of the gospel, of gospel humility, that's a group that can really discern together.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_03: You have said that most Christians have not been taught how to live like Jesus.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_03: What is it about the counterfeit Christianity that so allures us?
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_02: I think we want something that's easier that costs us less.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: Comfort.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think that we don't want to pick up a cross and follow Jesus.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's painful.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we want to have a sense that, yeah, we got some spirituality and I've tacked it onto my life, and now my life is full because I got a little bit of spirituality.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_02: But we're not looking for our life to be completely turned upside down, which is what Jesus is interested in.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_02: And so something that doesn't involve daily repentance and faith.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_02: Martin Luther's first thesis, when Jesus said repent, he he he meant it as every day.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_02: Bob Flayhart has a book that's been out for about four years called The Gospel Waltz, that is simply marvelous.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, he says the Gospel Waltz is a three-step dance.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh repent, believe, fight.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_02: And when your fighting fails, you go back to repent and believe and fight.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_02: And um, it's marvelous.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's very, very good.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_02: The book is very good.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we want a kind of a he calls it a bunny hop.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_02: We want, we want, we just want a very bare belief that my life's different, but I get to keep my I get to keep my own will, I get to keep my own life.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_02: Give me the five steps that can make my life better, and I'll go back to my life.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm still thinking that it's my life.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_02: Not that I died with Christ.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_02: I've been bought with a price.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_02: Your life is not your own.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_02: And we want a gospel that costs us less.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it just happens to be a false gospel.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_03: It just happens to be a false gospel.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_03: What a place to end.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for listening.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: Character is not separate from discernment.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: It shapes what we hear, how we respond, and whether we can remain open to the wisdom Jesus gives through other people.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: In the next episode, we'll turn to Acts 15 and watch the early church seek the wisdom of the Holy Spirit in the middle of a real and consequential dispute.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening to the Church Renewal Podcast from Flourish Coaching.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: Flourish exists to set ministry leaders free to be effective wherever God has called them.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: We believe there's only one fully sufficient reason that this day dawned, Jesus is still gathering his people and he's using his church to do it.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: When pastors or churches feel stuck, our team of coaches refresh their hope in the gospel and help them clarify their strategy.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: If you have questions or a need, we'd love to hear from you.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: For more information, go to our website, flourishcoaching.org, or send an email to info at floorscoaching.org.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: You can also connect with us on Facebook, X, and YouTube.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: We appreciate when you like, subscribe, rate, or review our show wherever you're listening.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: It can be hard for churches to ask for help, so when our clients tell us who referred them, we'll send a small gift to say thanks.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you to Redeemer Anglican Church in Annapolis, Maryland, for the use of their facilities to record this episode.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: We are humbled and grateful for your partnership.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: All music for this show has been licensed and was composed and created by artists.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: The Church Renewal Podcast was directed and produced by Jeremy Sefferati and Association with Florist Coaching, with the goal of equipping and encouraging your church to flourish wherever God has called you.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: Bye for now.