Navigate Podcast
Welcome to Navigate, we are two long term friends doing life and ministry together. I got tired of the same ole answers when I started looking for help when it came to my walk with God. So together we go deeper than most would on topics that most people have heard or were taught but never fully understood. It is our way of simplifying concepts that we may have over complicated throughout our lives. Bringing theology and life experience into each episode. It is our hope and desire to help Navigate your Christian walk with you
Navigate Podcast
The Sermon's Secret: How to Extract Life-Changing Wisdom from Every Sunday
Have you ever walked away from a Sunday service feeling like you didn't get much out of the sermon? You're not alone. In this revealing conversation, Justin and Tim tackle the often-overlooked art of sermon engagement—exploring why many Christians struggle to connect with teaching and how to transform this vital spiritual practice.
The discussion begins with a provocative question: how do thoughtful, well-read Christians continue to benefit from basic sermons, particularly predictable ones like those delivered on Easter Sunday? Justin responds by challenging the consumer mindset many bring to church, where we expect pastors to "do the work for us" rather than taking responsibility for our own spiritual nourishment.
Guys, welcome back to Navigate. Hi, Justin.
Speaker 2:Hey buddy.
Speaker 1:Did you notice? I cleaned up in here. It looks beautiful. I already told you this, but I just wanted to get it on the record. You have a gift, okay.
Speaker 2:I want people to know that this our little podcast studio.
Speaker 1:This thing was trashed. We're slowly looking more and more like a man cave. We kept having pastors on. We have a third person come in here and they're like is this where you guys live Sometimes? Have drank water bottles and Celsius cans all over the place.
Speaker 2:I haven't even had a Celsius in like six months too. That stuff, I just call it anger water. I'm telling you I can have a lot of energy drinks and I'm fine. I drink that stuff. I'm immediately pissed off.
Speaker 1:But it's still water, so it makes you feel good.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's not water, it's not.
Speaker 1:It actually gives me headaches. It's like a white claw, without the fun it's poison.
Speaker 2:It's like would you like to have a Red Bull three times?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but one drink, but it's water, it hydrates.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Anyway, this week's sponsor, Celsius Nut. Oh my gosh, that's funny.
Speaker 2:Everybody's drinking that poison. Listen, drink. God made water. He made like the perfect drink for you.
Speaker 1:And we're over here poisoning it yeah.
Speaker 2:Sometimes people have literally branded it liquid death.
Speaker 1:Take this that is a brand actually.
Speaker 2:No, that was my point. It's like we're like we can do it better. We'll kill you with it. I don't even know. I think it's just like uh, isn't that just flavored water?
Speaker 1:or something. Anyway, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I mean, I get it after the Flint Michigan stuff all bets are off.
Speaker 1:People like it poison us with. We did an episode a long time ago of Easter, yes, but it got me thinking how, just in the whole, in the general sense of a Sunday morning sermon, how do you get the best out of that?
Speaker 2:As a like, as a Christian how do I not as a?
Speaker 1:patron of church, you know, every Sunday, how do you get the best? Because, like you, I was thinking of you a lot, actually, because I'm like you. You're a smart dude, you read a lot and you talk like a book half the time.
Speaker 2:So how do you? You help translate me. Tim Like do you get things?
Speaker 1:out of the sermon, still Like, are you there? And you're like, oh yeah, that's a savage question. Not necessarily our pastor here, but just in general.
Speaker 2:Well, it's probably appropriate to answer it in all kinds of ways.
Speaker 1:I am generally thinking differently when I listen to sermons than maybe the average bear. Do you have to turn something off in your head to be able to like? No, let me come down to your level.
Speaker 2:Well, what I have to turn off is all the other things that I have going on that I want to check on. Okay, so as a, as a pastor, my thought is hey, how's, how's my staff doing in kids ministry? Are they all set up? Do they have all the volunteers that they need? Are that they need? Are there any weirdos wandering around the church that I need to go talk to make sure they're doing? Okay? I know I saw so-and-so. Oh man, they lost their dog last week or something. I better go pray for them real quick if I have a second. I feel like there's a million things going on in my head about the congregation and other things that don't pertain to the message. Necessarily and, tim, I know you probably have a lot of that going on as well You're responsible for making sure everything goes off without a hitch here and everything is set up.
Speaker 2:Mine's not as cool, all right, hey, somebody spilled coffee in the kitchen. I call it. You're the ministry facilitator here. Okay, nothing goes off unless you're getting it done, but yeah. So the first barrier for me, tim, is really just trying to focus on the reality that there is a war, for there's a real war over distraction going on, and I think I've said this before, but, being in ministry, it's never been harder for me to read my Bible, to pray or practice basic spiritual disciplines than when I actually became somebody who was doing the ministry not participating, not just receiving from it. It became harder. Oh man, so much harder. Yeah, like I'm telling you most people who listen to the podcast.
Speaker 2:I worked in kitchens for 10 years. I did like executive chef stuff and, dude, I would just be in my Bible nonstop, listening to sermons nonstop. I'm not listening to any music. That is not worship, it's all worship. All the time I'm going to be in my commentaries and I'm studying and I'm doing all this stuff.
Speaker 2:And then, once you become like, oh no, this is my full-time world now, you tend to think because I'm in this world and it's just the air I breathe now that I don't have to work at it, or like spend as much time and it's actually the opposite. Um, you can become a fat person in a gym really fast. You can be the personal trainer who is so good at telling people, telling other people how they're supposed to, you know, do this particular form or lift this way, or so so clear on the information that you're the person that begins to not apply it yourself in your own life and, dude, it's a dangerous place to be and I think because we can get so used to just being in the middle of what's going on and this is the world that I'm in that we can quickly stop actually doing the things that God has called us to do. I mean, this is why Paul is pretty clear when he's like man. When I do this, then I check my own heart to make sure that I'm not disqualified from the race after spending time sharing with you guys, because I can be so focused on making sure you guys get there that I can lose track in my own heart and miss where I'm going.
Speaker 2:I mean, and this is the problem in the church at Ephesus, right, it's like great, you guys are super religious. Your church is fire your coffee's hot. Okay, your volunteer teams are stacked, you got 90% group attendance. It's insane. And then, and the reality is, is man, we, we kind of lost it? Yeah, we, we, we lost the? You know, people say the first love, right, which is the language there? But ultimately it means this, the starting point, which is ironically what you just said, tim, which is the gospel, which is supposed to be kind of the central theme of Easter, like what is the actual significance of the resurrection. And we're over here, like you know, it's really hard to enjoy this sermon.
Speaker 1:I think that's why I have a problem with Easter man. So Easter is a busy, busy week, dude. And then we throw in four hours of prayer, mandatory prayer, right, which is great, but in my head I'm like I have 30,000 things. I feel like I have to get done and I'm sitting here trying to focus in on the devotion from the pastor, on praying with somebody else, on worship. I'm like I can't, I don't have time for this. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think there is a trick to silencing your mind. Yeah, you know what I mean, and I say this frequently I can't remember the first person who said it to me but that God speaks in the discipline of silence. He really does. Yeah, and if you haven't learned to like actually stop and focus and like begin to really lean into what God has called you to do and what he's trying to teach you and show you, then you'll be the person who continues to walk by those things all the time and not actually get to hear the things that he wants to show you.
Speaker 2:I'm going to read for us real quick, psalm 19, and I think I've read it on here before, but it's a really important verse for me, or portion of the text. It's 7 through 11. The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul. It's 7 through 11. Altogether, they are more desirable than gold. Yes, then, much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and dripping of the honeycomb more. But, moreover, by them your servant is warned and in keeping them there's great reward. Like this, I hate this, like, in a sense, tim, cause it's this reminder that like, uh, dude, everything that you're being taught, what's coming from this word. What's happening in this moment is full of the spirit, full of everything that you need. This is nutritious, this is delicious, this is all the stuff that you should be consuming, and yet our hearts can grow distant, you know, and we can drift from the things that I know, this is good for me and what I need, but, if I'm being honest, it is like it's not necessarily what I'm interested in or wanting to focus on.
Speaker 1:Well, that's the hard part with the sermon I guess was trying to get at too is like I could guess what the Easter sermons are going to be every year.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know that's not. That's pretty easy to do Because they're all generic in my mind. You know what?
Speaker 2:I mean, and that's the thing like is the gospel message generic? And I think to myself how frustrated would I be if I went to a church on Easter and they didn't preach the gospel Right? I would be like what is wrong with these?
Speaker 1:people. Well, I totally understand that. You know what I mean. I do, I really do. But I also think there's an aspect to something that if you have people who are normally coming to the church, what are they getting fed?
Speaker 2:I think the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, and if you have a chance to sit down and you know a bunch of people are coming who don't actually know the gospel and you don't share the very thing that is the central theme of everything life and death for them, or whether they go to hell or not, I think you missed it but I think— Agreed.
Speaker 1:But what about the ones who already have the salvation?
Speaker 2:Oh, I think it's like what Peter said, it is no problem at all for me to like tell you this again and again so that you don't forget the fullness of what he's trying to communicate to you. I think the gospel is pretty central to most of what's going on. I will say this when we look in scripture, especially in the New Testament, there tends to be two words that are used for this proclamation of the word. This word, kerygma, is a word that means like this is an evangelistic proclamation, a heralding of the gospel itself. And then the other word that tends to get used in this sharing the word, is the word didyka, which ultimately just means the teaching that's associated with the gospel. I think a lot of people want to just focus on the kerygma, which is every message is a gospel message, which is good, and there's something about that. That's right. But if you never get into the didyka, which is like, okay, then teach me. Then how does this inform the life that I'm supposed to live and where I'm supposed to go and what I'm supposed to do connected to the gospel? If you never get there, you miss out too. The goal is to combine at some level. I want gospel-centered teaching with clear didactic application to be added to what I'm trying to do in my Christian life. But if somebody doesn't know the gospel at all or hasn't received that yet, then it would be foolish to go to the teaching. And a lot of churches have died that way where it's like they started preaching the gospel, then eventually they assume the gospel and just do teaching and then eventually they abandon the gospel for moralism and then everybody and then the church dies or becomes a cult. Yeah, you know. So if you're asking me, there's kind of two questions here. All right, one is Easter specifically, one is sermons in general. Yeah, okay, easter in particular.
Speaker 2:I prepare my heart by is primarily sitting in, resting in and getting my heart right in light of what the day represents for me, and then helping share with my children how that should impact the way that we think about these days, because we get pumped for all kinds of things, we get excited for stupid stuff, but days that actually have to do with our own eternity in life and death, and whether my marriage makes it or not, or whether my kids survive or not, or whatever, we'll trivialize those and make them not a big deal. And if Easter isn't bigger than your church, for you, the time you spend at church is going to suck and not going to be relevant. If it is bigger than church, then you'll understand that I'm bringing something to church that day with me. I'm not expecting them to give me something. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:So I'm preparing in light of what Easter actually represents. So even if I went to a church that the message was subpar and I didn't feel like the worship was great and it was, you know, kind of a dusty service, I'm still going to be like dude. There's no where I'd rather be than with the community of saints on Easter Sunday celebrating the resurrection of our Lord. That is a, I mean, that's just a. That's an in my bones thing that we should have.
Speaker 2:And I feel like that's something for you that you should almost enjoy more, because you have this liturgical, more, let's say, reverent side to you, tim, that wants to honor the church calendar and wants to honor some of the church fathers and what they did. And Easter is one of those things that ironically, a lot of Christians struggle with, who like liturgy, and I think it's funny. It's like, well, the one thing or two things that the let's say, the church that is less liturgical, will actually go out of their way to make sure that we do tends to be the things that we ignore the most, which tells me that people who love liturgy actually don't love liturgy that much, and we get bored of it pretty quick.
Speaker 1:We get bored of it pretty quick. I just find the whole setup of a sermon these days any church man you know three songs in the beginning, 45 minutes of somebody talking and then song goodbye. Where did the 45 minutes talking come from? I guess Do you know.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's another great question. Yeah, so the uh early on, very early on, like act six, is one of the best places to go, where they have all this different stuff happening. And you got uh problems with the Jewish women and the Hellenistic Jews and there's some like racism early on in the church and they're trying to figure out what do we do? And the apostles basically say we have to dedicate ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. Like this is what we are supposed to be doing is teaching and praying. And it says every day they were dedicating themselves to the apostles' teaching. And then you have simple stuff like what Paul's writing to Timothy, where he's saying give dedication to your teaching, to public reading of Scripture. It's supposed to be an ongoing central theme in churches to proclaim and teach these things. This is why the qualification for being an elder is you. You got to be able to teach the word. Why? Because what's the central thing that's supposed to be happening in the church is the teaching of the word of God. That would help develop people's lifestyle into something that would honor Christ further the gospel, build the kingdom, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So the proclamation of the word is an incredibly important thing. The Bible says that the power of life and death is in the tongue, that the power of the gospel. You know what I mean. It really is the proclaimed message itself, and the teaching that we read all throughout the Bible is ultimately sermons that Paul is giving to people to help them learn, in light of what the gospel is, how they're supposed to live. So it's pretty unavoidable.
Speaker 2:The worship is prescribed in several places, but is replete throughout scripture. Obviously, we have hymns and songs that people are singing. The Psalter itself is full of music that was specific to different events the Day of Atonement, the Day of Ascent, you know. Or this is a lament that we sang, you know. Or this particular song we sang during the Feast of Booth. It was the songs that were specific and connected to the moments that they were trying to celebrate, and yeah.
Speaker 2:So if you're asking why do we structure services, the way that we structure services, there's really three things that most people will say are the marks of a church, which is the giving of the sacraments or ordinances, the faithful proclamation of the word and exercising church discipline. Those are the three. So am I heralding the faithfulness of the word? Am I actually doing the two things God told me to do if you're a Protestant anyways which is the Lord's Supper and baptism.
Speaker 2:And then am I defending those things, the holiness of God, the word itself by kicking people out that are rebellious and trying to bring destruction, or bringing people back in who are in error, who need to be loved and brought through a process? But yeah, those things are like deeply ingrained in scripture and absolutely unavoidable. If you're reading the New Testament and wondering how, then, should our services look like Community getting together in the word, prayer, worship, fellowship, teaching, and then that applying and moving into our lives but I thought maybe what might be a good idea, tim, in light of this, is to give people some thoughts about how to maybe get the most out of a sermon, tim.
Speaker 1:McCoy yeah, well, that's what I was trying to get at, yeah.
Speaker 2:Tim McCoy. Okay, so what I would want to communicate to people is that, honestly, you can get things out of a song that will wreck your heart for God. You can get things out of a piece of artwork. You can get things out of something a child says. I think it's really important that we start with ourself, and if you are dull to the gospel and you're mad at somebody else for not getting there for you, that's just selfishness and laziness presenting itself in an argument against faithfulness. It's somebody else's fault that I'm not getting to do or feel the way that they're supposed to make me feel on this particular day.
Speaker 1:That's just horse crap and then it's just a terrible sermon. I'm never coming back.
Speaker 2:Well, and I would even say that to be able to understand if it really was a terrible sermon, your heart has to be in the right place. Then you would know. But if your heart's in the wrong place, you might hear a totally crap sermon and think it's great, that was the best thing ever, right? So you want to prepare for a message by first preparing your soul. Like every Sunday and I brought this up before every Sunday before I am doing ministry, before I'm listening to this sermon or whatever, I'm praying myself hot. I am spending time in prayer to wake my heart up, because when I walk in I'm not there, just flat out. I'm tired, I got stuff I'm thinking about with kids or this going on or that going on, and if I don't spend time in prayer getting my heart to a place where I really am expectant and wanting to see God move and ready to listen for what he's wanting to do, nothing good happens. I prepare then to study. So if you see me in a sermon, you're usually going to see me with my Bible, you're going to see me with a notebook, you're going to see me with a pen, and some of you guys might see me with my phone too, because I have Logos on my phone and so I'm going to sit there. I'm going to open up my Bible to the passage he's going to be in. If I know what it is early, I'm probably going to read through it early. If I don't know where he's going, I'm going to be ready to go there when he tells me to open the thing.
Speaker 2:I'm going to write notes with my own hand as often as I can, because I think there's a direct connection between what I'm putting down with my own hand and what I'm getting into my heart, and I think a lot of people are used to typing and putting stuff in notes.
Speaker 2:I love stuff in notes. I'll do that if I don't have a pen and paper, but there is a real connection, like a physiological connection, between what you're writing down with your hand and what you're actually retaining and connecting with. And so I have a pen that I really love, I have a notebook that I really love, and I got a Bible that I really love, because I want to actually get the most out of those things too. So, like, if I'm saying this is like a finer things moment, yeah, great, if you're going to get things that you really enjoy and want to use and enjoy using, do it when it helps stir your heart for a love for God and a desire to study. So pen paper Bible. If you're a guy who likes like me, who likes to study, pop open, log off on your phone, just have notifications and stuff silent so you're not having distractions come up while you're trying to study which you can do.
Speaker 2:Obviously, you've got to be somewhat disciplined, but I like doing that, and then I prepare to spend more time in the sermon after it's preached, like I will probably listen to the same sermon again. I'll go back through and think about it. I'll hear stuff that I didn't hear before. I want to pick up further insights, and then I want to start asking questions. What, ultimately, is the full thing that he was trying to communicate in this passage? What were the applications that I'm hearing but I'm not uniquely applying to my own life? What am I missing Life? What am I missing? And then I should be taking this thing home and I should be looking at other texts that it's connecting with. What does this text say about this? He quoted these three different texts. Okay, I'm going to go to those. I'm going to read through those different things.
Speaker 2:If you're a nerd like me, I'm going to be asking how does the original language in this text take me a little bit deeper into it? Are there specific cultural, you know, uh relevancies here that shed further light on what's being communicated? Um, and then I like to shift it and this I'm like. I feel like I'm taking you guys through a weird world, but this is how my head works, okay, and then I take it to okay, if I had to teach this to someone, how would I do it? Wow, and then I'm going to start writing down. This is probably the way I would phrase this. This is a text that I would connect it with, because I like this one a little bit better. Or I think, man, this verse is so good. How many of us in a message are like oh, I have a quote that goes along with that. That's really great.
Speaker 2:I mean it happens to me all the time and I sit there, like you know, wanted to raise my hand, which is not appropriate outside of worship. You know, and I'll write down some quotes, I'll have some different stuff and the reason I started doing this, Tim, actually originally was because I listened to this David Platt secret church thing back in the day.
Speaker 1:David Platt, dude. Yeah, and I could say some things about the driest sermon. The driest guy to talk about the day David Platt, dude. Yeah, and I can say some things about the driest sermon. The driest guy to talk about the Bible is David Platt.
Speaker 2:And there's a lot that's like gone over the edge there. There's a whole thing. But here's what I would say. He did a four-hour teaching on this and what he would do is he would do this massive teaching. But there were all these people and he talked in this message about going to these like candlelit meetings, underground in these war-torn lands or whatever, where it was illegal to teach the word of God. And these men were not going for the purpose of hearing a message. They were going for the purpose of absorbing everything that they possibly could so that they could go back to their own congregations and teach the people that they were talking to. So the goal is not man learned a lot today, really good. The goal is how am I actually taking what was shared, what was taught, this information, the structure, what's going on here, and then thinking about how I would uniquely apply it to the people that I'm speaking to or the people that are in my own life? In an instant, how could I take this and, in a five-minute devo, give this to my kids in a unique way that I would want them to understand or to take it with me? And so, if you are kind of walking through this process of preparing my soul, preparing to study. I'm spending more time planning on listening to this again and again. I want to think through the right questions to ask to help stir stuff, and then I'm taking it, working through other texts that correspond with it, thinking about cultural relevance, walking potentially through the original language. If you got logos or something you want to pop into and then making it your own message, it's pretty hard not to get something out of it.
Speaker 2:And Howard Hendricks said the Bible doesn't yield its fruit to the lazy. And I would say the same thing about sermons. Sometimes somebody is so gifted that they, just when they speak, man, the meat just falls off the bone and you're like, oh, this was so great. Here's the to have all the work done for you. Maybe Is it good to do that all the time? Is it actually teaching you at that point? Maybe not. And Tim used to get mad at me in the kitchen when we worked together, cause if I teach you a skill, you know like I remember one time I made you, I taught you how to make lemon, lemon, roses and orange roses.
Speaker 2:And then it was like an Easter brunch or something we were doing ironically, and I was like I need a hundred of these. And you're like I wish you never taught me this. And I think that's how it's supposed to feel. If you're getting the most out of a message is ah, dang it. I wish I didn't hear this sermon this week.
Speaker 2:Now I know I need to do this you know because it's the conviction and what you actually learned, then I will begin to see how I can apply it in my life. But if you go in as a consumer and not as a student I guess is the best way to say this then you're going to miss what God's actually trying to teach you.
Speaker 1:That's interesting because I think it's always the perception of the pastor's job is to do that for me, like you were saying.
Speaker 2:I think the goal of the pastor is to equip the saints for the work of ministry.
Speaker 1:But when you go in for a sermon, it's like I want to hear something that makes total sense to my soul, right, yeah, that I could go home and take it with me, yeah, Let me give you a picture.
Speaker 2:Tim Moses would go up the mountain and get revelation for the people and come back down and tell them. This is what God has said In the New Testament Jesus descended from heaven. He came down the mountain himself to meet with us. He gives his own spirit to us so that we can commune with him, so that we can kneel before the throne you know, the throne of grace to find mercy and help in our time of need. And I think sometimes we're still looking for a Moses. We want somebody to go get the message for us. You talk to God, you get all the things that we, you just tell us and we'll do that and we'll let you know.
Speaker 2:Whether we like it or not, and if you're gone too long, it's your fault that we made the golden calf and partied because you're supposed to help me, and that kind of mentality is. It's totally wicked. The goal is that the gospel, the kerygma, would transform our hearts by the spirit, so that we would become a new creation that has new appetites, that wants to walk in a way that would honor God and grow in our faith. That has new appetites, that wants to walk in a way that would honor God and grow in our faith. The didika is the teaching that pastors and elders and shepherds, overseers, bishops all the same word, same thing. They're supposed to be able to provide for us so that we would begin to live our life in a different way, but also teach these truths to other people. This is the whole picture. I think it's 2 Timothy 2, right. Teach the things that you have heard and seen in me in the presence of faithful witnesses. Teach these things to other faithful men who can teach others also. There's four generations of teaching in that what you saw me do and what I taught you to do. I want you to teach others also so that they can teach other people as well. I want you to teach others also so that they can teach other people as well. It's never supposed to be. I went in, I got a great sermon and it died with me. In fact, I would say if you heard a sermon this week and that sermon died with you, you failed.
Speaker 2:The goal is to take whatever it is that God showed you through that process of your own preparation, your readiness and then actually enjoying the meal. It's a lot like going to a fancy restaurant, tim, and not enjoying what they did at that restaurant Cause you just don't care. You know somebody who's like I spent 150 bucks you know what I mean On this meal to get you a really nice day. Oh man, you know you've never had foie gras on top of your steak like that, and it's delicious. I want you to try it. I think it's really good.
Speaker 2:But then somebody's like what is this disgusting gelatinous thing on top of my steak? I don't want get me Taco Bell. You know what I mean, and I think a lot of times pastors can feel like that. Like man, I put all these hours in, I worked really hard. I wanted to bring you this message, but preaching to a cold heart man is so hard and I got to tell you. I experienced this recently, tim, because I had to teach a bunch of high schoolers and I just wanted to die afterwards.
Speaker 1:I think I brought this up. Yeah, you did what they did I brought this up with AJ.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's like there's such a difference between somebody who comes ready, who wants to hear, who wants to learn, who wants to grow and is there to like get after it, and somebody who is forced to be there that doesn't want to be there. And, unfortunately, easter is not a time to cast your pearls before swine. Easter is the time to try to wake the dead. When I come as somebody who was, you know, woken, or somebody who has woken up from the dead, I get to come as somebody who is a living representation of what God has actually done. And I would say this If you are a Christian we've used the term on the podcast a lot of hierophany You're a place where heaven is touched earth.
Speaker 2:You, christian, are a hierophany. You are a place where heaven has collided with earth and created a moment in time in history that forever represents the goodness and mercy and evidence of God. And I would say you should walk around like that. You should live that way. I am a representation of what God can do when his mercy and grace and presence touches something that was dead.
Speaker 2:I am now alive and let me tell you what my God has done and these hierophanies throughout scripture, tim, I think you know are these places where people would build altars? Right, it was like God touched the ground here. He spoke to, to me here, so I'm going to build this altar. That's supposed to be us. We're supposed to be living, walking, breathing hierophanies. I am a place where heaven touched earth and now I'm an expression of god's goodness and mercy to anybody who would walk by and see me. Um, and when we are receiving the word of God, hopefully, we are being constantly reminded that I am a conduit for heaven here and I need to receive this stuff and do something with it that actually matters, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but there's been moments where I mean there's sermons I think I've listened to 10 years ago that I still listen to on a regular basis. Yeah, You're right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I think I'm always trying to chase that next one, you know.
Speaker 2:I think sometimes God does reach down and uniquely speak to you without you having to put work in.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. But it's more like him, just like grabbing you by the shoulder and like look at me, yes, daddy, you know what I mean. Like, okay, I'm listening now. Sometimes there is something that so speaks to your heart, dude, that you're almost undone in the moment, and it's glorious. You cannot do something with that, yeah. But I mean, I think if we're wanting that every week, we're not wanting obedience or to walk out what God has called us to do, we're just looking for an experience because it was so awesome.
Speaker 2:And do I want heaven? Yes, do I want to be in the presence of God all the time? Heck, yeah, obviously I do. That's why Jesus was running away to spend time with his father all the time. But ultimately, the work that we got to get done is part of this process of identifying with Christ and knowing him. Why? Because he put on flesh. He came down first and walked this out and showed us how to do that and has given us the opportunity to do it with him, so that we may know who he is, identify with his purposes, goal and will and ultimately be victorious with him through, you know, cooperating with his will.
Speaker 1:So you think every sermon is something for you to get something out of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I do, I do, even if what you got out of the sermon was that guy's teaching was not as good as it could have been. Here's the three different areas that I think I would have spent more time if I was him. Here's an area that I think he missed. I'm going to go back, I'm going to rework this myself and really try to solidify what should be there.
Speaker 1:That's such a weird thought too, cause it's like this is the pastor, this is his job. Who am I to question that?
Speaker 2:Let me, let me walk you back, Tim, do you? You have a job, but you also have a calling. Sure, do you fall short in your calling? Yeah, okay, um, and I would say, if I looked at most Christians, I would say, at some level you've probably fallen short in the calling that God has put on your life.
Speaker 2:But we think about it like you just said this is your job, do the job, and we don't think of it as, oh no, actually this is his life coming out of him right now. How dare he have an area of his life coming out of him that I don't think is valuable or meaningful enough in this moment? Now, for the record, if I am doing a podcast where I'm uniquely talking to pastors, I am going to turn this on its head and I'm going to smash back the other direction really hard, okay, but for the normal person who is listening to this podcast, who is, let's say, somebody who is attending church, who loves the Lord, or is figuring out their Christian walk, navigating their Christian life, oh, you said it, yep, I did.
Speaker 2:I'm going to do what the Holy Spirit always does, which is focus on you, not somebody else. And I would say a pastor is not doing a job, he's trying to fulfill his calling, in the same way that you're not just walking around doing a job, you're trying to live out your life as a Christian. You're calling and sometimes you crush it and sometimes you fall short. But we always want to fall forward. And the worst thing that can happen is when you treat a pastor like absolute crap because he fell short in a particular area, when you know good and well that you fall short in your own life all the time and somebody who does week in and week out, bring the word and try to love people and pour into them and care for them. When he does a bad job, has people leaving the church or decide I'm just not being fed here. It's kind of jacked up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just think there should be a little bit more mercy, a little more grace in some of those areas. Now, if you've been at a church for years and it's just stale and you're like dude, I literally I'm not growing here, okay, well, maybe that's God telling you, hey, I have something else for you. I want you to move from this pastor to this pastor. That's not a bad thing, but I wouldn't blame the pastor for that or I wouldn't say it was his fault, say it was his fault. I would say that's God changing something in me and I'm needing to follow where he's telling me to go, not because the, the, uh, you know the, the graphics at this particular place are so much better and I just the worship is so much better because they have just better quality there. Well, yeah, I want those things, but ultimately that's not what's going to grow me in my faith, right? Um, those are amenities that are great when we have them, um, but ultimately it could have the potential to actually make you worse at growing in your faith, because you'll rely on the things that are done for you as opposed to having to stir your heart and get to a place where you can participate and have fellowship with Christ without them. And I think it was Francis Chan who said this. He said whatever you use to get people there are the things you'll have to keep to get them to stay. So, if it's like, if your church is only bringing people in because you know Carrie Underwood is singing on a Sunday morning and the graphics and lighting and everything are absolutely perfect. You're going to have to keep all those things, because the gospel is not the reason necessarily that they're there Now. Our hope would be that, dude, I'm here for the gospel, but these things are awesome and they help elevate the experience and stir my heart to put focus on Christ. All of that Great. I believe that.
Speaker 2:But if you have a bad Sunday or the message isn't great and you feel like I'm not being fed or it might be you, bro, it might be that I was relying too much on everybody else to do the work for me to get something from God and the second Moses stops coming down the mountain. I stop being an Israelite, you know, and I would just encourage you. Jesus came down the mountain not so that other people could do it for you. They can encourage you and help you, but your relationship with Jesus is your own relationship with Jesus, and Jesus doesn't have secondary friends or grandkids, as some people like to say. It's you and him, and you're going to have to work that out and get to a place where you can grow personally.
Speaker 2:So Easter Sunday is an important day, tim, and I realized that some days you've got to slug it out and some days it feels like spiritual warfare and it's like man.
Speaker 2:I didn't get anything out of that, but I know this is where I'm supposed to be and I did everything that I could to do the right thing, even though my heart wasn't totally where I want it to be. I think that I think God honors that more than everything was exactly the way that I wanted. Therefore, I could worship. I mean, that seems that seems shallow to me. Somewhere in between is what we want. I used everything that I had here to elevate the experience that I could so that I could give the fullness of my heart to Christ. That's what I'm trying to do, but it shouldn't stop there. It should end up with, and so I took everything that I received from the Lord and I brought it to everybody I could. That's how you actually close the gap, and if you go halfway, I actually think God will stop feeding you personally. Nice, so take that for what it's worth, yeah.
Speaker 1:Cool. Thanks, man Appreciate this. Talk man Awesome, All right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, kind of random and all over the place, but hopefully some good things that you guys can take out of this and apply.
