Death to Life podcast
A podcast that tells the stories of people that used to be one way, and now are completely different, and the thing that happened in between was Jesus.
Death to Life podcast
#206 Dr. Sherri, Finding Redemption in Your Mindset
We explore the transformative power of believing you are redeemed. Dr. Sherry shares deep insights on identity, community, and the mindset that shapes our walk with God.
• The introduction of Dr. Sherri’s journey as a clinical psychologist
• Discussion of Paul’s story as a metaphor for faith amid life’s shipwrecks
• The importance of community and accountability in spiritual growth
• Embracing the mindset of the redeemed over feelings of brokenness
• Actionable steps for renewing the mind through Scripture
• The significance of daily practices like seeking God in prayer and praise
• Insights on combating the lies we believe about ourselves
• Reflection on the call to share truth within the body of Christ
• Closing prayer for listeners' transformation and understanding
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Yo, welcome to the Death of Life podcast. My name is Richard Young, and today's episode is one I've been excited to hear for a while. We've been doing a lot of stuff with it during Internet Church. It is Jonathan's interview with Dr Sherry, and, if you don't remember, dr Sherry had a previous episode on the Death of Life podcast where she broke down her story. This is more about the lifestyle of the redeemed, what it means to walk as a redeemed child of God, and so there's so much stuff in here. There might be some stuff that triggers you. There might be some stuff that gets you to think a little bit deeper about what you've been setting your mind on. And that's what we want to do. We want to encourage and stir up the church for good work. So, man, buckle up and strap in for Dr Sherry. Love y'all, appreciate y'all.
Speaker 2:The way Paul's ministered, the way he lived. He really just took the Word of God as the Word of God. Amen. Especially after his encounter with Jesus in the road to Damascus. The way he lived is like he really just took the word of God as the word of God. Amen, especially after his encounter with Jesus in the road to Damascus.
Speaker 3:And so I was like hold on, Is it this simple?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, one hundred percent. You know that story where Paul is told that he's going to go to Rome to testify of God's goodness in his life and of the resurrection. And he's on the ship and they get shipwrecked and my ladies are in Cyprus they get shipwrecked. And they get shipwrecked and they get washed aboard. I mean, they get washed ashore and while they're washed ashore, the natives come and meet them and they kind of get friendly with the natives and and paul helps them make a fire and as he's helping them make a fire, he gets bit by a snake. He gets bit by a poisonous snake and he just shakes it off right and the, the locals, are looking at him and they're thinking to themselves surely this must be a murder, for justice has found him right. And then time passes on and he's fine and they're like surely this must be a god right.
Speaker 2:But the whole while, what I'm so impressed by is that paul just shook off the snake, and I've thought to myself why did paul shake off the snake so freely? Oh, it's because the spirit told him he was going to rome. The spirit told him you're going to rome. And he believed that he was headed to rome, amen. So if he got bit by a snake on an island that wasn't rome, he knew he wasn't going to die. Then he's like like, oh no, I'm going home. So he just shakes off the snake and so, yeah, this thing became so real in our lives. Just that God's word is the foundation of reality. And so, yeah, that's why we are so appreciative of your ministry, because, you said, you highlight that so powerfully and we're so thankful for it well, I'm thankful too.
Speaker 3:I was having a conversation the other day with somebody in one of my classes and at first you know, as is our fleshly dead nature, that people like to resurrect. Um, we say things like but this is too simple, it's not. It's not that simple, dr sherry, and, and I'm literally like what? I don't understand. What's not that simple. He said it, he, he said and he said his yoke is easy and his burden is light praise the lord.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we try to make it heavy, don't we?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:It makes us feel better, sometimes Like no, no, no. It's like a thing yeah. Yeah, Dr. Sarah. Can you tell me what part of the country are you in?
Speaker 3:I'm in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2:You're in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 3:Yeah, East Coast. What part of Pennsylvania. So I'm in what's considered South in Pennsylvania. Yeah, East coast?
Speaker 2:What part of Pennsylvania?
Speaker 3:So I'm in what's considered South central Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2:Okay yeah, I have not been in Pennsylvania in so many years. I think the last place I was in Pennsylvania was, let me see, Scranton Redding.
Speaker 3:Okay, so I'm probably like two and a half three hours from there. Okay, all right, very cool. Okay, so I'm probably like two and a half three hours from there. Okay, all right, very cool, closer to I'm literally if I drive south for an hour, I'm in maryland, west virginia.
Speaker 2:Okay, virginia yeah, yeah, you're in that. You know that greater dmv sort of proximity sort of yeah, okay, all right. Yeah, okay, all right. And then, dr Sherry, just by way of curiosity, how long have you been practicing Does that be the right phrase as a professional? What would be your professional? Sorry, because I would retreat to therapist. I don't think that's the right.
Speaker 3:No, actually I left my post as a clinical psychologist in 2016. Clinical psychologist 2016 to 2018, I totally shut down my practice, so I have not practiced for seven years.
Speaker 2:Okay, and I remember listening to this on Death to Life yeah Right, yeah yeah. And what has that been since then? What has the Lord been doing, as far as you, serving and ministering, since then?
Speaker 3:Well, what he's done is he's taken me on a journey of absolute trust and that I can believe in his word, that I can believe what he says. It's that simple. I can believe what he says. And so he said follow me. And I don't know what that looks like. I still don't know what that looks like, Jonathan from you know, I don't have a five-year plan. I don't have a 10-year plan. I love it.
Speaker 3:I show up and I do what the Lord asks me to do. And now he does. He put bigger, like longer term desires in my heart. Yes, and those are on the altar to him. I just show up every day and say these are the desires that you placed in my heart. What would you have me do with them? And sometimes he'll have me shelve them, and other times he'll have me pick them up and go. But really I think where all of this came from, this whole mindset of the redeemed ministry. I guess we all have a ministry, so it's not like a special thing, it's just what I've called it. That is, the outflow of the transformation that the Lord has taken me through, the freedom that he has walked me into by the power of his word, his.
Speaker 3:Holy spirit yeah.
Speaker 2:Amen. Well, that's, um, that'd be as good a place as any to kind of dive in if something I don't have like a very clear map of our conversation. All I know is that the words that you've just said, the mindset of the redeemed, grounded and rooted in a transformation, is something that the people that we do ministry with Right To actually have a mindset, that one you are redeemed, have a mindset that my life is hitting Christ with God, and to have a mindset that, yes, circumstances of life will come, but that the circumstances of life, like Dan Mohler says, don't let life speak louder than truth. Right, and so, and one of the areas in which people get hung up on is a retreat to the Roman seven mindset, right, and that retreat to the Roman seven mindset seems to us to give permission.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:And so I would love, if we can, to kind of maybe have a conversation around, yeah, that mindset of the redeemed.
Speaker 2:And if it's possible, maybe we could first start with just your personal journey to discovering that mindset of the redeemed, as much as you're able to just tell us a little bit about your, how you arrived, how the lord led to that place, and then maybe we uh dive in a little bit to the, at least the themes and ideas around the roman seven person into robin's eight. And then I have curiosity around psychological um tools that I have found that kind of share, uh, like how to establish the mindset, like. So, for instance, I'm really interested, well, I'm somewhat interested in cognitive processing therapy as I've been exposed to it, as opposed to behavioral and the power of telling your story. For reframing I was also exposed and sorry, I have some notes here. Sure, cognitive reframing, the power of cognitive reframing, things like focus loops and the slogan of energy goes where attention flows. And I don't know this has been a recent one, but are you familiar at all to be able to speak on action identification theory?
Speaker 3:I am not familiar with that terminology. What I will do is share the practical applications of Scripture as the Lord has revealed those to me, awesome. I think that there is some utility in the specific approaches, but I do find that a lot of these, for lack of a better phrase. Jonathan worldly systems if used by a biblical counselor. Sure, they can be effective if they're rooted in scripture. But then why are we calling them those things? Why aren't we just calling them the truth of God's word as applied in our life?
Speaker 2:Let me say the quiet part out loud. I love it. Now, I'm so glad you get to say it, I'm with you a hundred percent. Lockstep. I get, I just get it. I get a ton of noise off of what you just said. When I talk to people where I'm forward, like that, I'm like why do we? I was like why are we going to go to people who have practiced the Adam one reality and try to get them to unpack Adam two for us? That'll make no sense.
Speaker 3:Let me tell you something. The other day, the Lord revealed this to me in such a powerful way. I said why is it that we go to the world To fix what the world caused?
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 3:What Seriously?
Speaker 2:What do they call that? How absurd is that. That's wild. What's the name for that? When you, when you do that with, like, your survivor of abuse and you go back to your abuser?
Speaker 3:You know what it is Scripturally it's a dog going back to its abuser. You know what it is Scripturally it's a dog going back to its vomit.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right. Oh no, that's dope. That's dope. Well, is that all right? We have a word of prayer and then we just like let's do it.
Speaker 2:I would love to just riff with you for some time, dr Shay. Let's see, it's 115. I have until 220 ish. Oh, ok, fantastic. Blessings of the Lord. Yeah, yeah, let's pray together. Father God, we're just so thankful for this time. Holy Spirit, we just ask that you and we know that you're here, thankful that you'll be leading Thanks so much for my sister, dr Sherry, for the powerful truths that you have revealed to her and how they are a blessing to the body of Christ. I pray now that, as we have this discussion, that it might be dripping with your truth, your revelation, for the sake of your people, god, our minds and our tongues, that we might steward your revelations faithfully and in keeping with what you would have to be said. We thank you for this time and, yeah, thank you In Jesus name. We pray Amen.
Speaker 3:Amen.
Speaker 2:Amen, all right, dr Sherry, we're so excited just to spend a few moments together again. We are fans over here and just geek that we can talk a little bit. We listened to your Death to Life podcast and that was such a blessing, I thought to myself man, I sure would like to talk to her and just ask her questions, if I could Ask away.
Speaker 2:So yeah, Could you tell us a little bit about just your professional background quickly and then maybe, man this powerful ministry that you now have by the mindset of the redeemed, how the Lord shifted and moved you to proclaiming that so boldly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so professional background is I used to practice as a clinical psychologist, also as a board certified behavior analyst, so all of that means that I just spent an inordinate amount of time in school and amassed an inordinate amount of student loan debt. Mm-hmm Right. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And none of that is wasted. The Lord had to use that journey, had to use all of that to reveal himself to me, and that's what I love about our Lord. He is so faithful and he's so personal. He will take whatever path he has drawn you to Like. That wasn't a mistake, right? I went into the field because I wanted to quote, unquote help people. Well, that's what I'm doing now.
Speaker 3:It just looks very different. And, um, what he did is? He developed in me during that time his eyes. He gave me eyes to see. He gave me eyes to see when I wasn't following him closely. He gave me eyes to see. He gave me eyes to see when I wasn't following him closely. He gave me eyes to see things in other people that he would eventually give me eyes to see in myself. And then, as I let him deal with what he was showing me in myself, then I was able to really share boldly the truth of God's word, to help other people see for themselves, to see through the eyes of the truth.
Speaker 2:Amen. So that's a powerful idea, that first he gives you eyes to see, uh, as at least as you were describing it a a little external, away from yourself. Yes, so that then you can see a little bit back into yourself. Yeah. That seems like a very kind grace to not press too hard first.
Speaker 3:So merciful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Can you unpack that a little bit for us? What was that experience like? Because the way you just articulated that I'm like, yeah, that sounds like the grace of God.
Speaker 3:Oh, my goodness, it is the grace of God. So I just, you know, I look back over my life and I see, I remember instances in which I could look at somebody else and I could see that they felt broken. Now, why do you think I could see that? Because I knew what it felt like, whether or not I was aware of all of that, I wasn't at the time. If I was the, the journey of the lord transforming me would have happened a lot, you know know, sooner.
Speaker 3:But so I would see a stranger walking down the street and I would just pray for them and I'd just say, lord, just help that person. But I was never saying, lord, what's going on with me, right? And so it led to this journey of much of my life kind of even though I was praying feeding into this lie of the enemy that I was somehow deficient, that I was somehow broken that.
Speaker 3:The gospel, the truth, god's goodness, his mercy was for everybody else, and I just kept missing the mark, kept missing it, and so he gave me eyes to see that in other people, me eyes to see that in other people, and I believe that's what led me into my field of clinical psychology because I wanted to help people who felt like they were broken and I wanted to share with them that they weren't Now.
Speaker 3:I didn't have that phraseology when I started, but that's eventually what led to me leaving the field was the Lord saying my people aren't broken and I was like, oh okay, well, I guess that means I need to hang up my hat, because if they're not broken, then I won't be diagnosing anybody anymore.
Speaker 2:Can we pause right there, because that's a big one and I'm sure that you're well familiar that those are them triggering words, and I'm sure that you're well familiar that that's those are, those are them triggering words, yeah, they are.
Speaker 2:You know, when you in the revelation of the gospel to say something like you are not broken, maybe first what led you to that concrete aha moment, and then second, maybe if you can unpack that for the body of christ, how do you communicate that or share that? Because that one we get, that one's a really I felt that, yeah, body it's.
Speaker 3:it's fascinating, right. How? So I believe, um that the world's mental health system in its current form is some of the enemy's greatest handiwork. I know, I know, that makes people cringe. I know it does, but it's not a lie.
Speaker 2:Continue. Okay.
Speaker 3:It's not a lie. And here's why Because that system tells you that this is who you are. It misidentifies who you are. It also identifies you as broken. It also identifies you as perpetually broken, a state that you just have to learn to deal with.
Speaker 3:I don't know about you, but that's not what my Jesus said. He came to set me free. He came so that I could live life more abundantly. He didn't come so I could hang my head and muddle through. No, so yeah, he started speaking that to me and you know, jonathan, I wasn't even.
Speaker 3:I mean, I've been a believer since I was five years old, a professing believer since I was five years old, but in and out of um closeness with the Lord, in and out of communion with him in terms of reading his word, and this was during a season where I would, you know, go to church on Sundays and I would read my Bible every day. But there were still elements of my life that I wanted to be my life and that I wasn't handing over. And he was still speaking. That speaks to the faithfulness and the mercy and the grace of our Father. He still speaks, and so the way that he spoke was through the people that I was seeing. He showed me.
Speaker 3:He just literally was waking me up at night after I would see people all day long. And he just started waking me up in the middle of the night saying my people aren't broken. And I was like this is true, because you know what the kind of phone calls that I got were do you treat bipolar disorder? Do you treat borderline personality disorder? And I'm like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, I talked to you. You are a human being, you have value, you have worth, you have purpose in your life. You are not a diagnosis, and so that's one of the tragic, one of the tragedies about the mental health system is people begin to adopt an identity of defectiveness, of brokenness, of deficiency, of you name it, and that is how they see themselves and the system perpetuates that, sadly, how they see themselves and the system perpetuates that sadly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow, that's powerful revelation. What I'm hearing is the idea that, as you're doing your professional work, that the Lord is, in his grace, revealing to you that these people are not their diagnoses. Yeah, Amen.
Speaker 2:These people are not meant to fit into a box that is a broken box, and then identify them. So to be told that these people have dignity, value, worth, that they are whole. Yes, that this is where we start, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's powerful Cause. I find that there seems to be this. The word that comes to my mind is addiction. There's like an addiction to framing ourselves as less than. Yes. Yeah, and then justifying it at least in the body of Christ theologically and like.
Speaker 3:Think about how absurd that is. Why would we want to identify as broken? There's a, there's really only one reason, and it's because we've bought into the lies of the enemy, who comes to steal, kill and destroy.
Speaker 2:Amen, amen. And so you're getting this powerful revelation, but in 2016, it sounds like you're still serving. Is there for you a clear like? I've got to move on moment?
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, uh, I don't know that, other than the Lord waking me up in the middle of the night. That was pretty clear. That happened a few times, and it was also during a time when I was dealing with intense amounts of anxiety about my own salvation, amounts of anxiety about my own salvation.
Speaker 3:I mean to the point, jonathan, where I was like I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to go somewhere, I'm going to have to check myself in somewhere because I can't manage this anymore. And so the Lord in his mercy, even though I couldn't see what was going on with me, he was showing that to me and other people, which was giving me his eyes in a way, like you said. I love how you said that was so merciful, so tender to show me, begin to reveal things to me and other people, begin to open my eyes to things, the lies of the enemy in other people. Because that was the starting point, and that was in 2016. A very specific phone call with a friend at that time would be what started this ministry. I had no idea then.
Speaker 3:Mindset of the redeemed wasn't even a thing until 2023. Right, but those experiences, the Lord used to begin this work in me of exposing me to the truth of His Word, so that those lies are uprooted, they're exposed, they're uprooted and they no longer have a place here in this mind. That is now that I walk in what it is which is holiness unto the Lord. And so there was that phone call, there was the waking up and the phone call. I'll just share with you briefly, jonathan, I used to I think I shared this with Rich before but I used to go to Target because that was the only place that I wasn't alone and it was the only place where I didn't feel crazy. The only other time I didn't feel crazy was when I was one-to-one with people in the therapy room, because I was zoned in, I was focused on them, but every moment I was alone, I was just under constant attack in my thoughts.
Speaker 2:And this is oh, sorry, sorry, please continue. No, go ahead, as this is after those night revelations from the Lord this is, this is starting to happen.
Speaker 3:before that, yeah and um. So yeah, I just, it was one night I was out at target and I was walking around and I just got back in my car and I texted my friend and I just said I I take that I don't know what to do anymore. And she said to me something that nobody had said and probably because I hadn't shared what was going on with me for shame. That's another trick of the enemy. He likes to keep things behind closed doors and that's. There is a place for biblical counseling, but there is also a perpetuation of shame and isolation with one-on-one therapy, because it's happening behind.
Speaker 2:I know, I know I just gotta breathe for a second man. No, dr sherry, that's heavy. That's heavy. It was like I mean all right, so this is.
Speaker 2:You know, we'll edit all this just fine, but let me just it doesn't matter to me no, no, it's all good, no, it's just that, as you're saying it like, this stuff rings so true in my heart. I personally encountered, uh, bernie brown shame theory when I was like 30 years old, I don't know when when her. You remember when her ted talk went viral like the first ted talk that bernie brown did around shame, and the thing that struck me about it is that the visual that I took away was that on the one side, you had the ability to live a connected, authentic life and on the other side, you had on the other side, you had Well, shame, right, secrecy, judgment, fear, right. And then she highlighted that there's a dial in between and that dial is vulnerability. And so if you're going to live a connected life, your vulnerability dial has to be way up. And she made a distinction between vulnerability and self-disclosure. Right, that vulnerability is to take an emotional risk, to be uncertain, to live in uncertainty at times and to be willing to expose yourself emotionally, right, and you're like, ok, all right, cool. But then she highlighted that. What underwrites that?
Speaker 2:She says, as she did all of her research, her grounded theory research she says the one thing, and only one thing, emerged as allowing people to be vulnerable, like people that were had that vulnerability dial up and that lived connected, authentic and she used the word courageous lives had one thing that underwrote their vulnerability and she said it is their vulnerability. And she said it is. They knew that they were worthy of love and I remember, like at 30, 31, just a glimpse of oh, this is what the cross tells me Amen, the cross tells me that I'm worthy of love, so that then I don't have to live in shame and secrecy. It was only after, at a fuller representation of the gospel, that not only the cross, but that his resurrection filled me with the Holy Spirit so that I can live absolutely transformed.
Speaker 3:Oh, yes, Lord.
Speaker 2:Right and when we keep like shame and brokenness and all that, the isolation of how we talk about these things lends itself to a perpetuating of shame and, like I, absolutely lived that for so long until I began to catch a revelation of oh no, you are actually worthy of love and, beyond that, the fuller representation of God. Now you're indwelt by the holy spirit so that you're whole amen right.
Speaker 2:So just this point of how often we isolate in shame and we isolate, uh, religiously, yeah, like I knew, every night in the secrecy of my bedroom, just confessing to the lord all the sins I had committed, because I was no better than my brokenness, and how that perpetuated the mindset of Romans 7.
Speaker 3:Oh, I was in it most of my life. Sin shame, repentance, but not repentance. Sin shame, sorry, sorry, sin shame, sorry, sorry, sin shame, sorry, sorry, sin shame, sorry, sorry. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so how do you speak to those that experience that If you're talking, jonathan, 29 years old, 30 years, I'm not 43. So it's been a little while. But if you're talking to me, then, and I'm like Dr Sherry, every night I just confess to God and I keep going and I'm no better than my brokenness. And you know Romans 7, the things I want to do. Yeah.
Speaker 3:You've stopped there. You haven't read the whole truth. You haven't read the whole truth, and so you can choose to stay there, or you can make a choice to believe that what Jesus said is true. This is what it boils down to, because the truth is, we can make our guilt and our shame our God, and that becomes our identity.
Speaker 2:Okay, please, dr Sherry. Okay, please, dr sherry, would you be willing to?
Speaker 3:say more there, just on the roman seventh thing, like yeah, well, yeah, it's an identity thing. Right, it's identity, it's it's. I'm never gonna get it right. There's something wrong with me, I'm just broken, I'm, I'm defective, it is all I, I, I, I, I. It is idolatry of self. It is idolatry of a broken self.
Speaker 2:And so I, I, I'm with you.
Speaker 3:Okay, but hold on. How did I get there? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's simple. I sought the Lord through the reading of his word because, if you want to be, let me get off of instagram, get off of these places, stop googling every single pastor in history. And oh, I got this really great sermon. And oh, I got this, like, read the word of the Lord, because this is the truth that sets you free.
Speaker 2:Amen Amen.
Speaker 3:Yes, people can help you understand the word, people can break it down for you, but I was born and raised in church my entire life. It wasn't that I didn't know the truth.
Speaker 2:It wasn't that I hadn't heard the truth. It was that I wasn't inviting the truth to set me free. That's great verbiage inviting the truth, Amen. What does it look?
Speaker 3:like to invite the truth, search me and know me. Search me and know me. Lord, lord, I do not want to be this way anymore. I know that I am so miserable because this is not the way that you made me to be. It's not the way you made me to be and I have no clue how to change it. Seek first, seek me, seek me. And so what I did is I made an active decision to seek the Lord. Did everything change overnight? No.
Speaker 3:But what his word did is what it promises, that it cuts between soul and spirit, and it started to expose the lies that I had believed. And it was only the word of God that exposed my communion with the spirit of brokenness, my communion with the spirit of brokenness.
Speaker 2:I just gotta let that sit. Communion with the spirit of brokenness.
Speaker 3:In what ways had you been communing with the spirit of brokenness? Right, I'm terrible, I'm horrible, I'm never gonna get it right. I don't know what else to do. Everybody else gets it right, but me. Oh, I might as well drink another bottle of wine. I might as well go do this thing, because it doesn't matter, I'll never get it right anyway. That is communion with the spirit of brokenness.
Speaker 2:How did the Lord reveal that you were participating in that communion?
Speaker 3:And it all happens in our thoughts, jonathan. This is why I call it the mindset of the redeemed. Our thoughts, jonathan, this is why I call it the mindset of the redeemed. It all happens in our thoughts. Everything our behaviors follow our thoughts, everything follows our thoughts. And if our thoughts are disordered, then our behavior, our life is going to be disordered. But if our thoughts are ordered according to the truth of God's word God who defines reality then our lives become ordered, our minds become ordered.
Speaker 3:How did he reveal that to me? I was seeking him and I had been reading through the Psalms and that day I made it to Psalm 139. And so this was, this was like day 139 of like, I am like all in, like I'm still doing the things and I'm still like, but I'm not doing them as much and I'm being more mindful, and I'm like okay, lord, I really want you and I just don't know how to change. I don't feel like I have the will and blah, blah, blah, and even that, just by the way, even what. I started seeking him to change the things I was doing so that I could be a good Christian. Finally, Right, like, that's why I started seeking him. But he turned that upside down and he showed me that I was seeking him, for him, and that, as I was filling myself with him, as he was doing the work I should say I wasn't doing the work he was doing the work of filling me through the power of his word, through his Holy Spirit that plants that word deep inside of us, writes it on our hearts while we're sleeping at night, wakes us up with revelation. This is what the Holy Spirit does. As that was happening, he was pushing all of the stuff out that didn't belong. I didn't even have to lift a finger. Now, that's not true. There were things that I had to do that I didn't feel like doing, but there was nothing that I did. In my own strength is my point to save, to save my life, to change my life? And so I had made it to Psalm 139 and um, I was just meditating on that and I'm like okay, lord, search me and know me, because, whatever this is, I just I'm so done, I'm so done, right, so it's, you have to reach that place of being so done that something's got to give or you're ready to get out of here. That's where I was. Something's got to give, because this is not sustainable and right. The Holy Spirit is gracious to get us there to call us.
Speaker 3:And so that morning I woke up and the Holy Spirit just said you need to tell someone, you need to tell someone. And I just immediately got on, the phone, called my cousin, had a conversation, had no clue what I was going to say. I was just being obedient to the Holy Spirit because I knew that he was right, I knew that he was leading me in the right way and I knew that I could trust him. And I was so desperate because all the ways that I had tried to rid myself of this defectiveness, nothing ever worked.
Speaker 3:And so it was in that conversation, jonathan, that the Lord revealed the spirit of brokenness. So I was talking and I just was like I don't know. I was weeping, I was just like I feel so defective, I'm never going to get it right. And my cousin, who's a pastor, he was like you know, you're loved and you're made worthy by the blood of Jesus, and I'm like I know all that, but you're not hearing me. I feel this, I feel this right, I feel all of these things.
Speaker 3:And then I just kind of it was almost like the Holy Spirit just physically knocked me back a second and I just kind of went and I literally stopped crying and everything and I just said you know what it is.
Speaker 3:I said it's a spirit of brokenness. It's a spirit of brokenness that's been following me since I was a little girl and I can pinpoint the entry point. No, I know the entry point. I know something that happened to me when I was a little girl was the doorway that the enemy used to present the spirit of brokenness. And that spirit I believe it. I've never used these words before, but because I know scripture and because we are in a war, a spiritual war, and kids aren't off limits not to the devil, kids are not off limits I know that that spirit was assigned to me to follow me and break me down, to try to steal, kill and destroy my life. But my God, your God, is more powerful than any spirit and when we seek him, his word exposes the darkness. And suddenly, in that moment, jonathan, there was like a separation. There's a separation that happened.
Speaker 2:Amen separation.
Speaker 3:There's a separation that happened I, physically. That's what the knocking back was. Now that I think about it, it was a physical separation, whereas before I could feel it but I couldn't see that it wasn't me, it was my identity broken. But suddenly it was like he knocked the, the, the communion apart, knocked the communion apart and allowed me to see, now, at an arm's length, the spirit of brokenness and it was finally like I'm not you, that's not me, I am redeemed, I am God's daughter, I am whole, I am loved, I am treasured. And then it wasn't that the spirit of brokenness stopped coming for me.
Speaker 3:But you know what it's like now? It's almost like before. It was kind of like in the same room and I was like, yeah, I see you over there. You don't have any power over me. Now it's more like across the street and it shows up every once in a while. But it knows, this is a space of holiness, you have no dominion here, you have no authority here. And it didn't have any authority over me before.
Speaker 3:And in the times when I was closer to the Lord, guess what? I didn't feel Broken. But in the times that I backed away from the truth, consuming the truth. Meditating on the word of God, I started to listen and believe the lies of the spirit of brokenness, and that separation happened. And now I see myself the way God sees me, because for all of my life, especially as a young adult, 20s, 30s and even into my 40s, I was the Roman seven Christian, defeated, never going to be able to get it right. And this is just what it is. Well, I believe in Jesus, but I'm just not the good Christian like everybody else. But his word is the light and his light is the truth that sets us free.
Speaker 2:Amen, I get this picture of your life, dr Sherry, like a, like a castle, almost Right, and that um your life as a castle. It certainly has a. It should have a Lord in the castle and maybe I'm informed because I've been watching like period pieces in the last week.
Speaker 3:Ok, I love it.
Speaker 2:But your life, you know, is a castle and it has a lord in it, but the present lord is actually A foreign entity. You know, in the, in the way that you were telling that it was an enemy, an enemy with gates Right.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:And that for so long it becomes the most natural thing, cause you're under its dominion. They're like oh well, this is the Lord of the castle. I mean, it is what it is Right? Yes, until one day, this is not the Lord of the castle. This castle was actually created by another Lord, and that Lord's the one that wants to actually have dominion, and somehow the false Lord gets kicked out. But then this move of for it to remain kicked out, that the moat around this castle needs to have its defenses built back up, and those defenses are the word of God.
Speaker 3:Amen.
Speaker 2:The castle can be what it was created for a presence of the true Lord, right, yes, so what I'm hearing is that just the there's. There's a theme that has emerged as I've talked to people about this, particularly professionals who now are fully established in the gospel. We actually had a conversation with another friend of ours who's a was she a clinical psychologist, justin, and his therapist, dr Savannah Williams, and the idea of choice is very uncomfortable for us yes, it is that we actually have the ability to choose for Jesus to be the one who rules the castle.
Speaker 2:Now we can't do the work, right? No, we can't clean up the castle, but we don't need to. But we can choose, and even that move right there seems to be so scary at times. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I think it's not scary, Justin. I think it's familiar and we like to be comfortable.
Speaker 2:All the familiarity of not choosing or making the other choice over and over yeah.
Speaker 3:So, even though it's kind of like this psychological, you know, self-sabotage thing, where we get so used to responding to our life in a certain way that we can't even consider doing something different, it begins to feel impossible for us to make a choice, and so we say things like I don't have a choice, it's just the way I am, and that's the world's current mental health system is you don't have a choice, this isn't your fault, but that's not scriptural.
Speaker 2:So here we arrive at two positions that can't agree. Yeah. And it seems as though, if I'm hearing you right, that the world's mental health system says you are your diagnosis.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't think it would say that outright, but that's what it establishes in what ways does it establish that?
Speaker 3:yeah, that's a good question. Well, just look at people when they talk about it. I have this, I am this Like I think about. Somebody says I am bipolar, for example. You'll never find somebody this is a trickery of the enemy in the mental health system. You'll never find somebody who's diagnosed with cancer and they say I am cancer, I am multiple sclerosis, I am Parkinson's. So the mental health system perpetuates an identity that is a misidentity from what we are designed for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, design, design, yeah, that's a potent and powerful concept to understand what your design actually is. And so, when you do ministry now in the mindset of the redeemed, I would suspect that you are constantly trying to get people to agree with their design. Would that be fair?
Speaker 3:I'm, by extension, I'm getting them to agree with what God says. Yeah. And that's actually. That's actually the most powerful way that I've been able to communicate. That's actually the most powerful way that I've been able to communicate. You can either agree with God's word or you can agree with something else. There's no in between.
Speaker 1:Quick break, but before you skip ahead, I think you'll hear this thing that really encourages you. I got a message the other day of someone who listens to the Death to Life Bible study and they sent this message and it's super encouraging. They said I've heard you say the verse about being free from sin probably a hundred times, but for some reason, when you said it last night, I had this cooling sensation come over my whole body that felt very peaceful, like as if I had shut the door and thrown away the key on the possibility that it wasn't true about me, like any lingering doubt had left my body. Wow, praise the Lord. You know, I just had another phone call with somebody this morning that we were talking about. He can't believe it because he hasn't seen the fruit. And I said, yeah, you're waiting for the fruit to believe something.
Speaker 1:Why don't we put conviction around what the word says? And so people are seeing this. People are seeing that when we put conviction and belief behind what the word says, then our experience changes rather than the other way around. And I'm telling you this because I want you to see that these Bible studies, these podcasts, internet church is changing people's lives, and we cannot do it without you guys. We cannot do it without the generosity of people donating to keep this movement, this gospel movement, going forward. So I want to urge you to go to loverealityorg and partner with us. We want to get this thing going out there because seeing people's lives get changed by just putting some conviction behind what the word says. The word says that for one who has died has been set free from sin, that they can walk in that freedom. And so, yeah, loverealityorg, slash, give, let's get this thing moving forward.
Speaker 2:Partner with us, all right let's get back to the episode, and what are some of the places and ways that you get people to start thinking this way? If you're presented with an audience of hey, I'm going to present a little bit on the mindset of the redeemed. Here's where I want to take you. Here's how we go.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I always start with seeking, seeking the Lord, seeking him first. I always start with seeking. It's going to cost you, you know, jack Canfield says it If you want something different, you got to do something different, what I find, jonathan. So seeking diligently and seeking first is very applicable, and one of the things that I teach is let's say if you're I don't know you're like, I believe in Jesus, but I've got this thing, I don't know a pornography addiction or whatever.
Speaker 2:Nobody's ever been there.
Speaker 3:Nobody's ever.
Speaker 2:Not this guy, never.
Speaker 3:Never We've got the things we experience, the things Right, things right. However, if we break that down to moment by moment, because our mindset, our thoughts dictate everything we do in each moment. So if I say I can't help it, am I more or less likely? More. Right. But if I agree with God's word and I say I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me, can I say that at the same time as I'm picking up the phone to look at something?
Speaker 2:I mean there's a whole lot of cognitive dissonance there that would arrest your attention.
Speaker 3:That's right. You can't do it, and this is why Scripture when we start to agree in our thoughts with Scripture, when we start to train our thoughts to agree with Scripture, it does take training, but you have to seek A lot of people, jonathan. They want a list of verses to speak. I don't give it to them. That's not how this works. You get to know who your God is, because until you know who he is, you're not going to be convinced that those scriptures that you're speaking are true and true and true and true and true. For you they're just going to be like some I don't know, god forbid some spell that you're casting.
Speaker 3:That's not how scripture works when we know who he is, and that only comes from seeking him through the diligent searching, the diligent reading of his word, really with a heart desire to get to know him, that he reveals himself and that then he can reveal the things that are in our mind that don't belong there. And what I love about the Lord is that is all that is required. It's all that's required is to seek him, because when we seek him, he shows us the truth, and then all we have to do is obey, seek and obey, and so, in those moments, I I'll share with you one of the ways, just one of the practical ways, that I was reading scripture, and so sometimes the Holy spirit would stop me somewhere right, and I remember I was reading in scripture about worshiping with your whole heart.
Speaker 3:Those who search for me worship me with their whole hearts. I think this is like after the part that everybody likes to quote about you know, god has plans to for a future and he has thoughts for you Jeremiah 29, 11 through 13. Yeah, well, after that, what does it say?
Speaker 2:If you seek me with your whole heart.
Speaker 3:Right, okay. Now he didn't say part of part of you. I want all of you. I don't even need to know what that looks like. So here's what I did. I wrote on a sticky note. I don't even it's lost its stickiness.
Speaker 3:I wrote on a sticky note. I wrote I worship with my whole heart. Was that true when I wrote the sticky note? No, but is God's word true? Yes, and did I have a desire to align myself with what he said? Yes. So I said I don't know how to do this. I know I don't do this. I don't know how to do this, but this is what your word said. So I want to do that because you've placed that desire in me. That's what he does. He places a desire in us. We can't even take credit for that. And so he stopped me on that for a reason. So I put that sticky note everywhere, put it at my front door, I put it in my wallet. Why? Because if I was getting ready to go and spend my money on something that wasn't worshiping the Lord, I would have to see that. So there is a choice. You let the word do the work, but there's a choice in keeping the word in front of you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you use the word keeping and I hear guard right, amen. The idea of that keeping is also guard right. You guard the word and you guard your mind via the word. So, as I'm hearing you say, this is your choosing to set your mind on things above. There's an active choice you're making to set your mind on things above, because the alternative is something you do not want nor want to return to. Yeah, it sounds like repentance that you're actually turning from one thing and turning to another.
Speaker 3:In truth, that's it, Jonathan. It's true. Repentance it is turning, turning and it's a constant turning. Yeah, it's a constant choice. I even had that on a sticky note. What are you seeking right now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, praise the Lord, it seems, man. Dr Sherry, you know, right there, at that point of repentance, I'm even just struck yet again at how pernicious the lie of the enemy is, because he will localize repentance in feeling bad about yourself, so that what gets re-inscribed is your deficiency. And where you run to again and forgive my constant retreat here, but where you run to is the roman seven mindset, and that is the appropriate expression of repentance where your console oh well, you know, I, ultimately I just suck. What can I do? Right, and even there you're re-inscribing deeply a lie about what repentance is actually about. Yeah, amen, yeah, so to have this mindset to actually set your mind, okay, how do you deal with this, cause? This is something that I got you know. People would say well, mind, okay. How do you deal with this, cause? This is something that I got you know?
Speaker 3:he would say well, jonathan, this just sounds like the power of positive thinking.
Speaker 2:Well, if you be careful, cause we serve a holy God, yeah, this is his breath, this is his word is not just positive thinking, yeah, no, that's. That's way better response than what I give I. I just ask what's wrong with thinking positively if it's true?
Speaker 3:well, here's the deep right. It's true thinking. It's not positive thinking, it's true thinking because, it doesn't feel positive for me to tell myself I'm dead to sin it feels pretty bad.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's good, true, thank you, can you maybe just if I can invite you the dead to sin piece? This was an absolute revelation to me, halfway through a PhD in systematic theology, no less Right, like I don't even know what that is.
Speaker 2:It sounds very intense to me halfway through a PhD in systematic theology, no less, right? I don't even know what that is. It sounds very intense, girl, let me tell you it was a whole lot of posturing and hiding the truth of who I was by covering it up with a bunch of degrees, right? I don't know if you've ever if you've ever at least listened to Kanye West, but Kanye West has his first album ever, was called um college dropout and in college dropout he had this skit within it because he's just highlighting, his mother was, uh, intellectual educator and she wanted him to, of course, proceed in his education, but he wanted to do music. So he has this whole riff about him being a college dropout, nonetheless successful.
Speaker 2:So his first album comes out and he's the college dropout. In that album there's a skit where this guy's talking about oh, I got all these degrees, these degrees are gonna keep me warm at night, he's. I ain't got food, I don't have a place to rest my head, but I got these degrees right. And it's just this idea of these. I'm gonna live out on the street, but I got all these degrees on my blanket, right? This is, and that's that's how I've felt about my pursuit of education because I was just using that pursuit to cover up that I wasn't living in power. So you know, here I am halfway through this degree and the lord stops me and is like, yeah, let's talk about what it actually means to be.
Speaker 3:How did he stop you?
Speaker 2:So, man, I all right, free from sin, that's where I want to get to. Let me not forget pin yes. So yeah, I'm about 34. I'm in Chicago uh, spending a weekend in Chicago doing stuff I ought not be doing as a Christ believer. And I was a student in Michigan at the time uh, an Adventist university doing my doctoral degree. And so you know, these two lives are incompatible. And so I get back to Michigan and I'm sitting on my couch at home and I'm just like I cannot, I cannot, I, I won't live this way anymore, where I'm pursuing the things of the flesh while recognizing that I have nothing in the spirit.
Speaker 2:But then, during the school week, I'm out here reading all these books in theology, and from time to time I might be covering a class for a professor and trying to get people to think, oh, my goodness, he's so smart, he knows theology, but I didn't know the gospel, which is the really sad assessment of all that. I read a bunch of books, but I know the gospel. And so one day I'm sitting in my living room and I get a lot of noise for this too, but whatever, I don't care. Um, I'm looking at a video of todd white, and todd white is laying hands on somebody and the person he's laying hands on claims to be healed. Right, and me, being the super religious dude that I am, I'm like Todd White didn't heal anybody. That's the work of the devil, because that's that's what the religious mindset does to any charismatic expression. It's like all that's absolutely deception. So I went and YouTube something from Todd White and Todd White Bless him because in the first 30 seconds of his presentation he changed my life and he said you know that if you're, if you don't have the Holy Spirit, you're all about yourself.
Speaker 2:He's like, and you know that without the Holy Spirit, you're never going to make it. And when he said that, it just leapt in my heart. And he has this question how can we do ministry not having what they had? But we think we're going to be successful because we have what they didn't. And what he's highlighting is that we have the New Testament and we think that the New Testament great, but they had the Holy Spirit. That's why the New Testament was written down. Yes, he's like, so do we have the spirit that the New Testament testifies to? And I had to get this conclusion that I was like oh no, I don't have it. And I'm listening to him use all these texts that I knew in my heart.
Speaker 2:And as I'm reading the bible, he's saying you know, the problem with the prodigal son story is that we always highlight the prodigal, forget the whole time he was son, amen. And I'm like what? Because my religious mindset is like no, the prodigal had to repent. He had to feel bad when he was in the pigs. Then he could come home, right, yeah, I didn't realize that, had he come home, his father would have never required for him to feel bad to include him. Yes, right. And so the focus is on the love of the father, not the possible repentance of a wayward son. Yeah, possible repentance of a wayward son, yeah. And so, as I'm being reconfigured in all these things, I remember, um, I, I went to sleep after listening to this and I'm reading my Bible now.
Speaker 2:And you know, before this, dr Sherry, I would not have been able to read a whole letter of Paul. It made sense of it. You know, here I am 34, on my third degree. I couldn't read the book of Romans and tell you what it was fully about, from chapter one to 16. I couldn't read first and second Corinthians and tell you what was going on there. I could take little excerpts and do a Bible study by proof texting, but I couldn't go the whole way. Right, I couldn't read Titus and actually talk about the transformed life in the spirit according to chapter two, right, you know what I'm saying. And so I'm laying there in bed, I'm rethinking all these passages that I know because of my theological training. But now something's happening within me. I go to bed, I wake up the next day and there's this deep thought inside of me that I never knew was there and it's just resonating so deep. And the thought was God loves you. And it was like this, like it was a revelation. That way, hold on, god loves me Like God isn.
Speaker 2:Was like this, like there was a revelation that way, hold on, god loves me like god isn't seeking to transform me from me, yeah, at the expense of my sense of self, like god loves yes and because he loves me, he wants me to live in the fullness of what he intended for me amen and in that moment I remember I'm just like I'm like clothed, I'm floating and I don't even know what's going on.
Speaker 2:And I tell people this. I went and took a shower and I'm washing my hair and in that moment in the shower I realized that something has happened inside me in my chest. That I'm not desiring porn. I feel it inside. I'm like, if I think about it, it actually kind of grosses me out. Yeah, and so I did the only reasonable thing. I went to a website Like hold on what's going on. So I went to a website and as soon as the images came on the screen, like, I actually closed the laptop, which is something I would have never done and I knew that the spirit was at work within me.
Speaker 2:Like the spirit had done something and I remember subsequently.
Speaker 2:thereafter I read Ephesians, chapter one, and I go to verse three and it's like blessed be the God and father of our Lord, jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly place. Dr Sherry, as I'm reading this, I hear the voice of Jesus inside of me reading these things to me. As I'm reading it, it wasn't like me reading it, but it was like somebody was saying these words to me. Yeah, and I'm just completely coming undone at the power of the revelation. And then, shortly thereafter, I began to interact with more material and I read romans 6 and like shall we continue in sin? Like so that grace might abound? How we should, we who have died to sin? Yes, and I was like wait, hold on what? Wait, pause, pause, I'm dead to sin. Yes.
Speaker 2:And then do we not know that, since we've been immersed into him, we've been immersed into his death? For the one who has been immersed into this, the one who has died has died to sin, and I'm like that includes me. And then I get to Romans 6, 10, and it's like the for the death he died. He died to sin once and for all, and the life he lives, he lives to God. And then Romans 6.11,. So ye therefore consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus, the Lord. And I was like wait, wait, wait. So I read Romans 6 over and over. You know, romans 6.18, having therefore been set free from sin. Romans 6.22, having therefore been set free from sin. Romans 6, 22,. Having therefore been set free from sin. Romans 6, 13,. Therefore, offer yourself up as those who have been brought from death to life, or you are no longer under law, you are under grace. Amen.
Speaker 2:And I'm, I'm sitting there floor, dr Sherry, like wait, huh. And so this, you know, to make this my long monologue just a little longer, just this deep revelation of wait. I'm free and dead to sin. How does that work? Like? At this point, I'm trusting the lord because he's doing something inside of me. I'm hearing his heart and his voice inside of me. So when I get to roman six, six, I'm, I'm believing, I am, but I'm like but he's doing that through the word.
Speaker 3:He's speaking to you through the word.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I get to Romans six. I'm like I believe I'm dead and free from sin. Tell me how, like what, what does? That mean Right, and so that's so. That's been the journey of now years, just more and more. Thank you, Jesus.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I'd love to hear your thoughts, because you mentioned dead to sin and free from sin, and this is a point of friction for so many. I recently had someone tell me, well you know, that Roman six language is about acquittal from sin, and I'm like, no, it's not law court language, it's an ontological metaphor about the reality that we participate in through Jesus.
Speaker 3:Amen, and that's not the only place. Galatians 2.20, for you have been crucified with Christ.
Speaker 2:And yet I live. It is no longer I, but Christ who lives within me 100%.
Speaker 3:Amen. You're not cherry picking verses here. This is the nature of God and when you know the nature of God and you know the nature of his design and his story and his plan of redemption, he did not create us to struggle. What did he say at the very beginning? They shall have dominion.
Speaker 2:Cause we say you had dominion, but then we live defeated.
Speaker 3:Because we're not agreeing with the truth of God's word.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dr Sherry. So okay, I know I want to respect your time. I know we're coming up to to finish it up here, so have. We're coming up to to finishing up here, so have we discussed what you wanted to discuss.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, oh okay.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, we've gotten there. This has been fantastic. I wish we had more time, and now I know in the deepest parts of me that we have to meet each other in person at some point.
Speaker 2:I would love right, we, we gotta hang out, uh, yeah. So two things that I'm still curious about maybe you might just share a few words is just saying something about and highlighting a little bit about the importance of not isolating, and from my vantage point, when you said that I see so much of our religious experience lending us towards isolation, right, uh, yeah, especially when it comes to the silence in which we steward our false notion of repentance. And if we ever actually verbalize it and communicate it, we all agree together all too often in our brokenness, right, and we call it corporate repentance, right, so we're actually in communion with our brokenness. Some brother of mine was told me he says let's do the best that we can to not build community around brokenness.
Speaker 3:Amen.
Speaker 2:So yeah, maybe if you can, something about the isolation there strikes me.
Speaker 3:I don't know come into agreement with scripture. We agree that Christ is the head and we are the body. How does the body function? It functions in cooperation. Right, if the foot stays home.
Speaker 3:Yeah I'm not making it very far and when the body comes together. Prime example sunday school last week at my church. The person facilitating or teaching that morning, he, he was sharing about some of his, the things that the Lord has delivered him from through the power of his word and um, but then he used the word um. You know well, we're, we're always going to struggle. Well, then one of somebody else in communion, in community, in the body, said we don't have to struggle, we are free to walk in liberty, to walk in lightness, to walk in freedom. So just being able to be in a place where the body is loving one another with truth.
Speaker 3:If you are isolating, here's the other thing that happens with with isolation is you are, I believe I don't know that many people would admit to this, but you are cherry picking what you want to hear so that you can continue perpetuating whatever narrative it is that you have about your life. Because when you are in community with truth-believing members of the body, right, you got to be discerning. Well, you don't have to be. You just have to ask the Holy Spirit to show you where you right, where you need to be in. The Holy Spirit will show you. But when you are there.
Speaker 3:If I'm, if I miss church one Sunday morning, you better believe somebody is going to be like hey Sherry, what's going on? Where are you, what's? There's an accountability piece that keeps me, not accountable to live legalistically, but accountable to remember the truth. And so when we isolate, we aren't in community, we aren't in accountability, we aren't in accountability, we aren't in that place where somebody can say wait a second, that's not quite right. This is what the word says, and especially with technology. Now I mean, it's good. Do I believe there are people being discipled, virtually, absolutely, because I've witnessed it, and and we need physical proximity, community with believers.
Speaker 2:I don't know if that answers no, that's powerful, cause there's something. I mean there's a couple of threads there that are, yeah, to be in community and have somebody call you back to truth. It's man. It's such a man the power of the Holy Spirit has to get, be together in the body, because I have seen where that has been such a great benefit, where somebody calls another brother or sister lovingly back to truth according to scripture, and then I've also experienced where calling someone back to truth then feels like the greatest oppression to the person that's listening because they're so committed to their truth. But then you don't know what I'm going through, right, like you don't know where I'm going.
Speaker 3:But that's John, 3.20, right, they don't come to the light because they don't love the light because then they expose their works of evil yeah yeah, that's powerful.
Speaker 2:that's powerful, and, and so this um, to lovingly call each other back to truth in community, but also physically embodied, with one another in physical proximity. What have you found to be the blessing in that, especially because the audience you'll be speaking to in part is a very online audience? Our ministry is so online, but we, too, share your heart. That is so important to be participating physically. But, yeah, what is some of the great benefits there?
Speaker 3:Well, I think one of the benefits is when you meet somebody locally and you want to invite them to hear the truth with you, to come and sit next to you in a service. That's number one. I have a place for you, I have a physical place for you to go. We can point people to a sermon or a podcast, or even to stream something online and again, I'm not impugning that thing online and again I'm not impugning that. I'm saying that it cannot substitute for physical proximity. Here's some more blessings.
Speaker 3:Number two when you are worshiping corporately. That is an experience that you cannot manufacture when you are watching somebody worship on the screen. When I like if I've been sick, for example, and I've stayed home and I've streamed the service, I stand in my living room and I worship, but it's not the same as being with my brothers and sisters in person, worshiping and having the voices and just feeling the move of the Holy spirit in that place, in that room. We read about it in acts right, the, the movement of the spirit, the, the sudden movements, the intercessors together praying when Peter got out of all of all of this. That's number two. Number three is the laying on of hands. You you can't do that online.
Speaker 2:That's so obvious. Thank you, completely missed that.
Speaker 3:But you know, like, sometimes, like I do this nightly scripture reading on YouTube and I'm like, and sometimes I just want to reach out and hold their hands, but there's no hands to hold and I'm like, wait a second. So we were designed for that. Just like Jesus touched people, put the mud on the eyes, he, you know, reached out his hand, he held the little. We were made for that. I had this one experience one Sunday morning. We were made for that. I had this one experience one Sunday morning. There was this little boy getting ready to go through a brain surgery that they were going to sever his corpus callosum and that was hopefully going to keep him from having seizures and all of this stuff. And our whole church had been praying for this little boy, like two years old I think it was like 18 months at the time of surgery.
Speaker 3:I didn't know the family very well, right, you don't. You don't know everybody intimately that you are in church with, but I was sitting there before service started and Holy spirit was like you need to go pray for Rowan and and like, gave me the picture you need to go and you need to put your hands on that little boy's head. I was like I don't. So I sat there for like another 30 seconds and he was like, okay, let me say that again. Let me say that again, because that was really me, I want you to go pray.
Speaker 3:So I walked back there to his dad and I was like, is it okay if I pray for Rowan? And he said yeah. And I said, is it okay if I put my hands on his head? And he was like yeah, and so I did, and I prayed for this little boy and I was believing that I, as I was praying, I saw this image of an angel, like sewing his little corpus callosum back together and I, I mean this. So who was that a benefit for? I don't know the father, me, rowan, the Lord just giving glory to the Lord by being obedient. But that is something that happened in physical proximity and I could not have had that experience, I believe, without that. So there is this capacity of laying on of hands. I meanames talks about it. Right, go to the elders of the church that they can anoint you and pray over you.
Speaker 2:um, yeah, yeah, no, oh, fantastic. I'm hearing you know. Hebrews 10 don't forsake the gathering one another like encouraging, edifying one another up in works of love. Um, yeah, two things that we can conclude with, if you'll allow uh one, how do you, uh, how do you deal if ever somebody says this sounds like doing a lot of work? It sounds like works? I don't know if you've ever interacted with that. I know that I myself have.
Speaker 3:Yeah, um, so, um, it is effort, because Jesus isn't a puppet master. He's not going to make you do things, um, he's going to give you the choice and you have to make an effort to respond. And when it comes to operating in the mind of Christ, which scripture says that you have, that requires a what a renewing of the mind. We don't do the renewing, we seek, we seek. We read the word. We say I have, I have a heart that wants to know how to do this. We seek, we seek, we read the word. We say I have a heart that wants to know how to do this, but I got nothing, I need you. And then we obey as he speaks. That's it we seek and we obey. And that is effort until it's life.
Speaker 2:I like somebody once told me God isn't against effort, he's against merit.
Speaker 3:Amen, that's good.
Speaker 2:Praise the Lord. Good language, Uh. Last but not least, Dr. Oh no, please you go.
Speaker 3:Can I share one more thing with you? So I'm reading a really wonderful book called the awe of God by John Bevere. Have you read that? It's really good. It's all about having a holy fear of God, but one of the things he said he said it this way about when Paul said work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Yeah, we don't like to talk about that kind of thing, but we serve a holy God who deserves to be feared and will be feared, and he needs to be feared and and will be feared, Um, and he needs to be feared with our lives, and so one of the things that he said was this way. He said working out your salvation is working out what God has done in and that requires effort.
Speaker 2:So no, so much agreement. And last but not least, dr, when people say I don't hear God.
Speaker 3:I show them this, and I mean his word is alive and active, it's always speaking. It is alive, meaning it is moving, it is breathing, it is having its effect. So if you want to hear from the Lord, open up your word and start reading and saying God, I really want to hear from you. Teach me, speak to me, he will. So that's primary way, number one. Number two I hear him in the night hours when I wake up and guess what happens? His Holy Spirit has implanted his word in my heart and so when I wake up and the enemy tries to come at me with something, some image or something in my mind, I just go this, this is holiness to the Lord. This place is like, there is, it's kind of like Wonder Woman, but better like, but the bangles, you know it's. This place is holiness under the Lord. You have no authority here, but that is reminded in me by the power of the Holy Spirit that has written the word on my heart, written the promises on my heart. Right, those are etched in me through the power of the Holy Spirit for such a time as whatever is needed that the Holy Spirit reminds.
Speaker 3:And then, thirdly, when you develop a position of praise. When you develop the practice of praise, which is the constant approval that God is who he says he is and you are who he says you are, you start to hear him and see him everywhere. So when you see the wind blowing, you start to think of man it's God behind that wind. When you see the snow, you think of the one who has the storehouses of snow and hail. When you see a person walking on the street who's homeless or who looks downtrodden, you see the opportunity to minister as Jesus. So the Holy Spirit is always, always speaking. It's not a matter of whether or not he's speaking it's whether or not we're listening, amen.
Speaker 2:Amen, amen. Dr Sherry, I got some of the boys in the studio right now. Hello, they've each got an earpiece on. You. Want to step in front of the camera and say hi to Dr Sherry? I don't know if you've ever met Eddie, but this is our friend Eddie.
Speaker 3:Hi Eddie, it's so good to meet you, to see your face. We've messaged a couple of times on Instagram. Yeah, it's so good to meet you, to see your face. We've messaged a couple of times on Instagram.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so good to see you yeah and then, of course, justin, who you've connected with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're just again so thankful, so grateful, that you would take the time out a second time to talk to us and like, genuinely, we're so blessed by your ministry because there's such a deep agreement in the spirit and the revelation that we've received and what you're walking in, like we're so grateful that your ministry exists and that you're just reaching out where you are. We're such big fans that actually, I lead an Adventist congregation presently and, again, it's very missional for us because we we seek to be, uh, spirit led believers, and so one of the things that we do is we have this portion of the program at church. You know, in our worship, at times we'll do, uh, what we call a life giving follow, and we're trying to cultivate in people. If you're going to be on something like Instagram, listen to the good stuff, and so you're one of our features that we've put up at church. We've taken some of your clips and be like listen to this to Dr Sherry, so follow Dr Sherry, right that?
Speaker 3:is so humbling.
Speaker 2:We're so stoked and so, yeah, we want to promote, promote that and then we share with people uh, your website as well, right, mindset of the redeemed. And if you could tell me what, because I see it, what's the, the address to your website?
Speaker 3:uh, mindset of the redeemedcom oh, mindset of the redeemedcom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm looking at it right now, but, yeah, um, um, yeah, we definitely support that. And just to let you know how we'll use our time together, is we run what's called internet church? Um, and internet church is very much. Well, it's, yeah, it's exactly what it is Internet church. We gather Friday nights for people to have an experience, and what we've done recently is that we've taken a interview like this and chopped it up into bits and have it been a discussion piece for folks, and so we have a hundred 150 people that gather and we'll do this and then we'll have like a general session of interaction. Uh, we'll, we'll also host this on death to life, which is again, is again, you know, it's our flagship podcast for our podcast network.
Speaker 2:That okay you know it reaches it's by the blessing of the lord. It reaches thousands of people every month that are really blessed by it, and so we've been really privileged to uh steward that audience. Over the life of 200 episodes I think we've had over 300,000 plus downloads, so super stoked about putting this up there.
Speaker 3:Thank you, lord, that's. Amazing.
Speaker 2:And that's that's rich, right, that that's mostly rich in his uh unending curiosity of desiring to talk to people. And it was like, well, rich, if you're going to talk to people, let's just put it online, and so the Lord has blessed it, and so that'll show up there. So those are two of the ways that we'll be using this, uh, this interview, and awesome. Yeah, and we'll share it with you online. We might cut some smaller pieces just to like promo things.
Speaker 2:And we'll share those with you online and then we just super. I am desiring, at some point, to interact in person. Our ministry used to travel a lot in person but because so many of us live in Hawaii now and you know we got day jobs, it became a little difficult.
Speaker 3:But so you're saying I need to make it.
Speaker 2:It sounds like you need to come to Hawaii and come share with the people. So, in real talk, what would it look like for you to come to Hawaii?
Speaker 3:Just a matter of doing it All right.
Speaker 2:So just an invite and an open few days for you, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, we're always down to clown.
Speaker 3:All right, well, let me, I'm going to, I've got that and it's on a sticky note and I want to share with you what sticky note it's on. So when I do my nightly scripture reading, people are hungry. You know, as you can testify of in your own experiences in your own ministry, people are hungry. And when we were reading through the Gospel of John and one of the things that the Holy Spirit revealed during that particular reading was you know, jesus is really only asking us to remember what he told us, like just remember what I told you. And so somebody sent me sticky notes that they had made up that says do you remember what I told you? And then it has Jesus at the bottom.
Speaker 3:So, anyway, writing hawaii on one of those right now and it's going on my wall, so I have a wall I'll share with you really quickly about my wall. I have a wall that um is where I put things that the lord brings to mind. I put opportunities and um, I put them there as like an offering to him and say, when you want me to pick that up, you let me know. And so that's. Hawaii is right there.
Speaker 2:I love it. That's awesome Good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because we mean it Well and I mean it too. The other thing I just wanted to share with you and encourage you with really quickly, jonathan, is your ministry. Really quickly, jonathan, is your ministry, rich, from what I've talked with Eddie Justin, the ministry of really staying focused on the truth and taking it at its word, taking it at face value, not deconstructing it like believing what it says, is this beautiful exemplification of a childlike faith, and that's what I see in your ministry and that's what the Lord is honoring.
Speaker 2:So that blesses me. Yeah, we received that, thank you. Thank you, we received that. Well, are you familiar with Dr Joey Dotson? I don't know. He wrote a fascinating book called Conquerers, not Captives, on Roman seven, where he does the historical breakdown of how people got to the kind of like the poor understanding of Roman seven and he's trying to get people to say, like he's trying to show academically, historically, theologically, like that's not the, that's not the way it ought to be interpreted, that's not the, that's not the way it ought to be interpreted. And he's a younger guy from Denver seminary. I think it is Okay, wonderful book here. It is right there.
Speaker 3:I'm going to get it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that would be. We're actually going to talk to him next week and I'm going to, as best I can, I'm going to put him onto your stuff because it sounds like there's such compatibility. He's um, are you familiar with Preston Sprinkle Theology in the raw? No, these are YouTube Christian guys, but really really good guys, who are trying to move forward in a presentation of the gospel that is way more believing the word of God over your life, amen. As opposed to analyzing it so theologically that we qualify it away. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 2:All right, so amen. Well, dr Sherry, thank you so much for your time, Is it? Is it all right if we uh say a prayer together? Yes, please, would you mind leading us in prayer. That are all. The boys got earpiece on.
Speaker 3:So we're all together. Yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah. Heavenly father, we come before you with praise and thanksgiving, giving you honor, standing in awe at your orchestration over even this conversation. Your mercy is so evident in your orchestration and bringing us together. Only you, only you, only a miraculous, holy divine God could orchestrate connections that are building your kingdom. I thank you for just humbly, thank you for allowing me to be a part of that.
Speaker 3:I ask you, lord, to take this conversation that we've had, number one. I pray that every word that has been spoken honors you, rightly, divides your word. Lord, it's our desire to respond to you in a way that stands on the integrity of your word, the wholeness of your word, not pieces, but the wholeness of your word. The wholeness of your character, but the wholeness of your word, the wholeness of your character. Father, I thank you that you are trustworthy, you are faithful.
Speaker 3:We can believe what you said. We can believe that it doesn't have to be complicated. We can believe that you made it simple, because that is who you are. You are such a loving God. You would never give us something that is impossible, but instead you give us this pathway forward that is straight, is easy, is light, all because of your precious Holy Spirit, all because of your precious Holy Spirit, we thank you, even though we don't understand with our human minds. We thank you for the once for all finishing sacrifice of your precious son, jesus, and his blood that was shed for us in our place. We thank you that we were crucified with him, that Christ lives in us, that we are in you as he is in you.
Speaker 3:And all of this I don't even. I can't even wrap my head around it. All, lord, but I know this that you have created us to be in constant communion with you. And it's my prayer, lord, that for each of these gentlemen that are here, for Jonathan and Eddie and Justin, for their entire church, lord, for their congregation, their internet congregation, for all those that would listen to this conversation, that your Holy Spirit would speak would strike into the heart what each person needs to hear. Lord, you desire freedom for your people. Let our words, let every part of our ministries be towards that end to build your kingdom here, so that your people walk in the abundance and freedom you originally designed for them. Thank you for your word, thank you for promising to prosper it. Every single time, it's in the matchless name of Jesus, we say thank you and amen.
Speaker 2:Amen, amen and amen, dr Sherry, again, thank you. Thank you so much. Such a pleasure to spend time together and just would be paying for you, your ministry and the blessings to you and looking forward to meeting and gathering again.
Speaker 3:Amen, amen, all right Jonathan. All right, Take care guys. Bye. Bye, bye.