Israel & Rachel Campbell " SOUP" Podcast Episode 29 "Killing a familiar spirit"

Israel & Rachel Campbell " SOUP" Podcast Episode 29 "Killing a familiar spirit"

This podcast discusses the danger of familiarity in our lives, particularly in our relationship with God. Israel & Rachel emphasize that we should not take for granted the things in our life, such as health and the peace of God. They warn against becoming too familiar with the presence of God or assuming that our success or blessings are solely the result of our own actions. The Campbell's offer practical advice on avoiding familiarity, including the importance of honoring others and looking for greatness in those around us. They also discuss the danger of making common what God calls sacred and the need to guard our hearts against this familiar spirit.

Transcript

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(upbeat music)- I am not gonna say we're back. I am gonna say welcome to the Israel and Rachel Campbell Sue podcast.- I love it.- You thought that was a better intro?- I felt really welcome. I hope you guys did.- Ah.- You guys, I'm in Southern California wearing a full sweatsuit because it's cold today.- And you got your cool LA sweater.- Yes, it says LA.- That was a really good Christmas present from someone that loved you.- It was a great Christmas present and it's the gift that keeps on giving because LA, they say we've had more rain than even Seattle has.- Yeah.- And the whole point of living in LA is to not.- Yeah, 'cause LA is crazy. The people are, you know, all the little clichés about.- No, the people are awesome.- California's, there's some crazy stuff that happens in our state, in our city. But what we say is, well, yeah, but we've got the beach and we've got the weather. But when we don't have the weather,- We have both criminals and weather.- It is like, why? Why, Lord, why?- Yeah, but honestly, babe, would you want to live anywhere else?- I would not want to live in Los Angeles.- I would not want to live in Los Angeles.- Me neither.- Definitely not Greenland, but anywhere else.- Or Alaska.- Yeah, but you have family in Alaska, and their pictures look really good, but anyhow, let's stick to LA. So many, we're so grateful. All the comments, all the likes, all the shares, it's so humbling to just find out that people are sharing that and it's going all around the country and even the world when we have our little producer meetings and they show all the different places that the podcast is going out. There is somebody in Russia that might be in prison and they don't have nothing else to do.- Hey, now.- So they're listening to our podcast.- Or maybe they just like listening to the podcast and they're free.- Maybe they are free, but all over whether it's Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand and Germany and South Africa, it's pretty cool to see that it is, we're like, I think I might have a business card made that says international.- You're in a weird mood. I think guys, I think Israel needs lunch. This is his, I'm hungry. Moods, we might get a little crazy on us today.- A little crazy.- I like it though. This is my favorite Israel.- Wow. Okay. So the title is looking through the production notes is killing a familiar spirit.- Wow.- Whew, we need three episodes on this, I think.- Okay, well get it started. I know you just preached as the Aussies would say, a banger of a message, a message just talking about the opposite of Jesus. We can oftentimes do the opposite of Jesus instead of turning water into wine. We can actually turn wine, something miraculous into water. And I think that has to do with a familiar spirit.- Yeah, that's kind of what I was talking about on Sunday and I did a really cool analogy, kind of a science experiment where I did in fact turn clear water into red wine back into clear water. It was through the power of God and the power of chemistry. So I felt pretty good about that. But I was just talking about how, I think the state of our whole world right now and spiritually too, one of our biggest epidemics is familiarity and you know, you don't know what you have until it's gone. We've all heard that right. But I just felt the Holy Spirit kind of speaking to me about Rachel, make sure that you don't take the miracles I've done in your life and make them common because it's really important to remember what God has done in our lives. All of us have miracles. Maybe they aren't miracles that are like, you know, the dead coming to life right in front of your face. But maybe the miracle is your salvation. Maybe the miracle is the peace that you carry. Maybe you're in the middle of a miracle. But all of us, the fact that we woke up this morning and had breath in our lungs, not everybody did. And I think we can just get so familiar with the blessing of the Lord. And when we traveled to Europe, I remember my favorite thing, and I'll never ever ever get used to it, was walking into every city we went into in the center of the city where these gorgeous cathedrals, the house of the Lord. And they had withstood wars. They had withstood poverty and famine. They had withstood everything that the city had gone through. The church was central to their lives and it withstood life and history and things it should never have withstood. And I just remember every time going in awe and seeing the stained glass in the fresco artwork that was so old and so beautiful, the ceilings and just the awe of the beauty of those churches and what broke our heart right was that a lot of them like in the Copenhagen area had been turned into art studios and museums and things that had total godless events happening all of the time, but it used to be the house of God. And I just think that something that I really have pondered and talked to God about is, I love our church. I love non-denominational church. I love the Christian movement in America. But I think that when we have God so relational, we lose the awe because we can start making the mistake of seeing Him more as a friend than a holy God. And I think that we're living in those days right now where if we're not careful, we will take for granted the power of God and His presence. And that's a scary thing to think about.- Well, and I mean, that's obviously the number one fear that we would have is to ever get familiar with Him and lose that. And it's such a weird thing because that word would be actually a really good word. Like you're familiar with God, like God is, He's not, you know, when people say, I know somebody in my life, they're like, oh yeah, they're my friend. And they're like, you mean on Facebook, that's not really a friend.- You're a Facebook friend.- That's not a friend. And so to say you're familiar with God is really good, but when there's this, there's this part where it becomes too familiar. And so we could see that sometimes with our kids, could be too familiar. We could see that with a person in leadership that we might be under or whatever, or they are under us and they've become too familiar. And so there's this line that we're always balancing of, God is our friend. He lists Abraham as a friend of God. And so we get this, but he's still almighty. He is all knowing, all Lord. And so balancing that of, yeah, but I'm not just buddy buddy. Like I still stand in reverence. How do you do that?- Yeah. And yeah, that's the big question. And you're right about like our children, our friends, we can become super familiar with our friends in a way that's not a great way. Because I think my desire is, I want to be close to God, but I don't want to be familiar. And familiar means basically like to me, it's being around so much that you just get used to who he is in your life. I think about our nation and how much we complain. You know, your grandfather was in world, he was in two wars, right? He was in the World War II and also in the Korean wars, that right?- You are good.- And he's a war hero. And that guy is a stud. Well, he's in heaven now. But he lived till 101. And that's your, that, I'm still thankful I married you because my mom and dad died young. And your grandpa lived till over 100. She was amazing. But you know, he loved this country because he knew the cost of this country in a very personal way. And I think that when you haven't fought for something, you can become familiar with the freedom with forgetting how much it cost. And I think we're like that right now in America where we are making things that are really important to hold onto, we're allowing it to be something that doesn't even matter anymore. And we're making things that don't really matter, the most important thing. And that's out of familiarity because we take for granted what we have and the greatness on our nation. And it can be that way with God. It can be that way with our spouses. How easy is it for us to become familiar? Because we know each other, right? We know each other the most. And so because of that, sometimes I can forget, hey, Israel is a gift of God not only to meet but to everyone around him. Israel's got these beautiful giftings and talents and genius about him that when you know everything about them, you get used to.- Yeah, I can remember the time when we had been traveling a lot and we had been mostly Muslim nations. And so the call to prayer was loud and just the different oppression that we saw, just the spiritual climate. And we went to that church with the kids.- And with the kids.- Yeah, Phoebe just started we being,'cause she felt the pressure of all that stuff. But then we were in this church service where they were singing a song in English. And you know, just the, wow, I missed that. I remember during, when we were in LA, just the lockdown LA, I mean, we were almost North Korea when it came to lockdown here. And so, you know, we were trying to do everything from outside or whatever. And I think one of the times when we traveled to one of those states that never even got COVID. But they were just having church and it meant so much to us 'cause it was just like you said, you forget, you don't wanna take for granted the things in our life. So we don't wanna take for granted the peace of God. You don't wanna take for granted health. You don't wanna get familiar with even the presence of God so that it's just like a, you know, well, we do that at church every week. No, it's actually really special. And we've traveled enough that it's like, it's not like this everywhere. They're like, it's really sweet. And wow, that was God's grace. And it's nothing that we're doing and you just don't wanna become familiar with that.- Yeah, we can even get familiar with the strength that God gives us, like the blessing of the Lord. You know, we can get, start thinking that somehow any kind of success or blessing is because of something that we did and what a trap that is, right?- Yeah, well, Samson's, they cut his head when he gets his haircut. He goes out as just as before.'Cause it's just like I'll always have this.- Yeah, and you know, if you're gifted in something, you can think that it's God, you can think that it's you instead of God and it can be a real trap. And you know, Samson, isn't he the one too that said, it says that he went out and he didn't even realize that the glory or presence of God wasn't with him anymore. That's so scary to me.- Very scary. So let's talk about this because it's so easy in our society. I think it's so easy as Christ follows. It's really easy even in the Old Testament. I was looking up and I thought of that scripture when Uzziah put out his hand to, you know, steady the ark. He was familiar. He thought he was doing God a favor.- Yeah.- He was helping and he got struck dead. And so let's talk a little bit about then if we're trying to kill, you know, being familiar, how, what are some steps to that? What are some practical things that you and I can do every day that kind of kills that from just doing that?- Yeah, so the first one for me that I was talking about is honor. Honor kills familiarity because when I quit honoring you and I start thinking about the way that you, I don't like how you chew your cereal at night and it sounds like the juggie cheese chomper.- It's not chomper.- It's not chomper.- It's not that loud.- Okay, but I'm just using an example.- No, I know, I know. It's really good.- So when I start just thinking about like, I can't stand how Israel choose when we watch a sports center. That's so familiar because I'm sleeping with you. I know you, I know when you're getting up, I know when you're going to sleep, all those things can cause me to know you so much that I stop seeing the greatness in you because I'm so close. And I remember one time I was talking to this mom about her son and I was like, your son is the most amazing, inspiring guy and she goes, she said his name, I don't wanna say his name, but she went, so and so? Really? You think so? And the way she acted, I was like, how does she not see that? Because she has changed his diapers. Because she knows when he doesn't have enough money to make it to the end of the month and she's having to front him more money in college. She doesn't see because she's so close and I can do the same thing. I know my kids weaknesses and it can cause me to start only harping on those instead of honoring, honor the greatness. You know what I love about Chloe? She's got stuff that she's still growing up, right? I love how creative she is. She is a genius when it comes to being funny. She is so funny. So what you're doing right now is you're choosing to find something to honor in somebody that's not perfect yet. Yeah, I might know them really well, but I don't wanna miss the greatness in you, in the kids, or in God and what we can do right now, okay, here's a really good scenario. And it's not about kids or husbands, it's about the church. As we can go, (sniffs) church, so messed up. Do you hear what that pastor did? Did you read how much he spent on his shoes? That's a familiar spirit. And it might even be the truth, but it's not honoring. And we have got to guard our hearts because the enemy loves it when we start making common what God calls sacred. And you know, again, we talked about it last week, but working out our own salvation with fear and trembling. And I think that we can look at the frailty of humans that lead in the house of God, or things that we don't like about church, and we can begin to be so familiar with it that we forget that the Bible says that the church is the thing that God is going to move through in the last days. And the enemy wants us to be jaded and have church hurt and all these things. And that is having a common spirit, instead of calling it holy, set apart God's perfect plan.- Yeah, and honor is something that is, you know, even in politics, and there are some knuckleheads running our nation.- Exactly. - Both parties. So this is not a...- It's a hot mess.- It's a hot mess. They're trying to do the, like to try to do, you know, to put the pressure and to put the belief that politics are gonna change everything is crazy because our world is dying, it is cursed, it needs a savior.- And the kingdom is a rising.- Not a politician, yeah. But we still honor. We still honor people in authority. And like we honor police, even though there has been some pretty dumb things that we've all seen the police have done, we still honor that we honor doctors. Like we call them doctors instead of just gym Bob. You know what I mean? And so just we've lost it in our society. We don't honor our spouses, the jokes about, our spouses jokes about different things and on presidents or political parties or all of that. It's just like, oh, let's learn to honor. So I love that. I love that just a good step as honor.- Yeah, and dishonor grieves the heart of God. And I think that a lot of us think, oh, if that pastor sins and fails on large scale, then he deserves to be joked about. And I have the fear of God enough to go. I'm one step away from failing too. And so are you. You know, so are all of us. And I think it's real prideful to go, well, he messed up. So let's joke about him. Let's talk bad about him. I think we should grieve. We should grieve because you know, whatever that is, it's not my place. And that's so making something sacred come in. And before God, I want clean hands and pure heart. And I don't want to judge because who I judge, I'll be judged.- Well, and the measure, right? We use it as a preaching verse. Whatever that is about judging, whatever measure you meet, it's gonna be measured to you. So if you're judging with a crane operated, you know, Tonka, those old Tonka trucks with, you know, but if you're using a real big dump truck, worth of judgment, that's what it's gonna be judged to you. So I would like to use a little baby spoon of judgment on that.- And people that always are judging other Christians are actually really unhealthy. And you know, like those people who really criticize the words, if it's theologically correct with worship, I'm like shame on you for doing that because, do you think David always thought about theology when he was expressing love to God? And there is a purity and an innocence. If we, if the Bible says we're supposed to be like children to enter the kingdom of God, then God's not actually checking our praises to him to see if they line up with theology. He actually is looking at our heart like, you're expressing love to me. Even when you don't get it all the way, you have such a beautiful spirit that is expressing thankfulness. And I just, that critical spirit that is taking what God, that wine that God did miracles in and turning it back to something common. And it's really dangerous.- It's dangerous and don't get me started.- Well, you are already started.- I'm like shame on you. I think we preach again shame like three weeks ago and I'm like shame on you. But really, come on.- It's ridiculous and there's all kinds of other things. Like God is not even mentioned in the book of Esther. So let's get on Esther on this. Like let's talk bad about Esther.- But don't you think that is so familiar? Is like, oh, I know and you don't. I'm so, I am so one with the Lord. Is like really your far from his heart.- Well, and that's the second thing to me. You said the first was honor. And I think that that's such a true reality. The second thing practical on how do we not, how do we kill that in us is humility. And it really is kind of what you're saying. Is just the humility to know I am broken. The humility to say, I'm not gonna worry about somebody's speck in their eye where there's a plank in mind. And so part of becoming killing that familiar spirit is actually taking some moments to really the Bible says, humble ourselves before the Lord. And we live in a narcissistic society that is all about us, us, us, us. And the more we focus on us and the more we talk about us and the more pride gets into us, the more judgmental we will be. Because true humility is like nose where we should be if not for the grace of God. And when you judge, you are forgetting the plank in your eye. We're forgetting where we got here today was not by anything we did. We're not in LA. We are miracle just amazing. Right. If not for the grace of God, we abandoned trailer park living. I mean, where should we be in a cycle or we? What do we deserve? How good is God? It's God. And so those moments of reflection of humility, humbling ourselves before God saying, God, I'm not going to judge that pastor. I'm not going to judge that politician. I'm not going to get familiar in this relationship because it is by your grace and your grace alone. I love this. Okay. So that we talked about those things being humble and then also honoring instead of judging, right? But I love, okay, is there a better verse? Songs 103, "Blessed the Lord, O my soul." And all that is within me, bless his holy name."Bless the Lord, O my soul." And this is my favorite part. How do we make sure that we don't get familiar with the blessing of the Lord and who God is and stop blessing Him is? Forget not all his benefits. He forgives my sins. He heals my disease. He redeems my life from destruction. He crowns me with loving kindness and tender mercies. He satisfies my mouth with good things so that my youth is restored like the eagles. And I just, you know, how do we not get familiar by blessing the Lord and forgetting not the benefits of who He is? He's amazing. He's holy and he somehow chooses us. When we really sit and think about who we are and how broken and human we are and who He is and we stop forgetting the benefits of knowing who He is, how could we ever be familiar?- Yeah, so true. So those are, I mean, those are some very practical things. Is there any others that you would say? I mean, I love that. So honoring humility, blessing the Lord. And then the thing that I think of that maybe even ties into that too is just that scripture verse in Revelation that says, "We overcame the enemy by the blood of the Lamb, the Word of their testimony." And so it's kind of like that blessing, but just consistently reminding our family of what God has done in our life. And so when I think of killing the spirit of, you know, killing that familiar spirit, I think of our kids that didn't know. And so they can just become familiar. They just think that it's always been this way. They can just think that, you know, hey, Dad, can I use your American Express to go get this? When there was a time, there was no express nothing. There was like, there was nothing American about our finances and there was nothing express about our finances. It was like, no, you can wait 'til next week'cause Dad's credit is not good enough to have a credit card, but by God's grace, he did this and he did this, you know what I mean? And so it's like testifying. It is the testimonies of what God has done in our life. I'll never forget, it was actually on this couch when we were dealing with one of our kids that was overwhelmed by their present situation and they were like, they said something to the effect of like, "Well, oh no, no, no, no." And all you talk about is God. And then it was like, "That's all we have." And then we started tag-teaming like,"Do you know that this happened to me?" And God did this and when I was eight years old and they're like starting to cry, but it's so,'cause you know what we, what I've heard families do is they pass down bitterness. Do you know that this happened to our family line and this is what happened to our family and it's all bitter? But what about, forgetting not to benefit and going,"Hey, you know what? This is what God did in our family. This is what He delivered us from. This is the healing that took place." I think too, like, it's important to be around, give your kids and give yourself some exposure. If you're starting to get familiar, then maybe your world's getting too small and maybe you need to expand it and broaden, like I just talked to our son, Silas has a beautiful voice and he has a cute face and I was thinking about, you know, I lost so many family members and I was sat there in hospice with him and I said, "Silas, would you ever wanna go with me to some places that have hospice where people are dying and just sing to them to bring them peace while they're dying?" Would you ever do that with me?" And he was like, "No." That sounds like a scary and creepy thing to do. And then I told him about how I sing to my mom and how her whole demeanor, while she was in pain, began to soften because she was ending her life on earth and entering into heaven and we could actually, God could use us in that moment and he's listening, he's like, "I'll do it if you'll do it." So me and him are gonna look into it and we're gonna go and maybe sing to some people in hospice.- That's the saddest thing I've ever heard.- I want to let Silas not be familiar with just the blessing of the Lord, but that our days are really numbered and that God wants to use us to be something for someone else.- So good, you keep hitting me.- And you don't have to sing because you might make them die faster because you're tone deaf, but we love you.- No, I love that. It's very practical. If you're starting to sense that you're becoming familiar, it is good to have some exposure to some things of like traveling or outraging.- Helping someone else.- Yeah, it doesn't even have to be necessarily this world's mission trip that you need to go on, but sometimes just getting out of, we live in the South Bay, just getting out of our bubble, getting out of the comfort of our home, getting to know neighbors, getting to know just different things that cause us to not be familiar. And there is this new, it's not new, but it's Y2K Christian mentality that just wants to be in a safe bubble where everything is safe. And what the problem with that is it will in the long run build a familiar spirit and it's not good.- Coming, yeah.- And the way you break that is by actually, well, some of the other weeks we've talked about dirty fingernails getting outside, and I think that's so good, getting your kids to do that. When we do outreach to the homeless communities in LA, we've brought in our kids with us, and it opens their eyes to some things. You know what I mean? I'm just trying to shelter them, but in a safe way get them to not be familiar. So that's good.- We have a friend, Jared Kean, he's a pastor in Perth, Australia, and he said his church wouldn't even be there if when he was a young boy, the lady across the street who was a Christian didn't make a casserole and cross the street with a little yellow post-it note inviting the family over to church. And they all got saved because of a casserole across the street. And then sometimes we're thinking- And sometimes we're thinking around the world.- That we have to go all the way to Africa. We have to go to the inner city of our own cities, but it's not sometimes it's literally just crossing the street and showing some love, that's it.- I love it, breaking it down. How do you kill a familiar spirit? If I have it right, number one honor. Come on, I love, Jared, or Kevin Gerald, honor up, honor down, honor all around. I love that honor. The second one was to humble ourselves. Number three was to...- Get not.- Don't forget, which I almost forgot that one, but don't forget not his benefits and then exposure. Get yourself outside of your safety net and really see that we are living in the dying world and that there's a difference. There is a peace in our house that I can take for granted'cause I haven't maybe been into other situations.- Wow.- And when I'm in those other situations, I'm like, wow, I'm so grateful, but we love you. Hey, why don't you share this?- Comment, tell us what you'd like to hear. We'd love to chat with you about stuff. If you want us to talk about things.- Yeah, give us some things that you want us to talk about on future podcasts, but we love you, like it, share it, and we will see you next week.(upbeat music)(upbeat music)(upbeat music)(upbeat music)