Shifting Culture
Shifting Culture
Ep. 285 Zach Meerkreebs - The Asbury Outpouring and the Cultivation of Humility
What if humility isn't about shrinking, but about seeing clearly? Zach Meerkreebs knows something about unexpected transformations. A Jewish kid from the East Coast who became a Christian pastor, he found himself at the epicenter of the Asbury outpouring - a spiritual moment that swept through a small Kentucky campus, touching 100,000 people - after delivering what he initially thought was a "stinker" of a sermon. In this episode, Zach takes us on a deeply personal journey through grief, faith, and the radical nature of Jesus' humility. From losing a daughter to navigating a profound spiritual awakening, he offers a raw, unfiltered look at what it means to walk with God when life doesn't make sense. We'll explore how true humility isn't about being small, but about understanding who we are in relationship with God. Get ready for a conversation that may reshape the way you think about pride, pain, and the transformative power of seeing yourself through God's eyes. This is an invitation to a different way of living - one marked by grace, honesty, and unexpected hope. So join us as we go lower.
Zach Meerkreebs is the proud husband of Kristin and father to three little girls: Eden, Esther, and Mercy. He is thankful for the opportunity to have served within churches by coaching and catalyzing church plants, traveling and speaking, and most recently had the gift of a lifetime as he preached on February 8, 2023, where he had a front row seat to see God moving amidst the Asbury outpouring where a small town and university experienced sixteen days of unending prayer and worship. More than one hundred thousand guests from around the country--and the world--experienced the peace and power of God.
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He didn't show up to Asbury to show off. He showed up to Asbury to show his love. And a generation responded and was envisioned or re envisioned, of a Jesus worth giving it all to. And we're seeing that among Gen Z. You, Joshua,
Joshua Johnson:hello and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture we create and the impact we can make. We long to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host. Joshua Johnson, what if humility isn't about shrinking, but about seeing clearly? Zach Mayor creeps knows something about unexpected transformations. A Jewish kid from the East Coast who became a Christian pastor, he found himself at the epicenter of the Asbury outpouring, a spiritual moment that swept through a small Kentucky campus, touching 70,000 people after delivering what he initially thought was a stinker of a sermon. In this episode, Zach takes us on a deeply personal journey through grief, faith and the radical nature of Jesus' humility, from losing a daughter to navigating a profound spiritual awakening, he offers a raw, unfiltered look at what it means to walk with God when life doesn't make sense, we'll explore how true humility isn't about being small, but about understanding who we are in relationship with God. Get ready for a conversation that may reshape the way you think about pride, pain and the transformative power of seeing yourself through God's eyes. This is an invitation to a different way of living when marked by grace, honesty and unexpected hope. So join us as we go lower. Here is my conversation with Zach mayor. Krebs, Zach, welcome to shifting culture. Excited to have you on. Thanks for
Zach Meerkreebs:joining me. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me,
Joshua Johnson:brother. I'm excited to get into your book lower and humility. Humility is a tough topic. A lot of people think it's, you know, thinking less of yourself. A lot of people think it's just not actually engaging in the world. But you do a great job of threading the line of knowing what humility is and why it's so impactful and powerful in our lives as followers of Jesus, and one of the first things you do in the beginning of your book is you talk about the power of your story in building humility. Can you take me into your story before sharing your sermon at Asbury and the outpouring that happened? What was your story leading up to that,
Zach Meerkreebs:I have a unique story in the fact that I grew up in a Jewish home, traditional Jewish home that was also riddled, kind of behind the scenes by a lot of brokenness. So in in the public we're this traditional Jewish home on the East Coast, we had history around Holocaust survivors in the family. There was a lot of pride in our identity. There was a lot of religion and our best efforts to be faithful that, but there was a hiddenness of brokenness. So some of my earliest memories are that of like traditional Jewish family and high holidays in synagogue and Sabbath, but also tremendous brokenness at home. And that brokenness led to my mom and my big brother and I'm moving out west from the East Coast. West was to Colorado Springs. And you know, being a Jewish kid in Colorado Springs in the 90s was a unique thing, because it was like Christian Mecca at the time, you know, and like, I went to a public school, but most of my classes, parents, you worked at focus on family or compassion or whatever, which, at the time was very new to me, because I had, I had never really been around Christians, and I had been taught how to address Christians and how to respond to questions from Christians, and I had a lot of prejudice and fears of Christians, honestly, but through kind of the brokenness of our home, still mom, being a single mom At the time and and working tons of jobs, ultimately, one healthy thing my life was soccer. A bunch of guys in my fam, in on my team, were kids of amazing Christian parents, and watching Christian fathers be Christian fathers and husbands captivated me. And the common denominator were they all prayed to Jesus before bed or or dinner or, you know, so I became curious about Jesus and gave my life to Christ after about a year and a half of searching, asking questions and was kind of pushed out for my family. Mm. But jumped straight into ministry. Found myself in ministry pretty quickly that moved into young adult ministry, church planning, you know, a huge part of my story, which is in the book, and I can, I can, we can go in more depth, the two kind of big points of of humbling was the first was being fired from my first church job from levels of brokenness that I had not dealt with from my childhood, and was restored back to health plan to the church pastored, LED. It was beautiful, really beautiful season, and then we got diagnosis from about our daughter who Esther, our middle daughter ended up passing away about four years ago. Schools two moments of deep pain and humbling, and we were still in a point of deep grief as a family when I found myself preaching at Asbury about two years ago. So that's maybe more than your ass, but it's a it's a broad Jewish kid. You so we meets Jesus, preaches at Asbury. There you go,
Joshua Johnson:nice, some really difficult times having a daughter passed away, I can't imagine, like, what as a father, like, what that is to go deep into the crucible of of grief and loss and pain and like, how did you you deal with a place of faithfulness? Is God faithful? Is Jesus with you in the midst of of your pain, your brokenness?
Zach Meerkreebs:At first, my theology and understanding of God did not hold space for how messy and angry I was. That makes sense like so, so I was almost like I didn't know how to engage God in His faithfulness, because I was, I had never been more angry, disappointed and ugly in my my prayers and questions and attitude toward him. Let's give him all I have to learn, at least. And really it was through his patience, but also through counseling, through some friends and the specific gentleman that I was reading a lot of his stuff. His name's John Coleman. He's spiritual formation guy out of New Zealand. And I realized that I remember having this moment where I I felt like the Lord said you don't have to pray politely anymore, Zach and that honesty was the key to intimacy, not impressiveness. And when I stopped being so polite in my prayers and started being very honest with how disappointed I was in him and angry and confused and just yeah, really honest with my feelings. It wasn't until then that the Lord was able to meet me in that kind of reminds me of that, you know, Joe, moment of him just finally losing his cool, ongoing God finally coming back and be like, All right, bud. Like, where were you when I formed the Heaven? And but it took me to get to that place of lament, for him to meet me in that place of compassion and empathy, and he wasn't going to yank me to that place. He wasn't going to push me to that place. He wasn't going to manipulate and abuse me to that place. He and his humility was just kindly waiting for me when I got to that place.
Joshua Johnson:It's amazing. I mean, Strawn Coleman, he was somebody that had to deal with some difficult things in his life, where he couldn't move out of his chair, he couldn't do anything, and so to have somebody then to actually be leading the way is really important, and it's important for us to find these these people and these mentors that have gone through it and what we could do. And I think one of the things you said, to be honest is much better than being impressive when it comes to intimacy and intimacy with God. And I think honesty is is key, and it's huge. And then lament is, you talked about lament. We're not very good at lament in the West. We're really good at at certainty and being certain. And I think we've lost some mystery, yeah. So when we we come to humility, what is the interplay between certainty? And I think certainty breeds some pride in us, and then uncertainty and mystery in saying, all right, God, yeah, you you made the the flamingo, and you made the ostrich. You made the heavens and earth. And I don't understand it, and it's a mystery. And I'm going to be in my place
Zach Meerkreebs:in the early in the book. The first line of my my definition, kind of unpacking humility in the book is agreeing with the biblical assessment of who he is and who I am. And it goes on to talk. About being rooted in our adoption, walked out in friendship and filled with the Holy Spirit, but it really is this biblical assessment of who he is and who I am. And I think certainty or certainty can be in that that God is fill in the blank, and I am just a creature. I'm just a vapor. I am dust. What Scripture says, I can be certain of that, but a lot of I think if we are agreeing with a biblical assessment of who he is and who I am, there's actually quite a bit of space of mystery and uncertainty and that submission to that reality, submission to that capital T truth, I think, is best friends with humility. I think submission and humility are best friends. And the one thing I talk about in that book, as well as curiosity humility, are dear friends. CS Lewis talks about humility of he talks about a humble person, he said, you won't really know he's humble, but he'll just seem very curious in your day, he'll just seem very curious of how you're doing. He's just not thinking of himself. He uses this imagery of CS Lewis. Use this image, he's not going to be like a car like a sleazy car salesman. He's going to be curious. And I think when we allow mystery and steward it with submission and curiosity, I think we're in a place where we know who he is, and we know who we are, and we're at peace with that. And that holds space for lament. You know, it holds space for huge supernatural, positive things, like an outpouring of God's Spirit, also holds space for terribly disappointed and painful things, because we have space for it. So what
Joshua Johnson:was it like? As you you gave a sermon and Asbury, you're still in the midst of of grief, pain in your own life. And as you said, you know, texted your wife that your sermon wasn't that great. You said it was a stinker, right? And so, and you're laying this out, and then there's this outpouring of God's Spirit, what was happening within you at that time. Just take me into some of that moment, and what was happening that with the inner struggle, with what you were going through,
Zach Meerkreebs:yeah, you know, on February 8, 2023, I was, you know, we speak, I speak in chapel and and God had already started doing a new thing in my heart, I think, with what I was, what I was shared about just a minute ago, I was experiencing his intimacy and his proximity in my honesty, so I I didn't feel far from God, but I had probably lost levels of faith and trust in Him doing something spectacular, and some of that was just in my finite brain. I was fully focused and fully comfortable and just feeling close to him. I didn't need him to do something profound, like the prize was friendship with Jesus, not revival. It wasn't and it had to be friendship with Jesus, proximity with God, because that, you know, in the moment of loss, felt like the only best thing I could have. So when Asbury happens, I honestly was in shock and somewhat disbelief of the significance of what was happening in those moments. But I think because of the experience I've had and the experience of some of the other leaders that we rallied around and asked the question, What's God doing? You know, early on how I've said it is, early on, we just didn't say no. And then a couple days in, we had to start saying yes, if that makes sense. Like, at first we're like, God might be doing something unique. Let's, let's just not say no. Like, let's just not close tonight. Let's just not break for dinner. Let's just see what happens. And then, when the world had found out and people were coming and lines were forming, we were like, Okay, are we? Are we ready to steward something substantially more than a chapel service that went long, but seemingly Jesus has enthroned himself in a unique way in a room that we have, for some reason, been asked to steward. Then we started saying yes and that that took a whole nother muscle for sure.
Joshua Johnson:Yeah, that's not easy, and it's not hard to be able to steward a moment like that at. As you started to see things, maybe you saw some things online, social media. Think the word has gotten out, you're there. What was that place in your own heart? How did you wrestle with the pride that you grew up with in a place where you needed, like, incredible humility to be able to steward something like this.
Zach Meerkreebs:Yeah, I can think of a couple facets of that brother like and I would still just say, even though I wrote a book on humility, I am not a tremendously humble I'll still struggle with, I don't not, if anyone of the book, please know that I will not write the book as an expert. I just wrote the book saying, Wow, that thing is gorgeous. Let's chase it, you know. So, you know, one thing was, I actually stayed off the the second night of the outpouring. I get home and I'm like, I wonder if this like, how big this is. And I remember getting home at like, four in the morning, which was pretty normal during those days, and I'm like, I've fully drank the Kool Aid, gone down the rabbit trail, and I noticed that the sun is coming up like it is seven o'clock I am now. I've swirled for three hours. That was like, the first like, Whoa, dude. So I remember, like, deleting apps. My wife would hold on to my phone often. And then I remember, like, four or five days later, people from around the world started becoming and we just had, like, a really safe place for us to be really honest with each other, the kind of the team that came, we had this. We didn't have a green room. We, an 18 year old, innovated this, this thing, and got rid of the green room because he saw the better catering was going to the green room. He got rid of the green room and made it into a consecration room, a prayer room that we would confess and pray over each other and and consecrate whatever we were doing, then commission ourselves or each other to whether it was playing guitar or preaching or whatever. And that was a practice. But I remember like maybe six days in, seven days in, someone came up to me and said, Do you know that your sermon has been listened to like 8 million times, and I remember this moment of like, one, well, why did you tell me that? Like, that's not good? And two, a re emphasis of like, Lord, I need, I need your help to do this the way that would honor you. You know, we got to see Jesus do ministry on earth for three years in the flesh. And I remember one of my good friends and prayer partners, he said, Well, how would Jesus host this at Asbury? We didn't get to see it, but they could maybe see you as an example. Like, if I could say, Jesus, how would you host 70,000 people on a university campus? I want to look as much like that. And then that became these rhythms of exertion in the public and then disappearing into the private we took a day off and just totally, like, reminded myself that I'm a dad of little girls and a husband, and that was good for my flesh, you know. And we still have to be pretty, uh, locked in and intentional, but it's, it's a worthy thing, because Jesus was the perfect example of humility. You know, you think of seasons in his life. I like I've just recently been feeling and contemplating this passage, when he had healed and been preaching, and it says, in his mind, he he knew that they were going to forcibly take him and make him king, and that's when he disappears. And what culture does is they, they grab onto something and they want to forcibly make it King, and in that moment, you can decide like, wow, that sounds good, or you can do what Jesus did and just disappear. And that's actually been some of this rhythm of, like, usually, when I feel the most momentum in the public, usually a good sign for me to disappear. And then when the Lord says, Hey, re emerge and and travel a little bit, or re emerge and come up with this book. Or, you know, I mean, like, then we do that, and it's kind of this cadence of expressing yourself in retreating, expressing yourself and retreating, and doing it in such a way that's in the best of our ability, consecrated unto the Lord. That's
Joshua Johnson:what Jesus did when he was on earth, right? He expressed himself in public ministry, He retreated. He needed those times that he. He was like, it's not, it's not this. It's actually, I'm only going to do what the Father and how it is doing. And that's, that's the hard place for you to be in a place of like, okay, I'm going to steward this moment of 70,000 people on this, this college campus in a town where it doesn't have, it has a couple restaurants, you can't hold this this many people. How do I look like you Jesus in the midst of this? How is Jesus going to do it? I think that's the question we all want in our lives, like, how is Jesus going to do this? How can we actually express, embody Jesus to the world? Yeah, what are some ways that we can form some of this humility? Because Jesus, humility is a person, as you say, which is Jesus, right? It's not this concept. So how do I we form some humility start to embody Jesus in the world? What are some ways to be able to do that?
Zach Meerkreebs:Well, in the in the book, you know, the publisher didn't love that. It started with this. But I think it was really important for us to start with the concept of confrontation. You really have to create space throughout your day to be addressed, probed and confronted by the Spirit of God. You know, this morning my my two year old was very, very cute, but also very disobedient and wouldn't get dressed, and in that moment, I can see that as an inconvenience, or I can see that as an opportunity for formation, and not for mercy my two year old, but as a father who's like, cool, cool, cool. I need you to put on your pants. You know? I mean, like, or if I can't find my keys, that's an opportunity for formation. Do I respond, raise my voice, of like, hey, where you put the freaking keys? Or do I just take the breath? Or when you shoot the email and you miss the meeting, and you could make an excuse on why you're late, or you could just apologize, that's a formational opportunity, or bigger, you get the Promote promotion and your best buddy was also up for it. That's an opportunity for confrontation and or something very difficult, like the loss of a child or a loss of a job or a divorce. So I think a very practical ways. How can you change your mindset to say, I'm not going to waste one opportunity to look more like Jews by bedtime tonight, whether that's being cut off in traffic or getting a raise or having an awesome family dinner or being disrespected by my teenager, whatever it is, let's not waste it. So I think it needed to start with being confronted by the Spirit and and getting to know Jesus through Scripture that you see his character layered on your character and where those things don't line up, and allowing yourself to let him be the primary example, not you. I also think we often don't remember because it was a song in Sunday school as like the fruits of the Spirit are very practical and straightforward to how you can look like Jesus. Jesus exuded the fruits of the Spirit. We could exude the fruits of the Spirit in this conversation of shifting culture, right? One thing about what God's doing in the world right now around we have a new president. There's so much to your political stuff going on. We have, you know, heartbreaking stories of pastors failing each one of those places, you could respond and make sure it runs through the filter of, does this exude the fruits of the Spirit? And if it doesn't, then you're not needing to respond that way. And that is humility in itself. So I think some really practical things that I'm doing is regularly putting myself on the potter's wheel, regularly putting myself in the in the boxing ring, sometimes to be confronted and pointed out where I'm not living up to the primary example of Jesus's character, hiding Philippians, two, five through 11 in your heart, memorizing those past that passage, which is a beautiful passage about Jesus, humility. Could you memorize that and repeat it to yourself? Fruits of the Spirit, learn the song, memorize the song, and think about the song when you're shooting emails, when you're ordering Starbucks and they don't get your order right. Like, it's not rocket science, but it is the most captivating counter cultural thing that we could be right now is exuding the character of Christ, which I think the primary virtue of Christ is humility, even when he says he could have said anything about himself in Matthew 11, but when he uses descriptors of himself, he says, gentle and humble. I am. Gentle and humble of heart. So if those are two things that he names about himself, then I would imagine little Christians, little Christs should probably be gentle and humble of heart.
Joshua Johnson:That is such a difficult time to do it right now, because there's a lot of outrage in the world. There's a lot of polarization, there's a lot of fighting back and forth, and they feel like if I am gentle and humble, if I'm going to exude the fruits of the Spirit, I'm not going to be heard right there. My message isn't going to get out there, because nobody's going to hear it. I people think we have to shout louder and shout louder and shout louder until all it is is noise. And so this is all we have is noise at the moment. Yeah, sometimes people think, what, what happened at Asbury outpouring? Or if we think of revivals, we think of really loud and bombastic like noise. How did, how did the move of the Spirit happen there in a way that looked like the fruits of the Spirit, that looks like this way of humility in the space that you were at?
Zach Meerkreebs:Yeah, and that question leads to the very reason why we wrote this book. Because when people asked what happened at Asbury. I couldn't get past the humility of Jesus to descend on a pretty mediocre, humble location. You know, we have, I was preaching in chapel yesterday. We have multiple chairs that just you aren't allowed to sit in because you'll get splinters. You don't mean like it is the humble place. You know, the projectors look like laser beams from Star Wars, you know? I mean like the humility of Jesus, the humility of His Spirit to then descend and rest upon humans, and then we just continually experienced His kindness and gentleness and love and patience and peace and joy. You know, there was one thing I remember us in leadership. Two years ago, we were talking about how so many people were coming and sitting in the chairs, and some people were worshiping, but some people were just visiting with strangers and laughing and talking and getting exchanging numbers. And I remember we were like, do we need to like, address that because the reverence of it, and people kind of worship and pray, and someone in in wisdom, I believe, says no, that is the presence of God. We are in such a lonely, isolated culture that will actually experience joy and friendship with relative strangers in the presence of God. So I think even the very essence of what we saw at Asbury was a cultural commentary to the noise and the harshness and the sparkles and the posturing and the climbing and the, you know, all those things that we're seeing in culture, and even honestly, it's in church culture. And I think it was a prophetic confrontation by Jesus of like, you know, a lot of people would walk into Asbury, and I could watch on their faces, they're like, This is it. And then they would be quickly overwhelmed by the presence of God, which sounds like the Isaiah prophecy of Jesus, that he would he would be underwhelming and and would be a suffering servant that he would be that he wasn't this handsome, you know, Mel Gibson, with flowing hair and Braveheart kind of guy you know, or you read about on the road to Emmaus, these disciples not even noticing him and being underwhelmed. Who was that guy? And then he was like, they're like, oh my gosh, our hearts were on fire. You know, if like that, in his humility, he wasn't. He didn't show up to Asbury to show off. He showed up to Asbury to show his love. And a generation responded and was envisioned, or re envisioned, of a Jesus worth giving it all to. And we're seeing that among Gen Z, if that is authentic Jesus we are in it would make sense that the Jesus that was presented looked like the Jesus from scripture. Jesus in Scripture is a humble, gentle, fierce, convictional. There's many times that he stood up for, for what's true, he called out Pharisees. We have to remember that the opposite of pride isn't pushover, it's humility. You know, Jesus was not a pushover, but he was humble. It makes sense that if we really saw a supernatural outpouring of God's presence. That it would resemble the God that I read about in Scripture.
Joshua Johnson:So then, what does that expression of humility look like? If you're not a pushover? How do we express humility in a way that we're not pushovers, but we are. We have this right view of who I am and who God is in the world, and we're walking out into it. What does that look like?
Zach Meerkreebs:So my my definition in the book is agreeing with the biblical assessment of who we are, who he is, and who we are. So that's identity. It's rooted in belovedness from our adoption, from the Father Romans eight. So we're walking out as sons and daughters, not worms, not trash. So that helps us not be pushovers. It helps us know that we have agency. It's walked out in friendship with Jesus as the perfect example. And when we don't get it right, John 1515, he says, I no longer call you slaves, but I call you friends. And he is the perfect example. And we will not get it right, we will be prideful in our pursuit of humility. And then it's initiated and empowered by the Holy Spirit. You know, the scriptures say that our heart is deceitful, or the flesh lusts against the things of the Spirit. So my heart doesn't really want to be humble. Well, the Spirit of God me initiates that desire. So that's kind of the beefy, bigger definition, the the quick hand definition, which I've been teaching on, is the simple two words of consecrated. Confidence is consecrated. Confidence and consecration is is just a Christian knees term for being set apart for special use. You know, when you do surgery, those instruments have been set apart and and they maybe wouldn't use the word consecrated, but they have been, they've been set apart for special use. So all of your gifts this podcast, your ability to produce an interview and promote and share and get interview in interview, ease and just because you have that doesn't immediately mean you're prideful. Well, it does give you the opportunity to be prideful, because you get, let's say you get excited about interviewing Joe Schmo,
Joshua Johnson:or it's been my favorite, by the way, I love Joe Schmo. Well, Joe Schmo,
Zach Meerkreebs:ain't gonna and then you just take what I the image that I have is you take that to the throne room of Jesus and say, Jesus, this is what I got today. These are my gifts. These are my shadows. These are my desires. This is my calendar. Will you make? This consecrated unto your purposes? The secondary purpose of this conversation is to tell a little bit about the book and to check a box that you get another episode. But we've hopefully taken this to the Lord, and said, Lord, but whatever you have for us, it's not about my gain. It's not about my new friend's gain. It's It's for your purposes, and for some current reason you've given him a podcast, and for some current reason you've given me a message, and if that can edify the church, then we're all in now, if that's just for book sales, then I need to hang up right now, you know, and that's been a real tension. But back to I'm a son, a friend, and I'm filled with the Spirit, and I can rest in that. So if you're a businessman who's making tons of money, just consecrate it to the Lord. Don't like only you can answer if you're being prideful with it or not. If you got a six pack, you can that can be consecrated to the Lord, or you could be flexing at gyms to make everyone feel small about themselves, whatever. Or if you're unbelievable at teaching fourth grade, you could seem quite sweet and humble, but you might be flexing on every teacher in your mind when you walk through the hallways and don't see their class under control. You know where it is, or preachers or pastors who are listening to this. You might not be, you know, flashy and have a platform, but you might be judging the tar out of anyone that you've seen on social media or listened to, whatever it is only you can tell me, and ultimately, I don't need to know, only you can talk to the spirit and confess that you're considering yourself greater than you are, and considering him less than he is. But the great thing is, is when we choose pride, we confess it, and we in our adoption, say, Jesus, I need your friendship to help me do this differently and Holy Spirit, I guess I need to be more submitted to your initiation and empowerment, to be humble and concentrate my giftings and opportunities today. That's
Joshua Johnson:so good, and I think it's really helpful for all of us. I know that when I do that, when I consecrate episodes, when I when I pray before I interview somebody, it's much better than when I don't do that. Like God moves he does some stuff. Yeah, and it's, I notice a stark difference between the two. Then, if you're empowered by the Spirit, you're filled with the Spirit, and you're expressing the Holy Spirit in life, that's a hard thing for some people to wrap their head around. What then does the Holy Spirit do for us and through us? As Holy Spirit is the one that lives with us. Jesus promised the spirit. We get the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is my friend as well. And I get to figure out, how do I live with the Holy Spirit? I often forget that the Holy Spirit is with me. So what does it look like to be filled some people, it's like, hey, it's like charismania. We gotta, gotta see all these incredible, you know, charismatic things happen. But what does it look like to actually live out the spirit in life? Yeah,
Zach Meerkreebs:you know, in John 14 and John 16 are the two. You know, passages that we see Jesus speak about the Holy Spirit, and He taught. He uses these words, like advocate and helper and comforter, and he promises that we would do even greater things and that we would be better off if he left us and sent His Spirit. And I love resting on those words that he uses that living a spirit filled life might include the demonstrative things of the Holy Spirit and all different theologies of that and and some, you know, some people would say that very actively demonstrative right now of charismatic gifts that we read about in Romans 12, or the things that we observe and see in Acts. And some people would say that's not the case now, but the Holy Spirit would still be an indwelling Spirit of God that fills us when we've given our lives to Christ, been justified through the cross, then we're filled with the Holy Spirit for the regeneration process of being made new, being free from sin, and we see that through the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, as comforter, comforting us when we've choose poorly or when we're suffering or we're feeling crucible and the consequences of sin in the world, we feel comforted. We experience the helper, same, same Holy Spirit, just different name helps us look more like Jesus through the process of submitting and growing and and then he's our advocate. He, he creates, he goes out before us. He, he creates opportunities for us to express ourselves, express Jesus, but also advocates for our healing and wholeness. So living a spirit filled life, living a deeper walk with Jesus, I think, is a necessity for us to engage culture, for us to do marriage, to do parent. I could not no offense to anyone who's listening to this that does not know Jesus. I literally feel bad. I do not know how I would parent without the Spirit of God living inside me, you know? And I remember life very clearly without Jesus. I remember life very clearly without the Holy Spirit empowering me. It was miserable. And I just think there is a a real gift in having having an indwelling relationship with the Holy Spirit as comforter, healer, advocate. That is also I love this imagery that you see throughout Scripture. It is a seal of our of our salvation. I just finished my, uh, some doctoral work, and when you turn that in and you see that submitted date, that means it's done. You don't have to edit it anymore.
Unknown:Congrats. That's exciting. That's a seal, yeah,
Zach Meerkreebs:means that it's out of your hands and someone else is dealing with it. The Holy Spirit in Scripture, it says is a seal. It is submitted like I am, you know, and the spirit is a seal of our adoption. That's some good news, dude, right? Going. A little theological pastor, painting,
Joshua Johnson:I love it. I love it so good. I have a couple friends from Europe that flew in to Asbury, that were, were there with you. They have a couple of different organizations in Europe that really just want to seek revival. And so there's some people, you know, they've studied revival. They're trying to get to this place of revival. I know it's not a magic formula, and so people have been trying to figure out, what is the formula to get there? What would you say to people that are saying, Hey, I'd love to see an outpouring of God's spirit in a special way in, you know, the places where I'm living and working. I. It's not a magic formula, but what do you say to people like that? It's been really interesting
Zach Meerkreebs:because I am not a revival guy. I have not been a revival historian. So now I find myself in circles where people are asking that question, and I just always preface the question or the answer with is, we have to remember the greatest prize is friendship with Jesus. The greatest the greatest news is that the Son of God came and dwelt in human form, died on the cross, rose again three days later, and I can have perfect relationship. That's greater news than 16 days of the manifest presence of God at Asbury university that to be a part of. That's greater news than what we're seeing in London. That's greater news than what we're seeing around the world on college campuses right now. Or that is great so so God will not let us forget that for the revival, because the thing that is a greater gift to us is his son, now desiring to experience and encounter his spirit is not, is not a bad thing. There could be way worse things to criticize. So with those things I would, I just continue to point to the posture of our hearts matter, the why we want to see it matters, the how we're going to respond when it doesn't come the way we want matters. We have to allow God and we have to wrestle with does our scorecard, does our measurement of success match with what God wants. And then a real, a real itchy question is, let's say it does happen. Are we ready to steward it? A conversation that we're having? You know, I feel like we've been jettisoned into this, like Justice League of revival that, like, happened, and you have these, like, I've been in these rooms with people. I'm like, What am I doing here? Like, if you only knew, but a lot of the conversation is, how do we prepare readiness? Because let's say, let's say the Spirit of God does fall on your service, and it becomes inconvenient. What is the priority in that moment, you know, and, and you'll start getting emails, you'll start getting calls or or the worship leader who had planned to lead a song and had been working really hard on it, might get hurt. How are we creating cultures that that can be stewarded in those moments, that his presence is our priority, and we're holding everything open handed, and that is some of the readiness. But I am adamant that let's all remember that, that the prize is Jesus. The best news is Jesus.
Joshua Johnson:Amen. It is very true. It is very true. I love that you you say that you help us and remind us that the prize is Jesus and friendship with him. One of the things that you have in your book that I think that we haven't touched on, I think, is really important, and I think it doesn't get enough love, because it's not doesn't sound as spiritual as these other things, is self awareness, yeah. What are some ways that we could start to to become more self aware? And I think we have a we have a struggle with self awareness in our culture. What are some practices that have helped you, in some ways, that you have actually figured out who you are?
Zach Meerkreebs:Yeah? So I think self awareness is like the secret sauce of the Christian walk. It definitely Christian leadership. You know, a very spiritual like a more spiritual practice is, I regularly, do you know, introspective, daily examine, kind of prayer, which is kind of old school concept of you know, daily examine sometimes you're broken down into desolations and consolations, which feel like very epic words, but it's ultimately just taking time every day to take inventory of when you feel very close to God, consolations or when you feel very far from God, desolations, there's a reason why that has been a prayer practice for a very long time, or something I do often. That is in the book is I read the first 22 verses of Psalm 139, and meditate on how deeply known I am, and then I pray the four lines of verses, 23 and 24 the first line is, know my heart, and I just allow God to address and point out the desires and the actions and the passions in my heart, and then know and test my anxious thoughts. Yes. So then I'm asking for greater awareness of where my mind is and my thought life is. Then the next one is point out any harmful way or and that's my actions. Do I have any habits? Or am I a part of any activity that isn't best? And then the last one is a submission, kind of prayer, and lead me in the way of everlasting. So those are more like spiritual practices, but really practical things is, is counseling. I'm very, very passionate about counseling, submitting to someone to speak with. I have a community I'm committed to that I confess to, and they have permission to give me feedback. I nerd out on assessments, personal assessments, and that can be helpful as well, just to know these are my gifts, these are my shadows, these are my motives. These are how I take on information. This is how I deal with adversity, things like that. So, yeah, I'm glad that you highlighted self awareness, because that's ultimately what humility is, right? It's just knowing who you are and who he is
Joshua Johnson:exactly beautiful. If you had something that you wanted to say to the body of Christ right now, what do you want to call us towards in life?
Zach Meerkreebs:You know, especially around humility is I? I believe it is a worthy cause to meditate on and explore, because the misunderstanding of humility has subdued the church. It has weakened the vibrancy of our gifts, and we have often missed out on the encouragement and affirmation our community in Jesus wants to give us in false humility, so we subdue ourselves because we don't want to seem prideful. We're afraid of being prideful when really, if we understand humility and our giftedness, we can walk in consecrated confidence. We hide our vibrancy. And there's a lot of times where someone has affirmed or blessed me, and I don't receive it out of being afraid of being prideful. And being afraid of pride is not humility either. That's that's fear. So I pray that we would grow in our understanding of humility through looking at Jesus so the church can be vibrant in all of its giftedness and humility.
Joshua Johnson:Amen. That's good couple quick questions. Zach, one, if you go back to your 21 year old self, what advice would you give?
Zach Meerkreebs:Oh, relax. Yeah. I was so intent. Man, just have more fun. Something I keep on saying is intensity is not a fruit of the Spirit. I could have used that when I was 21 that was really
Joshua Johnson:good. Anything you've been reading or watching lately, you could recommend
Zach Meerkreebs:I just read a book on fasting by reward Bonda, and I'm not good at fasting. And mean, it was awesome, dude. Reward did an awesome job. I
Joshua Johnson:just just talked to him. I just interviewed him for that and read the book. I think it was the first time he was like, it was the most compelling argument for fasting 100% that I've ever heard. I'm like, Okay, I need to fast, like, and it gives me practical so it's great. Yeah,
Zach Meerkreebs:rewards book is so good. I've been really enjoying the conversations that Rebecca and Gabe Lyons are having, just our culture and but a biblical mindset. Another gentleman I mentioned that has been deeply formational in this season for me is is journeying with strong Coleman around his two books, beholding and thirsting, and then he has these prayer volumes, and then he's just starting a course called Quiet flame on the role of of the prophetic in the church today that I'm really excited that the global church will be able to get that content. So just grateful for some of these brothers and sisters that are just faithfully using their voice and their brains
Joshua Johnson:good recommendations, those are great. How can people go out and get lower? And is there any way people could connect with you? Where would you like to point people
Zach Meerkreebs:to? Yeah, so lower is available online, and at most bookstores. That's been really surreal. I went and signed books with my eight year old daughter. She signed all of them in Lexington as well, so you can get a Eden signs lower and then, yeah, I have a website, zacharycreeves.com which feels cheesy, but that's just an easy way to kind of funnel conversations and requests and then on socials. I'm just at Zach meircreeps Or at Zach mereks, no.com at then, but I'd be honored to track with anybody and encourage them, and just really honored by the conversation, bro. Well,
Joshua Johnson:thank you for this conversation. It was fantastic to. Figure out that we actually are beloved. We can just sit in our belovedness, that we are adopted sons of God, that then we could be consecrated to God and to the world, to be friends with Jesus, so amazing, so incredible, that we could do that empowered and lived with the Spirit of God through us in our lives, so that we could actually look more like Jesus. We can embody Jesus, which is the way of humility, because Jesus is humble, and humility is a person, and humility is Jesus. It was a fantastic conversation. I really loved talking to you. So thank you so much. Yeah, appreciate you. Brilliant.
Unknown:You.
