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The Father's Business Podcast
The Father's Business Podcast
He is-The Character of God: The Savior to Savor
The word Savior can feel familiar enough to skim past, especially in a season crowded with lists, sales, and year-end hurry. We slow down to ask what Luke 2:11 actually promised to people who had waited four centuries for God to speak and lived under the weight of empire. Many longed for a military hero. God answered with a child. That surprising arrival still reshapes our expectations of rescue, power, and peace.
We explore how Savior in Scripture means deliverer and rescuer, but also points to wholeness—Yeshua, the Lord is salvation. Forgiveness of sin is not the finish line; it is the doorway into relationship. Drawing from Philippians 3, we talk about knowing Christ as experiential intimacy, the kind that recognizes a friend’s voice in a noisy world. Salvation becomes a life with God, not just a decision in the past. From there, we get practical: how to cultivate savoring instead of speed, how stillness and mindfulness help us pay attention to His presence, and why comparison dulls wonder. Simple rhythms—breath prayers, threshold pauses, naming God’s attributes—train our hearts to enjoy Him deeply.
If this conversation helps you breathe a little slower and love Jesus a little deeper, share it with a friend, follow the show, and leave a review to help others find the message.
The Father's Business was founded by Sylvia Gunter to encourage people to a deeper relationship with God. I'm Elizabeth Gunter Powell.
SPEAKER_00:And I am Kimberly Roddy. Welcome to the Father's Business Podcast. We are so glad that you've joined us.
SPEAKER_01:Welcome everybody to this week's podcast. For those of us in the United States, we are celebrating Thanksgiving, which is a national holiday that is supposed to be set aside for us to gather with friends and family and reflect on all that we have to be thankful for. I know some of our culture has kind of swung it towards what deal are you looking for on Black Friday, Kimberly? But the heartbeat of this is that we would take some time to slow down and to ponder and to give thanks. And so first off, I want to say I'm thankful for all of you, our podcast listeners, who join us week by week and for all that you do to support and help us grow the Father's Business and the message of the Father's Business. So as we're continuing in our He Is the Characters of God series, this week we want to look at He is Savior. Christmas is going to be upon us soon, Kimberly. Have you got all your Christmas shopping done?
SPEAKER_00:Crazy to think about, but I'll be doing it Friday and Monday with uh Black Friday Cyber Monday. There you go. Perfect time to be doing it.
SPEAKER_01:Um, but yes, this year is quickly coming to a close. And as we continue our He Is series, we're gonna kind of shift our focus to those characteristics of God that are revealed through the Christmas story. And so today we're gonna start with a very familiar verse, which is in Luke 2, 11, which says, Today in the town of David, a savior has been born to you. He is the Messiah, the Lord. So we're gonna spend some time today, Kimberly, talking about this whole idea of Messiah and Savior and what does it mean for us today? So as we unpack the ideas and the names and the characteristics of God that are connected to the celebration of the coming of Jesus over the next couple of weeks, I think it's really important for us to look and understand a little bit of the historical and cultural background of what's going on. Because as we look at it, it may feel a little like how we feel today. A lot of us are feeling like we are living in a world that seems unjust or unfair. We feel like we're looking for someone to come and save us. Uh, you know, recently in the last couple of months, there was a lot of people that were very uh engaged with the idea that the rapture was going to happen and Jesus was coming back. So there's still this something in us that is looking for a Messiah or a savior. But all of the things that we will read over the next couple of weeks, and including when this announcement is made in Luke 2, comes after for centuries Israel has been living under foreign rule. If you look through the Old Testament up to this point that we're at the beginning of the New Testament, it's been the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, and now the Romans are in charge. So Israel is living in a place where they are either in captivity or being oppressed for most of the Bible. And there have been prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah and Micah who have spoken of a coming deliverer, an anointed one, a Messiah who is coming and will bring justice and peace and hope and redemption and will be our savior. And so the people always had this hope. If you're not familiar with the Bible, you may not fully understand that from the time of the end of the Old Testament to when the New Testament is written, there's about 400 years. So even that gap of time, can you imagine feeling like you're being oppressed? And any day now, a Messiah, a savior is going to come and save you. And it's been over 400 years since anyone has even heard from the Lord about a Messiah coming. It really was a very dark time for the people of Israel. And so they had been longing not just for a political rescue, which would be great. Let get us out of captivity and back into our own, our own home and our own rule, but they wanted the restoration of all things. They were looking for the kingdom of David to be restored. They were looking for, even more than that, this whole idea of shalom. We talked about it a few weeks ago on our podcast. The restoration of all things. And that's what that word Messiah means. It means anointed one. It was a term that was used with kings and priests. And so by the time that this is being written in Luke, they're focusing in on a Messiah who is going to deliver Israel from Roman oppression, re-establish the kingdom of God. And they thought it would be a military leader, right? Because you got to have someone pretty strong to show up and save you from the Roman Empire. But what comes is a baby, a savior who is Christ the Lord is born unto them. And it just is the beginning of God turning our whole world upside down on what his thoughts are and how his ways are higher than our ways. So, Kimberly, why don't you help us unpack a little bit? What does this word savior mean? When they heard a savior is born, what did they hear?
SPEAKER_00:Literally, they heard that a deliverer was coming. And as you said, given the times that they were living in and what they were facing, they were longing for that. They were longing for someone to deliver them. In the Greek, the word savior literally means deliverer or rescuer. And there's a connotation in the Hebrew as well because Jesus' very name in Hebrew meant Yeshua, which is salvation, rescue. It actually means wholeness. And so in the Old Testament, they would say the Lord is salvation. That's what Jesus means. The very name of Jesus, Yeshua, the Lord is salvation. His mission wasn't just to save us from sin. It wasn't just I'm gonna save you from sin. It was I want to bring you into a restored, whole relationship, fellowship with God. In the New Testament, we see Paul say in Philippians 3, verse 8, he says, What is more? I consider everything a loss. He actually says, I consider everything as cow dung, as poop, basically. Like it's worthless because he considers everything worthless because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, consider them poop, because that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ. And then he goes on in verse 10, he says, I want to know Christ, yes, to fully know him in the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death. Paul is grasping that concept right there, that God didn't just drastically rescue him from sin, but that he brought him into relationship with God so much so that nothing else matters. And that's what I think we need to remember is that sometimes when we think of the word savior, we think of receive Jesus as your savior and Lord, right? Like that's a common phrase in the church world and the Christian world. But really what we want to think about is not just, he's not just the, he is. He is the savior who saves you. But it's not just about rescuing you from something. Something we have to remember is that we are dead in our trespasses and sin. We cannot save ourselves. A dead man cannot come back to life on his own. And so the savior saves us, but he takes us from rescuing. He rescues us, he takes us from that rescue and he brings us into relationship. Elizabeth, I think that's so powerful to think about that that that salvation is not just a one-time thing. It's about the relationship and recognizing that knowing Christ is like the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. That's a powerful statement that Paul uses there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And I, as you're talking, I even think about how often growing up you would hear the question asked, well, when did you get saved? Like it, like it is that one-time event. And it is a significant event. When I choose to become a follower of Jesus and decide that he is going to be my Lord and Savior, that is huge. I we're not downplaying that at all. Sure. But I love the way that you're talking about it. Salvation is not just an event that happened, it is this relationship, this intimacy that he is calling us into. Because that word know that you just read about so beautifully in Philippians 3 means experiential intimacy. It is the deep personal awareness of his presence. And I think about, you know, you and me, Kimberly, if someone called me on the phone and said, This is Kimberly, I know your voice well enough. Or if they played me a recording of you talking, I could instantly tell, not only from your voice, but how you word things, how you say things. I know you. And so I'd be able to say, that's fake, that's AI, that's not Kimberly, that is Kimberly, right? That is what Jesus being our savior is about. It's not just, I'm grateful I am not condemned. I'm grateful that I have been saved, but it is a much more about this deep personal awareness of his presence. And I think that leads us to a place where we need to learn to appreciate and talking to myself first, appreciate that more. Going back up to that verse you're talking about in the Amplified, I love the way it says, I count everything as lost compared to the possession of the priceless privilege of knowing him. And I just that kind of was a little bit of a on my uh at my heart when I read that. I was like, do I walk around every day thinking about the priceless privilege I have of knowing him? And later on that in that verse in the Amplified, it says it says, For my determined purpose is that I may know him, that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with him. And I'm not so sure I live my day in and day out life, go waking up going, My determined purpose is that I may know him progressively, deeper and more intimately today than I knew him the day before.
SPEAKER_00:So, Elizabeth, this is where I believe that savoring is a natural response to being rescued, savoring who Jesus is, savoring what he's done for us, who he is to us, who he is in general, just as a as a being, as a person, he is true to his name. He is the savior to behold. We talked about beholding several uh weeks ago, the idea to really look at something and see something and for it to matter, savoring kind of takes us a little bit deeper. So I think when we think of savoring something, if we want to have a if I you know, if we say that savoring is the natural response to being rescued, then it means that our life should be lived in awe and affection of who the savior is. So I'm gonna say that savoring and enjoying something are not the same. I think savoring is deeper than enjoyment. We have words for a reason, and I think that savoring is one of those words that help us get deeper than just I'm enjoying something. I'm savoring it. I am enjoying it so completely that I have delight and pleasure. It's like I want to squeeze every last drop of goodness out of this. I think that oftentimes we can enjoy something, but to actually savor it, we kind of have to strengthen those savoring skills a little bit to sit in the moment, especially in our fast-paced world that we live in, right? That's just prone to enjoy something and then move on to the next thing.
SPEAKER_01:But how do how do we do that, Kimberly? How do we strengthen our savoring muscles?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think um a couple of things. I think that we have to slow down. And if you look at Titus 2.13, it says that while we wait for the blessed hope, the appearance, the blessed hope is the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. There's this idea of while we are waiting, while we are waiting, we have to slow down. Because if we are waiting for the blessed hope, if we're waiting for that appearing, are we gonna miss it if we're not paying attention? Are we gonna like we have to behold him? We have to recognize that again, we've we've talked about we've been saved from sin, and that's an amazing thing, but we are also brought into relationship, into intimacy with the Father, with a friend, with a beloved one who knows us, who created us, who loves us deeply. And so this is what, again, to go back to what Paul was saying, he was saying knowing Christ is the greatest thing. And so, in order to savor Christ, in order to, I liked how you said it earlier, you said that knowing was experiential intimacy. To truly know him, not just, I know your voice, I know, not just I know where that street is when I get there to turn. This is an experiential deeper thing. And so, in order to truly savor and know him, I think, I think first we have to slow down. I think we also have to be mindful through our focus and attention. That's another way to say slow down. I think it's a little bit deeper, like not just stopping something, slowing down could be stopping something, but actually choosing to practice mindfulness through focusing on him, through paying attention to him, to who he is. That's why we've been doing this series so that we can really look at who is God and how can I be aware and be mindful of him and who he truly is. I think another way that we can savor is to recognize that our natural tendency is to numb out to things. Yeah. And and really to numb to something that's that is a repetitious thing in our life or is a known thing in our life, like the character of God can be. Like we can, I know sometimes when I was growing up, it's like like as an act of worship or prayer, it's like, let's go through the alphabet and name all the characteristics of God. And if you're doing that with a group of people, you're like trying to find out which letter you're gonna be and trying to name that characteristic, you're not really paying attention. Yeah. You're kind of numbing out and disconnecting from who he really is and listening in that moment, right? Another way that I think we can savor who Jesus is is to kind of guard against this comparison mentality that we have in our world too. When we compare things, we we lessen something, actually. I think we either heighten it or we lessen it. But by heightening one thing, we lessen another thing. And so if we are thinking, we talked several weeks ago, maybe a month or so ago now, about is God is God uh truth or grace? When we elevate one of those, we lessen the other one, and we we're comparing the two. And the truth is God is both. He is all of these things. And so to savor him, I have to savor him in his truth, and I have to savor him in his grace at the same time. I can't compare them. And so I think those are some ways that we can just start to slow down and pay attention and focus and stop comparing who God is, even in his own essence, but we can really just say, I want to look to him, I want to wait for him, I want to be aware of him and savor, not be hurried, right? Like truly meditate and be aware and mindful of who he is. Because as Paul said, knowing him is is worth everything. So when I talk about that idea of savoring, in those words, Elizabeth, what what comes to your mind?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I'm I'm thinking of kind of an offshoot of savoring is, I mean, once we slow down, we think of, you know, we we enjoy it, we really focus in on who he is and what he's done for us. What's gonna flow out of that is gratitude and thanksgiving. And I as you're talking about savoring, I was like, you know, I think this is why so many times in the scripture it tells us to remember, yeah, to remember what God has done, to rehearse the goodness of God, the even the verse taste and see that the Lord is good. He is constantly inviting us into this place of savoring and savoring not only who he is, but what he's done for us. And what will start to come up in my heart is gratitude and joy and peace. And, you know, all the fruit of the spirit will start bubbling up in me as I take the time to savor. And and, you know, it is the week of Thanksgiving. And so I think a lot of people are sitting around the table, and once a year we gather and we tell everybody what we're grateful for, right? But there's so much more of a daily hour by hour pattern as you're talking about that it needs to become kind of the rhythm of my life that I choose to see real truly see, truly ponder, truly savor where is God in this moment with me right now? Where, you know, I may be driving in my car trying to run errands to pick up food for my kids or going to work or in my cubicle, or there's a there, we're always doing things, but even in those places, we can find ways to savor and just take a breath and remember the goodness of God in this the so many ways that he's been there for us, starting with salvation and savoring him as savior, with that understanding that that wasn't just a one-time rescue. He's rescuing us all the time. I know he's rescuing me all the time from my own stupid uh mind and my own decisions. And anytime I'm trying to run away to another broken cistern, he's he is rescuing me back to his living water, to more of himself over and over and over. And just coming to a place of real gratitude and thanksgiving about that is it's it is a not a natural mindset, or we wouldn't have to be told to remember as often as we are.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And when you were talking about remembering, I was thinking just of the phrase like stay in the moment, just be present, right? Like, like just tuning in, slowing down, and just being able to say, I want to stay in this moment so that I can celebrate. Because sometimes if the moment passes us too fast, then we don't take the time to celebrate. You know, I think when we stay in the moment and when we slow down, we do that by, like I said, just not it's not just turning off things, it is turning off the noise, but it's also create cultivating that awareness of his nearness. And I think of Psalm 46, 10, which says, Be still and know that I am God. It's that stillness that opens the door to savoring. It's it's not just the external quiet, but it's that inner stillness. It's choosing to pause before responding, it's choosing to breathe his name. Isaiah 30, 15 tells us, in returning and rest you shall be saved. In quietness and in trust shall be your strength. So I think when we when we rest in his presence, that's when we begin to savor his peace. And I think there's so much beauty in that savoring that, like you say, Elizabeth, it leads us to gratitude. And so, how do you think that gratitude deepens our enjoyment of who Christ is?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I think gratitude has the ability to shift the focus from, like you were just talking about comparison and and it shifts your focus from what I'm missing, what what what is God giving someone else that he's not giving me, the jealousy, the comparison, all the things that can creep in our hearts that make us ungrateful. If we choose to shift our our mindset and our heart and our spirit to gratefulness and thanksgiving and to savoring who he is, I focus from what I don't have to what I've already been given. And God has has already given us his abundance. God has given him us every characteristic that we're talking about in this podcast, plus so many more in such complete abundance. But if I my gaze gets shifted off of who he is and who he is for me onto myself or my lack or my needs, then everything gets out of whack. I just can't live from that place of abiding in him if I'm focusing in on what's not there. And I think of a psalm, Psalm 104 says, Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. And there was a season in my life where I'll I'll be the first to admit it, you know, confession is good for the soul, right? Um, I am very good at grumbling and complaining. And some of that comes from this mindset I have of gift of profit mindset, where there's black, white, right, wrong, good, bad. And so it's very easy for me to get focused on the 1% that's not going well versus the 99% that is. And so I had a season in my life where I took this verse, enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise, literally. Because I was like, I need to retrain my brain to focus on the goodness of God all the time. And at the time, I was living in a place where I went in and out of city limits and county limits a lot. I do a whole lot less driving now because I work from home. But at the time, I was commuting a whole lot more. And I was like, okay, the Bible says, enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. And so every time I pass one of those, you are now entering, you know, so-and-so county, or you've entered the city limits of this town, I would think of one attribute of God that I was grateful for. And I would just, I would worship him, God, you are my. And I would pick a characteristic of God and I would praise his name at the city gates because we don't live in walled cities and we don't have gates like they had gates back in biblical times, but we do have gates. It's called city state limits, you know, whatever. And so for a while, that was a practice that I did. And I just realized as I was preparing for this podcast. Well, you don't travel quite as much, but you still run errands. There are some times that you could find yourselves at different gates. So maybe it's the entrance to my subdivision is a gate. Maybe the entrance to my street is a gate. So, how can I just start a mental practice and a heart practice where I'm going to savor and celebrate something about God, even as I'm on the go doing the mundane things of life? So I think gratitude is part of the way we get into deeper fellowship with him. Because I I know it's also true. I had a friend who was a marriage counselor, and he told me once, he's like, When I get a new couple in my office, I ask them, tell me three things you like about your partner. And if they can't come up with three things they like about their partner, I know they're in trouble. And I was like, hmm, file that away. There are times when I'm angry at my husband that I'm like, okay, I need to practice gratitude right now. And I need to think of three things that I like about him because my brain is shut down, my heart is closed off because I'm mad at him for something. And it gratitude is the way that we get back into deeper fellowship and appreciation with other people and with God.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's good. Elizabeth, there's a lot of rich ideas that you were just giving us there. And I think, you know, the the worshiping him at the gates and praising him and prayer and talking about silence and solitude and stillness earlier, all of those things are practices that help us savor Christ. That like we have to begin to do those things regularly, make those things a practice, a habit, create rhythms in our life so that we can savor, because I don't sit down at every meal and take a bite and savor it. Right. I I should be very grateful that I have food on the table, but I don't savor it. I would like to think that I enjoy a lot of it, but savoring is different. And I can think about that in the like in the food concept, right? Like taking a bite of something and enjoying it versus savoring it. And yet I'm also thinking about the times in our lives where I don't really know how to savor that he's my savior because I don't see him rescuing me.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, and and that's obviously difficult. And so I think I think we have to continue to have that daily hope. And again, I know that's easy to say, hard to do, but we are living in the already and not yet. We are still waiting for full redemption. Colossians 1.27 is a beautiful verse that says, Christ in you, the hope of glory. I think we have to have that daily hope and that confidence that is anchored to what's true. I I mean, I think that's what we come back to all the time when we talk about these characteristics. And we say, What if we're just not believing it? What if we're not experiencing that characteristic of who he is? Yeah. We have to cling to it's true, even if I don't feel it. Romans 8 says, for in this hope we were saved, but hope that is seen is no hope at all. We wait for it patiently, hoping for a messiah, hoping for a savior, like when we don't see it, takes me back to what we were talking about at the beginning of this podcast, what what people were experiencing under the rule of the Roman Empire. They they were longing. And I think today we are longing for a messiah. We are longing for rescue. And if your life these days or my life these days doesn't look like he is rescuing me, I have to cling to in order to get through it for me, I have to cling to the fact that he is a rescuer, even if I don't feel it.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know if you have any other thoughts to offer people, Elizabeth, but Yeah, I can't believe I hear what you're saying because I as much as we think things have changed, I don't think they have. Because all of us in some way or another are looking to either when something happens, then there will be hope. Whether that's, you know, I I get a job promotion or I or my finances get turned around, or my relationship with my husband gets better, or my kids graduate from college and get good jobs. Like we're we're always kind of hanging our hope on some circumstance that is beyond our control and may or may not ever happen. And I think the, you know, the people in in the biblical times are like, well, just if if the messiah will just come and as a military leader and come in and set up a new kingdom, then we will all prosper and then we will all be at peace. And if we're looking to anything other than the hope and the glory that Christ gives, it's going to crumble because it's not meant to hold the weight of that, as we've talked about before. But all of us, the the hope we have is that it is Christ in you. That verse you just read, it's Christ in you that is the hope of glory. We need to stop so much, myself included, looking for an external something to change. When this happens, then life will be easier. When this happens, life will will be more prosperous, or I'll have more peace, or I'll have more fulfillment, whatever that is, and realize we've already got Christ is already in me. Christ is already in you. We already have the hope of glory inside, but it is having to turn down the busyness, the distraction for me, the self-sufficiency that I'll try to do it all on my own. And when I need you, I'll call you Jesus. You know, it is staying in that living water, turning away from the broken cisterns, because it could even be good stuff that we're, you know, a ministry, helping other people, serving. Like there are things we try to fill our life with so that it feels hopeful and full. Not to mention, we haven't even brought up the fact the way that we want to be a savior for other people, because it makes us feel better about ourselves. It's time for us to slow down and savor the savior, understanding it wasn't just a one-time rescue. And it wasn't just a one-time rescue to so that we know where we're going to spend eternity, which is an amazing gift. That that would be enough. But it was a rescue so that we could go deeper and deeper into our relationship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00:And so, as you say that, Elizabeth, I'm thinking about what I need to begin practicing and paying attention to. And I and what I want to encourage all of us to do, which goes back to a wonderful proverb in Proverbs 423, where we are told, above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows from it. And so we have at some point in our lives hopefully had an affection for Jesus when he became our savior. As this world around us rushes and spins and is frantic and busy, Jesus invites us to savor and to linger. It's not about just acknowledging him as our savior, but it's to breathe in his grace, it's to feast on his word, it's to rest in his love. Salvation begins at the cross, but it continues every day because we have to choose every day to treasure Christ above all. And that's how we grow, and that's that that's that sanctification that that is continuing in us. And so we want to close with a blessing today, a blessing that we will receive as you receive it. And we hope that this season, that this week, that this time of year brings you gratitude, that you can practice gratitude, that you can savor your savior. And so we bless you now. May you know Jesus not only as the Savior who rescues, but as the Savior who satisfies. May you not only believe in his goodness, but taste and see that the Lord is good.
SPEAKER_01:May gratitude open the door to worship and thanksgiving become the fragrance of your love. May stillness become your sanctuary where his whisper quiets your soul. May you be still and know that he is God.
SPEAKER_00:As you wait for the blessed hope, the appearing of your great God and Savior Jesus Christ, may your heart be anchored in joy, and your hope burn bright in every season.
SPEAKER_01:May nothing steal your affection, but may your eyes stay fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith.
SPEAKER_00:And may your life overflow with the beauty of this truth. You are not only saved from something, you are saved for someone. He, Jesus, is your strength, your song, the Lord is your salvation.
SPEAKER_01:Go in peace and savor your Savior today and always.com. Be sure to follow us at the Father's Biz on Instagram and Facebook.
