An in-depth look at the Word of God, the Plays On Word community, and the Plays - with original music - we perform, that are based on the Word of God. New episodes drop Fridays at 7AM EST! To find out how Plays On Word Theater can perform 'LIVE on YOUR STAGE' and to support this missionary & podcast visit: https://playsonword.org/
"Today on Plays on Word Radio, we explore Psalm 139, discovering God’s intimate knowledge, personal thoughts, and purpose for us. Are you truly knowing God, or simply knowing about Him?"
We slow down in Psalm 139 and let it hit us as personal truth: God searches us, knows us, and has more thoughts toward us than we can count. We also challenge the gap between knowing facts about God and living in a real relationship with Him through the Word and prayer.
• Gearing up for the Genesis 'JOE' tour and expanded teaching beyond the play • Honoring Lydia DeRosa and Eddison Sainsbury and reflecting on longing for glory • Explaining the difference betweenknowing about God and knowing Him • Using the president analogy to show what relationship really means • Using the Kai Greene and Flex Wheeler story to expose false familiarity • Inviting listeners to reach out to God for a right relationship • Teaching how God speaks through Scripture and we respond through prayer • Reading Psalm 139 and highlighting God’s nearness and complete knowledge • Emphasizing God’s care in the womb and the value of human life • Ending with David’s prayer for God to search the heart and lead us
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Lord, you know you're now listening to play is the best. How precious to me are your thoughts, oh God? How vast is the sum of them? If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake and I'm still with you. Hold on a second. I gotta hit this pause enough. How how precious to me? This is David saying this. How precious to me are your thoughts, oh God? How vast is the sum of them? If I were to count them, they're more than the sand. Wait a second. So God, he has thoughts towards me.
Hello, and welcome to Plays on Word Radio, where we discussed, analyzed work, and play on the Word of God. Thank you for joining us on this excursion today. Let's join Pastor Teddy, also known as Fred David Kenny Jr., the founder of Plays on Word Theater, as he does a deep dive into the Word of God.
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Amen. Thank you very much, Josh Taylor and Katie Kenny, for that fantastic introduction. My name is Fred David Kenney Jr., otherwise known as Pastor Pastor Teddy, or sometimes my nickname is Pastor Book. That's a whole nother story altogether. I'm a big believer in getting the Lord to help you do what you're doing, doing it in his strength, committing your steps to him. And if you do that, hey, things don't go the way you want. You're not in charge. The book never got to my desk. Some of you historians will catch that reference. Some of you won't. Anyway, welcome to another edition of Plays on Word Radio. We are gearing up for our Genesis Joe tour we have coming up. And we're going to be doing Genesis Joe, and I'm really excited because for the first time, we're going to be doing while while we're doing Genesis Joe at my home church, we will be studying. And I'll be pre- excuse me. I'll be preaching and teaching on the on chapters 37 through 50 of Genesis. And that's where we find the story of Joseph. Minus 38, which deals with Judah. But we're going to be we're going to be dealing with this coming up to this, you know, at church. And I'm good, they're going to have messages on it every Sunday. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to share with you guys sections and parts from the messages. And then at the end of it, we'll play, we'll see if we can just play the whole Genesis Joe play for you. It'll take up more than one episode, but that's okay. We're looking forward to it, getting into that, get into the teaching aspect that we can't normally do during a play. We can go off into the weeds, rabbit trails, which I've become much better at governing myself, I should say, instead of just, man, if you guys would have seen me see me 20 years ago, I'd be off into weeds and be like, and then I look up and be like, you guys follow me where we are? And they're like, we have no idea what you're talking about. And I'm like, oh, sorry about that. So that doesn't happen that much anymore. A little bit better at governing myself in that, or maybe it's the again, past the buck. Maybe the good Lord is governing me again. I'm a big fan. Commit your steps and ways to the Lord.
Thank our dear sister who's in glory. Lydia. Yeah. She's there with the Lord right now. She she was a she she just prayed, prayed, prayed, prayed me into being able to stay focused. Lydia DeRosa. Yeah. We love her, man. She's uh you know, I'm I'm just that's that's there's a bunch of people I'm really looking forward to seeing in glory. And I just found out this week that my dear, dear, dear, dear friend, he's like an older brother to me. He passed Edison Sansbury, and he's just what a superhero he is, and just a kind, giving man that mentored so many people in the art of music production, the art of engineering, and just songwriting, structure. He's you know, I have I actually have a goal record with him. Yeah, and that I a song I I produced, and and he he jumped on it and got it into the hands of some folks. It's a secular song, but either way, yeah, with Edison, I I'm looking forward to seeing him in glory. Much of the quality that you hear on the podcast and my recordings and just everything, everything I do, much of that is rooted in my time spent with Edison up in New York, where he was just taught me about excellence and how to do things the right way. Top of the line, just the right way to do it. How to if you're gonna do it, do it right. This is what the pros are doing. Edison always knew what the the best was because he was one of the best. And so, hat tip to my man Edison, and I do look forward to seeing him in glory. I've I've prayed with him before and you know, shared the Lord with him, and he already knew what I, you know, he already knew what I was saying. So I'm just oh my goodness, I'm so looking forward to oh man, is any of you guys with me on that? Like the older I get, the more I'm looking forward to glory. It's like I don't know, man. I'm excited about life and what God is doing right now. It's like I'm in a at a basketball game or something, and it's the it's the third or it's it's going into the fourth quarter, and I'm just like, you know what, I want to go home, man. This has been great, and I'm excited, excited to see how it ends or see what happens here, but I can't wait to be with the good Lord, man. Just let's wrap this up.
But then the other part of me is like, oh no, you know what? There's so many people that don't know, don't know him, or just know about him and are not in relationship with him. There's a big difference, man. There's a big difference between knowing the Lord, or uh let me say rephrase that. There's a big difference between knowing about God and knowing about the Lord, having heard the gospel and and maybe even being able to articulate. There's a big difference between that and being in a relationship with him. There's a big difference. I'll give you an example. I know about the president of the United States, whether you're a Democrat or Republican, just humor me on this. I know about the president uh president of the United States, but I'm not in relationship with him, with the exception that I'm an American citizen. That's about it. I'm not in a I can't say, yo, hey, Mr. President. And he'll say to me, Hey Teddy, how you doing? How are you doing, Teddy? Millions and millions and millions of listeners. No, I don't have that, uh, Mr. President, yet. Uh maybe one of these days. That's the best podcast ever. Okay, all right. Anyway, that's a terrible impersonation. Forgive me. Do you understand where I'm coming from on that? Listen, I'm not in relationship with him. Big difference between me and his sons. His sons can roll up into the White House. How are you doing, Dad? And unfortunately, so many people, man, in this world are rolling through life not understanding that difference. They're thinking they're good because they know about the president or they know about God. And bodybuilding fan, I have I've been a bodybuilding fan since, man, I want to say 1984, man, when Lee Haney won his first Mr. Olympia. And a friend of mine had he had uh back issues of Iron Man and muscle magazines and all these, and and that blew my mind. And I was like, wait a minute, what's going on? And I just absorbed it all. So I'm a I'm a big time bodybuilding fan. Mr. Olympia is this weekend. This is the Super Bowl of of bodybuilding, and I'm gonna stream it. And I'm uh man, one of these days I'm gonna go. Why are you saying this? Why are you wasting time on a podcast about this? Okay, listen, let me explain this. Kai Green is a retired bodybuilder. He he came in second to Phil Heath in the Mr. Olympia. He was arguably, he's up there, like the top 20 bodybuilders, maybe of all time. Kai Green's up there. He's up there. He's yeah. And so is Flex Wheeler. Now, Flex Wheeler is my around my age, a little older than me, but he's that's my generation. Like if I was gonna go pro in bodybuilding or I was gonna pursue it back in the day, I would have been battling him and Ronnie Coleman and those guys. Good grief. Flex Wheeler was, and he's he came before Kai Green, okay? I don't want to confuse you here. Well, Kai Green, when he was coming up, a young guy, he he used to read the magazines just like me and all that. You know, back in the day, that's all we had. We didn't have Instagram, we didn't have YouTube. We had the bodybuilding magazine. So when the Mr. Olympia happened, I had to wait. I don't even think they at one point they hooked up a number that you could call to find out what the what the rankings were, but for the most part, it was you had to wait months, man. At least a month to find out who won the Olympia and what the you know, can you imagine that? Like today, it's instant. You can uh you can stream it. And so back to my story. Flex Wheeler was you know in the magazines, and this guy Kai Green, he was a young guy and just starting out, and he used to absorb the magazines and he used to read, put, put Flex Wheeler on his wall. I can relate to that. I had Rich Gasberry and Lee Haney on my wall growing up as a teenager and all that, and I had these bodybuilders on my wall. And so, but Kai Green, he explained this one time, he explained the first time when he was still an amateur coming up. First time he met Flex Wheeler. Now, you got to keep in mind, Flex Wheeler was on a on posters on his wall, cut out the magazines, and he'd been looking at him and just reading his articles for years. And now the first time he meets Flex Wheeler, he it's it he said it was the strangest thing for him because Flex did not know him. He knew Flex, he knew who Flex Wheeler was, and he was surprised because here he's he was acting like he is in a relationship with Flex this whole time. He's like, I mean, he's he said he, you know, he's on his wall, he would think about talk, read his articles and everything. And then when he meets him, he's expecting to like carry on the the type of camaraderie. And flex is acting like hello, how are you doing, sir? And it it it said it messed the it messed with him a little bit. He was like, oh, wait, uh, wait a second, oh wow, I this is actually the first time I for Flex. This was the first time he's meeting Kai Green, but Kai Green had already excuse me, been all, you know, all understanding Flex and read his articles, and he's like intimate with his thoughts and everything, man. But he knew about Flex, but he didn't really he knew a lot about Flex, but he wasn't in a relationship with Flex Wheeler, like a brother or or or coworker or cousin or where both communicated with each other. That type of thing. For flex, it was his first meeting. Okay, bring this back home, Pastor. Okay, follow me. For many people, they're gonna know about God, man. They have posters of God on on their wall, they have a they have a chain around their neck with a cross, and they can quote Bible verses. And this breaks my heart to say it, but for many people, they're gonna be first meeting God on the other side of this life, and that's not when you want to be meeting him. It's too late by then. You need to you you need to know him this side of this side of that flight. And many people are bewildered, looking like Kai Green was, a little bit bewildered, like wait, you don't you don't you don't know you don't know me? I mean I I I know all about you. But not in relationship with him, don't and there's a difference being in a relationship, and listen, if you don't know what I'm talking about, if you're like what I you know, what do I need to do? Listen, God is in the business of making himself known to people that want to know him. So if you just reach out to him and say, Lord, I want to be in a right relationship. I really I don't want to just know about you, Lord. I want you in my life, I want a relationship with you. He shouts through his word, he speaks through his word, that is his email, his text message to you. We speak back through prayer, and we also praise him and honor him and lift him up in our life, in our walk, our parapatu in the Greek. Yeah, the way the way we the way we live our lives actually speaks to the creator, and we can honor him, we can speak volumes in how we live our lives. But primarily our communication, that's how it works, is through prayer. Primary, the the the number one way of communicating is through prayer, and his primary mode of communication to us is his word, which has already been submitted, spoken to us. It's applicable to every breath we take in every aspect of our life, the word of God. You can it you'll find application throughout the word of God for any problem, any situation you find yourself in. It's complete. And it is Him. So you want to get to know God, get to know the Word. In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God, He was with God in the beginning, and this Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We can see how the Word of God acted when we look at Jesus, man, because He is the Word of God. So I just wanted to I wanted to share that with you. I wanted to encourage you in your walk with the Lord, and maybe, you know, maybe that's maybe it's not for you, but maybe that will help you share with someone else. You can use that Kai Green example or the president example. Just don't do the the bad impersonation that I did. Now, one of the things I wanted to do, and we're man, I'm kind of long-winded today. I talked a long time. One of the things I wanted to do was we're gonna get into and I'm gonna share next week, I believe, next week. Well no, we have something coming up next week. We'll see how it works out. But going forward, the next few weeks, we'll be doing Genesis Joe from the messages I'll be sharing. We'll be deep dive, not just necessarily Genesis Joe, it's a focus on Genesis Joe, but we will be deep diving into the Word of God and doing things we can't do during the play.
But what I wanted to do today, I wanted to look at Psalm 139. Because this came up at our morning fellowship we do for our church. On Wednesdays, we do a morning fellowship every Wednesday, coffee fellowship. And Psalm 139 came up, and it just struck me how how spectacular this Psalm is, how important this is. So I'm gonna read it. We'll read from the ESV this time. Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit and when I rise, you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down. You are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in behind and before, you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high, I cannot attain it. Where shall I go from your spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you're there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, your right head shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me shall be night, even the darkness is not dark to you. The night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. For you formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother's womb. Look at
that line. That should just smack anybody who's who's pro-abortion right there. I'm gonna read it again. For you formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I keep going now. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works, my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in the secret, or made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance. In your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me. When as yet there was none of them. Let me let me read that from the let me check out the NLT for a second. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book, every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. That's less cumbersome in the English for me on that, on that's that verse. Verse 17 How precious to me are your thoughts, oh God. How vast is the sum of them? If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake and I'm still with you. Hold on a second. I gotta hit pause on that. How how precious to me? This is David saying this. How precious to me are your thoughts, oh God? How vast is the sum of them? If I were to count them, they're more than the sand. Wait a second. So God actually has thoughts towards me. That's pretty heavy. The creator of the universe has thoughts toward you. Yeah, you can apply it. It's not like this only applies to David, man. These Psalms, this is written for us. All the promises are yes in Christ. Wow. Verse 19 Oh, that you would slay the wicked, O God, O men of blood, depart from me. They speak against you with malicious intent. Your enemies take your name in vain. Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with complete hatred. I count them my enemies. Then David says, Verse 23: Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Again, I'm not mad at the NLT on this one. This says, Search me, O God, know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts. Put out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life. Interesting, he starts out with, O Lord, you have searched me and known me. And he ends with, Search me, O God, and know my heart. Ties it all together. I mean, this is a beautiful psalm, this thing. And yeah, David breaks ugly, man, in verse 19 through 22. Because he is zealous for God. That's what it is. Zeal for the Lord has consumed me. Oh, hallelujah. I think we're out of time for this episode, but we're gonna check you out next week.
Until we meet again next week. May the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
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