The Mezzanine Floor
The Mezzanine Floor is a podcast that creates a space for conversations concerning the christian life as we walk out living in the tension between heaven and earth.
Join our host, Pastor Malachi Maillot and his guests as they wrestle with how we ought to live with a heavenly mindset in an earthly body.
The Mezzanine Floor
Season 3 Ep 1 - Make Room
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We’re back! In this episode of The Mezzanine Floor, we’re switching things up. From now on, we’ll be diving deeper into the messages shared during our Sunday services and having real conversations about what they mean and how they connect to everyday life.
Even if you don’t attend our church, don’t let that stop you from tuning in! We’ll include clips from past sermon series so you can follow along and be part of the discussion.
This week, Pastor Bryan, Pastor Malachi, Jaman, and Logan revisit our sermon series Make Room. Together, they explore what it truly means to create space for God in your daily life, and how to tell if you’re really making enough room for Him.
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As well as check out our church on Instagram and at KCC.net
Well, welcome back to the Mezzanine Floor Podcast. Uh, it has been a bit of a break for us. It's been a minute. Um, we've taken a pause and we've stepped back a bit, but we want to step into a new format. And uh, one of the things we're gonna be doing is uh, well, obviously, we're gonna have a few extra people on the podcast. We were typically doing interviews, we're kind of changing that up. Each month we're gonna be taking time to reflect on the current sermon series that our church has been going through, um exploring kind of different perspectives from different people. That's why we have different people on the podcast and just asking deeper questions on how we can go deeper than just a Sunday morning. I think typically uh we, you know, you go to a Sunday service, you hear a sermon, and you tend to forget what was said on the Monday or the Tuesday. And so our goal is to really just kind of do like a recap of the month. Uh, this month we've been going through the series called Make Room. Um, and maybe Brian, do you want to just kind of break down really quickly in like 30 seconds what has been all about? Yeah. You have 30 seconds to go. You have 30 seconds.
SPEAKER_05We are gonna make a 45-minute podcast episode about it as well. So that's true.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so we got some time. Uh in 30 seconds, make room really is about where has God been in your life? Um, what part have you actually made space for him? We talked about idols, we talked about goodness, we talked about God's grace, um, we talked about obedience, we've talked about a lot of things. And I think out of this conversation, even after looking back to the sermon series, I realized myself this had God just is not always in that space where I've made room for him. I've done a lot on my own. And I believe this series has really been challenging to a lot of people, including myself, on where that room has been. Have I made space for him to actually effectively lead my life? Time. Yeah, time 30 seconds is up. 32 fired.
SPEAKER_03We also know, like, uh, like if you're not a part of Kelowna Christian Center, please don't, you know, just shut off the podcast. Um, we'd like to invite you to come to our church uh if you want to come in person or if you just want to like check us out online. It's a really easy way to check us out. And you can follow us on YouTube, kcc.net. Uh, but yeah, we're gonna be jumping kind of into it today. And we do have some friends on the pod. I know uh we have Pastor Brian, who's been on the podcast before, as well as Jamin, who is our worship pastor. Uh, but we are gonna be having different faces on this podcast. So uh probably do switching it up each time we come on here. And we also have Logan, uh, who's producing our podcast, and we've got a camera for him. He's gonna be uh showing us clips of each sermon throughout the month, and then we're gonna literally ask that question, you know, just what do you think about that, and just share our perspectives on it.
SPEAKER_04So before we get into that though, we have an icebreaker.
SPEAKER_03Oh, we do.
SPEAKER_04Jamin, yo, we did not tell him about this. Um, on the spot right now, you have 30 seconds. Okay, tell us about your take on the Canada versus US hockey game.
SPEAKER_05It is truly too soon, and I will go on for way longer than 30 seconds.
SPEAKER_04Let me get let me get the timer going. So hold on. Okay. 30 seconds going now.
SPEAKER_05Um utter just heartbreak, tragedy, so just painful. Um, I mean, if you watch the game, a lot of people online, clearly, who are American, did not watch the game. They're talking like, oh well, you know, USA owns hockey now. Ten seconds. Um USA owns hockey, yada yada, all this stuff. If you think that, if you sincerely think that the USA owns hockey, you didn't watch the game because for the second two periods, I didn't even get into any of the teams. There was more. It's his birthday. It's his birthday, but it's his birthday game and here's more time. You know the props where props are due. They won the game. That's sports, sports variants happen, bounces happen, luck happens.
SPEAKER_03Like, yeah, isn't there just a saying that it takes hockey?
SPEAKER_05That's hockey. It takes one mistake that somebody capitalizes on for the game to go a certain direction. But man, Canada was all over the second and third period. There was like maybe three to four chances that the US had in our end. Like, they just didn't have the puck. We had the puck the whole game. So, I mean, it was it was tough. It was very I can't I still can't believe that we actually lost. One terrible. Good take. Oh man, we're not gonna be able to talk about anything. We just decided to wound up about hockey emotionally charged now. I have a lot of American friends that sent me that eagle destroying a goose photo, and if I have to see it one more time, I'm gonna have a meltdown.
SPEAKER_03Unfriends colliding or not.
SPEAKER_04You don't even watch hockey, shut up. Uh, I had uh I had a buddy who was throwing who was throwing chirps, and I was like, dude, you're literally from Texas. You're like the one state that does not do anything close to hockey.
SPEAKER_01Like, well, you do have a hockey team, Dallas, but that shut down when snow actually comes to their state. Yeah. Anyway, I think we should probably move on. All right, yeah, let's get into the segment.
SPEAKER_05Only me? I'm the only icebreaker who's gonna peed on like that. I'm just gonna be I'm just gonna be staring into the distance this whole podcast. Like that meme, the post-dramatic stress is so good.
SPEAKER_03Zoom in on Jamin's face.
SPEAKER_04All right, so the first clip we got uh is from the first uh sermon of the series, and it was Pastor Brody preaching on Mephibosheth. Had to put some work into saying that right. Um, and specifically the the section we're talking about, it was talking about where Mephib Mephibosheth lived, which was this place called Lodabar. Uh and Pastor Brody had kind of drawn some parallels between uh Lodabar and people who live in kind of like a helpless state in life. Um so yeah, uh that uh we'll just get right into it.
SPEAKER_00Now Lodabar, as I was saying, is not just a physical place, it's a figurative place. It means a place of no bread. How many of you know that you can be trapped in a place where you're just like constantly stirred but never satisfied? Lodabar is a place where there is no satisfaction. You're hungry but never fulfilled. You're thirsty but never quenched. Lodabar also means a pasture-less place. A place where there's no pasture. A place where nothing is growing, a place that life is in reverse, a place with no momentum. Everything is flat, and in fact, it's thinking backwards. Nothing takes root, and yet David's song is the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He leads me to what? Green pastures, filled waters, I feed, he restores my school. A rich, a lively, an expansive, a blessing. And I'm feeling like there's so many people who are living in this place of lodabar when there's just a place of blessing and an oasis for you and for everyone at all. And thirdly, it's a place where there's no communication. It's one thing to suffer. It's another thing to suffer with in silence, with no communication. And I feel like a lot of people are just in that place of hurt, in a place of pain. They're silent because they can't even explain it. It's a place of trauma, a place that's unexplainable, where I've dealt with things from my past, and I'm connected to the things that I don't even understand. So I don't even want to talk about them. And it's related to a place like where someone has let you down, or or or just life has let you down, and that silence is actually a symptom of shame.
SPEAKER_01That's really good. Very cool.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so I think the this place of Lodabar, like, um and the question I have for you guys is um like how do we engage? Because very much where our culture at is at right now is everybody, nobody's afraid to really like share what they're going through. Like you see a lot of that online, but nobody's really actually dealing with it and they're kind of accepting it. And that's where Mefibasheth was. Like he was just kind of resigned to being in Lodabar and living in that place of no hope. So, how do how do you how do we engage with that? How do we engage with our stuff in today's day and age and actually move from that place of being in Lodabar to living in green pastures?
SPEAKER_05I think um one really cool thing that he kind of went on, it's actually hard to say if he said it after or if it was within some of the cuts there, but he talked about how uh like he told a little bit of the story of Mephibosheth and how uh his nurse dropped him when he was young, and that that was how why he was lame in both of his legs. And then as time went on, like he would have been um part of the royal bloodline, being like the grandson of Saul, and when that all changed and David was put in place instead of Saul, that he was he ended up living and being like resigned to this place of shame, which like Lodabar symbolically kind of represents that and physically like was named that. Um, it was really cool the picture that he kind of painted as well, where like he didn't even he physically couldn't even leave Lodabar himself.
SPEAKER_03He was powerless to live because he couldn't walk.
SPEAKER_05He was in this place of shame, he was in this place of of kind of helplessness, brokenness, yeah, and completely unable to like pick himself up and get out of it. Yeah. Uh which is this really, really obviously really cool picture of the gospel where we are actually powerless over like our own salvation, we're powerless over the state that we actually uh like are born into and live in uh in regards to sin and in regards to living in the world. Um, and so I think like in regards to that question, like how do we engage? I think the only way that you can engage is to surrender and allow someone to pick you up and carry you out of that place because otherwise, like because we can't we can't like give ourselves healing from the areas where we were dropped. We can't give ourselves healing from you know, some of the like we obviously you take steps to walk through healing and to engage in that, but you have to like allow yourself to let go and surrender those things, um, put it down and then let somebody pick you up and and bring you into healing because you're powerless to do it just on your own.
SPEAKER_01And you get into that place where you feel so hopeless and you think that the silence means absence, that you're you're not hearing from God, you're so hopeless, you don't know what to do next, but you think that because you're not hearing from the he's actually not present when really he is, and because you haven't surrendered and because you haven't even got to that place where you say that rock bottom, and you kind of hit that place where the only way I'm gonna get out of this if I is if I look up and say, God, I need your help in that. But because we get into that place where silence, we think I mean we've all been in that place where oh, silence just means he's not there with me. Mentally, maybe I I have thought that, but in my heart, has it actually made it from here to here where I'm actually in my brain saying, God, I want to know who you are, and in this moment I just feel completely hopeless in that. And I feel like your silence means you're not with me.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think coming back to like even what Logan was asking, like even the statement like people are not afraid to share you know what they're going through. But I think it's also like it's masked what they share. Like I think people are too I think again, like when it comes to isolation and shame, like people are scared to actually go super deep with people and super deep with other people. So when he was talking about like isolation and silence can feel like when you're just isolated. And I think a lot of people are walking around in that place where they feel completely helpless, they feel like they're held down by shame, they're they're isolated, that they're the only one who kind of like deal with that problem, or that's what the enemy likes to tell people is like you're the only one who deals with this, you know, don't tell anybody about this.
SPEAKER_05They're stuck with your legs, yeah.
SPEAKER_03And and you have like you have people that are, you know, obviously are are maybe oversharing different areas of their life, but I think really to get down to what is actually going on, I think people are way too scared to share about that stuff, like the really, really deep, buried stuff that I think is covered in shame and covered in like just a space where they just don't feel like if I you know, if I share that, if I share that dark whatever I'm dealing with, or that deep place of shame, that people will cast me further away from them or or won't accept me, or or you know, just too scared to actually like open up and talk about that stuff. I think there's I think people talk about a lot of surface level stuff and they make it seem like well, you know, they're being open and honest. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And social media gives you the illusion that you're actually doing something by posting that online because then you get the likes and the hits, and oh, I'm so sorry, and everything's going on. And it gives you this illusion like you've actually accomplished something by sharing it out there, but really you've just kept surfacing, you've never actually gone deeper than that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, you can kind of get away with yeah, because you're sharing something, like because you're sharing some level of difficulty or pain or whatever it is, you get away with kind of like, oh, well, you you come so the other person comes away from that conversation feeling like, okay, well, that's like that's what they're going through. But uh, but it's really easy to do that, like to stay kind of like six inches below the surface rather than actually um getting into what you're really going through because it's like okay, I've shared, and that's like your ticket out of the conversation, your ticket out of the how are you really doing conversation is like well, you share this thing that's like a part of the truth, or maybe not entirely all of it, or whatever, and then it's kind of like your ticket out of that having to deal with it.
SPEAKER_03That's good. I think also people use the idea, so you talked about how Mothibos chef. Wow, what a part of it I'm not even gonna try and say mofibo chef, terrible, how he's lame and he can't walk. I think a lot of people actually like, and I want to be careful with how I say it, but like think utilize that as like a victim hood. And they they honestly like they use that as like a as a as an excuse to like just stay. Like, well, you know, this is just my life and this is just how I was, and I just deal with you know anxiety, or I'm just one who's really angry all the time, or that's just how I react to things, and people don't necessarily and you wear that, yeah. They don't ex they don't want to accept that I have to change, right? And I actually have to, you know, what you were saying to surrender all that, and to surrender isn't just to like you know bury it deeper, it's to actually expose it and s and be vulnerable and say, I actually need help. Yeah, and I think that people are scared, like we we're talking about this, um, like what counseling, like getting counseling. I think it's such a it's such a taboo uh thing is like, oh, if someone finds out you're getting counseling, you must be weak. You know what I mean? Like people are scared to feel or to be perceived as this weak person because yeah, needy. It's like, well, actually, that's where we're called to be. Not not in a sense of like, you know, this crying baby on the street that's just like helpless and can't do anything for themselves, but like I think it's it's being okay with not being okay.
SPEAKER_05Well, it's human to have needs, right? It's not weak to have needs, it's just human to have needs. Yeah. I think uh something that's interesting about some of that conversation too is like what David offered like part of what David offered to Mephibosheth was you will always sit at my table. And I think how that kind of ties to what you're saying is as well, is like the invitation is open, yeah, but you have to in you have to be willing to engage with the invitation. Christ offers us health and healing, um, and I think he does that through like community, he does that through things like counseling, he does that through like obviously through his word and through prayer and through times where you're um devoting like private time to him where he can bring healing. But there's so many other like ways that he brings healing, but you you have to accept the invitation. You gotta take your seat at the table. And if you just decide and choose to stay in Lodabar, um you can't expect to change. Like you can't expect to grow, you can't expect healing, you can't expect to to go anywhere or to have to kind of take your spot because you gotta you have to accept the invitation and take your seat at the table and engage with it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I think one thing that I've noticed that's kind of interesting in a lot of people too, is people and I think it's more common now, but there's a lot of people who have their stuff, uh, and it's kind of like what we're talking about is like the surface level, they're kind of addressing it not really. But then there's the people who like to the nth degree take it take on their stuff, and that's like their thing that for some reason now that they actually can't let go of.
SPEAKER_05Like they claim it over themselves, that's what becomes their personality, that's their identity.
SPEAKER_04And it's like they they can't let go of those things, it's like their precious thing. It's like it's like at that point you're like cutting out a part of yourself, is probably what it feels like to them. But it's it's it's so crazy to me because like we talk about we look at that story, like as Jamin was saying earlier, and David was saying, like, you have you have a C forever, like you you're at my table always, and there are people who'd be in that situation and would choose their their thing that they're struggling with over that. Like, I can't do that, there's no way.
SPEAKER_05Well, it becomes the idol. Have you ever had a thing like that? Like a thing that was like like a clear deficiency that's comfortable to hang on to because uh I mean, I think there's lots of reasons that people do that. Have you ever had one?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I had this something when I was early, early married. Someone had once said to me, Um Were you early married or married early? Married, early married, early married. We were probably only when our first ten years of being married, and I was a really angry, angry guy. Um, and I kind of masked it a little bit, and then someone had said something to my wife that she relayed to me one time. She's like, Oh, um, you're she says, someone said she said, Oh, he's really belligerent and really like opinionated and angry, and just was kind of like, Is how is he always like? And that's like, well, that's not what I see all the time, all the time is the key word. But I remember after that, I actually wore that almost like a badge of honor for a while. And that that because that person saw it in me, even though it was wrong, I was angry for no reason. I was being belligerent and rude and disrespectful. But I remember wearing that, like this is this is who I was, and and it became my identity for a long time. That's just how Brian is. But it wasn't who had God had made me to be. But I for years I wear wore this map, this mask of anger, of bitterness, of uh unforgiveness. I just harbored it.
SPEAKER_05And maybe not like a badge of honor, but like maybe something to like excuse certain behaviors or excuse certain behaviors, or that's just how we is because it's more comfortable than changing, it's more comfortable than engaging with the process of you know and then having to face your own why are you like that, or it's like you you justify it, you use that as a justification for like certain actions to get you know certain things that you want, right?
SPEAKER_01So and I that's it that's a hundred percent right. You use it to get to where, well, I want that thing, my wife has it, or someone that's close to me has it, and I will just be this way and they'll just give it to me. Yeah, and it became so comfortable until I had someone point that out to me more than once. It took me a while, and then the Holy Spirit had to break me down piece by piece by piece. But what you said earlier, both of you, is that you have to face it, and that is uncomfortable to find out why you're so angry and why you're so belligerent and why you're so frustrated, and why that's so deep-seated in you to actually face that stuff is extremely hard. And it wasn't like one moment after church at an altar call, fixed it all. It was like years of having to work through and wade through the weight, wade through the the anger, wade through like apologize to my wife for being such a jerk. Like, just like I can't believe how rude I was to her early on in the relationship. But to have to go back and to face all those things, you're just like, whoa, it's weighty.
SPEAKER_05It's like a deeper thing, too, because you have to realize that you have like whatever the problem is, like you have if you have anger problems, you have to like acknowledge that you have anger problems, but then there's a deeper level of like, oh, I've actually been like leaning on my anger problems and using like, oh, that's just the way that I am as an excuse for the behavior. Yes. And you have to be able to come to a place where you realize, like, oh, not only do I have anger problems, but it's like I'm like embedding it into my personality as an excuse for like behaviors that are comfortable um to get things that I want or whatever in social situations.
SPEAKER_01And then one at one point it came across, how am I gonna raise my kids like this? Right. Yeah, and that was kind of one of those things I'm like, holy moly, if I'm often just like the behavior of it too.
SPEAKER_03It's like a symptom of something. Yeah, it's it's all it's anger is not like your problem, like there's something that you're you're dealing with on a very, very deep, deep level. And it's the same thing with like being lame. Like you can't, it's almost like it happened to him. Like he didn't drop himself as a baby, but he was like, and then for him, like it was something that was physical, but I think for a lot of people it's something that's like happened, like it's a trauma that happened to them. And then obviously for you, like the outlook was anger. And I would say that's the same thing in my life. That's like it was like something that's was not on the surface. Like, if it's not on the surface that you can just be like pinpoint and be like, Oh, that's why I'm so angry. It's often something deep, and that's why you have to like allow yourself. To be uh vulnerable and talk to people, and you can't just and that's like what coming back to that isolation. I think God gives us church community. Oh, I agree. Not just to like, you know, feel good and have buddies. Yeah, have buddies. It's like, okay, he's like it may not be everybody in the church, but you're going to find like God's gonna bring certain people in your life, and it may be a counselor to actually start to like help you heal, you know, those deeper places and challenge you in certain ways, yeah. Yeah, and it's gonna be uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_04I love how like it's kind of because I think when you can look at a topic like this, it's really easy to kind of default to like people like mentally can kind of like you can kind of go to like oh you know, the problem is anxiety, the problem is depression, the problem is this. When it's really it can be more than that, like it can be anger, it can be pride, it can be so many more things than what we can just kind of like confine it as, and like loud symptoms, it can be really loud symptoms, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I I would say just be like that pride and anger go hand in hand, in my opinion, just because you get to the place where well, I think probably a lot of things with are attached to pride, but you get so angry, and that becomes part of your personality or part of how you respond to things, but you won't let it go because you're like, Oh, I'm gonna hang on to this, and pride gets in the way from actually making steps to release that. Is it it it tells you even what you said earlier? We we don't want to feel like we're weak, right? Like my personality is very much, I can do this on my own, I don't need help. So it's a like an effort for me to like lay that stuff down before the Lord and me, God, I need your help with this. And so pride gets in the way so easily.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so this next clip uh is Pastor Brian preaching, and he is talking about God's goodness and whether or not God is good, which is a faithful old question of all time. I feel like in church, like, is God good? And uh there's this one quote that we're gonna hear right at the beginning here, uh, where Pastor Brian says, God's goodness is not scarce. So let's get into it.
SPEAKER_01God's goodness isn't scarce, but sometimes our hearts are crowded. God's goodness isn't scarce, but our hearts are crowded. God isn't holding out on us, we're just full, and sometimes we're full of the wrong things. Sometimes we're just full. And so this is the this is you can't receive what you refuse to make room for. And so oftentimes we say this in church God is good, but I think that in our heart we have to get past the fact that God is good all the time, I get it. But we don't use it as just a slogan that we say as a Christian buzzword. That it's actually something that's built in our heart that we believe with all of our heart and all of our soul and all of our mind and all of our strength that God is good.
SPEAKER_05All the time.
SPEAKER_01The church was really responsive to that God is good all the time.
SPEAKER_03All the time. All the time, God is good.
SPEAKER_04I think it's Pastor Brown, you say this one a lot, but uh the longest journey, I think, to something to that effect. The longest journey is the distance between your head and your heart. Um like in such an age-old question, is God good? Like, is God good? That's really all I got. Is God good?
SPEAKER_05The uh later in that sermon, I think you also talked a bit about like we like you were kind of talking about how fickle we can be concerning God's goodness and his faithfulness. It's like, you know, well, I prayed one time and God didn't show up, and like, so he must hate me. Yeah, or like he must not be real. Yeah, and I don't want to make light of people's um where they're at. Well, pe I think a lot of people, a lot of people who are like loud atheists used to be in church and were let down at some point by either by people or or they perceived to have been left down by God, or they like they had this expectation of you know a breakthrough or a healing that didn't happen, um, or maybe they were hurt by somebody in the church or whatever, and then it kind of leads them down that whole path of like questioning God's goodness. Um and I think it's probably like tough to challenge people, maybe in that way, but it's like okay, like you know, you have people often say, like, well, I was really seeking God for this thing, or I prayed God to God for this thing. It's like, okay, well, what did that really like if we're honest with ourselves, what did that look like? Like, to what level of devotion were you really in prayer over that? Like, did you just kind of pray one time? Right. Um, I think that can happen sometimes. Uh on the flip side of that, people can definitely have like real letdowns and have real things in their life happen where they they didn't see it coming and they think, like, well, I've I've been faithful to God and He, you know, and the person that I've been praying for healing for died. Like, that's my testimony. Yeah. And like we've had people who we've prayed for healing pass away. So I think that's part of the um part of the dynamic as well, though.
SPEAKER_02So yeah.
SPEAKER_03Well, you you had said the age old question is God actually good, but my brain went to like, you know, how can how can God be good and allow you know all the the things that we see and like you're saying, like our things happening? Like, how can I pray for healing for somebody and feel faith, like real faith, that they're gonna be healed and they're not healed. But it's like I think it comes down more to the question of our definition of good and what we think is good and what we think is best is often uh disconnected what with what God think is best. What God thinks is like He thinks outside of what we think, and he it's like I can't remember what verse it is, like um it's like beyond our understanding. Right. Like we we actually can't fully uh fathom uh who God fully is. There's a book I think we were talking about the knowledge of the holy. That was true. Yeah, that book like broke my brain because he was talking about like God's holiness, and it was like he had he had kind of mentioned in the book like there's there's not really a a human word that can fully describe uh who God is. Because we have to always remember that we are finite and we're uh limited, and we're limited in our thinking. We're limited to really what our experience is of life, and we have we have an experience, and that's what we kind of base our truth off of. That's kind of what we base our our like our foundations off of. And that's why I think it's so important, and that's and that's why we have so many problems because people just base their truth off an experience when really we're supposed to base our truth off of something much deeper, which is the word of God. And when it comes down to like, is God good? Well, does his word say it? And and what does his word say? And that's why it's so important to go back to word because our experience is gonna lie to us every single time, right? Um, and to kind of come back to, you know, you know, you pray for someone that they didn't get healed, but it's like, well, did they get healed? Uh uh maybe did they get healed on this earth or are they healed when they go to heaven? And that's a and that's a perspective we have to kind of wrestle with. Like, are there a tension there for sure? There is a huge tension in there, and it's obviously like we are never going to come to a conclusion on every single thing that we see in the Bible or that we see on earth. We're never gonna be able to fully answer all those questions, but we do have to wrestle with that fact that we don't have the full picture and we never will have the full picture, right? And it's like it's like the rope analogy where you have like a rope that you can't see the end of. Say we say we drag a rope from Vernon all the way to Penticton, and we stand in Kelowna and we can't see the end of the rope, but we know the rope is going for a long way this way, and we know the rope's going for a long way this way, but we can't, and that kind of like represents eternity, and you've probably seen this in a sermon before. And then you have like a little piece of tape, and it's like this little like blip in eternity is our is our life, like our entire existence is in this little like tiny little piece of tape, and like we have like the rest of eternity with God. Um, and I think we get so caught up in like he needs to be healed now or she needs to be healed now in order for God to be good. But it's like, well, what if God had different plans? And it's like the the the pot asking the potter, right? There's that verse how how like we're not gonna ask the potter why you made us this way, he's just gonna make us, and we have to trust that his good intentions were there for us.
SPEAKER_05I feel like there's a couple parts to that. Like, I think um, like in part, we absolutely like I think that we can absolutely say God is good. Yeah, uh, like I think the word teaches us that, and I think that his faithfulness in our lives can inform us of that as well. Yeah, and I think that where there's uh a tension and a little bit of a difference is like our life experience can inform our views on God, but I think we have to be really careful that they don't define that's right our views on God because our V our experience and the ups and downs and the like life is challenging, life is not easy. And if I think if we like if we allow like the things that happen to us, our experience in life to define who God is, that's where you get led down that lane of like, okay, well, ABC thing didn't happen, so God must not be real or not love me or whatever. But um, but then on the flip of that as well, like we've experienced God's goodness, we've experienced his faithfulness to us, so it can inform our our our view and our thoughts on God, and of course it will. Like, of course, it's like wow, I've seen your goodness, I've seen your faithfulness. Every single time hasn't looked the way that I hoped. Yeah, every single time that I prayed didn't shake out the way that I wanted. Um, but we then don't let that experience define God. We have to let the word define God and let things where He acts in our life and in faithfulness and in goodness towards us let that also inform us about that that that quality of God's character, but then not let the negative experiences like redefine it. You can't like allow those negative experiences to just flip the tables and be like, well, God's not real. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01Well, and if you're looking at it from uh the perspective of even a father, um, just because I had to correct or adjust something on my kids when they're younger doesn't mean I have any less love for them or I have the goodness in mind or their their purpose in mind for it after. And I think the the thing that if you read through all the way through scripture and you read all of what Jesus did, all of how God blessed his people, all of it was in care of people's soul. His first, his oftentimes his first response and Jesus' first response was he would care for the person and their salvation and their soul before he would care for the physical need. And so oftentimes for myself, I had to start looking at it differently. Like, Lord, if you were to give me $10 million, how would I honestly be able to handle? Would that corrupt my soul? Or are you it's not like the Lord's that's a big thing, but that's a prayer we have Lord I want all the finances in the world. But if Lord, I want you to look at He's looking after my soul, he's looking after my peace, he's looking after my my restoration and my wholeness. And so when we're looking at the goodness of God, yes, it's good, but sometimes we're like, well, I didn't wasn't able to pay my cell phone bill this month, but you on the other side of those things, what kind of character was built in you? Well, you're working through your budget, or you're working through the struggle, you're working through the lack thereof. It's completely different in in North America than it would be in like Kenya, where they just don't have as much as we have. And so we're looking at this as a God is looking after my soul, wants my heart, wants me to be able to offer to him. And those things in my mind always come before that's not that he doesn't want my physical needs looked after. We scripture I think I used even in this sermon is God is a good father who gives good gifts to his children, he loves us and he cares for us. But even those gifts that he gives us are more about the soul and the heart and living for him than it is really about hey, I did I get a Lamborghini because I was praying for one.
SPEAKER_05So the confinement is how like who's goodness? Like, how are you defining goodness? Absolutely.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I think as well, um like we can look at things like like when it comes to people dying and praying for people, and it's like, God, like why didn't you heal them? I feel like that can actually be somewhat of an unfair weight to put on God, like that it's a question of his character now because he didn't fix this thing in this moment. I remember listening to this pastor, and he was talking about um growing up, like he had a bad relationship with his dad, and his dad was just a deadbeat dad, wasn't there? Uh and probably like five, seven years ago, his dad had passed away, and so he went to his dad's funeral. Had no context really for who his dad was, his dad left. Uh, and he said it was the weirdest experience because I'm there and I know who my dad was to me, but something still felt off, like something felt wrong. And there's because of the state of our world and the things that are going on, like we intrinsically know, I think, to a degree, like what living was actually supposed to be like. Like, uh, he described it this way where he said, um like something during the fall of man, like something broke within us, but creation is still in us, like what life was supposed to be is still in us, like and we know it, and that's cool. We see that later on in the gospel too, or in the works of Paul, where he says, like the law is written on man's heart, like we know what life is supposed to look like. Uh, and so I don't think it's it's not wrong for us to desire that either. But um the thing we also have to reconcile at the same time, and we see this in the book of Job, where Job is going through all this stuff, like all these terrible things, and he he calls out God and God says, Are you did were you the one who put the stars in the sky? Were you the one who put the fish in the sea? Like he goes through the like it's probably like three chapters. He's there when I laid the foundations of the earth, yeah. Yeah, yeah. He describes this whole process. Oh, wait, no. Uh no, which is not God like placating Job or saying, like, I'm better than you, but he's saying that there's so much more going on here that you can't see. Yeah. And and it's hard for us in our very finite view of the world and how things work and what we see, because uh really a lot of it is right in front of us, and it's we got we got like the horse blinders on. All we can see is what's really right in front of us, and that's not wrong or bad, that's just what it is. Um, but we have to humble ourselves at the same time and be like, okay, there's there's one who's greater, there's one who knows what's happening, there's one who who knows what the end is gonna look like, and he's he's getting us all there.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of times too, we like you're saying with the horse blinders, like we only see the situation that's right in front of us, and often, not always, but often down the line, you can look back on like seasons of uh like time, like maybe seasons of disappointment where it didn't feel like God was answering your prayer or whatever, and you realize, like, oh, actually, God built my character in this in this way through that time and that period. You always think of it after, yeah, yeah, no, yeah, totally. Like years later, you realize, wow, actually, that really difficult circumstance hadn't happened, you know, my relationship with God would have never grown to the degree that it did. Like, that was a source of depth of care of character for me, and on and on. And thing, and I think um I don't want to skip ahead too far. Maybe I'll use this as a segue to Jeff. One of the things that Jeff said uh this past week, uh talking about um making room was um there's some lessons in life that God can't teach you when things are good, yeah. Which is like heavy and so true. So good. Like you can't, if your whole life was peachy and rosy, why would you need them? You don't you lose lack, you have a lack of need for God, and you and where does your faith ever have to come in? Yeah, yeah, it it takes oftentimes it takes difficult circumstances for some of those things and some of those lessons to be learned in your life and for God to really help you to grow and deepen your character. Totally.
SPEAKER_04And I think with that too, like what I see, what I've been really seeing a lot in my life is that um is that God doesn't just dump all this information on you, like all the stuff that you need to do, or whatever it is, what the change, the growth, all that, like it's mixed in with like going through hard times, and that's when we learn, but it's also like there's straight up like there's just seasons where you're not ready to receive something that God is trying to tell you. Um, and there are better times where you're more willing to listen, or you actually see the thing, or you're experiencing that hard time, and that's when your heart is like in that place of like, okay, God, like what are you saying to me? But um I think that's what what I see throughout life is like that's how God operates, is like it's not He just doesn't give it to you because you need it, but He gives it to you when you need it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's good. It's like the season of preparation where David was anointed as like a young man in his youth by Samuel, kind of almost like in secret. Like Samuel was kind of scared to go anoint him because Saul was still king. Yep. And then he still like goes about his whole like his life as he's like goes back to being a shepherd and goes back to sending his parents' flock. And there's this like extended period where um where we see him deepening his relationship with God in the field, writing all a lot of the songs that we read in the Psalms, um going through what's that killing giants, killing giants, leading the mighty men, yeah, all of these serving Saul, exactly, being in his house to the point where it's literally physically dangerous for him to be there, and he never actually like he has so many opportunities when he's on the run to kill Saul.
SPEAKER_03I mean, like I'm he could have said, Well, I'm anointed as king, so this is my opportunity. And he could have like like put his heat, like if we're talking about like the human blinders on, yeah, like this is my experience. Saul's trying to kill me. Samuel has anointed me as king, and so maybe this is my moment to kill Saul and take my what I'm supposed to be like walking in and what God anointed me for. And he just he chooses the opposite. He chooses like to allow God to make the moment happen.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, chooses to honor Saul and not to expedite the calling. Yeah, like not to expedite the calling.
SPEAKER_04Uh, this next clip is from Jeff from his sermon from last week. Uh, and it actually kind of ties into this last point. So Jamin's segue was absolutely beautiful. Uh, but there's this one quote that I'd written down um that Jeff had said, and he says, obedience often feels pointless. So let's watch the clip.
SPEAKER_06Obedience often feels pointless until it feels powerful. Right? Obedience is that faithfulness that we were talking about in the small little things, and faithfulness isn't exciting a lot of the times. Faithfulness is just walking it out with God every single day in obedience, saying, okay, God, yeah, we're gonna walk this out. Had Naaman done it six times, it wouldn't have worked. If he had to do it seven times. And I'll speak for myself, but I think some other people will identify this. Sometimes we just want to do the minimum requirement. Right? Okay, God, what do I need for my healing? What's the bare minimum? That's the trouble that that Israel had gotten into with God. Right? They were walking in his grace in the desert, they were walking in all these things, and God offered them relationships, and they're like, no, just give us the laws that we need to be good with you. And God designed them so that we couldn't fulfill them to make us realize our dependence on him. The obedience is getting beyond myself. Because partial obedience, it'll keep me close to breakthrough, but it won't ever keep me in it.
SPEAKER_03Shout out to Jeff for absolutely slaying it this Sunday. Yeah, such a good thing. We need to get Jeff on the roster for sermons every single month. That last line he said, get him on the pod, get him on the roster.
SPEAKER_04That last line he said too, where like um uh what was it? You you can stay in breakthrough or something like that. Partial obedience, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Partial obedience will keep you close to God, but never in won't keep you in.
SPEAKER_05Partial obedience won't keep you close to breakthrough, but it won't keep you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're all having brain lapses today. That's okay. Helping each other out.
SPEAKER_04I feel like that's that's that's a huge statement. And honestly, what we've been talking a lot about today, where it seems like a lot of these things that we're facing, a lot of like life is seasons, it's growing, it's moving towards things that's never instantaneous. I I don't even really have a question for this, but this is more just an observation where it just seems like man, like we're life is seasons. We go through seasons of healing, we go through seasons of hurt, we go through seasons of hard times, we go through through seasons of good times. Um but much to the contrary of what society is like putting forward um like instantaneous gratification, uh getting whatever you want, um, AI stuff, like instant, instant, instant. Um, it seems like the way God has set up life is it's a lot more gradual. It's a journey, really. So what do you guys think about that?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, the picture of like the seed too. Like um you don't just get an apple tree, like there's a there's a process. The seed has to go in the ground, be hidden for a time, die. Pretty much absorb the water and the nutrients that it needs before it can sprout, before it can work through the stages of its life cycle to actually become. something that bears fruit. Whereas like you know what we want is the microwave thing. Yeah. I gotta eat this quick. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Gotta get things quick. Gotta get rich quick. That's what I thought about when uh like a powerful statement was like the minimum re like faith required was like so relevant to I think our culture and how most of humanity operates is like we have this idea of like and and meanwhile everyone who's successful tells tells you like I didn't just get I didn't just overnight like wake up become a millionaire or I didn't just overnight have this breakthrough in my life. It was often years and years and years and years of struggle. But what we what we like to hear is you know type this prompt into AI and it'll tell you how to make you know a million dollars in a year. And we're like we latch on to those things so heavily because it's it's this get rich quick scheme. And I think that a lot of the times we implement that into our faith or we you know I think we implement it into our relationships too sometimes where we have all these surface level relationships that we kind of just we maintain with the minimum required effort right uh and if you do that with so like what you can get out of it. Yeah like you do that with your spouse for me like you're not gonna have a very great marriage if it's like if it's a five minute a day check-in and say she wants to you know she wants to talk about her day and you're just like you have something on your on your mind or your brain and you go to her and you give her the five minutes and you're like okay we're good now. All right now I'm gonna go do what I wanted to do. And I think we oftentimes treat God that way 100% I've treated God that way where it's like I have a problem and I need it fixed and I'm going to you know I'm gonna pray and if it doesn't happen it's a disappointment. And I think we had talked about that a little bit in that finite idea of our mindset but it's so much more in that sense of you know obedience and faithfulness. I love that he said um obedience I heard my mind obedience isn't sexy like obedience isn't this like amazing like flashy exciting like it can be there parts of it can be exciting when when you see God moving in like a big moment or but those are those are few and far between because if we just if that's what God wanted we would get stale to it if it was just big moment after big moment after Christian culture even yeah like humans have an easy time glorifying like the big thing on stage with the lights and the whatever like the big flash loud kind of moments we don't do always the best job of like of glorifying like the guy that's just been faithfully coming to church and giving a tithe and like praying for people and like coming in early coming in early and serving the church like yeah we or even just coming and being a part of the body either like we don't do a good job of making much of of that part of life when that is 99% of faith.
SPEAKER_0599% of faith is the small daily faithful stuff that's not on stage it's not in front of people.
SPEAKER_01And I think the thing about obedience too that's often not talked about is oftentimes before you get the breakthrough because of the obedience there was a ton of sacrifice that came before that. Absolutely and we don't like the sacrifice because it actually requires us to sac to sacrifice to give up something to it's not comfy it's not comfy to change a mindset to die to self and one of the questions I actually had written down for this segment for Jeff that this is for help my brain flow in here was what if the Lord never gave you the thing that you were we're asking for would you continue serving him and I was like I've had a lot of prayers in my lifetime that haven't been answered and there's been times where I've not wanted to serve him because of it. Like honestly we're just like nah sorry Lord you're you're not making this easy on me and so I don't want to do it even back to what you're saying our social media culture is all here's five steps to your freedom here's five steps to you to make a million dollars here's five steps to blah blah blah blah blah blah and we've actually steps we we've built that into our our church culture when really what we're trying to teach our church is that is no it's a steady committed faithful loving relationship that actually requires sacrifice on your part to serve the king that the the that he's called us to do in his life or into our life what he's called us to do. So us just one day showing up it doesn't say like when you see Pastor Malachi or Jeff preaching but you see Pastor Malachi preaching on a Sunday back to what you're saying it's 35 minutes that he preached doesn't show the hours of prayer and study and and work that went into preparing that little bit what the worship team does on a Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_05Well mine was like 55 minutes but it's also a lifetime of faithfulness too absolutely like it's also it's not even just the week the time that week you took to prepare it's also like like imagine um imagine reducing past a sermon that Pastor Dave worked to preach into like well what was he talking about for that 40 minutes but it's like it's not just even the time that he spent to prep for that sermon. It's like a lifetime of like 40 years doing ministry that you're that you're receiving from as well right walking in faithfulness walking and being faithful to his marriage walking and being faithful to his ministry.
SPEAKER_04That's like so easy to not think about and take for granted yeah I was watching this um clip from uh it was Jeremy Riddle and he was talking uh about worship leaders and he was he was saying he's like it's really easy to like look at a worship leader and be like wow that person's so anointed they're so good at what they're doing um like they they just have a gift and it uh he was saying but like you don't of kind of what we've been saying it's like you don't know all the prep that went into getting there. You don't know about the demons that he's wrestled in order to get on that stage and the things that he's going through right now. Like he looks great and he's singing well but like you don't know what he's actually dealing with on a day to day basis.
SPEAKER_03I think it also doesn't require a stage to showcase that and faithfulness too because I think often we think we we associate favor and God's favor and God's blessing and to a stage or to like the flash or to like you know there's so much going on that person's life and like you know we could we could pick apart everything in that because you know you look at guys like that are not on stage for a church you look at guys like Justin Bieber and you could complain like well how are they so successful it's like goal God gives gifts but he doesn't it doesn't mean that that person has you know God's favor. They're actually walking in faithfulness and you look at the guy who just shows up to church every Sunday who's praying every every day he's reading his word every day he's meeting for coffee with people every week you don't see that right but that guy probably is walking in more faithfulness and and more favor on of the favor of God in his life than the guy on stage that's like you know preaching and charismatic but it doesn't it doesn't take a stage to have to like showcase those things because we actually have to be able to look at those things.
SPEAKER_05Well and the greater reward is also always for the person that's doing the unseen thing. Exactly like when Jesus is with the disciples in the temple and the lady came comes in and gives the two pennies or whatever. Yeah like she actually gets the greater reward because she's giving everything yeah whereas like the guy that's doing the big loud like making a show of all of his donation to the temple is like that guy's getting his reward right now in the attention that it's giving him yeah so that's kind of terrifying.
SPEAKER_03And I don't think the stage the stage the stage isn't necessarily like a bad thing either. Like it's like if God gives you influence you and but he also says like be careful yeah like you will actually be judged more harshly because if you do something on that stage that causes someone to be led astray or you you're a you're leading on a platform you're teaching a uh you know you're teaching and preaching and you're leading a uh and shepherding a like a church like there's so much more weight on that and so it doesn't it doesn't mean you have like the only way to be you know quote unquote looking like you're being faithful is you know leading a church or being charismatic but it can look in it look way different faster exactly it doesn't have to always just end up you doing ministry yeah like you can do ministry in your job your nine to five like week week in week out that's could be that's your ministry and your first and foremost ministry when you have a family that's your ministry. Right.
SPEAKER_01And I think that the church hasn't done a really great job all the time and myself too I think back to some of the sermons I preached years ago and I'm like that that yeah I don't like to look at my old sermons that's yeah no but it that the idea being that we oftentimes preach this in order for you to be called by God has to be this massive overarching thing and you're gonna change the world and that's how sometimes we we come across on stage and I actually had my brother in law and my sister challenge me one time. They're like what about those that aren't called to that but they're called to business and to take care of their family what about the guy whose whole like that that are called to be the janitor of the church or the janitor of the school that faithfully showed up every day, took care of the kids took care of the school took care what about them what and there's a statement I heard from a pastor say you're talking about prayer and I'm I'm gonna kind of expand on this is that the prayer is the heat you you feel but you never see I would say the faithfulness the the faithfulness the commitment the tithing the generosity the love the care is oftentimes in church and in my life the heat that I feel but I never see them doing that. Right. And they're the the actual heroes of church is not as the ones that come in and wrap up with uh faithfulness and commitment the guy that you say there shows up for 40 years that just tithed faithfully lived his life faithfully prayed for us faithfully it's not we we need those people that are are doing it.
SPEAKER_03I think we also limit it too to like like you were saying church has kind of done a poor job and I think we've even church has done a poor job eliminating limiting limiting faithfulness to serving on like a Sunday. Yeah absolutely right like we and we often will default to that because that's obviously it's there's super relevant like it's super relevant to what we're talking about on a church Sunday sermon um and stuff that we're kind of like where as staff we're we're trying to maintain these areas of the church and and we want our church to grow but at the same time it's not limited to just serving on a Sunday morning. It's good like you can you can serve God by serving your wife and getting up earlier for than her and get bringing her coffee or cleaning the house or tidying up whatever after the kids or or whatever that looks like you can serve your boss by just faithfully showing up and doing the work. Like that could be faithfulness. And that's why uh in the in in the Bible it talks about um in everything you do like in every like in everything you do as unto the Lord. It's it's not necessarily like you know I'm gonna go gambling for the Lord. Like that's that's a way way different topic but like in everything you do as far as like what God is giving you to Stuart yeah are you faithful.
SPEAKER_05That's good. I I think too when like when Jesus said uh multiple times Jesus said I tell you the truth they've received their reward and the people that oftentimes are like on stage or like doing the public thing the like the trick or like the sneaky um what's the kind of the word that I'm looking for the the lie in that is like because you it's hard not to feed off of that sometimes. Like I think that people who have like people who do ministry on stage you have to like really guard over your heart in that way that that doesn't become where you're getting any sort of like identity or fulfillment from. Totally. And I think that when Jesus says that it's like actually the greater reward is for the person who's kind of like behind the scenes and not public not in front of everybody not doing the loud thing because it and it not it's not that every person that obviously serves on a stage or serves in front of people is like they all are have a corrupt heart. Obviously the three of us serve on stage and but we also strive to guard our hearts like I like we the three of us each faithfully like seek after the Lord in in like shut the door like it says and seeking after the Lord in our own time and having that the time where we're serving publicly not become our identity not become the place where we gain um you know worth or value from and um but the that's I always thought that was really like as a as a kid I thought that was kind of scary. It's like oh man yeah if you're if it's like yeah hey man if that's where you're getting your your value and your worth from you've already received your reward. You're not getting nothing from me in heaven because you already got it.
SPEAKER_01I would say that the the danger of being on stage is not the ones that are critiquing you. It's the ones that keep telling you how good you did. They're the ones that that will be like and you start to believe believe in your own press. Yeah you start believing oh man I'm doing really good when the reality is I actually need my team I need people that are close to me to tell me hey where did I miss the mark here?
SPEAKER_05Yeah how well did I preach this did I actually do a good job did I come across and that I don't want to believe my own press because that like how great you are shout out Val Alon Val and I were talking the other day uh I was during 21 days of prayer actually and she was asking me how I was doing and we had a really cool conversation about about that idea of like you know I think sometimes it's really easy to think like about the the negative feedback and be like well you know people are gonna have their opinions you just gotta you just gotta seek God and do what he's telling you for you. But on the flip of that as well people are going to have their positive opinions and whether or not you're like you be don't be influenced by either where are you at with the Lord? Like are you do are you operating in the way that God has called you to do and if you are then that's success. Success isn't shutting out the haters and success isn't you know everything must be good because people are telling me things are good. You can't afford to be swayed by the by the praise of people by the praise of man and you can't afford to be swayed by the by the critique of man. You have to be staying in kind of that plumb line of like okay well I know that this is what God is calling me to do. Yeah and I and being faithful being faithful to that to that's what faithfulness looks like.
SPEAKER_04Not being faithful to the opinions of man. Yeah I was um when I was in Chillach I remember uh at church one day there was this one guy who would uh I can't I don't even remember the context or why he was even speaking but I remember him saying this one thing and he was like he was like one of the top GM mechanics in Canada and I remember him saying this one line and he said uh if I'm only remembered for being a good mechanic and a good man then that's enough for me. If I'm uh if like if I'm good at being a man taking care of my wife providing for my family being a man of God and I'm good at what God has set my hands to that's enough for me. Well that's I think about the life of Jesus uh too and there's so many moments that you can look at and there's so many moments where he says it too where it's like he Jesus could instantly be the guy. Like he could be like the most important man in the world throughout with all the miracles and all the stuff that he could do but he constantly turns it down because uh his disposition and uh a pastor put it this way and it was it's kind of one of those cheesy like um like uh pastor lines the with alliteration but it's brilliant and he says um uh Jesus' disposition is it's never like come and see like don't come and see me uh but he encourages people to go and be um and it's not about the spectacle it's not about the stuff or the flash or the stuff it's about being that faithful guy who sets up the chairs it's about doing the things that nobody sees and uh there's that commercial too that uh I think Michael Phelps did for Under Armour or something a while back. Uh Malachi probably knows what I'm talking about where he's like he's like it's this whole montage where he's like swimming in the dark and that kind of stuff and the catchphrase at the end is um uh what was it?
SPEAKER_03It was um something along the lines of like what you do in the dark will come out into the light. Yeah yeah yeah or what you do in the dark will be seen in the light.
SPEAKER_04Yeah yeah yeah we get so caught up and I don't think it's necessarily wrong either that I think genuinely church wanted to and this is church in general like we're we're just trying to help grow the church but I think being humans we kind of like swayed kind of towards the sensationalism a bit more and creating spectacles and this is church in general that's not just us or that's not anyone specific. That's church in general um when really we have to come back to that heart of like Jesus called us to go and be like be the people be the hands and feet of Jesus on the ground Pastor Malaka you were talking about um spring cleaning and I think in line with our conversation we're we're talking about a lot of these inward things um that that we have to deal with um things that we're overcoming things that we're working through being in season and in step with God but um sometimes a lot of that a lot of our development a lot of our growth comes from removing the things around us that are keeping us from that growth that's good um so yeah let's get into this clip.
SPEAKER_03And I want to ask a question like are you are you desperate for his presence or are you distracted? Are we desperate to create space in our hearts in our minds and our spirit and our life or are we just distracted with everything that's going on? Are we distracted? Are we making room for the Holy Spirit to fill us or are we just so busy with all the things that we do and all the things in our schedule for seasons you know where we we take an inventory of what's going on we take an inventory of you know what needs to go what doesn't need to stay what what can stay and what can go like what is what is snuck into our lives or or what have we been holding on to that we need to let go. And it's like a spring cleaning and we come to this head we're like okay what do we need to do here and we begin to clear out the clutter and we make room in our heart and there's a there's what's called a daily choosing of this I believe there's like there's like seasons that we do those big cleanings but then there's also a daily choice that we have to keep our stuff clear and decluttered. A daily choosing and and this is where we daily ask the Holy Spirit to come and fill us.
SPEAKER_04Yeah like I was saying before it's very much in line with the like going through the seasons of growth and change where it's not necessarily the stuff that's in us that's keeping us from what God has for us but it could be the stuff around us like um like for Lent this year I the way I look at fasting uh is a bit different. I I every year when it comes to like 21 days of prayer and this is actually my first year doing something for Lent actually admittedly but I ask I'm like God what is it in my life right now that is more important than you and it's not necessarily something that's like I need to ask for the rest of my life but it's like Lord what is taking priority over you right now and what can I lay down and for me this year it's um it's watching TV honestly like just watching shows because my default for the past like six months is I get home we we put Danny to bed and then we conch on the couch and we're watching shows for the rest of the night. So not inherently wrong but like man what else could I be using my time for so um yeah but my my default has been like God like what what is it that is actually keeping me from getting deeper and closer with you. And again we move into that territory where it's hard to give up these things sometimes because it's like I like that's that's my thing. That's that's how I cope that's how I that's how I de stress at the end of the day that's how I do X, Y, and Z. That's how I feel better when really it's like it's a backwards thought I think if the the thing we're turning to becomes our source. Yeah. You know what do you guys think about that?
SPEAKER_01That's really that's kind of a big question and I I I really like that because the coping mechanisms Pastor Brian one are my coping mechanisms tell us all your dirty secrets all the things you struggle with honestly and something it's it's similar is video. Yeah it's pick on Pastor Brian I'm good with it video games you said video games you know when I feel like I'm stressed out and I want to turn my brain off I just I go to video games and in in the past it's become a real problem. It's not as much of an sometimes it's you get a new game you're like that's a good story and it's gonna play it it's really easy for me to escape that way and pull back so much so that um I'll play way more than I should and I end up just that becomes the cope because I'm like in the middle of stress or things are going on and it's really easy for me just turn my brain off and it's been convict especially since this 21 days of prayer and it it's not something that I go to often anymore but it used to be my default. It was always my default just to go and so much so that my Natalie was like I hate PlayStations I hate video games because early on in our relationship and up until probably even like 10 years ago that was my coping mechanism and it's been on and off and something that I have to watch or else I'll I'll easily go back into it. And if it's not video games it was always movies because you don't have to think yeah you can just sit back and let the stress happen and I can just get into this thing and I'm in a different world. And so it used to be that I could just unplug and to do whatever but we realized after we did a bunch of training last week that uh I need to be alone I need to be silent and I'm finding trying to find spots for that a lot more often. What about you? What's your coping? Just turn this back on you and then I want to hear from Malachi next.
SPEAKER_05Um yeah my I think I I I actually I think it's gonna be interesting to hear what you guys have to say about because I think that I mean different people recharge differently. I've been learning about myself lately that I need time like kind of time to myself to recharge. Um and so I think like one of the things about like whatever if we're talking about video games If I'm playing video games like with the boys, it's almost like a form of I guess like spending time together, even though it is like virtual. Yeah. So I kind of qualify that in a way where it's like I'm actually like spending time with people who I care about genuinely and it's and it's just like downtime. Yeah. That's like a recharging kind of downtime. Obviously, like you can go way too far in that direction where like you're just like obsessive, like it's if you're not on if you're not on a game, like you're thinking about being on a game, and it's every part of your spare time, and it's like watching videos on how to be better. But I mean, but I mean I think that there is a conversation to be had about where the line is there because that is a huge gray area line. Like that line could be in a lot of different places. Um and I honestly I I sometimes I wonder if it's if it's I don't know that it's too far to if it's going too far to say that like is that something that we should be cutting out of our lives entirely, or maybe just for a season or whatever. I think yeah, I don't know. I think that's interesting. What do you think about that?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I don't think I I would say that there's parts of that are healthy, right? Even the way you explained it, like that's how I view it is like if even I mean I don't think girls ex like fully understand video games. They do not just don't understand which is okay, but it's like understand me. Like last night, for instance, we're on we're on a game and we're all talking and we're all laughing. And we're not like we're not just like shutting off our brains, but we're interacting with each other in the way that we interact with each other. And I think that's okay. I think again, there is a line. There is a there is a line that needs to be set, and that does have to be with like what are and comes back to like Logan's question is like, what's the priority of my life right now? Um, it doesn't mean that when I'm on video games with my friends and we're laughing and and talking that you know God is completely absent from my life, and I need to be like, you know, I need to put on a cloak and I need to walk around humming and and meditating and swinging things around and looking holy. And that's what you know, living a life of faith is. Life is supposed to be enjoyable, but not to not to like the place where it becomes everything to us, right? You can't idolize and join. Exactly. And that's where it becomes the idol. Yeah, that's where it comes to idols. Like I, for me, like and and we did that, we did that training together as a team, uh, the Berkman training, and we we were joking. I think I was we were talking like I'm going on a drive, and it's I call it the blue drive because you're like our my needs are in the blue where I need to be like I need to be alone, or I need to be with uh, you know, a couple of people that I can either decompress with. And I think another thing that I learned about myself is I need to allow myself to vent out my frustrations. Yep. Because I think for a long time, um, one of my you know, quote unquote coping mechanisms was just hide it all in and and don't don't release it on people because it's too much for them. And I thought that I was doing people a favor, even with my wife, like I thought my I was doing my my wife a favor by not bringing work home or not bringing frustrations home. Um, but what I realized is I'm actually like I'm cutting her off from a really important part of my life. And and if I don't like, if I don't express that, all that pressure attention that I feel, and everyone feels that throughout the day, it's just different variables of of what your work looks like and what your life looks like and how you kind of carry things. But for me, I kind of carry things and I internalize it. But if I don't, if I don't express it in in a verbal way, I'm gonna eventually end up in a bad space. Or or I'm going to, like even Pastor Brian said, like a it's like a it's an explosion of frustration. It's like it's like a bomb of frustration instead of like a like I'm gonna let the air out of the tires for a moment here, or I'm gonna just like drop the bags off and just you can understand what I'm dealing with, but I and it and the more that you do that, I think the more that I do that, the more I'm finding I can kind of healthily unload those bags without being like, man, today was just the worst, and just like losing it. And my wife's like, Whoa, like what's wrong with you? But it's more like it's more like, yeah, like these are some things that I'm dealing with. And if she knows those things, now she can help serve me. Because again, like, and I and even for single people, I think you need to find an outlet for that. Yeah, and and maybe maybe for you, you're really good at that. Maybe that's not one of your needs. But if you're like, you know, a lot of us on our team that are in the blue, we need introvert time, we need to like get away, especially if you're in the people business and you're like around people all the time and you're constantly talking, you're constantly communicating, you're talking like if that's what your circle is and that's what your kind of job entails, you're gonna need time away. But it doesn't mean just like alone time. I'm just gonna like shut off my brain and start scrolling through. And that's really what this message kind of came out of was like a lot of the times that's just all we do is we just we just do we do scroll, or we like we we intake all of this stuff and we, you know, especially with and and a lot of the stuff I was talking about without saying it was like the Epstein files coming out and all the kind of craziness in our world right now, and it could become such like a cloud where we where it's all we like it all we think about. It doesn't even it's like it's like we're not even coping at that point. We're just like we we get enveloped with and when what I talked about is like you get so consumed by all this stuff that you just end up feeling fearful, you end up feeling anxious, you end up feeling all these things. Meanwhile, God's like tapping us on the shoulder, being like, Hey, I want to give this to you, but you have no room. Like you have no room in your mind, you have no room in your heart. All you're thinking about is all these bad, crazy things. Or you don't have any power over. Yeah, you don't have any power over, and and then we and then that turns into just coping. We shut down, we isolate, like Pastor Brody's talking about. We get into these spaces where we think that, you know, where you know, just the day to day is just like it's not enough for us. We try to go seek the thrill. We try to go seek the things, and that's where you have, you know, you have people that are unhappy in their marriage, and they go and they, you know, express that that unhappiness in a way that's really unhealthy. And so we have all these kind of like these coping things are just behavioral, but really it comes to that place of like, what is going on in your life? And that was really the the sermon was like, are like, do you understand what's actually going on inside of your mind? And are you cognitive of that? Because I think if you're if you're not thinking about that, you're just going to be behaving, right? React, and that's what you're doing. Not taking every thought captive.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. It makes me think of the idea of abiding as well. Like, abiding in Christ doesn't necessarily mean just like going and living like a monastic lifestyle in a in like a secluded, you know, in like a monastery in the middle of nowhere. Like that's not the only way that it can look. Yeah. But abiding in Christ, you know, for 99% of the world by necessity is gonna look like how are you how what does that look like in the context of your job? You know, what does that look like in the context of hobbies that you enjoy? Yeah. Um, which is which is actually kind of a more, you know, a monastic lifestyle is kind of like an impressive, interesting idea in itself. But it's almost like a more feels like a more like rightful human expression to me of like God's given you passions and pos a position at a job and like placed you within a certain particular family, and like that there's purpose that is carried within each of those, like within each of those kind of contexts where you exist in your life. And it's like, well, within that abide in me. And so, like, what does that look like? It's like it looks like being in prayer constantly, it looks like being listening to him, it looks like tending to that relationship regularly and doesn't necessarily have to be like this huge dramatic shift of like I'm you know going off grid. We want to go off grid and like extremes, yeah, exactly. But it's like okay, well, what does just faithful daily like lit doing life with God look like? And that doesn't and that can look like working a nine to five job or enjoying like games with your friends or you know, doing some woodworking, and it's like yeah, going on a hike, doing those things, and God can be glorified and all that stuff, exactly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it's interesting too because the I'm just thinking about like just even what you're saying about abiding is such a really good way to put that because the I think the tendency is even if we're thinking about things that we do cope, it's not just video games, it can be anything that shuts us off from being in a relationship with God ultimately comes back to the fact that is that has become the idol over who God is. But abiding is a place where you're resting in who he is on a re on the regular, you're actually in relationship with. You can't abide with something you don't have a relationship with, and so I can't sit in the presence of God and know what his voice sounds like when I'm when I'm about to go into a tough conversation. I just don't throw out the prayer flare. I'm like, okay, Lord, I need your help in all that I'm doing from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep. And you involve him in it, and I involve him in the hobby. Yeah, I involve him in video games, if that makes any sense. I involve him and but what we're what I want to get to the place where is where I'm replacing my cope with that healthy relationship with God where I'm going home to be in the word and worship to refresh myself and to restore myself in his presence rather than me going to cope with whatever that stress is. Am I gonna go retreat to the the shop and work and not deal with my kids and my wife or my stress that's going on and be there for 12 hours? No, I'm gonna go sit in your presence, God. I need your refreshing. I need to, I love that word, Jamin. That's such a strong word, is abide in your presence. I need to abide in who you are. Jesus said it on me. Yeah, yeah. I know that. Abide in me. But but just abiding in him is such a continuous everyday choice that you have to make coming back to what's that daily thing that you're doing every single day to choose to be in his presence to walk that out.
SPEAKER_05I think it's something that I really struggle with, to be honest. Like it's something that I feel like I've always wanted, I've always thought about it very like in like a very compartmentalized way. Yeah. Well, there are spiritual things in my life that I do, and then there are like normal life things in my life that I do. Yeah. Like where I I feel like God calls us to make it that just that's just one box. Yeah. It's like actually you're just a spiritual person, a Christ follower. It's like invite involve me in the things that are your daily life. Like involve me in those things. And I think I even still, like I said, I think I still struggle to like get away from compartmentalizing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Um but I think like that's something that I've really tried to do better at and tried to like seek uh like to be better at, is like don't just like shut off the sp shut off like the spiritual part of your of your brain when you're not doing spiritual things. It's like, no, well, how how can I be better at like involving him with me, talking to him about what I'm going through, like involving him in each part, like not just throwing up the prayer flare, not just going to him when like my life feels like it's falling apart, or yada yada, that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_04And I think the key in that is intentionality. Um where like you abiding is like you have to be there. Like you have to want to be there. There's this verse that I was referencing uh I think a couple days ago when we're meeting to talk about this uh episode, but it comes from Matthew 12 and it says, When an unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but it finds none. Then it says, I will return to my house from which I came. And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also it will be with this evil generation, which I I think within the context of what we're talking about right now, um we need to be intentional. We need to be intentional. Earlier as I as we were talking about like facing our stuff, dealing with our anger, dealing with our anxiety. Uh, we need to we need to be intentional with actually being involved in the process. Like it's not just gonna happen to us. Like God's not just gonna snap his fingers one day and everything's gonna be fine. Like there's there's an effort that needs to be put in with um with our own process as well. Um, because if if we don't, we can get to that place where it's just like we're we're putting on that face where it's like, yeah, I'm dealing with my thing. Um But really what we're doing is we're sweeping the house, we're putting things back in order. And once we come to that place where we're where we where we face um we face that trauma or we face adversity, or um we have a tough day at work and we just go back to our default, where like we just get to that place eventually where we where we blow up because we just swept the house. We didn't actually deal with what the actual problem is, we didn't actually address it. We we just cleaned up.
SPEAKER_05You get possessed by seven demons instead of one.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's way worse. But that's but that's the part of like you clean the house, but then you also have to be filled. Like, and what are you being filled with? Because that's again going back to that same thing. Are you cleaning the house and then you're just letting it be filled up with all the stuff that you just cleaned it? Like you cleaned out all the garbage and you let the garbage back in, or and like, and that's the big question is like, what does being filled by the Holy Spirit daily look like practically? Like, right, how do you make room for Holy Spirit to come and fill you after you've kind of like dealt with some of the stuff? And it's not like you're just gonna be like dealing with everything, you're gonna you're gonna take it as it comes. It's gonna kind of surface, and that's that's what the Holy Spirit's job is, is to like convict us and let us and and a lot and we allow him to go deeper and deeper and deeper into our soul, into like those things that have been buried over our over our lifetime or the things that we don't really necessarily want to deal with. And as we allow him to deal with those things, they kind of surface and we have to deal with them. We have to allow God to clean it up, we acknowledge it, and we and we move on, but we don't just move on and and then the next day we're kind of dealing with the same thing again. We let it back in, we let the demons back in. We have to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And so, what does that look like for us as we probably wrap this episode up?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that was one of my good or one of my big takeaways from your sermon as well was like um is being is the intentionality there with we just clean up the house and like and allow life to just happen to us where that space just eventually gets taken up and taken up and taken up, and like you just get you know overwhelmed and burdened by the whatever the garbage is that's in your feed, or like whatever the world is like the world's oppressive kind of like uh like that anxiety and the uh distress that comes with like all of the weight of the world of these of maybe things that are a lot bigger than our lives, uh like outside of us. Like, okay, well, no, you have to be intentional not to allow that space to just be filled by every wayward thought. You have to take your thoughts captive, you have to weigh the weigh these things against the word, and you have to choose to open yourself up to be filled by the Holy Spirit and not allow that space to just be taken up by every thing, by like every kind of wayward thing that comes at you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's good.
SPEAKER_03You have any thoughts on that, Brian? Not anymore. Not anymore. He said everything I was gonna say. That's awesome. Well, uh, just as we wrap up the episode, uh, we want to thank you guys for well, thank you two for being a part of it, and obviously Logan. Uh, but thank you for watching the mezzanine floor, and we will not be taking a six-month hiatus. We will be back next month with a new episode, a new sermon series. So tune in um again if you want to follow along with us online. We have our YouTube channel, we have our website, go to kcc.net, to find any of these sermons that we show clips of. Encourage you to go watch them, they're awesome. But uh, we'll see you next time on the mezzanine floor.
