Speaker 1: You're listening to the Midweek Motivation Podcast from DeSoto Hills Baptist Church in South Haven Mississippi.
Speaker 1: Here's your hosts Mark Lewis, david Burgess and Pastor Grant Stegall.
Speaker 2: Good morning on this beautiful January the 22nd.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Midweek Motivation Podcast here at DeSoto Hills Baptist Church.
Speaker 2: I'm Mark Lewis and I'm David Burgess.
Speaker 2: We hope this programming can encourage folks throughout DeSoto County and beyond.
Speaker 2: Be sure to subscribe and share the link on social media.
Speaker 2: It is Disciple Now Week.
Speaker 2: For those of you who don't know, that's the biggest conference we put on here for our students each year.
Speaker 2: It's sort of the VBS for our youth ministry.
Speaker 2: If you want to't know, that's the biggest conference we put on here for our students each year.
Speaker 3: It's sort of the VBS for our youth ministry.
Speaker 3: If you want to think of it that way, we have how many churches, David?
Speaker 2: Right now we're looking at seven or eight Okay, seven or eight churches, hundreds of kids.
Speaker 2: So we certainly want you to go ahead and be praying right now that God works on the hearts of these students.
Speaker 2: It is the best shot we have pretty much all year aside from, maybe camp of pulling students away from all the distractions in the world and really getting a chance to lay a word from God on their hearts.
Speaker 2: So we want all of you to be praying.
Speaker 2: If you haven't signed a student up for that, we encourage you to do that.
Speaker 2: We do still have registration open.
Speaker 2: We will keep that open through the day of the event.
Speaker 2: So please be praying and then encourage your students to sign up.
Speaker 2: We will be descending on Longview actually tomorrow morning, thursday, with trucks, trailers loaded with all the gear and the materials, and we will literally be transforming their worship center.
Speaker 2: We have People of the Earth and David remind us, a few years ago, alyssa Turner was leading RD Now and we realized that her drummer was actually a member of people of the earth.
Speaker 2: What was his name?
Speaker 2: Uh, george Lopez, yes, and so that was sort of how we got connected with people of the earth, and then we invited them that very next year to come and lead worship.
Speaker 2: That was about two, two years ago, three years ago, now it's been several years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been several years.
Speaker 2: Um, they do a fantastic, a fantastic job, and those guys are out of the Nashville area, I believe.
Speaker 3: They're out of like outside, I want to say Louisville, kentucky.
Speaker 2: Oh really.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're a little north.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, chad Poe is actually going to be our speaker.
Speaker 2: Chad Poe has been on the national scene for many, many, many years.
Speaker 2: I actually had the story of the first time I met Chad.
Speaker 2: I was doing a camp.
Speaker 2: I was playing drums with Chris Layton.
Speaker 2: My wife Jennifer who nobody knows this, she's going to kill me she played bass guitar for Chris Layton for several years because we needed a bass guitar player.
Speaker 2: When we first got married she would actually play bass with me as well, and so she was playing bass that week.
Speaker 2: I was on drums.
Speaker 2: And then we had Casey Moore, who now plays for Chris Tomlin, who is a member of DeSoto Hills for many years, and the three of us were sitting there on a couch in a condo in Orange Beach and we did not know that we were sharing the condo with somebody else.
Speaker 2: And old chad poe really just busted up in the door and it was.
Speaker 2: It was really funny.
Speaker 2: He just kind of stared down the hall towards us and then he just ducked into a room and throughout the week we ended up getting to know him and he was like he's just one of the most awesome people in the world, yeah, yeah, full of, full of full of really funny stories.
Speaker 2: And then he has a really amazing talent for taking the word of God and presenting it in a way in which students just stay really heavily engaged, and that is a talent that is certainly a very specialized tool, especially with students these days, which I can tell you, holding their attention for a while as a teacher is not an easy thing to do.
Speaker 2: So, all of that to say, we have an A-plus team who will be coming this week, this weekend, for Disciple.
Speaker 2: Now we want you to be praying about that.
Speaker 2: We also want to make you aware that this Sunday night, the 26th, at 5 pm in the attic, we're going to be having a worship night.
Speaker 2: We're also going to be ordaining three new deacons, and we'll have a brief business meeting following that.
Speaker 2: We will have some stuff for your students and children as well, some programming for them, so we want to encourage you to come this Sunday night, the 26th, in the attic.
Speaker 2: We do have a complete year calendar available through June 2025.
Speaker 2: You can grab one of those on Sunday mornings at our welcome desk here in the Grand Hall.
Speaker 2: Today, we've got a new segment that we call Table Topics.
Speaker 2: That we call Table Topics.
Speaker 2: Okay, so Table Topics are just random question cards designed for families to chat around the meal table, and you can buy these boxes with all these questions on Amazon.
Speaker 2: It is a great way for you and your family to sit down at mealtime, though, so I've got several that I picked hand-selected, just for David.
Speaker 2: And for those of you listening, he has no clue.
Speaker 2: I do have a little script that I go by each week for the podcast, but David would tell you and Grant would as well.
Speaker 2: I don't share it with you all ahead of time.
Speaker 3: This is definitely a surprise.
Speaker 2: Yes, so what fashion trend?
Speaker 2: Oh, I picked this just for you.
Speaker 2: What fashion trend you followed?
Speaker 2: That was very cool at the time, but now comes back as ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Fashion trend that I followed, you know, I probably would say overalls, really yeah.
Speaker 2: So I think overalls are kind of coming back, aren't they?
Speaker 3: Are they, I mean, low-key?
Speaker 3: I did wear, you know, a pair of overalls last week, but if I was a kid and I was outside, you'd see me in overalls, and that was it Right.
Speaker 3: No shirt under it, no shoes, no Like no, nothing, just that overalls.
Speaker 2: I did the overalls thing for a while, where I would only have one of them buckled and I would leave the other one unbuckled.
Speaker 3: Hey, that's trendy.
Speaker 3: Those two are trendy, for me no.
Speaker 2: I have done weddings before where the guys would have the combat boots which, at the time, you remember when combat boots were really, really popular Some Tims Everybody had a pair of Tims the time you remember when combat boots were really, really popular?
Speaker 2: um, some tims, everybody had yes, I did several, several weddings actually where the guys would told the groomsmen to wear combat boots and I was just thinking, really, yeah.
Speaker 2: And then there were, there was a time when you would tuck your pants into the combat boots.
Speaker 2: Um, doc martins, you remember the dog I loved, grace?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had some, doc martins I had some Doc Martens.
Speaker 2: I had some.
Speaker 2: Somebody said those are coming back too.
Speaker 2: I've actually seen a couple of Doc Martens floating around.
Speaker 2: If you want to know where fashion is going now, just walk into a high school and stand in the halls during class change and the kids will tell you what's coming.
Speaker 2: What's your favorite fast food?
Speaker 3: meal.
Speaker 3: What's your favorite fast food meal?
Speaker 3: Favorite fast food meal would probably be a Supreme Chalupa combo from Taco Bell.
Speaker 3: I'm going big, I'm putting my whole self out there.
Speaker 3: Do you still eat it?
Speaker 3: Yes, Like I don't eat Taco Bell, but there's, I mean there's.
Speaker 3: If I drive past a Taco Bell I'm always like man, a chalupa sounds really good.
Speaker 3: Man, it's a chalupa.
Speaker 3: It comes with a taco and a drink.
Speaker 3: We eat probably once a quarter at Taco Bell.
Speaker 2: I got you it's probably Chick-fil-A for me, which I mean that's an easy out for everybody, it seems like is Chick-fil-A.
Speaker 2: There was a mom-and-pop fast food restaurant in Nashville it's not there anymore and they were a chili establishment.
Speaker 2: It was like a fast food chili and they had where they would do the Fritos and Sonic does a Frito chili pie.
Speaker 2: It was basically like a Frito-type chili pie thing, but, man, they had the best chili.
Speaker 2: All right, last one, If you could, would you rather live in a boat, a treehouse or an igloo?
Speaker 2: I can tell you which one I would not want to live in right there.
Speaker 3: An igloo?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess that.
Speaker 2: I would go treehouse all day.
Speaker 2: I think it might.
Speaker 2: For me it might be a boat, Although I would have to preface that by saying it would not be one of those little boats.
Speaker 2: Like you see, people living in these little tiny boats you want like a yacht.
Speaker 3: It would have to be a yacht.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, but Jennifer wouldn't do that ever.
Speaker 3: Tree houses these days.
Speaker 2: Have you seen those?
Speaker 2: I've seen some pretty amazing tree houses.
Speaker 3: A friend of mine went glamping Okay, glamping okay, and it was pretty much a treehouse they were in and they had like it was a quality kind of five-star place.
Speaker 2: My problem with a treehouse is you know this about me I am terrified of weather, so yeah, if any thunderstorm comes anywhere nearest, like I would.
Speaker 2: What do you do in a hurricane?
Speaker 2: On the boat?
Speaker 2: Okay, you float out of there ahead of time because Action News 5 is going to tell you 10 days ahead We've got a hurricane that's possibly going to hit the United States in 10 days, and then I'm chugging that boat right up the East Coast.
Speaker 2: Good point.
Speaker 2: So that is a new segment that we call Table Topics.
Speaker 2: We will certainly do some more of those in the future.
Speaker 2: They are a whole lot of fun.
Speaker 2: We're now going to shift to our devotion portion of the podcast that we call the Midweek Moment.
Speaker 3: All right, mark, thanks again for hosting.
Speaker 3: I'm glad to be here sharing the devotion this afternoon.
Speaker 3: I want to kind of stay in the lane of our Bible reading.
Speaker 3: For the year, some pretty profound things have stuck out to me, as if they hit me for the first time, just like God's Word always does.
Speaker 3: Looking back in Genesis, looking at the patriarchs, looking at Abraham, isaac, jacob, joseph and that story we've been through reading those stories this year so far and I want to zoom in on the life of Jacob, all right, who's later God changed his name to Israel.
Speaker 3: We see Jacob, this very manipulative guy.
Speaker 3: Okay, yes, super manipulative.
Speaker 3: Like every turn he's taking advantage of his brother.
Speaker 3: Every turn he can, he's.
Speaker 3: He's manipulating a situation and where it can be better for him, okay.
Speaker 2: Reading the story, you almost wonder why does God bless this guy?
Speaker 2: Because he's so scheming?
Speaker 3: Right, right.
Speaker 3: And so you know, people might would take that at face value and say, well, you know, god's always blessing these type of people.
Speaker 3: What about me, you?
Speaker 3: And say, well, you know God's always blessing these type of people, what about me?
Speaker 3: And so when?
Speaker 3: But when we look at Jacob we see he kind of gets a taste of his own medicine, right?
Speaker 3: So in Genesis, chapter 28, he is going to Laban's house, his uncle, before he meets his future wife.
Speaker 3: Like he's going to Laban's house, he stops and he has this dream, and it's the Jacob's ladder dream where he sees angels ascending and descending on this ladder from heaven to earth and back.
Speaker 3: And so he's having this dream and he wakes up and he's like, surely this is the place where God is.
Speaker 3: He says these words that are very like it reflects the deepest kind of sinner, you know, in my head.
Speaker 3: He awakes from the place, asleep, and he says surely the Lord is in this place.
Speaker 3: And this is Genesis 28, starting in verse 16.
Speaker 3: Surely, the Lord is in this place.
Speaker 3: And I did not know it.
Speaker 3: And he was afraid and said how awesome is this place?
Speaker 3: This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven.
Speaker 3: So early in the morning Jacob took the stone that he put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on top of it.
Speaker 3: He called the name of that place Bethel, but the name of the city was Luz at the first.
Speaker 3: Then Jacob made a vow, and this is where we see Jacob and his scheming and his manipulation.
Speaker 3: He says, saying if God if all right.
Speaker 3: There's this conditional word if, if God will be with me and will keep me in the way that I go and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God and this stone which I have set up for a pillar shall be God's house, and all that you give me I will give a full tenth to you.
Speaker 3: So how often do you hear people, or even in our own hearts, like make these deals with God.
Speaker 3: Well, if God gave me all this money, if God blessed me like he did this person, then I mean I would do way more good with the money, good for myself, but I would probably do more good for God's kingdom if he blessed me.
Speaker 3: And so Jacob kind of has that unconditional attitude towards his commitment to God.
Speaker 3: And I see that I see it a lot in the lives of young people that we minister to and lives of people in general, that man, they're just waiting for God's, you know, waiting on that condition, like God wants.
Speaker 3: If God would bless me, then I'll be the first person in line, you know, to build churches or whatever.
Speaker 3: And so we see Jacob do that.
Speaker 3: And then that's where Jacob goes to Laban's, his uncle's, and then he falls in love with Rachel.
Speaker 3: But he gets tricked and so he gets a taste of his own medicine, right.
Speaker 3: So he gets a taste of his own medicine, right, and so on his way back, like after he served seven years to get rachel and then he served, or to get leah, which he was tricked, and then he serves another seven years after laban gives uh, rachel to him.
Speaker 3: So he's got two wives now and he is going.
Speaker 3: He starts heading back.
Speaker 3: We find him coming to this broken place, like he is heading back towards his parents' house, heading back home.
Speaker 3: He knows what's in store for him.
Speaker 3: He knows Esau, his angry, enraged, likely angry and enraged brother, is waiting for him to come back.
Speaker 3: Just I dare him to show up in this place After what he did to me he stole my birthright, he stole my blessing, he stole everything that was important to me.
Speaker 3: He's waiting.
Speaker 3: And so Jacob is in this broken place.
Speaker 3: He is in this place where I'm facing death, I'm facing the end of my life and now, like the only person that can really redeem me here is God.
Speaker 3: So he cries out and he wrestles.
Speaker 3: He wrestles with this strange figure who we see in Genesis, chapter 32.
Speaker 3: He wrestles and he's wrestling with God.
Speaker 3: And so he said I will not leave until you bless me.
Speaker 3: And then he's holding on and clinging and clawing and fighting for God's blessing and he's fighting with God over it.
Speaker 3: And it points me to a place where Jacob moves from this conditional commitment to where we all should be, this fighting and clawing to be with God, fighting and clawing to hold on to God, to wrestle with God.
Speaker 3: So often we wait for God's blessings and then we pursue him.
Speaker 3: We wait to see him move and then we pursue him.
Speaker 3: No, jacob is desperate.
Speaker 3: He's in a desperate place and we've all been there.
Speaker 3: But every day we are in a desperate place.
Speaker 3: Every day we wake up in our lives and we are put in this desperate place where we are going to serve God with our life or go do our own thing.
Speaker 3: And if we look at Jacob's life and see his desperation for God and he's clinging no longer, is he clinging to his condition, no, he is clinging to God.
Speaker 3: How much would our lives change as individuals, as a church, would our lives change if we got desperate for God like that every day and had that kind of passion.
Speaker 3: Yes, had that passion where we fight and claw for God's presence.
Speaker 3: We fight and claw against everything thrown out at us, against the world, the flesh and the devil, against the temptations that our own flesh brings upon us.
Speaker 3: If we fight and claw to be in God's presence, to be in the Word, to take in from God, it would change everything.
Speaker 3: And we see Jacob change.
Speaker 3: And so Jacob I mean it's like, if you think about the whole Old Testament in a big picture we go back to Abraham, when God commanded Abraham to take the animals, to split them in half and lay them onto the side for that blood covenant.
Speaker 3: And we see God, God's presence, is the only thing that walked between those animals.
Speaker 3: And so, through Abraham's time, through Jacob's time, through Isaac's time, through Jacob's time, the covenant relies on God.
Speaker 3: He's going to do what he's going to do.
Speaker 3: All we have to do is take hold to trust him by faith.
Speaker 3: We take hold of him and we trust him, give him our lives.
Speaker 3: That's our part and that's a freeing place to be.
Speaker 3: And so, in light of Jacob and his fight, I want to encourage our listeners today and Christ followers wherever they're listening listeners today and Christ followers wherever they're listening is to fight and claw your way into the presence of God.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, david.
Speaker 2: That was amazing, and thank you all for listening.
Speaker 2: If you don't have a church home, we'd love to see you here on Sunday morning.
Speaker 2: You can catch our services online at desotahillscom or our YouTube channel at Desoto Hills Baptist Church for all of our church family.
Speaker 2: We love you guys.
Speaker 2: We'll see you back here next Wednesday morning, bright and early.
Speaker 2: God bless.
Speaker 1: This has been your Midweek Motivation.
Speaker 1: We'd love to have you join us in person on Sunday mornings.
Speaker 1: Our services are at 9 and 10.30 am.