Episode 33 - Love Means Telling Hard Truths.

We confront the cost of following Jesus through Paul’s hostile reception, the pruning of John 15, and how real accountability forms resilient disciples. We weigh crowd-chasing against disciple-making and ask what our legacy says about our love for Christ.

• Paul’s pedigree, past persecution, and why trust came hard
• Hostility to the gospel then and now in 2025
• John 15 pruning and fruit as the measure of growth
• How to judge rightly and receive correction in love
• Stories of accountability that refine character
• Letting people walk away vs softening the call
• Choosing God over comfort, sports, and schedules
• Revival talk vs Monday obedience and discipleship
• Legacy, obituary, and finishing well in community

If you're in the Rockdale area, coffee and fellowship at 10am, service at 10:30 at the American Legion Hall, with kids’ church and nursery available

Transcript

Welcome, Rivalry, and Local Flavor

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Welcome to Let's Connect, the official podcast of Connect Church in Rockdale, Texas, where we want to help you to live a life that matters. One that is both on mission and has a purpose to follow Jesus and make disciples. So let's get started.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

All right, welcome into Let's Connect, the official podcast of Connect Church here in Rockdale, Texas. Home of the Tigers. That's right. Yep. We got Eagles and Bulldogs. Yeah, sure. We're for them. I won't say the other one because you know. No, we're not for them, sadly. But I'm still doing the PA over there, though.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Yeah, well, I'm glad they got you.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

But uh I won't be doing the Battle of the Bell, though. I'll just put that out. The Battle of the Bell is when the two cities of Rockdale and Cameron play football. Once a year they play for a bell. And it's if you're not from this area, it's it's a pretty ferocious rivalry. Big deal. Back when I was in high school, right after you had graduated, I think one year the city of folks from Rockdale took a whole bunch of toilets up there and put them all over the football field. And one year they burned a big R in the middle of the field in the grass, you know, and and and Cameron did some stuff down here too. But so that's a that's a real high school rivalry there. But um, but no, this is we are in Rockdale, home of the Tigers. Yeah. Episode 33, you just told me. Episode 33. Who? Go ahead. Say it. What?

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Oh Tony Dorset. Yeah, that's the number, yeah. I was just thinking we've sat here for 33 times.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

Pretty cool. It is pretty cool. It's been, you know, that's uh what, sixteen and a half hours now. Wow. Yeah. That's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Yeah, that take on it.

Service Details and Community Invite

Why Paul Faced Hostility Everywhere

Nominal vs. Costly Christianity in 2025

SPEAKER_02 1:56

So if you're in Rockdale, we do hold services on Sunday. We have coffee and fellowship and donuts at 10, and then the service starts at 10 30. We're out at the American Legion Hall, the Carlisle Post, yeah, right here just north of town. Um, and we do have children's church and a nursery, so bring the little ones too. So we've been talking in Bible study. We have a men's Bible study every Monday night, and usually have a really good crowd, and we've been walking our way I said that, walking our way through Acts just like Peter and Paul were. Yeah. Well, one thing we've noticed is that everywhere Paul went, there seems to be some sort of hostility towards him. But when you think about it, you know, Christ went back to Nazareth and had to leave there. They basically chased him out of his hometown. And we look at these people in the Bible, especially Paul, you know, I've I've said this before, you know, Paul was like, you know, the best of the best. He was a Roman citizen, he had a Greek background, he was Jewish, he had been raised in the church and in the schools, and was a member of the Sanhedrin and all this other, you know, that was the guy. That was like the unicorn of Jewish people at the time. And so we look at him in the Bible, and we look at most people in the Bible, we look at the disciples, and we think, man, everybody must have just loved those guys. It would it had to be so easy for them to go out and preach. But was it? When you think about Paul when when he was still Saul, he spent a lot of his time persecuting Christians. I mean, he was there holding everybody's cloak so they could take their cloak off and get a good wind up when they stoned Stephen and he egged them on, he was that leader. And then he has this massive conversion, and now he's Paul. And you gotta think if you're the Gentile, now now all these Jewish folks that thought he was their big warrior, now he's a traitor, and to these Christians and Gentiles, how much trust can they have in somebody that's spent all these years persecuting them? And so when we look at that, we see somebody who's walking through that area, whether it's to Ephesus or Corinth or Antioch or wherever he goes, and he and that's how people in those areas are looking at him most of the time. So when we think of these people and we think of I I want to be like Paul, do you? I mean, and have to go through what he went through. We worry because our buddies on on Sunday aren't going to invite us over for NFL football because now I go to church and they're they might be afraid I might preach to them a little bit. But Paul was beaten, stoned, I mean, everything. And so it it it it seems odd to me at times that we worry about our journey and our walk with Christ and how we'll be treated when you watch and all these people we think that were probably celebrated when they got there really weren't.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Yeah. It's like if anything in 2025 is hard as it is, we're finding out God's word is true. Jesus said you're gonna have trouble, Jesus said they're gonna hate you. Like that's becoming reality for just even a rural Christian, someone living in a rural community in in Texas. And uh yeah, Paul's fan club was extremely small, and the hostility towards Paul was his message. You know, the Jews hated, I mean, they put Jesus on the cross, right? I mean, he went by volition, but they're the ones that were God used as a catalyst to to nail him to the cross, and and so they hated to hear that message. And of course his letters, I mean, Philippians is great, but even Philippians are you know, he tells a couple of women to get along, you know. So a lot of his the letters that he wrote were had some sting to it, had a little as he's correcting people. I mean, nobody likes to be corrected. And but yeah, if anything in 2025, how it's blessing the church is is pushing nominal Christianity out the door. Like if you're just a Christian in name only, then um man, I want to say this tactfully and with some grace. I mean, it's like it's like the church is is uh the wheat and the tares are being separated in a sense. Does that make sense? Yeah. Like there's no reason for you to to go to church any longer if if it's just uh a side note for you. There there's no benefit culturally for you.

SPEAKER_02 6:47

Well, you know, you see uh a a lot of people they don't want to hear where they're flawed. They definitely don't want to hear it from somebody here.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Yeah.

Flawed People, Hard Truths, and Judging Well

SPEAKER_02 6:57

And what's ironic to me is that every one of these people in the Bible had issues. We when we read in Acts, we read where the disciples didn't always get along, didn't always agree. And there's nobody the Bible I've told you this many times before, the Bible takes great care to tarnish everybody in the Bible. But with everything wrong that that Paul did in his life, if he showed up here today and said, You know, Ken, you're doing this wrong, or George or Joe or Mary or whoever, and just throwing out names. If your name's George or Joe or Mary, I'm sorry, I'm not necessarily talking to you, it's just generic names. Bill. Yeah, we would listen. This is Paul. This is this is but Paul had his flaws. There's none of us that I mean the Bible makes sure that we know everybody has a flaw except Jesus. Yeah. And so anybody that could have stepped out of the Bible and come to you and said, You need to consider this, yeah. They're as flawed as anybody else that we go to church with or that we have in our lives. So the point being, God is going to use flawed people to come tell you, Bill, you're doing this wrong. And you have a choice. You can listen to that and go into some self-retrospective looks and say, Man, that's right. Or I can look back at that person and say, you know, listen here, Jack, you're just as messed up as I am. Who are you to tell me? You know, we we read that, judge not lest ye be judged. And a lot of people read that as you shouldn't judge anybody. But it's not that. It is if you're gonna judge somebody, you need to expect to be judged yourself and have people come to you and tell you that. And then and then when you read it into context, it means you have to be prepared for that. You have to listen to it and take it as they're not telling me this because they're more screwed up, and I don't have to listen to them because they're more screwed up. They're telling me this because something has led them to come tell me this, and you need to, and you know what, maybe it's wrong, maybe you don't have that problem. But if you don't even stop and take a look at it where you do have that problem, then you may not be listening when God comes to talk to you.

Accountability Stories and Receiving Correction

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Yeah, these are things the Holy Spirit works out in our life as well, right? I mean, when we pray, Jesus, it's good to Jennifer says that I know myself better than most people. Like, man, I know where I'm short, right? And it's a constant, you know, every Christian is a struggling Christian. We should all be, you know, allowing the Spirit to to do his sanctifying work in our life, sanding off the rough edges so we look more like Jesus. And and yeah, it's it's tough when the Holy Spirit shares those things. I can remember us having a problem with our oldest daughter a million years ago. I mean, she's grown up now, got kids, yada yada, but one of the elders in our church, you know, and the elders are my peers and people that hold me accountable, uh, even at Connect Church. But this was when we were in Waxahatchie and God took me to breakfast, you know, guy that I love, still love a lot. Keep up. And he's like, Man, Ken, are you you know, are you are you really doing the right thing with Brooke? And I was like, Yeah, but like, you know, I'll pump the brakes.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

And I thought, man, I don't even know how many years ago, 20 plus. And I was still thinking about it, and I still think you know, we did the right thing, but I so appreciate that guy coming to me and and saying, Man, just think about what you're doing. As a parent, you know, think about what you're doing. And you know, it could have been, well, who are you to get in, you know. I mean, it didn't even hit me like what you're describing. I I don't know. Uh didn't, you know, he loved my family. I mean, I trusted him. I was got to serve with such an awesome group of I mean, of leadership there in Walk Sahatchie. I mean, guys, I'd have tr I trusted my family with them. I'd trust my money with, I mean, you know, just whatever. I mean, they were all in, we were all in together, but yeah, what an awesome thing to have people that will speak into your life like that. And I and I still think, I mean, it's water under the bridge, but I still think was he right? Was I right? I mean, I it's one of, you know, since I was parenting, you just you just do the best you can. Yeah. You know, and a lot of that was on Brooke, not us.

SPEAKER_02 11:22

So Well, you yeah. Well, you think, you know, it it we we've talked about this before. To to hear that from somebody, to hear criticism from anybody is tough.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Um but yeah, nobody likes it.

SPEAKER_02 11:36

But to hear it from somebody that that maybe you know their history or you know where they are now or where they were before, it can be even more difficult. But on the other, on the flip side of that, it can be difficult for us, knowing our own background, to go talk to somebody thinking, man, who am I to tell them this? You know, yeah.

Pruning, John 15, and Bearing Fruit

SPEAKER_00 11:56

What's funny is when you said that, I just realized this guy didn't even have any of his own kids. I didn't think about that till now. I didn't, you know, I didn't blow up and go, you don't even have kids. What do you know? Yeah, you know, I just that thought, well, this guy loves me. And he loves my daughter. And if he's telling me this. Yeah, he was kind of the youth guy leader at the time.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

And you know, he had And I think that's the big thing is you have to you have to come at it and you have to receive it, whether you're the one that's talking to somebody or they're you're the one that's receiving it, and you have to do it from a place of love.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:26

You know, it's just not well, Ken keeps doing this. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna give him some. I'm gonna go tell him where he's No, you it's from that place of caring, it's from that place of love. Yeah, you have to both offer it up and then to receive it from that standpoint and think, you know, a lot of times you get you you will go and talk to people and they will become immediately defensive and not want anything to do with it, and and that's hard, you know, that's hard on especially when they throw it back at you. And sometimes it's just like when we talk about sharing the gospel, you you you can't always bring those people to where they need to be, but you have to at least be able to discuss it with them so that you have at least taken that step to try to help them in that process. And and man, that can that can be difficult to say the least.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Yeah, and you talked about pruning earlier, like at the end of the day, right? We ought to accept any kind of pruning so that we bear fruit. Um you know, so that we bear fruit. I mean, Jesus said you'll know them by their fruit, right? Like I wanna I want to be as productive as I can as a Christ follower. And uh and that's gonna require some some pruning sometimes.

When Jesus Lets People Walk Away

SPEAKER_02 13:41

Yeah, it's uh John 15, the first mainly the first part of John 15, and it talks about it that you know, I am the vine. Yeah, Christ says, I am the vine, and those that you know that that those vines and those branches need pruning from time to time so that they can grow. And that's what we're talking about. Those other branches are gonna come say, Hey, Bill, you're a little too rough with this, or or or maybe you're not doing this right, or have you thought about when you're doing this? And then I have to sit there and say, Man, and then that's God pruning the the bad parts of your branch off so that you can grow as a Christian. The other side of that is if it's just not gonna happen, you have to cut that branch off. And sometimes that's what it takes too. And yeah, a lot of times we we we we hear the stories of how Jesus met with the prostitutes or the the tax you know takers and the money keepers and the criminals and all of this. And we often say, you know, well, you know, he wouldn't just turn people away, but he did. He had to sometimes. The rich guy who who says, What do I have to do? Yeah. And he tells him what he has to do and he doesn't want to do it. And he let he he doesn't necessarily turn them away and say, Well, then you need to go away from me. Yeah, they're gonna be able to do it. But when that guy gives up and he walks off, yeah, he lets him walk away.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:59

You know, and sometimes we have to We have to do what what God has led us to do, and and then pray that that person, that that seed is planted and that person understands it and they come to a place they want to be, but sometimes they don't.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

No, one of the things we're one of the threads here in the backdrop is community and I think vulnerability and it makes me think accountability, right? Those things are missing from the modern day church. Like I don't know if it's I don't I don't know why. I mean I I think I know why, but well they make it easier.

Crowd-Chasing vs. Disciple-Making

SPEAKER_02 15:37

The churches will make it easier, you know. When when you look at um Luke 9, 57 and 62, in in that section, you know, a lot of people that were would-be followers of Jesus made excuses as to why they couldn't do this or why they couldn't do that. And Jesus never softened his stance on things. Basically, he said, if you're going to follow me, this is what you need to do. And the difference is, is, is Jesus isn't walking with us to be able to tell us that. So he uses others. Sorry about that. He uses others to I had a I had an alarm set on my phone and it just went off. I don't know what I was supposed to do about that. Yeah, so but you know, God uses he's not Jesus isn't here walking with us anymore. So we have to have others to he uses others around us, and guess what? Those other folks are no more perfect than what we are. And and and we may know their faults. You know, I have good friends that are you know have a great walk with Christ, and I know their faults. I've known them for 40 or 50 years, and I know their faults, and I know where they had problems, and they know mine. But we are different people now. We've been reborn, we're in a different place. And and so it would be easy for one of those guys to come and say, Bill, you you know, this is you you've got an issue here. And I'm like, Oh yeah, well, remember back 30 years ago when you did this, you're no saint either. Instead of just saying, Man, you know, uh okay, I need to look at that then. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Part of this is us growing on our own, right? Like how closely abiding, abide in me, Jesus said, and you'll bear much fruit. And are we growing in our closeness to Christ? Are we uh are we uh getting rid of our baggage, you know, the things that that end up hurting us, right? Uh in our lives, in our spiritual lives, in community. Yeah, Jesus said when you're just talking about 957, I mean, Jesus is is tough. He's he's uh, you know, let the dead bury, you know, let the dead bury, bury their own. Yeah. I mean, it it I I think, you know, you you hit on it a lot. I mean, easy believism. It's easy to read the good stuff that Jesus said and bypass the hard things where he he's like, double check, do a do a stomach check. Are you gonna be able to do this? Are you gonna be able to follow me? Is it when it gets hard, are you still gonna be there? Um, because he said it's gonna be hard.

Choosing God Over Everything Else

SPEAKER_02 18:07

You have to think like the Sermon on the Mount and all the different things that he told people in the Sermon on the Mount, and how many of those people, because it it wasn't kumbaya, not everybody stood up and said, Yeah, we're gonna follow you. There were some out there that were like, What was this guy thinking? Yeah, this all sounds crazy. And so there were there when he did when when when he spoke as uh as the bread of life and he gave that, a lot of people walked away from that. Oh, yeah. And those people he said, let them go. Let them go.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

We've been, I think the church as a whole is just the metric is draw a crowd.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

Yeah.

Revival, Reality Checks, and Monday Faith

SPEAKER_00 18:45

Yeah. And and be nice and draw a crowd. Yeah, and the mandate is make disciples. That's right. And you know, you see Jesus, maybe at his most human, you know, he was all God, but he was all man, is when some of them peeled off and he turned to the disciples and said, Y'all want to go too? I mean, I sense some real hurt when people were leaving him. You know, like, we're not gonna hang with you, dude. We're out. You know, you finally said enough, right? You cross the line, we're done. We we can't take this rhetoric any longer. And he turned to the disciples and said, Y'all want to go too? And Peter's like, Where would we go? We've left everything for you. And and so that should be our mantra is Lord, we've left everything because you told us we have to leave everything. You know, self-denial is pick up your cross. You've got to deny yourself, and yet we Matthew 6 33, seek first the kingdom. Anytime anything of God comes up against, well, I'm making a blanket statement. Let me go back. We see very often that anytime anything uh when thing let me rephrase it again. For the most part, we often see that when things come up against God, we pick things over God, we pick family, we pick the tigers, we pick the bulldogs, we pick the eagles, we we pick self-pleasure uh over God in in very small ways, which I think a lot of people see as insignificant. But anytime I pick anything over God, it's huge. Yeah. Those things haven't died on we talked, you know, we gave away that Yeti Cup Sunday. It was kind of silly, but I think it made the point is is we would just we I mean it's so easy to choose anything over God, sadly. I'll just leave it there.

SPEAKER_02 20:36

It is, and and a lot of people do it. And uh, you know, uh we we read in the Bible and we see the figures these people this many people were following, you know, that were now following cr God or or came to God and this number and this number. But when you and and we have this idea, you know, we live in Texas, which a lot of people consider to be the buckle on the Bible belt. And I don't know that you can go very many places and most people will say, Oh yeah, I'm a Christian. But we we've talked about it before on here, are they or are they just in name alone? Yeah. And even in that time, we we we tend to read the Bible sometimes and we see those figures and we think, man, that that that this was huge. Everybody was coming, but everybody wasn't coming. No, no, you know, and so we often think when we see these big humongous churches that, oh man, all these people. But yeah, you know what? If if you sifted through all those people, yeah, you you wouldn't have very many.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

No, Gen Z's filling up stadiums, they just breakaway ministries just had a big deal over at AM, and I'm told 200 people came to Christ, young people, and some would say we're experiencing a revival. You gotta define revival, right, w amongst that that group. But uh, you know, where's that group on on Monday? Where are the is that arm?

Legacy, Obituaries, and Finishing Well

SPEAKER_02 21:59

I mean, you hope they're still there and you hope they're still fired up, but you know, and and but you know if you had 200 Gen Xers, you know, you'd you'd probably have the point being it's probably similar for everybody. Oh, yeah. We we see those pictures, we see that we hear the talk, you see the pictures of everybody that's a Christian and everybody that totally believes, and the line of people that's Christian is Hughes, and the line of people that actually believe is three or four of them. And and I I I really honestly believe that if you don't work, if if we weren't working at this, if we weren't trying to be disciples and and and and create and generate more disciples, that's where the world is. Yeah. And that's where it's gonna be. And you know what is even with all the work that we put into it, that still may be where it is.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

Oh yeah, yeah. And it's it's man, it's there I I think there's two things that that we're that we're seeing in the church is a lack of love, la a lack of value of truth, and uh fear. I think fear is running most churches. We're afraid of each other, we're afraid of offending anybody. And then, you know, getting back to the Aggie thing, you know, you've got one of the world's greatest Aggies uh used to live in your home. And then we we know uh a friend of ours we call Lampshade, he's got two uh world's greatest Aggies, and I are I wonder if any of those three are getting the gospel presented because these thousands of Aggies, you know, got together and worshiped. I mean, right? That should be happening.

SPEAKER_02 23:38

If I don't know, mine'll be home tomorrow, so I'll ask him.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

Ask him if he got hit up. You know, they should have got hit up, right? I mean, if if rock if Rockdale caught on fire for Jesus, I you know, I expect people knocking at my door going, Ken, do you know you know, and hopefully they go, Oh, Ken, never mind, you do know Jesus. But you know what I'm saying. Yeah. So yeah.

Prayer, Closing, and Invitation

SPEAKER_02 23:58

I went to a funeral today and and the and the lady, you know, I didn't know her real well. I know I know her son real well. I didn't know her real well. But the one thing I did know about her is that she was that kind of person that every time the church door was opened, she was there. She was there, and and I was her pastor for a while. Yeah. And so, you know, when you think about it, and I remember, you know, we talked in church a few weeks ago about what's your obituary gonna say. Yeah, oh, you did this, this, and this. And one of the biggest parts of hers was was was her Christian life was in that. I thought about that when I was reading that obituary sitting in that funeral. I was like, wow, you know, here it is. This is what we've talked about. You know, how how much is that you were active in this church? If it just has that line in it, or if it says this person, you know, was was was very dedicated to their Christian life and their relationship with God was so important to them that that it should be that kind of a epitaph or whatever you want to call it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

So closing words. You just you you just had them. Yeah, you get the last word. Okay, and you're praying.

SPEAKER_02 25:02

And I'm praying, so dear Lord, we thank you for all that you do for us in our lives. We thank you for just giving us all the gifts that you give us. We love you so much, Father, and we just ask you to strengthen us and to help us. You know, put us in those tough situations, tough situations, and let us shine for you, let us be that light for you. Please work through us and help us to be that that example of what it means to have a strong relationship with you, Father. We thank you for all that you do in our lives, for it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. All right. Well, that was episode 33. We'll be back next week. If you're in town, you're in the Rockdale area, come on by. Like I said, 10 o'clock. We have donuts and coffee and fellowship, and service will start at 10.30. We have a kids' church and we have a nursery. So everybody's welcome. We'll be out at the American Legion Hall, the Carlisle Post, right here in Rockdale. And if not, we'll be back next week with more.