Grace On The Mountain

A fogged-in mountain overlook. A quick prayer. Then the clouds break open, and the Himalayas appear, only for the fog to roll back in right after we leave. That story alone is worth the listen, but what stayed with us even more is what it revealed about God’s grace: it makes faith practical, bold, and strangely unforced.

Rich and Kirsten sit down with returning guest Shawn Reinsel to unpack his recent Nepal mission trip and the growing “Simple Grace” discipleship movement spreading across Nepal, Pakistan, and India. We talk about pastors being trained across borders and what church life looks like where denominations fade into the background and spiritual hunger is obvious. Shawn also shares the real costs believers face in places where proselytizing is illegal, public Christian identity can be complicated, and spiritual warfare is treated as an everyday reality.

From there, we dive into the Bible: grace in Genesis through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, and why “grace” isn’t a message you tack onto ministry, it’s the framework that reshapes preaching, counseling, risk-taking, and endurance. You’ll also hear why face-to-face discipleship changes everything, plus a powerful portrait of quiet faith through a Nepali pastor whose prayers meet life-and-death needs.

Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review if you want more conversations that ditch performance and get real about knowing God.

Transcript

Revelation Comes In Stages

SPEAKER_01 0:17

And God gives revelation as you're ready for it. You know, and uh as you come to him repeatedly, he's not gonna just give you all the revelation right at right at once. You know, he wants you to come to him.

SPEAKER_03 0:33

Well, welcome to Freed Indeed, the podcast where we ditched the religious performance and get real about what it means to know God. My name is Rich, and I'm here with my wife and co-host Kirsten.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Hello. Today we're welcoming back to the show one of our favorite guests. Actually, he was our very first guest, Sean Renzel. If you ever listened to Sean's interview on the topic of why does God allow suffering, I highly recommend you go back to our archives and listen to it. It's an amazing episode. But today, Sean is with us to tell us about his recent trip

Why Nepal And Why Now

SPEAKER_00 1:13

to Nepal.

SPEAKER_03 1:14

Nepal? I know very little about Nepal. I can't even pronounce Nepal. So, Sean, why in the world did you go over there? What was the what was the purpose of this trip?

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Okay, so um it all started when um Kirsten helped me to write a book, right? We wrote the book Simple Grace Together, and I could never have done that without you. Um Simple Grace is still for sale, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:45

On Amazon.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Yeah, yeah, still for sale on Amazon. But look, I I gotta show this to you because while I was there, this is the copy of Simple Grace in Nepali. Wow. Translated in Nepali. Yeah, this is the copy of Simple Grace in Urdu.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_03 2:05

And Urdu is spoken spoken in Pakistan. Oh, Pakistan. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

That's amazing. So uh and then it's also been translated in Hindi and Telugu and uh Punjabi. Praise the Lord. That's incredible. We're about 90% done with the Punjabi right now. These are the first times I'm hearing many of these languages. Yeah, that's incredible. And yeah, so uh that was really cool. They uh so I took a few copies of the English to give to some of the guys that joined me on this trip, and then they brought me the ones that we had been working on. We had done these, worked on these translation translations really hard, and uh they brought me copies as a gift, and it was really special. So um, but yes, we Kirsten and I uh put together simple grace, and uh because God's grace is just so transformative and powerful, and um, and every pastor could use it, it it it really it meets something that the church needs really, really bad, which is um how does this grace thing work in a in a simple way? Um, and and I think that the the book is something that no other book out there, I mean, there's amazing books about grace. There's Spurgeon and Andrew Murray and Hudson Taylor and Sim Keller. I mean, there's books out there, and not to say anything about modern books. I mean, there's thousands of wonderful books out there, and many of them are thousands of pages long, uh, which is a big barrier to entry. And so the goal obviously was to make this simple so that anyone um could access it and be able to repeat it um in the church as you know, to affect their teaching. That it's not a message that people teach, it's it's an understanding that affects everything that you do, including everything that you preach, everything that you teach. It changes everything. Like it changed you, Rich.

SPEAKER_03 4:01

Yeah, it's on my desk every week as I'm doing sermon prep, and and I'm constantly going to it for well, just the the uh message of grace, you know, not even just my book, but oh, you're quoted on a regular basis, Sean, at uh gathered.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

Uh well, thank you. Um, so we uh we've been working for the past couple years, uh building a network um where I I've been training pastors in the

Translating Simple Grace For Pastors

SPEAKER_01 4:28

content. So it all started when this young man from Pakistan uh named Jerry uh wrote me a message and he said he found our book online and he would like to use it for a discipleship tool and to translate it into Urdu. So that started, and I was like, sure, I'd love to do this, but we need to do discipleship and learn. Uh, you know, I'd like to teach you personally. And he was like, Okay, well, that started a process of that was three years, and in those three years, he has become, I mean, he is like my right-hand guy, but he's in Pakistan.

SPEAKER_03 5:02

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

And uh it became, you know, I discipled him, and then we translated the book, and then we've tried we've done discipleship with five core pastors, and then about 20 guys, and then about 55 guys, and there's only 85 pastors in all of Karachi, Pakistan. And we've gotten impacts of 55 of them and and uh with the message of grace, and there's 20 million people in Karachi. Uh it's the um it 14th most populous city in the world, right? But it's number one in population density. Wow. And so there's this area there where the Christians kind of live in North Karachi and and uh and actually you know it's it's actually legal to be a Christian there. Um they have technical, technically, they have religious freedom. Um they're still it's still a Muslim country, but anyway. Um long story short. Um it expanded from there into India, where we were able to disciple a whole bunch of pastors in India, get the books translated to Hindi, and then in in the central India to Telugu, and then to Nepal. And Nepal kind of happened at the same time. And in Nepal, uh, we're teaching, I teach a Zoom class to a college, uh, the Christian Evangelical Seminary, and then a group of pastors that are connected to that guy. Um, so about 50 pastors out there uh that represent 50 churches all over Nepal. So I've been doing this Zoom work on the side of like being a pastor, too, right? And um, because you just got to make a kingdom impact with as much as you can, right? Well, although the time is short. So um we do we were doing all this discipleship, and then somebody calls me and says, Hey, would it be beneficial for you to go and see the work you're doing in Nepal? Uh, this man had uh an interest in Nepal, uh, a care, a heart for Nepal, and and he said, I'll give you the money that you need to go to Nepal.

unknown 7:11

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

And I said, I think that'd be great. I think it'd be great. I didn't know how long the flight was, and I didn't know how to find the butt I was I was all in.

SPEAKER_03 7:19

And so yeah, in the pre uh the pre-show conversation here, 30 hours on the plane to get there.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

So yeah, well, to get home. Oh, to get home getting there, we got all there in 27 hours for all the flights. But coming home, it was like 48 hours. Oh my god. Wow. Yeah, that was a difficult thing. But anyway, it it started expanding because I was like, okay, so I'm going to Nepal. I have all these friends in Pakistan and India that I also need to go there. But if I'm going to Nepal, maybe they can just go to Nepal with me. So I did some research and figured out it was for the Indian people to go, it was super easy. Okay. So I was like, okay, we can make this happen. So I call up the guy in India, made it happen. Then uh, but for the guys from Pakistan uh to go, they would need to fly all the way to Dubai and then back to Nepal to get there. So a bit more challenging. So I went to my board of directors for the ministry and I said, Hey, here's the thing. And we just prayed about it. And in an hour, someone had given me the $10,000 I needed to make that happen. Uh, all the disciples that I wanted to come from Pakistan, we got plane tickets to go to Pakistan. And I was able to, so for 10 days, all these people are joining me, and the Lord provided it uh out there. In

Retreat Teaching And Trekking Together

SPEAKER_01 8:50

addition, we're doing this Bible conference uh retreat, it's a spiritual life retreat that they do every year. And basically they're just like, it's it's ours. So we're doing a simple grace, you know, retreat, and um we should call this strong grace for weak people. And so the entire Bible college was just about 56 students, and then all the staff, and then about another 50 pastors from the local area, uh, all came and joined and got to stay in a hotel and everything. So all of that provided was our mission was to do that. Um and so that was the main main work that we were doing, and then going on a big trek. So in Nepal, trekking is the big thing. So we do trekking and and it's our Sherpa's required, or is that uh yeah? I mean, I could not have made it without for a normal trek, for the young men carrying my bag for me and stuff because wow, it was rough. Well, I have bad knees, and so going uphill was fine, but going downhill I'm not good at, and so my knees swell up and it's a lot of pain. And um, so I barely made it. So it was it was four days, it was up and down, and I got some stories about that. But that was uh a time where me and the guys from Pakistan and India and Nepal that were my main disciples, we got to spend some real time together and really grow in that relationship. That that was the point of the trip is to really see them, how they how they work in person, they can see me, and hopefully it it develops a bond. And and it worked. It was wonderful. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 10:25

So they did so that was a kind of a normally don't get together like this from the three different countries, then this is right.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Like India and Pakistan are are mortal enemies.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Yeah, they've been at war forever.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Yeah, only because their government is though. Yeah, the people are actually the same people. I mean, they a lot of them when the lines got drawn, there was family, one family got split in both sides after World War II. Sure. Um so yeah, they're the they uh they were all wonderfully loving to each other the whole time we were there. So good. Um it was in Christ all things are new, right?

SPEAKER_00 10:58

Yeah, amen.

What Church Life Feels Like

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Yeah. So um what is the body of Christ like in that part of the world? Like I feel like you know, we have an idea of what a classic American church would be. What is it like when you walk into a church in Nepal?

SPEAKER_01 11:13

Boy, uh nobody cares what denomination anybody is. There are, and the and some pastors like care, but hardly anybody knows or cares. It really doesn't matter. Um I mean it it's just remarkable to me how I I had people from all kinds of different denominations with us participating. It made zero difference at all. The message of grace speaks equally to all believers and equally powerfully and and and it's equally received. I I would say there's no more you know uh receptive group of people at all. Uh it it was incredible. Um secondly, I would say that the body of Christ is hungry. You know, uh they would they would allow me to teach as long as the Holy Spirit was giving me breath. Wow. Um and and they would just like keep going, keep keep teaching, keep teaching. And and then I would hear how he was you know, I yeah, because you don't know how it's being received. Uh that you don't know if they're really getting everything that you're saying. I'm going through a translator. And you know, so you don't know in the in the big groups, right? In our small group, it was everyone spoke English, but in the bigger groups, it was like, yeah, you don't know, but then you hear everything come back and and the the impact was was truly amazing.

SPEAKER_03 12:51

Oh good.

Costs And Challenges Of Following Jesus

SPEAKER_03 12:52

What are the what would you say are like the biggest challenges that Christians in that part of the world are facing? You said that it's legal to be a Christian in in Pakistan and and uh or Nepal, I guess, but uh what are the the challenges that are uniquely facing?

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Yeah, um well in in all those places it's illegal to prosely proselytize. Okay. Uh so it's not you're not allowed to try to get people to join your faith.

SPEAKER_03 13:18

Um so they they obviously still, or is that just like street evangelism like on the cards?

SPEAKER_01 13:24

People can choose to become a Christian, but it involves a lot of sacrifice. Uh in a lot of places you have to change your name. You have to take a Christian name uh to officially with the government say I'm a Christian. So it's and a Christian name is like, you know, kind of an American sounding name or a British sounding name. Uh a lot of them uh very interesting, or a biblical name of some sort. Um so it it it's there are very clear lines between who's Christian and who's not in the world. Uh there's a lot of spiritual darkness, a lot of demonic activity, a lot of um a lot of that stuff. Uh and and the world over there is just that's just what it is. So there's a lot of um, you know, like I said, demonic activity. Uh so the Christians have to, I mean, casting out demons is not an uncommon thing. Well um seeing supernatural powers and and events is not uncommon, and because even unbelievers and even even pagan people or the gentiles they call them have a very deep spirituality there. Um, because the Buddhism and the Hindu Hindi Hinduism and uh all the other religions that are kind of mixed in, and there is a lot of mix there. Um, a lot of them are not super like legalistic, we'll say, about their own rules. They just have like these big ideas that there is spirituality. And um and so they kind of even intermix. Yeah, I'm kind of Buddhist today, and I'm kind of this tomorrow, and you know, it's it's not this, it's not very um, it's not like we think of like doctrine, like, well, I'm a Baptist, and so I believe in you know, no pedopaptism here, you know, whatever. It's they don't have those lines. It's just like spirituality is is a very flowy thing, uh, as long as they're having uh they're seeking a blessing from spiritual sources, that's kind of their goal, is to is to is to see this blessing. Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 15:46

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

And so they spend their lives trying to be spiritual, but yet with no hope.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

Yeah.

Finding Grace Throughout Genesis

SPEAKER_00 15:53

So at this conference, I was reading the newsletter. You were teaching from the book of Genesis, right? Um which some of our listeners may think it's strange to have a conference on God's grace and then teach from Genesis. But we know the Bible is filled with examples of grace from beginning to end. So could you give us just a little little insight on what does grace look like in the old testament?

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Sure. Well, that was a great segue because I happen to have a new book called Simple Grace in Genesis. Nice, which is four times bigger than my old book. And uh anyway, it's just uh a thorough look into the uh, you know, commentary kind of on the book of Genesis. But um, you know, Genesis is really all about God recognizing, you know, uh seeing where people are at and coming to their rescue over and over and over again. And he's always initiating this grace-based relationship, you know, with Abraham. He's like, I I want to take you, Abraham, and and make a nation of you. And and so I'm gonna make a covenant with you. And so let's, in the way they did covenants back in the day, they would take the animals, they'd split them in two, and they would walk hand in hand through the animals, symbolically saying, If we if I break this covenant, you you can cut me in half. And if you break this covenant, I'm gonna cut you in half, too, right? It's this that's how they made covenants, right? Well, God says, Let's make a covenant, Abraham, and Abraham's like, Okay, you know, what am I gonna have to do? And God literally puts him to sleep, forces him to sleep, and he goes through the animals himself, showing that this is a one-sided covenant, which is a grace covenant. It's a covenant where God does all the work, but invites us to be a participant in it, um, which is all foreshadow, of course, of what Jesus accomplishes through the new covenant of grace, where he goes through the death of the cross for us, um, not allowing us to go and participate in it ourselves. You know, we have to just receive it as Abraham did by faith. And so, you know, in Abraham's life, he he pictures this grace life beginning by faith and uh moving by faith. And then we looked at four actually in the conference, we looked at four different lives Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. And each one of them had a little different um vignette kind of that we looked at. Uh with Isaac, we looked at abiding, how Isaac would just, you know, God just kept, he just kept trying to dig wells, even though people kept trying to fill his wells up. And, you know, he was not perfect. None of these guys were perfect, you know, they kept sinning and kept screwing up all the time. But um, you know, Isaac learned the truth about abiding. Abraham learned to start by faith, to live by faith. Isaac kind of took that and he kind of took it a little further and talked about abiding. And and then with Jacob, with Jacob, uh, he, you know, has this lifelong confrontation, a conflict with God where he's trusting his flesh so much and he finally has to wrestle that out with the Lord, and God's grace transforms him, uh, but demands a full surrender of um the flesh life, uh, which is how we we can truly walk in grace, you know. So you can you start it kind of all applies to our life, each one of these kind of the stages of our life. Start by faith, learn how to abide in the Lord, dig in in the word, you know, um, building that relationship with him, and then you're gonna come to the point where he's gonna demand that you use your new name, you know, yeah, everything. And he's gonna give you a new identity, and you cannot live according to the old identity, the old name anymore.

SPEAKER_03 19:51

And then you get to Joseph by God's grace.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Exactly. And then you get to Joseph, where it talks about suffering and how God, you know, it's kind of like the peak Christian living is suffering with humility and faith and allowing suffering to do deep, deep work, which goes, you know, is a callback to our first episode that we did together. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

Yeah, that sounds amazing.

SPEAKER_03 20:17

So good. Well, can you speak a little bit to just the power of meeting these these brothers and these sisters face to face? Because that's something that we we definitely talk about a lot on this show, the the importance of of doing life in person with uh the body of Christ uh when at all possible. So what kind of impact did those interactions have on you, on them, and and on each other?

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Yeah.

Discipleship That Happens In Person

SPEAKER_01 20:43

So I I asked my wife before I went, I was like, do you think I should think of questions to ask? Do you think I should pre-plan like activity? Would you rather yeah, would you should we play like would you rather should we play games? You know, and her advice was no, just be yourself and just um spend time with them and and talk with them and listen to them. And I think that surprised them even a little bit because sometimes we would wake up and after we'd pray and spend a little time in the word, they're like, What's the plan? I'm like, No plan. Or just we're just together. And what that did is it it opened up some really fun and comedic moments. So I think we all kind of um had a great time and uh and started. I I think I love humor, and so I kind of gave them permission to joke with each other. And uh I think Tom really did too. He was a young man that went went with us, and and he was just very funny. Um, he's got a real jovial sense of humor. And uh, but anyway, it started going like this. So we're on our hike, and this is like five days of hiking, and And so they would they would do this kind of little call back joke with me where they'd be like, Master, like uh what where are we going? And and then I would answer back and I and I would say, Have I been with you so long? Will you still do not know? You know, and I would I would quote something from scripture that Jesus would say, uh kind of how he would rebuke his disciples. Oh yeah, and oh my gosh, we had the funnest time with this, uh, just over and over. And it's probably it's something we'll never forget. Um, just just being fun and acting like Jesus and his disciples. What if that happened over a Zoom call? No, it yeah, it it doesn't. Because you you need time, and I I think that's what it is. It's an investment of time. And you know, I think by not having like a plan, they saw that they were my plan. Like they were my attention. Um, and they truly were. Like that's that was my my entire plan of this hike was to survive, number one. Uh, but number two, uh, to to see them as people and to know what they were going through. And I got to hear about their struggles, I got to hear about the the painful things that they're going through. And we got to make plans about ministry, but not in a let's sit down and make plans for ministry type thing. But wouldn't it be cool if God did this? Wouldn't that be awesome? And seeing the light in their eyes when you say that or their ideas, you know, and I would say, yeah, I th I confirm that is a great idea. We should do that.

SPEAKER_03 23:36

That's interesting. It just came to my mind then when you're when you're saying that of you know how in church, in our churches, at least in America, how we hate the awkward silences, you know, we hate the the the downtime, we don't leave any space for um for space for um just for people to to have those moments of just you know joking around and communication and because everything has to be programmed and scheduled and and uh it would be interesting to to build more of that into rather than a little two-minute greeting after announcements, you know, to grab a coffee and and say hi real quick before you sit back down.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

And I'm curious how you mentioned you know you had people coming from all these countries, some of which historically have been at war, stuff like that. How did you see unity within the body of Christ at work while you were there?

SPEAKER_01 24:32

I mean it there was so much unity that there there was no dark. There was so much light, there was no darkness at all. Like there was so much love. Everybody uh it was, I mean, these were all leaders in ministry, so they've really been through fires and they've you know it was all humility. Like it was all these these mature believers that I would trust, you know, with anything. Um and like they would have carried me up the mountain and down the mountain if they needed to. Uh, it was it was that incredible. I mean, there there wasn't a hint of sinful selfishness in anyone's behavior thoughts or anything. Everyone was there and just Jesus. It was just Jesus was the center of everything. We'd be singing hymns going up and down, we would be listening to music, we'd be you know, joking, like I said, or it was just it was perfect when it came to that, you know. Yeah, it really was. Wow, I can't wait.

SPEAKER_03 25:44

Were there any were there any aha moments?

A Prayer That Clears The Sky

SPEAKER_01 25:47

There was not just an aha moment, but a yeah, kind of a uh God's power on display moment that was nor more like a not aha, but I don't know how I did say it. Okay, so let me describe this moment for you. And and and I'm not exaggerating, I it this is a hundred percent true, it happened. It's and it is miraculous, and it is the power of God, but this happened, and only our group witnessed it, but all 10 of us in our group witnessed it. So we hiked all day, all day up Poon Hill, which is a big trek, okay? So you get to the top, it's about 10,000 feet, a little higher, and it's supposed to be this incredible view of the Himalayas, okay, which are all kind of hidden behind other bigger mountains. But when you finally see them, it's like unbelievable how tall these mountains are. So you're supposed to be able to see the the seventh tallest mountain in the world right in front of you, the tenth tallest mountain in the world over here. I mean, just you're supposed to be able to see this. Okay, so we're hiking, we're so tired. It's uh we're supposed to get there right at sunset, and we're getting there right at sunset. So we get there, and it's all clouds, like rain, and not just that fog. Like you you literally can't see past the cliffs, like right in front of you, like nothing is there. And so we were, you know, just like, oh, well, you know, that was a lot of work for nothing, right? Womp, womb, womp, right? Um, but we um and and Jerry even recorded a video of me. He's like, okay, where we are, what do we do? And so I was kind of doing a little commentary, and and then he's like, We'll see, we'll see what the Lord does. And that just kind of inspired me. I was like, okay, guys, let's get around, let's let's just pray. And so we just prayed and we said, you know, God, we just thank you that you got us here, and and we just pray that you would move these clouds. And I just started saying, Move these clouds, and I took my hands in big motions and I went like this. I said, Move them, and like just like I was moving, like, yeah, like move the bus. Yeah, exactly. Like move that bus, right? And and I was, you know, I I I had faith in my heart. I was like, I think you know, I'm asking God, I'm asking Jesus specifically, Jesus, just move these clouds, and uh, I had nothing else to do, right? I was there was nothing else to look at, and I was just saying, I uh just move these clouds, and I just kind of did it a couple more times, and I'm not joking you within 30 seconds the clouds started to go away, and within two minutes, we could see away in the distance, we could see the tops of the of the mountains. Wow, and we were like so excited, we started taking pictures. We were like, Oh, this is unbelievable. But within 10 minutes, there were no more clouds. Wow. I mean, only way off in the distance, down in the valleys, could we see clouds? Wow, it was and the sun was right there and it was so incredibly beautiful, and all of us were just laughing, just just so flabbergasted. Just it was it was such a clear demonstration of God's power, and like and they even went the direction that I had moved my hands. They went that way.

SPEAKER_03 29:27

The waves and winds still know his name, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

And uh man, it was so incredible. So we you know beepop around there for 45 minutes to an hour, just like taking pictures and videos and and singing praise songs and just you know, enjoying it, and then you know, the sun's setting, so I'm like, okay, guys, well, it looks like we we should probably go. So we turn around and step, and this is the craziest thing. Oh we turn around and we step down off the platform and we walk maybe five to ten steps, and my son turns around and he looks back and he says, Whoa, and so we all turn around and look, all the clouds are back, and we couldn't see a single thing. That's amazing, it was completely socked in again. That's incredible. I just love how that's personal God's love is, yeah, and and that and no one else saw it, it was only our group up there the next morning. We saw pictures of it, and there was 150 to 200 people up there the next morning. Wow, and yeah, they got they just got clouts with you know they were they stayed till the next day. Anyway, we yeah, the that was the one where we were just like kind of like awe in total awe and almost like almost a little like scared, almost a little like wow, that's a little terrifying.

Learning Grace Without Rushing

SPEAKER_03 31:02

Well, I was curious, you know, I I know how Christians here in America and um really struggle with uh the concept of God's grace and just uh and believing it and living in it. Just kind of curious to how the brothers and sisters in in Nepal and India and Pakistan, is there um is there any particular part about God's grace that they have a hard time just kind of uh grasping and understanding and living and trusting and I think it's exactly the same.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Um I think that with anybody, um it takes being you don't understand it all at once, is what I'm saying. Uh you the seeds are planted and then they grow, and and God gives revelation as you're ready for it. Yeah, you know, and uh as you come to him repeatedly, he's not gonna just give you all the revelation right at right at once. You know, he wants you to come to him. And you you don't learn everything that a high schooler learns in first grade, right? But each person can can go as far as they want to go with into grace in the new covenant. Um, and you can do it through books, or you can do, you know, however you get the information isn't the isn't the big deal. It's it's are you gonna personally connect with your father and is he gonna be your counselor and teacher? And are you gonna let him teach you? Because you can get it just from straight reading the Bible. And there are many people that that's that's how they discovered it.

SPEAKER_02 32:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

Um, and I think it works. If anything, I think they there's a massive advantage uh because in general they're not as educated. Um and the ones that are educated are educated in in a real strict religious format. So they the the the educated Christians uh are s still have a hard time understanding all the all that you talk about. Um so um, but that's okay because with grace, it's all about the heart. God give grace to the humble, and and faith is a heart thing. So as we um as we teach about grace, God gives revelation to people's hearts. And I've seen that in all of all of the guys that I've been able to been privileged to disciple. Like the guys in Pakistan are the most incredible, faithful uh guys. Like if they were ever able to come to America, they would be superstars in the church. They would be superstars. People couldn't get enough of their faith and their words and their love. And they have really maybe tiny ministries, we would call it, out there, but it's they are the front lines of God's outreach to the Muslim people in Pakistan and in in in India, the the Sikh people and the Punjabi people up in uh northern India, and the Buddhist people over in Nepal.

Grace That Frees Us To Risk

SPEAKER_00 34:10

So okay, so I've been thinking this trip to Nepal took a lot of time, a lot of resources. It was kind of a risk you guys were taking, not sure how it was gonna work out. How do you think a right understanding of God's grace, how does that impact our willingness to take risks, to do bold things for the Lord? Because I feel like we're so often afraid of making mistakes. You know? How does grace influence that?

SPEAKER_01 34:42

I think it's a great question. Uh for me, it it removes pressure. You know, I I have this self-imposed maybe or maybe culturally imposed pressure to succeed in stuff. And uh God's grace says I'm I am a success because just just walking somewhere, my like God told Moses, you know, take the feet off your or take the sandals off your feet for the ground you're standing is holy ground. But as we walk around, we're the temple of the Holy Spirit. We have holy feet, we have we are holy wherever we go. We we have God's presence with us. So it's almost like when you think that way, you can't lose no matter where you go, no matter what the outcome is. It's God's will that will be done, and he will give you opportunities the opportunities to pray and see, ask him to do incredible things and see him do those incredible things. Um, and that's so that's what how I look at all the challenges that that come into our life. Uh, is like this is an opportunity to pray and see God do something, um, and to step forward and do the work that that is in front of you that he's he's calling you to do. You know, before the before the trip, our flights got just canceled. Like so they just decided we're not flying through Doha anymore. So here's your money back, and and the flights were completely canceled. And this is like two weeks before the flight. Good luck. And and I'm like, oh my goodness, like we have all this people depending on us, and and so I had to make calls, I had to spend probably two or three days working on trying to find flights. And guess what? By the end, I saved fifteen hundred dollars on the airfare. Now it was on a terrible airline, twenty seven hours more than it would have. But it was all sanctification, it took care of a lot of uh the financial you know stress of the trip, you know, and God had a blessing in it. And yes, it was difficult, and I was like, I don't know if this is gonna work, but he got us through.

SPEAKER_03 36:53

I know often when we're doing these kind of trips and and uh when we're serving someone else, we think that oh, I'm gonna, you know, possibly gonna bless them and and uh that we're gonna be a blessing. And reality, we're often the ones that receive the blessing. So I was just curious, did was that your experience and and uh how did God bless you through this trip?

The Quiet Pastor With Giant Faith

SPEAKER_01 37:15

You know, each each of the guys had had a beautiful story, and and so getting to to know them and their personality and their their gentleness really blessed me. Um, but one guy in particular uh is Pastor Simon, and he was the first graduate of the Bible College in Nepal, and he oversees, he's got six churches and five kids. Or six kids and five churches, one of the two. And he's like, you know, only been a pastor for like three years or four years, and he's already planted all these churches. And you know, he told us stories of uh it the prayers that he prays, like God has to answer his prayers or people die. You know, um so he goes, people, all the people, the the Gentiles, they ask, they pray for all their demons to come, and they don't heal their their family. And so and so their last resort is have the Christian pastor come pray. And so when he comes and prays, he he prays for people to live and miracles to happen, and God gives miracles, and God delivers people and uh and casts out demons and crazy stuff. Crazy stuff. Like the stories he told was was crazy, and this man is the most quiet, unassuming. I mean, if you were to meet him on the street, you'd be like, This this guy has no personality that would attract anyone to him at all. He doesn't talk, he's very, very, very like unassuming and quiet. And so in America, you'd be like, This guy's not gonna make an impact in the world.

SPEAKER_00 39:02

Oh my goodness, right?

SPEAKER_01 39:04

But in the spiritual world, when he prays, God responds and answers, and and uh he's a giant, he's very short in stature. I mean, he's like six inches shorter than me. Wow, and I'm not a tall dog. He's a he's a tiny guy, but a giant in faith. I feel like you know, when all is said and done, there's gonna be stories that are told. And I actually just heard today that there's a storm and his house got destroyed. And of course, you know, my heart goes out to him, and my instant thought is like, what can we do? But here's the thing is like I know him, and so I have no fear he's gonna be okay, his family's gonna be okay, and they're gonna pray, and God is gonna do something amazing.

SPEAKER_00 39:58

What do you feel like is the biggest takeaway you got from this trip?

Preach Grace And Keep Going

SPEAKER_00 40:02

Like, what has the Lord been teaching you?

SPEAKER_01 40:05

Um, that that grace works, and it works better than any of us think. And just preach grace. That is all that we need to ever focus on. I commend you to God and the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance inheritance among all those who are sanctified. Paul said that in the book of Acts to, you know, the the church he had just planted. He and uh and I think that's the the sole strategy for planting churches and doing ministry. Just commend people to God's grace, like teach them God's grace, and um, and it will work. And in my personal church and my personal ministry here in South Padre, Texas, uh, it's it works, it works in my family, it works everywhere. His grace is so effective that it transforms anyone. Love it.

SPEAKER_03 41:02

And I'm gonna certainly pick up a copy of your uh Simple Grace in Genesis. You got it.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

Let's see Sean All your books are available on Amazon. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_01 41:15

Yep, Amazon. Just look up Simple Grace and you'll see there's like a um it's gonna be a com a whole commentary series. So I'm halfway through the book of Exodus now. Um and so that one I'd say would be coming out in a few months. And then after that, we'll go to Joshua, and then after that we'll get some New Testament ones done, and and uh yeah, I'm really excited about it.

SPEAKER_00 41:38

Well thank you, thank you, thank you for coming back on the show.

SPEAKER_01 41:42

Oh, it was awesome just to see you guys. I it's just a conversation, that's what I love. Oh, we missed you dearly.

SPEAKER_03 41:48

We miss you being in Colorado. But well, how can people get in touch with you and and uh the ministry of Simple Grace if uh they'd like to know more?

SPEAKER_01 41:56

Yeah, so uh my website is simplegrace.life. Um and that's um so I I have been doing some conferences at churches uh to either equip the entire church or we can do conferences among uh staff to do training to get just grace as the main focal point of of all ministry. Um I would love to be part of that. Um in any church that that would like to to invest in that. Um and uh you can look me up on Facebook at Simple Grace Commentaries, I think is what it's called. Uh you can look me up personally on Facebook. Uh and uh I have a church down in South Padre called One Two Church, all one word, one two. And uh so we're it's cool. It's a church that meets uh in a bar, like we literally meet in a cigar bar on the island. We've had Rich down there and Todd for us, and such a great church. God is doing some really incredible uh revival stuff, uh, just teaching his grace every week. And people are getting saved and people are being set free, and it's it's exciting. So if you're in South Texas, please come and see us. Um, very south, very if if you're you're still in America, you haven't gone south enough. We are the southest south that you can south. And so um we'll we'll see you if you ever get this for ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 43:26

Thank you again, Sean, for being on the show, and thank you to our faithful listeners. If this uh if this episode blessed you, please share it with a friend. We love to grow this podcast organically, and word of mouth is the best way to do that. So tell someone else, invite them to listen with you. We want to give a special shout out to our faithful listeners in Bangor, Maine and Ashburn, Virginia. We see you guys. Thank you for listening, and we'll be back soon with uh with another episode. In the meantime, continue to walk in the grace of God.