Foundation - Authenticity

In this episode of the BE Rooted Podcast, Nick explores the powerful and often misunderstood idea of authenticity—what it truly means to be real in your faith and everyday life. In a culture that often confuses authenticity with self-discovery, Nick challenges listeners to see it instead as honestly accepting where you are right now, without pretending. Through personal stories, biblical insight, and practical reflection, he unpacks how authenticity and humility work together to shape a healthy identity in Christ. This episode also challenges you to create space for others to be real, just as God gives you grace in your own growth. If you’re ready to stop performing and start living honestly in your discipleship journey, this conversation will meet you right where you are. Stay curious, my friends.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Stratificate of authenticity or to freeze the free extra eight eeh eeps the fact that it is real bit more. Um the active authenticity is or account or an actor somebody somebody is not being real, somebody's not being authentic, and this is actually um get on the fairity to cause a hypocrite quite a bit. So if you're interested in this topic and you want to dive in a little bit deeper with me, that's what we're talking about today. What does it mean to be real? Um, how do you shut off the cloak of hypocrisy and and enter into faith and just be be real uh today? So if that intrigues you, you come to the right place. Remember, stay curious, my friends.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Hey friends, welcome to the Be Rooted Podcast with your host Nick Kugler, author, discipler, and your guide on this journey. Around here, we mix ancient and modern wisdom with real life principles so you can grow deep roots and live out your faith intentionally. So let's stay curious and dive in.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Alright. This is me. We're just gonna be authentic today. And that's actually our topic. You see, authenticity is actually kind of rare, I think, in our in our culture. You know, I most people that I've talked to about this or some of this media stuff that I've seen. Um, authenticity is about something you're pursuing. You're trying to find your authentic self, you're trying to discover who that is. Well, that's not authenticity to me. Actually, we picked this um this backdrop on purpose because it's just me. It's it's real, it's somewhat raw. It's just me. This is my reality. In this show, in these podcasts, you're gonna get to know me, you're gonna get to hear some of my stories, you might hear some of my struggles, you might hear some of my victories, but you're always going to see the real, authentic me. You see, authenticity isn't necessarily about the thing you're trying to discover, as much as it is accepting where you are, accepting the person you are. Now, that doesn't mean that there's not a better version of you that you should be striving for, that maybe there's some things that you struggle with that you want to eliminate or try to get rid of those struggles. There's maybe goals that you're trying to reach that are good goals that are good for you. But authenticity isn't about the the bad things you're trying to get rid of, and I'll be my authentic self when I get rid of those bad things. Or they're not these good things from our future that that if if I achieve these things, or if I become this kind of person, then I'll I'll be finding my true authentic self. No, authenticity is accepting where you are, being real about where you are, and accepting where you are isn't letting yourself be like a bad person. It isn't in the theological sense, accepting yourself is not accepting your sin. The the things that are in your life that that are not part of God's will and you know they're not. No, authenticity is about actually about understanding and being aware of those things and going, yeah, I'm not exactly where I should be. That's being authentic. You know, as you grow and as you move through your journey, authenticity is not just being real with the good or the bad. It's it's understanding that that you're gonna change. You are changing. From day to day, you will go through situations in your life that that are going to impact your your emotions, you impact your your mental state, they're gonna impact your physical state. And if you can be real with that, and you can be honest about that, that's where you start. You start with authenticity. And that isn't accepting the the bad, and that isn't only looking for the good. It's who are you? You see, one of the things that we will talk about throughout the our desire and our journey to be intentional disciples of Jesus. It it is going to start with being honest about where you are. It could be you're one of those people that you're you're listening to this podcast and you've never truly, you've never given your life over to Jesus. You've never accepted that atoning sacrifice. And actually, when I use the word atoning, you're like, I don't even know what that means. Or maybe you've heard the word discipleship and you're like, yeah, I'm not sure what that is. You know, starting there and being honest about that is is where your journey begins. Maybe you've walked in faith for a long time, maybe you've sat in the pews for a long time, and you just don't sense much change. You don't feel it, or maybe you've gone stagnant, or maybe you've you don't have the passion that you once had for Jesus. That's authenticity. To say that, to be honest about it. Now, you'll go through stages of your life where maybe you will have more passion, and maybe the thing you need to do is just embrace the season of life that you're in rather than seeking something. One of the areas that I've that I see in our young people the most. See, I've been a youth sponsor for many years, and I have a lot of relationships with young people, young girls that are friends of my daughter's or that have been in a youth group with me, and young men that I've mentored or walked alongside. And so many of them are chasing a feeling. They've had this maybe mountaintop experience with God, and they think that's what faith is. That I always need to be in search of that mountaintop, that I always need to be reaching towards it. And if I don't feel God's presence, then it must mean that I'm not in his presence or I'm not in his will. And there's not there's nothing that can be further from the true. You're not called to chase a feeling, you're called to chase the personhood of Jesus. And sometimes it feels really good, but honestly, a lot of times it doesn't feel really good. And it doesn't help you to not be honest about that. And another space or another place that I think it's important to talk about when we're talking about authenticity is humility. And we'll we'll probably use this term in other podcasts and other you know episodes. I'll probably talk about it a little bit when we talk about what it means to love yourself. But I want you to understand that there are two different kinds of humility. There is an act of humility which makes somebody else's deal bigger than your deal. You see, that's what we get from Jesus when in Philippians where he says, He put on flesh and he went to the cross, he scorned the cross on your behalf. Not because he he wanted to, but because he he needed to to fulfill his character, to love you as as humanity, and to love you as an individual. He needed to endure temptation and he needed to endure the cross because your salvation was more important to him than his comfort. See, that was an act of humility that that he put made your deal bigger than his deal. He made his deal being God, the the foreknowledge of God, the omnipresence of God was was less important to him than than him expressing his love through us by offering us the gift of grace through salvation. Now, the the the act of humility is one thing, but then there's the status of humility. The status of humility is is having a right understanding of who you are in relationship to God and relationship to others. That you are equal in worth amongst all of humanity. There is not a single person who God cares about less and who doesn't have an equal value for. Like you are not better than, you are not worse than, you are valuable in the eyes of God. You are worth his blood because he shed his blood for you. But you're also unique and you have gifts. You you you have strengths and you have weaknesses. It is not humble to think less of your strengths and to think more of your weaknesses. It is it's that's thinking of yourself inaccurately. But if you're trying to be a humble person, then you need to be accurate, you need to be real, you need to be honest about your gifts and your strengths. Because when you understand your strengths, then you know how to use them. You're willing to use them. An example for me is I've had numerous people throughout my life tell me that I was a I was a good singer, that I have a nice voice. Now, I I would be, I would not be being humble if I just ignored them and said, nah, I don't. And I I I stink, I can't carry a tune in a bucket. It's just not true. Now, I would be equally as unhumble if I said, Yeah, you're right, I am the greatest. I had I don't understand why I don't have a musical contract. I don't understand why Hollywood or the music industry is not banging down my door because I'm awesome. Both of those are not very humble. One finds humility in the lack of self-esteem, and the other one finds it in the abundance of pride. But if if I'm being honest, I love singing, I love sharing my voice, I love, especially with my family, with my daughters, and when when when they harmonize with me, it's just beautiful. It's angelic to hear them and to join them. It's like seeing a little slice of heaven. See, authenticity and humility kind of go hand in hand a little bit because it's understanding who you are and being real with it. If you never truly understand your gifts, if you never build them up and you never understand your weaknesses and you don't know how to guard from them, then you can't become your the person that God has called you to be. You can't be the best disciple that God wants you to be because he wants you to plug into his family. He wants you to take on your role, he wants you to carry on his legacy, but he wants you to do it with your own unique gifting. He wants you to do it the way he designed you to do it, not the way he designed somebody else. So how can you enter into a space of authenticity today? How can you find a more accurate view of yourself? You see, there's a scripture that comes to mind that it that's humble yourself in the in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up. If you don't humble yourself, then it makes it hard for him to put you where you belong. Because he designed you to be someplace. And he will lift you up and he will place you where you belong if you accept the way that he's created you, and you accept your design, and you and you know that no matter where you are now, God has something for you in your future, he has something for you today. God loves you where you are, but he also loves you enough to not let you stay where you are. He will take you through your trials, he will be with you in your victories, he will be with you in your failures, and he will be shaping you. But it starts with an accurate view of who you are. It starts with an accurate understanding of who he is. He is a good God, he wants a lot for you. He wants but you won't be able to find it if you can't be honest about where you are today. So join join me. Join me on this journey. You'll you'll see me be authentic. You'll you'll see me grow. Heck, you might even see me change my mind or be affected by somebody else in one of these episodes because this is our journey that we're taking together. And if I'm gonna commit to you to being authentic and being real, I want you to commit to me to being authentic and real with where you are today, too. And come with curiosity, my friends. Because that is going to help you. Don't come with a heart that needs to be convinced. Okay? So thank you. This is me. And look forward to getting to know you better and you getting to know all of this, all of me as well. Remember, stay curious. Being authentic is really, really hard to do if you're isolated, if you're alone. So I want you to think about your next intentional steps. About what does it mean? And or how do you be authentic in community? Um, investing in others, being real about your circumstances, being real about where you're at, and asking other people to help you to discover some things that you might not believe to be true about yourself, but that are real about you. Well, that's what I'm trying to cultivate here is I want this podcast, I want the social media stuff all to be interactive and designed to help you to just handle your reality, to be real about your discipleship journey, to be real about your relationship with God and the stuff that's going on in your life. Um so today in your in one of your intentional steps, or it or this intentional step that I'm gonna ask you, subscribe. Subscribe to what we're doing, become part of this community. And don't stop there. Don't just simply hit a button that that alerts you when I put new content out. Invest. Reciprocate. Um, send me comments or questions or suggestions or things that you're struggling with that you might need some somebody to help you walk through that. Uh ultimately I want you to have a real relationship with a real person that's really right in front of you. But this content will also help and aid in those relationships because they can help with just building conversation and relationship around topics. So if you have specific things that you want, please ask. And go to um berooted at be ministries.net or email that email be uh rooted at be ministries.net and give me some questions. Let me know what's going on in your heart and in your situation. And I would love to maybe do a podcast or respond to you just via email and and maybe help you walk through what does it mean to go through what you're going through. Um so that's what this is about. It's a community that I'm trying to build. Um, yeah, it's a it's a virtual or at least digital community, um, but I'm here for you, and I would love it if you would uh join this journey with me. So thank you, and I hope you can be intentional today. Morning. Well, it's it's morning here. I don't know when you're listening to this or when you're watching this, but um, it is minus 14 degrees right now outside, and I am not happy about that. So um, we talked a little bit about authenticity in today's video. So you're gonna see me like in my cold weather element here, which is you can't get more much more authentic than that. So I've been thinking about this um how to do this follow-up personal practical video for you for uh a couple of days now. We shot the um the the other section, the the content section of this, not too long ago, as you can see, the scenery is completely different. Um, so you can't get much more authentic than this. I'm in my basement and kind of a little studio area that I that I set up. But I've been thinking about this for a while and I was kind of convicted. Um I'll give you a little bit of background because I really do want to make this somewhat brief, but I also want to make it personal and or practical. And I think this one is a little bit of both for me. Um give you a little bit of background on who I am. I used to be in a what I call a past life, an auto mechanic. Worked for a shop for um actually a family shop, my parents owned it, um, for uh 15, 20 years, in and out of the automotive industry. I worked for Napa Auto Parts for a while. I worked for so I was in the automotive industry. I wasn't wrenching on vehicles the whole time, but I did for quite a while. ASC certified mechanic. I taught um at the local college, at the vote center, um, HVAC brake, suspension, electrical, things like that. Um, so I can know my way around a car. Um, but I haven't been doing that for a while. Like I it's been at least 10 years that I've been in ministry, and some of that was bivocational, where I was doing some automotive and some auto or some ministry. Um, but even when I was doing that, I wasn't doing as much working on cars. I was working on the business end of things. Um so it just wasn't it wasn't regular muscle memory stuff for me. Well, I was just helping a guy um who was having a problem with his brakes, and I was doing his brakes yesterday, and it was one of these weird setups that just like you think to yourself, why did the engineer do it this way? This is just brakes. This isn't rocket scientists. Why science, why are you doing this? And I wrestled and I fought because there are certain you know methods and things that I've lost over the years. Like I I've probably done that break job a couple at least a couple times before, but I couldn't remember the tricks. So I found myself getting really frustrated with the first set until I figured out on one side, until I figured out what the trick was. And then when I figured, oh yeah, and then I remembered what that was, and I did it on the other side, and things went way smoother on the other side than it did on the first one. But man, was I wrestling. And I even had some not-so-good words come out of my mouth. So it reminded me of the scripture that um, and I'll and I'll bring it up to you here real quick. So it's in Ephesians, but I'm not gonna give you the the um annotation directly because if you're curious, I want you to find it. But it says, Let there be no filthiness or foolish talk or crude joking come out of your mouth, but instead, let there be thanksgiving. Now there's a spot in here that says, which are out of place. And I think we'll get to that maybe here or maybe even later. Um, but I like when I was in my own garage, nobody else is around, and I went, ah, so frustrating. Why, like I am a master at this. I have taught other people how to do this. Why is it so hard right now? Why is life so difficult on me? What are the tricks? So, what I want you to pull away from this is I can't get down on myself because I said some things that I'm glad nobody else was probably around to hear because it probably would have made him made me look like a fool. Glad my kids weren't there and they're like, Dad, I haven't seen you that angry in a while. I don't remember the last time I heard that come out of your mouth. But it brings me back to a story. It brings me back to a story, and this is where I hope that it gets really personal and practical for you, as it did for me. See, I've also um discipled lots of young men over the years and high school age, college age, and we used to get together in my backyard and and open the scriptures, but we also used to get together and just play. So we were playing Ultimate Frisbee one day, and one of the kids that was in my backyards let out a cuss word. He's like, Oh, whatever. I don't remember what it was, but it was not repoint. And he looked at me and he goes, Oh man, I'm sorry. I'm like, for what? He goes, Well, I I I cussed. Like, yeah. And and it kind of hit me, and I don't think this came for me. I really think it was a Holy Spirit moment. And he goes, Well, I you know, I shouldn't do that around you. And I said, Why? Why not? If you were around your friends and you were playing this game and and I wasn't there, would you have done that? Would you have cussed? And he goes, Well, yeah, we we cuss a lot, and it's just part of our normal talk. And I said, Well, then if you can do it with them, why can't you do it with me? Like the last thing I want for you to do is be inauthentic in my presence. Like what I want from you now, it's a different story. If you're to say to me, hey man, I've been struggling with my cussing and I don't want to do that anymore. God's convicted me, and and I don't want those kind of words. Can you help me? Can you like if I say something, can you hold me accountable to that? Now that's a completely different story, but we didn't have that conversation. So my my challenge is this, and the practical part of this is are you willing to let somebody be who they are in the moment? Or are you judging them based on how God's convicted you? You see, I know some guys who have had made that choice and felt like God has told them, hey, don't say anything like this because it's unwholesome, it's it's not good, it's unedifying to other people. Like, like you might offend somebody, so don't do it. Now, I'll give them all kinds of props, all kinds of respect. And I don't want if that and that if that's what God's convicted them in doing, then I don't want them to do that. God hasn't convicted me of that. Now, I don't want to use coarse language, I don't want to use that stuff. But one of the things that both annoyed me, and then I began to understand that you I couldn't go to a men's event with pastors or with leaders without hearing coarse jesting. And when I was an early Christian, that irritated me. Because to me, that was hypocrisy, but in reality, it was authenticity. They they allowed themselves to be vulnerable, to be real. And as I grew in my faith, then and I saw that that wasn't hypocrisy, that it was actually authenticity, and there was a space, like it, like it says in here, like which is out of place. Yet don't do that in the church. Don't do that. Like, maybe don't do it with young kids around. Maybe don't do it with in the in the presence of women, like whatever it is that you feel convicted, like, yeah, there's a space that you can be fully authentic, and there should be a space where you can be fully authentic. And if every now and then uh a coarse word pops out, you shouldn't be judged for that. Because I want you to be you, and I want everyone around me to be themselves, because we are all growing in in maturity to Christ-likeness. None of us are there yet. So are you willing to give the space for other people to be authentic and say things and be things that you might disagree with, or scripture might even point out that that's not good? And are you willing to give your own self the space to be sanctified, to be made holy, to be set apart? And and maybe you're that means you're not fully sanctified yet. Are you are you going to give yourself the same grace that God has given you, that Jesus has shown to you? So that's the personal and practical today, because I think it's one of the most practical things that I learned. You know, because these boys were able to learn or able to be comfortable in my presence. And I told him, I said, if you're gonna cuss around your friends, I want you to be able to cuss around me. That doesn't mean that I want you to cuss around me, but I want you to be able to, I want you to be free to be you, and we'll deal with the rest as it comes. So are you free to be you? And you are are you around people that allow you to be free with you? Are you one of those people that creates the peace around you that allows other people to be free around you? So be authentic, be real. Yes, grow in faith and grow in sanctification, and maybe use less coarse words and joking. That I that's fine. And if God has convicted you, then absolutely stop. But don't allow your convictions that God has placed on you to be a your judgment upon others. So I hope that you have enjoyed today's podcast on authenticity. I really hope that um this hits you well and you can um be inspired to give somebody else the space that you want them to give for you. So, above all things above all else, remember my friends, to stay curious.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

AI was only used to enhance the sound and visual experience. All content is authentic and does not contain AI generated thoughts or concepts.