SPEAKER_05 0:09

The Coaching for Life Podcast with Monty Williams and Will Davis.

SPEAKER_02 0:17

Welcome back to the Coaching for Life Podcast with Monty Williams and Will Davis, a conversation that we pray encourages you to pursue the Christ-centered life. And it's always a highlight to spend some time with my good friend and co-host, Mr. Monty Williams. And today, Monty, we're blessed to have another dear friend and brother in Christ joining us, Mr. Steve Ramser. Steve, thanks for visiting with us today.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Well, thank you, Will. Monty, good to be here. I'm humbled. I'm been blessed by the podcast and just grateful to be here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

It's cool to do these kinds of things with people that you do church with. Such a blessing I've learned from when you teach, and it's forced me to dig in more because the depth that you bring when you share is something that it kind of calls me up to a different level of I need to study more. I need to understand context better. I need to understand some of these root words better, whether it's Greek, Hebrew, English in my case. So that's that's uh it's been a blessing to be around you these uh last couple of years we've been back in San Antonio. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

I appreciate that. I think you know your first podcast, I think, was on humility, if I'm not mistaken. And I think that was a great place to start. But I'm like I said, I'm humbled to be here with you all, grateful for it.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

Yeah, as Monty alluded to, Steve is a part of our teaching team here at the church, and he has been a wonderful partner in ministry for the last decade. And Steve is married to Angie. They have three wonderful children and one grandson. Steve also serves as a professor at Texas AM University in their graduate program. And he has recently wrote two books, Unveiled, volumes one and two. And we can put a link to the to the book on the YouTube page and on Instagram as well, if you would like to order copies of those books. And today we wanted to discuss volume two, which is titled Recovering the Saints The Church Has Forgotten. And in this book, Steve, you cover six forgotten saints, John Wycliffe, Brother Lawrence, Jay Hudson Taylor, Corey Tinboom, Jonathan Edwards, and William Wilberforce. So, Steve, first of all, what led you to write this book on these Forgotten Saints? And did anything surprise you along the way as you studied these lives?

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Yeah, so it in 1992 we were part of a small church plant in Both, Washington. And we decided as a congregation that we would benefit from studying some biographies. And so we took 12 biographies, um, Elizabeth Elliott, uh, Jonathan Edwards, uh Whitfield, a number of Corey Tinboom, and we said, you know, let's just meet different members of the congregation, take this saint, live with them for a month, write about a 30-minute paper, and then we presented that at the last Sunday night of the month. And it changed us, Will and Monty, in ways that we never anticipated. I think it changed us in a couple of ways. It at first, it gave us context, right? Christianity didn't start with us. And it brought a degree of humility to the congregation. Second, it really it focused our attention outward, and we really became missional, I would say, after whether it was David Brainerd or Jay Hudson Taylor, but really becoming missional. But one of the things that really struck us was these Saints' lives were unattainable. They were they were way up here and we were way, way down here. So when I made the decision to write this second book, um I wanted to include an application section to the each chapter. And I wanted to also show that these saints have feet of clay. Yes. They're just like us, and really the one that we should look to and be awed by is the Lord Jesus Christ. And so that's the the Psalm 27, 4, the one thing I ask of the Lord, that I will seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple. It's really about gazing on the beauty of the Lord, is what distinguished these common people and really changed the world from that. So that's the kind of the origin story of how how the book came about.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Yeah. And we wish we had time to look in depth about each of these six individuals, but we wanted to take at least one each and and and talk about them uh for a little while. And the one that struck me as I read about his life was was Jay Hudson Taylor, the the first Western missionary to reach inland China with the gospel in the in the 1850s and and 1860s. And as you just talked about, it's so tempting for us to look at someone like Jay Hudson Taylor and think, this guy is superhuman. But he faced many trials, he faced depression, moments when he felt alone. And I can't imagine what that must have been like as a as a 20-year-old after spending six months at sea, and it wasn't an easy journey by any means. And he steps off the boat for the first time in Shanghai, barely knowing the language. No one is there to greet him, he doesn't have a place to stay. He shows up in the middle of a civil war, the Taiping Rebellion. And as you wrote about, there comes a time later in his remarkable ministry where he was spiritually and physically exhausted and he was burned out. They probably didn't have that term at the time, but he wrote to his sister, I prayed, I agonized, I fasted, I strove, I made resolutions, I read the word more diligently, I sought more time for meditation and prayer, but all of that was to no avail. And his fellow missionary John McCarthy, who was wrestling with some of that same exhaustion, wrote and encouraged Hudson to not strive after rest, or not strive after faith, but rest on and in the faithful one Jesus, to rest in the exchange life. Not I living for Christ, but Christ living through me. So for me, reading about Hudson Taylor, picking up his book, Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret, has helped me to reframe how I approach ministry that it's it's not about us, it's Christ working in and through us. And then we can work hardly as to the Lord and the strength and the power that he provides. What else has uh inspired you as as you all think about Taylor's life and his testimony?

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Well, Monty inspired me this morning as we were talking, getting ready.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

I'd like you know, share what you said. I mean, I I can relate in a in a small way, not that I ever had or anything close to a Hudson Taylor. When I when I learned about him years ago, I just thought of him as this awesome Christian missionary in China who did this great work. And I it helped me reading your book to understand I have to be careful with the word hero, especially in the faith. Because when I read about him, I saw his struggle, and it was more relatable for me because he was I felt like, man, I'm I'm dealing with that, you know, and I saw this uh guy who not only was he struggling, but he was still being used by the Lord to do a great work. And that gives you a bit of like exhale. You know, like God can still and is using me. But I saw this this symbolism in that um as he was approaching China and got there, most of the work was being done on the outskirts of China. And he had this desire to go to the inland China where millions of people were living to take the gospel, and it was in so many ways what God was doing with him. God was doing an inside work with him years later in this mission, and God wanted his inside to rest in him. Amen. And it wasn't for me anyway, I always looked at whether it's Corey Tenboom or Hudson Taylor or Wycliffe or whomever, like Billy Graham, MacArthur. It I was like, wow, that guy, that guy, that lady, that lady, whatever. It was no, it was it was God using him. And in the using him, if I would imagine if we talked to uh John MacArthur, who's with the Lord now, he would probably share his own personal struggle with us so that we would focus more on the Lord. And so as I'm reading um about these people, I'm I'm seeing this identifiable um struggle that we all have, no matter what it is, you know, the inability to forgive, uh the struggle with like, okay, Lord, what more can I do? Trying to add to the work that's already been done at the cross. And that just gave me a different perspective. Because like when I learned about these people in my 20s and 30s and 40s, I just didn't have that perspective. In my 50s, I'm like, for whatever reason, I have the capacity to see it a little bit differently.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Amen. So thank you for that. And that was an insight for me when you shared it earlier, and I had I reflect on that. That was the that was the gap that I wanted to, the chasm I wanted to cross in writing this book, because in the 90s, it was when I first met them, they were unattainable. I had I had placed them on a pedestal, which in retrospect was probably sinful on my part, when in fact, if you if you if we were to interview them, they would say, no, it's 100% Christ. Don't venerate me, behold him. And it's in that beholding of the Lord Jesus Christ through his word, by his spirit, that he changes us. And I think that's what you're describing.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Yeah. It's almost like when you see um these encounters with angels in the Bible. First, we have this weird perspective of what an angel looks like. And we know that angel means messenger, but when you see these encounters, the there's a an attempt to bow down and worship the angel. And the angel's like, hey, hey, hey, don't do that. Yeah. Not me, him. Yeah. And it's a it's a great example for us. As much as I love Will and Pastor Bill and many of these teachers that I've been around, I have to keep them in proper perspective. And that doesn't mean I have to degrade them. Amen. I can still respect and honor and love and be whatever I am with them, but never allowing them to take the place that only God should reside in. And I think for me, coming from the sports world, it's so easy to do that. Yeah. You know, because many of my heroes are, you know, it started out when I was five or six, and I'm like, I want to be Tony Dorsett. Yeah. You know. I just want to run a 99-yard the longest run in the history of the NFL on Monday night football against the Vikings. Like, that was it for me watching that. So he just became but I as I've gotten older, he's he's a man. Amen. Just like me. He's a he's a guy who struggles just like me. He just has a gift. And it helps me think of James 117. Yeah. Every good and perfect gift comes from the Father of Lights. It's all it's all from the Lord. And so just thinking of people that way, I I have to be careful again, how I put people in the character of or in the position of hero. Um, because there's only one superstar in the galaxy, and that's that's our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

SPEAKER_02 13:46

Yeah, that's good because I think about you know Hudson Taylor and that concept of the exchange life where he again deflects the attention off of him and what he can accomplish, but really Christ living through him, Christ working in and through us. So that that was inspiring. And something that was very convicting for me with Jay Hudson Taylor was the the burden that he had for the lost. You know, as as he wrote about, as he spoke about a million a month, a million a month are dying in inland China without Christ. And that really fueled him and that fueled his prayer life. But it's so incredible that he never asked for funds, yeah. You know, with the example of of George Mueller. Um but he he gave it all to the Lord, even with his own salary and support. You know, he he trusted, he communicated about the burden, he communicated about the need and the need for more missionaries and more help, but he he really just placed himself at the altar and and asked the Lord, you know, God, you provide. Yeah, you you make a way, you fill this need. And that that was it was so humbling.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

How d how does that when you're writing about these people and you read that type of faith and that type of um humility to just say, Lord, like you got it, and then you you compare it to some of the things we see today, like how how did that impact you as you wrote about this?

SPEAKER_01 15:46

Aaron Powell Yeah, this book brought me to my knees into tears multiple times in writing the book because I had to condense well over a thousand pages of biographical material, history, theology, et cetera, down into what, 108 pages. And so you leave a lot on the on the cutting room floor. Yeah. And engaging with Hudson Taylor, you know, I've known him now, I say I know him almost like I'm crazy, but since the early 90s. And now seeing him through the eyes of a 62-year-old man who's been walking with Christ for 40 years, um, it it was it humbled me. And it was really this idea of, you know, I have been crucified with Christ, and nevertheless I live yet, not me, but Christ in me, and I l and the life if I now live by faith, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. And that verse just just really opened up for me. What does that mean to experience union with Christ? Yeah, to where I'm so identified with the cross that the old man has been crucified, behold, all things have become new. And how do you how do you live out of that? It's what you said earlier. It's like you take in this big deep breath, and then once you experience union with Christ, you just you let that breath out. And I think that's where the change took place in my life, the humble dependence of simply being content to adore Christ. Not accomplish something for Christ, not have to put points on the board to use a sports metaphor. But to contend in Christ is enough.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

But most of my life, if not all of it, has been me trying to knock the ball out of the park instead of just resting in the Lord in that way where I just allow him to live through me, living in him. Um, I find myself trying to do the work. Amen. And it's it's a if I'm being totally straight, like it's a daily asking of the Lord to help me to rest in him. And to be totally clear, like I just didn't understand that concept until or the need for that rest until I I would imagine maybe a few years ago, where I was just like, I gotta do it. And I maybe some of it comes from my athletic background where you feel like a lot of it depends on you, and I gotta score points or I gotta draw the play or whatever, as opposed to trying to figure out like, okay, Lord, like what is it that I do? You know, and it's it's pretty clear when you think of it from a practical standpoint, it's like love him and love others. Amen. Like, you know, you go back to the old testament and then you have all the 600 plus, and then you get to Micah 6, and oh, you're like, okay, those three, and then you get in the New Testament, guys, like, love me, love others, you know, and I'll I'll do it. Yeah, and but I'm just I'm like, okay, Lord, I I need to do something. So like it's a it's a weird battle that I think I've I've had. And when you read about these particular people, you start to see that they had the same struggle. I wonder if we ever totally get there on this side, you know.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

Yeah. No, that's that's a a challenge uh as we daily depend upon Christ, and and another person who lived out that dependence and that union in Christ was this little Dutch woman, Corey Tinboo. Yeah. Yeah. Just a remarkable woman of faith. And and Mani, I know you spent some time looking at her life.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

I just had a my perspective on her changed as I shared with you all before we started to record. Like when I read about her, heard about her in my late 20s and 30s, and even into my 40s, I don't think I had the capacity to understand what I've learned since I've had a chance to study, um, read your book and study more about her. I watched the movie again just to get some more context because when you think about concentration camps, um it it takes my mind to slavery in our country, it takes my mind to slavery in other countries, it takes my mind to a place where you're like, it's just crazy. Like I can't, I can't imagine that. Yeah. And then you see these statements. Um, there is no pit so deep that he is not deeper still. Like it's hard to imagine that kind of love. Only God has that kind of love. And as I studied and read about Corey Tin Boom, you see how God was using certain things to ground her in him, whether it was every morning at 8 30, her dad reading the word of God, like every morning. And it didn't matter who was there. It was like this is what we're doing. And that had a huge impact on her. It was almost like God was layering this foundation for her. And then um They have this crazy thing that happens in their country where they get arrested and they're they're taken to these prison camps and she sees her sister Betsy display a level of love that is just uncommon. It's so easy to look at her dad and Betsy as the ones. But as I read it, I see this, as you explained so well in the book, this Plutose of grace that God has allowed these two people to have that's from him to impact Corey. And then you see it on display in a number of ways after she gets out of this prison camp, after watching her dad die after being arrested days later, and then her sister die in the camp and watching horrific things that we can't even imagine in our economy. She lived through that. And so for me, like I can understand her pain. I can understand why in that moment in 1947, when she's faced with the symbol and the person who was responsible for the pain and suffering and the taking of her family's lives. I can understand why in that moment when that man asked for forgiveness that she didn't want to do it. Like I was like, I can relate to that. But in that moment, she had this level of humility to ask God, to tell God, like, God, I can. Yeah. I can't forgive this man. And in that same moment, God gives her exactly what she needs, and it changes the trajectory of her life, her ministry, um, to be able to be used by God in that moment. So I I could I could go on and on and on. Um, but I think the thing that impacted me more was I have to continue to see God in all of it, whether he's using Corey Tinboom, Hudson Taylor, Billy Graham, John MacArthur, it doesn't matter. Like how he chooses to use these people to share his love with a world that doesn't deserve it, that's his choosing. But I can't, I can't ever put someone in his place. Because I think I did that with her. If you watch the movie, it's so easy to see her as the hero. Yeah. Yeah. It's so easy to see her as, you know, this lady that I just, man, I can't I I'd love to meet her. It's like, no, like that'd be cool, right? But I get to meet with the Lord every day. Amen. And I don't think I value that enough. And so this having maybe the capacity to hear, to see, to feel in that moment that she wasn't capable of doing what needed to be done. She needed God's power, she needed his hand to help her to forgive that man in that moment. And so that that for me was I just didn't see that before. And reading your book, it was just like, wow, this is pretty cool to open my eyes to something that I just maybe I didn't have the capacity to see it, or I just couldn't see it because I'm I'm a doofus. But after reading it, I was like, wow, Lord, you just you use people. And how you use them is is your own doing. So that was pretty cool for me.

SPEAKER_02 25:32

Yeah, because that was such a powerful moment in in the book where she forgave that concentration camp guard, the prison guard. And Monty referenced those family devotionals that took place every morning at 8 30. And it seemed like that's when her heart was formed. That's when her heart was uh allowed the you know, to to forgive. It was it was that time in the word, that time in in family devotion, that's when her heart was softened and sanctified. And that reminds me of Joseph in in Genesis. You know, he was able to eventually forgive his brothers that sold him off to slavery, but that forgiveness took place in that dark prison cell in Egypt, not when he's face to face with his brothers. And I think that that was true with Corey as well, even though God gave her that supernatural strength at that moment to forgive this prison guard from Ravensbrook, that had already been formed in her many, many years ago. And I know you pointed that out to us earlier, and that was one of these life-changing moments for you, just reading about that supernatural forgiveness.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

Yeah, and I want to read the the verse and and in Ephesians chapter one and and verse seven, where you know Paul from Ephesians 1 3 through 14 is one sentence in the original text, and this cascading adoration and worship that flows from God's perspective on salvation. And we read in verse 7 in him, you know, there's the union with Christ, in him in whom Paul uses that over 160 times in his 13 epistles. We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the Plutos, the riches or the wealth of his grace. And that's the well that Corey drew from in that moment, Monty, that you pointed out. We already have that, right? This is this is not something that we're striving for, working toward. He says, in him or in whom we have redemption. It's aorist. It's not something that we're striving for. We already possess the infinite wealth. God does not give according to or out of his wealth. I mean, out of his wealth, he gives according to his wealth. And that's what at that moment there was nothing in her that could cause her to extend that hand. And this is what kind of froze me in place when I was writing this. I couldn't read this paragraph to Angie. I my practice was to write and then read to her, and she would tell me what's wrong. You know, and she was right every time. But I couldn't read this paragraph without breaking down in tears. I couldn't get through it. Yeah. Because, like you said, Monty, I could not imagine looking in eyeball to eyeball with the man who had murdered my family. And when she extended her arm and you know, she felt that energy course through the her arm. Yeah, she was drawing from the from the Arabone. She was drawing from an artesian well that had no bottom. And when we try to forgive out of our own strength, out of our own heart, we're drawing from a finite source. Yeah. But she reached into an infinite source and she found infinite supply at the moment of need. And that changed that changed me.

SPEAKER_03 29:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

It's such a reminder that when I'm encountered with whether it's a practical everyday situation or these moments where you might be faced with um going to the Lord and asking him for what I need, as opposed to thinking that I can do it on my own. And I think that's been the thing that's tripped me up and can trip us up in our walk is thinking like, I got it. Right. No, you don't. But the other thing that struck me too was like what happened in the life of this guard. You know, to get him to a place where he was a part of this atrocity where so many lives have been destroyed and and were being destroyed at that time. And then he gets to a place where he knows it's God.

SPEAKER_04 30:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

Like God has to do that in a man, in a man's heart where it's that hard, just like he did with mine.

SPEAKER_01 30:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

It's no different. I think for me, sometimes I think we like to put people in levels of, you know, whatever we think is acceptable or more sinful, it's all bad. Yeah. And his love covers all of it. And so I, you know, you just you don't know, but what were the details that led to his change? Like, did he grow up with um the word being taught in his life and it just didn't take root until later on? Yeah. We don't know that. But for him to be able to be in this place where he's asking her for forgiveness, only God can do that. Yeah. And then you see her asking God to give her the strength to forgive. Only God can do that. And it's just, it reminds me, no matter what it is, like I need to be more mindful of needing his help, but also resting in the fact that it's in me and asking God to like do it in me in that moment. Yeah. It's a it's a pretty sobering in terms of knowing who you are. Yeah. Because you know, you don't have the capacity or the faculties that you think you have. Like all of these things come from the Lord, man. And so it's just what a reminder that we need him for everything that we try to do in life. Like we just need the Lord.

SPEAKER_02 32:05

Amen. As I've talked about at times with you all and and even in front of the congregation, it's a book like The Hiding Place, I mean, it really should be required reading for the believer in Christ. If you've never read it before, pick it up, along with Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret, Jonathan Edwards' Religious Affections. Why do you think it's so important for the believer to discover for the first time or rediscover some of these forgotten saints of the faith?

SPEAKER_01 32:44

I think it provides us with context that there are believers who have faced seemingly insurmountable odds. If you think about William Wilberforce, who presented the Slave Trade Act for 18 consecutive years, one year he couldn't because he was ill, and the Prime Minister, his best friend, presented him on be on his behalf, and he put one foot in front of the other. You think about George about Wycliffe, who I was gonna say George Mueller, but you think about Wycliffe and the fact that he was writing there at Oxford when 50 percent of the population was dying of the Black Death, and he didn't put the pen down. And I think that it shows us that we set our sights way too low. That as believers today we think we have the technology, right? I can pull up the Bible on my iPhone or iPad. But do you know the fact that Tyndale gave his life for this Bible and that and what it took to put this thing in front of us? So there's a there's a reverence for the word that comes from this, there's a contextual recognition that there are saints who have faced insurmountable odds. And then you think about Hudson Taylor. You know, when he died in the 800s, some odd missionaries in the interior, he was the first one to introduce women into the mission field. He used the Mueller model when he looked at raising funds. And do we set our sights too low? Is your God too small? Yeah. And I think reading these lives, you step back and you say, okay, Lord, what's the doctrine that you have placed on my heart? And what is it that you would have me do resting completely in you? But let's let's raise our eyes higher. You and I were talking, we'll, you know, in your office, put a map of San Antonio and saying, okay, this is our mission field, and and let's let's let's reach them for Christ.

SPEAKER_02 34:55

No, that that was inspired by Hudson Taylor. You know, when he's on furlough, he's got that big map of China on his wall there in England and just praying every day for those uh without Christ. And as we look at these six people in this book, uh Jonathan Edwards might be, for some, the most recognizable name. So why did you want to include him in this book?

SPEAKER_01 35:28

Yeah, so I think Edwards for a couple of reasons. He was the saint that I met in 92, and I read his religious affections. This I'm on my third reading of the of the book now. And in terms of I wanted to present Edwards as the theologian of the beauty of Christ and not just of sinners in the hands of an angry God and dangling the spider over the open flame. So I wanted to kind of correct the caricature of Edwards. And this goes to, I think, one of the comments that Angie had made in editing the book is I've made the decision to open each chapter by placing the reader in the room. Yes. So I want to just read about Edwards if it's okay. That's great. And Edwards, his quote, God is glorified not only by his glories being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. And then the chapter opens with, As Edwards rode through the woods one afternoon alone, the world seemed to hush, as if creation were holding its breath. He had been turning over the words of 1 Timothy 1 17 in his mind. Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. And as he read them again, something broke over him. He writes, There came into my soul, and was, as it were, diffused through it, a sense of the glory of the divine being, a new sense quite different from anything I ever experienced before. The glory was so overwhelming it took the strength from his body. He dismounted, the reins slack in his hand and sank to the forest or floor. The leaves were cool beneath his palms, his chest burned with a sweetness he could neither contain nor comprehend. He could do nothing but stay there, weeping under the weight of a presence more real than the trees around him. In that moment, God was not merely known about, but known, present with a beauty the intellect alone could not produce and could not contain. So here was a man who entered Yale at 14, graduated at 17, Valedictorian. He pastored one of the most influential churches in New England. After his dismissal, he goes and ministers among the Indians, and there he writes these, you know, the freedom of the will, he writes religious affections, he writes The End for Which God Created the World. He writes these treatises and the edge of the frontier, and then at the end of his life he becomes president of the College of New Jersey, which is Princeton. A remarkable man. And yet the whole of the Christian life boils down to what Bonnie said earlier, love to Christ and joy in Christ. And it was really an unpacking of what Peter writes in 1 Peter 1.8, though not seeing him, you love him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy. And that's the life, that's the Edwards that I wanted to reintroduce to believers, is the Edwards of the beauty of Christ, connecting that back to Psalm 27, 4. And Edwards had an intellect that, you know, he he knew more theology than I will ever than I will ever know. But at that moment, that theology descended from the mind into what he calls the affections, and at that point it was in the bones. And the beauty of Christ so overwhelmed him that he just lived quorum dale before the face of God in a way, didn't matter what his circumstances were. Whether standing in the pulpit in Northampton, or whether he was on the edge of the frontier ministering, or whether he was the president of Princeton, he beheld Christ. And I think that's the one big takeaway. You know, I opened the book with two doctrines, the first being the new birth is the door, and union with Christ being the house, if you will, to stay with the metaphor. But what I really hope is just gaze upon the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in beholding him, the Spirit then changes us.

SPEAKER_00 39:59

It's a different, I mean, the it's we always get to this place in our pods where we always go back to the word because there's so many in our society and in our culture, there's so many things that distract us in terms of you know, whatever the American dream is, strive for that. You know, whatever your goal at work is, strive for that. Like what would we be like as a church if we um that was our striving to behold who the Lord is. And you know, when Will and I talk and we typically get back to it, it's like it's why Bible study and and fellowship and being under sound teaching is so important because you see the reminders um of that. Like I'm I'm listening to you and having read about these people, it's like, man, I how how often do I get distracted with whatever it is, you know, coaching or you know, this or that, but to behold who the Lord is and and have my theology go from my head to my being to my heart where I feel it in in my bones. And you have, you know, not just a moment, but live live a lifetime of you know, wanting to have that type of union with the Lord. Amen. How how do you you can't do that on your own, you know? You're not gonna do that just by attending church, you know. It's that's a different deal. And like you said, he's he's forgotten more than than I'll know for sure. Yeah. But even with that, like I don't think we can put a limit on the Lord because He He doesn't need us to have this unreal capacity to gain information as you always talk about. It's more about transformation than it is gaining information. He just He's looking for an open heart, a humble heart. And I wonder how our lives could be transformed if we had that kind of leaning of our heart as we lean into him and want to behold him on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_02 42:21

And I think that's one of the takeaways is is Steve, you and I talked about yesterday. Have we lost sight of that ability to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and His Word, or are we just so distracted as as Mani has been talking about? And Steve, we would love to have you back to talk about volume three. And another topic that you are are passionate about is the integrated life, as Edwards demonstrates. And I love how you talk about on page 77 of your book, there is a word for what Edwards demonstrated across 55 years, integration. And and you just spoke about this. The integration of a life in which doctrine and devotion are one room lit from the same source. He prayed in the forest and wrote in the study and preached from the pulpit, and they were all the same activity. The mind and the affections and the will bent toward God, illumined by the Spirit. And why is that so hard for us in in today's culture? Just the integrated life.

SPEAKER_01 43:45

Platonic dualism has has seeped into the church where we have bought into the false Gnostic idea that there's secular and sacred.

SPEAKER_04 43:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:55

And the incarnation forever destroyed that. Yeah. Jesus Christ is one. Person, two natures, very God of very God, very man of very man, and he lived the integrated life. And we, you know, keeping sight of the fact that the Apostle Paul said, whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, do everything to the glory of the Lord. And I think that's why I struggled where to put Brother Lawrence. We're not talking about him, but I put him after Wycliffe because you have the scholar Wycliffe, and then you have this clumsy soldier who was a cook and a dishwasher in a kitchen for 40 plus years. And I put the two of them next to each other on purpose. And I wanted to show that people traveled from all over France, all over Europe to go talk to this cook because he had lived Corumdeo in the presence of God in such a way that his life impacted almost 300 years of Christian mysticism and devotion. And with that, going back to Edwards, I want to pull on something Monty has brought up two or three different times, not venerating the person. And I intentionally moved Edwards out of the chapter on pages 76 and 77 and replaced him with his beautiful wife, Sarah, because Edwards wrote in Some Thoughts Concerning the Revival, 1742, about this two-week period in Sarah's life. Now she's the mother taking care of 11 children. Her husband spends 13 hours a day in the study, right? This woman has a lot on her plate. But Edwards describes the fruit of the renewal in her life. On page 77, the soul of a true Christian appeared like such a little white flower as we see in the spring of the year, low and humble on the ground, opening its bosom to receive the light of the sun, rejoicing, as it were, in a calm rapture. Humility and joy. And I wanted to move Edwards out of the picture for a minute. Yeah. Intentionally, because he moves himself out of the picture. And I think, Monty, that's the point. I think that if we were to interview these six saints, they'd move themselves out of the picture. Humility and joy. Love to Christ.

SPEAKER_03 46:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:30

I think that's the takeaway.

SPEAKER_03 46:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:33

What's cool? I mean, you sit there and you you have this, you know, you have an all-star, right? And then you have the role player, so to speak. And God reveals himself to both. There's no status that we need, there's no place that we need. How God uses his strategic planning in our lives and puts us in places, that's his doing. But there isn't this, well, I have to get to here for God to do this. Well, no. You just have to humble yourself, uh, ask him for the humility, which is what we talked about. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 47:12

That was the first podcast. I think I kept going back to that first podcast. I if anybody's listening to this one, I would re recommend go back to the first podcast because you opened this series with humility. And it was very convicting to me. And that's the cord that holds these six lives together across five centuries and two continents. They were humble servants.

unknown 47:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:41

They wouldn't want us talking about them, I don't think.

SPEAKER_00 47:59

That's that's uh, you know, if we had that where we we knew that we weren't it. And I think America teaches us to strive to be it. You know, culture teaches us to sports for sure at times. Um It was so cool to watch, you know, the World Cup and see all of these young soccer players taking time to just say thank you, Lord, and pray. You know, that level of humility. Like we millions are watching us, and everybody's talking about soccer's gonna blow up in America, and these guys are sitting there like, Lord, you blow up in America. Yeah. You know, that that's a level of humility that I think we all want to have on a daily basis. But when we did that podcast, we realized like we're not that humble. You know, you the more you talk about it, the more you realize, yeah, that's not me.

SPEAKER_02 48:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:00

And you see when you so well write about these people, like their level of humility is something that only God can impart to broken vessels like us.

SPEAKER_02 49:14

Amen. And we want to encourage the listener to again look up the uh link. We're gonna put it on the YouTube page and Instagram, Unveiled, volumes one and two. We've been talking about volume two, and I think that's a nice way to wrap it up just with that common thread that runs through these lives is one of humility. And for those listening who might be striving in their own strength and and struggling in some way, we encourage you to rest and abide in the Lord. And I love the focus, Steve, that you have just on the final page where you talk about the six lives in this book were not six people who drew more diligently from a well. They were six people in whom the spirit sealed, given, leaping, was rising through every circumstance the world could produce. And that is why they could not be extinguished. You cannot stop an artesian spring by piling stones on top of it. You need only drink and let it rise. Gaze at the splendor of the Lord, contemplate in his temple. So we want to encourage the listener to turn their attention upon the beauty of Christ, to drink deeply from the well of his word. And we hope you keep writing, Steve, as the Lord inspires you, because we and others are the beneficiaries of your ministry and your faithfulness to the word. And we would love to have you back to talk about volume three. And again, we'll include that link for you to order. And let me pray at this time. Lord, as your dear servant Hudson Taylor wrote, Let us see that we keep you before our eyes that we may walk in your ways, Lord, and seek to please you and glorify you in everything, great and small, depending upon it and knowing that your work done in your way will never lack your supplies. So we thank you for your great faithfulness in our lives. Lord, give us the humility that you displayed by dying on the cross for our sins in our place. We thank you that the Father raised you from the dead. Amen. And giving us victory over sin and death and Satan. Lord, thank you for the free gift of everlasting life if we place our faith and trust in you alone. And Lord, we thank you for our dear brother in Christ, Steve Ramser, a loyal partner in the gospel. Lord, would you bless him and his ministry, his family, and the calling that you have placed upon his life to impact many students at Texas AM. Lord, thank you for this time together. We want to pray for the listener who might be struggling. They might be striving. Amen. We pray that they would rest. And we ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Well, thank you for spending some time with us today. And remember, whatever it is that you're facing, know that God loves you. He's for you.

SPEAKER_05 53:08

Thank you for joining us at Coaching for Life. And please subscribe wherever you receive this content.