Faithfulness When You Can't Fix Everything

Matt: Welcome to the PS Podcast. We're so glad that you're with us this week. It's an exciting time to spend together looking at ⁓ the word and looking at a new series that we just started this week, Unfinished Business. So excited to be talking to Wes about that. But Wes you've been on the road lately. You've been doing some traveling and some speaking. Can you tell us about ⁓ your stop there at Red River Family Encampment?

Wes McAdams: After a sermon is over, have you ever wanted to make a comment, ask a question, or listen to the preacher say more about a particular idea? If so, this podcast is for you. My name is Wes McAdams, and I'll be sitting down with one of my fellow McDermott Road ministers to discuss comments, questions, and thoughts that have come up after the sermon is over. Welcome to P.S., the Post-Sermon Podcast. Thanks so much for listening to P.S., the Post Sermon Podcast. To find out more about this podcast or about the Church of Christ on McDermott Road, you can visit our website at ccmcdermott.org slash P.S. If this has been an encouragement to you, we also hope you will rate and review the show wherever you're listening, as well as share it with a friend. Because we believe sermons are not just for Sunday, but for our whole week and our whole life. Yeah, yeah. This I don't know what year. I need to figure it out because people are always asking me how many years I've been going to the Red River encampment. And it is something like twelve or thirteen, I think. And I I love going up there. It's one of my favorite times of the year. I get to hang out with some preacher friends and and there's probably between twelve and fifteen hundred Christians gathered under a big tent and we spend time singing and listening to sermons and lessons. This year was a little bit different for me. I got to teach a class instead of preaching, which was unusual. Usually it's one sermon and then I'm done. I get to sit back and listen to everybody else. But this year I got to teach every morning and taught three classes on the Holy Spirit, same material that we are teaching here at McDermott Road. And that was great. I really enjoyed getting time to to teach through various lessons on this subject and it was a lot of fun. I had a had a great time. There were several families from McDermott Road that were there. I miss being with my church family here, but it's always great to to be up in the mountains and worshiping God with with other Christians. It was great.

Matt: one of things that you mentioned there, you know, will play into our conversation here in a minute, but the importance of having people provide, you know, increased motivation and, you know, re encouraging us and ⁓ what some people may not know is we we do have ⁓ a minister lunch that meets in this area and I know that there are other minister groups, but can you speak to the value a little bit of just being around other ministers if there are ministers that are listening to the podcast?

Wes McAdams: ⁓ yeah, that that's so important. And and you're right, it does play into to this week's lesson about the idea of sort of highs and lows in our spiritual journey. And I know that I desperately need to be around other preachers and other ministers to encourage me when I get down or sometimes not down as in discouraged, just kind of apathetic or or just kind of run out of steam sometimes, just fizzle out. And and I need that that encouragement. So I have a a group of of fellow ministers. We get together once a month and have some barbecue and just encourage each other and talk through some of the things that we're dealing with and and going through. And then these annual type things. I go to the Camp Bluehaven and and there's a lot of what I do when I go to those places that's work in the sense of pouring into other people, but it's also mutually beneficial. In in in some ways it's it's like our weekly gathering. It's like our assembly where every time any of us show up, not just the preacher or ministers, but all of us should go both to pour into other people, to encourage other people, but also to be encouraged. And it is reciprocal. And we are doing this for other people. We are speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. We're encouraging each other in song. We're encouraging each other as we study together and and and listen to sermons together and that that's something that we all need, regardless of our role, regardless of our our calling within the kingdom of God, we all need to encourage others and be encouraged by each other.

Matt: Absolutely. So if you are, you know, an a preacher and you're or a member or or involved anywhere, we encourage you to find those opportunities for connection and community. ⁓ as we begin this new series, Unfinished Business, you gave us the first lesson this past week. How would you like to set up that series?

Wes McAdams: Yeah, so we're talking through Ezra and Nehemiah. We typically think of those as two different books. In the Hebrew Bible, they're one book. And and this this story of the exiles that are returning to Jerusalem from Babylonian captivity is still under the Persian Empire. And that's really the kind of the whole point, is that they are returning, and it is good news, and it's exciting, and it's this new chapter in the story of Israel, this new chapter for the Jewish people. But It's also discouraging because they find out, well, we're still slaves, we're still under the thumb of the Persian Empire, and things have gotten better, but the more things improve, the more things are still the same. And we're talking about how not only is that chapter of Jewish history sort of bittersweet, and that's kind of how we're framing it, but so is our life. Our life is full of those moments where it is joyful. There's good things that are happening, good things that have happened in the past. That are happening now, things that we should be excited about. But let's be real. Like it's also discouraging sometimes. And and there are moments where we're looking around and the question we asked yesterday is, is this it? Like, is this it? Is this what I was working for? Is this what I was so excited about? And that's the way they felt when the temple was rebuilt. They looked at it and they're like, ⁓ well, this doesn't really compare to the previous temple. And this doesn't really seem like all of the promises that God has made to us are all coming true. And we thought this was gonna be the the finale, this was gonna be the the conclusion of all of our hopes and dreams, and that we were gonna live happily ever after. And we're still waiting, we're still struggling, and we're still striving. And that's like our life so often. We we have these moments of excitement and enthusiasm where we think, okay, this is it. This is the this is the moment to end all moments. This is what I've been waiting for. And then reality sets in. And I think we have to deal with that, with those the reality that a lot of our life is spent waiting, waiting for the Lord. And we're not the ones who are going to fix everything and And that doesn't mean that a the work that we're doing is not important because it is important and we should keep striving and keep doing it, but understanding that it's the Lord's timing and a lot of times we do have to wait. And sometimes it's exciting and we're sort of at those spiritual highs. When I come back from church camp, that's always how I feel. But there's gonna be some spiritual lows as well, and that's okay. And we need to encourage each other through those valleys as well.

Matt: So when you think about, you know, the kind of the intersection between ⁓ hope and and reality, which is, you know, where this kind of message fell, you know, in addition to the disillusionment that they were experiencing, they also had some factors that that led to some of that despair. They had some external resistance and some ⁓ internal struggles. And you talked about, you know, the relatability of what they were going through in terms of just It wears on us, it gets us down, like ⁓ how do we begin, you know, it does take the encouragement of others, but from what we can control in and of ourselves, how do we begin working through some of those seasons of Hey, I've I'm just frustrated. Is this all this is? How do we begin that process?

Wes McAdams: Yeah, I think it I feel like I give the same answer on the PS podcast every week that it it it's a reminder of the story that we're part of. The scripture is this narrative. It's this narrative about where we've been, where we are, and where we're going. And that's always been the case for God's people at every chapter, at every milestone. It's always been where have we been? Where where did we come from as a people? Where did we come from? Where are we right now? And where are we going? Where is this story headed? And I think sometimes we get discouraged because we we forget that. We forget the story that we're a part of. And when we use scripture just as a rule book or even as an instruction book or you know, practical steps for this or that or the other, and we forget that big meta-narrative, as they call it, this big story that we're part of, well, then that's when we get discouraged. And I think we have to remember that. We have to remember that. That we are, as we framed it yesterday, we are a faithful continuation of the story. My sermon on Sunday is not going to be the sermon to end all sermons, or whatever it is that you are working on, each of us are working on right now. It's probably not going to be the work that's gonna end all work. We're not the conclusion, but we are a faithful continuation. And it really helps me to remember, okay. I don't have to fix everything right now. And everything is probably not going to be fixed in my lifetime. These people that rebuilt the temple, it would be another 500 years before the Messiah showed up. They thought they, I think they thought that when they showed up back in Jerusalem, this is the grand finale, this is what we've been waiting for. And it's like, no, no, no, we're we're not even close to the end of the story. We're we're just continuing that story. And in some ways, I guess that could be discouraging to think, ⁓ man, this laundry that I've done, it's gonna have to be done again. This sermon that I preach, it's gonna have to be preached again. This conversation that I'm having with my kid or with my spouse, or you know, this lesson that I'm teaching at church, it's all gonna have to be done again. And that could be a discouraging thing to some extent, but I think it can be less discouraging when we remember that this is important work because we are doing something that is continuing.

Matt: Okay.

Wes McAdams: The story that we are a part of and that it's headed somewhere, and that Jesus is the ultimate and the final conclusion. And we are all working towards and striving towards and looking towards that day with faith and hope and anticipation. And we will get less discouraged if we if we have that long-term, that long-term goal in mind, that that that long play idea in mind, and we stop thinking that this is going to be it, and we get so discouraged. when reality doesn't live up to our expectations, when we think, okay, if I could just get through today, then everything is going to be easier. Everything's going to be exciting and fun and wonderful. If we really keep in mind, well, this is the long play. We're we're in this for the long term, for the long haul. And we're we're not just working for today. We're working for a hundred years from now or maybe a thousand years from now. And what we are doing is making a difference in our day, but it's alwa also making a difference In the in the days and the generations to come.

Matt: I like that you use the phrase, you know, generations to come there at the end. I think this is where, you know, we see a lot of kind of faith challenges and maybe even faith unravel for some is maybe on us as churches for not communicating this message and kids do experience, you know, church life or the life of faith as an adult and they do get, you know, disillusioned, like how do we go about you know, speaking to the beauty that is being involved in a community of faith while also not discounting ⁓ the reality that you're speaking to there.

Wes McAdams: Yeah, yeah. I think I think we're afraid to that we're going to discourage people by telling them the truth. And and I think that we forget that it's actually less discouraging if we don't set them up with false hope or false expectations that we are going to set people up for success if we tell them the truth. Yesterday I talked about the fact that when you're baptized, you come up out of the water and you're so excited and it's so wonderful, but there's gonna be moments that are not like that, moments that are discouraging, moments that are are hard. And this is what Jesus told people before they became disciples. He said, if you're not willing to denounce all that you have and follow me, take up your cross and follow me, if you're not ready for that, then you probably shouldn't be a disciple. And I think sometimes today we try to keep that reality, the harsh reality from people, thinking that we're doing them a favor by just saying, well, sign on the dotted line and you'll you'll work out all the details later. We'll tell you about all the the tough stuff later. When really we are doing people a favor when we say, Listen, this life of discipleship, this life of following Jesus, it's gonna be fun and wonderful and exciting and great and awesome. Some days, and then some days it's gonna be really hard and it's gonna require a lot of sacrifice. But isn't that what we do in other areas of our life? I mean, if somebody was gonna sign up for the football team, we wouldn't be like, Hey, it's the easiest thing that you've ever done. It's gonna be fun every single day. No, we would tell them reality, like you're gonna have to work really hard, and there's gonna be days where you want to quit and you want to give up, but it's gonna be worth it if you persevere, if you keep going, if you work hard, if you're you're fearless and you you keep on this path that's being laid out for you. That's the life of discipleship. It's not to say that we are saved by our works or that we're working our way to God or anything like that, but it is to say that sometimes being a disciple of Jesus is hard. And people are better off if we tell them that from the beginning. And yesterday, as I was explaining about baptism, that baptism is committing ourselves to this life of discipleship on the days where it's easy and the days where it's hard. There was a a young lady who was baptized yesterday morning and she was so thankful that that was the message on the day that she was baptized and she expressed that right before she was baptized. And I was thinking to myself, Well, I hope I didn't discourage her, but it is again less discouraging if we're honest with people from the very beginning.

Matt: Okay. Yeah. And you had kind of a a really nice, you know, flow yesterday of talking about the fact that, you know, it can start with disillusionment, it can go to discouragement or despair, but then where it ultimately manifests itself sometimes is in the form of distraction. and it's like this idea of, you know, what does that look like in in our f lives but also in our faith communities like Are we just doing stuff to do stuff or you know, how how do we begin to diagnose like how much of our just busyness and other things is because we have become disillusioned and we just haven't dealt with that disillusionment yet?

Wes McAdams: Yeah, yeah. I could spend the an entire hour talking just about this idea because I think, especially in our generation, this is this is prevalent. The the people of of Ezra's day, that these returned exiles, specifically of Zerubbabel's day, when they were going about to build the temple, they laid the foundation and then it got hard, it got difficult, and then so they busied themselves with their own paneled houses, as the prophet said, as Haggai said. And instead of working on what's that?

Matt: Shiplap, I'm sure. I'm sure it was shiplap, you know, that kind of panel, some kind of mag magnolia approved panelling for sure.

Wes McAdams: Right. Yeah, it's the paneling. Right. So instead of working on the house of God, they worked on their own comfortable houses. And I find myself doing exactly the same thing. When something is hard, especially with our smartphones, when something is at all difficult, I reach for my phone. It is this is this distraction that when I'm dealing with something that's difficult or requires some some brain power. My my heart, my mind wants to go to something easy. And and we all have this tendency, I think, to do that sort of thing. And we have to watch that. We have to discipline ourselves because the the things that are worth it are are things for which we have to persevere. We have to work hard. We have to stay the course. We have to be fearless. We have to be faithful. And that success or the the blessing, the benefit is on the other side of pushing through those things. And if we're not careful, we'll go to the things that are easy. I mean, it's it's like this even with the food that we eat. It's so much easier to eat the things that are not good for us rather than the things that are good for us. And it's like that with everything that we do in our life. And we do that both individually and like you pointed out, collectively, we do that as well. And so there's a lot of good work that needs to be done in our community. But it's so much easier to just spend time doing the things that are easy, the things that are fun, the things that we like doing, the things that are nostalgic and bring back good memories. And I like it when we do this, or I like it when the church does that, or I like it when we're doing these things. Okay, that's great. Like those things are might be fine. But is the are these the most important things? Are these the things that we should be doing right now? Are these the things that are Are going to bring God the maximum glory and reach the most people with the good news about Jesus? Is this what our community needs us to be doing, or is this just what we like doing? And so even as Christians, even within the church, we can find ourselves sort of working on our paneled houses, the things that are are fun and easy and comfortable versus the things that require diligent and difficult discipleship within our community. And we we really have to stop and ask ourselves if Jesus if Jesus were face to face with us right now and and he was sort of chastising us about how we're spending our time and our energy, would he have some strong words for us about the the distractions that we find ourselves b gravitating towards individually and collectively?

Matt: I think he would. I think he would have ⁓ plenty to s to say to us for sure. ⁓ you used a word there that I think is pivotal in in one of the situations that you spin on and have already referenced of this idea of the multiple reactions to the new temple ⁓ being rebuilt. You use the word nostalgia and that's kind of a a packed word. Can you kind of speak to what's going on in that section and and maybe what we can learn from the the intersection of those reactions.

Wes McAdams: Yeah. Yeah. This younger generation seems to be really excited. Like, this is a new temple. This is really exciting. This is awesome. The old temple got torn down and destroyed, and the the exiles got carried off into captivity. And now they're back and they're rebuilding. And the young generation is super excited. But there are some older folks there that they remember the first temple and they look at this new one and they're like, This is not this is not what it once was. And I think that's really good to what you just did and tying that to nostalgia. And sometimes we do look back at previous days and think, ⁓ it was so much better 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30, 40, 50, 50, 60 years ago. It was so much better. And God is doing something new. And what is happening now, it might not live up in your imagination through your eyes to what it was before. But God says, actually, this is gonna be better. And we have to be willing to go. Go with God wherever he's going, to follow the Spirit of God, where he's going, even if he's doing something new, something difficult, something uncomfortable. This is something we have been talking about when we talk about the Holy Spirit in our Sunday morning classes. We talked about from from the The gospel of John, when Jesus is talking to Nicodemus in John chapter three about how the spirit of God is like the wind and you don't know where it comes from, you don't know where the the wind is going. And the spirit is the same way, and he is working in our lives in sort of a mysterious way where he is taking us on an adventure that we may not be, we may not be ready to go with him. We need to stop and ask ourselves, am I willing to go where the spirit wants to take me? Do I want my eyes open to what the spirit wants to show me? And and again, sometimes we're just so in love with the past. We're so in love with what we had before, or what is comfortable, or what is easy, or what we think is exciting and and spectacular, versus maybe God has something different in mind and we have to be willing to to. The imagination to say, maybe God can take this seemingly insignificant thing or this seemingly downgraded thing from what I had before and use that for his glory, use that according to his plans. I think one of the things I feel like I missed out on in second service yesterday was really leaning into that point that God is able to take even the mundane, ordinary, everyday things that we're doing. Even when we look at it and say, this is not this is not impressive. This is not a big deal. This is not good. God is able to take those things if we're doing it in faithfulness and use it for his glory. And we have to be willing to to say, okay, God, even though this doesn't live up to my expectations or live up to my ideas, maybe you're going to do something in this that will will be better than I could possibly imagine.

Matt: I I had written down one of the things that I I did really appreciate was, you know, you did talk about this idea that God did use what they had built for years and years as a place of worship, as a place of, you know, religious expression and and, you know, it did. It lived on beyond what they thought it could be. when we think about I don't want to move past, you know, the scene too quickly, but this idea of, you know This faith community had to create a place for both types of emotional expression to kind of coexist together for a moment. ⁓ when we think about our own, you know, church communities, we have people coming from different backgrounds, people coming from different ages, different faith experiences. Like how do we create a space for multiple emotions to be processed at one time? Does that make sense?

Wes McAdams: Yeah, it does. And it's really what I tried to bring out just real briefly in the invitation yesterday was that you may feel like everybody around you is singing and happy and joyful and everybody's here at worship and everybody's excited. And maybe your heart is filled with sorrow and your eyes are filled with tears. And maybe you you need to express that lament and that sorrow. The way that the book of Ezra frames it is that there is so much. shouting and joyful expression and sorrow and weeping that you can't tell the difference. You can't tell where one begins and the other one ends because it is this bittersweet moment where both things are being expressed at once. Both the sorrow that this temple is not going to be as impressive as the first temple and also the joy that we are rebuilding the temple. And I think we need both both realities to your point. I think we need to make room for both realities. And I think that we live in an age where we expect our church life, our worship, our praise to simply be joyful and celebratory. And there is a place for that. But we also have to remember that people are carrying heavy burdens. One of the one of the ways that I like to point this out sometimes is that when we when we take the Lord's Supper, when we break the bread and we we share the bread and we share the cup together, I think that we have to remember that. It's okay to bring what you're going through to the assembly. Sometimes we tell people, specifically with the Lord's Supper, but also in every other area, we say, Well, we need to leave our our our outside life outside. And we we need to not be distracted by all those things. So stop thinking about all of that stuff and just focus on Jesus. Just focus on the cross. Just focus on these quote unquote spiritual things. And again, we compartmentalize our life and we say, well, This stuff shouldn't be brought to the assembly. I say nonsense. There there's no way to really love one another unless we rejoice with those who are rejoicing and weep with those who are weeping. And you need to be able to bring your whole self here to this assembly. And if there's something that excites you and that you are overjoyed about and you're thankful for, you need to be able to bring it here. And that the Lord's Supper should be a celebration that this the cross of Jesus is what makes us family. It's what, it's where we're redeemed. It's how we w how we're victorious. But it's also the worst moment in human history. We killed God. And so all of our lament and all of our brokenness and all of our sorrow and all of our shame that can also be brought. And our entire assembly needs to be one of those moments where we can bring our sorrow, we can bring our grief, but we can also bring our excitement. In fact that's that's what hope is. Hope is the ability to hold grief in one hand and joy in the other, to say The world as it is is broken and hurting. And I've experienced some of that brokenness because of my own brokenness, because of what I've done, but also because of what's been done to me. And then at the exact same time, be able to say, but Jesus has overcome, and Jesus will overcome, and Jesus will make all things new again and make all things right. And that that tension, that paradox, we have to be able to hold both of those in our hands and our hearts at the same time. And within our community, we have to be able to hold those things together in tension. And we can't dismiss one or the other. And and I think we have to stop having assemblies, not just us specifically, but as the the church, we have to stop having assemblies where we insist that everybody be happy and everybody celebrate. Instead, we have to be allow people to bring their whole self and be able to help them to see how the gospel helps them to process that. It helps us to process our joy and our excitement and it helps us to process our grief and our sorrow.

Matt: Yeah, so I I think that's such an important point and I don't wanna to make light of it in in any way by the observation I'm about to bring out. But I mean my oldest son and I we've been watching a lot of the World Cup lately and and I think it it's just a reminder of just being around other cultures as well, but just we're a very emotionally repressive culture in so many ways and just I mean watching the the highs and lows and the reactions and the you know just the response to you know what's happening in something that on the grand scheme of things is not as important as the things that we're talking about in any you know one sense or another. ⁓ but for those that you know live in kind of an emotionally repressive culture, I think even the idea, like I totally in my head I agree, like hey we need to celebrate this or we need to show sorrow or we need to do these things but I don't know how sometimes. Like I mean how do we how do we grow together as we as we learn how to actually show those emotions.

Wes McAdams: Yeah. Again, I think it comes back to the story we're part of. I I hate that that's always my question but or my answer, but but I I think it is. And I think that because we haven't really truly fully embraced the gospel in all of its fullness, we're scared. And I maybe I'm just speaking for myself, but I I think that a lot of us are scared to express that full range of human emotion because we haven't really we've compartmentalized our life and we haven't We haven't really processed that the gospel in all of its fullness means that the world is probably more broken, more messed up than we're even willing to admit. We're scared to admit just how broken the world really is. We try to pretend that our country, our nation, our city, our state, ourselves, our heart, our mind isn't really as messed up as it really is. Like I'm I'm still trying to pretend, you know, that I'm I'm. I'm a pretty good guy, and I and and the people I'm around are pretty good people and people aren't messed up. People are generally good. But the gospel says no. People are more messed up, more twisted, more perverted than you're even willing to admit. We're scared to admit just how broken I am, much less how broken the world around us really is. And if we're willing to accept what the gospel says about the brokenness of humanity, we would be. Able to really lament and really weep, we'd be able to come to the assembly and wail about the brokenness of the world. There are some Christians that are really good at this. I think again, in our sort of buttoned up, straight-laced way Western culture, we're not very good at this at admitting just how broken the world is and how broken we ourselves are. But then at the exact same time, not only is the world more broken than we're willing to admit. The good news is more good than we could possibly imagine. The Spirit of God lives inside of me? Are you kidding? The creator of the universe is my dad. The king with all authority in heaven and earth is my big brother. Everything that belongs to him by nature and by merit belongs to me. By grace as a gift, I've been grafted into this family tree and I'm going to inherit the world to come. That is better news than I could have possibly imagined. It's not just, hey, when you die, you're gonna go to a pretty good place compared to the other place. It's like, no, right now you are an heir of the world to come. So our joy should be more rich and more full and more life-changing than we're even. willing to admit. I mean sometimes I I I think about how sort of animated I can be when I preach and and kind of you know talking you know I I I guess I probably have sort of a a pr a preacher voice or a preacher, you know, ⁓ expression of of the scriptures as I'm talking. But then as I think about it, I think, actually you should probably be more animated, Wes. Like this what you're talking about is so exciting and so wonderful. And again, at the same time It's also so horrible that God had to die to bring us out of the pit that we had made for ourselves. And if we were willing to take the gospel in all of its richness and all of its fullness, and we were willing to be as outgoing, as animated, as full of expression as the gospel deserves, then people could bring their the fullness of what they're experiencing here. And we'd say, yeah. The gospel makes room for that kind of grief, for that kind of sor sorrow, for that kind of lament, and also for that kind of excitement and that kind of joy. And it would help us to navigate all of the realities that we're going through. I mean, this is why the book of Psalms is so important. It gives us words for the whole full range of human emotions. I mean, what kind of God inspires his authors to author some of these psalms that say, God, where are you? And when are you going to show up? And why are you doing this thing? And when are you going to rescue me? And do you even care what I'm going through? God inspired people to s to write those kind of things because we need that kind of language in our life. We need to be able to express what the psalms express. It's not this this is not a faith for those who simply just want to be buttoned up and have A little bit of happiness and a little bit of sadness, but not too much. Don't take it to extremes. It is the most extreme story that you could possibly imagine. More extreme on both ends of the spectrum than we can really wrap our minds around.

Matt: I think that that's so good and I I haven't really thought about it with that language of more extreme on both sides. I'm gonna have to think about that a little bit more. ⁓ one of the comments we got this week spoke to this idea of you know, wanting to control and and wanting to fix. ⁓ this is from our our brother Mark. He wrote, As an engineer I want to fix things. Unfortunately we don't control the outcome. only the input we provide. We shouldn't let the big dreams and entrenched brokenness deter us. God only calls us to obedience and incarnate love. He will reward courage and bless the fearless. And so when we think about that idea of faithfulness in the midst of the extremes, in the midst of or in opposition to, you know, faithfulness versus this fixer mentality. you know, how do we allow faithfulness to keep us going, but to recognize that God's the one in control.

Wes McAdams: Yeah. And I think this is really gonna play into next week's lesson as well. But I think this is exactly what the whole story of Ezra and Nehemiah are all about, is that your work really matters, but you are not saved by your works. And that's something that that is true. It was true all the way back to Genesis. It was true in Exodus, it was true before the fall, before the exile, when the exiles returned. It's true in the age of of Jesus' reign. It's true for all of us. And We sometimes when we think you're not saved by works, we we just again compartmentalize that and we think, well, that means I can't go to heaven by my works. Okay, fine. But it's more than that. It's that your work, my work, all of our work, it really matters, but we are not gonna fix everything. The world is far too broken for my efforts to fix everything that's broken. I cannot bring about God's righteousness. I cannot bring about God's justice. But that doesn't mean that it's foolish to work towards justice, to work towards righteousness, to work towards a better world. But we do it by faith. We do it knowing that it's Jesus who is the conclusion of the story, and we are just faithfully continuing the story. And that our work in that context, our work with faith really matters, and that God does reward this kind of fearless faithfulness. That when we are working and striving towards his goals, his end, and waiting on him to bring about the fullness of it, then he really does reward it. But when we think I can do this on my own, by my own efforts, either through just pulling myself up by my bootstraps or implementing the right policies, if we can just get the right law passed, or we can just get the right politician elected, or if we can just accomplish this, or we can just build that, or we can just do this other thing. Then everything will be all right. That is leaning on our own understanding, on our own work, and we cannot save ourselves, rescue ourselves by our own work, even when it's good work. But again, that doesn't mean that our work is meaningless or that it doesn't matter. It does matter, but it only matters when we do that work by faith, trusting that Jesus is the conclusion of the story.

Matt: Absolutely. ⁓ one last thing I wanted to to speak to a little bit before we looked forward to next week is this idea of the posture of the ones who are given the mission of going in and and and relighting the fire for the folks that ⁓ you know they've stalled out sixteen years and you've been given that task and I think we've all had to maybe walk into situations like that before in which, you know you can see that something has, you know, stalled out or somebody needs that motivation. But there's a good way to do it and bad way to do it. You know, any thoughts that we can learn from this story about how we enter into situations and you know relight a fire under under people for for good things?

Wes McAdams: That's a great question. I haven't really thought about that too deeply. But yeah, Haggai and Zechariah, these prophets that are tasked with re or stirring up this fire inside of these people and getting them back on track. And it's a question I'm always asking myself. I I constantly frame it this way: how do we light a fire under the church without burning down the house? And we we have to be really careful about how we how we do that. We have to say, hey, There's there's good work for us to do, but we need to not dismiss what's already been done or what is being done. And I think sometimes we can get so frustrated with our own lack of work, our own faithfulness towards the calling or or that of other people, that we can get so frustrated that that's exactly what ends up happening with Ezra and Nehemiah. We'll get into this in coming weeks, that they they want what's best for the people. They want them to do what's right. But they end up cussing them out. They end up pulling out people's hair. They end up pulling out their own hair. They end up so frustrated because they just want them to do the right thing. And I think that's where we find ourselves so often is we we try to do this by our own effort and we end up yelling and screaming. And to go back to our previous series, we freak out. And that's exactly what Ezra and Nehemiah do. They freak out because they're not trusting in God that in his own timing. God will b bring about the change and the transformation that He desires. God wins. And we have to remember that. We have to remember that our faithfulness matters. And it does matter when we get off track. It does matter when we get discouraged and we get distracted and we get disillusioned and we start working on and focusing on other things. And we do need to get back on track. But God wins and we will. Come more bringing people back to center, back to our job and our responsibility and our calling, if we have the calmness of spirit that comes with remembering and being assured that when we're in Christ and we're walking by the Spirit, we cannot lose. And that calmness, that that lack of panic is really, I think, going to contribute towards being more effective in the work that God has called us to do.

Matt: Absolutely. So as we as we kind of conclude for today's podcast, what do we have coming up in this week's lesson?

Wes McAdams: Yeah, so now we really get into Ezra, the the person of Ezra. And Ezra is this this Bible scholar, and he comes back and he's really excited about let's be the people that God called us to be. And immediately he looks around and he realizes, ⁓ wait, all of these Israelite men have married foreign wives. We weren't supposed to do that. This is all a mess. Why did you guys marry these other women? And he's again, he has this tendency to freak out and the and to panic about what's happening. And he comes up with a solution. I don't know, honestly. And we're gonna work on this a little bit this week and we're gonna talk about it in next week's sermon, but I don't know that his solution was from God, but he came up with a solution. And and again, this is the way the story of Ezra and Nehemiah works, is there's the all this excitement, this hope, this this enthusiasm for what God is doing, but then this moment of realizing, wait, we're not there yet. There's still a lot of work to do. And that matches with the real life that we experience so often, that we get really excited. I'm gonna, I'm gonna make all these changes, I'm gonna do these great things. And then we look around and we say, ⁓ well, I'm not there yet. And and this is harder than I thought it was gonna be. But when we persevere and we stay on track and we keep our eyes on Jesus and we walk by the Spirit, God will accomplish what the Lord wants us to accomplish. But we have to, we always have to remember that whether we whether we do it, you know. By banging on the Bible or we do it by building a wall or by building a temple, we do not accomplish the will of God. We do not bring about the kingdom of God by our own work, by our own effort. Only the Lord can do this, and only He can do it in His timing.

Matt: Well, thank you for that good word. That's a a great place for us to to end and to think about this week. So I hope that you will join us again ⁓ next week. If you're in the D F W area, we'd love for you to join us at the McDermott Road Church in Plano. But wherever you are, we hope that you find ⁓ church family to worship with this Sunday. Thank you so much for being with us.