Beyond Sunday Ep 17 (Keep the Gospel the Main Thing)

Well, hey everybody. Hey, how's it going?

Welcome to the Beyond Sunday Podcast, which is an extension

of the preaching ministry here at LEMC, and we thank you for

joining us. My name is Joseph Penner.

I'm the Associate Pastor here at LEMC, and I'm joined today by

Jonah Chitty, our discipleship and family pastor.

That's a long title. That is a long title.

Yo-yo, how are you guys doing? That's what the the third guy

like the disabled ship or the, the, you know, like they got to

be wacky kind of weird all the time.

So. You got to get more specific

because other ones are too general.

Yeah, exactly. Senior pastor, associate pastor,

and then you start getting into the weeds.

Extremely specific pastor of sanitary disposal, something

like that. I don't want to be that pastor.

Me neither. Jake is not joining us today.

We actually have a bit of a note, a note from Jake.

There's been a lot going on in this season of ministry for him.

And so he's actually decided to step back from the podcast for

the time being. I'll I'll read this note that he

wanted us to share with you all. He says hi to everyone on our

Beyond Sunday podcast. It has been a true privilege to

contribute and be a part of this meaningful ministry.

I've received numerous positive comments about the impact of

this podcast and I know it is reaching and blessing many

lives. My heart's desire is for the

Beyond Sunday podcast to continue touching people as it

moves forward. However, at this time, due to

the phase of life I am currently in, I need to step back and take

a break from this work for the time being.

Thank you for all your understanding and support.

Jake ends and so we've obviously appreciated having him on.

I, I feel like the podcast in, in some way is not really the

same as it was, you know, it, it was all of us together, all of

us pastors. But I obviously understand Jake

in this season of life, needing to step back.

Sometimes you have to take, take breaks, things, things change as

seasons of life change. You never know.

Well, maybe he'll want to hop back on from time to time.

I hope so. To join us to discuss sermons he

preaches maybe, and to get a different perspective.

It's helpful. And that way you wouldn't have

to listen to Joe and I talk to each other all the time.

But maybe maybe this could help us, you know, open up the format

a little bit too and invite some other people in on the podcast.

As far as guests, some of you who have listened, some of you

who have the opportunity to teach in our church, Maybe we

bring you on and we we chat with you about your ministries.

And so I think, I think good things can come of, of change

sometimes since so I, while we, we, we are disappointed though.

Yeah, and I'm sure the audience is too.

I, I know so many of the comments that that I've heard,

like so many people have appreciated the podcast and, and

we're, we really are grateful that it has blessed you.

That has been our purpose is to edify and strengthen and bless

our church. And, and you all have been

encouraging. And I know one of the

encouraging things that you as listeners have been saying is

that you just appreciate sort of the banter from all three of us

pastors and just the back and forth, but the different

perspectives, you know, and, and we see ourselves as being three

different people with different perspectives.

And so I think you all have appreciated that too.

And, and the fact that we work together as a team.

And so we appreciate it as well. And so, yeah, Jake will be

missed for sure. For sure.

Yeah, 100%. All right, well, we do want to

take time today to talk about your sermon this last Sunday.

Jonah, you preached a sermon on 1st Corinthians chapter 15

verses one through 11, and your title was Keep the Gospel the

main thing. Yeah, I wrestled with titles all

week. We I think I've expressed on, I

think it's episode 17 and on like 16 out of 17, I've

discussed how I don't like titles, the sermons.

I just want to put like First Corinthians 15-1 to 11 up there.

But yeah, so I mean, I wrestled, I was thinking like, keep the

main thing, the main thing or the gospel is the main thing.

I think I what did I land on? I forget even now.

Keep the gospel. Keep the gospel the main thing

just because of Paul's opening line, you know, this is utmost

importance. Make clear for you.

And so, yeah, I just think that's what the title was.

So. Yeah, I think it's good.

I've sort of come a lot like I, for me, I guess the reason that

I've, I've come to value titles in the sense of like if, if I'm

looking for something, let's say I open up a podcast, a lot of

podcasters will say, I, I don't necessarily need you to listen

to all the episodes. I'm, I'm making these available

for you. So like scroll through the

titles and just find something that like you might find useful.

And so then titles are very handy if, if the title is clear.

And so I'm sort of maybe leaning more that way where it's like,

just just be clear in your title, which which I'm usually

not, I'm usually very vague or I I've I've in the past wanted to

be sort of like, not controversial is not the right

word, but just like. Provocative.

Yeah, provocative, like just say something like clever that sort

of catches your attention. Yeah, more than anything, which.

Is fine, I think. I think I've done that right.

Like, you know what? It was my body, my choice.

So it's like a provocative title, right?

For a sermon, This one wasn't very provocative at all.

I just kind of got right to the heart.

It's just straightforward. Yeah, which is this is what I

was after. So I mean, I didn't also didn't

have a lot of illustration in my sermon from like, like, I don't

know, I had illustration from other texts in the scriptures,

but not like, not like personal experience or stories to tell.

It was just like, here you go. I'm going to hammer this into

your head for like next 35 minutes and buckle up.

I think that's what I said in the last podcast.

So I was fairly passionate and fired out on Sunday as well.

I don't know if anybody picked up on that.

It was clear, we felt the hammer blows, but it was good.

It was good. It was, it was intense and it

was, it was needed because we need to be reminded of what

we're doing as a church. I mean, the way that has to be

the main point of what we're doing.

And if it's not, then, and we're missing something and we're

missing the purpose of the church.

I think so that that line I can go through the.

Yeah, why don't you give us an overview?

The points of it, if I can find it here, there we go.

Yeah. So my, my main points were that

we have to prioritize the message of the gospel.

Paul's always talking about like so many things.

He's answering so many things in this letter and he's answering a

lot of things. And like, respectfully, right.

He's he's going through on the, the punch list of things that

they gave him to talk about. Like, but now he's just like,

all right, now that I've done all that, now I want to make

something very clear. And you like, you need, you guys

need to just prioritize the message that I gave you.

Yeah, essentially, I think so. So we must prioritize the

message of the gospel and then we must recognize the meaning of

the gospel. I think I said something like,

if we're not, if we're going to be convictional about something,

we, we have to know what it is first, right?

So if we're going to have convictions that the gospel is

the main thing, then we have to have a proper understanding of

it. And so Paul laid out a very

simplistic gospel presentation in this text.

It's very simple. And I noticed, I realized after

that I that I probably should have hit on one or two points

and we'll pick up on that in just a little bit.

But like he doesn't mention much sin, but I don't think he has to

because he's already been talking about it the whole

letter long. So he doesn't say, Hey, you need

to recognize you're a Sinner first.

You know, we would say that's probably one of the first steps

in presenting the gospel, but he doesn't really do that.

He just goes into like, what what did Jesus do?

And so I felt like I just stayed with the text there and then.

And then the last point, which was I think to me, and when I

was preparing was the most meaningful and impactful was

like the recognizer emphasizing the might of the gospel.

Like, what does it do? Like so, OK, the gospel is this,

the message is this, this is what it is like this is spelled

out for the clearly for you. But what does it do in your

heart? And it changes people from from

what Paul was like. Paul was a murdering zealot to

like the person who wrote First Corinthians 13, which is an

incredible thing to think about. So no kidding.

That's pretty. That's pretty much the the gist

of my points in the sermon. Yeah.

Yeah, what, as you were talking, it sort of made like at the

beginning when you were saying, it's like Paul sort of answers

all their questions. And then just sort of like, all

right, now I'm just going to like hammer something into your

head, you know, before I end this letter, which reminded.

So it sort of reminds me of this is just an example of something.

I remember listening to podcasts years ago where this guy was

doing a workshop and he was just answering questions as a worship

guy, Bob Coughlin. And he's answering all these

worship leaders questions about like how to do ministry, how to

do this, how to how to do, how to lead in all these different

scenarios. And I'll never forget one of the

things that he said sort of at the end.

He's like, you know what, like we have all these questions

about worship ministry. We have all these questions

about like how to do things. We have all these different

questions and I'm trying to answer those questions.

But he just said, you know what, I just want people to see how

much I love Jesus. And at the end of the day, like

that was so convicting to me because it's like we can make it

about so many different things besides like the main thing and

it's, it's not about all doing all these right things.

It's not about legalism. It's not about like lining

everything up black and white. It's about like loving Christ

and, and the gospel is like, if we do all these other things,

but forget the gospel and forget Christ, it's like you've missed

it. And so you're right, we need, we

need to keep that 100. Percent.

And I think that's good too. Like at some point you just kind

of have to say, OK, we can answer all your pragmatic

questions that you want. We can come up with a legalistic

way to go about things or we can just like really show our heart

where our heart is. And that's that if you're

communicating that like, like one of the best apologetics is

whether or not you believe what you're saying, right?

Can some, does someone like believe that I believe what I'm

saying to you? And I think that's what Bob

Coughlin's getting at it. Do they believe that I'm

actually worshiping Christ? And so I think Paul's getting at

that in this text. So I mean, I said he's going to

answer all the things, but and, and and then he's going to

hammer his own thing home. But I think your text coming up

is going to talk about, you know, there is obviously an

issue going on with their belief about the resurrection, right?

We're going to get that like this in the next Sunday.

So there is something else he's answering.

Maybe he's heard rumors or maybe he's heard stories.

It's, you know, he's not directly answering.

He said, hey, because he's guarding the flock, right?

Because shepherds guard the flock, I need to make something

very clear to you. And I think that's what he's

starting to do. So yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I did.

The first thing I wanted to go to was sort of when you you

always pray just after starting your sermon, after your

introduction. You pray before going into the

text. I think it's before going into

the text. Right, it's right after, or

sometimes it's before, but most of the time I pray right after I

read. Yeah, and I noticed that you

have and maybe other people have picked up on this too, but your

prayers usually sound kind of familiar.

Why don't you talk about the prayer you use there?

Yeah, I use a framework for the prayer every time.

And it's something I got from, I don't know, we went to T4 GI

went to several times in Louisville.

It's a conference that's no longer happening, sadly,

Together for the Together for the Gospel.

And they were giving out these little tiny yellow books maybe

for a dollar or something like that.

Whatever. Just here, grab this on your way

through the checkout line in the bookstore.

It's called Before you open your Bible.

It's about Matt Smither. I just butchered his name.

It's a hard name to say. Maybe Matt Hurst.

Maybe. I don't know how you say it.

It's got like lots of letters and I don't know if it's got

like lots of syllables that go with it or not.

Matt, I'm sorry if you're listening.

You're not. It's OK.

I'll put a link to the book. But it's called before you Open

your Bible. And honestly, I I bought it as a

like a OK, it's a buck. I'll get it.

Whatever. Throw in the bag.

Valerie picked it up my wife and and she opened it up to that and

she taught the kids how to pray this prayer That's in the 1st

chapter of this book. So before you pray, pray the

prayer act, the acronym IOUS and it's based on four different

verses in psalms. The I stands for incline my

heart to your testimonies and not to selfish gain.

So in my prayer, I will pray something like related to the

passage, but also like incline our hearts to your testimonies.

Not for us to gain anything but, but for us to understand you

more. And that comes from Psalm 11936.

And then the O has opened my eyes that I may contemplate

wondrous things from your instruction.

That's Psalm 1/19/18. One quote that he puts in that

book is from Charles Spurgeon. He says, he says that texts will

often refuse to open their or reveal their treasures to you

until you open them with the key of prayer.

And so like, if we don't ask the Lord to open our open our eyes

to understand what, what's in his written word, like if you

just come to it and read the Bible, just read the words, you

may not, you may not be opening it with the key of prayer.

And so you may not be able to fully understand.

So it's important for us to to ask the Lord to open our eyes to

help us understand. And then the you is to unite my

heart to fear your name. And I always make it a plural

prayer because I think it's important for us to do in like

congregation prayers, like we're praying for with the

congregation. We pray as like a as a united

body. And so most of them on are are

plural. I make the instead of unite my

heart, I say unite our hearts. It's a figure name.

And and he mentions that I think you and I have said this before,

like with Piper, God's doing a million different things at

once. We're Privy the two of them, but

this guy takes sort of different spin on it.

He's like, we're all fragmented. Our brains are fragmented to a

million thousand different directions as well.

And so for us to pray and asking God to unite our hearts to fear

his name, like on one, you know, one specific thing is important.

He also quotes Piper there. He says that like Piper said one

time that one of the greatest uses of Twitter and Facebook

will be to prove on the last day that prayerlessness was not for

a lack of time. And so like for us to to praying

that God would unite our hearts with his like unite our hearts

with him on mission to fear his name to understand and give him

the reverence that he that he needs.

And then so that came from Psalm 8611.

And then the ass is to satisfy us in the morning with your

faithful love so that we may shout with joy and be glad in

all our days. That's Psalm 9014.

It's just asking the Lord to help us be satisfied with him,

you know, so, so yeah, my, my opening prayer is most likely I

do that for one, the center of my own heart, but also I think

consistency is good. And like that's, I feel like I'm

maybe teaching people how to pray every time we get an

opportunity to pray in public. I'm trying to think of a way to

to tie it to scripture, to pray Scripture.

In our annual meeting, I prayed 10 different scriptures, like

like for the, for the closing prayer, because I could stand up

there and pray for my own heart. And and that's fine.

But if I use scripture as a guide, God is giving me, he's

giving me words to say that he wants to be prayed to.

He wants us to pray like you, you know, that his word back to

him. I believe that.

And so, yeah. So that's why I open with that

prayer every time. Yeah.

At some way, shape or form. That's really good, yeah.

And I my, the, the prayers that the prayers that I, I pray

before the sermon, you know, after the worship, those are

always based on the text of Scripture that we've been, that

we've been reading through the morning.

And so, yeah, I mean that if, if you're struggling in your prayer

life, we would encourage you to, to open your Bible and pray, you

know, even if it's just going through the Psalms, like today,

I'm going to open Psalm 1 and I'm going to read Psalm one.

And then if you're going to pray for your husband, your wife,

your kids, your pastors, your leaders at work, whatever it's

like now, you can pray Psalm 1. It's easy, right?

Right. There's two ways.

Yeah. I want them to go the way of the

righteous. Man help them to walk in the

ways of the Lord you know and so now, now you have God's word to

to guide your prayer time so. And if someone, if you're

praying for someone in your family's lost, that's Psalm one

again, like, yeah, transplant them from like death from dead

dirt to to dirt by the stream, you know, Yeah.

Anyway, yeah, that's good. So.

Pray the Bible. Yeah.

One of the things you said early on in your sermon, which was it

sounded like it it was really was basically your whole point

for the whole sermon probably sums up your whole sermon.

Is the mission of the church, is the message of the church.

Let me talk about that a little bit.

Yeah. That came from the commentary

Danny Aiken wrote. Yeah, I, I honestly, that's the,

that is the root I think of that, that Paul's trying to get

at. Like, like nowhere.

Like nowhere. Is it more clear then for us to

then to like figure out what is the church supposed to do?

A lot of people, you know, we thinking about like what makes

the church different or why is it, why do we do what we do?

The message of the church, the gospel is also the mission of

the church. And so like it's important for

us to like, for me, like when I was thinking about it, it's like

this is makes the most sense. It's the most clear way to

present this, that that the gospel is the only thing we

should be concerned about. Like, I don't.

There's a million other things that we could concern ourselves

with in church work. Right?

Yeah. And we do.

Yeah, we do. But I think that I think that if

we, if we lose sight of the gospel in, in our activities and

things, then we've lost sight of the mission of the church.

And so we just, we're not doing what the church is meant to be

doing. Yeah.

And so, yeah, that's that's kind of where I was going with that.

Yeah, no, that is really good. I it reminds me of a quote from

from John Piper. I I shared this on a Sunday

night, the last Sunday night that we had.

It says missions. Missions is not the ultimate

goal of the church. Worship is.

Missions exists because worship doesn't.

And so like, I think that ties in with like that's the mission

of the church. Like, like the message of the

church is the gospel. That's, that's the message that

we have to proclaim. That's it, you know, it's and

and obviously subsets of that right, But at the end of the

day, it's like Christ has saved us from our sin.

You know, the Bible shows us our sin and gives us the answer for

our sin. And that's through Christ and

now we can have now we can worship him and have joy and we

and we walk in our ways like in our Bible reading plan this or

sorry, I guess would have been yesterday.

Revelation chapter 21 talks about, you know, when in the new

Revelation 21 · chapter mention

Jerusalem God is going to be there's no need for a light

because God is its light. There's there's no need for

Jesus is the Lamb. Isn't that an incredible

picture? Yeah, the sun is no longer

required. You get your light from God, you

know, and it's like, and I, I immediately just thought of

like, I want to be living like that now already.

Like if I'm excited for that day when, when God and Christ are

going to be the light that that guides my path, That's how we

ought to be living now, right? That that God that I'm going to

his word so that like he is lighting my path and showing me

which way to go. And the reason we have a mission

to share that message of the gospel with the world is because

people don't worship Christ. People don't they don't give him

the glory for having created all things and and that he is the

way, the truth and the life. And so we have to share that

message of the gospel so that people come to know Christ and

that they worship. Him.

Yeah, that's so good that Piper quotes from his like Let the

Nation's Be glad book. I think it's so good.

I reminds me of like Revelation 2, like the Revelation chapter

Revelation 5 · chapter mention

5-6 or seven, I can't remember exactly.

But when the martyrs are under the throne and they're they're

like, they're like saying, how long, O Lord, will this

continue? Right.

Well, this going to continue until the work's done.

And so until the work's done, the mission of the church is the

same. Give the gospel to everyone and

those who have ears to hear will hear it and they will accept it.

And and those who don't won't. And it's in some strange

mystery, right? That's how it works.

But. But you know how we know that

the mission isn't over yet because we still live in a

fallen world. There's still sin.

There's still all these these negative things.

The new heaven and the new earth has not been ushered in yet.

And and there's still work to do.

And so in the meantime, we can't divorce what we're doing like

activities that we do from the mission of the church.

Mission matches the message. Yeah.

So it's important for us to remember that.

It absolutely is. So I think I'm, I am in my first

point, I was pretty, I came down pretty like, I don't know,

authoritatively in some areas, probably a little, maybe, maybe

strong in some areas, but talking specifically to our

people who are in charge of committees and things like that.

And if you felt a certain way, that wasn't my intent.

My intent was just to like encourage and to, to edifying to

build you up in the gospel and help you think about because

often it's not, we don't, we don't, we don't set out to make

our, our events at the church something that they shouldn't

be. You know, it's not our, I don't

think it's ever anybody's goal to make it less gospel centered.

A lot of times we just don't know how or we don't realize

what we're doing. And so a lot of good, a lot of

good events happen like good, just just good, not great

because the gospel is not the focus.

They're good, they're good social events or whatever, but

the gospel being the focus. So we need to make sure.

I think it's just important for us all to remember to to make

the gospel the main thing. Yeah, well, and it's and it, it

shows an intentionality. Like I, we had a a leadership

meeting this this was a couple years ago.

And I remember one of the things I shared with them.

I, I don't remember all the numbers.

I'll, I'll try to just spitball at least what I sort of

remember. But what I was trying to convey

to our leadership team is that if if the average church member

comes to church once a week and comes to Wednesday night and

comes to a Bible study, let's say in the evening and comes to

one event a month, that's four hours of church a month, 4 hours

of Bible study a month. And then let's say one event

that lasts 2 hours, we get about a 10/10 hours of their month.

And then if you multiply it over the course of a year, you got

120 hours of, you know, again, I don't remember the numbers, but

however many hours there are in an entire year, which was like,

you know, point whatever percent of a person's year.

So it's like that's how much time we get from each person.

Like that's a a very small, insignificant amount of time.

And that's each person that comes every time the doors are

open, right? Right.

Every time the doors. Of that is lower even in the in

the church, right? Right, exactly.

And so it's like we get such a small amount of of people's

time. We have to be very intentional

with how we spend that time and it, it there's can't be a second

or a minute wasted. And so like, like to, to your

point about like the events that we do need to have vision, they

need to have focus and purpose and what they what they're

seeking to accomplish. Like again, is, is, is doing

something like just that's just fun.

Is it bad? No, not at all.

And there, there may even be a time and a place for that.

Like, you know, we have done those things in the past.

Obviously we we want to want to do relationship and we want to

have fun together. But when it's a church wide

event, we want it to have that that broader focus so that, you

know, in the same sense what we've been telling our listeners

the last little while that it's like we want to present the

gospel every Sunday so that if by chance you know, the person

you've been praying for shows up, they get the gospel.

We want the same thing to be happening at our events so that

maybe there's someone in your life who isn't going to come on

a Sunday morning, but they may come to amend event.

And at that men's event, if they get to hear a testimony and the

gospel presented, they did get to hear the gospel.

And, you know, maybe that's one step in the direction of them

coming to faith. Even more so, I think in an

event we should be more like more focused on giving the

gospel because the people who you invite from outside are more

likely to come to an event rather than to come to a normal

service, right? And so like if someone's coming

to a service after you've talked to them, you've done something

pretty incredible that someone willing to give up a Sunday

morning, you know that and come to church.

If it's an event like, oh, it's a big event.

We're just going, we're going to, you could, you could talk

about all the fringe things you get right, Like, oh, we're going

to, we're going to have Jonah's barbecue on on that day or

whatever. And so, yeah, so you've got,

you've got to make sure because people will be more willing to

come. You've got, we've got to make

sure that that the message is the primary focus of that event.

And I, I don't, and I don't mean that to like to bash on

anybody's events. That's not that, that's not the

goal. It's just like just to try to

like highlight the importance because that's what Paul is

doing here in 15. Yeah, no, that's really good.

We did have a question that came in this This listener says thank

you for bringing the word and teaching us on 1st Corinthians

15. My question is, what role does

man play in the efficacy of the gospel reaching the ears of the

listener? So efficacy, meaning it's

effectiveness, So what? What role does man play in how

effective the gospel is in reaching the ears of a listener?

Brian Chappell, who's a a preacher and seminary professor,

he talks about what he calls ethos, which is the character of

the man speaking loudest when preaching.

So when you preach, you're the way you're the character of the

person speaking is what speaks the loudest.

You know, if they don't believe you as the speaker, they're not

going to listen to the message. And so this listener continues

and says the message, the meaning and the might of the

gospel are held firm by the Spirit.

And Isaiah 55 verse 11 promises that his word won't return void.

Isaiah 55:11

But can you elaborate on what role man has in living out the

gospel so our words don't fall on deaf ears.

So I think what he's what he's getting at is how important is

it for your character to shine through your message like and,

and how, if it does that help the the gospel reach the person

that you're speaking to? Yeah, that's it's a good

question. It's a thoughtful question.

It's got layers, right. But yeah, I think I think it's

of utmost importance. Like you can't say like your dad

would say in the car, right? Like as you're, as he's speeding

at 95 mph or whatever that is in kilometers.

I don't know. You can't, you can't say to like

do as I say, not as I do, right? That doesn't work with the with

preaching, right? It doesn't.

Now, often like we have to recognize that the preacher is a

Sinner a lot of times maybe dealing with things in like a

different level than most people.

I don't know if that's true or not.

It's just sometimes it feels like the attacks are heavier at

sometimes for preachers. But we are sinners like and we

are not perfect. And like that's something to

keep in mind. There should be grace there for

anybody in the pulpit. But I think it's very important.

Like we have to at least like the the big picture of our lives

has to show faithfulness, right? There needs to be gospel fruit

in the preacher's life or in the evangelist life, whoever's

giving the gospel. Because if you're sharing the

gospel even with someone in your family and you don't live like

the gospel's true, they're just going to call you a hypocrite

and a liar. Yeah.

And in those moments, I mean, you can say that too, right?

Like, I mean, I'm not perfect, right?

Because, I mean, inevitably, like you said, we all fall

short, right? And so it's for some people, it

is a hill that they want to die on.

But it just because someone sins and is not perfect doesn't mean

that the message that they're they're preaching is not true.

Exactly. Yeah, Well, that's true too.

Like they're because like that's that all that you can.

You opened up a whole can of things like do we cancel someone

someone forever and never ever burn all their books?

If they, you know, if they, you know, have some kind of public

sin that comes down the road later in life and then you've

people have benefited from their preaching or their teaching or

whatever, and then they have this very public thing that

comes out. Do you then cancel them for it?

Or do you chalk that up and show the them grace, maybe thinking

that the person who wrote those books is a different person than

the person who made it anyway? I don't know.

There it's there are two natures in man, right?

There's some there's the the sin nature that's still around,

hanging around, dying. It's like the snake with its

head crushed. He's still like, or I think I've

maybe I've shared this on this podcast before, a bit like there

was a snake in our front yard once and a moccasin.

I lived in the swamps in Florida.

So water moccasin was in our front yard and my grandfather

got out a shotgun and he, he shot it and blew it in half.

OK, like right in the middle was a like terrible shot.

He was aiming for the head got right in the middle, but the,

the the two parts of the snake split in half and then the head

was like still like he's, he didn't know he was dead.

He's dead, but he's still harmful.

Like he could still hurt you, like he could still bite you.

He could still do all those things.

And that's a lot of the way. Like the sin, like the sinful

person inside us is still like that, that we own dwelling sin

in our lives. It doesn't it doesn't just go

away at conversion. That's why Paul says we're being

saved. We are being saved over.

That's why we need the gospel more and more every day so that

we can believe it. So there's that two, there's two

people in in each, each believer.

There's the the person who is, I don't know, he's being saved.

He's there's, there's a it's just weird.

There's a weird thing to hold intention.

We're never going to be perfect until glory.

You're justified your your sin. Yeah, exactly.

Your past sin has been forgiven, but you are being sanctified,

right You are well, you are sanctified and being sanctified,

you're, you're, you're being saved from your sin.

And you know one day you will be free from sin.

Yeah. And so to answer the question, I

think like, yeah, to their point, in order for us to have

a, a message that's heard, like someone took like the to present

your best foot forward, right, your life needs to be marked by

the gospel. Like there needs to be like

fruit in your life. How do you treat your family?

How do you treat your, the people you work with?

How do you how do you treat people on the road?

How do you how do you treat cashiers?

How do you treat other people? Like First Corinthians has been

talking about like the, the person that they know, like all

the different things that you can do in your life to make your

life more presentable, right? You want to.

But so that I think that we just have to strive for that and we

have to have to overall big picture like that.

We have to be able to say, yeah, that that person is a faithful

person. They're not a perfect person,

but they're faithful and they they truly believe what they're

teaching. I think that's one of the

biggest things, too, is like, you can hear a gospel

presentation and you can read right through people who don't

really believe what they're saying.

They're just using manipulative words or phrases or they're

trying to, like, use the system. But yeah, I said, but you have

to really believe what you're saying.

I think that's what Paul's getting at.

Paul believes what he's saying is true.

He believes the resurrection happened.

Now he had, in many ways, we have to have a stronger faith in

Paul because Jesus did appear to him.

And so we haven't had that happen to us.

You know, we have. So I think that it's just

important for us to remember, like, is this person faithful?

And then, you know, the other thing is like they have to they

have to hear it. Man's responsible because in in

Romans 10, what is it 1014? It's done.

Paul's talking about the message.

And then how can they, how can they preach and loser sent.

Oh, sorry, it's how can they hear unless they unless there's

a preacher. So like there has to be someone

giving the gospel. But I think it's important for

us to remember, and maybe this is the answer to the question,

that that you look for someone's faithfulness over time as fruit.

And I think that would be how someone would be able to tell if

it's a genuine message or. Not well, yeah.

And you mentioned the parable of the sower in your sermon too.

And I guess that's that's sort of what I'm thinking of.

Right. I call it the Parable of the

soils. Parable.

It it? I think it's called both things.

It might be. Yeah, I don't know.

Well, those are not in the original manuscripts.

That's right. The, the titles and the

headings. But but yeah, there's I, I, I

felt like that was a really helpful and it helped me to see

like sometimes you have people who give professions of faith

and you, you don't always know immediately whether it is a true

profession of faith or not. But I think this is sort of the

point that like you see whether or not they truly are saved or

not, whether it is a true profession of faith by watching

their life. Yeah, because there are some

that just sprout up, right? They they don't just there's no

root there. Yeah.

And so you look, you look for fruit over time.

And so like to your point in this listener, this listener's

question, that that person that you're sharing the gospel with

or that you're sharing the message of the gospel with

should see you as being some somewhat different.

They should see some differences in your life.

If you look exactly like everybody else and you're

talking about, you know, things you're doing on the weekend that

everybody else is doing and like, and it's not good.

That's that's not a faithful witness.

It's like, who are you to say to to me like you, you don't do

anything different. Like do you read your well, no,

I don't. I don't really read the Bible.

It's like, well then, so you you need to be looking for fruit.

And I think the parable of the sowers is a good example of of

the parable of the sower, parallel soils, whichever is a

good example of like basically you'll know them by their fruit.

And Jesus says that, right? Yeah, I think that's true.

That's that, that is the, that, that for me, that was the whole

point in bringing that in is that it was about, there's lost

people in the church too, right? We have to recognize that there

are lost people among us. And so wait.

So that's why we have to prioritize the message and we

have to give it every day, every time we have an opportunity.

It's because I don't know when the Lord is going to like the

Lord saves. We believe that like that.

We believe that the Lord is the one who does the saving, but

it's, I don't know when he's going to like when they're going

to open their eyes. I don't know when the Lord's

going to choose to, like, make the scales fall from their eyes.

And so for me, it's just like we have to continually give the

gospel. Yeah.

And hope that the Lord doesn't work.

We hope and pray each, each time we give it that someone is there

and is hearing it and it's doing the work in their heart.

Yeah. So yeah.

But I think live we have to live our lives bearing fruit.

Yeah. Well, and I guess just to touch

on touch on what you just like said about the Lord, the Lord

opening your eyes and the Lord saving them.

I think it's good to talk about that, that tension.

You know, sometimes we talk about, you know, the difference

between God's sovereignty, like God saving someone and opening

someone eyes versus like man's responsibility.

And I think it's, it's helpful to see the, the tension that's

there that, that we don't really know where those two lines

cross. But I, I find it helpful to

think of, like, think of even the way, that, the way that we

pray. You know, I, I was just looking

over something like it was a book by Ji Packer called

Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God.

And he talks about like, you know, God's God's sovereignty.

God is the one who saves people. And yet it's we're supposed to

evangelize and and. The question is, if God is

sovereign and he's going to save people, why do we have to share

the gospel anyway, right? Right.

And, and I know one of the things that he points to at the

in the very outset of the book is that God's sovereignty and

salvation is something that we all recognize.

You know, like, like I've heard many people say this recently

that it's like we when we pray and we thank God for our

salvation, we're acknowledging that we didn't save ourselves

like God saved us. And when we pray for people who

aren't saved, we're praying for God to open their eyes.

And so you can see in our prayers that we understand that

like God alone is the one who saves.

But even Jesus in John chapter 6 talks about this tension.

John 6 · chapter mention

He says all that the Father will give me will come to me.

And so there's a there's a sense in which God is going to call

people, he's going to save them. But then he goes on to say like

just a couple verses later, he says, but like anyone who, like

anyone who chooses me, I will save anyone who chooses me.

What is it in John? I have it here somewhere.

So it's John chapter 6, verses 38 through 40.

John 6:38–40

Yeah, Christ speaks of losing none that the Father gives him.

That's that's God's sovereignty. But he also says I'll give

eternal life to all who look to him and believe in the Son.

That's man's responsibility. And so there's, there's a

tension there. And I, I find that so helpful

that Jesus goes, God is sovereign, he saves, but you

have to, you have to choose. And he's, he doesn't

acknowledge, he doesn't even acknowledge that there's a

tension between those two things.

He just says both of them, right?

And I think it's like, that's helpful for me to go, I, I don't

need to make this tension a breaking point, right?

This tension is OK. There's something there that we

just can't understand. And like you said, even though

God is sovereign, we have to share the gospel.

We have to talk. About, yeah, that's because

that's because that's the way, that's the way he set it up.

Yeah. It's sort of like the order in

worship type thing. Why do we do things the way we

do in worship? Well, that's because He wants us

to do it that way. Do we understand it all?

Not really. I mean, we might, we might have

some kind of ideas about it, but it's the same thing.

However, it is in the mystery of the gospel.

God, God expects and he expects us to share the gospel.

I think it's interesting too, to think that there are people, I

heard a testimony recently about someone who came to faith just

by reading the Word, didn't have anyone really telling them the

gospel. They were reading the Bible and

they got saved by it, right? They're still reading, they're

still hearing that from like a human author.

There's the scripture we believe is is divinely inspired, written

by human authors. And so like they're still

getting it from like a human technology, you know, in some

way, right? Like, so I think there's still

like there's still tension there.

And honestly, for him to understand, even Paul had to

have an apostle come, right? Ananias came scared to death.

Like literally, like I'm not going there.

He told, he told the Holy Spirit no, Ananiah said no.

And it's like another Ananiah said no.

And he died earlier in the Acts. Remember that this Ananiah said

no. But then who was reassured by

the Spirit, which I thought was very, that in itself is a very

comforting thought. The patience of the Lord.

He goes and he shares and tells the gospel, tells the gospel to

Paul, you know, and Paul's, the scales fall from Paul's eyes and

he receives the Holy Spirit. An incredible story of

conversion. So yeah.

Yeah. Well, to I kind of wanted to

another question that I sort of wrote down was you talked about

your testimony is one of the most powerful things you can

share. So it's sort of this idea of

like the gospel is important. It's the message that we need to

share with people. And you said your your testimony

is one of the most powerful things that you can share with

someone about the message of the gospel.

So I sort of just wanted to ask, what advice would you give to

someone? I, I, I think probably most

people wrote a testimony when they had to share it, maybe at

their baptism and they've probably never looked at it

again or never thought about it again.

And, and how would you encourage someone with how maybe to write

their testimony or, or to be able to share it in a, in a

clear and maybe short way, you know?

Yeah. So I mean, there's, there's

several different ways to go about this.

Like, it depends on the context, but I think like sharing your

conversion is like explaining to people like, like the might of

it. Like, I don't think that was

the, the, the point in the sermon.

Like we have to emphasize or recognize the might of, of the

gospel. And I think that's like

basically explaining someone who I was before and who I am after.

Like, how did, how, what did the gospel do?

So like, all right, what did we recognize what it is now?

What does it do? And it, it changes your life.

And so like, you know, it for a 7 year old, it's going to look

way different right than than a 45 year old person who comes to

faith in Christ way different because the 45 year old has had

45 years of sin that in their life is going to look vastly

different for a 7 year old. It's not it's going to say, OK,

I, I realize and recognize my sin.

I disobey my parents, you know, and, or, or I have hatred in my

heart toward a sibling. Those are the types of things

that you might see, or I stole something, you know, basic

things, the breaking the 10 commandments, those laws, right,

which are not, they're not basic in any way.

But, but that's the like, you see it as a child, a little bit

different. So your, your story's gonna be

different. But the, the main thrust of it

is like, what did my life look like prior to God invading my

life? And then what does it look like

now? And I think that's the other

thing I said. It depends on the context.

Something else we need to remember about testimony is like

the testimony is not just about your conversion.

Like Joe, how many times in the last three months have you grown

in your faith in different ways that you didn't expect to be

growing in, right? That's a testimony of how God is

changing you. And so like it's important for

us, like if you, if, if I talk to someone and I'm asking them,

for instance, if we, if we have an interview with, with someone

who's coming to, to join our church and you're going to share

your testimony with us pastors, we want to know about your

conversion. But I do, I want to know, like,

do you understand the gospel? When were you converted?

But what I really would like to hear is what is your life right

now? What, how is God, How are you

allowing God to work in your life right now?

How are you being saved? What's your testimony about your

life? Your as a Christian now?

Because if it's just a conversion experience and

there's there's nothing you can explain to me how the Lord's

working in your life right now. I might be prone to think that

the seed fell among rocky soil and sprouted up and it didn't

take root. So we have, I think we have to

really like we have to really be considering am I do I have is my

testimony ongoing? And that's one ways you can find

out that, you know, you can really test your, your salvation

or not like Paul talks about, you know, testing your salvation

or I can't remember exactly the words he uses, but working out,

you're working out your salvation.

And I think that's, that's the, that's what he's getting at.

He's like, Hey, is your, are you growing every day?

You know, are you stagnant? Why are you stagnant?

So you were stagnant for a season.

What happened? You changed because of the Holy

Spirit work in your heart. That's testimony.

So I think the biggest thing for me when I'm looking in

testimony, maybe you have something different, but is, is

there, is there something before Christ and what happened after

Christ? And then like, how's it ongoing?

Yeah, No, I think that's, I think that's, that's exactly

what I would share. I think that's really helpful.

I I've heard it explained that way.

A lot of people will explain it in exactly those terms.

What, what was your life like before Christ?

And, and you don't need to know the exact moment of your

conversion either. I don't think that's, that's not

important. It's just helpful to look back

and go, well, if I look at a certain season of my life, you

know, there was there was certain sin in my life and maybe

I didn't feel guilt or remorse or shame over that sin.

But at some point I came to realize that sin and that it

was, it made me guilty before a holy God.

And you know, some people do have very, very clear conversion

experiences where it's like I was at an event, I was at a

whatever a revival meeting or my mom's was talking to me like

they have very clear conversion experiences and other people

don't, you know, I don't, I don't think I have one that's as

clear as that. But you don't need to.

What was your life like before? You know, when you when you

still lived in sin? And what was it like after

thinking of even like Jesus, you, you died and then you were

raised to walk in newness of life, right?

That's exactly what you were saying about you should be able

to see fruit in your life. And I think that's exactly

right. You know what?

That you should be able to write this and share your testimony in

like you should be able to share it in 2 minutes. 3 minutes in

Max. Like it's just a, it's a quick,

quick thing and I think it's a good, it's a good, not a

challenge. It's a good trial, a good

experience for everybody to do it.

Like if you don't have a testimony or you don't know how

you would share it, I think you should, I think you should take

the time to write, sit down and write down your testimony.

And if someone asked you, because right now, I guess if,

if I was sitting down with you and I said, Hey, how did you,

what's your, what's your, what's your conversion story?

What, what has the Lord done in your life?

How has God saved you? And you don't know how to answer

that question. Then Well, you just put that you

should know how to answer that question.

You should know how the Lord has saved you and it and it is

really just a presentation of the gospel, but in your life.

Right. How do we live it out?

That's right. So I think, yeah, I think

that's, that's exactly what you should be able to do.

I think that's a good challenge. It is a good challenge.

A good, maybe a good just exercise.

Yeah. You know, take some time.

Like it doesn't. You don't have to do it right

now like you like you don't have to do it in one sitting even,

right? Think of it like, OK, what was

my life like before? Some people have it, like you

said, a very clear way. But yeah, I think that's

important. I was thinking you when you were

talking about testimonies, talking about the gospel and

sharing the gospel and like, how do you do it with your kids?

Like someone stopped me in the hallway after and it's like,

hey, I'd really just like you to sit down with my kid and tell

him I'm like, yeah, we couldn't, we can talk about it, right?

Because I don't, I don't. I think it's very important for

parents to do that. Like, it's one thing to come sit

down with pastor and say, hey, here are the like the 1-2

threes, the ABC's of the gospel, right?

Admit, believe, confess, admit you're a Sinner, believe the

Lord Jesus died on the cross for your sins and confess that

yours, you know, confess that he is Lord.

Honestly, that's the three, the ABC's of it.

And so that's how it was described to me as a little kid,

right? But the biggest thing that we

need to be teaching our children is what what sin is like.

We need to be teaching them like what sin is like and then what

it does. And so like we're born with it.

It's something that all of us have.

All of us are fallen. All of us experience it.

We're all prone to it in different ways.

Even we're prone to like manifest itself in our lives in

different ways for different people.

But what you really need to like express to your child what sin

is and then and then express to them the way out, like the way

that God has provided to reconcile to him because sin

separates us from God. But but but God didn't do God

didn't make a way. He made the way through Jesus

right through the blood of Jesus, our sins are atoned for.

And so I think that would be where I'd start and just

whenever the child is ready to say I, I'm done with my sin.

I recognize that this is wrong and this is something that I

don't want in my life. I when they hate their sins so

much that they're ready to that tension again comes up right

when they the God is calling them.

You can tell when they start to hate their sin, then then just

talk to them about what Jesus did and explain to them that you

know, God has to change your heart.

I can't change your heart. The Matt.

There's no magical prayer. Praying a prayer doesn't

necessarily do it that God has to do the work in your heart and

then look for fruit. And then once that fruit's

there, then you know, then we have a conversation about what

it means to be obedient, baptism, those types of things.

Like, I'll just give you like one of the ways I knew that our

oldest daughter was a Christian is because she shared the Gospel

with her sister. Like, like she was, she shared

the gospel with her sister. And I think that's, that's

fruit. Like you don't share the gospel

when you know what I mean? Like it's not like something

anyway. And so I just think with kids,

you just have to like take your time.

You don't have to rush it. They'll they'll annoy you with

it. If it's something true, annoy

you with it over and over and over again.

It's not annoying. But you know, I think you get

what I'm saying. It's not a clanging gong.

Like Joe said, you're not annoying.

Well, I think, I think it's important.

I think it's important to mention too, you know, a lot of

times when in parenting, what we're trying to do is behavior

modification, right? It's like, why did you hit your

brother? Why did you say that?

Like, why are you guys so mean to each other?

I'll tell you why. Because they're sinners.

Because they're sinners, exactly and so.

If you don't believe in like that sins like born in kids, go

go spend an hour in the daycare, right?

That's exactly right, but it's like we're, we're missing the

point. Like it the the answer to to our

kids is not like, OK, like let's, let's beat, let's modify

your behavior and let's come up with a list of rules and

legalism so that like you don't hit your brother anymore.

No, that's a perfect moment for you to sit down with your child

and maybe ask them why did maybe why did you just do that?

See what they say? And then that's your opportunity

again, to share the gospel with your child, which is that's

it's, it's not because a lot of times I know when I ask my kids

that, like, why did you say that?

Why did you? I don't.

Know, I don't know. I don't know why, like I just I

was mad and it's like that's sin in you.

That's like indwelling sin. And that's your opportunity to

say it's not about just changing your behavior.

It's about you need Christ like you need the Holy Spirit in your

life. We're still going to sin, but

you need the Holy Spirit to begin to help you to, to, like

you said, to hate your sin and to want righteousness and sort

of launching that forward. That same thing goes for us as

adults, like when we confess sin to each other.

Again, we're wrong If we're just aiming for behavior modification

and legalism and following a set of rules, that is missing the

point. That's where we need to preach

the gospel to ourselves, which is like, first of all, Christ

died for that sin, You're forgiven.

Second of all, you don't just need rules.

You need to pray for the Holy Spirit to strengthen you, to

overcome indwelling sin in your life because you do still have

your sin nature. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. And if you don't hate it, then

you're not a Christian. That's just, that's if because

you're, because you're not going to do what Piper said.

What did he say? He's like is, is demonstrate to

the world that the glory of God, a glorifying God is the all

satisfying. You know, if if that's not the

case, then like I, you know, I'm not, this is not like, and I, it

sounds like I'm trying to get people to question their faith.

I'm not because I if you're a Christian, you're a Christian.

You're not going to lose it because those that he gives you

that gives Christ those the father gave Jesus, he keeps

right. I believe that and so but so

it's not to get you to question your salvation.

It's just to get you to like to consider like how am I living

the gospel out every day? Like is it primary in my life?

And so those are things you just have to think about and you have

to constantly be constant course correction.

And that's from that was one of the final points is like even in

our ministries, because I was trying to apply this directly to

our church ministries, we have to be constantly course

correcting because the world is a strong wind, right?

It's a prevailing wind. And if we're not constantly

course correcting, we can be blown not completely off course,

but we can just just not be helpful.

Yeah, you know what I mean? So yeah.

That's good. Well, just just to touch on the

like the fruit of the Holy Spirit in your life, like you're

saying you're not trying to get people to question their

salvation. I guess I'll just sort of add to

that. I know sometimes, sometimes

people like feel guilt and remorse and conviction over

their sin. And then they wonder that's

those are the times where we struggle with assurance of

salvation. It's like, am I even saved?

Well, I would just say to those people, guilt and remorse and

conviction over your sin is fruit of the Holy Spirit in your

life. And so run to Christ, receive

the forgiveness that's there for you, and, and go forward in the

power of the gospel. Like you don't need to question

your salvation every time you sin, right?

The fact that you're convicted over your sin shows that you

have the Holy Spirit in your life.

He's the great counselor, right? He's he's constantly revealing

to you things that you need to give to Christ and like and just

like confess it. Say you're still trying to keep

control. He's he's he's with you.

He's indwelling you and he's fighting the sin for you.

That's the that's the biggest thing I have to remember.

So yeah. Yeah, that's good.

Well, you have a final word for us as far as your sermon goes.

Yeah, I just, I just think like we just have to make sure, I'm

just going to say it one more time like that.

We have to make sure that in our lives, like in our personal

lives, all the way out to whatever we do.

Like the message of the church is the mission of the church.

And that should be the same thing for our lives.

The message, the gospel in our lives is the mission of our

life. And if your, if your life isn't

like on the trajectory of like making that the main thing, then

you really need to do some like some thinking and soul

searching. And I've had to do it like over

the last week. I mean, I do so many times that

we have to do course corrections and yeah, and like you said,

that's the Holy Spirit working. So no, the message of the church

matches the mission of the church.

Yeah. And I like that you just applied

that to our personal lives as well.

It it's not just about the church.

And then you go to your home and then you live however you want.

Like if if you're a Christian, then the gospel influences

everything you do, right? Like the the things you watch

together as a family, the things you listen to, you know how you

spend your money, all those sorts of things like the gospel

is is a framework with. The things you watch in your

private life too, right? You know all of those things.

Yeah, it's like this is this is a framework through how to live

your life is through the lens of the gospel.

Yeah, it's really good. Yeah, that's that's my final

word. But you, you got a sermon coming

up. Yeah.

So like you said, we're going into First Corinthians. 50

Sorry, I kind of teased it out there, but I was thinking about

it because we were just talking about it earlier today.

Yeah, no, the resurrection and, and Paul is, he's going to go to

a long section of like talking from the negative aspect of

like, well, there are people who believe that, OK, Jesus was

raised from the dead, but they didn't believe in their physical

resurrection, that they didn't believe that we're going to be

raised from the dead. And so Paul goes into this long

argument of, well, if there is no resurrection, then Christ

didn't rise. And if Christ didn't rise,

here's a whole bunch of implications of if Christ didn't

rise from the dead, basically like our faith is useless and

we're just wasting our time. And so, yeah, I'm, I'm really

excited for this message this week.

Yeah, I was. Trying to think, was it the

Pharisees or the set? Was the Sadducees, right?

Yeah. You know why?

Because they're really sad. You see, they're really, you

know why they were so sad? Because they didn't believe in

the. Rest.

I remember my dad telling me that joke as a kid.

I didn't get it. They were very sad, you see.

OK, because there's no resurrection.

Yeah, good. All right, great.

Well, thank you all for joining us for this episode of Beyond

Sunday. If you ever have questions for

us, we'd invite you to send those in and we will do our best

to answer them. You can send those into Beyond

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OK, great. Well, thank you LMC for joining

us. We pray that this podcast will

be a blessing to you and we want you to know that we are praying

for you and we look forward to seeing you again this coming

Sunday. Have a great week.

Bye bye.