Beyond Sunday Ep 15 (Love Is What Binds us Together)

Welcome to be on Sunday, an extension of the preaching

ministry here at Leamington EMC. I am Pastor Jonah Chitty joined

with Pastor Joe Pinner. I forgot your name for a second.

And now we're we also have today with us Ryan Fair.

Ryan's joining us because Pastor Jake is still out this week.

He'll be back next week, hopefully.

And yeah, so we're just, we just invited another another guy to

come and have a conversation with us.

Ryan has spoken at family night. What was your?

Psalm 1. I was just making sure you

remembered your Psalm actually came up quite a bit over several

episodes, and it's come up quite a bit as we just discuss things.

It's just such a good Psalm to to meditate on.

But yeah, unfortunately, we're not going to be talking about

your Psalm today. We're going to be talking about

Pastor Joe's sermon from last week.

But Ryan is also the head of our evangelism team and that

ministry that we have out of our church.

So Ryan, give us like your your 32nd or to three minute elevator

speech on what, what the ministry is all about and and

like how people can be involved. Yeah.

So will we meet Thursday nights during the summer?

We meet at Seacliff Park during the winter.

We go to. No, no one's out for walks in

the snow. So we go to the Marina and we

knock on people's car windows 'cause they're just sitting

there. And the response has been great.

But basically right now it's a group of guys.

We're trying to get some ladies. So if anybody is interested, let

me know. But we're trying to get more

people obviously. But we're just going out there

and we're sharing what Jesus has done for us that he has come

live the sinless life that we couldn't died the death, death

that we deserve and and has made made it possible for us to enter

heaven one day saved us from our sins.

So basically, if we believe that's true, then we'd be

foolish not to share that, right?

And so that's the goal with this is to share it with with the

community. But also it's an equipping

ministry to help equip everybody who's involved to basically to

share the gospel in their irregular everyday life, because

that's really where we're called.

Not everybody can share with random strangers.

I get that. But everybody should be able to

share with friends, family, coworkers that are that are not

safe. Yeah, that's great.

Yeah. I mean, like, honestly, I'm

creeped out by knocking on windows, but I get it.

But you said you you mentioned a lot of really good response,

right. It's just the reason their

windows are up is because it's cold outside and they just got

want to get out of the house and like be like at the Marina,

which is a cool place to be. And so, yeah, I mean, you

respect him, obviously. Well, so I would ask one

question, like how like, OK, so you mentioned you want to get

more people involved. Like if I was just a member of

the church or an attendee of our church and wanted to be involved

in this ministry, how would I go about doing it?

Yeah. So the first thing that we ask

is that you've been part of a discipleship group.

So originally that was like during our Wednesday nights,

being part of a discipleship group there.

But obviously we have expanded that to discipleship groups

outside the church. So basically any discipleship

group that you've been a part of, it's kind of like a

prerequisite. And then you would come and talk

to me or someone involved in the ministry and we will send you an

e-mail out that basically is an invitation.

And there's a little course that takes like 45 minutes to to help

equip you before you come out. That's nice.

So you're giving them something to think about.

It's not just like I'm not going to show up and like have nothing

to work from, right, You know, other than my own story, which

is impactful, but you so you did give them like some tools and

resources ahead of time before. Exactly.

And, and we also say, like the first week that you're out, like

everyone kind of freaks out. But we say like, we don't even

want you to open your mouth, OK? Because we just want you to come

and observe how things go down. Yeah, basically.

And to be, to be praying and yeah, yeah, you'll give them the

task of even like keeping names, maybe write down the names of

the people that we're meeting so we could be praying for them.

Exactly. Yeah.

Yep. So is there, I don't know, maybe

before we move on from this, like is there maybe one, one

story or one sort of connection that stands out to you or is

maybe just share one interaction with us that maybe stands out to

you over you've been doing this for about a year and a half,

maybe one that has stood out to you as as an encouragement?

Yeah, there. There's quite a few.

We've had a couple people, not a lot, a couple people who have

actually come to church throughout the ministry, which

has been awesome to see. But one that I can think of in

particular that kind of popped into my mind is me and Brad were

walking the one week. We always go in twos.

It's kind of the biblical model. We went up to a window and there

was a girl in there. She rolled her window down and

she had basically like we had a really great conversation with

her. She grew up Christian, but was

kind of wavering in her faith, didn't really know what she

believed anymore. And she basically said like she

had literally asked God that night to like show her a sign to

show her something and hear me and Brad are talking to her

about the gospel about truth. And we ended up praying with

her. I was almost crying like it was

it was really emotional and just like amazing to see God at work

that that was the main thing is just seeing God do what he does

best. It just just, yeah, I wanted to

say work is magic, but. Well, yeah, I think we get what

you mean by that. Yeah.

Like, he loves to surprise us. He loves to like, give us like,

like happy surprises, right? Like just like out of the blue

where we sometimes when in like a moment where you feel hopeless

or like, why don't I keep doing this maybe.

And then someone like that comes in and you you get a

conversation like that and makes it all worth it.

Yeah, that's really good. Yeah, that's very encouraging.

Well, we really appreciate all that you do.

Yeah, for sure. And, you know, that's heading

directly into spiritual warfare. And, you know, you feel the

weight of it. And, you know, the way that the

way that ministry is run is, is very good.

And you guys are very intentional and diligent and

faithful. And, you know, we appreciate

that. It's like it happens under the

supervision of the church. It happens under us as a

pastoral team. And, you know, you know, we know

everything that's going on. And, you know, you guys want to

work together with the church. It's not just about you guys

going out to do this. It's about you guys having a

desire to equip the church to do it right.

And so for, for anybody who's interested like it, it's not

even necessarily about, you know, maybe maybe you don't,

aren't going to go on every Thursday night to share the

gospel, but it's, it's a great and useful way to learn how to

begin having gospel conversations.

Even if you just learn it and, and go there for a few weeks and

watch these guys do it, you can learn how to share the gospel

with your coworkers and with your family and with your

friends, you know, and, and So what a valuable tool it is to

learn how to do that as a church.

And so we appreciate all that you guys do.

For sure. Yeah, I appreciate that.

Yeah, that's good. Yeah.

So, Joe, you were our pastor. It was up on Sunday.

Yeah. And you preached a sermon from

First Corinthians chapter 13, the Love chapter.

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

The marriage chapter. Marriage.

Oh yeah, you say, in a lot of in a lot of weddings.

I didn't even you know what I I thought about that.

Usually pastors will address that like, Hey, this is

everybody always talks about in terms of marriage, but really

the context of Paul's bringing it up is in the church, right?

It's it's not about marriage. It's about Christians.

It's about Paul's writing to a church.

I just decided I wasn't, I just was going to completely avoid

saying anything about it all together and just just bring it

up like it was in the context that that Paul is writing to a

church, you know? Have I ever mentioned to you

that the my least favorite like ceremony and event and like we

do as Christians as weddings? Have I ever mentioned that to?

You guys. Not on the podcast, guys, don't

don't throw me under the bus. Don't cancel the whole podcast.

Just one third of it is fine. But yeah, so, so the the title

of your sermon, though, was Love is What Binds Us Together.

Yeah. You want to give us a quick

rundown? Yeah, love is what binds us

together. So just the emphasis of of the

fact that, you know, Paul, the point Paul is making here is

that love is everything. Love is literally what binds us

together. If you, you know, he's been

talking about spiritual gifts and he makes the point that it's

like, you know, if you start using these gifts, but then you

do it without love, it, it means nothing, right?

So that was my, my first point was the importance of your love,

that without love you're annoying.

Without love, you're nothing and without love you gain nothing.

And so I was, I guess I was maybe a little bit in your face.

Yeah, I mean, I felt like, you know, judged for another week

when you reach, you know, calling me annoying, you call me

out for wearing sandals in the snow.

Yeah. Yeah, this is just, it's always

personal against Jonah. Always.

I always find some way to take shots at.

Him. I love it.

But yeah, and again, again, everybody's going to notice

this, right? Like my points, I'll say this

again, I said it before, my points are always applicational,

right? Like I'm already taking that

step towards application and and I'm saying without love, you are

annoying because I'm wanting you to begin to think about how this

text applies to you. And so I'm not not pointing the

finger at people because it's like Joe's perfect and everybody

else is struggling. I'm just trying to help you to

apply this text to your life and myself too, right?

Like I am saying it to me, Pastor, always a preacher,

always recognizes that he's speaking the most to himself

more than anything. So that's the importance of your

love, that without it, you basically are nothing.

And then Paul goes on to talk about, well, what is love,

right? And I think that's a question

that we really have to answer in our day because the world wants

to tell us that love is a feeling, but love is not a

feeling. Like if I love, someone is

revealed in my actions and my attitudes towards them.

And that's what Paul is talking about.

And so I said, if you put yourself first, you don't have

love, you know, and if you put others first, you do have love.

And that's the proof of your love, your actions, your

attitudes. And then my last point was the

eternality of your love, that Paul is again stressing love

because gifts are just a means to an end.

They're just to help us to get to heaven, to help us to see

Christ more clearly while we're here on the earth.

But those gifts are going to pass away.

But love will never end. Even in heaven, we will love

each other. And so that's why we need to

emphasize love over and above the gifts, over and above

serving each other. We need to pursue.

Love awesome. I mean, yeah, I mean, you

missed, you didn't even mention your your opening illustration,

which which Ryan said he thought that was quite funny.

There was one point in in there that he thought was funny.

So, Ryan, do you remember what you said?

Yeah, well. Are you on the spot?

Sorry. Well, the one just hilarious

part was you just said that Jonah is an avid smoker.

Yeah. I mean, I don't even, I've never

smoked around you. I don't even know what you mean

about that. Yeah, I thought he hit it pretty

well, but. Well, it's funny because like, I

didn't say that in the 1st. Service I was like.

I had, I had said it quite a little bit differently in the

second service. And when I said it, everybody's

laughing. I'm like, oh, I got a laugh.

And then it sort of and then it was like, why?

And then it sort of dawned on me.

I'm like, oh, not that kind of. Smoker.

Yeah, No, no, no more. Anyway.

Not not not 7 or 8 packs a day or anything like that.

Anyways, yeah, that's funny. But yeah, that was that was the

sort of the illustration that came to my mind.

I mean, like Jonah's been teaching me about smoking and,

and you use a binder, you, you use mustard on the outside to

help the spices and to help the seasoning stick.

And sort of, that's the illustration that I used to sort

of to lead into this, this conversation that love is what

binds our service to one another together, right?

Like we can serve each other, we can do gifts, we can use our

gifts and, and, and serve one another and bless each other.

But if, if love is not there, then it means nothing.

And that person will see it that way, right?

We all know people who say the right thing, but it doesn't come

from a place of love and we don't hear it, we don't listen

to it, we ignore it and we're resentful because if you don't

have a relationship with someone and if it doesn't come from a

place of love, then it means nothing.

And so I, I think that that it was helpful for me to think

about that. I hope it helped people to sort

of to connect that at least at the beginning.

Maybe I should have tied it in at the.

End No, it was good. I think it was.

It was a good illustration. You're just making me reflect on

should I be teaching you how to how to smoke meats and how to

cook better? Because I mean, when Joe does

anything, if you know Joe, he does everything like, well, if

he tries it, he's an expert at it in the next three weeks.

And so like now I feel like if I teach you this, then you're

going to like surpass me. And I don't want that.

I want something for myself so. Well, it's funny, I I went home

that it was later on that night I had seen somebody else post on

WhatsApp. They're like when the when the

preacher talks about smoking, you go home and you smoke some

food for lunch. And we did too.

We went home and smoked some chicken.

I did too. I smoked ribs that afternoon and

Ryan got to eat those right? So you can't work to the house

to have ribs so. I had smoked chicken for lunch.

Too. There we go.

Look at this. What's the world coming to

Canada's? Canada's learning what real BBQ

is. That's great.

Yeah. I felt like it was it Love is a

verb, right? It's something we do.

That's one thing I wrote down is like love is an action.

It's something that that we that we do.

It's like trusting God, Understanding being a Christian

is about more than just some conceptual thing, right?

It's about more than me, just like having some some kind of

like ascent to like understanding God.

It's something that we when we love others, we do something

like it's it's combined with action.

I thought that was a super a super good point as well.

Yeah, absolutely. And I, and I've recognized this

like in my own life, right? There's been people who, you

know, like moments where it's like, I will say it or I'll say

that I've, hey, I, I realize that I've not been there for you

as much as I should. You know, I I want to pursue a

relationship with you. I want to love you and but it's

like I'll even catch myself in those moments because I'll

recognize that like if if I say I love you, it would have been

proved in whether like in my actions, right?

And so I recognize in that moment, it's like really, I

don't like, at least I'm not acting loving, right?

Maybe, maybe I do love them, but it's not, it hasn't been

apparent in my actions, right? And so we we can catch it

sometimes in ourselves when when we say it's like, it is how my

actions been showing that I love you or have they not, right?

And that's a sobering question for us to ask.

And we have to recognize that in our hearts when, you know, if we

love someone, then it will show in our actions towards them,

right? Yeah, we have to and we have to,

we have to understand that that we're not always going to get it

right. And there's times when we when

we fail and we probably fail at this more than we than we

succeed in it, right. I know I do.

And so it's important for us to recognize that, but also to

recognize that you're not always going to do it well.

And I need to show you grace. And I think that's, that's

something for us to remember as well as like there's, there's

all sorts of times in your life where you face conflict and

tension and we're sinful, right? I don't know about you, Ryan,

but I sin. I sin today twice.

And so we're sinful people. But so there, therefore we need

to recognize that you are too. And I need to show you grace

whenever I don't feel that reciprocated.

I need to 1st like recognize am I doing something wrong?

And then like, let's figure out what's happening.

And so I think it's just important.

So yeah, anyway. That that just reminds me of

like when I think it was the apostle Peter went to Jesus and

said like, how many times should I forgive my brother right when

he sins against me? It's like 7 times right?

Like and she's like 7 * 70 or I forget exactly what he said, but

it's like we just don't stop forgiving others no matter what,

right? We're always to be forgiving and

always to be loving. Yeah, just like you said, like

part of showing love is also forgiveness, not just an action

towards somebody, but it's also forgiveness as.

Well, yeah, that's great. Yeah, that's a good point.

That's. Really good.

And that makes me think of another interaction with with

Peter in Christ, like after he wrote that after the ascension

or not ascension, sorry, the resurrection when they're

fishing. And like Jesus asks Peter three

times, right, do you love me? And he says, yes, I do.

And what's his response? Feed my.

Sheep you'll feed my sheep, feed my sheep.

And so I think that's again, just going back to that action.

It's like if we love Christ, then our desire like will be to

use our gifts to serve the body to to feed to feed Christ's

sheep. And so I think like, again, Paul

is not there's it's not an either or here.

I actually sort of wrestled with like a title, something to the

effect of like, if you have to choose one, it's love.

But I don't think that's I don't think that's what Paul is

saying, because I think it it's a both end, right?

Like you have to be pursuing both to serve and to do it in

love, because it's not about picking one or the other.

Because if I love Christ, if I love his children, then I will

serve them. Like that proves my love, right.

And so it it is a both end. We both have to serve and we

have to love while we do it. Yeah.

And Paul's pulling on this string that he, that he laid out

for us in the very beginning, right.

Like he's talking about, like he, he talks about knowledge and

he's talking about like, like our relationships and marriage

and like, like everything's done to like these last last week you

talking about equipment, everything's done for equipping

each other and edification of people.

And like he's just pulling now. He's just, like, very, like,

explicit, like if you do this and you don't love, you're

annoying. Like, really, that's what it

comes down to. And I thought that was just,

like, of any point. That was the one that hit home,

right? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Just just straight up.

Yeah. But Joe called you annoying Ron.

He did. He just said, you know, you're

annoying if you do this. And it it really like I, I kind

of like sat back. I was like, whoa, go calm down.

But then I was like, that's exactly like I, I thought of an

illustration as you were talking of like you're, you see,

sometimes those kids like with pots and pans, like banging them

together. It's like, who finds that fun?

Nobody. It's like that's.

One kid. Yeah, that one kid in that

moment. He's having a blast.

Yeah, and that's exactly what this is saying, like you're

being annoying. I had thought about because I

had seen somebody sort of expand on that illustration.

It's like if you went to a concert and they were singing

and the only instrument was someone just mashing on the

cymbals. I had sort of thought like,

should I just go back to the drums and just start like

wailing on all the symbols and be like, hey, it sounds real

great guys, doesn't it? Because it's like it is symbols

within like the context of a of a band add really great like

flair and flavor and it sounds good.

But on their own it's just it is the most ear piercing obnoxious

sound. You know what, it reminds me of

a Saturday Night Live skit where Will Ferrell is in in like the

70s band and they they just got to have more cowbell and he's

just banging on the cowbell and they just, he just like takes

over the whole set during the recording and is it's just like

that completely annoying, stops everything, makes himself the

center of attention and it's ultimately unloving.

So it's really good. I'm glad you didn't use that

illustration in in the sermon. But that's exactly the point,

right? It makes you the center of

attention, right? And you know it, it's kind of

ironic that we're, you know, we're talking about music

because that's something that we talk about as a music team.

Like the more musicians you have on the stage, like you, we, I

use this illustration that I got from a different worship leader.

It's like, imagine that we have a piece of pie.

If there's three of us on stage, we have to share that pie and

you each get 1/3 of it, right? But now you have a ten person

band. Now we're still splitting that

same pie, but now each of us has a 10th of it.

So now your piece is that much smaller.

And so you have to be tasteful with where you choose to play

and where you choose not to play and where you choose to

harmonize and where you choose not to harmonize and where you

leave space for other instruments to shine.

But what Paul is saying here is like these people who are so

arrogant about their gift, they're not doing that.

They're not seeking to leave space and room for others.

They're just drawing attention to themselves in their own gift

and they're just trying to to boast in themselves.

Yeah, so it makes it makes me think about the the the next

point where you talked about, excuse me, Job a lot.

And he talked about his friends coming up and like you got lots

of chuckles about, you know, not that you're being a comedian on

like the end of Sermon, but I just thought it was like people

knew what you were going for in that moment.

They're thinking, yeah. Oh yeah.

It would be great to have a friend like Jobs, you know, like

these guys who come in, they're just, they're just bad friends.

And I just felt like it was good because they they were trying to

make themselves righteous, right, like and to put joke

down. And it's like finally we can we

can not job down a few a few pegs because he's been this one

that's always built up. And it's like, you know, what

did you do right? It's something that something

you did and no, well, the Lord's just testing his servant, right.

So I just felt like that was a really good illustration to

think about from the Bible. Like using the Bible to explain

the Bible in my mind is the best way to go about preaching a

sermon. And like, if we can find an

illustration in there, I felt like that was really good.

So yeah, they don't come to comfort him.

They come. They come to like, I feel like

that his friends came to relish in his, in his like whatever he

was going through, just to like sit there and be like, how many

days? Were they?

First of all, if you can sit there and be quiet for seven

days, that's something else too. That's yeah, yeah, it, it makes

everything else so surprising, though, doesn't it?

It's like it's like it's they came there with like this

pretense of like, man, we want to comfort you and who knows?

I mean, I don't know, like it's hard to obviously we're not

giving all the information, right?

Like did they carpool there and and they were talking on the way

of like man, well, I'm going to say this and I'm going to say

that, you know, but maybe we should just shut up for the

first couple days. So that and I don't know, like

you never. Camel pulled.

That camel pulled. Oh jeez.

Sorry, guys. Sorry.

I'm really on it today. Yeah, you're right.

You know, did they, did they collaborate before they started

to go in on everything? And I don't know, I just thought

it was thought it was really helpful to bring that out.

Yeah, it was, it was a very interesting, but I, I thought it

was a really good example of like guys who, you know, it was

very clear in their response that they, they were not seeking

to comfort him. They were not seeking to, you

know, it, it was they were just trying to slander him, right.

Like, like you said, you must have done something wrong to

deserve this right? Because because God only

operates in functions one way. And it's like if you do what is

right, which again, this is this is quite honestly the way we

think about the Old Testament at times too, if we're honest, the

way when we read the Old Testament, it's like, hey, it's

easy. You obey God and he's going to

bless you, right? And so if anything bad comes,

that means that you must have done something wrong, which

again, we're given sort of that whole story, right?

Like it's like, well, Satan came to God and he said, yeah, I, I

think he'll turn from you if you take away the blessings.

And the whole point, like you said, God was, he was testing

Job. And that, that word of being

tested correlates to 1st Corinthians 13 where it's or

not, sorry, not first Corinthians chapter 10, rather

1 Corinthians 10 · chapter mention

verse 13 where it's like God allows, he allows things to

come, but not so much more than we can.

But we can bear, right? That temptation, we're going to

be able to bear it. And so that temptation, that

test, it's not like God's sitting there going, like biting

his nails going, oh man, I really hope Job is able to do

this. No, it was to prove that he

wasn't going to turn from God like it was to validate Job's

commitment to God like his. It was never in question from

God's viewpoint. He was just simply showing Satan

that it's like, no, they, they are not going to turn from me

right there. He is going to be faithful

because of his belief in me, and it isn't dependent just on my

blessing, right? And so that's what his friends

fail to recognize, that it's like God may in fact allow

someone who is righteous to suffer.

And you know, we have to have that in our theology, right?

Right. 100% yeah. And then you gave you gave a

good example of biblical friendship and love using one of

my favorite stories in Scripture.

And David and Jonathan. It's just, it's just, it's just

a helpful story to think about. Jonathan willingly gave up about

birthright or willingly submitted to the Lord.

We'll say that he submitted to the Lord's will and, and like

just sided with David against his father.

And, and you saw Saul, you saw Saul burn with his anger and his

wrath. And what did you say he was more

upset about? Not about himself being almost

killed by his dad or something. Yeah.

About David's honor being. Yeah.

Being disgraced, yeah. Yeah, so that's the kind of

sacrificial love that Paul's talking about here.

I think it's just a really, really helpful.

So I appreciated that. Like just mechanically us like

for you specifically in the sermon, using the Bible to

interpret the Bible as a helpful lesson for those of us who who

are sitting out there hearing it.

Because a lot of times we just look to the Bible and don't

understand, you know, But like I would just encourage anybody

listening to use the live links at the bottom of your Bible and

the center column of your Bible. If you have a reference Bible

where it sends you to another passage of Scripture.

All people a lot smarter than me for centuries have been putting

these cross references together, showing us how the Bible is one

big story. So man, I just felt like it was

a really good helpful that point.

I think it was .2, maybe all of it was in .2 where you where you

drew that out. So.

Yeah, and I hope, I hope that my preaching is, is in a clear

enough way that it helps you to even maybe thinking about how

you can be reading and studying your own Bibles like like my, my

sermons are pretty well the same every time.

I mean, I've, I've got it locked and loaded pretty good now that

I follow like a routine. And so you're going to hear the

same thing from me every week. I'm basically going to have, you

know, a few points and what I'm going to do in that point is I'm

breaking up Paul's argument to some sub points.

That's me explaining this passage in what it means in the

context that it's written. And then I use an illustration

to help us to grasp what's taking place there.

And then I apply it to our day. And so that's that's very

simple. And you, you can do that in your

own reading, like because and P you'll do this, right?

Well, you're, you're reading the Bible and you know, you'll be,

you'll be reading a text and you'll be trying to understand

what it means. And sometimes something will

come to your mind, right? Like something be like, oh,

that's like kind of like this. When this happens up with my

family or when this sort of situation, like illustrations

will sort of naturally come to your mind of like, well, it's

kind of like this in my life or one of my kids did this or in my

conversation with my wife or my Co worker, right?

You think of these things and that helps you to understand

what that means. But then you need to take that

step of then apply how am I going to apply this to my life?

Right? And that's a very simple way.

But I really like you. You sort of, you've sort of been

encouragement to me for us to, to use the Bible more.

You know, like, I think I used more just just worldly

references. And now I, I'm trying to use

more Bible references. Like you said, if there is a

biblical example that ties it, I want to use that because I was

always encouraged by a professor who said we just need to know

our Bibles so much better than we do.

You know, the, the key to unlocking my spiritual growth is

not like the latest book, It's not the latest podcast, it's not

the latest social media thing. It's me getting into the Word

more and knowing the Bible better and.

So. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, with the exception of our podcast, you're right.

You're absolutely right. Doctor Vickers, I remember that

that same professor saying that same thing in one of our classes

and just like, looking at us almost with contempt, like, you

really don't know your Bible. How did you get this far in

life, being a seminary student and not know your Bible?

And so it's important for us to be in it, be in the Word daily,

not just for the habit of it, right, but to actually learn and

to know God better. So yeah, Ryan, got anything put

you on the spot? I did this job boys too.

Yeah, no, I, I I think that's so good too.

Like when it just, I guess I'm just going to reiterate like

it's so good to help see the Bible as a whole.

It kind of like with the ones in night class that you're doing,

right? The the Bible is 11 book start

to finish, like, and we can see that so easily.

Like everything ties together, like even with the gospel,

right? Like I know that you guys are

really intentional about putting the gospel in every single

sermon. Because I've heard, I think it's

Charles Spurgeon who said just as all roads, he, he was from

England, just as all roads lead to London.

So all passages of Scripture lead to the gospel, right?

And so like it's, it's always there and it's always tied

together. Yeah, absolutely.

It's telling that one overarching story, right.

It all points and I hoped I again, I realize I want to do

this more even in leading to Christ, even in like my sermons

that like I hope I'm never communicating to people that

like, you know, you just got to pull yourself up by your

bootstraps and try a little bit harder.

That is not the answer. The gospel is the answer that

like when we in this area, I mean, who of us when it comes to

love, who of us has been sinless, right?

We've all said and done things out of bitterness, out of anger,

out of resentment, and we've not had an attitude of love.

And that shows us that those were meaningless acts, right?

And so that could lead us to despair, that could lead us to

discouragement. But that's where we need to go

to Christ. We need to go to the cross.

We need to confess it, to embrace the forgiveness that

comes as a result of Christ and what he's done for us and

seeking his strength through his Spirit to have a heart that does

love and to do it with the right attitude, right?

And so Christ is the answer to all of those things.

It's never just about us trying harder.

And then hopefully God will love us enough to let us into heaven,

right? Like that's not it at all.

It's about bracing them, embracing the gospel.

Yeah, for sure. Nice, nice plug for Charlie

Spurgeon, Prince of preachers. We would all do well and very

like do ourselves a big favour if we read more of his sermons.

Fantastic preacher Joe, good question for you.

Well, serious question for both of you.

Do you guys think you can like you can hit a fastball?

No, I. Do you think he could, like,

stare at a Major League picture? A pitcher, Ryan and and hit a

fastball as it's coming down at you at 100 miles an hour every

day of the week. No, not a chance.

Well, I mean, there's needs to be some parameters to this,

right? Like, like if let's say a

pitcher's going to, if he's going to throw 100 miles an hour

and he's going to throw me 100 pitches perfectly 100% down the

middle. Yeah.

I mean, I guess I could get the timing and just throw my bat out

there and I probably hit it, you know, a couple times, right.

But like, if we're talking about like hitting a Major League,

Major League pitcher who's going to mix his pitches and like,

and, and locate a fastball in the outside corner and then

throw a curveball in the dirt. Like, not, not a chance.

Not even maybe if it. And if you did, like, OK, like

maybe 100 at bats, like if you did, it would just be pure luck.

There's a reason like professional hitters like to.

To hit a ball like one out of every four times is considered

pretty good. Right.

Yeah, it's considered really good.

I would say, like, I love this, this illustration because I

could see your boys saying this as they're watching TV, you

know? Oh, what do you mean?

You like to hit that with my eyes closed?

You know, it's like just I can, I can envision them doing it and

saying those things. And it was funny to me, but it's

so true. And the connection to the text

was in verse 11 when Paul says, when I was a child, I spoke like

a child. I thought like a child, I

reasoned like a child. And that is so true of us all

right, Like, like when we're, when we were kids, you just

thought you could do anything, anything was possible.

And in fact, it was not just possible.

It was easy. And and like, what are we?

That's the same way we look at the Christian life sometimes and

like, you know, but no, you need to like be sober minded, be

reasonable in your thinking, have a life experience there to

help you. And that's what Paul's talking

about. He's like this, like, I'm not

telling you this out of some kind of, I don't know, perfect

world that I'm in. I'm telling you this like out of

my life experiences. I mean, this is Paul right in,

in like the not next chapter, but the chapter in 15, he's

going to talk about how like he was the chief of sinners, how he

was the lowest of apostles because he persecuted the

church. This is a guy who'd never acted

out of love, who always acted out of like this, this desire

for like true vindication without love.

Like this is him. He's talking about himself at

the front here. I think he's talking about

himself. He understands this concept,

like personally, this is something he's experienced.

And so he's saying like I, I like when I was a child, maybe

he was a child before his conversion.

Maybe that's what he's talking about.

But but he's awake now. And so this is something to

think about. I just felt like it was a really

good illustration. Yeah.

And I think we think we understand, right?

I think like going back to Job's friends, like they thought they

understood God. They thought they had it all

figured out. And that's the problem that we

make. Like we think that we have it

all figured out and we don't. We're like children who just

don't understand. And it reminds me of a song I

shared this album by Sovereign Grace Worship, an album based on

the book Knowing God by Ji Packer.

And the song is called Christ Our Wisdom, and it says Christ

our wisdom. We are humbled when you hide

your ways from us. You have purposes unnumbered,

each one good and glorious. Help us trust when we grow

weary, free us from our anxious thoughts.

Give us grace to see more clearly.

You are God and we are not. And it's sort of like just goes.

It goes into this vein of like Christ is our wisdom.

And it's not like we just don't get it.

And we just need to humble ourselves before God and, and

say that that we just don't understand.

There's so many circumstances in our life, whether it's the death

of a loved one or a really trying circumstance or suffering

or trials that we just don't get in our life.

And the worst thing that we can do is try putting God in a box

and say that like we have it figured out.

We just don't. You just have to humble yourself

before God and say you and your wisdom know what's going on.

You can see the whole picture and I can see we go back to that

John Piper thing. How does it go?

Again? The the God is doing a million

things at one in one second and we're we know about maybe 2 two

of them that's going on. We have no idea.

And we just have to humble ourselves before an incredible

God and just say you are God and I'm not.

Yeah, I think, and I'm reminded of I think it's the book of

Romans, Paul again, where he just says like when when he

anticipates people questioning God, he just says, who are you

to question God, right? Like how how often are we like

like you just said, like God, why in the world would you do

this? Why would you like Job could

have so easily God like, well, it kind of did, right?

What's happening to me, right. And and God comes in and just

humbles him and Job's like I'm a worm, I'm nothing.

Where were you when I created the foundations of the world?

That's the question here. Dude, that's so good.

At the end of the book of Job, when God starts talking and

you're just like and Job's just like, yeah, I take it back.

Yeah, my bad. Yeah, just yeah, It's, it's

incredible. It we think we understand and

and you know, we need to, we need to humble ourselves before

God speaks, right? I don't I don't want to the

arrogant, you know, like I don't think Joe was arrogant.

I think he was just really wrestling with what he was going

through, right? And he was trying to understand

and, and God and his grace answered him, you know?

Yeah, yeah, we can talk about Joe all all all day.

I love that book. But I think he was talking, he's

just, he's talking to the right person though he is.

And that's something for us to think about too, is like when

we, when we have struggles, when we have like anger, even like

towards our situation, we need to talk to the person who can

help us and, and honestly, the, the, the source of all comfort,

the source of all joy, the source of anything good is God.

And if we, if we don't go to him, So I think, I mean, it's

like an honest conversation with God is what Job's having right?

And God doesn't rebuke him for being angry.

He doesn't rebuke him for going through it.

He just says, Hey, I'm God and you're not.

And we need to remember that. We need to remember that.

So. Yeah, absolutely.

I liked how, I don't know if you brought this out in the sermon,

but you just talked about Paul talks about it being like, like,

like love being this, like this gift to us.

That's like something that's going to exist.

It's not going to pass away, right?

This is something that's going to be there in the new creation

as well. And I thought that was just, I

hadn't thought about that. Like this is a taste like the

fact that we can love each other, the fact that we that we

can like be in these relationships with other people,

like other believers, brothers and sisters in Christ.

That's a taste of heaven. And I just thought it was so

beautiful to think about just this is what will remain.

Prophecies going to cease, tongs will cease, but love will

remain. And so we need to remain in it.

It's so good. And isn't that so good?

Like when you have a relationship like that, you

know, like Job's friend sitting there for seven days, you know,

when you have someone that you can go to and it's like they

don't try to fix it. They, they just, they just say,

man, that sucks. Like I, I think I've shared this

in a sermon too, but Simon Sinek talking about like the friend

who will just come and sit in the mud with you.

And I think, man, it, that's love right there.

And isn't that so much better than someone who can, has, has

all the right answers? They have all the right

theology, You know, they know the right Bible, the Bible

words, but it's like someone who can just come like we talk about

D groups so much, right? And this is we hope that anybody

who's not involved in one, like you need to be involved in one.

You need to be connected with men and women who will love you.

You can share what God is teaching you in his word.

And it's not just about, you know, growing in our

understanding of God's word, but it's about like confessing sin

and having three guys who'll be like, I get it.

I struggle with that too. Like let's pray about that.

Like let's hold each other accountable.

Let's help each other grow. And it's like that's.

That's love and that's relationship and that's

fellowship. And when you have that for the

for if anybody is listening to this and you don't have that,

you really don't know what you're missing.

Like like you may have a sense of like the superficial

relationships that you have with your Co workers, your friends,

your family members. You know, like you sort of feel

like, yeah, I get sick of talking about weather and like

and you know, what's going on in politics and whatever.

And you feel like those relationships are sort of like

on the surface, you don't know what you're missing when it

comes to like a group of a group of people who are willing to go

deep and to grow spiritually together and to talk about your

heart and to talk about sin and to talk about how do I love my

wife better? How do I serve my kids better?

How do I love Christ better. It's you'll you'll never go back

to like any other superficial conversation or relationship

will just feel totally. It's just not worth it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the testimonies that

are coming out of people who are in groups is like, it's life

changing. That's exactly what I need.

I'm looking forward to it every week.

Like can we just do it again tomorrow?

Those are the types of things that I've heard so.

Well, that's sort of the testimony like Ryan, you

mentioned like people who want to join the evangelism group,

they need to have been in AD group and we do still run them

on Wednesdays. And so that's actually what you

just said, Jonah, that like people want to continue them.

That's actually been the testimony from some of these

groups that that have been running.

We, we, we ran for eight weeks this tomorrow.

Is just getting started. Tomorrow is tomorrow is week 8

and that really is the time when you're just starting to get

really comfortable with each other.

And both a couple of these groups have already said we're

just going to keep going. And it's like, that's just

amazing, right? Because once you get in there,

you're like, this is incredible. Like I've never had anything

like this in my life. A. 100% So it's definitely worth

it. Yeah.

And like, the reason that it would be required for somebody

going out to evangelism is because you need to be a

Christian before you evangelize it, right?

And so like, some way you find out, like is my faith real or

not? Is when you get with other

people and you start to talk about faith, right?

You, you understand more, you understand God more deeply.

And it's helpful when you're out there evangelizing.

So yeah, yeah, you can't help someone to be saved if you're

not saved. That's right.

So yeah. So yeah, another plug for D

groups. I don't know, this is like

episode 15. We've probably done it 15 times

so. We'll keep doing.

It we'll keep doing it, so get ready for that.

I'm gonna put you guys on the spot one more time.

Well, one more, one more question for Joe.

The sermon. This question always comes.

Do you have This is the last chance you have to talk about

this text, at least for like this minute.

Now what else do you want to add?

Oh, man, yeah, I, I, yeah, I don't know.

I just, I guess just think and pray, think and pray through

that. Right.

Like I, I think I sort of challenged people to think

about, you know, well, am I acting loving towards people?

And I guess I would just really encourage people to think and

pray through that, right? Like, do you really love the

people here at this church? You know, when you come here, do

you really love them? And I have to ask myself that

question, right? Like, am I serving out of love

or am I serving out of duty, right.

And, and as pastors, that, that adds a, that adds a layer of, I

don't want to say it's harder for, for us than everybody else,

but it does add a layer of complexity for us that's not

there for other people because it's also our job, right?

Like we're also, we're also paid to do this, but we all have to

ask ourselves that question and go, am I serving out of love?

And, and, and even in preaching, right?

Am I going to be strong and convictional about my sermon in

a harsh and domineering sort of way?

Or am I just going to be strong enough that I'm, that I'm luring

them in because, because God's word is uncomfortable, right?

We had a professor who in our counseling class he, he used

this analogy of like God's, it's like the piercing comfort of

God's word. It's like, on the one hand, it,

like it pierces your soul because it's uncomfortable.

And it says, man, you're, you don't love as you ought to and

your service is nothing, but then it comforts you by giving

you sort of the antidote to the problem, which is you need to

lean on Christ more so that he through his Spirit can help you

to love as you ought to love. And so I, I think that's sort of

like, I guess that would be my encouragement to people to

really be thinking and praying about that.

And again, don't just try harder yourself.

Lean on Christ, pray. You need to wake up every day

before you come to church. Before you come to serve, be

praying about having a right heart to love the people that

you're serving. That's good.

That's good. Yeah.

That's, that's what sort of I was thinking too, is like, I was

thinking about Romans 12, which was what we used to open the

service with. And Paul says take the lead in

honoring one another. Just you take the lead.

That's acting out your love, right?

Your love for each other. So very good.

Good. Last word.

So this is where I'm gonna put you on the spot.

I didn't tell you about this at the beginning.

Hopefully you've been listening to the latest episodes.

Maybe you have something, maybe you don't.

I hope you do. What's one thing that you like

right now that you want to share with the like with our church?

Oh, I thought about this. OK, you got something?

But I forget. OK, Joe.

What about you? OK, yeah I have.

I have been listening to a book by.

You and your book listening. I'm good with it.

It's good. It's good.

I find it helpful. It's like I sometimes I would

like to sit down and read more. I I find physical reading to be

much more beneficial than than just audio listening.

But sometimes it's nice to just listen to something while you're

doing stuff. But this book is called The

Conviction to Lead by Albert Mohler.

Big Al Oh, sorry, sorry, Doctor Mohler.

He would never listen to this podcast, so I'm going.

To send it to a person. Like you need to listen to this

file my the poem will get revoked.

He's, he's the, the president of the seminary that we attended

and called the conviction to lead.

And he just, he talks about, you know, leadership and having

conviction in your leadership and, you know, a leader and, and

the, the characteristics that he is supposed to embody.

And one of the things that stood out to me, I think it was pretty

much the beginning of the book that he says when a leader walks

into a room, conviction better follow him.

And that has just been a real challenge for me to think

through am IA conviction a leader, you know, and and this

doesn't mean this doesn't mean that you're just like drag

people along behind you and you bowl your way through that.

That's not what it means. What it means is like, you

better be sure of what you believe, confident of what you

believe, so that you know where you're leading people, because

if you don't, then you're not, then you won't go anywhere.

And so it just been, it's been real.

It's been challenging to me, you know, that like, am I stepping

back and, and thinking about direction and, and where we're

headed as a pastoral team and, and where we're going as a

church and just having conviction.

So, and you know, one of the ones that we would say this,

this is like the I thing that we stand on, you know, as pastors

and as a church, that God's word is authoritative for every area

of life. We think that the Bible, it

leads and guides us into absolutely, it governs every

area of our life. And so that's the church that we

want to build. And that's, that's the truth and

the truth of God's word that we want to build it that everything

that we do is informed by God's word.

So like absolutely everything. And so everything that we do as

a church, we want it to point back to Christ, to point back to

the to the Bible, that we can prove through God's Word that

this is how we ought to be doing it.

Every ministry is a ministry of the Word.

Absolutely. Yeah.

So that's that's awesome conviction to leave.

We'll put that in the show notes.

So I've been listening to a book.

You started a trend. I like it.

Yeah, it's Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper.

Johnny Pipe. Good stuff.

It's it's unbelievable. Like it's, it's one of the few

books that like, it just makes me almost want to stop reading

and just go work for the Kingdom.

Like it just like he just puts in such plain simple terms of

like, what do you want to waste your life here on earth?

Or do you want to spend it working for God, working for the

Kingdom? Like what?

What's the point here on earth, right?

It's to glorify God and enjoy him forever, right?

And, and that's basically the point of this book is like he, I

was recently, I'm, I'm halfway through, but in the part that I

just said, like there was a chapter that said, like, do you

want to waste 40 years and thousands of lives?

I was like, oh boy, what's he going to talk about?

And he talks about like how the Israelites, when they sent those

few spies into the land of Canaan, he said those few people

that were not faithful to God, they wasted 40 years and

thousands of lives of people who died in the desert, right.

And so it's like what we do now is going to affect people,

right? And it was like, it just blows

me away. Yeah, yeah.

Well, that makes me think of like, I, that makes me think of

man, I one of the things I love to see is like the older

generation being faithful. Like we have, like we have older

folks in our church, like whether they're deacons or

people in our church who've just been, they've been serving and

they're being faithful to serve their whole life and spend their

life for Christ. And I'm like, I'm blown away by

that. And not just them, but like

people in our church who are serving and they're faithful to

serve. And that's so encouraging to me.

Like I was at the golf course this morning.

I, I was working there cutting the holes and I was just

chatting with this old guy and he was just, he was telling me

about him and his wife and their routine over the last few years

and how many golf holes they golf and when they sit at home

and do the dishes. And I was just like, it was so

sad. It was so sad to me to think

that, like, your whole week revolves around how much golf

you play and then what you do when you get home after that.

And it's like, what a waste of a life.

Yeah, you're wasting your life, you know?

And then when I see people, like, spending it for the gospel

and for the Kingdom, it's just like, such an encouragement.

It sounds like a good book. I might default find that one.

It's really good, don't waste your life.

I have it on my bookshelf if you'd like to read it.

And John Piper, I think pretty much like.

If you want an ebook of anything John Piper has ever written, you

can find them all free online. Desiring God dot dot org you can

find every ebook every book has ever written is free.

Yeah, which? I didn't even.

Know you will be better for reading John Piper.

Books you'll be reading to the end of your life, but you.

Right. He's written a ton of stuff.

Read your Bible first. Yeah, and then read.

And then read John Piper. Good point for.

For me, the thing I like is I have this picture on my next to

my coffee pot. It's called the daily ritual or

the daily liturgy for the ritual of a morning coffee.

And it comes from every moment holy, which is a book of

liturgies. And I just want to read it to

kind of close this out. My wife sent it to me this

morning and yeah, it, it just hits, it hits home sometimes

when you're if you're going through something hard.

I think about this. Yeah, it says.

It says. This says Meet me, O Christ, in

the stillness of mourning. Move me, O Spirit, to quiet my

heart. Mend me, O Father, from

yesterday's harms. From the discords of yesterday,

resurrect my peace. From the discouragements of

yesterday, resurrect my hope. From the weariness of yesterday,

resurrect my strength. From the doubts of yesterday,

resurrect my faith. From the wounds of yesterday,

resurrect my love. Let me enter this new day aware

of my need and awake to your grace, O Lord, Amen.

And that that that book is full of those types of prayers.

There's one for like, there's one for all sorts of things,

like for moving, for the loss of a pet.

So like you, you know, like, what do you say when you have

children? He's mourned this loss of this,

this living being that lived in your house.

We've said we've read that one four times this year, which is

sort of a crazy thing to say, but like there's, but it's just

helpful for it to give you sort of like a, a prayer because not

all prayers need to be spontaneous.

Sometimes just reading a prayer that's written well and it

points you to Christ like this one does, and it's pointing you

to the resurrection. I don't know if you picked up on

that like you want to. I'm, I'm going to get preached

in a couple weeks and it talks about the, the, the centrality

of the resurrection to the gospel.

Paul's going to start that in 15 and go through the end of the

end of the book talking about the importance of the

resurrection. And, and I like the way this

prayer brings it in. It's like there there is some

something that that that the Lord can resurrect in you,

right? He can give you hope for the

day. So I just thought it was really

good. Every moment.

Holy. There's two volumes now.

But anyway, that's, that's my thing.

I like at the moment. That's good.

Well, anybody have anything else they want to share before we

close this thing out? Nope.

Nope. Evangelize.

Evangelize. Go get them.

Yeah, we'll, we'll also, we'll put Ryan's e-mail address in the

in the show notes so maybe everybody can e-mail about

Emily. We we the evangelism team has an

e-mail. Oh, that's right, it's.

Jesus saves at. [email protected].

Yeah, great. We'll put that in there.

If you have questions about that, you want to get involved,

we encourage you to do so. We encourage you to ask

questions and we're happy to to have you to point you in the

right direction. So with that being said, LEMC,

we love you. We're praying for you and we'll

see you next week. Bye bye.