MID WEEK MOTIVATION - December 10, 2025 (Grant Stegall)

Listening to the Midweek Motivation Podcast from Missother Hills Baptist Church in South Haven, Mississippi.

Here's your host, Mark Lewis, David Burgess, Laura Ulrich, and Pastor Grant Stiegel.

Welcome to the Midweek Motivation Podcast for December the 10th here at DeSoto Hills Baptist Church.

I'm Mark Lewis.

I'm Grant Stiegall.

We hope this program can encourage folks throughout DeSoto County and beyond.

Be sure to subscribe and share our link on social media.

It is the holiday season.

I worked on a little new intro just for the holiday season.

Used AI on that.

The original one, the one that we use most of the time, that is an actual guy up in uh the Detroit area.

This was AI, and I had to re-record it four times because she wanted to call you Steagall over and over and over.

It would have been okay.

Steagall, Steagle.

But she finally got it.

I just put S-T-E-E-E-E-G-A-L, and she finally realized, oh, Steagall.

You have to accent both syllables.

I'm very rednecked.

We are continuing our holiday episodes, and these are so much fun.

We're going to jump right into some of our table topics.

Last week we asked Grant about a favorite holiday gift.

This week, what food non-negotiable at the holiday table?

Non-negotiable food at the holiday table.

I've told you before, uh, for me, it's that chocolate chip derby pie, man.

I like, I have to go find one of those crazy derby pies and ice cream at Thanksgiving or Christmas.

What you got?

Oh gosh.

I mean, I know this sounds like just what, but the turkey, man.

I I I go I want the turkey.

Like, because you don't eat it any other time.

Well, you can.

You can, but who does?

I mean, we have some, we have throughout the year.

Um, I've started doing it some, uh, but you it's it's not the same.

Right.

So so the turkey is a big one.

The dressing, I I love.

Are you big on like a turkey sandwich with the leftovers afterwards?

The leftovers, yes.

I love the next day with the turkey sandwich or even the ham sandwich.

And even I've taught some of my kids, like Sarah Grace is with me on that.

She loves the next day leftover sandwich.

If you get a big enough bird, you can have several meals off that thing.

Yes, you can.

What's something your family used to do that now you appreciate more as an adult?

We every year, so um my I my dad was an only child, so I didn't have any cousins on that side.

My mom had three sisters, um, and so I had a lot of cousins on her side.

Um, but travel, like we would do Christmas morning.

I remember you telling me Ponotok, and then do Christmas and then we loaded the car and drove three hours to get to my aunt's, and a lot of times I don't know.

Where did you say she lived?

I can't remember.

Bay Springs is down in Jasper County.

Yeah.

Um, and so it was three hours down there, and you know, I'm it just the thought of getting all of that together.

Because uh you know, we had to clean our rooms, we had to pack, we had to do all of that, and I don't ever remember doing that.

I don't know if we did that, if mom made us do that before like Christmas Eve, I don't remember doing it, but we always did it.

And just the the thought process of getting us all together ready, getting little excited uh hyper grant in a car after opening gifts and putting up with him for three hours in the car.

I mean, just it it's amazing.

And you know, we didn't have TVs to watch in the car.

We didn't have any of that.

We just trying to think how y'all went.

You either went like highway fifteen mostly because we forest the the the Natchez Trace comes right by our house.

Uh-huh.

So we would get on the trace and drive it, ride it down to just south of Houston where the trace crossed 15.

We would hit 15 and go down through Mabin, Mathiston, Ackerman, Louisville, Louisville, Philadelphia.

Um And then you'd eventually get to Forest.

Newton.

No, we uh y it was before Forest.

Okay.

So 15 goes right through Bay Springs.

Like Newton, the next I guess the next big town after Newton was Bay Springs.

Like you had Lewin, which is but it was before Bay Springs.

But yeah.

A lot of four-way stops through that part of Missouri.

A lot of four-way stops.

Yep.

Ackerman, there was one store that Ackerman was about halfway, and there was one store that was always open, and that was our store.

We would stop, go to the bathroom, get a drink, or some ice cream, even at Christmas, yes, and then get back on the road.

Yeah.

All right, table topics.

Um, we are now going to hit our holiday calendar, which uh it's got a lot of stuff on it.

Today, tonight, we have the loss of a spouse, and that is going to be in our newer portion of the building.

I say newer portion, you told me the other day that building's how old now?

Eight, eight years ago.

We moved in in 2017.

Uh so that's over in the newer building, uh, and that is going to start at 545.

I don't think there's any type of reservations or anything necessary.

Just come on and uh head into the class.

Uh, it's gonna be great.

And then this coming Sunday, our children are going to be singing in the Sunday morning services, and we don't have to tell you that's always big, big, big, big, big.

And then Sunday night on the 14th is going to be that family caroling at Golton, and that is at 5 p.m.

Are we gonna meet at the church?

I think we did.

We will have buses ready, but if you don't want to get on the bus and then have to come back to the church, just meet us there.

Right.

It'll be fine.

If you're gonna meet us there, we'll leave the church about five.

If you're gonna meet us there, just meet us there at 5 15.

Okay.

That sounds fantastic.

And then following that on the 17th, Wednesday night, is going to be the family gingerbread house decorating party.

And that is going to be so much fun.

I truly hope you've already made your reservations because that deadline passed on December the 7th.

Um, but if you didn't make reservations, come just be a part of it and and sit around the tables because it's going to be a great night of fellowshipping.

Uh and that's gonna be at 6 p.m.

next Wednesday, the 17th.

And we will have a meal before that.

Yeah, so we start regular meal, gingerbread at 6, but we eat before that.

So Yeah, and there'll be there'll be plenty of if you didn't make reservations, there'll be plenty of candy and little things to munch on, and then just it's a it's a time of fellowship, honestly.

Right.

And and that's a lot of the fun.

Uh, and then on Sunday, December the 21st is Lottie Moon.

Grant, remind everybody about Lottie Moon, what that is.

It's our um Christmas offering, it goes to international missions, and so 100% of that offering, what what we get, what you give every week, that offering uh for DeSota Hills, 10% of that goes to the cooperative program.

The cooperative program goes to lots of our different Southern Baptist entities, one of those being the International Mission Board, but it's through our offering that the International Mission Board pays their bills and does those things.

So the Lottie Moon offering, that is a special offering, and 100% of that goes directly to IMB missionaries.

Right.

Um, so if you um want to give to that, that will be the 21st.

We'll have a time in our service.

We call in it March to the manger so people can come and bring their offering and put it in a manger at the front of the multi-purpose center.

What's our goal this year?

Do we have 15,000?

Okay.

So uh come prepared and like he said, you can give throughout the entire month.

Just make sure you make a notation of that either through your physical envelope or if you give online, there is a spot, a way to do that.

If you ever have questions about that, do not hesitate to call the offices.

We can put you in contact with Miss Lisa.

She is awesome, and we'll walk you through that.

And there's also special Lottie Moon Christmas offering envelopes.

So if you don't have an envelope, you can get a Lottie Moon Christmas offering envelope at the Welcome Center.

So And obviously if it's in that envelope, we know what it's for.

Yep.

And then also on the 21st, we don't want to uh miss Country Christmas talking about Country Christmas briefly.

Uh the Biscuit Fellowship is going to be at 4 30 in the Grand Hall area.

That is always a lot of fun.

Bring your uh own jams and jellies.

A lot of fun and a lot of good.

Yes.

And then Country Christmas will be uh will follow the Biscuit Fellowship in the regular MPC at 5 p.m.

And we just want to stress that 5 p.m.

and I always like to start on time.

So if you're worried you might miss it, if you if you're out past five o'clock, you're probably gonna miss this the beginning of it.

And we got some great music this year.

I told Laura a few weeks ago uh we've got some secular Christmas songs we're gonna do this year, we've got some just classic hymns we're gonna do this year, we've got some spiritual Christmas songs.

Uh there's even some parts for our children that are gonna be in it that's gonna be a lot of fun.

Uh very, very laid back, relaxed night.

Yeah.

Uh and we always bring in some insanely good musicians for that.

So if you've never been a part of Country Christmas, you can check out some of the previous ones on our YouTube channel, but you're definitely gonna want to be a part of that, and that is on December the 21st, 4:30, the Biscuit Fellowship, 5 o'clock Country Christmas.

Now, uh our offices are gonna be closed starting on the 24th.

We wanted to make everyone aware that through the first, we are not gonna have any Wednesday night activities on Christmas Eve the 24th.

We will, however, have regular Sunday morning services on December the 28th.

And Sunday school schedule will also be running that day.

So be sure and show up for your classes.

It'll be a great time to tell everybody about what's going on with the holidays, and it'll be really good.

Uh and then uh the regular Wednesday night schedule will resume on January the 7th.

All right, we're now going to shift to our devotion portion of the podcast that we call the midweek moment.

So we're taking this opportunity to look at the gospel using Greg Gilbert's book, What is the gospel, um, as kind of a background for that.

Um, last week we looked at who God is, and we looked at in in Romans uh chapter one, and we we understood that that God is is righteous.

And when we say the righteousness of God, again, just to review, it we're talking about righteousness is an attribute of God, but it is also the activity of God.

He does righteousness, and because of that, because he is one, he is one God, because he is the creator God, and because he is righteous, that gives him the right to be the final judge.

So we understand who God is.

Also, as we look at this gospel, we need to understand who we are.

But but let me read to you again from 1 Corinthians chapter chapter 15, Gilbert, uh his definition of the gospel is in verses one through four.

He says, Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preach to you, which you received in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preach to you, unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with Scripture, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with Scripture.

So there it is right there, Christ died for our sins.

So we we have to understand who we are as as mankind.

So God is God, we know God is righteous and he is judged.

What we also understand from Romans chapter one is that while God is righteous, we are not.

We are far from it.

It says in verse 18, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

And so while God is righteous, we are not.

And so he's gonna take the rest of chapter one, chapter two, and into chapter three describing the unrighteousness of man.

So for three chapters, Paul is going to go on about how unrighteous mankind is.

He begins with the Gentiles in chapter one, verses eighteen through thirty-two, and here's what he says.

We just read one of them that we suppress the truth.

So there's a truth, and he's there's a truth out there, and we should know it because in verse 19 he says, For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them.

For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made, so they are without excuse.

So God has revealed himself in such a way that mankind should be able to see and know that there is a God, but what we do is we suppress that truth.

And we suppress it down to the point that that we believe lies, we we believe other things than the truth, because we suppress the truth and we put it down so much.

So so as unrighteous mankind, we suppress the truth, yet we are without excuse.

So what God did in verses 24, 26, and 28, it says He got it Paul writes this, therefore God gave them up to the lusts of their hearts.

God gave them up.

So what God has done, because we are unrighteous, has given us over, has given mankind over to our sinful self, which is a scary thought because we think about the wrath of God against mankind, and we think of we think Sodom and Gomorrah, right, that he destroys everything.

That's not how Paul says the wrath of God is going to be revealed.

What God's gonna do is say, okay, you wanted it, here you go.

You wanted a life without me, here you go, go live it.

He gives us over to that, which is a very scary thought.

Then he comes in chapter two through through chapter three, verse eight, and he talks to the Jews.

That chapter one was really to the Gentiles.

Chapter two, he talks to the Jews, and he talks about how God's judgment is righteous.

But what the Jews have done is basically the same thing that the the not the same thing, not exact same, but in the same way they have allowed the lie to come in that they they have the right to a relationship with God because they're Jewish and they have a right and they they have all of these outward things that that make them Jewish, which he's gonna say really authentic Jewishness, if that's a word, authentic Jewishness is inward, it is an inward thing, and it comes through faithfulness to God.

And that's what he's gonna say in chapters three, verses one through eight, through faithfulness to God.

And then in chapter three, verses nine through twenty, he talks about how all of mankind, all of us, whether Jew, whether Gentile, whatever, no one is righteous, no not one.

So then he he ends chapter three um uh of of Romans just talking about um and he doesn't end it there, but he in the middle of chapter three, towards the end, he's gonna talk about how the right a righteous God, what he provides to an unrighteous mankind, which we will look at next week.

But so he so here's what we've seen so far.

God is righteous, which means he is one, he is the creator, he is righteous, which means he has every right to judge mankind.

Man is unrighteous who have suppressed the truth, rebelled against God, and in his wrath, in his judgment, he has every right to say, okay, you wanted a life without me, here it is.

But what we're gonna see is God loved us so much that he provided a way out of listening.

If you don't have a church home, we'd love to see you here on Sunday morning.

You can catch our services online at DeSodaHills.com, our YouTube channel at DeSota Hills Baptist Church for all of our church family.

We love you so much.

We'll see you back here bright and early next Wednesday morning.

God bless.

This has been your midweek motivation.

We'd love to have you join us in person on Sunday mornings.

Our services are at 9 and 10 30 a.m.