Welcome to Beyond Sunday, a podcast that's based on the OR
it comes from actually the preaching ministry of Leamington
Emci am Pastor Jonah Chitty, joined as always by Pastor Joe
Pinner. Hello.
And today we have a special guest, the one the only Mr. Carl
Barge. Hi.
We thought we'd start with a new segment that we're calling Dad
jokes Jox. I don't know if that's going to
stick or not. That was Kyle's idea.
And so Joe, this is, you know, invite your kids in.
This is a dad joke. So, Joe, you got one for us.
Yeah, why? Why?
Why was Nehemiah such a great leader?
Why? He always knew how to build up
his team. What's frustrating is how much
joy you have. Knock, knock.
Who's there? Nehemiah.
Nehemiah who? Nehemiah Business.
I'm just here to fix the walls. OK, it's.
Not even clever. It's not even clever.
It's not. Even that good.
They're awful. And I love it because Kyle was
laughing so, so well. Well, this started this started
one that with a joke that you brought up, Kyle.
Yeah, which this one also was a stretch.
It was like, how tall was Nehemiah?
He's about NIA. Well.
Some jokes. Sometimes jokes are so bad
they're good. Yeah.
You know, I, Joe was just talking about your podcast.
You have a podcast I do and it's called Cat.
GPT. Yep, it's called Chat KJP.
Yeah, you got it. Nailed it.
Send us coffee. Yeah, first.
And you guys are talking about all sorts of crazy things on
your podcast. Oh yeah, yeah, it's never a dull
moment. But I really wanted to like what
I enjoy about your podcast is when you get really like tickled
and you start to laugh, really like high pitched.
And I wanted that on our podcast.
And so that was the whole point of getting.
Well, with these jokes, it's not going.
To happen it did though. That was the thing.
Very good. You don't even know when you
laugh that. Way I don't even realize I just
lose it. I'm just, I'm just a joyful
person. So we brought Kyle on the
podcast for a specific reason, not just for dad jokes with an
X. We brought him on to talk about
your sermon. You preached the sermon last
night. And we're not going to call it a
sermon or a devotion because you went 27 minutes, bro.
It's on the, it's on the in the stream right now.
So if you want to go back and listen to it, feel free.
It's on 1st John chapter 1. But before we get to yours,
we're going to talk about Nehemiah chapter 2.
Yeah, for sure. Pastor Jake preached the sermon
on Nehemiah chapter 2. He went from verse 1 to 11.
Yep. Is that right?
Verse through verse 10. Oh, through verse 10, Yeah,
Yeah. So I didn't grab the title.
Oh, Nehemiah, a servant of God, I think was.
A faithful servant. A faithful.
Servant of God, So So yeah, Joe, you want to give us a recap?
Yeah, yeah. So Jake had four points in his
sermon. He started off with Isaiah 40
verse 31 that talks about those who wait on the Lord, they'll
renew their strengths and and rise up with wings as eagles.
And sort of introduced the, the topic of, you know, like
Nehemiah's patience and waiting for the right time, waiting to
approach the king and, and it, you know, his patience to wait
and pray and wait for the Lord's timing.
And then his first point was Nehemiah showed faith through
courage, that in his courage to do the right thing, he still he
showed his faith and trust in God.
His second point was that Nehemiah shows faith through
trust and that his trust was shown in God, which is shown in
his prayer. He was a faithful man of prayer.
And the Third Point that Nehemiah shows faith through
confidence, again, trusting, trusting in God.
And then how the Lord worked it all out, answering his prayer
and in even more than he was expecting.
And the point #4 Nehemiah showed faith through resolve that even
when opposition began to to be stirred up, he still persisted
and, and still continued faithfully on.
And so I think he's sort of some of his closing questions we're
drawing on like those sorts of ideas are, are we a people of
God who really trust him, you know, and is our trust in God
evident in our prayer life, which I thought was it was
pretty convicting. Yeah.
And sort of again, just like, do we really surrender to God or,
you know, do we surrender just a little bit, right?
Like Nehemiah was willing to give all of his status, all of
his position up to go and do what he felt the Lord was
calling him to do, something bigger than himself.
Right? Yeah.
And when we surrender to God, do we say, you know, yeah, I'll do
whatever you want from this nicely compiled list that I've
made for you. Right.
And I thought that was, you know, a helpful way of thinking
through it because it is the way we think, right?
You know what? We will go so far for God, but.
But maybe not a whole lot farther than what we're
comfortable with. I think a lot of times the Lord
is asking us to do things that are far beyond what we're
comfortable with. I thought that was a good point
in the sermon when he talked about the the fact that Nehemiah
didn't have to go like he he had all the status, right.
He had. Yeah.
He'd really just didn't have to go like, and to come.
I think that's what you're touching on there.
It's just like he it was, I'm Jake just really stretched that
out in the sermon. He like really like like told us
what position he had and like what that meant and like how
good Nehemiah actually had it as far as like as far as a slave or
somewhat servant could have. He he was as high as he could
possibly go, right come bear to the king.
He close proximity, probably slept in some comfortable place.
Didn't have to. He wasn't starving, didn't have
to do manual labor. He just tasted food right.
That's what we assume or serve the king.
But like but Nehemiah did and I wrote down like he had no need
to, but he was deeply grieved over the state of Israel.
So like his, he, he saw what was happening in his, in his home
and he was just like grieved over it.
And so he could not do something.
So I just thought that was just a good point to bring out.
Yeah. Well, yeah.
And kind of going along with that too, like you kind of
touched on it too, Joe, where it's like we don't tend to trust
God very much, right? But it's interesting to look at
Nehemiah's example and seeing that like even in his like in
his trust of God, like you said, it exceeded any expectations he
could have had originally, right?
Like I think that we have a hard time even trusting God sometimes
to just give us the bare necessities in our prayer.
And I feel like that that's, I mean, even just for me, I know
that like I get really anxious. And so sometimes it's like, OK,
God answered my prayer last time, but this time it's not
going to happen, right? And so I don't know, it's, it's
a good point to look to. I get it for other people that
just kind of struggle with that idea that sometimes, like when
we pray and when we trust in the Lord, it isn't just like he's
not going to just like begrudgingly give us, you know,
OK, well, here's your basic whatever.
So in some cases, he will exceed those expectations because he's
a good God who loves us. You know what I mean?
Yeah, but. Yeah, and I think the like the
do we have the faith to to go Yeah and ask, right.
Like even to trust that God is good and he wants what's good
for us, right. Like we think of, you know,
Sermon on the Mount where he says, ask and it will be given
to you seek and you'll find knock and it will be open to you
for to the one who asks receives and the one who seeks finds and
to the one who knocks, it will be opened.
And then he sort of like brings out this question.
He's like, which one of you? If his son comes to him and asks
for bread, we'll give him a stone.
Or if he asks for fish, we'll give him a serpent.
If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your
children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give good
things to those who ask him? It's like, you guys know how to
do this with your kids. How much more do I know how to
give good things if you ask? But a lot of times we just don't
have the faith to ask at all, right?
Like you said, do I really trust God?
And often times it's like the how much I just sort of like,
oh, I have to do now, I have to work harder.
I have to sort of do something to make this situation fix.
Shows that I'm really trusting in myself rather than trusting
in God. That's a good point.
I don't think that Nehemiah's faith like was built on just
like him, like it's just random asking God for big things,
right? Like that.
That's like when you were talking, Kyle, and then you were
sharing that, Joe. I'm thinking like, like we're
OK. Like we, we think we can handle
the small stuff. Like like I think I can handle
providing for my family and, and buying my groceries and putting
a roof over my head and doing all those things.
I feel like I can do that. Like, I don't know about you
guys, but honestly, I feel like I can do that without prayer.
Like if I'm being honest, right, you can do that without prayer.
Oh, this is I'm doing this in my power.
But, but I don't, I don't think we can like we, we really can't.
We the only thing all we have is because God has been like
gracious to us and faithful to provide for us.
We can think that we've done something or had something to do
with it, but we're wrong. I think ultimately I think we
would be wrong. It's just God's goodness and his
grace in our lives. I mean, like tomorrow you can
wake up and not have anything. And so I think like, but like
Nehemiah didn't get to this, like this point in chapter 1
where he's like asking this big ask of God by only asking for,
for big things. Like he, he knows God's faithful
because he's been faithful for his entire life, right.
And so, yeah, I think that's just like a like talking about
like his he, he believes God is really, really big in, in other
words, you know what I mean? Like that's his view of God is
big. And we're going to find out
more. And like as we, as we progress
through the chapter, he's always going to be pointing back to
God's strength. Yeah.
Well, yeah, it's good. Well, that reminds me of EM
Bounce has a book on prayer. And in the very beginning of
that book, he shares like an illustration from, you know, a
very well known guy. I don't know who it was, it was
like back in the day, but he shares the story of these two
guys are having a conversation. And the one guy says to the
other guy, you don't mean to tell me that if you lost your
pencil you would pray. And the other guy says, of
course I would. And I'm just like, I've, I've,
I've never forgotten that illustration because I just
thought to myself, I'm like, I would never, I would never pray.
But like you said, like there's things that I think like I can
just do myself or maybe that I think are beneath God.
And I don't, I don't want to give myself any credit in the
sense of like, maybe I just think it's beneath God.
I think it's pride in my own life.
But you're right. It's like, I think that I got
that and I can do it myself. But you're so right that it has
to become like our prayer has to become the first thing that we
do, the first thing that we go to.
And it can't just be when big things come, right?
And I'm reminded of a of a story that a pastor shared about
someone in his church who would. We've talked about praying
specific prayers recently. I think last week we talked
about that and he would write them down.
He would write down specific prayers and then he would follow
that up with like in a couple weeks, he'd be like, hey, you
asked me to pray for this, how's that going?
And then he could write down the date that it was answered.
And he said he would go to this man's home and he would have
books on the shelf of prayer, prayer requests answered.
And he just said about that man, he's like, do you think that man
ever doubts the faithfulness of God?
No, of course not. And you pray in the little
things and that's why you have faith to pray like in other
situations, right? And that was, that's been really
convicting for me. I for real.
Yeah. Well, and like, I think there's
something to say too about like, because I know that Jake also
talked a lot about courage and he mentioned too that like the
courage, he mentions a quote from Napoleon Bonaparte, right,
where he says that like, you know, someone asked him like,
how do you conquer people? I don't know what the quote is.
And he just goes, I've learned to not consult my fears, right?
It's not that you don't feel fear.
It's that you feel fear, but you act anyways.
And I sometimes wonder if like or gut reaction.
Like for me, my gut reaction when I'm fearful or anxious, but
something isn't to immediately go to prayer.
Often times my gut reaction is to like try to drum up every
possible solution in my head before I have to confront that
issue. And then I'm like, OK, I'm
ready. I figured out all the possible
solutions and I like. But then you just end up
becoming anxious, right? That entire stuff builds anxiety
in your heart. Oh yeah.
It's horrible. It's a terrible spiral.
But like, I don't know, just looking at the example,
Nehemiah, who like despite having this kind of a well, he
appealed the two kings early. He appealed to God and then
appealed to to our Xerxes. But seeing like the fear that he
built or that he was able to kind of overcome and to even
make that appeal because of his confidence in faith and prayer.
I think that for us too, like we're not going to be able to
build up a confidence in God if we're not actually going to God
and seeking an appeal to him. Yeah.
And I think, I think the secret
is like when maybe Jake talked about this in the sermon too,
like patience, like waiting, like waiting on the Lord.
I, I'm preparing for this week's sermon.
And something that's like really standing up to me so far is he
says a number of times in the first first few verses of the
next section that I'm preaching, he's like, I didn't tell anyone
what the Lord had laid on my heart.
And then he says it again, he's like, I didn't tell the
officials, I didn't tell the Jews, I didn't tell the priests,
I didn't tell anybody. And it's like, because like you
said, our first or maybe our first fear is to like try to
deal with it ourselves. The second thing we most
naturally do is go tell other people, right?
And it's like, I need to go get, I need to go seek wisdom or
advice from other people, which isn't a bad thing.
But the first place we should go is God, right?
That's the first place where we get wisdom.
And Nehemiah was just allowing this to simmer in his own heart
and to wait for the Lord. I mean, we, we think there's
like four months, four months in between the time he hears the
report and then goes to the king and then who knows how I however
long the journey took, right. Some people say it, it was about
a four month journey on foot. And so if they're on horseback,
maybe it's faster. We don't know how long it took
them to get there, but it's like there's months of patience and
waiting here for Nehemiah where he's just waiting for the Lord
to reveal to him slowly his plan.
Yeah. As Kyle was talking, I came up
with another dad joke. Oh, why was Napoleon so feared?
Why? Because he pulled everyone's
bones apart. Oh.
My God. Anyway, that's a reach, man.
That was a reach. Hey, but you know what?
That's the first thing that came to mind when he said Napoleon
Bonaparte. That's.
That's better than any of mine. Yeah, well, yours.
From Jack GBT No way, there's no SO.
But yeah, sorry to get back, I just thought I couldn't let that
go. But this is like what?
Kyle, what Kyle kind of mentioned, I found this quote
because I knew, like when Jake brought up this, like courage is
not the absence of fear. I knew that was a quote I'd
heard before and that there was like another portion to it
somewhere. And, and Franklin D Roosevelt
has said courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the
assessment that something else is more important than fear.
And I'm thinking about like I'm thinking about Nehemiah.
And you know, there's fear about, well, what's going to
happen when I come to the king? What what's he going to do?
What's he going to say? Like he could kill me?
And you know, there's obviously that fear, but there's some
there was something more important than fear.
And that was obedience to God. And we might even say a more
important fear than that fear, right?
He feared God more than he feared the king.
He then that man. And so it's, it's having the
right fear. And it's like, well, if I'm
going to be disobedient or if I'm going to consult my fears,
you better pick the right one, right?
Like God or this earthly king, the little, little K king.
And I'm, I'm going to fear God. No for.
Sure. Yeah, That was something I, I, I
was picking up on a little bit too.
Is that I find it interesting that, like, Jake really kind of
expanded on like that he was dreadfully afraid, right?
And like, I think that in certain circumstances, we've all
kind of felt that like really like bitter, dreadful fear,
right? And to have a fear of God that
overcomes that is kind of is like is amazing, you know what I
mean? And it's like, I wonder what
kind of fear Nehemiah had of God to look at a king who had the
total authority to just get him beheaded or I don't know, these
what media Persians. So probably worse than
beheading. And to still say, you know what
like my fear is for the Lord is greater, right?
Yeah, yeah. I think honestly everything
points back to like his, his view of God.
Like he, he had total trust and God, he got his courage from his
belief that God was big and he was going to take care of
everything, right? That's where it came from.
It didn't come from him at all, right?
He didn't have, he didn't have courage in himself or it didn't
come from himself. It came out of his belief that
God is faithful. And I just sort of like clued
into like again. So I've just been reading the
end of chapter 2 this morning, but I've noticed now it's like
when Nehemiah refers to God, he calls him the God of heaven,
right? He says that in verse 4, he's
praying before the God of heaven.
And in his prayer verse 50 Lord God of heaven, when he prays to
the like in the sight of the king in verse verse. 4.
Yeah, verse four, he says it there too.
So I pray to the God of heaven. And then in the next section
too, he he says the same thing in chapter 2, verses 11 through
20. I and I just lost it now in
verse. 20 He says The God of heavens.
Yeah, he says. The same thing there.
And so it's like he's constantly looking to a God who is outside
of the universe, who is outside of his circumstances.
Like he is a big God. And it's like he's outside of
all of this and he's in control. And so that's why he's like
trying to gain that perspective of like, you know, a big God.
You know, you've been talking a lot about that the last the last
week because of the Bible reading plan going through
Genesis and Job, and it just keeps coming.
Up because it's true, right? And the application for us is
that like they were like, I mean, we're not rebuilding
Jerusalem's walls, right? Like how do we apply this to our
lives as well? Like we need to have faith in a
very big God, like he the same God.
That's like dealing with this situation with Nehemiah.
We, we serve the same God. It's not some different God.
It's not like some different. It's not just a story in the
Bible, right? It really happened.
And I think we talked about this on last week too.
It's just it's incredible to think about and how.
How upsetting is it is that that like all of us have access to
this really big God and still struggle with that faith aspect
to go to him in prayer before anything else?
I know. You know.
That's something that like just hits me so hard every time
because you're right. Like God is massive, like so,
so, so big, so much bigger than in any circumstance.
And yet, you know, my truck didn't start today and I about
had a temper tantrum, you know what I mean?
Like, I almost cried, like I was so mad and like how petty and
foolish all of my, like my, like my arguments that like I have
with, you know, my, my family, how small these issues are in
comparison to God and how still I'm just like, like you said
earlier, Joe, it is such a pride thing to say.
Oh, I got this. You know what I mean?
When literally we have access to an infinite number of
possibilities and power in the Lord that we in the Lord that we
worship. Yeah, Yeah.
And. As I was thinking, like I know
Jake said at one point that Nehemiah, you know, we would
speculate that if he's always testing the King's food or
testing his wine, that like he has a he's in the presence of
the king, you know, a few times throughout the day, right?
Every time the king is going to eat or drink.
And immediately in my mind, it went to like the access that we
have to God, like unhindered, we can go to God whenever.
It's like if you wake up in the middle of the night and you
know, you feel like the need to pray, it's like, you know, God's
not sleeping. You know he's awake and he'll
and he'll hear you. And we have that unhindered
access to God and he wants us to pray.
He wants us to, he says if. You know, the eyes of the Lord
search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts
are fully committed to Him. Like draw near to God and he
will draw near to you. Like He's asking us to do that.
But like you said, we struggle to have that faith.
We struggle to have that confidence and that trust to go
to God, right? It's crazy.
It's crazy for us to think about that, right?
It's like, like, I don't know. I don't know why we don't sin.
Sin. It's sin.
Yeah. I like the way Jake, he like,
and he made this clear in his points.
Like, it's not like Nehemiah's courage, his trust, you know,
it's not his confidence and his resolve.
It's not all about Nehemiah. It's like this is how Nehemiah
demonstrated his faith. And I felt like that was that
was really good. It was like good application for
us. Like our faith will be evident
to others by the way we respond to things in our lives, right?
For sure. So yeah, Kyle, you got anything
else on Nehemiah Chapter 2 I like?
It. I like it too build those.
Walls. Let's do it.
Let's build up the walls of Jerusalem.
Is that the plan? Yeah.
Let's do it. We're gonna build.
Walls around LAMC. Oh man, I hope they're.
Gonna look bad. It would probably look bad that.
Might be a bad look. Maybe.
Maybe Donald Trump needs to promote the Book of Nehemiah
some more. Rebuild the Walls.
My favorite book. We love it.
I'm really sad we don't edit on this podcast.
I kind. Of feel like you should do a
Trump personation for the rest of the podcast I think.
No, please. That's all right.
I'll leave it speaking about. The rest of the podcast let's
talk about Kyle's sermon. So we'll switch gears.
Kyle, you spoke on 1st John Chapter 1.
The whole chapter, Yeah. Which is a lot, yeah.
Do you feel like regret over choosing the whole chapter?
Yeah. Yeah, I I went 27 minutes and I
skipped a lot of my notes, but yeah, did you?
Did you have a title? No, it was.
It was titled First John 1. I don't know, I sometimes.
I want to title my sermons that same way.
Good job. To be totally real, I I see the
utility in titles, I really do. And like every course I've ever
taken in preaching has been like, once you're done, it's
important to tie that bow up you've.
Taken more than one course. A few.
Yeah, and I can't. Tell no, I'm kidding.
No, it was great. It was.
Like every time, I'm always like, why don't we need title?
I don't know. It just doesn't make sense to
me. Well, I think like you said, I,
I've often been in that bandwagon too.
And I've, I've gone through all the, we've talked about this a
number of times, talking about like just go for a fact and make
something dramatic. But like the fact that you can
have something where that might spark somebody's interest.
Like if they're on the website, yeah, you're looking for maybe
something particular. It's like maybe I'm looking for
the Lord to lead me in something that's like you said, the
utility of titles were like a practical nature of how is this?
How is it going to apply? I think it starts, it can it can
sort of kick start application in the in the hearer's mind if
they see a title or if they hear it.
Like Jake's sermon yesterday was like Nehemiah a faithful servant
of God, right? Is that what it was?
Yeah. Yeah.
So like, and all of his points tied back to Nehemiah's faith.
So I think sometimes they're helpful, but you're you're
didn't have one. We'll.
Call it. We'll call it the the the
Apostle. John, watch out for these guys.
All right? That's good.
Yeah, that's good. So.
Give us like a quick like you don't have 27 minutes, no today.
And so give us a quick recap. Sure.
So yeah, essentially there's some weirdness at the time of
that, John's writing this to the church, There's Gnosticism,
which we talked about Gnosticism.
Is talked is filled with AG with AG.
It is, yeah. It's it's a cool word and comes
from the. Word gnosis like it means
knowledge, right? So yeah.
Like. Secret knowledge is what they
were after. Like some people had secret
knowledge. There you go.
OK. Yeah, I didn't know that.
Gnostic. Gnostic, Yeah.
And so to combat a lot of these sort of weird Gnostic beliefs in
the church, John, the essentially first John and the
other epistles, he's writing about false teachers and about,
you know, the qualities that Christians should have.
And the 1st chapter specifically talks about like, you know, the,
the, the core of what we should believe, right?
That the gospel that God is light and there's no darkness at
all. That's.
Pretty central to that first chapter.
And then following up with some practical steps, like, you know,
if you hear someone talk about so and so, these things are the
things to look out for, right? And even in our own hearts, I
think that that was something that I was trying to like, I
don't know, maybe I should just focus on one either like look
out for teachers or look out for yourself.
I try to do both, but I feel like it's, it's important for us
to take that kind of stuff and to look at more broadly our own
faith and in our own hearts, right?
Like, I think it's easy for people to kind of slip more into
these. Sort of.
Like bad habits of belief in their own lives than it is for
them to get swooned by some charismatic speaker or something
like that. Yeah, I think it's easy.
I think it's really easy for us to like go to the opposite side
though, and not examine our hearts and just bash false
teachers. Yeah.
It's true. So like it's.
Easier for me to like point out the negative in someone else
than it is for me to like turn my, my, my eyes back on myself.
Oh, 100%. You know, I'm talking about the
log in your own eye, right? It's like, like it's very easy
for me to do that. And that's why.
There. That's why there are like 100
YouTube channels that are all like, this guy's evil, this
guy's bad. And then eventually they all
just start talking about each other back and forth.
Yeah. They.
Don't have. That's not discernment.
Yeah. The discernment bloggers of the
day, Yeah. Yeah.
Carrie Newhoff had a podcast that just dropped today or a
little video that I watched. It was about about the bully
pastor and how, how like to build a platform online is very
easy. It's just find something, take a
hard stance and go after everybody that's opposing you.
Yeah. And you'll, you'll get a
following and but it's not healthy.
It's not loving. And the, the negative part is
like what you're like is not doing what like what you talked
about last night. It's like thinking about like,
where do I really love my sin? That was a really good point,
man. Like thinking about, do I like
if I'm thinking about sin, do I think about it the way God looks
at it right? Do I look forward to it?
Right. And maybe it was a bit of an
over generalization to say that like those who walk in darkness
are people that want to be there.
But I think that that holds true, right?
Like I think that the desire of our hearts is naturally going to
be where we end up going, you know what I mean?
And so like, I don't know, to walk in, to walk in light, to
want to walk in light, that just shows evidence of something
that's happened, right? That shows evidence of a desire
to not be in darkness anymore. And as someone who's born in
darkness, it's supernatural for us to not want that at the time,
for sure. You know what I mean?
And so that's what that goes back to like the First
Corinthians, the new creation, right?
Where our hearts are renewed, our minds are renewed, and the
old self passes away, right? And so I don't know, I just, I
just want people to like, want to be in the light, I guess.
Yeah, well, what you're asking and what, what, what you're
asking people to want and what the, what the text is saying is,
is like you're walking exposed like light exposes everything.
Like if you put a spotlight on my face, you'll see every
blemish, right? Every white hair, every, you'll,
you'll see all the negative things that, that are there.
And So what you're asking people to do is really hard.
And like you mentioned earlier, it's going against your nature.
Like you're you were born in the darkness into sand.
We're born into it. We, we are all sinners.
I think we all believe that around this table.
And like, you're asking people to go against their nature, and
so there has to be something supernatural.
Oh, like 100% change, Yeah. Yeah, that was it was super
convicting, very convicting. Your sermon, like Jonah said,
like really calling out the sin, like do you love your sin?
Do you want it? Are you pursuing it?
Do you enjoy it? Like I think you were clear to
say that like believers still struggle with sin.
They still do sin. That doesn't mean that we're
perfect, but there is an overwhelming desire, which like
you said, I mean, it has to come.
It has to come from the Holy Spirit.
It has to come from somewhere. There is a point in our life
where we sin and and we don't even feel any conviction over
it. Right, Right.
You know, maybe you do a little bit because you're is in a
religious home and, and you know that like there's this angry God
out there who might be upset about it, but you love it, you
enjoy it, you want to do it. And then there comes this point
in your life where you know, regeneration, where you know God
does something in your heart, he circumcises your heart and all
of a sudden, like now that sin that you used to not feel bad
about, now you do feel guilty about.
And so that's the difference between someone, someone who's
who's sees the shame and guilt of their sin, doesn't want to do
it and doesn't even want to expose it, but still does comes
to the light, right? Because that's we're talking
about fear that sort of ties in, right?
It's like that's the right fear, right?
I have a fear of like exposing, you know, exposing myself of
coming to the light. Because John says that in his
gospel. He's like, he's all about that
all through his through his gospel and his letters that it's
like those who come to the light are true believers, right?
And those, and Jesus is going to condemn those because they
refuse to come to the light. Why do they refuse to come to
the light? Because they love their sin.
They love the darkness. And so they purposely don't come
to Christ. But we, we do, you know, as hard
as it is we do, we come to Christ and we let him expose our
sin and we need to fight more to deal with it.
Be strong for purity. Well, and it also comes down
right like to sanctification, and I think that to grow more
towards being like Christ or to desire holiness and to seek
after it. Like when we're saved, all of us
are we, we begin our sanctification journey, right
where we begin that process of becoming more and more holy.
And like for a new believer, the, the, the, I guess
expectation of sin frequency in their life is going to be
different than someone who's like seasoned in the faith,
right? Like someone who is just freshly
saved. We almost expect them to not be
very good at being saved because they are new.
You know what I mean? And the same thing it went like
on the opposite side. When you talk to somebody who
has been a Christian for a long time, who is diligent in their
study, who is seeking the Lord, We always have this higher
expectation of them. And we should that they know
more. They've been in it more.
There should be a a less desire to sin than that of a new
person. And so I think it the I worded
it carefully that we should be seeing a decrease in the
frequency of which we are sinning, right?
I read this book a little while ago, which I highly recommend
called Saved without a doubt by John MacArthur.
And it was a book that like completely changed my life.
Like before I read it, I was like always just so nervous
about like, am I saved? Am I saved?
I wasn't sure what to do.
And I was like, really like everything that I did was like,
oh, man, but that's a sign of an unsafe person.
So what do I do? And like reading this book just
completely shifted my mind and brought me back to like a really
good sort of like it kind of undid a lot of anxiety tangled
mint and kind of let all my like, it left all my wires
straight so that I could go back to the Bible and to actually
like have this fresh view. And one of the points that he
makes is do you decrease in the sin that you're committing,
right? Like you said, as Christians,
it's impossible for us to like on this side of heaven to never
sin again. And John says in first John that
if we say we have no sin, we're liars, right?
Right. So even the Bible knows that.
But seeing the decrease, seeing the sanctification, the growth
and the process towards towards holiness, I think that that's
supposed to be an assurance for us to be able to look at that
decrease in our desire to sin and our increase in our desire
to serve the Lord and to say that's, that's the spirit there
it is. I'm seeing that.
And so, yeah, I feel like first John as as a whole book, people
tend to look at it and get real nervous about their faith,
right? They tend to be like, well, he
who has sinned, you know, he, he, he is not saved.
And it's like, well, I sin. Well, like, I think John was not
writing this to, like, bash people.
He was. It was a volatile time of false
teaching. He was trying to build people up
to give assurance to their faith.
And so I think that when we look at this book, it's important for
us to to realize that this is supposed to be for our benefit.
Yeah. For an assurance of our faith.
Right. Well, he says that at the end of
the book too, right? He's like, I've, I've written
these things so that you may know that you are saved.
Right. And so you're absolutely right.
Yeah. To me, this is it's the first
John is called in my mind. I always think of the this is
how you know. So I call it this is how you
know book like this is how you know you're saved.
But I mean he gives them and he'll say it Chapter 2 like 9
times. Yeah, maybe not that many 6 I
think at least this is how you know this is how you know this
is how you know, right. So yeah, it's all about
assurance. It's good.
Well. And one of the things you said
sort of in your first through like verses one through 3, you
talked about true Christians find joy in the message of
Christ and speaking about it. And so you were just talking
about like, because that that's why John was writing.
He's like, man, we're, we're writing about what we've seen,
what we've heard, what we've touched, you know, all these
things. And we're writing to you so that
our joy may be complete, right? And it's like there's this idea
that if we have this truth, you know, like you said, there's,
there's Gnosticism, there's these different beliefs about
who Jesus is or isn't. And we're trying to tell you
that like, no, this was really the Son of God in the flesh, the
true Messiah. He was the one that was
prophesied. He was the fulfillment of all of
those promises in the Old Testament.
And we saw him, we witnessed him, we heard him, we touched
him like, and we're writing to you so that our joy would be
complete. The implication being that you
would believe in him too, and that you would be your savior.
And it's like that really struck me because I think a lot of
times, you know, I've heard this joke.
I think it's Dave Ramsey says like, you know, this Christian
lady who's like, I'm a Christian.
He's like, well, maybe you should tell your face.
It's like. Do we want, you know, it's like,
do we walk around with that joy, right?
And does it impact other areas of our life?
And we hear testimonies of people like that, right?
Even though going through trials, even though you go
through hard seasons, there is times of weeping, there is times
of hardship, but is there a joy that that surpasses those those
feelings, a commitment and a peace that comes through knowing
Christ? Yeah.
What's? The undertone of your life,
right? Like, do you have an undertone
of just being completely miserable all the time?
Like even when things are happy and you're in a good mood, it's
the general undertone still that you're miserable, right, right.
I think as Christians, we don't really have an excuse to to have
that. And believe me, I don't know, I
feel like there's a lot of times in life where it's just really
easy to be really pessimistic. But like, what is the undertone,
right? Like we have so many things to
be thankful for and to be joyful for.
And so like, just even John John's example of, of saying,
like the whole reason why I'm even doing this is because it's
a complete of my joy, like to give you assurance and to spread
this mess message. It brings me a completeness of
joy, right. And it's like we should be like,
we should be happy to, to give assurance or to like, maybe not
to rebuke, like we shouldn't be like excited to be like I'm
going into rebuke, but like we should, we should be happy when
people hear us out when we're, when we're being truthful.
And so I think that there's just, there should just be like
a general joyful undertone to the Christian life, even when
things are really, really hard. You know, well, maybe that's
maybe that, though, not sharing the gospel is why we lack joy
because I mean, wait, I, I've said this, I, I feel like I've
broken record. I know I've said this a couple
times in sermons over the last year, but like the joy, like the
completion of the joy, like sharing it is a completion of
the joy, right? It's like we don't go to a
restaurant, enjoy the food and just keep it to ourself.
It's like, no, once you then what do people do when they go
to a restaurant? What do people do when they come
back from vacation? They tell you all about it.
They tell you all the fun things they did and how good the room
was and how nice the sun was or how good the food.
Like that's actually a part of the fulfillment of the joy.
And so maybe we lack joy in our lives because we're not talking
about Christ enough. We're not giving him glory
enough. You know, maybe we are being too
pessimistic and too whiny and complaining and man, maybe,
maybe the solution to the problem is just talk way more
about Christ, I think. So that's what John's doing like
all right, so like verse one, what was from the beginning,
Jesus was in the beginning. We learned that from John one
right? What we have heard, we heard
him. What we see, what we've seen
with ours, we've seen him. What we observed and we've
touched with our hands concerning the word of life.
Like this is the message I'm giving you, the message of the
good news that the God of the universe took on flesh and came
and spent time with us. This is This is why I'm happy.
My joys may complete when I give this message to you.
Yeah, it was revealed and we have seen it.
And we testify and declare to you the eternal life, right?
That was with the Father, and it was revealed to us.
Man, it's just so good. And then he goes into this idea
of fellowship, like Jesus came so that we could have fellowship
with the Father. It's good news.
That's joyful, right? And now we get to share
fellowship with you around this one thing.
Do so good, well and. When you tie in, like, you know,
to Jake's point in his sermon about waiting and being patient,
when you tie in, like when we're in the book of Nehemiah, I mean,
they're going to rebuild the wall and it's going to be OK,
but it's not going to be what it was, right?
And everybody's left wanting. Like this still is not what
we're expecting. And then you have 400 years of
silence. Nothing.
Yeah, that's. What's coming, right?
That's what's. Coming after Nehemiah like this,
Nehemiah is right before that, 400 years of silence and you get
nothing. God doesn't speak through
prophets. He doesn't speak anything.
And you get nothing. And then you get John after
Christ comes. That's why he's like, man, we
saw it with our own eyes, like he came and it was the
fulfilment of all of our hopes and dreams.
It's like, yeah, of course he's going to be excited.
You know? That's what they've been waiting
for this whole time. Yeah.
Yeah, One other thing like when we talk about when we talk about
this, I think it's important for us if to to understand our joy
is like Jesus is not something that was like was right.
Right, that's one thing. We have to keep in mind, oh,
yeah, like, yeah, he was at the beginning and he was during this
time, but he still is. And I think that's hard for like
sometimes I think there's a disconnect there for people is
like, like, OK, I'm just talking about this stuff that happened
2000 years ago for now me and my I'm talking about something
happened 2500 years ago. And it's like it's all back
there. And I'm just trying to figure
out to just draw principles to help me live my life in a better
way. And like in that way, this book
is a self help book. But like, if I'm thinking about
like, OK, the same God is the God I worship and he's alive and
Jesus is this, he's here now that changes your perspective.
Well. For sure.
And like I know that like I've heard, I've seen like online
threads and whatever that talk about, like how hard it is and
how like how am I supposed to have joy?
And then people will list off, you know, X amount of
circumstances, right? But the reality is, and this is
far easier said than done, and this is painting with a very
broad brush. But the reality is that like if
you, you know, lost your job, your house, your family and you
were out and homeless on, you know, on the road, if you have
Christ, there's nothing that can take that from you, right?
Like that joy can still be made complete.
Like we, what do we find our joy in?
I feel like when people think about the joy that they feel in
their life, they're like, well, I don't feel joy.
I'm miserable. And you ask them why and they
go, well, my car won't start like mine this morning.
Or they're like, and you know, I'm all alone and I'm going to
lose the house. And it's like, like, those are
all terrible traumatic circumstances, but those are all
weird places to be or not weird, but like they're all wrong
places to be finding fulfillment of joy, right?
Like the joy that we have as Christians shouldn't be in our
job or in our car or in our family.
Those things can be by products of joy.
Yeah, they can help. But we can 100% be happy with
our families. It's good.
That's a good thing to find joy and be happy with your family.
It's a good thing to have a home.
It's a good thing to have a car. But if those are the things that
we ultimately find that joy in, we're not going to be complete
in that joy like like John outlines, right?
We're going to be miserable at some point.
There'll always be more, but we can lose it all with Christ and
still find that fulfillment of joy.
And that's why I don't mind saying that there should be a
general undertone of joy to the Christian life because in all
circumstances that joy is still available.
Yeah. Absolutely.
And that's so encouraging. It reminded me of like Paul, the
way he opens his second Corinthians he's talking about,
he's praising God, you know, God who comforts us in all of our
affliction. And then he goes on to say, for
we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the
affliction we experienced in Asia.
For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we
despaired of life itself. Man, it was so hard.
We just wanted to die. We just thought life would be.
Then he says, indeed, we felt that we had received the
sentence of death, but that was to make us rely not on
ourselves, but on God, who raises the dead.
He delivered us from such deadly peril, and he will deliver us on
him. We have set our hope that he
will deliver us again. And so it's just like, man, it's
like, like you said, that hope that we have that.
Yeah, in these situations, they suck.
And it's like, man, we, I I don't even want to go on living
anymore. But God is allowing those
difficulties in those trials so that we'll rely on him even more
than we do. And I and then, you know, the
Lord allows suffering in our life for that reason.
Now he can sanctify us in ways of suffering that he just I
don't want to say he can't. But like that when things are
going good, you just you just don't right, because you become
self reliant. That's one of the warnings God
gave to his people. Israel, once I bring you into
the land, you know, don't forget where you came from.
Don't forget that all this came from me.
Don't forget all of that. And that's exactly what they
did. But there was so much hardship
in going in. They had to trust God.
But then it's like now we're here.
Now we're in the promised land. And.
And immediately the next generation forgets God.
Yeah. Well, God is it's, yeah, it
comes down to like God is good and through the good things he
can sanctify you. But God is so good that even
through the worst of things, he can still sanctify you.
Right. Like his goodness Trump's those
terrible circumstances in every turn.
So on. Yeah, for sure.
I don't want to leave off first. John 19.
Oh yeah, Gospel you. Ended on that verse.
Yeah, you held it out. You you tricked us.
I did. You got 3 sermon.
And then he said, oh, but first John 19.
And now? 7 more minutes.
It's OK. That's why I didn't feel like,
honestly, your sermon didn't feel like 27 minutes.
No, I didn't, I thought. I went for five and I got real
nervous. It was good.
No, it was, it was good. But yeah, I think all that, all
that stuff like living in darkness and then and then like
the desire, why would we desire to have our lives exposed,
right? Because he's faithful.
He is faithful. And righteous.
That's the, that's the whole point of first John 19.
It's like if you confess your sin, like if you live in the
light, he's faithful to forgive your sin and to cleanse you from
all righteousness. But he's, he's faithful and he's
just, that's the that is one thing to think about too.
Like, like forgiving your sin. It's not something that you
deserve, but He is just in forgiving your sin because he's
the God of the universe. Exactly, exactly Isaiah 61.
What is 61? Eight Fry the Lord love justice,
that justice is served in Christ, right?
Right. Because what is what does our
sin deserve? Wrath.
The just thing would be for us
to die and never be, never ever be like connected with the Lord,
right? It deserves wrath.
But in God's grace, he, he sent Jesus.
If we confess our sins, he, he's talking about Jesus.
The word is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins.
Yeah. And he cleanses us from all
unrighteousness. Yeah.
So. Yeah.
And I think. In I sort of like, I know we're
going a little long, but we're not we're good.
I was like in like going along with that.
I think that's also why it's so important that John highlights
in verses 8 and 10 that, you know, he who says he has no sin
does not have the truth in him. It's because understanding your
sin, it's pretty vital to being able to repent of it.
It is. Yeah.
Like if you're not, if you're sinless in your own mind, what
do you have to repent of? Right.
And so I think that it's it like I think that those verses are so
perfectly, well, obviously it's God, but so perfectly like put
together because it shows like it doesn't just, it doesn't just
say like, you know, if you say you're without sin, you're a
liar. Moving on, it gives the reason
why and that when you repent of your sins, that is when you know
Christ is faithful and just to forgive you, right?
And so you can't do that if you have no cursory, if you have no
knowledge at all of sin. Yeah, that's good.
Yeah, Cuz what are we doing when we say, when we say that we're
not, we don't have sin. Like you gave one example.
What are we doing? What what is that God doing when
he says, Hey, I haven't sinned since I was converted?
Well, he's not really pointing to Christ.
He's pointing to his, his own strength and power, right.
And that doesn't point. Like, I would much rather see
someone who's like a like a very vulnerable, repentant person and
willing to confess their sin than someone who's just super
prideful and, and doesn't. And so, yeah, it's just a really
encouraging message. I really appreciated it all.
Glory being to Christ that reminds.
Me of the pride reminds me of a story I heard once.
I have no idea if it's true or not but I guess some some men
were hanging out like a men's Bible study or something like
that. A man stood up in the meeting
and said, I haven't sinned in 15 years.
And the the guy who was leading or the pastor, whoever says, I
bet you're pretty proud of that. Yes, I am.
Streak broken. That's awesome.
Well, I was gonna just. I don't know what you're saying,
actually. Like you said that.
Like, what does it mean? Like what are we doing when we
are denying our sin? And you mentioned that, but I
think it's also important to ask what are we doing when we are
confessing our sin? We look at like the Life and
Times of Jesus and like Jesus, like we look at the guy that
comes through the ceiling where he goes, your sins are forgiven.
And the Pharisee goes, well, who can forgive sins?
But God, And he says, well, what is, what is more like difficult
for me for a man to forgive sins for or for a man to command
someone to walk. And like, when we are confessing
our sins, we're acknowledging that he is God, that he is holy
and he is able to forgive sin. That's right.
When we're laying then at his feet, we are saying God, we are
in agreement that only God can forgive sins and he is God, you
know, And so that's why I think those two are.
So those verses are so like well put together because they're
complementary in so many different ways.
Well, it. Reminds me of something you said
about repentance, right? Repentance is turning away from
sin. And when you turn away from sin,
you're turning towards something else, right?
And it reminded, and then you said you're turning toward God.
That's repentance. It's turning from sin, turning
from your own way of living, turning back to God.
And it reminded me of my sermon in Nehemiah, which is exactly
what he said. He said in verse 8, he's like,
remember the word that you commanded your, your servant
Moses saying if you are unfaithful, I will scatter you
among the peoples. It's like if you're unfaithful
to me, I'm going to scatter you all over the place, right?
I'm going to take you from this land, I'll uproot you and I'll
punish you. But if you return to me and keep
my commandments and do them. And so that's exactly what I
thought of in that when I was preaching that sermon.
It's like it's turning you. You went this way away from God.
And then when you recognize your sin and confessed it, you turned
back to God and then started to follow his word in his ways,
right. Being led by the light, which I
just thought, I thought was really good that you drew that
out. Well, yeah.
It's light and darkness, right? And you turn away from 1, you
turn towards the other right. Exactly.
That's good. The two ways to live, two ways
to live, Yeah. So any final words on any either
one? No, cuz you're just gonna say
that I talk too much. No.
I'm. Not gonna say that I'm not
gonna. Say that no.
Repent of your sins and believe in Christ.
Repent. And believe the gospel, yeah.
That's my final word on that. Good, Joe.
Yeah, I I'm good. I thought it was really good.
It's nice to see young guys. I'm 26, I'm not that young
anymore. Joe A.
Young buck, my back. Hurts.
No, it was good. It was really encouraging.
See people come out and yeah, it's fun that we have an
opportunity for for up and coming preachers to Yep.
To preach. Yeah.
Yesterday was an encouraging day overall, Yeah.
Thanks so much for the opportunity.
I really appreciate it. Well, we'll.
Be looking for more and so I'm sure you'll be just be ready,
ready for the shoulder tap. OK we'll put you on again.
So yeah. So we've been starting to end
with prayer. Would you mind praying Kyle to
to close this out today? I can do.
That, yeah. All right, Father, thank you so
much for this opportunity and I thank you again just for the
ministry at LAMC got I thank you for Joe and Jonah and Jake and
for their willingness to lead us and to and to preach your word.
And I thank you God, that I thank you God that we have you.
We have access to you like we just talked about with me and
Maya. I just thank you God that we
have the ability to come to you to be courageous because we know
that we are on your side and that we can lay our our hearts
to you God, and that you will hear us and that you provide for
us. We thank you for every good
gift. We thank you for all the hard
times as well Lord, because we know that in them you are
sanctifying us and growing us closer to you.
We thank you God. We pray this in your heavenly
name. Amen.
All right.
Well, LMC, we're praying for you and we hope you have a great
week. See you next time.