Beyond Sunday

21 Days of Prayer - Week 3

• King of Kings Church

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Dina, Julie, and Tyler explore how God’s Word corrects us not to shame us, but to free us. They talk about reading Scripture with humility and context, and how biblical correction—rooted in grace—leads to real growth and joy.

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SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Beyond Sunday, the King of Kings podcast, where we dive a little bit deeper into our Sunday message and see what we're taking beyond Sunday. My name is Dina Newsom, and I am here with some wonderful guests. You guys get wonderful. I don't know if you listened last week. It was Seth and Peter, and I just called them mediocre. They took it really well. That's good.

SPEAKER_03:

We have a lot to live up to here.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, but then but I listened to this because I was down in St. Louis last week. I was wondering what they're doing on the Beyond Sunday podcast. And like it was like five minutes of berating Seth about his lack of hair and then about Peter about his large head. I was like, man.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, here's the thing. I was berating Peter. Seth just thought I kept talking about his bald head. I literally wasn't talking to Seth at all, but he just wanted to take the shame, apparently.

SPEAKER_01:

Anyway, I am Tyler.

SPEAKER_03:

I am Tyler from our Fremont campus.

SPEAKER_00:

Woo-hoo.

SPEAKER_03:

And I'm Julie Easley, uh executive director here at Kings.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you guys for being here today. So we are in week three of our 21 Days of Prayer series, where Pastor Zach Zender is taking us through a lot of the word of God. And this week we heard about how God's word corrects. And Zach opened with an illustration talking about misheard song lyrics or song lyrics that you are convinced are right and you sing your heart out, maybe for many years or longer on them, and then somehow find out they are wrong. You are corrected. Do you guys have any of those that popped up for you?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I immediately thought of that wonderful 70s classic, Blinded by the Light. And he sings Blinded by the Light, Wrapped Up Like a Deuce, another runner in the night. But if you're anything like me, you thought of a very different word than deuce, and you sang it for years and years. I'm not going to share it here on our church podcast, but I know you're filling it in in your mind right now.

SPEAKER_01:

Let's just give a few moments to let people really reflect on that. All right. So I could not think of a song lyric that I uh misheard. Not because I'm so good with lyrics, I just couldn't think of one. But what I will say is when I was in living, Connecticut, my our final year, um, I was the elementary music teacher at uh our kids' school. And we did a sound of music theme for our final concert. It was so fun. Think of all the great songs, Doray Me, Salon Farewell. And so, in in the spirit of correcting song lyrics, uh, I told the second, third, and fourth graders, hey, we're we're gonna do the song My Favorite Things. And so, you know, listeners out there, you're thinking about it, it has very girly lyrics, you know, girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes, that sort of thing. The fourth grade boys just wanted nothing to do with this. They're like, we hate this song, Mr. Rolfson. So one of my most ingenious moments, I said, All right, guys, if you hate this song so much, if you write, or dare I say, correct the lyrics to something that you really love, something your of your favorite things, and it matches the the the rhyming pattern and the meter, and it fits the music, and most importantly, it's good, then we will sing your original verse at the spring concert. And little Isaac, who was so against the song, he said, I'm gonna do it. He worked with his mom, I chatted with his mom, I was like, Hey, are you guys you get the kind of the assignment? She's like, Yes, this is totally up our alley. He comes back two weeks later with the most amazing lyrics to the legend of Zelda.

SPEAKER_00:

One of his I'm just curious what rhymes with Zelda. Did he, or maybe he that was not the end of a phrase?

SPEAKER_01:

So yeah, he must have found a way. Because like the phrase ends with like, these are a few of my favorite things, that sort of thing. And so he must have found a way to work in Zelda in a non-rhyming pattern. Love it. It was very well done though. Let's go, Isaac.

SPEAKER_00:

Yay, Isaac. So I have a couple. One of them that I can remember stuck out at me was my son. When he was probably about four or five, there was a VBS song, and we would play the VBS songs in our car over and over and over and over again. And there was one that the line was joy unspeakable that won't go away. And he would always say, Joy on speaker phone. He did not understand. And we like tried to explain to him what the right word was, and he just didn't understand the word. And so on speakerphone, I said, Okay, well, it works. Yeah. I mean, honestly.

SPEAKER_01:

In his defense, unspeakable is a very strange word for an elementary kid. Yes. Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

But then the one that I used to always sing wrong, and I'm telling you this, I just found out the correct lyrics for this, probably within the last couple of years. And my children could tell you about the night it happened because I was so sure I was right. And they were so sure they were making fun of me that I was wrong. Um, Todo has a song called Africa. Yeah. Everybody knows. Okay. So in my head, and honestly, I've never like really paid attention. It's a song we all know and we all sing along to different parts, right? I never really knew it was about a love of this area. You know what I mean? Like singing about the beautiful space there.

SPEAKER_01:

And we're blessing, we're blessing the rains.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, yes, but those are the lyrics I had wrong.

SPEAKER_03:

I can't wait to hear this.

SPEAKER_00:

So in my head, this song was about like missing this country, you know what I mean? Missing this place that this person had loved. And that, you know, even though it was amazing, that sometimes bad things happen there too. And in my head, the lyrics were, I guess it rains down in Africa. With the meaning being like, oh, bad things happen there. Like it rains there just like it rains everywhere else. It may be beautiful, but it's not perfect. My whole life, my whole life, I have thought this. And this has been a song that's been popular my whole life. And I'm singing along. I we had it on karaoke or something with my kids. And I'm and they're like, Mom, what did you just say? I'm like, I guess it's down and happen.

SPEAKER_01:

Dina has her eyes closed, not even looking at the karaoke machine, like, I got this dog down.

SPEAKER_00:

And my daughter Kenna was like, that is wrong. And I'm like, no, it is not. I think I know better than you. Oh, it was, yeah. I was I was humbled when they Googled the lyrics and showed me. Yeah. So now I bless the rains. That's right. I do guess it rains in Africa too.

SPEAKER_03:

I think they both make sense, honestly.

SPEAKER_00:

I had a whole pictures.

SPEAKER_01:

Are there is that is is that the one hit wonder for Toto? Like, are there any other hits?

SPEAKER_03:

No, they've they they do, yeah, they do.

SPEAKER_00:

They have a few. It's not like album after album after album, but yeah, I feel like there's a few.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Great.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know what Toto looks like in person. Like some of those bands, I feel like you remember an album cover or a video or something. I have no idea what the band Toto looks like.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I just think small black and furry and likes to jump into Dorothy's arms.

SPEAKER_00:

Following the yellow book rope.

SPEAKER_03:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, so um Zach opened with this because he talked about that there is a good time for correction. And this week's message is God's word corrects, and we find that correction in there. What are you guys taking beyond Sunday from this message?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I I think for me, it it you know, we we have we've had God's word teaches, God's word rebukes, God were God's word corrects. And I think there's a lot of overlap between rebuking and correcting. In some ways, it's like you don't need to split the hairs, but in other ways, like Paul put both in. Um, and I really appreciated the context that Zach gave before these verses, where he was talking about um the kind of false teachers that were both deceiving but also being deceived. I I was with the the ladies' Bible study this morning, talking through talking through James, and the same kind of theme came up in terms of deception and truth. Um, and man, if we are not tethered to the truth, we really are putting ourselves, making ourselves vulnerable to deception. But what's interesting is, and Zach pointed this out, is like it's not just that the the manipulative deceivers that are trying to manipulate us, that like they know better. It's also the ones that are deceiving yet with good intention because they themselves are being deceived. And so it just drew me back to like, yeah, it really is the word of God. At the end of the day, it's the word of God that reveals Jesus that is our source of authority and truth.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it's really good. And I I was also thinking, you know, it's really good while we're steeping ourselves in the truth of God's word, um, remembering the grace of God's word as well. And so when there are opportunities to correct, uh, remembering that we're uh faulty people, that Christ has forgiven fully, extended grace to us. And so what's our attitude towards people when we are like, you know what, that's not quite right. Um and just coming from a place of humility, recognizing that I was given grace in all of my misdoings and misunderstandings. And um, I can extend that grace to others in my conversation, in my correcting conversations.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I didn't extend much grace to my daughter when she was correcting my apilaris. I was quite frustrated and upset. But I really liked how Zach talked about correction as a gift. And I was like, that never I would not have put those two words together. No, it's not. It's an embarrassment or you know, it's highlighting a fault. But he talked about correction as a gift because you're finding out the truth. And that's what's important. That's what really stuck out in me. I was like, oh, okay. So when I have wrong song lyrics, or when I hurt someone's feelings, or when I'm not following God's word, I need to remember that those that are both rebuking and correcting me are giving me a gift. Okay, so we were talking about this misinterpreted song lyrics. Why do you think that it's so easy to misinterpret scripture or some of the spiritual truths? Maybe sometimes as easy as it is to mishear song lyrics.

SPEAKER_01:

Um one is that even Satan twists scripture, right? We see that in the temptations of Jesus. Like he's he's quoting scripture, he's just abusing it. Um and then back to that uh the deceivers who themselves are deceived. Um this could go down a whole rabbit hole, but I I I somehow found this YouTube video of a kind of kind of influencer pastor Christian guy who was this is like within the last week, who was um laying out the biblical case for why interracial marriage is not God's normative design. And I was like, what the heck is this? And if you listen to him, a lot of it sounds plausible. Like it, like, okay, I and and I was just so thankful that there was someone on the other side that was like, hold up, bro. And and bringing in, like, not just like kind of a degree or two away from scripture, you kind of draw some lines, but no, actual scripture. Like, you know what Jesus, God is doing through Jesus and the Holy Spirit? Building a multi-ethnic church, right? That's the story of the New Testament, neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. You are all one in Christ Jesus. Um, and it just has all these like racist overtones, all this sort of thing. Um, but it it's hard because there, and especially in our day and age, we have no shortage of influences of people that are kind of speaking for God. And it makes our job really, really challenging because we are not the only spiritual voice that people are listening to. Right. And so it's it's on honestly, like I feel it like it's to build trust as someone that like humbly is like given authority to encourage people in the word of God. Like, I want to do it rightly and not mislead, but also be prepared to equip people that like you're gonna hear a lot of things. Not everything that everyone says or not everything you read on Twitter or read on the internet or on TikTok is actually reflective of God's truth.

SPEAKER_03:

I think it's also I mean, the Bible is obviously God's word an incredible book, but it's it's also a a challenging book. And it's a nuanced book. And I think that if we pull certain verses out of context, it's easy to miss the bigger picture. And so I think it's important that we really apply ourselves to study God's word and not just, hey, I'm gonna open my Bible and put my finger on my verse of the day. Um, right, it there's so much to unpack and there's so much context around a lot of things that Jesus says and that Paul's referencing. We really need to see the whole flow of the Bible. And so, you know, if you want to get really uh, and I'm hesitating using this word, good at something, you really need to spend a lot of hours with it. And I just feel like it's it's very easy to to just skim the top and uh you can miss things that way.

SPEAKER_00:

I feel like it's real simple to find a verse that supports any point of view you want, and you can find the right verse out of context that sounds like it supports whether that's a biblical truth or a complete falsehood. And that's where I think it's hard because not enough average Christians know the word well enough to find those corrections. And so then do they doubt themselves? Do they doubt the word of God until they can really get grounded again? I think that's really hard. And I also think that the like even the spiritual truths speak to you differently at different points in your life. You know what I mean? Not that God's intent behind them isn't the same, but you understand them differently. Like there's verses or pieces of scripture that I read in my 20s that mean something totally different or are highlighted in a different way now that I'm in my 50s. Um it's it's really different. Um, there was a gentleman in a small group that I was in years ago who anytime we looked at a verse, he would always look at the verse before and the verse after. He couldn't just read the verse. It was, I had got to look at the verse before and the verse after because I need to add more context to it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, one of the things I highly advocate for is reading entire books of the Bible. And so that can get really hard in the Old Testament, right? Like Genesis is 50 chapters, right? All that's so-and-so was the father of so-and-so. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. But like just um taking time to like read through the entirety of the Gospel of John, all of Ephesians, all of First John, um, because they the these letters do have internal coherence that you're gonna make a lot, a lot of sense of chapter six if you've read chapters one through five. Um, and and so even if it means that you're not reading individual verses from other sections for a season, like just giving time to really understand what one book is doing. And then, you know, it really kind of goes the idea is that the Bible is a book, but really it's a library. Yeah, it's a library of books that then the church came together to say, yeah, this is reflective of what God's truth is as it points us to Jesus.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So Zach makes the analogy of correction or the law as a mirror, a curb, and a guide. How do these things help us in our lives and how does that help us look at scripture?

SPEAKER_01:

Um, yeah, so for uh like I grew up in LCMS context. Julie, you grew up. No, I grew up reformed. Yeah, just reformed. Were these were these concepts that were in the reformed? Oh, really? Okay, cool. And the law? What about you, Dina?

SPEAKER_00:

Uh LCMS.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I mean, it was all back to confirmation class and three uses of the law. Um, and so the idea is the mirror is just as a mirror shows you yourself, the mirror shows you your sin. And so the law of God is there to um remind you, lest you think that you are so good or so perfect, or all the problems are out there. Like, no, actually, the problem's with me. And so it shows us our sin. So that's like the classic um, if someone doesn't think they're a sinner, you just read in the Ten Commandments, like, what about this one? What about this one? You know, you don't typically you don't have to get past number one. Yes, we have put things before God. Um, the second, second purpose is a curb, and and that that it is true in our lives, but honestly, it's for kind of all of society is that God's law provides kind of these curves that even people have no kind of um it's the basis of Western civilization, honestly. Yes, yeah, and and just like so, like do not murder is not just a personal law that Christians should abide by, but it's just good for societies, you know, that sort of thing. And so it it doesn't mean that it doesn't mean that governments are going to get rid of all sin through this, but it's just like, yeah, God works through the civil authorities to um make sure that like our society kind of stays on track more or less, right? It's more of a general thing. Um, and then the third one is a guide, and this is where it probably most applies is that um, and we call this the third use of the law. People are like, What is he talking about, Tyler? Move on. Um, but where it it the law never saves us, it shows us our sin, it shows us our need for Jesus. Um, but as we are justified, made right before God, and progressively being sanctified to be made to look and sound and think more and more like Jesus, God's law kind of guides us in the right direction. It points us the right way. And as the spirit works through us and the gospel is preached to us and we confess our sins and all that sort of thing, um, we we find ourselves like, wow, like I it wasn't on my own strength, but like I I'm not who I was five years ago or 15 years ago because God's working in me and that's a function of God's law.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, just to kind of as we're talking about a curb, um, I even people who don't believe in the Bible live in a way that the Bible is true. If you'd say to someone, is it okay to murder someone? Well, no, that's awful. On whose authority? I mean, truly, um, why do we look down on people who cheat on their spouses or feel like maybe not look down, but say that's wrong? I mean, what's the basis for that? Really, the Bible has provided a curb and a guide for human behavior that even people who aren't buying into the Bible say, yes, that that feels right and true. You can see it everywhere.

SPEAKER_01:

For anyone who is would would just love to read like an 800-page book about this. So Tom Holland, he's a British historian, has wrote a magnum opus called Dominion. Yes, it's so good. And he is, would you say is he a Christian, Julie?

SPEAKER_03:

I think he's on his way.

SPEAKER_01:

There you go. I feel like every YouTube video I watch, I'm like, Are you there yet, Tom? Are you there yet, Tom? Um, but so he comes at it from very much a secular perspective, but and then the reason it's called Dominion is how permeating the values of Christianity have made it into every aspect of Western. Civilization. And it's exactly what you said that even our sense of morality, that someone who wants nothing to do with church, nothing to do with the Bible, how have they arrived at what the things that disgust them? And it's like, well, it's it's actually because like pre pre-Bible, like infanticide, very normal. Go for it. Exactly. Um, and slavery, all this sort of thing, all of these things um phase out because of a Christianizing of our sensibilities. Yep.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, I really find the analogy of the mirror helpful. I it's um, you know, to put myself in check. It's very easy. There's that verse, you know, don't worry about the splinter in someone else's eye before you remove the log in your own. That's I, you know, we can get way off track with ourselves at pointing out other people's. I'm I'm all about correcting other people, but I gotta make sure that I'm remembering my own corrections. And so I find that a very valuable tool when I can look at scripture and go, oh, I see you're talking to me, God.

SPEAKER_01:

With the uh the ladies this morning at the Ladies' Bible study, we were in James uh chapter. I think it's either it's either at the end of chapter one or beginning of chapter two. And uh one of the things that James says is to keep keep yourself unstained from the world, kind of this purity argument, like you're in the world but not of it. And I just like please circle the world word oneself. Like he is saying he's talking to you to keep a track of you. Like we have a place to speak the truth in love, hold each other accountable, but like this is not James saying, be the morality police, keep yourself unstained from the world. Yeah, it's good.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, so um part of the message, Zach refers to a story in the Bible about Peter. And I adore Peter because I feel like he's like the the He's used. He is, he is like the bumbling idiot of the disciples. And I don't mean that in a put-down way. Like he is just trying to figure it out. I he's the most relational to me in a lot of ways. And so he tells a story about a miracle that Peter experiences with involving a shekel. And so do you want to just kind of give us a summary of that, Tyler? I feel like you're good.

SPEAKER_01:

I'd be honored. All right.

SPEAKER_00:

Here we go.

SPEAKER_01:

So I was telling you guys before we started recording, like this was an aha for me this week. Uh so the basics of the story is um that there's this two drachma tax um that that um uh in in that Jewish world would have two purposes. Zach laid out it would it would make atonement and it would kind of just pay for the upkeep of the temple. And so that the collectors of the tax come to Peter, you know, these these guys are are Jewish guys who are following their rabbi Jesus, and they ask, Does your teacher not pay the tax? And Peter just trying to cover his boss.

SPEAKER_02:

He says, Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Sure he does. And then and then Zach pointed out, like, Jesus' correcting conversation happened in private, which is an appropriate thing to do. There are actually very few times where like public correction is needed. Most of the time it really isn't private. Um, and so then then Jesus, Jesus says this, what do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tax, from their sons or from others? And when he said from others, Jesus said, Then the sons are free. And and Zach pointed out, like, oh, that means they're actually tax exempt, which is kind of a crazy, crazy, crazy thing. But then Jesus says, but so as to not cause offense among them, basically, like, we're not gonna pick this is not a battle we're gonna fight right now. He sends Peter to like the shore and then put your put your put your uh put your rod in and you're gonna pick up a fish, and inside that fish's mouth, you're gonna find a shekel.

SPEAKER_03:

How amazing. Which I love the word shekel too, but imagine like pulling that fish up and like him kind of opening its mouth and what do you know? It's in there.

SPEAKER_00:

Always a fun minute, uh fun story to tell in kids' ministry when you can have the money out of the fish, you know.

SPEAKER_03:

So cool.

SPEAKER_01:

And this is the aha thing that I'd never known before is that one you know, Jesus says, take that and give it to them for me and for yourself. But forgive the editors for doing for me and for yourself in the grammar. Um, my my mom, who was a grammar Nazi about these things, she says, You're gonna say that one more time for me. For yourself and me. Um and uh and and so this shekel um pays the tax that was instituted all the way back in Exodus that they didn't have to pay, but Jesus goes goes over and above to pay this tax um that then actually pays for both Jesus and for Peter with that one shekel because the tax was a half shekel per person. Um and so what's crazy is, and this Zach's point was so good, he says, God doesn't just point out what is wrong, he goes to great lengths to make us right. And there's kind of two levels of correction happening here. It is it is Jesus correcting Peter about this tax issue, but it's also just such a picture of the gospel and how it's not just our right thinking that God gives us, but he actually makes us right with himself. And it's this beautiful picture of how we are we receive God's righteousness. And just as this um this coin showed up out of nowhere to pay something that Peter couldn't pay or doesn't pay, didn't need to pay, Jesus ultimately pays uh our debt with not a shekel, but with his very own blood.

SPEAKER_00:

So can you think of any other stories or maybe a personal related stories that really kind of like this story helps us understand God's perfect provision and grace? Like this was so perfect in the exact amount that he hears. I love how Peter can't catch catch a fish without God's help, without Jesus' help, that it is um just that just what is needed. And how like what other areas does that remind you of how perfect God is and what he provides for us?

SPEAKER_03:

So there I saw, and I saved this on my phone because I just thought it was such a helpful reminder. It was just a drawing of a book, like a huge, like super, it's like four dictionaries put together, right? The spine is like four feet high. And the cover of the book said things that I was worried about that worked out really great. And I think that that's just I think that's all of our stories. God's provision for us. And maybe it wasn't what we what we thought it was going to be, but it was what we really needed. And I just read this by Tim Keller not that long ago. And he said, we can thank God in advance for providing the things that we would have asked for if we had known what we really needed. And so that's just how I'm going, right? I can look back on God's faithfulness all of the times that He's just shown up in big and small ways for me, for my family, just for people that I know. And um, just feeling so secure, looking ahead, that he's gonna continue to do that and provide what's best for me and give me the thing I would have asked for if I knew what was best for me.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, so the the Hebrew phrase um Jehovah Jirah, which means the Lord provides or the Lord will provide, the very first time that shows up is in Genesis 22, which is Abraham being called by God to bring his son of the promise, Isaac, up the mountain, and God says, sacrifice your son before me. And just as Abraham is about to do that very act out of obedience, the angel stops him, and there in the thicket is a ram. And that's where it is said of God, the Lord will provide. Um, and you can just look all throughout the Old Testament, right, where God provides the sacrifice and then which points us directly uh forward to Jesus.

SPEAKER_00:

I find it interesting to find those times where God's provision showed up in ways that I didn't want it, or I thought it was uh a bad thing at the time. And the best example of that I can think of is my oldest daughter and her husband lived in Hong Kong as missionaries. And they went over there the summer of 2019 and came home at Christmas, Christmas of 2019. So this is um right about the time that COVID is breaking out in China. Oh yeah. December was when things started over there. Um, so they came home for Christmas. Um, we really had no clue what was happening, you know, in China. They went back, it was like the first or the second of the new year, but they flew back over. There had been an issue with their visas, and their visas had not yet been approved for them staying there. So when they got to immigration, um, they were denied entry back into Hong Kong. Um, they had an apartment with all of their belongings. At the time, my daughter was very early pregnant, like not even everyone knew yet. And so they were gonna go back for a few months and then fly home while it was still safe for her before the birth of my first granddaughter. And they could not get back into the country because of several things. This is also a time when Hong Kong had a lot of governmental protests going on with China wanting to step into their government. So it was like the perfect storm of these things, and they couldn't get back into the country and so ended up having to come home. To them, this was a huge loss. Like this whole mission and what they were living there was something they had been so excited about and wanted to complete. They loved the life that they were living there, they loved the work that they were doing. And this was like, oh my gosh, how devastating. But then over the course of the next couple of months and the way that COVID came out and the way that travel was shut down. Had they not been home then, they would not have been able to come home for years. Like literally, it would have been over a year at least before travel would have been open to them with the right documentation to get back. So I would not have seen my granddaughter when she was a newborn. That would have all happened in Hong Kong. And so when they came back, they got perfect jobs. Like it just everything was lined up for them, it seemed like. And that to me was God's provision that at first we thought was so devastating and bad. And it was like, oh, this was really God's protection of a situation that would have been a very, very good story. Yeah. And I think it was the most hurtful to them because they were like, we're trying to do God's work. So now you just want to send us back to work in an office. Right.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But in the long run, that was like a blessing. And so I I it's funny to me how those things show up. And I love being able to look back at them and go, okay, God, you were working there. You were keeping out for an eye out for us even when we didn't think you were.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

It's good.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. So in the story, you talked about how Peter basically lied to kind of make his boss look good, you know? And I, and Zach talked about as Christians, we may tend to do that if somebody asks us a question about our faith or about our beliefs, that we may stretch the truth or flat out lie to make things more palatable or to make God look better. And so Zach made the statement that God doesn't need you to protect him. What does that statement mean? And what does that tell us about how we should approach our faith in regards to witnessing to others?

SPEAKER_01:

It's um it's it's true for first and foremost. Um, but it but it's hard because like we we we don't have the advantage that the disciples had of like Jesus right then and there. Right. And so, you know, God God is God is spirit and he's abiding in the heavenly realms, and we have evidences left and right of who he is and what he's done, and he's given us his word and all the historical truths of Jesus' death and resurrection, all that sort of thing. But in the end, uh if if if if we're in this situation, um Jesus is not gonna pull us into the house and have a conversation with us the way he did with me. Um the the the thing that strikes me is um not letting our insecurity or anxiety or even our our great intentions of of wanting to be a great ambassador for God, a representative from God, to say something he doesn't say. And I think the the the thing that's probably the best that I need to tell myself and maybe the listener on the other side needs to know is it is a okay to just say I don't know. And and those three words, like if you if you if you don't know, just say I don't know and be okay with that. Ultimately, if if if someone if God is drawing this person that you're talking to to him, he's gonna do it and you're gonna play just a little piece of the story. Um and so the the the pressure's on you to to to to be a witness and to um exhibit the fruits of the spirit and obey when Jesus calls you, but but only so far as God is gone and not any further, and entrusting the rest to the Holy Spirit, who's ultimately gonna draw them to faith in his time and his way.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and I think when you say that, that it's okay to say, I don't know. The alternative is that I know better than God. If I'm choosing to manipulate his word or to misrepresent his word, I'm saying I know better than him. And that's certainly not the case.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. And I just so Zach used or talked about, you know, Jesus is is reigning and being worshipped in heaven. But you think about his earthly ministry, he wasn't going around saying, Oh, are you okay with that? Or no, that's not what I meant at all. Or hang on, hang on. Actually, do you know who I am? I mean, he was never no approval polls.

SPEAKER_00:

No.

SPEAKER_03:

And it he was just very secure and relaxed in who he was. And so let's try to be like our teacher and be secure, not in ourselves, but in who he is, be relaxed in our approach to people because that's how he was. He spoke the truth, but he wasn't chasing people around or trying to prove anything. And uh worked out pretty well.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you can say that. All right, final takeaways from this week's message. Keeping with you.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it was um it says in a few different spots, I think Peter and then also in James that uh God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. And just thinking about uh correction and receiving correction through the word of God, um that that happens when we're humble, like humbling ourselves before God, humbling ourselves before others. Um, and that that's a daily battle because man, our our flesh just wants to rise up and have it our way. And so humility is a is a spirit-led choice. And it's something we need uh as we uh embrace God's word and say, yeah, it's gonna, it's gonna be your way, God, not mine.

SPEAKER_03:

So I read a book about the Psalms by Eugene Peterson, and he talked about like praying through God's word. I think it's very easy sometimes for us to just get into a real navel-gazing sort of prayer life where we're kind of dictated by just the little stuff that's going on in our own life and maybe how we're feeling and the moment, our emotions and everything. And he said, you know what, when you open up the Bible and like pray a portion of the Bible, you're actually confronting the unchanging God and what he's trying to say to you in this moment. So I would just encourage people, maybe this week, pick out a psalm, read it through, and then just ask the Holy Spirit, God, what is it that you're saying to me about you and my response to you? Just kind of gets us out of our own, all our own feelings and and our concerns. Our feelings. Um, so just give it a try. It's been a tremendous blessing for me, just reminding me of who God is and then how I respond to that God with my life.

SPEAKER_00:

Boy, Tyler, Julie talking about that just reminds me on last Saturday, Tyler did a Connect Group Leaders training. And one of the things that he talked about with our Connect Group Leaders was how to incorporate praying and empowering their group members to pray. And you talked about praying scripture, literally praying scripture. And that just ding ding ding ding ding.

SPEAKER_01:

It's a theme.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow, maybe there's some truth to that. Oh my goodness. Yep. I what what and I don't know that Zach really said specifically it, but what I remember feeling when I was done listening to the message was that I have to be open to correction, which you kind of mentioned, um, being humble. But I was thinking about it in respect of my prayer life. And I think we always focus on prayer being us talking to God. And it is, and it's primarily us talking to God, but it's also us listening to God. And sometimes I think we forget to give the time to that. And sometimes we may not be mature enough in our faith to really know what God's voice sounds like, or to be able to discern what's God's voice and what is someone else's voice, or just our own, you know, instincts. But that has what is what makes a difference in my prayer life when I dump out all my prayers and all my prayer vomit and then listen for a little bit to what God's speaking to me. Um, and whether that's correction or, oh, hey, you're praying about this thing, and maybe there's something you can actually do to change that, or maybe there's a situation that you're not handling right, that you're coming to me in prayer, and I feel like he's correcting me through my prayer and not necessarily just through the word. Ultimately, it comes from the word because that's where all of his heart is. But um, that was that was something that I left feeling like, okay, I gotta remember as I'm trying to focus on this 21 days of prayer, that that includes the listening too, and I'm not just squeezing in my talking.

SPEAKER_02:

It's good. It's great.

SPEAKER_00:

All right. Well, next week we will wrap up this message series with week four of the 21 days of prayer. And thank you guys so much for being here today. You're still wonderful.

SPEAKER_01:

One one last word, Dina.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

God bless the rainstorm in Africa.

SPEAKER_00:

And until next week, let's keep living our faith beyond Sunday.

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