August 27, 2025 • 69 mins
What if the key to experiencing joy isn't found in changing your circumstances, but in training your mind? In this illuminating episode of the Midweek Podcast, Pastors Ryan and Tim dive deep into Philippians 4, unpacking Paul's powerful prescription for protecting joy through intentional thinking.
The conversation begins with a practical look at conflict resolution in the church. When Paul addresses two quarreling women in the Philippian church, he doesn't scold them but reminds them of their shared mission. This teaches us that unity doesn't require agreement on every issue—it requires commitment to a greater purpose. The pastors share candid insights about how easily we misinterpret others' actions and jump to negative conclusions, offering instead a transformative principle: "When there's a gap between what you expect and what you experience, love puts trust in the gap."
With remarkable clarity, Ryan and Tim methodically explore each element of Paul's instruction to focus on what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and praiseworthy. Their conversation touches on everything from our cultural addiction to speculation ("Speculation's sexy," Pastor Ryan notes) to our tendency to tear down success rather than celebrate it. They challenge listeners to recapture childlike faith that hasn't been corrupted by cynicism and to become people who actively praise what's praiseworthy instead of only pointing out what's wrong.
Through personal stories, biblical insights, and practical examples, this episode offers a blueprint for experiencing the joy God intends for us. Whether you're struggling with church relationships, workplace tensions, or family conflicts, the principles discussed will equip you to protect your joy by training your thoughts on what reflects God's character.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome and thanks for joining us on this episode
of the Midweek Podcast broughtto you by A Fresh Wind Church.
Each week, our team brings younew content to help you take
steps towards Jesus and discovermore in Christ.
No-transcript.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Pastor Ryan joined again with Pastor Tim and we are
almost done with our joyfulfulSeries, week 10 out of hopefully
11.
I think we're supposed to wrapthis thing up next week but man,
it's been just been a greatseries.
And, tim, I thought Sunday yourkind of approach, you know
(11:19):
we've been talking a lot aboutjoy and one of the things you
said as we started the sermon onSunday was we don't want to get
through this whole series onjoy and not give you kind of the
roadmap, the way to actuallyexperience joy in your life.
And so you kind of tackled thaton Sunday.
But you also kind of made thejoke like there's probably at
least six other sermons I couldbe preaching.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Yeah, it's one of those books.
It's probably for pastors, oneof the most quoted sections of
scripture, philippians, chapter4, verses 3 through 8 and 9.
I mean, there's so many littleI mean doctrinal and practical
(12:08):
living truths that Paul islaying out there that we don't.
Well, if you read your Bible orlook at sermons, you'll see
people preach out of there allthe time and it's practical.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
It's like the greatest hits.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Right, right, philippians, the whole book is
that way you know, um live lifeworthy of the gospel, just that
saying.
There's a sermon there, youknow, um, work out your own
salvation.
Oh, there's a sermon there.
And uh, did just you know?
Uh, god is at work in you.
There's a sermon, I mean justin those little phrases, and we
(12:50):
tend to look for the logos andthe saying.
That will kind of give us thewhole thing in one shot.
And I think when pastors readthrough Philippians, they don't
get very far until they're likeI'm preaching on this, I'm
preaching on that, I'm preachingon this.
(13:10):
But Philippians, chapter four,is one where I was just looking
at it and I was like I see six.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
I see six, and that was just in the first.
What did you get to Nine?
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Nine verses, I think, or ten, no less than nine,
because I started in three.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Oh yeah, because I took one of your verses last
week.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Yeah, and I didn't even dig into it, I was just
reading along.
But it's important.
Sometimes, I think we how can Isay this?
We look at things in a way thatleads us to do the worst thing
(13:58):
you can do in the Bible is takeit out of context.
You know you're looking forthat phrase, that thing that you
want to talk about, and youfind that phrase and that thing
and you're like okay, that'swhat this verse is all about.
But when you add that verse tothe verses around it, then
you're like, okay, I got to slowdown here and take a good look
(14:23):
at what this means.
And I think a lot of times whenyou're in Philippians it's easy
just to grab it.
I guarantee you, you open yourcomputer and go to Philippians,
chapter 4 and give me sermons inPhilippians chapter 4.
I don't know how many you'llget, and not just from standard
(14:46):
Joe pastor out here, but fromthe guys we all admire.
You know, all the way back intothe 1700s.
I mean, philippians was just,it's just an amazing book.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Yeah, one of the things that I think I did it in
a sermon, you did it in a sermon, we've done it on the podcast,
kind of throughout.
This is that idea of man.
We've got to really keep thesethings in context and it's great
to kind of dive deep into someof those ideas.
Like you said, live worthy ofthe gospel A couple weeks ago,
paul, imitate me, join in,imitating me in that whole idea
(15:20):
of living life worthy ofimitation.
So there's all those, yeah,those little phrases, those
little words that you're like,oh, let's just sit here and talk
, talk about it.
But this week you know this,one of the very first.
You know Philippians 4.4,.
It's one of those verseseverybody loves it Rejoice in
the Lord always.
I say it again rejoice.
(15:42):
And you're like that's therefor a reason and we put it on
motivational posters and we'll.
You know, we got a picture ofan Eagle soaring over a mountain
.
We'll share it on Facebookrejoicing the Lord always.
But what is it the context ofthat?
Well, there's these two womenin the church having an argument
and we're like well, that'srelatable and I love that.
(16:04):
Paul, he's addressing that.
He takes time out of thisletter here.
It's been full of joy.
There's been some hard stuffthat he's brought up along the
way.
But then you get to chapterfour and he's like hey, we need
to talk about this because thisthing right here is going to rob
the joy that I've beenhammering home.
He said it's no trouble for meto talk about this again, but if
(16:28):
we don't get this situationstraightened out, it's going to
rob you guys of the joy that Iwant you to experience.
And, man, I think it's a greatreminder in the church, because
the church is full of people.
You know, and people are hardsometimes and you think, and and
people are are hard sometimesand you think, well, I don't
like how that church treated meand I'm going to go to another
(16:50):
church.
You know what's at that otherchurch people there's more
people and, and there's alwaysgoing to be those, those
situations, those people um thatare just hard to deal with or
rub you the wrong way, whateverit is, and Paul looks at these
ladies and maybe whoever, wedon't exactly know, you know you
(17:11):
call them his golfing buddy.
He says I want you to go backand tell these ladies guys, just
get over it, Lay that thingdown, Stop letting that thing
come between us, rejoice,rejoice.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Yeah, I think this is the mature way of handling that
.
We've said this all along thePhilippians Paul sees them on
par with him as brothers andsisters in Christ, brothers and
sisters in the mission, brothersand sisters in support for each
other, um, he sees them at alevel to where he don't have to
(17:54):
go back to, uh, matthew chapter18 and what Jesus said you know,
go to your brother and if hewon't, um, give in.
You know, then take two orthree witnesses and then tell
the church and all that kind ofstuff.
That is like the lowest commondenominator of this is how we
(18:15):
deal with this thing.
Jesus has laid out the law forus as Christians.
This is the law for you.
You've got to do it like this.
Paul says I don't have to do itlike this with you guys.
All I got to do is remind youthat that's coming, you know.
I just, hey, guys, knock it offor we're going to have to do
(18:37):
this whole thing.
you know, and they're going togo, yeah and it's.
And they're not going to givein because they don't want to go
through the whole thing.
They're going to give inbecause they know that their
relationship is messing up theunity of the church and they
need to forgive and lay thosethings down.
Be unified you don't have toagree, but be unified.
(18:59):
And so it's like the mature way.
I love the way Paul does it.
So it's like the mature way.
I love the way Paul does it.
He just simply said hey, youguys knock it off and I'm not
going to leave it up to you.
Aphroditus is going to come andmake sure everything's okay.
In other words, you're going tohave to deal with this.
(19:19):
You can't put it off any longer.
And I like that because there'speople in your church that you
don't have to go.
Okay, if we can't get thisright, then I'm going to have to
get two or three witnesses.
There's people who are like Iknow, I know, I'm just mad, I'm
going to be okay and you're likeokay.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Yeah, man, I would say, is no one wants to deal
with conflict, right, but whenyou have, well, I can't say that
there's some people probablylove conflict.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
They just that's true .
Speaker 2 (19:53):
But as a pastor, I don't love it.
But when those times when youtalk with people and they're
like I know I'm working to, I'mgoing to be all right, man,
that's refreshing, causesometimes it's like no, we're
going to sit here and we'regoing to drag this thing out and
we're going to duke it out andwe're going to make it as
miserable for as many people aspossible.
When you get those people thatare like I know, that was silly,
(20:13):
okay, yeah, we're going to laythat down and move on.
It is, it's refreshing.
And that seems to these ladieshe's like guys, hey, you know
better than this, let's get overthat thing.
And I think what you're sayingis is important because they,
they understand the mission,right, and and they're saying,
man, this thing, whatever it is,and it might be important to
(20:36):
each of them individually I mean, it was important enough that
they had an argument about it,yeah, um, but they in, in spite
of the mission, they said thisis less important of the mission
.
They said this is lessimportant than the mission.
Right, We'll lay those thingsdown.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
And.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I think that's a great encouragement and reminder
to us in the church to not letthings get between us and the
mission.
God has called us to a purposehere to help people discover
more in Christ.
And sometimes our methods andour means might differ on how we
approach that thing and youmight want to do it a different
(21:11):
way than so-and-so wants to doit.
But to just say, man, you knowwhat the mission is more
important and if we're helpingpeople discover more in Christ,
I'm all in on that.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
I think one of the mature way of looking at this.
Paul goes on um later on inthis chapter and he talks about
thinking about pure things andhonorable things, and that
actually applies to thissituation.
Um, we get hurt so easy andit's so deep over silly things.
(21:48):
I don't know why.
You know, my daughter-in-law ormy son-in-law wouldn't eat my
cake.
You know, I offered it to himthree times but he wouldn't eat
any of it, you know, and it'slike he don't like my cake, he
don't like my cooking, he don'tlike me.
(22:08):
You know, and that's that'swhere we go and and we let those
things hurt us.
Um, and it's important in inthe body of Christ that that you
think, well, he's probably on adiet.
That you think, well, he'sprobably on a diet.
I'll take that first until Ifind out that he don't like my
(22:30):
cooking.
But the first thing I'm goingto think is he didn't want cake,
he's on a diet or he's offsugar or whatever.
So we have to be people that arelooking for the honorable,
looking for, um, the pure inpeople.
That's number one we got.
(22:50):
We got to be right away, orwe're going to get hurt all the
time.
We're just going to get hurtall the time.
That's just the way life is.
So, uh, when you grow up withyour sister and you've been
together, you lived in the samecommunity, you went to the same
church, you're just sisters andthey say something and you get
mad and uh, but the next day,you know, someone comes oh, I
(23:14):
heard you and your sister atchurch really going at it, and
you know, are you guys okay?
And you look at them like what,oh no, that's every day, that's
just every day, every day.
You, we just don't do it atchurch, we just do it every day.
And uh, and that's good andthat's how.
(23:34):
But some people, some people inthe body of christ, will get
hurt by that because they didn'tgrow up that way.
And uh, they'll see it andthey'll think, oh no, we got
this big thing going on and uh,it's not a big thing.
So we have to be careful thatuh.
Number one, that people don'tget offended for us.
And number two, uh, when we seethat situation, not not to get
(24:01):
offended for either one or picka side or whatever.
Just Just say you guys allright, just like Paul is saying
here oh yeah, oh yeah, we're allright.
I'm going to punch her when weget out of here.
But we're good Because it's afamily thing and it's really
none of the church's business.
But we like to get involved ineverything.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
But we we want to look at that situation and say
um, and give everybody thebenefit of the doubt yeah, it's
one of the things I, when I'mdoing premarital counseling with
people, I walk them through alot of paul's teaching on what
it means to to be a husband andwife and in relationship and um,
one of the things.
(24:43):
I tell them is love looks togive the other person the most
like, to look for the mostgenerous explanation for the
other person's behavior.
That when there's a gap in anyrelationship between what I
expect and what I experience,love puts trust in the gap Right
.
A lot of us we go right tosuspicion.
You know your cake illustration, the perfect one.
(25:06):
He doesn't like something aboutme, so he hates me.
No love says I'm going to puttrust in the gap because the
truth is I choose what I put inthat gap.
And love puts trust first.
It looks for the most generousexplanation for the other
person's behavior.
It's not looking to catchsomeone doing the wrong thing.
Paul said it's looking's notlooking to catch someone doing
the wrong thing.
Paul said it's looking forevery opportunity to catch
(25:27):
someone doing the right thing?
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
And I think if we would do that, it would and this
was kind of, I think, yourfirst point in the sermon Sunday
talking about unity it wouldprotect the unity of our
relationships and of our church.
And it is one of the things andagain you said it Sunday if the
devil, you know, thankfully theLord is doing a lot of great
things here, church is growingand a lot of exciting things
(25:51):
happening.
If the devil's going to get inhere and try to screw this all
up, he's going to try to make usdisunified and, man, it only
takes one person saying onething.
I heard you know that you'reagain that illustration you just
brought up what's going onthere?
Speaker 3 (26:09):
And.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
I should probably go talk to somebody about that and
see if they're okay.
You know and I'm not going tothat person to ask cause I don't
want to start another.
So I'm going to go talk to thisperson and all of a sudden you
have just started a wildfire andmaybe you didn't even mean to
do it.
But, man, we just launched ourpartnership classes online.
So if you haven't yet, Iencourage you to sign up for the
Fresh Wind Partnership courseonline.
(26:31):
One of the things I talk aboutin there is, as partners, we
protect the unity of our churchat all costs.
We won't be those people whostand and put up with talking
about one another.
If you have something, go tothat person and talk to them
about it.
You know, let's be the peoplewho protect the unity of the
church, because I hate to keepquoting your sermon on Sunday,
(26:52):
but this is what Jesus said bythis, the world will know that
you are my disciples, you know,and so we've got to be those
people.
Let's choose to believe the best, to look for the most generous
explanation, to not immediatelyjump to suspicion when things go
wrong, or when he didn't call,or when she didn't show up when
(27:13):
she said she'd be here when theydropped the ball.
Let's look for the mostgenerous explanation.
Let's protect the unity of ourchurches.
Let's look for those thingsthat Paul lays out that are true
and admirable and right andlovely.
Let's think about those thingsand I think, as we do, that the
unity of our church, theintimacy of our fellowship,
(27:36):
strengthens and grows, and inthat I think the watching world
looks and says man God is doingsomething over there?
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Absolutely Not just to warn against gossip and all
that stuff that causes division,because nobody wants to talk to
the actors, they just want totalk around the actors.
I think Pat and I were in aposition one time he's my best
friend we were arguing aboutsomething and we were arguing at
(28:05):
church about something, andthen, of course, we're going to
dinner together the next nightjoking and whatever, and you
know this whole swell thing ishappening in the church, that
you know who's side you're on.
You know blah, blah, blah, blah,blah, blah.
I think Pat's probably right weshould make da-da.
(28:28):
Stuff is going on and pat and Ididn't even know and it's like
so, talking to the pat and tim'sout there, the best friends who
go to church together or thebrothers and sisters that go to
church together, watch how youtreat each other in church so
you don't misguide people aroundyou.
Now, I would never treatanybody the way I treat Pat.
(28:52):
I just wouldn't.
I wouldn't, he wouldn't treatanybody the way he treats me.
You know we're just consciousof other people and we're going
to love on him and be good tothem and stuff like that.
But we treat each other liketrash and we probably shouldn't
because it gives a bad idea ofwhat a relationship is like.
(29:14):
So when you're with the churchguys, you know and you want to
pound on your brother becauseyou know he's doing something
that you disagree with.
I'm not going to say dumb, youknow he's doing something that
you disagree with, I'm not gonnasay dumb, but that you disagree
with.
Um.
Take him aside like you wouldsomeone you don't know, don't
throw a chair at him.
That's, that's what we got tobe.
(29:35):
We got it.
We got to think through that,and if your best friend is doing
something that you specificallytold him not to do, don't yell
at them, Just say hey didn't wetalk about this?
Yeah and um and they'll go.
Oh, you're right.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Sorry, I've shared the story a few times.
that one of the earliest thingsthat you had told me in ministry
when we first started workingtogether was man, whatever you
say, out in front of our people,I got your back and again I was
19, 20 year old kid.
Back then you know the one,just someone believing in you.
(30:15):
You know, and having your backmeant, meant the world to me.
But you said now, behind closeddoors, I might tell you that
was the stupidest thing youcould have done.
Yeah, but out there in front ofour people, I got you and man
those things.
Yeah, even when it's your buddy, and this is how you guys talk
and this is how you communicate.
If it's your spouse, if it's a,you know you got family in the
(30:38):
church, a lot of us.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
I was looking at the whole Persinger-Chafin clan on
Sunday and I'm like my gosh,they take up like two or three
rows now you know, all thecoffee spills are in the two or
three rows too.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Not to gossip.
No, we're going to do it rightout here in the open, on the
podcast.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
I was teasing Del about that a few months ago.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
You know we got a lot of families who, and just
because you know Amy and Delstarted attending here and now
I'm thinking they're filling upthe church by themselves.
Just family and we do.
We treat our family, we treatour best friends, different than
we treat anybody else forbetter or worse right, but we
need to be careful about when wedo that in front of the church
(31:23):
so that we protect the unity ofour body.
People don't understand yourrelationship.
People don't understand that.
No, yeah, you guys are going todinner tomorrow.
You're going to have a greattime.
He's coming over to watch theball game this afternoon.
They don't know those things.
They just saw you guys gettinga heated argument about
something.
It's no, this is part of thereason we do partnership the way
(31:45):
that we do and we don't vote ona lot of things.
I tell people in thepartnership class if you're mad
about the color of the carpet,there's only one person to be
mad at me.
I picked it out.
If you don't like it, it's myfault.
We're just not going to vote onit because we have found it
creates opportunity for disunityFor Satan to scheme.
Yep, and so we want to protectat all cost against those things
(32:06):
.
And then you know, as you werediving into this sermon, there
were so many other mini sermonsin here.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
I know it was crazy, it's crazy.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
You get to, and you said six, but I almost think you
could verse eight.
You could probably do six oreight sermons just on each one
of those.
Right, because he begins to layout and I think this is the key
if we're going to protect theunity of our church, if we're
going to be the kind of peoplewho choose and pursue joy,
(32:41):
because you talked about it howit's a decision, it's not just
something we stumble into.
I have to decide joy.
Well, this is how we do it.
Finally, brothers and sisters,whatever is true, whatever is
honorable, whatever is just,whatever is pure, whatever is
lovely, whatever is commendable,if there is any moral
excellence and if there'sanything praiseworthy, paul says
(33:02):
dwell on these things.
And so here's where I think wecould probably have another
eight weeks of sermons isdefining.
What is that, and you and Iwere joking before we got on the
podcast.
Today, a lot of pastors willtalk about this, but we don't
take time to kind of break downwhat each one of those are, and
(33:26):
so I want to jump into yourscratch sheet here a little bit
and say so let me, let me.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
What does this look like?
Let me translate what Ryan justsaid You're going to be here
for a minute, yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
I hope you this.
Maybe mow the grass twice, yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
I think this, um, and we have I don't want to say
secular, but a general idea ofwhat the Bible is talking about
when he says whatever is true.
Oh yeah, we get that the Bibleis true and what Jesus says is
(34:11):
true.
And two plus two is four andthat's true.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
I get it, I get it.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
But what we're talking about here is a little
bit bigger than that.
When we're talking about thechurch, he's talking about
conforming to the reality of thesituation, and sometimes that's
pretty difficult for us to sayI don't know, I don't know, and
(34:43):
that's the reality.
Which way should we go?
Should we let Ryan pick thecarpet?
We don't know.
Should we let him?
Now we know.
No, he shouldn't pick thecarpet, but we didn't know.
Then we didn't know.
Then we let him?
Now we know no, he shouldn'tpick the carpet, but we didn't
know, then we didn't know, thenand that was the reality.
And sometimes you've got toconform to the fact that you
don't know.
In this situation, what is thefact.
(35:06):
What is true?
Now, two plus two is four.
That is true.
We can lean back on that.
The Bible is true.
We can lean back on that.
The Bible is true.
We can lean back on that.
What it teaches is true.
What it promises is true.
So we can lean back on what istrue.
But Paul is saying, look, yougot to find out what's true and
(35:29):
then focus on things that aretrue, not things that you don't
know.
The answer to Right.
We were talking about twopeople taking an offense for two
guys in a conflict, and theymight pick one or the other.
But do you know the truth?
(35:49):
Right when Jesus said, okay,you got to go, you can't figure
it out, you got to get twowitnesses that know the truth
and you come back and you say,look, these guys know what
happened.
Are you going to give in?
Are we going to get thissettled?
And then it's no?
(36:09):
No, I'm not.
So then you got to get thechurch involved.
So Paul is not changinganything.
Matter of fact, he's leaningback on what Jesus said you need
to focus on true things.
When you're focused on thingsthat you don't know are true,
you're going to get in trouble.
You're going to fall in a hole,you're going to get in a ditch
(36:31):
and you're going to have to getsomeone to pull you out.
You can't defend something thatyou don't know for sure it's
true.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Well, speculation's sexy right.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Yeah, absolutely, that's YouTube right there,
buddy.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
We want to lean in.
It's spicy.
Over there we can talk aboutthat.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
The Browns are not giving Shadur a chance.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
They're not giving him a chance.
Man, we can talk about that.
The browns are not givingshador a chance.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
Right, they're not giving them a chance?
Speaker 2 (36:57):
man, we talked about this on the I think it was on
the podcast.
Maybe it's just ourconversation, but you know he
was talking.
No, the other guy was sayingyou know, some of us are
entertainers, some of us arecompetitors.
He was talking about the media,right?
Do you know how many people arestill, weeks later, applying
that comment to shador?
Right, trying to.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
It's, it's spicy, we love that kind of stuff and
politics is that stuff times 10times 10 paulson, we need to
focus on what's true.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
I remember one time this again early on, when I had
started here um before you saythat you need to drink bleach.
Speculation folks, pleaseconsult a doctor.
(37:45):
I don't remember what was goingon, but I was like man, I need
to study some of this otherstuff.
And you said be careful howmuch time you spend with untruth
.
And I think I was wanting tolook in some different
philosophies and religions andprobably from an apologetic
standpoint I can't remember thecircumstances why I wanted to
(38:06):
take a deep dive into some ofthose things.
I wasn't looking to leave thefaith or nothing, but you had
said be careful how much timeyou spend with untruth.
And man, that was one of thosethings.
It shaped me and I'm like, yeah, it's good to have a knowledge
and understanding of some ofthose things out there, but you
(38:28):
deep dive into untruth andyou'll lose your way there's in
any conflict.
You know, you and I we'vetalked about this a lot over the
years there's three sides toevery story his side, her side
and the truth.
And we want to jump in to thespeculation game and we want to
know what's.
You know, I wonder what they'rethinking, what they're doing,
(38:49):
pursue truth.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
Pursue the truth.
What's interesting is, beforethe digital age, that was half
my life the way they taught youto recognize at a bank, to
recognize a counterfeit bill.
You would think they would say,well, here's one and it's the
feel and it's this it's thatthey would never show you, they
(39:12):
wouldn't let you see acounterfeit, would never show
you, they wouldn't let you see acounterfeit.
We want you to see the truthevery day so you can spot
untruth as soon as you touch it,feel it see it.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
My guy who worked in the bank I can testify to that.
Yeah, you know the real thing.
And when the fake stuff showedup I knew right away yeah, and
that's that's.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
Uh, that's the way we gotta be.
We gotta be so enamored withthe truth.
And we're not.
We don't want the truth,because as soon as you get the
truth, it all falls down.
You know, um, I can't rememberum, something that, uh,
(39:54):
something that one of thepoliticians said that was
counted as true, and we went fora couple of months and
everybody's like, well, ifthat's true, what's going on?
And then when you found outthat that thing that everybody
was saying, now that personnever said it was true but
(40:15):
finally said no, that's false.
I didn't say that.
Here's the clip.
That's not true.
Everybody's like, wow, but youget emotionally involved,
especially in politics.
You get emotionally involved inthat and you want it to be true
, even though you find out itwas false.
You want it to be true so bad.
(40:35):
You just can't hardly.
Oh my gosh, I just rememberedwhen your mortgage got paid off.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Oh man wanted that to be true, wanted that to be true
.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
He was calling everybody.
Does this ever happen?
Somebody just come in.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Oh, I only called like you because I think you
maybe my dad.
I was like I don't know what'sgoing on here, but I can't make
my mortgage payment.
It says the balance is zero.
What is going on?
And I didn't want the bank tocatch up.
There's been an accountingerror.
What happening here?
Speaker 3 (41:13):
And you wanted it to be true.
So bad.
And what had happened is hisbank had sold his mortgage to
someone else and paid it off.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
And the new bank was they were yeah, they were
sending the bill.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
So I just I just remembered that as an example,
where we want what's false to betrue and we we fight against it
.
So whatever is true, focus onthose things.
Don't get caught in wantingtruth to be false and false
things to be true.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Then he says whatever is honorable.
This is another one of thosetough things, because we live in
a society that wants to tearpeople down.
It's hard for us to rejoicewhen someone else gets the
promotion, when someone elsegets the job or the opportunity,
(42:08):
when they get the car, thehouse, the girl, whatever it is.
It is hard for us to rejoice inthose things.
But he says, man, these thingsthat are honorable we need to.
When something's worthy ofrespect, when there's those, we
need to spend time thinking anddwell in praising those things.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
Absolutely.
I think that's one of the worstparts of Western culture and I
know there's jealousy, don't getme wrong in Eastern culture,
but when somebody does somethingand does it well, there's
respect.
There's respect, and the peoplewho do it well, like the CEO of
(42:52):
Toyota or something, theydemand respect for it.
It no, you need to honor me forwhat I've done and and it's
almost forced in their cultureand our culture as soon as you
succeed, it's how can I kickyour legs out from?
right right, and youtube is agreat example of that.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
They just they spend all their time.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
And you know why they do it.
It's not because that's howthey are, it's because that's
how you are.
We love to consume it.
We love to consume it.
If it was the other way around,they would make different
videos.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Yep, because what do they get?
Paid for Views?
Right, the more views you get,that's when YouTube starts
setting checks.
So it is our consumption.
We love to watch people fall.
We love it.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
There's just something in us that says oh
yeah, yeah you know, I knew it.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Paul says man, let's think about those things that
are honorable.
Paul says man, let's thinkabout those things that are
honorable.
You know, when justice wins out, when someone lives with
integrity and humility.
You know, paul, he said join inimitating me when someone lives
that life, man, we shouldcelebrate those things.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
And rejoice in them, rejoice Absolutely.
And I know we're always afraidwe're going to get burned.
You know, every time we go tovote, oh, I hope this guy does
what he says.
You know, you know we're goingto get burned.
You just we're going to getburned.
You're going to put your faithin somebody.
They're not going to show up,or they're you know not gonna.
(44:33):
They're not going to show up,or they're you know not going to
uh, or they're going to fail insome way.
That embarrasses you.
But while you don't have any umevidence that they're failing,
why not honor them?
You know, I like um thesefirefighters.
I I honor them because they doa dangerous job.
(44:55):
They go into buildings and pullpeople out, and then I hear
people well, you know, they getthree days off and they go in
there and they just wash theirtruck all week.
And it's like what are youtalking about?
If they come to your house andyou're in trouble, they're going
(45:15):
to come through your window andtry to save you.
Shut up, correct?
It's the most honorable job onthe planet.
What are you talking about?
They're washing their truck andpetting the dog.
What?
And it's only the Holy Spiritthat teaches us that that's
honorable.
It's greedy jealousy, the evilside, sin incarnate, that says
(45:45):
we pay those guys too much.
How much can you pay them?
Same thing with teachers.
Well, they get the whole summeroff.
What are you saying?
Do you want to deal with thosekids?
Do you want to try to holdthose guys down for 10 minutes
and teach them how to spell?
No, you don't.
That's why you send them toschool and you don't do it at
(46:07):
home.
Now, if you're a homeschoolerand you say I don't like the way
the teachers are, I don't haveany problem with that.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
But if you're not a homeschooler?
Speaker 3 (46:17):
then you need to say thank you.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
Yeah Well, and you know another, we actually use
this just for an entire categoryof jobs.
I guess you know the honorablejudge.
You know what, absolutely whatthey're looking for, the truth
they're looking for.
You know even the next'relooking for.
The truth they're looking for,you know even the next one is is
whatever is just they'relooking for justice, those
things, um, and we say what theydo is honorable, is honorable,
(46:47):
and paul's encouraging us.
Look for those things, thinkabout those things and then,
like I said, the said the nextone, whatever is just Just kind
of dive into the Greek.
It's talking about whatever'srighteous or upright there,
whatever's in accord with divineor moral law.
So you look at that judge wholooks for the truth in a
(47:10):
situation, the leader who treatshis people fairly, the business
that pays a fair wage for thejob.
It reminds me of that one guy.
I think he took a pay cut.
Some CEO of some big companytook a giant pay cut so that he
could give everybody in hiscompany a raise, and I mean he
(47:34):
took everybody up to.
I think they were making aminimum of I don't know if it's
$75,000 or $100,000 a year.
Everybody in this company andcross-board made at least that
much money.
When do we see companies doingthat kind of stuff?
He says we need to find what isjust what is right.
We're used to the CEOo, youknow, ripping off their
(47:56):
employees, paying them a minimumwage and then they own 75
condos all across the world, youknow.
And if I guess, if you can own75 condos all across the world,
that's great.
But pay your employees well,you know what they deserve, what
is just and that's.
Speaker 3 (48:12):
That's a tough, tough read on a lot of things,
because a lot of, unfortunately,a lot of social justice is not
just right, and so I don't liketo put any type of verbiage
before the word.
Just, just, just Truth,fairness and what is just.
(48:39):
And I think when we use thebiblical definition and we use
the word righteous, righteoushas changed its coding in our
modern vernacular.
Its coding in our modernvernacular, righteous now means
(49:03):
doing church things.
And so actually, translators,if they're translating a Bible
today, they won't translateunrighteousness as
unrighteousness, they'lltranslate it as wickedness,
because people thinkunrighteousness is not doing
church things.
So but the word righteous herethat Ryan used is that means it
(49:25):
is right.
It is just he broke the law, hedidn't break the law.
What is just Now?
Morally, that might not becorrect.
He, he didn't break any law,right, so there's a moral
justice and and then there's ajustice according to the law and
(49:47):
our laws are all screwed up.
I know that I don't need anyemails, okay, and it's not just.
A lot of the laws are not justand they need to be fixed.
But for our example, here we'renot talking about doing church
things, we're just talking aboutwhat is right and it's it's
hard to well, we won't go intoall that because we got how many
(50:09):
?
We got more, we got about sevenmore, so'll go on.
But for the, for thisdefinition, we need to think
about things and celebratethings that are just and and I
would say this we know what isjust by going back to scripture,
right?
Speaker 2 (50:26):
you know, when the disciples got brought before the
religious leaders and they saidwe want you to stop preaching
in the name of Jesus, you guysneed to knock it off.
They looked at him and saidwell, whether it's right for us
to obey God, we'll let youdecide.
But we can't help.
But speaking about what we haveseen, heard and what has
(50:46):
happened.
And they went out and continuedto preach in his name.
So there are things that evenfrom a cultural, societal
standpoint, people would tellyou this is okay to do or this
is not okay.
You know my mortgage.
(51:07):
If there was an accountingerror and I you know, they just
said, hey, you don't have to payanymore.
Culturally it would be hey, youjust got off scot-free, right.
Culturally it would be hey, youjust got off scot-free, right.
But my God says you need to getthis figured out because
someone's still on the hook forthat you need to make that right
, and so, culturally, we wouldallow those things to maybe
slide.
or there's other things thatculturally we would say, hey,
(51:29):
you shouldn't be doing thosethings, but it's the very things
that God has called us to.
And so, when it comes to whatis just, what is true, jesus
said your word is true.
How do I know what's true?
Keep going back to his word.
How do I know what's just?
Keep going back to God's word.
And I think, as we do, that theHoly Spirit reveals to us the
(51:50):
deep things of God and he'llshow us what is true and what is
just in each of thosesituations.
Speaker 3 (51:55):
And then celebrate those things, even if it doesn't
go your way, even if you haveto keep making the mortgage
payment.
Right, exactly.
The next one is pure.
What is your definition of pureRyan?
Speaker 2 (52:09):
Well, when you dive again into the original
languages here, pure means to bemorally clean, undefiled
innocent.
It actually carries with itthis idea of being free from sin
or corruption.
It makes me almost think alittle bit of you know.
You were talking on Sundayduring your sermon about the
(52:29):
power of prayer and you sharedthat story of Will coming up and
praying for your knee of prayer, and you shared that story of
will coming up and praying foryour knee.
Um, that sincere prayer.
Right, there's this, thisinnocence, almost that's there.
And you said he believedsomething was going to happen.
And I think sometimes life hasa way of, as adults, making us
(52:51):
jaded.
You know we're like, yeah,we're praying, but just in case,
you know there's no, just incase.
Speaker 3 (53:00):
I went to rehab.
I went to rehab today, rightbefore this actually.
Speaker 2 (53:06):
Now don't walk away saying we think that you just
need blind faith.
You know, one of my favoritejokes came from that movie,
pursuit of Happiness, and WillSmith I don't remember his name
in the movie, but his son, Ithink, who is his real son plays
.
The son in the movie talksabout that joke.
Man's drowning in the ocean andhe cries out God, save me.
(53:29):
And a big boat comes by andsays hey, do you need help?
He says no, thank you, god willsave me.
And another big boat comes byand says hey, do you need help?
He says no, thank you, god willsave me.
And another big boat comes byno, thank you, god will save me.
Finally, he dies, goes toheaven.
He says God, why didn't yousave me?
God says I sent you three bigboats.
You dummy.
There is, the power of medicinecan be miraculous.
Speaker 3 (53:50):
And that is a gift from God, correct?
Speaker 2 (53:54):
Don't let anybody tell you any different.
So we're yeah, we don't wantyou walking away from this
thinking, well, just tough itout, don't go to the doctor.
God has given us some amazingpeople with some amazing minds
and talents to to provide I meanmiraculous healing.
Um, what they did to my eyesthrough lasik I closest thing to
a miracle I've ever personallyexperienced.
I went from having to put glasson because I couldn't see when
(54:17):
I got up.
I have 1520 vision.
That is miraculous to me, andso we're not saying that, I
guess.
So there's my medicaldisclaimer again about drinking
bleach and seeing the doctor.
But there is this innocencethat when a child prays and man,
(54:37):
if we could recover that, Imean Jesus talked about having
the faith of a child.
You know, Reese, when we hadthat prayer meeting, we prayed
for a guy.
Don thought he had cancerese,prayed for him.
Next week went to the doctor.
(54:58):
We can't find any cancer, right?
What is it about?
I think there's this purity,this undefined man.
I haven't been corrupted by theway the world thinks about
healing and miracles and sin,you know yeah and I think
there's something there.
Speaker 3 (55:17):
But I think us Christians are like I just don't
want any pressure to be on mebecause he was really pure and
I'm not.
So, you know, just leave mealone.
No, I think you're right, andkids are precious, they're pure.
We've got a whole culturalsociety that wants to make them
(55:37):
impure, to just spoil them, andI hate that.
Purity should be something thatwe embrace being innocent,
without corruption, morallyclean, without contamination.
Morally clean, uh, withoutcontamination.
(56:02):
Um, I was watching my, uh, I gota video from will, will again
and, um, he pulled his shirtdown over his knees, down to his
ankles, and he squatted downand he was walking around and he
just thought that was thefunniest thing and he was just
laughing, just cackling.
I mean just, you know, mommy,look at this, isn't this funny?
And he was laughing and we wereall laughing about him laughing
(56:25):
about something so silly.
But that kind of innocenceshould be celebrated, that
purity, celebrated that purity,yeah, and uh, I think, um, the
other thing, if you're lookingfor something to be to focus on
things that pure, look at peoplewho do things for people, um,
(56:46):
not looking for anything out ofit.
You know, amy, and um eric.
I won't give their last names,but they go to our church and
they do a lot of things that wesee them do.
They're working with the schoolthat we're partnered with over
in Lorain.
I can't talk today.
(57:09):
Eric's out in the parking lotevery week, you know.
They're just doing thingsconstantly.
But they also have a mission athome.
They're doing things that theyjust do, not for the church,
just for their Lord.
They do Meals on Wheels all thetime and it's just part of who
(57:31):
they are.
They don't get paid, they don'tget recognized.
Nobody here at the church knowsthey're doing it.
They just do it.
Speaker 2 (57:38):
Yeah, I mean, the whole reason Amy's in the
position she is here is becauseall of this was a part of Amy's
life well before she was ourcommunity connections director,
right, you know it is who she isand those sorts of things need
to be celebrated, man.
And you know there is anotherpurity, just about the things
(58:03):
that we allow our minds and earsto see and hear that we need to
be careful of too.
I think it was the comedianMichael Jr was talking about how
I mean, he's a Christian guybut he does comedy and that's a
world that's pretty full of somepretty defiled things.
(58:24):
If you've ever seen a comedian,a lot of times they go to the
most defiled things to talkabout, right, and he doesn't
want to do that, and so he sayssays it doesn't start for me by
trying to watch what I say onstage.
It starts with what I allow mymind to consume and if I'll put
the right inputs in, the outputtakes care of itself.
(58:46):
Right, and I would say we needto.
We need to guard ourselves andwhat you, what you choose to
binge watch, the kind of musicyou choose to listen to or allow
your kids to hear we need to bevery careful about what we
allow to shape us, those thatkind of undefiled thing.
Let's guard our hearts andminds and if we'll again get the
(59:11):
right inputs in, the outputcomes naturally.
Speaker 3 (59:16):
And that purity is important, so focus on what is
pure.
We've got four more.
How are we going to do this?
I don't know if we can getthrough them all.
All right, what's yourdefinition for lovely?
Speaker 2 (59:32):
Lovely, pleasing, agreeable, admirable that which
calls forth love and affection.
Speaker 3 (59:37):
Oh, things that inspire love.
Yeah, it's you know when.
Speaker 2 (59:43):
I look at my wife.
Speaker 3 (59:44):
She is lovely.
It doesn't have to be sexual orfriendship type of love.
It can be watching a guy pull abig fish in.
That can inspire your love forfishing, yeah, and those, uh,
those type of things.
Uh, watching a and I'm gonnasay it, go watch a basketball
(01:00:06):
game, go watch the calves play.
Oh my gosh, when I saw a guywho's not he's probably an inch
taller than me jump over my head, it was inspiring.
And you know, every time I geta chance to go see the calves
cheaply because I can't affordregular tickets, uh, I love to
(01:00:26):
go, um, not just because my wifeloves it, but I love to.
It inspires me to watch theseguys who worked all their lives,
uh, to play ball and do thingsthat I can never do.
Now I get it.
They make a lot of money andthey shouldn't make more money
than firefighters and teachers.
And I, I'm there, I'm therewith you, okay, but the point
(01:00:49):
I'm making is that, hey, thatinspires me.
That inspires me.
Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
You know my daughter.
So far she might be the onlyone of my kids to have captured
my love for the night sky.
I've told you for the longesttime my favorite thing, one of
my favorite things to do, is togo sit in your backyard and just
look at the stars.
Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
It's getting that time of year.
Pretty soon it's going to getdark Earlier.
Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
Earlier so we can actually do it.
And we finally got a yard whereI can.
I don't know if the stars at myhouse are quite as good as they
are at your house maybe alittle bit more light pollution
but they're decent.
And Ellie asked, joy and I theother night.
(01:01:42):
She said, guys, come outside.
And we went and laid on theloungers by the pool and just
stared up at the stars and I'mlike at least one out of my four
kids has captured this thing.
But it man, it's, it's lovelyit's those things that inspire
you, that take your breath away.
Speaker 3 (01:01:47):
A mountain, um, and then the guy who climbed it.
You know there's some thingsthat are inspiring, and
something to be lovely issomething that inspires your
love for things.
There is nothing wrong withthat.
I love to sail.
I know it costs a lot of moneyand it's not worth anything.
I can't take anything anywhereand make money.
(01:02:08):
All I do is spend money to sail, but it inspires me and those
things are lovely.
So you know, the Lord righthere is telling Paul hey, you're
putting them in a box.
Let's open this door a littlebit.
Think about things that inspireyour love for other things.
Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
And I mean think about when you see someone do
something that's just selfless.
I mean there's no way they canget paid back.
You know, it's that kind ofyou're getting on commendable
but it's lovely you look at,it's inspiring to say, man, if I
could live the way that theylive.
(01:02:46):
You know those things it'slovely to see, but it does go
right into the next onecommendable right you know to be
something that's worthy ofpraise or approval, it's
something that is well spoken of.
You know these things, thatthere's this, it's reputable, um
, that that thing is commendable, um.
(01:03:09):
A little bit of the opposite ofthat might be cracker barrel's
new redesign that has not beenwell spoken of online.
Speaker 3 (01:03:18):
No, we need to.
This goes back to what you weresaying earlier, about an hour
and a half ago, where you saidwhen something happens to
somebody, you need to becelebrating with them, not
jealous or whatever, even ifit's your enemy.
If he does something great, heneeds to be recognized for it.
(01:03:40):
That's the way the kingdom ofGod works when you give yourself
to the Lord, you are praised.
You are praised and you'regoing to be given a crown for
that thing.
Now we got to get used.
I know the West is.
(01:04:00):
I'm going to be humble, youknow, and oh, they're not very
humble.
Yeah, but they're great.
Tell me they're not great.
Well, it's not about that.
It's about being humble.
Well, I bet, if you knew them,just look what they did and be
commendable.
That's worthy of praise.
Okay, not their whole life andall this kind of stuff, but this
(01:04:22):
one thing is worthy of praise.
Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
One of the things that we started with our
volunteer huddles here is wewant to have a volunteer of the
week, someone that we look atand say, man, this is what we
want volunteers to do aroundhere.
Because it's easy and thisapplies to any organization you
can put all kinds of punishmentsand restrictions in place and
don't do this.
You better not do that.
One of the best ways to gethigh performance out of your
(01:04:47):
team is to celebrate what youwant duplicated Right.
If you want someone toreplicate an activity or
behavior, celebrate it.
If it's commendable, celebrateit when we see volunteers go the
extra mile.
We celebrate it when Joe showsup and it's 12 degrees outside
and he's running the snowblower.
Speaker 3 (01:05:08):
Or he showed up this Sunday.
Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
we made him move a refrigerator, Move a fridge and
jack up a set of cabinets to fitit underneath the fridge.
It's commendable.
Yes, you know, we need tocelebrate those things.
Speaker 3 (01:05:20):
And let's not make that a church thing either.
We've always said here at afresh win.
There are a lot of missions andcharities that are going on
around here and they need you,they need you, commit to them
and you're like, well, it's kindof a secular thing.
It's not secular when you walkin the door because the Holy
(01:05:41):
Spirit has just showed up.
So Second Harvest does a greatwork.
They do a great work.
Get involved in passing outthat food Charles has been
helping with good nights,delivering and building beds.
Speaker 2 (01:05:57):
That's a great work, and show up.
What they do is commendable,right, and you should be a part
of that and celebrate it.
Number seven moral excellence,virtuous, excellent character.
This is something that, again,culturally, we don't always
pursue.
(01:06:19):
I'll do whatever it takes toget to the top of the corporate
ladder and I'll climb overwhoever I have to do it.
I'll take out anybody's legs toget there and be on top, and
we're always looking for ashortcut, right.
This is the exact opposite ofwhat Paul says when he says join
in imitating me.
This is that moral excellencethat I'm not going to do this
(01:06:41):
the wrong way.
I don't want it if I have to doit that way.
I remember I worked a job onetime and my boss had asked me to
say something to one of ourcustomers, and so I made this
promise to him, and then, a fewminutes later, he wanted me to
call back and raise the price.
And I said whoa, that's notwhat we had agreed to, that we
(01:07:05):
weren't going to tack onanything extra.
And he says he doesn't knowwhat we're making on this deal.
I want you to call and give himthis number and I was like, if I
have to do this, I can't workhere.
And I had to put in my two weeknotice because I'm like I'm,
this is not how I'm going tooperate.
I won't.
I won't do things that way justto make a couple extra bucks.
(01:07:27):
And I told a different boss ata different company.
You know my.
What matters to me more is theperson standing across the
counter from me, not thisbusiness or organization's
bottom line.
That kind of more and I'm nottrying to prop myself up here
again, you know kind of more.
(01:07:48):
Like Paul, these are the thingsthat you don't have to be
humble about doing something theright, the right way.
Speaker 3 (01:07:55):
So I that's commendable.
Moral excellence is veryimportant in our lives and I and
I think we need to stand andprove to people that there are
still people who believe that.
You know, I'm not.
I'm talking to all the you knowreplacement window salesmen and
all the insurance companies,and you know you don't have to
(01:08:18):
lie to be a success, you know,and so don't just don't do it.
I like the word excellence,though it's one of the words we
bandy about here at A Fresh Windall the time.
We want to do everything asexcellent as we can and I think
that should be part of our life,not just morally excellent,
just excellent.
(01:08:39):
Take care of your house in anexcellent way, take care of your
church in an excellent way.
Whatever you do at church, do itas good as you can.
Speaker 2 (01:08:50):
Scripture teaches that right.
Whatever you do do unto theLord.
Speaker 3 (01:08:53):
Right.
Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
Oh, who was it?
That was CS Lewis, one of thoseguys talks about.
If you're going to be a streetsweeper, sweep streets like
Michelangelo painted the SistineChapel.
That's the kind of people weneed to be.
And you've heard us say on thepodcast, before you know, I'm
not telling you to just don't dosomething just because you
can't do it.
Well, like, there's some things, if it doesn't really matter
(01:09:15):
and you just enjoy it, you don'thave to be the greatest guitar
player to pick up a guitar,right, but those things that
matter your family, your church,your job and the kind of
employee or boss you are do withexcellence.
And then finally, number eight,so we can wrap this thing up
close to the hour mark whoo, um,he says whatever is worthy of
(01:09:37):
praise, um, if those things are,are admirable.
If they're, um, we need to be,we need to be celebrating and
thinking about those things nownow paul is saying I'm going to
interrupt you here because thisis important.
Speaker 3 (01:09:53):
Paul is saying think on these things.
He's talked about commendable,lovely.
He's saying fill your mind withthose things, recognize them in
your heart.
Now, here at the end, he'ssaying now you need to praise it
out loud, right?
He's saying no, you don't needto talk to me about it.
(01:10:14):
I'm God, I wrote this.
Now it's time for you to saysomething about that.
And that's one thing we lack alittle bit here in our church is
um, the sound went bad.
Something happened in themiddle of the service on Sunday
and more people talked about thesound to me than any time that
it's been really good.
You know, nobody says anythingwhen the sound is good.
(01:10:36):
Uh, they just say when thesound is bad, and I get it.
That's the way where everybodywants it fixed.
So it gets, get it fixed.
And that's part of ourexcellence thing.
Hey, wait, I'm bringing peopleto this church.
You know it's always been good.
It needs to be good.
What's wrong, let's get itfixed, let's go, and I get all
that.
But when something is great,you need to praise the person
(01:10:59):
who did it.
You just need to say great job,that was great, and it's one of
those things that we lack in ourculture.
You know, we used to getwatches when we retired.
I mean the company would saythanks for your loyalty.
You know a 10-year pin orwhatever it is.
Speaker 2 (01:11:22):
I know, amy, she just got a Yeti cooler for I don't
know if it's 20 or 25 years atMetro and Sue said, yeah, they
gave Troy a double clock.
Yeah, you know, coming up, Ithink this is year 16.
So 20 years?
Yeah, tim.
(01:11:43):
What's on the docket?
Speaker 3 (01:11:47):
Well.
Speaker 1 (01:11:48):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (01:11:54):
I'll probably retire before you, so I don't have to
make that decision.
No, we need to be.
When things are praiseworthy,they need to be praised when
your kids do great, then praisethem.
If they get, um, all a's and a d, praise them for the a's.
You can still hit them for thed.
You can't say, hey, look, I, I,you got all a's, but what about
(01:12:18):
this d?
But, but, but you, you gottasay, okay, we're gonna, we're
gonna help you fix that, butthis was great, this was great
and and that's kind of tender tomy heart, because my dad would
praise my one a and and then wewould talk about all my other
D's, but I would get praised forthat.
(01:12:40):
And when you do something,someone does something.
Well, they need to be praised.
They just need to be praised,not because and we don't want to
give praise, because we don'twant them to be needy oh, he
just wants praise and okay, ifhe does something praiseworthy,
he deserves praise, whether hewants it or not and there's an
entire world bent on tearingespecially our kids down,
(01:13:04):
absolutely tearing your spousedown when when he or she goes to
work.
Speaker 2 (01:13:10):
Be the kind of person who inserts praise into their
life.
You teach, you knowencouragement is to instill
courage into someone.
You can't praise your kids andspouse enough.
You need to be hyping them up,talking about letting them know
you believe in them.
Yes, when they get it wrong,it's okay to talk about those
(01:13:38):
things.
One of my kids watched him playa soccer game the other day and
they're usually on fire.
I was like hey, are you notfeeling it what?
Speaker 1 (01:13:44):
is going on here.
Speaker 2 (01:13:46):
That's not who you are.
I said if you're tired, youneed to understand you're not
just letting yourself down,you're letting the whole team
down.
They're relying on you to playyour game.
It's okay to have those toughconversations, but when they do
well, you need to celebrate itand those things.
I'm with you.
We don't do enough of this inour culture and I want us here
(01:14:11):
at AFreshWin, I want us to excelhere's that word again at being
the kind of people who givepraise regularly.
Speaker 3 (01:14:20):
When it's worthy of praise.
We're not blowing smoke here.
I'm going to make it up Ifsomeone does something great
here at this church.
We don't want to give a what dothey call it?
not an achievement, aparticipation award.
We're not going to do that.
We're not blowing smoke aroundhere.
But if you do something great,we're going to tell you you did
(01:14:42):
something great.
That's right and we want to bethat kind of person and you've
got to take that out of thechurch and put it in.
It will change where you work,it'll change everything.
I know I got a big mouth and Ithink I'm funny when I'm
probably not very funny and butthat's still, that's, that's
(01:15:03):
still out.
You know nobody's really out onthat Nobody's really made a
decision on that.
If you think differently aboutthis, god will teach you.
Yeah, yeah, I love that verseanyways.
Um, when I was at work, I um Igot on some people's nerves and
I had some people that were, um,didn't like me too much and I
(01:15:28):
rubbed them the wrong way and Iliked it.
I liked rubbing them the wrongway, but you know, so they were
against me, anything I would door whatever.
And I was working as theassistant to this one guy one
day and of course he was lookingfor things that I was doing
(01:15:52):
wrong.
And he just didn't like me verymuch.
But when we got at the end.
I said that was awesome.
That was awesome.
You did awesome.
You should get a reward forthat.
That was all those airplanes.
You didn't miss a beat.
Yeah, it was awesome, great job.
(01:16:14):
And he looked at me like, areyou making fun of me?
Are you?
Are you, what are you?
What are you doing?
And I just patted him on theback and walked away and he was
just beside himself all day.
He did not know what to do.
You know I hate this guy toldme I was great what do?
I do?
What do I do?
It changed our relationship andit changed the way we work,
(01:16:37):
because he was the leader oflet's hate tim holt.
And then he said let's not hatetim holt.
And it changed everything.
So we, you, you can whatever'spraiseworthy, give it praise
Right and it'll change your life.
It'll change your life.
Speaker 2 (01:16:56):
Even if you feel like that person isn't praiseworthy.
Speaker 3 (01:16:59):
I had to work really hard to make those people not
like me.
It was tough.
It was tough.
Speaker 2 (01:17:06):
We're not saying everything they do is worthy of
praise or commendable or morallyexcellent, but you start to
look for those things that theydo in that situation, in that
moment, and you celebrate thosethings and watch as your kids,
your spouse, the people you workwith people you go to church
with start to do more of thethings that are praiseworthy
(01:17:27):
with people you go to churchwith start to do more of the
things that are praiseworthy.
Being praised feels good.
Speaker 3 (01:17:33):
It does.
Speaker 2 (01:17:33):
And when you start to look at people and say man that
was awesome.
You'll find that they startdoing more of those things that
were awesome, absolutely.
That's why this is so important, what Paul is saying here, and
I think if we could grab a holdof this one verse and man, we
(01:17:55):
just we surpassed an hourtalking about one verse.
Speaker 3 (01:17:57):
An hour that's two sermons.
Speaker 2 (01:17:57):
We did two sermons on that one verse, one verse plus,
you talked a little bit aboutit on Sunday, so we're up to
three on one verse here.
But, man, if we could grab ahold of it, I think it would.
It would change our families,it would change our church, um,
the place you work, place yourkids go to school.
If we would take these eightthings and say, man, I'm going
to make it a habit, a disciplinein my life to focus on those
(01:18:22):
things, um, and so, and if youfocus on those things, you live
in those things, that's right.
Speaker 3 (01:18:27):
If you focus on negativity and all the things
that are going wrong, then youlive in that Absolutely.
Tim, will you pray for us?
Father, I want to thank you forthis passage of scripture.
What a great insight to how aChristian is supposed to live.
These few verses from 3 to 9 inPhilippians, chapter four, are
(01:18:50):
life changing and, lord, I praythat our people will begin to
look at purity justice, thingsthat are lovely, things that are
not only worthy of praise, butthat will give them praise.
And Father, let it change themand then change their lives and
(01:19:13):
the lives of those around them.
In Jesus' name amen.
Speaker 1 (01:19:17):
Amen.
Thanks again for joining us forthis episode of the Midweek
Podcast.
We'd love to hear from you.
Let us know how God is usingthis resource in your life, or
send any podcast questions ortopic ideas to podcast at
afreshwindorg.
If you would like to supportthis ministry financially and
help us continue offering newresources that equip you to
(01:19:37):
discover more in Christ, simplytext any amount to the number
84321.
We're so grateful for yoursupport.
Make sure to tune in next weekfor a brand new episode of the
Midweek Podcast.
Be blessed and have a greatweek.
Welcome and thanks for joining us on this episode
of the Midweek Podcast broughtto you by A Fresh Wind Church.
Each week, our team brings younew content to help you take
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No-transcript.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Pastor Ryan joined again with Pastor Tim and we are
almost done with our joyfulfulSeries, week 10 out of hopefully
11.
I think we're supposed to wrapthis thing up next week but man,
it's been just been a greatseries.
And, tim, I thought Sunday yourkind of approach, you know
(11:19):
we've been talking a lot aboutjoy and one of the things you
said as we started the sermon onSunday was we don't want to get
through this whole series onjoy and not give you kind of the
roadmap, the way to actuallyexperience joy in your life.
And so you kind of tackled thaton Sunday.
But you also kind of made thejoke like there's probably at
least six other sermons I couldbe preaching.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Yeah, it's one of those books.
It's probably for pastors, oneof the most quoted sections of
scripture, philippians, chapter4, verses 3 through 8 and 9.
I mean, there's so many littleI mean doctrinal and practical
(12:08):
living truths that Paul islaying out there that we don't.
Well, if you read your Bible orlook at sermons, you'll see
people preach out of there allthe time and it's practical.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
It's like the greatest hits.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Right, right, philippians, the whole book is
that way you know, um live lifeworthy of the gospel, just that
saying.
There's a sermon there, youknow, um, work out your own
salvation.
Oh, there's a sermon there.
And uh, did just you know?
Uh, god is at work in you.
There's a sermon, I mean justin those little phrases, and we
(12:50):
tend to look for the logos andthe saying.
That will kind of give us thewhole thing in one shot.
And I think when pastors readthrough Philippians, they don't
get very far until they're likeI'm preaching on this, I'm
preaching on that, I'm preachingon this.
(13:10):
But Philippians, chapter four,is one where I was just looking
at it and I was like I see six.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
I see six, and that was just in the first.
What did you get to Nine?
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Nine verses, I think, or ten, no less than nine,
because I started in three.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Oh yeah, because I took one of your verses last
week.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Yeah, and I didn't even dig into it, I was just
reading along.
But it's important.
Sometimes, I think we how can Isay this?
We look at things in a way thatleads us to do the worst thing
(13:58):
you can do in the Bible is takeit out of context.
You know you're looking forthat phrase, that thing that you
want to talk about, and youfind that phrase and that thing
and you're like okay, that'swhat this verse is all about.
But when you add that verse tothe verses around it, then
you're like, okay, I got to slowdown here and take a good look
(14:23):
at what this means.
And I think a lot of times whenyou're in Philippians it's easy
just to grab it.
I guarantee you, you open yourcomputer and go to Philippians,
chapter 4 and give me sermons inPhilippians chapter 4.
I don't know how many you'llget, and not just from standard
(14:46):
Joe pastor out here, but fromthe guys we all admire.
You know, all the way back intothe 1700s.
I mean, philippians was just,it's just an amazing book.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Yeah, one of the things that I think I did it in
a sermon, you did it in a sermon, we've done it on the podcast,
kind of throughout.
This is that idea of man.
We've got to really keep thesethings in context and it's great
to kind of dive deep into someof those ideas.
Like you said, live worthy ofthe gospel A couple weeks ago,
paul, imitate me, join in,imitating me in that whole idea
(15:20):
of living life worthy ofimitation.
So there's all those, yeah,those little phrases, those
little words that you're like,oh, let's just sit here and talk
, talk about it.
But this week you know this,one of the very first.
You know Philippians 4.4,.
It's one of those verseseverybody loves it Rejoice in
the Lord always.
I say it again rejoice.
(15:42):
And you're like that's therefor a reason and we put it on
motivational posters and we'll.
You know, we got a picture ofan Eagle soaring over a mountain
.
We'll share it on Facebookrejoicing the Lord always.
But what is it the context ofthat?
Well, there's these two womenin the church having an argument
and we're like well, that'srelatable and I love that.
(16:04):
Paul, he's addressing that.
He takes time out of thisletter here.
It's been full of joy.
There's been some hard stuffthat he's brought up along the
way.
But then you get to chapterfour and he's like hey, we need
to talk about this because thisthing right here is going to rob
the joy that I've beenhammering home.
He said it's no trouble for meto talk about this again, but if
(16:28):
we don't get this situationstraightened out, it's going to
rob you guys of the joy that Iwant you to experience.
And, man, I think it's a greatreminder in the church, because
the church is full of people.
You know, and people are hardsometimes and you think, and and
people are are hard sometimesand you think, well, I don't
like how that church treated meand I'm going to go to another
(16:50):
church.
You know what's at that otherchurch people there's more
people and, and there's alwaysgoing to be those, those
situations, those people um thatare just hard to deal with or
rub you the wrong way, whateverit is, and Paul looks at these
ladies and maybe whoever, wedon't exactly know, you know you
(17:11):
call them his golfing buddy.
He says I want you to go backand tell these ladies guys, just
get over it, Lay that thingdown, Stop letting that thing
come between us, rejoice,rejoice.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Yeah, I think this is the mature way of handling that
.
We've said this all along thePhilippians Paul sees them on
par with him as brothers andsisters in Christ, brothers and
sisters in the mission, brothersand sisters in support for each
other, um, he sees them at alevel to where he don't have to
(17:54):
go back to, uh, matthew chapter18 and what Jesus said you know,
go to your brother and if hewon't, um, give in.
You know, then take two orthree witnesses and then tell
the church and all that kind ofstuff.
That is like the lowest commondenominator of this is how we
(18:15):
deal with this thing.
Jesus has laid out the law forus as Christians.
This is the law for you.
You've got to do it like this.
Paul says I don't have to do itlike this with you guys.
All I got to do is remind youthat that's coming, you know.
I just, hey, guys, knock it offor we're going to have to do
(18:37):
this whole thing.
you know, and they're going togo, yeah and it's.
And they're not going to givein because they don't want to go
through the whole thing.
They're going to give inbecause they know that their
relationship is messing up theunity of the church and they
need to forgive and lay thosethings down.
Be unified you don't have toagree, but be unified.
(18:59):
And so it's like the mature way.
I love the way Paul does it.
So it's like the mature way.
I love the way Paul does it.
He just simply said hey, youguys knock it off and I'm not
going to leave it up to you.
Aphroditus is going to come andmake sure everything's okay.
In other words, you're going tohave to deal with this.
(19:19):
You can't put it off any longer.
And I like that because there'speople in your church that you
don't have to go.
Okay, if we can't get thisright, then I'm going to have to
get two or three witnesses.
There's people who are like Iknow, I know, I'm just mad, I'm
going to be okay and you're likeokay.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Yeah, man, I would say, is no one wants to deal
with conflict, right, but whenyou have, well, I can't say that
there's some people probablylove conflict.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
They just that's true .
Speaker 2 (19:53):
But as a pastor, I don't love it.
But when those times when youtalk with people and they're
like I know I'm working to, I'mgoing to be all right, man,
that's refreshing, causesometimes it's like no, we're
going to sit here and we'regoing to drag this thing out and
we're going to duke it out andwe're going to make it as
miserable for as many people aspossible.
When you get those people thatare like I know, that was silly,
(20:13):
okay, yeah, we're going to laythat down and move on.
It is, it's refreshing.
And that seems to these ladieshe's like guys, hey, you know
better than this, let's get overthat thing.
And I think what you're sayingis is important because they,
they understand the mission,right, and and they're saying,
man, this thing, whatever it is,and it might be important to
(20:36):
each of them individually I mean, it was important enough that
they had an argument about it,yeah, um, but they in, in spite
of the mission, they said thisis less important of the mission
.
They said this is lessimportant than the mission.
Right, We'll lay those thingsdown.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
And.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I think that's a great encouragement and reminder
to us in the church to not letthings get between us and the
mission.
God has called us to a purposehere to help people discover
more in Christ.
And sometimes our methods andour means might differ on how we
approach that thing and youmight want to do it a different
(21:11):
way than so-and-so wants to doit.
But to just say, man, you knowwhat the mission is more
important and if we're helpingpeople discover more in Christ,
I'm all in on that.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
I think one of the mature way of looking at this.
Paul goes on um later on inthis chapter and he talks about
thinking about pure things andhonorable things, and that
actually applies to thissituation.
Um, we get hurt so easy andit's so deep over silly things.
(21:48):
I don't know why.
You know, my daughter-in-law ormy son-in-law wouldn't eat my
cake.
You know, I offered it to himthree times but he wouldn't eat
any of it, you know, and it'slike he don't like my cake, he
don't like my cooking, he don'tlike me.
(22:08):
You know, and that's that'swhere we go and and we let those
things hurt us.
Um, and it's important in inthe body of Christ that that you
think, well, he's probably on adiet.
That you think, well, he'sprobably on a diet.
I'll take that first until Ifind out that he don't like my
(22:30):
cooking.
But the first thing I'm goingto think is he didn't want cake,
he's on a diet or he's offsugar or whatever.
So we have to be people that arelooking for the honorable,
looking for, um, the pure inpeople.
That's number one we got.
(22:50):
We got to be right away, orwe're going to get hurt all the
time.
We're just going to get hurtall the time.
That's just the way life is.
So, uh, when you grow up withyour sister and you've been
together, you lived in the samecommunity, you went to the same
church, you're just sisters andthey say something and you get
mad and uh, but the next day,you know, someone comes oh, I
(23:14):
heard you and your sister atchurch really going at it, and
you know, are you guys okay?
And you look at them like what,oh no, that's every day, that's
just every day, every day.
You, we just don't do it atchurch, we just do it every day.
And uh, and that's good andthat's how.
(23:34):
But some people, some people inthe body of christ, will get
hurt by that because they didn'tgrow up that way.
And uh, they'll see it andthey'll think, oh no, we got
this big thing going on and uh,it's not a big thing.
So we have to be careful thatuh.
Number one, that people don'tget offended for us.
And number two, uh, when we seethat situation, not not to get
(24:01):
offended for either one or picka side or whatever.
Just Just say you guys allright, just like Paul is saying
here oh yeah, oh yeah, we're allright.
I'm going to punch her when weget out of here.
But we're good Because it's afamily thing and it's really
none of the church's business.
But we like to get involved ineverything.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
But we we want to look at that situation and say
um, and give everybody thebenefit of the doubt yeah, it's
one of the things I, when I'mdoing premarital counseling with
people, I walk them through alot of paul's teaching on what
it means to to be a husband andwife and in relationship and um,
one of the things.
(24:43):
I tell them is love looks togive the other person the most
like, to look for the mostgenerous explanation for the
other person's behavior.
That when there's a gap in anyrelationship between what I
expect and what I experience,love puts trust in the gap Right
.
A lot of us we go right tosuspicion.
You know your cake illustration, the perfect one.
(25:06):
He doesn't like something aboutme, so he hates me.
No love says I'm going to puttrust in the gap because the
truth is I choose what I put inthat gap.
And love puts trust first.
It looks for the most generousexplanation for the other
person's behavior.
It's not looking to catchsomeone doing the wrong thing.
Paul said it's looking's notlooking to catch someone doing
the wrong thing.
Paul said it's looking forevery opportunity to catch
(25:27):
someone doing the right thing?
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
And I think if we would do that, it would and this
was kind of, I think, yourfirst point in the sermon Sunday
talking about unity it wouldprotect the unity of our
relationships and of our church.
And it is one of the things andagain you said it Sunday if the
devil, you know, thankfully theLord is doing a lot of great
things here, church is growingand a lot of exciting things
(25:51):
happening.
If the devil's going to get inhere and try to screw this all
up, he's going to try to make usdisunified and, man, it only
takes one person saying onething.
I heard you know that you'reagain that illustration you just
brought up what's going onthere?
Speaker 3 (26:09):
And.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
I should probably go talk to somebody about that and
see if they're okay.
You know and I'm not going tothat person to ask cause I don't
want to start another.
So I'm going to go talk to thisperson and all of a sudden you
have just started a wildfire andmaybe you didn't even mean to
do it.
But, man, we just launched ourpartnership classes online.
So if you haven't yet, Iencourage you to sign up for the
Fresh Wind Partnership courseonline.
(26:31):
One of the things I talk aboutin there is, as partners, we
protect the unity of our churchat all costs.
We won't be those people whostand and put up with talking
about one another.
If you have something, go tothat person and talk to them
about it.
You know, let's be the peoplewho protect the unity of the
church, because I hate to keepquoting your sermon on Sunday,
(26:52):
but this is what Jesus said bythis, the world will know that
you are my disciples, you know,and so we've got to be those
people.
Let's choose to believe the best, to look for the most generous
explanation, to not immediatelyjump to suspicion when things go
wrong, or when he didn't call,or when she didn't show up when
(27:13):
she said she'd be here when theydropped the ball.
Let's look for the mostgenerous explanation.
Let's protect the unity of ourchurches.
Let's look for those thingsthat Paul lays out that are true
and admirable and right andlovely.
Let's think about those thingsand I think, as we do, that the
unity of our church, theintimacy of our fellowship,
(27:36):
strengthens and grows, and inthat I think the watching world
looks and says man God is doingsomething over there?
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Absolutely Not just to warn against gossip and all
that stuff that causes division,because nobody wants to talk to
the actors, they just want totalk around the actors.
I think Pat and I were in aposition one time he's my best
friend we were arguing aboutsomething and we were arguing at
(28:05):
church about something, andthen, of course, we're going to
dinner together the next nightjoking and whatever, and you
know this whole swell thing ishappening in the church, that
you know who's side you're on.
You know blah, blah, blah, blah,blah, blah.
I think Pat's probably right weshould make da-da.
(28:28):
Stuff is going on and pat and Ididn't even know and it's like
so, talking to the pat and tim'sout there, the best friends who
go to church together or thebrothers and sisters that go to
church together, watch how youtreat each other in church so
you don't misguide people aroundyou.
Now, I would never treatanybody the way I treat Pat.
(28:52):
I just wouldn't.
I wouldn't, he wouldn't treatanybody the way he treats me.
You know we're just consciousof other people and we're going
to love on him and be good tothem and stuff like that.
But we treat each other liketrash and we probably shouldn't
because it gives a bad idea ofwhat a relationship is like.
(29:14):
So when you're with the churchguys, you know and you want to
pound on your brother becauseyou know he's doing something
that you disagree with.
I'm not going to say dumb, youknow he's doing something that
you disagree with, I'm not gonnasay dumb, but that you disagree
with.
Um.
Take him aside like you wouldsomeone you don't know, don't
throw a chair at him.
That's, that's what we got tobe.
(29:35):
We got it.
We got to think through that,and if your best friend is doing
something that you specificallytold him not to do, don't yell
at them, Just say hey didn't wetalk about this?
Yeah and um and they'll go.
Oh, you're right.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Sorry, I've shared the story a few times.
that one of the earliest thingsthat you had told me in ministry
when we first started workingtogether was man, whatever you
say, out in front of our people,I got your back and again I was
19, 20 year old kid.
Back then you know the one,just someone believing in you.
(30:15):
You know, and having your backmeant, meant the world to me.
But you said now, behind closeddoors, I might tell you that
was the stupidest thing youcould have done.
Yeah, but out there in front ofour people, I got you and man
those things.
Yeah, even when it's your buddy, and this is how you guys talk
and this is how you communicate.
If it's your spouse, if it's a,you know you got family in the
(30:38):
church, a lot of us.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
I was looking at the whole Persinger-Chafin clan on
Sunday and I'm like my gosh,they take up like two or three
rows now you know, all thecoffee spills are in the two or
three rows too.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Not to gossip.
No, we're going to do it rightout here in the open, on the
podcast.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
I was teasing Del about that a few months ago.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
You know we got a lot of families who, and just
because you know Amy and Delstarted attending here and now
I'm thinking they're filling upthe church by themselves.
Just family and we do.
We treat our family, we treatour best friends, different than
we treat anybody else forbetter or worse right, but we
need to be careful about when wedo that in front of the church
(31:23):
so that we protect the unity ofour body.
People don't understand yourrelationship.
People don't understand that.
No, yeah, you guys are going todinner tomorrow.
You're going to have a greattime.
He's coming over to watch theball game this afternoon.
They don't know those things.
They just saw you guys gettinga heated argument about
something.
It's no, this is part of thereason we do partnership the way
(31:45):
that we do and we don't vote ona lot of things.
I tell people in thepartnership class if you're mad
about the color of the carpet,there's only one person to be
mad at me.
I picked it out.
If you don't like it, it's myfault.
We're just not going to vote onit because we have found it
creates opportunity for disunityFor Satan to scheme.
Yep, and so we want to protectat all cost against those things
(32:06):
.
And then you know, as you werediving into this sermon, there
were so many other mini sermonsin here.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
I know it was crazy, it's crazy.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
You get to, and you said six, but I almost think you
could verse eight.
You could probably do six oreight sermons just on each one
of those.
Right, because he begins to layout and I think this is the key
if we're going to protect theunity of our church, if we're
going to be the kind of peoplewho choose and pursue joy,
(32:41):
because you talked about it howit's a decision, it's not just
something we stumble into.
I have to decide joy.
Well, this is how we do it.
Finally, brothers and sisters,whatever is true, whatever is
honorable, whatever is just,whatever is pure, whatever is
lovely, whatever is commendable,if there is any moral
excellence and if there'sanything praiseworthy, paul says
(33:02):
dwell on these things.
And so here's where I think wecould probably have another
eight weeks of sermons isdefining.
What is that, and you and Iwere joking before we got on the
podcast.
Today, a lot of pastors willtalk about this, but we don't
take time to kind of break downwhat each one of those are, and
(33:26):
so I want to jump into yourscratch sheet here a little bit
and say so let me, let me.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
What does this look like?
Let me translate what Ryan justsaid You're going to be here
for a minute, yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
I hope you this.
Maybe mow the grass twice, yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
I think this, um, and we have I don't want to say
secular, but a general idea ofwhat the Bible is talking about
when he says whatever is true.
Oh yeah, we get that the Bibleis true and what Jesus says is
(34:11):
true.
And two plus two is four andthat's true.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
I get it, I get it.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
But what we're talking about here is a little
bit bigger than that.
When we're talking about thechurch, he's talking about
conforming to the reality of thesituation, and sometimes that's
pretty difficult for us to sayI don't know, I don't know, and
(34:43):
that's the reality.
Which way should we go?
Should we let Ryan pick thecarpet?
We don't know.
Should we let him?
Now we know.
No, he shouldn't pick thecarpet, but we didn't know.
Then we didn't know.
Then we let him?
Now we know no, he shouldn'tpick the carpet, but we didn't
know, then we didn't know, thenand that was the reality.
And sometimes you've got toconform to the fact that you
don't know.
In this situation, what is thefact.
(35:06):
What is true?
Now, two plus two is four.
That is true.
We can lean back on that.
The Bible is true.
We can lean back on that.
The Bible is true.
We can lean back on that.
What it teaches is true.
What it promises is true.
So we can lean back on what istrue.
But Paul is saying, look, yougot to find out what's true and
(35:29):
then focus on things that aretrue, not things that you don't
know.
The answer to Right.
We were talking about twopeople taking an offense for two
guys in a conflict, and theymight pick one or the other.
But do you know the truth?
(35:49):
Right when Jesus said, okay,you got to go, you can't figure
it out, you got to get twowitnesses that know the truth
and you come back and you say,look, these guys know what
happened.
Are you going to give in?
Are we going to get thissettled?
And then it's no?
(36:09):
No, I'm not.
So then you got to get thechurch involved.
So Paul is not changinganything.
Matter of fact, he's leaningback on what Jesus said you need
to focus on true things.
When you're focused on thingsthat you don't know are true,
you're going to get in trouble.
You're going to fall in a hole,you're going to get in a ditch
(36:31):
and you're going to have to getsomeone to pull you out.
You can't defend something thatyou don't know for sure it's
true.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Well, speculation's sexy right.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Yeah, absolutely, that's YouTube right there,
buddy.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
We want to lean in.
It's spicy.
Over there we can talk aboutthat.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
The Browns are not giving Shadur a chance.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
They're not giving him a chance.
Man, we can talk about that.
The browns are not givingshador a chance.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
Right, they're not giving them a chance?
Speaker 2 (36:57):
man, we talked about this on the I think it was on
the podcast.
Maybe it's just ourconversation, but you know he
was talking.
No, the other guy was sayingyou know, some of us are
entertainers, some of us arecompetitors.
He was talking about the media,right?
Do you know how many people arestill, weeks later, applying
that comment to shador?
Right, trying to.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
It's, it's spicy, we love that kind of stuff and
politics is that stuff times 10times 10 paulson, we need to
focus on what's true.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
I remember one time this again early on, when I had
started here um before you saythat you need to drink bleach.
Speculation folks, pleaseconsult a doctor.
(37:45):
I don't remember what was goingon, but I was like man, I need
to study some of this otherstuff.
And you said be careful howmuch time you spend with untruth
.
And I think I was wanting tolook in some different
philosophies and religions andprobably from an apologetic
standpoint I can't remember thecircumstances why I wanted to
(38:06):
take a deep dive into some ofthose things.
I wasn't looking to leave thefaith or nothing, but you had
said be careful how much timeyou spend with untruth.
And man, that was one of thosethings.
It shaped me and I'm like, yeah, it's good to have a knowledge
and understanding of some ofthose things out there, but you
(38:28):
deep dive into untruth andyou'll lose your way there's in
any conflict.
You know, you and I we'vetalked about this a lot over the
years there's three sides toevery story his side, her side
and the truth.
And we want to jump in to thespeculation game and we want to
know what's.
You know, I wonder what they'rethinking, what they're doing,
(38:49):
pursue truth.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
Pursue the truth.
What's interesting is, beforethe digital age, that was half
my life the way they taught youto recognize at a bank, to
recognize a counterfeit bill.
You would think they would say,well, here's one and it's the
feel and it's this it's thatthey would never show you, they
(39:12):
wouldn't let you see acounterfeit, would never show
you, they wouldn't let you see acounterfeit.
We want you to see the truthevery day so you can spot
untruth as soon as you touch it,feel it see it.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
My guy who worked in the bank I can testify to that.
Yeah, you know the real thing.
And when the fake stuff showedup I knew right away yeah, and
that's that's.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
Uh, that's the way we gotta be.
We gotta be so enamored withthe truth.
And we're not.
We don't want the truth,because as soon as you get the
truth, it all falls down.
You know, um, I can't rememberum, something that, uh,
(39:54):
something that one of thepoliticians said that was
counted as true, and we went fora couple of months and
everybody's like, well, ifthat's true, what's going on?
And then when you found outthat that thing that everybody
was saying, now that personnever said it was true but
(40:15):
finally said no, that's false.
I didn't say that.
Here's the clip.
That's not true.
Everybody's like, wow, but youget emotionally involved,
especially in politics.
You get emotionally involved inthat and you want it to be true
, even though you find out itwas false.
You want it to be true so bad.
(40:35):
You just can't hardly.
Oh my gosh, I just rememberedwhen your mortgage got paid off.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Oh man wanted that to be true, wanted that to be true
.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
He was calling everybody.
Does this ever happen?
Somebody just come in.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Oh, I only called like you because I think you
maybe my dad.
I was like I don't know what'sgoing on here, but I can't make
my mortgage payment.
It says the balance is zero.
What is going on?
And I didn't want the bank tocatch up.
There's been an accountingerror.
What happening here?
Speaker 3 (41:13):
And you wanted it to be true.
So bad.
And what had happened is hisbank had sold his mortgage to
someone else and paid it off.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
And the new bank was they were yeah, they were
sending the bill.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
So I just I just remembered that as an example,
where we want what's false to betrue and we we fight against it
.
So whatever is true, focus onthose things.
Don't get caught in wantingtruth to be false and false
things to be true.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Then he says whatever is honorable.
This is another one of thosetough things, because we live in
a society that wants to tearpeople down.
It's hard for us to rejoicewhen someone else gets the
promotion, when someone elsegets the job or the opportunity,
(42:08):
when they get the car, thehouse, the girl, whatever it is.
It is hard for us to rejoice inthose things.
But he says, man, these thingsthat are honorable we need to.
When something's worthy ofrespect, when there's those, we
need to spend time thinking anddwell in praising those things.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
Absolutely.
I think that's one of the worstparts of Western culture and I
know there's jealousy, don't getme wrong in Eastern culture,
but when somebody does somethingand does it well, there's
respect.
There's respect, and the peoplewho do it well, like the CEO of
(42:52):
Toyota or something, theydemand respect for it.
It no, you need to honor me forwhat I've done and and it's
almost forced in their cultureand our culture as soon as you
succeed, it's how can I kickyour legs out from?
right right, and youtube is agreat example of that.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
They just they spend all their time.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
And you know why they do it.
It's not because that's howthey are, it's because that's
how you are.
We love to consume it.
We love to consume it.
If it was the other way around,they would make different
videos.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Yep, because what do they get?
Paid for Views?
Right, the more views you get,that's when YouTube starts
setting checks.
So it is our consumption.
We love to watch people fall.
We love it.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
There's just something in us that says oh
yeah, yeah you know, I knew it.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Paul says man, let's think about those things that
are honorable.
Paul says man, let's thinkabout those things that are
honorable.
You know, when justice wins out, when someone lives with
integrity and humility.
You know, paul, he said join inimitating me when someone lives
that life, man, we shouldcelebrate those things.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
And rejoice in them, rejoice Absolutely.
And I know we're always afraidwe're going to get burned.
You know, every time we go tovote, oh, I hope this guy does
what he says.
You know, you know we're goingto get burned.
You just we're going to getburned.
You're going to put your faithin somebody.
They're not going to show up,or they're you know not gonna.
(44:33):
They're not going to show up,or they're you know not going to
uh, or they're going to fail insome way.
That embarrasses you.
But while you don't have any umevidence that they're failing,
why not honor them?
You know, I like um thesefirefighters.
I I honor them because they doa dangerous job.
(44:55):
They go into buildings and pullpeople out, and then I hear
people well, you know, they getthree days off and they go in
there and they just wash theirtruck all week.
And it's like what are youtalking about?
If they come to your house andyou're in trouble, they're going
(45:15):
to come through your window andtry to save you.
Shut up, correct?
It's the most honorable job onthe planet.
What are you talking about?
They're washing their truck andpetting the dog.
What?
And it's only the Holy Spiritthat teaches us that that's
honorable.
It's greedy jealousy, the evilside, sin incarnate, that says
(45:45):
we pay those guys too much.
How much can you pay them?
Same thing with teachers.
Well, they get the whole summeroff.
What are you saying?
Do you want to deal with thosekids?
Do you want to try to holdthose guys down for 10 minutes
and teach them how to spell?
No, you don't.
That's why you send them toschool and you don't do it at
(46:07):
home.
Now, if you're a homeschoolerand you say I don't like the way
the teachers are, I don't haveany problem with that.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
But if you're not a homeschooler?
Speaker 3 (46:17):
then you need to say thank you.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
Yeah Well, and you know another, we actually use
this just for an entire categoryof jobs.
I guess you know the honorablejudge.
You know what, absolutely whatthey're looking for, the truth
they're looking for.
You know even the next'relooking for.
The truth they're looking for,you know even the next one is is
whatever is just they'relooking for justice, those
things, um, and we say what theydo is honorable, is honorable,
(46:47):
and paul's encouraging us.
Look for those things, thinkabout those things and then,
like I said, the said the nextone, whatever is just Just kind
of dive into the Greek.
It's talking about whatever'srighteous or upright there,
whatever's in accord with divineor moral law.
So you look at that judge wholooks for the truth in a
(47:10):
situation, the leader who treatshis people fairly, the business
that pays a fair wage for thejob.
It reminds me of that one guy.
I think he took a pay cut.
Some CEO of some big companytook a giant pay cut so that he
could give everybody in hiscompany a raise, and I mean he
(47:34):
took everybody up to.
I think they were making aminimum of I don't know if it's
$75,000 or $100,000 a year.
Everybody in this company andcross-board made at least that
much money.
When do we see companies doingthat kind of stuff?
He says we need to find what isjust what is right.
We're used to the CEOo, youknow, ripping off their
(47:56):
employees, paying them a minimumwage and then they own 75
condos all across the world, youknow.
And if I guess, if you can own75 condos all across the world,
that's great.
But pay your employees well,you know what they deserve, what
is just and that's.
Speaker 3 (48:12):
That's a tough, tough read on a lot of things,
because a lot of, unfortunately,a lot of social justice is not
just right, and so I don't liketo put any type of verbiage
before the word.
Just, just, just Truth,fairness and what is just.
(48:39):
And I think when we use thebiblical definition and we use
the word righteous, righteoushas changed its coding in our
modern vernacular.
Its coding in our modernvernacular, righteous now means
(49:03):
doing church things.
And so actually, translators,if they're translating a Bible
today, they won't translateunrighteousness as
unrighteousness, they'lltranslate it as wickedness,
because people thinkunrighteousness is not doing
church things.
So but the word righteous herethat Ryan used is that means it
(49:25):
is right.
It is just he broke the law, hedidn't break the law.
What is just Now?
Morally, that might not becorrect.
He, he didn't break any law,right, so there's a moral
justice and and then there's ajustice according to the law and
(49:47):
our laws are all screwed up.
I know that I don't need anyemails, okay, and it's not just.
A lot of the laws are not justand they need to be fixed.
But for our example, here we'renot talking about doing church
things, we're just talking aboutwhat is right and it's it's
hard to well, we won't go intoall that because we got how many
(50:09):
?
We got more, we got about sevenmore, so'll go on.
But for the, for thisdefinition, we need to think
about things and celebratethings that are just and and I
would say this we know what isjust by going back to scripture,
right?
Speaker 2 (50:26):
you know, when the disciples got brought before the
religious leaders and they saidwe want you to stop preaching
in the name of Jesus, you guysneed to knock it off.
They looked at him and saidwell, whether it's right for us
to obey God, we'll let youdecide.
But we can't help.
But speaking about what we haveseen, heard and what has
(50:46):
happened.
And they went out and continuedto preach in his name.
So there are things that evenfrom a cultural, societal
standpoint, people would tellyou this is okay to do or this
is not okay.
You know my mortgage.
(51:07):
If there was an accountingerror and I you know, they just
said, hey, you don't have to payanymore.
Culturally it would be hey, youjust got off scot-free, right.
Culturally it would be hey, youjust got off scot-free, right.
But my God says you need to getthis figured out because
someone's still on the hook forthat you need to make that right
, and so, culturally, we wouldallow those things to maybe
slide.
or there's other things thatculturally we would say, hey,
(51:29):
you shouldn't be doing thosethings, but it's the very things
that God has called us to.
And so, when it comes to whatis just, what is true, jesus
said your word is true.
How do I know what's true?
Keep going back to his word.
How do I know what's just?
Keep going back to God's word.
And I think, as we do, that theHoly Spirit reveals to us the
(51:50):
deep things of God and he'llshow us what is true and what is
just in each of thosesituations.
Speaker 3 (51:55):
And then celebrate those things, even if it doesn't
go your way, even if you haveto keep making the mortgage
payment.
Right, exactly.
The next one is pure.
What is your definition of pureRyan?
Speaker 2 (52:09):
Well, when you dive again into the original
languages here, pure means to bemorally clean, undefiled
innocent.
It actually carries with itthis idea of being free from sin
or corruption.
It makes me almost think alittle bit of you know.
You were talking on Sundayduring your sermon about the
(52:29):
power of prayer and you sharedthat story of Will coming up and
praying for your knee of prayer, and you shared that story of
will coming up and praying foryour knee.
Um, that sincere prayer.
Right, there's this, thisinnocence, almost that's there.
And you said he believedsomething was going to happen.
And I think sometimes life hasa way of, as adults, making us
(52:51):
jaded.
You know we're like, yeah,we're praying, but just in case,
you know there's no, just incase.
Speaker 3 (53:00):
I went to rehab.
I went to rehab today, rightbefore this actually.
Speaker 2 (53:06):
Now don't walk away saying we think that you just
need blind faith.
You know, one of my favoritejokes came from that movie,
pursuit of Happiness, and WillSmith I don't remember his name
in the movie, but his son, Ithink, who is his real son plays
.
The son in the movie talksabout that joke.
Man's drowning in the ocean andhe cries out God, save me.
(53:29):
And a big boat comes by andsays hey, do you need help?
He says no, thank you, god willsave me.
And another big boat comes byand says hey, do you need help?
He says no, thank you, god willsave me.
And another big boat comes byno, thank you, god will save me.
Finally, he dies, goes toheaven.
He says God, why didn't yousave me?
God says I sent you three bigboats.
You dummy.
There is, the power of medicinecan be miraculous.
Speaker 3 (53:50):
And that is a gift from God, correct?
Speaker 2 (53:54):
Don't let anybody tell you any different.
So we're yeah, we don't wantyou walking away from this
thinking, well, just tough itout, don't go to the doctor.
God has given us some amazingpeople with some amazing minds
and talents to to provide I meanmiraculous healing.
Um, what they did to my eyesthrough lasik I closest thing to
a miracle I've ever personallyexperienced.
I went from having to put glasson because I couldn't see when
(54:17):
I got up.
I have 1520 vision.
That is miraculous to me, andso we're not saying that, I
guess.
So there's my medicaldisclaimer again about drinking
bleach and seeing the doctor.
But there is this innocencethat when a child prays and man,
(54:37):
if we could recover that, Imean Jesus talked about having
the faith of a child.
You know, Reese, when we hadthat prayer meeting, we prayed
for a guy.
Don thought he had cancerese,prayed for him.
Next week went to the doctor.
(54:58):
We can't find any cancer, right?
What is it about?
I think there's this purity,this undefined man.
I haven't been corrupted by theway the world thinks about
healing and miracles and sin,you know yeah and I think
there's something there.
Speaker 3 (55:17):
But I think us Christians are like I just don't
want any pressure to be on mebecause he was really pure and
I'm not.
So, you know, just leave mealone.
No, I think you're right, andkids are precious, they're pure.
We've got a whole culturalsociety that wants to make them
(55:37):
impure, to just spoil them, andI hate that.
Purity should be something thatwe embrace being innocent,
without corruption, morallyclean, without contamination.
Morally clean, uh, withoutcontamination.
(56:02):
Um, I was watching my, uh, I gota video from will, will again
and, um, he pulled his shirtdown over his knees, down to his
ankles, and he squatted downand he was walking around and he
just thought that was thefunniest thing and he was just
laughing, just cackling.
I mean just, you know, mommy,look at this, isn't this funny?
And he was laughing and we wereall laughing about him laughing
(56:25):
about something so silly.
But that kind of innocenceshould be celebrated, that
purity, celebrated that purity,yeah, and uh, I think, um, the
other thing, if you're lookingfor something to be to focus on
things that pure, look at peoplewho do things for people, um,
(56:46):
not looking for anything out ofit.
You know, amy, and um eric.
I won't give their last names,but they go to our church and
they do a lot of things that wesee them do.
They're working with the schoolthat we're partnered with over
in Lorain.
I can't talk today.
(57:09):
Eric's out in the parking lotevery week, you know.
They're just doing thingsconstantly.
But they also have a mission athome.
They're doing things that theyjust do, not for the church,
just for their Lord.
They do Meals on Wheels all thetime and it's just part of who
(57:31):
they are.
They don't get paid, they don'tget recognized.
Nobody here at the church knowsthey're doing it.
They just do it.
Speaker 2 (57:38):
Yeah, I mean, the whole reason Amy's in the
position she is here is becauseall of this was a part of Amy's
life well before she was ourcommunity connections director,
right, you know it is who she isand those sorts of things need
to be celebrated, man.
And you know there is anotherpurity, just about the things
(58:03):
that we allow our minds and earsto see and hear that we need to
be careful of too.
I think it was the comedianMichael Jr was talking about how
I mean, he's a Christian guybut he does comedy and that's a
world that's pretty full of somepretty defiled things.
(58:24):
If you've ever seen a comedian,a lot of times they go to the
most defiled things to talkabout, right, and he doesn't
want to do that, and so he sayssays it doesn't start for me by
trying to watch what I say onstage.
It starts with what I allow mymind to consume and if I'll put
the right inputs in, the outputtakes care of itself.
(58:46):
Right, and I would say we needto.
We need to guard ourselves andwhat you, what you choose to
binge watch, the kind of musicyou choose to listen to or allow
your kids to hear we need to bevery careful about what we
allow to shape us, those thatkind of undefiled thing.
Let's guard our hearts andminds and if we'll again get the
(59:11):
right inputs in, the outputcomes naturally.
Speaker 3 (59:16):
And that purity is important, so focus on what is
pure.
We've got four more.
How are we going to do this?
I don't know if we can getthrough them all.
All right, what's yourdefinition for lovely?
Speaker 2 (59:32):
Lovely, pleasing, agreeable, admirable that which
calls forth love and affection.
Speaker 3 (59:37):
Oh, things that inspire love.
Yeah, it's you know when.
Speaker 2 (59:43):
I look at my wife.
Speaker 3 (59:44):
She is lovely.
It doesn't have to be sexual orfriendship type of love.
It can be watching a guy pull abig fish in.
That can inspire your love forfishing, yeah, and those, uh,
those type of things.
Uh, watching a and I'm gonnasay it, go watch a basketball
(01:00:06):
game, go watch the calves play.
Oh my gosh, when I saw a guywho's not he's probably an inch
taller than me jump over my head, it was inspiring.
And you know, every time I geta chance to go see the calves
cheaply because I can't affordregular tickets, uh, I love to
(01:00:26):
go, um, not just because my wifeloves it, but I love to.
It inspires me to watch theseguys who worked all their lives,
uh, to play ball and do thingsthat I can never do.
Now I get it.
They make a lot of money andthey shouldn't make more money
than firefighters and teachers.
And I, I'm there, I'm therewith you, okay, but the point
(01:00:49):
I'm making is that, hey, thatinspires me.
That inspires me.
Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
You know my daughter.
So far she might be the onlyone of my kids to have captured
my love for the night sky.
I've told you for the longesttime my favorite thing, one of
my favorite things to do, is togo sit in your backyard and just
look at the stars.
Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
It's getting that time of year.
Pretty soon it's going to getdark Earlier.
Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
Earlier so we can actually do it.
And we finally got a yard whereI can.
I don't know if the stars at myhouse are quite as good as they
are at your house maybe alittle bit more light pollution
but they're decent.
And Ellie asked, joy and I theother night.
(01:01:42):
She said, guys, come outside.
And we went and laid on theloungers by the pool and just
stared up at the stars and I'mlike at least one out of my four
kids has captured this thing.
But it man, it's, it's lovelyit's those things that inspire
you, that take your breath away.
Speaker 3 (01:01:47):
A mountain, um, and then the guy who climbed it.
You know there's some thingsthat are inspiring, and
something to be lovely issomething that inspires your
love for things.
There is nothing wrong withthat.
I love to sail.
I know it costs a lot of moneyand it's not worth anything.
I can't take anything anywhereand make money.
(01:02:08):
All I do is spend money to sail, but it inspires me and those
things are lovely.
So you know, the Lord righthere is telling Paul hey, you're
putting them in a box.
Let's open this door a littlebit.
Think about things that inspireyour love for other things.
Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
And I mean think about when you see someone do
something that's just selfless.
I mean there's no way they canget paid back.
You know, it's that kind ofyou're getting on commendable
but it's lovely you look at,it's inspiring to say, man, if I
could live the way that theylive.
(01:02:46):
You know those things it'slovely to see, but it does go
right into the next onecommendable right you know to be
something that's worthy ofpraise or approval, it's
something that is well spoken of.
You know these things, thatthere's this, it's reputable, um
, that that thing is commendable, um.
(01:03:09):
A little bit of the opposite ofthat might be cracker barrel's
new redesign that has not beenwell spoken of online.
Speaker 3 (01:03:18):
No, we need to.
This goes back to what you weresaying earlier, about an hour
and a half ago, where you saidwhen something happens to
somebody, you need to becelebrating with them, not
jealous or whatever, even ifit's your enemy.
If he does something great, heneeds to be recognized for it.
(01:03:40):
That's the way the kingdom ofGod works when you give yourself
to the Lord, you are praised.
You are praised and you'regoing to be given a crown for
that thing.
Now we got to get used.
I know the West is.
(01:04:00):
I'm going to be humble, youknow, and oh, they're not very
humble.
Yeah, but they're great.
Tell me they're not great.
Well, it's not about that.
It's about being humble.
Well, I bet, if you knew them,just look what they did and be
commendable.
That's worthy of praise.
Okay, not their whole life andall this kind of stuff, but this
(01:04:22):
one thing is worthy of praise.
Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
One of the things that we started with our
volunteer huddles here is wewant to have a volunteer of the
week, someone that we look atand say, man, this is what we
want volunteers to do aroundhere.
Because it's easy and thisapplies to any organization you
can put all kinds of punishmentsand restrictions in place and
don't do this.
You better not do that.
One of the best ways to gethigh performance out of your
(01:04:47):
team is to celebrate what youwant duplicated Right.
If you want someone toreplicate an activity or
behavior, celebrate it.
If it's commendable, celebrateit when we see volunteers go the
extra mile.
We celebrate it when Joe showsup and it's 12 degrees outside
and he's running the snowblower.
Speaker 3 (01:05:08):
Or he showed up this Sunday.
Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
we made him move a refrigerator, Move a fridge and
jack up a set of cabinets to fitit underneath the fridge.
It's commendable.
Yes, you know, we need tocelebrate those things.
Speaker 3 (01:05:20):
And let's not make that a church thing either.
We've always said here at afresh win.
There are a lot of missions andcharities that are going on
around here and they need you,they need you, commit to them
and you're like, well, it's kindof a secular thing.
It's not secular when you walkin the door because the Holy
(01:05:41):
Spirit has just showed up.
So Second Harvest does a greatwork.
They do a great work.
Get involved in passing outthat food Charles has been
helping with good nights,delivering and building beds.
Speaker 2 (01:05:57):
That's a great work, and show up.
What they do is commendable,right, and you should be a part
of that and celebrate it.
Number seven moral excellence,virtuous, excellent character.
This is something that, again,culturally, we don't always
pursue.
(01:06:19):
I'll do whatever it takes toget to the top of the corporate
ladder and I'll climb overwhoever I have to do it.
I'll take out anybody's legs toget there and be on top, and
we're always looking for ashortcut, right.
This is the exact opposite ofwhat Paul says when he says join
in imitating me.
This is that moral excellencethat I'm not going to do this
(01:06:41):
the wrong way.
I don't want it if I have to doit that way.
I remember I worked a job onetime and my boss had asked me to
say something to one of ourcustomers, and so I made this
promise to him, and then, a fewminutes later, he wanted me to
call back and raise the price.
And I said whoa, that's notwhat we had agreed to, that we
(01:07:05):
weren't going to tack onanything extra.
And he says he doesn't knowwhat we're making on this deal.
I want you to call and give himthis number and I was like, if I
have to do this, I can't workhere.
And I had to put in my two weeknotice because I'm like I'm,
this is not how I'm going tooperate.
I won't.
I won't do things that way justto make a couple extra bucks.
(01:07:27):
And I told a different boss ata different company.
You know my.
What matters to me more is theperson standing across the
counter from me, not thisbusiness or organization's
bottom line.
That kind of more and I'm nottrying to prop myself up here
again, you know kind of more.
(01:07:48):
Like Paul, these are the thingsthat you don't have to be
humble about doing something theright, the right way.
Speaker 3 (01:07:55):
So I that's commendable.
Moral excellence is veryimportant in our lives and I and
I think we need to stand andprove to people that there are
still people who believe that.
You know, I'm not.
I'm talking to all the you knowreplacement window salesmen and
all the insurance companies,and you know you don't have to
(01:08:18):
lie to be a success, you know,and so don't just don't do it.
I like the word excellence,though it's one of the words we
bandy about here at A Fresh Windall the time.
We want to do everything asexcellent as we can and I think
that should be part of our life,not just morally excellent,
just excellent.
(01:08:39):
Take care of your house in anexcellent way, take care of your
church in an excellent way.
Whatever you do at church, do itas good as you can.
Speaker 2 (01:08:50):
Scripture teaches that right.
Whatever you do do unto theLord.
Speaker 3 (01:08:53):
Right.
Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
Oh, who was it?
That was CS Lewis, one of thoseguys talks about.
If you're going to be a streetsweeper, sweep streets like
Michelangelo painted the SistineChapel.
That's the kind of people weneed to be.
And you've heard us say on thepodcast, before you know, I'm
not telling you to just don't dosomething just because you
can't do it.
Well, like, there's some things, if it doesn't really matter
(01:09:15):
and you just enjoy it, you don'thave to be the greatest guitar
player to pick up a guitar,right, but those things that
matter your family, your church,your job and the kind of
employee or boss you are do withexcellence.
And then finally, number eight,so we can wrap this thing up
close to the hour mark whoo, um,he says whatever is worthy of
(01:09:37):
praise, um, if those things are,are admirable.
If they're, um, we need to be,we need to be celebrating and
thinking about those things nownow paul is saying I'm going to
interrupt you here because thisis important.
Speaker 3 (01:09:53):
Paul is saying think on these things.
He's talked about commendable,lovely.
He's saying fill your mind withthose things, recognize them in
your heart.
Now, here at the end, he'ssaying now you need to praise it
out loud, right?
He's saying no, you don't needto talk to me about it.
(01:10:14):
I'm God, I wrote this.
Now it's time for you to saysomething about that.
And that's one thing we lack alittle bit here in our church is
um, the sound went bad.
Something happened in themiddle of the service on Sunday
and more people talked about thesound to me than any time that
it's been really good.
You know, nobody says anythingwhen the sound is good.
(01:10:36):
Uh, they just say when thesound is bad, and I get it.
That's the way where everybodywants it fixed.
So it gets, get it fixed.
And that's part of ourexcellence thing.
Hey, wait, I'm bringing peopleto this church.
You know it's always been good.
It needs to be good.
What's wrong, let's get itfixed, let's go, and I get all
that.
But when something is great,you need to praise the person
(01:10:59):
who did it.
You just need to say great job,that was great, and it's one of
those things that we lack in ourculture.
You know, we used to getwatches when we retired.
I mean the company would saythanks for your loyalty.
You know a 10-year pin orwhatever it is.
Speaker 2 (01:11:22):
I know, amy, she just got a Yeti cooler for I don't
know if it's 20 or 25 years atMetro and Sue said, yeah, they
gave Troy a double clock.
Yeah, you know, coming up, Ithink this is year 16.
So 20 years?
Yeah, tim.
(01:11:43):
What's on the docket?
Speaker 3 (01:11:47):
Well.
Speaker 1 (01:11:48):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (01:11:54):
I'll probably retire before you, so I don't have to
make that decision.
No, we need to be.
When things are praiseworthy,they need to be praised when
your kids do great, then praisethem.
If they get, um, all a's and a d, praise them for the a's.
You can still hit them for thed.
You can't say, hey, look, I, I,you got all a's, but what about
(01:12:18):
this d?
But, but, but you, you gottasay, okay, we're gonna, we're
gonna help you fix that, butthis was great, this was great
and and that's kind of tender tomy heart, because my dad would
praise my one a and and then wewould talk about all my other
D's, but I would get praised forthat.
(01:12:40):
And when you do something,someone does something.
Well, they need to be praised.
They just need to be praised,not because and we don't want to
give praise, because we don'twant them to be needy oh, he
just wants praise and okay, ifhe does something praiseworthy,
he deserves praise, whether hewants it or not and there's an
entire world bent on tearingespecially our kids down,
(01:13:04):
absolutely tearing your spousedown when when he or she goes to
work.
Speaker 2 (01:13:10):
Be the kind of person who inserts praise into their
life.
You teach, you knowencouragement is to instill
courage into someone.
You can't praise your kids andspouse enough.
You need to be hyping them up,talking about letting them know
you believe in them.
Yes, when they get it wrong,it's okay to talk about those
(01:13:38):
things.
One of my kids watched him playa soccer game the other day and
they're usually on fire.
I was like hey, are you notfeeling it what?
Speaker 1 (01:13:44):
is going on here.
Speaker 2 (01:13:46):
That's not who you are.
I said if you're tired, youneed to understand you're not
just letting yourself down,you're letting the whole team
down.
They're relying on you to playyour game.
It's okay to have those toughconversations, but when they do
well, you need to celebrate itand those things.
I'm with you.
We don't do enough of this inour culture and I want us here
(01:14:11):
at AFreshWin, I want us to excelhere's that word again at being
the kind of people who givepraise regularly.
Speaker 3 (01:14:20):
When it's worthy of praise.
We're not blowing smoke here.
I'm going to make it up Ifsomeone does something great
here at this church.
We don't want to give a what dothey call it?
not an achievement, aparticipation award.
We're not going to do that.
We're not blowing smoke aroundhere.
But if you do something great,we're going to tell you you did
(01:14:42):
something great.
That's right and we want to bethat kind of person and you've
got to take that out of thechurch and put it in.
It will change where you work,it'll change everything.
I know I got a big mouth and Ithink I'm funny when I'm
probably not very funny and butthat's still, that's, that's
(01:15:03):
still out.
You know nobody's really out onthat Nobody's really made a
decision on that.
If you think differently aboutthis, god will teach you.
Yeah, yeah, I love that verseanyways.
Um, when I was at work, I um Igot on some people's nerves and
I had some people that were, um,didn't like me too much and I
(01:15:28):
rubbed them the wrong way and Iliked it.
I liked rubbing them the wrongway, but you know, so they were
against me, anything I would door whatever.
And I was working as theassistant to this one guy one
day and of course he was lookingfor things that I was doing
(01:15:52):
wrong.
And he just didn't like me verymuch.
But when we got at the end.
I said that was awesome.
That was awesome.
You did awesome.
You should get a reward forthat.
That was all those airplanes.
You didn't miss a beat.
Yeah, it was awesome, great job.
(01:16:14):
And he looked at me like, areyou making fun of me?
Are you?
Are you, what are you?
What are you doing?
And I just patted him on theback and walked away and he was
just beside himself all day.
He did not know what to do.
You know I hate this guy toldme I was great what do?
I do?
What do I do?
It changed our relationship andit changed the way we work,
(01:16:37):
because he was the leader oflet's hate tim holt.
And then he said let's not hatetim holt.
And it changed everything.
So we, you, you can whatever'spraiseworthy, give it praise
Right and it'll change your life.
It'll change your life.
Speaker 2 (01:16:56):
Even if you feel like that person isn't praiseworthy.
Speaker 3 (01:16:59):
I had to work really hard to make those people not
like me.
It was tough.
It was tough.
Speaker 2 (01:17:06):
We're not saying everything they do is worthy of
praise or commendable or morallyexcellent, but you start to
look for those things that theydo in that situation, in that
moment, and you celebrate thosethings and watch as your kids,
your spouse, the people you workwith people you go to church
with start to do more of thethings that are praiseworthy
(01:17:27):
with people you go to churchwith start to do more of the
things that are praiseworthy.
Being praised feels good.
Speaker 3 (01:17:33):
It does.
Speaker 2 (01:17:33):
And when you start to look at people and say man that
was awesome.
You'll find that they startdoing more of those things that
were awesome, absolutely.
That's why this is so important, what Paul is saying here, and
I think if we could grab a holdof this one verse and man, we
(01:17:55):
just we surpassed an hourtalking about one verse.
Speaker 3 (01:17:57):
An hour that's two sermons.
Speaker 2 (01:17:57):
We did two sermons on that one verse, one verse plus,
you talked a little bit aboutit on Sunday, so we're up to
three on one verse here.
But, man, if we could grab ahold of it, I think it would.
It would change our families,it would change our church, um,
the place you work, place yourkids go to school.
If we would take these eightthings and say, man, I'm going
to make it a habit, a disciplinein my life to focus on those
(01:18:22):
things, um, and so, and if youfocus on those things, you live
in those things, that's right.
Speaker 3 (01:18:27):
If you focus on negativity and all the things
that are going wrong, then youlive in that Absolutely.
Tim, will you pray for us?
Father, I want to thank you forthis passage of scripture.
What a great insight to how aChristian is supposed to live.
These few verses from 3 to 9 inPhilippians, chapter four, are
(01:18:50):
life changing and, lord, I praythat our people will begin to
look at purity justice, thingsthat are lovely, things that are
not only worthy of praise, butthat will give them praise.
And Father, let it change themand then change their lives and
(01:19:13):
the lives of those around them.
In Jesus' name amen.
Speaker 1 (01:19:17):
Amen.
Thanks again for joining us forthis episode of the Midweek
Podcast.
We'd love to hear from you.
Let us know how God is usingthis resource in your life, or
send any podcast questions ortopic ideas to podcast at
afreshwindorg.
If you would like to supportthis ministry financially and
help us continue offering newresources that equip you to
(01:19:37):
discover more in Christ, simplytext any amount to the number
84321.
We're so grateful for yoursupport.
Make sure to tune in next weekfor a brand new episode of the
Midweek Podcast.
Be blessed and have a greatweek.
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