June 19, 2025 • 37 mins
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358: What does it mean when worship songs ask the Spirit to "rest on us" if He already indwells believers? How should we respond when someone claims "my truth" in a church setting? These profound questions launch our conversation with Pastor Holland Greig.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
And welcome back to Pastor Plek's podcast.
I'm your host, pastor Plek.
Joining me in studio is noneother than Holland Gregg.
He is the lead pastor ofEastside Community Church down
the east side.
I'm so grateful for Holland andhis service and we're talking
some questions.
We're going to get caught upLots of catching up today.
(00:24):
There are so many questionsover the past several weeks that
have been brought to myattention that we have not been
able to address because I havebeen in Northwest Africa
visiting our missionary, whoshan't be named because we
cannot name him or her becauseof the clandestine operations
(00:44):
that are going on in that partof the world.
But what I can tell you is thequestion that first came up Are
you?
Speaker 2 (00:51):
ready, ready when you are.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Holando.
It says what is the song RestOn Us talking about?
What does it mean to invite thespirit to come rest on us?
Great question what is thatsong?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
The spirit was moving over the water.
Spirit come rest on us.
Great question what is thatsong?
The?
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Spirit was moving over the water.
Spirit, come rest on me.
Come rest on us.
Come rest on us.
Very good.
What does that mean?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Holland.
I'm not really familiar withthis song, but I've heard it
before, but I don't reallyremember what the rest of it's
about.
Only thing that comes to mindfor me from that particular line
is Genesis one, verse two,right when it says that, um, uh,
the spirit of God was hoveringover the waters, the dark,
chaotic waters, um, of the earth, before God formed and shaped
(01:42):
it.
And, and so you know as theidea before God formed and
shaped it, and so you know itwas the idea of God's presence
and that he was about to dosomething and bring order out of
chaos.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yeah, I like to bring order out of chaos.
It's like in my worshipexperience.
I'm like God, I've got all thismangled stuff in my head and
I'm asking for you to rest on me, to bring rest to my soul, to
bring order to my chaos, all ofthat.
So maybe it's like just toexperience God personally, and
(02:18):
then it's also like a posture ofhumility and surrender, meaning
like you're asking the HolySpirit to come upon you and do
his work.
Now you're not saying that youdon't have the Holy Spirit to
begin with, because, as aChristian, you are indwelt by
the Spirit.
But there's two different partsof the Holy Spirit, right or
not?
Two different parts of the HolySpirit, but two different
things the Holy Spirit does.
He indwells believers as adeposit for your guarantee that
(02:42):
God has bought you by Jesus'blood and that you are his.
And then the second is that youare filled up by him and
empowered by the Holy Spirit ofGod to do work of ministry Right
.
And so what I think is going onhere, when you're asking the
Holy Spirit, if you're aChristian, you're asking the
Holy Spirit to rest on you.
You're asking him to empoweryou to go forward and do great
(03:02):
things for Christian ministry.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
I think of things you know.
You're like how can he rest?
Why would I need to ask theSpirit to rest on me if he
already dwells inside?
Speaker 1 (03:15):
of me.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
And I think it's similar to like God, I want to
be in your presence right.
What does that mean, if God'somnipresent?
Aren't you always in hispresence.
But the idea of in his presenceis like a sense of intimacy and
closeness.
So you think of, like James 4.8, draw near to God and he'll
draw near to you.
How do you get nearer tosomeone who is everywhere?
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Right, right.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Unless it's speaking of, in a sense of, like,
relational closeness.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Intimacy.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Intimacy, and so in a similar way, like.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Because you could be sitting next to a person on a
really crowded airplane and bereally close to them, but not
draw near to them.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, yeah, similar to like you know, yeah, sitting
next to someone is differentthan sitting next to them and
looking at them in the eye.
Yeah, and so, like the idea ofGod, like, let your shine, your
like, may his face shine uponyou like the Aaronic blessing,
right?
Um, that means not only is heomnipresent, but he is being
present to you in a manifest, apowerfully manifest kind of way.
(04:15):
I think the same thing is whatI, you know like with the Holy
Spirit is like Paul says hewants to be filled with the Holy
Spirit Right, even though healready is indwelt by the Holy
Spirit.
There's a sense of a type ofmanifestation of the Spirit that
produces spiritual growth orboldness.
(04:35):
You know Acts 4, the believers.
It says that they're filledwith the Holy Spirit and then
begin to proclaim the word ofGod with boldness.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Right and they were already indwelt by the Spirit.
Right Acts, chapter 2.
But they're actually now askingfor a filling.
Yeah, Do not be drunk with wine, but be filled by the Spirit.
And so here you see themactively engaging in drawing
near to God.
He fills them up with the HolySpirit.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Boom, boom, I think the other things.
When Jesus was baptized, theSpirit of God descended, you
know, like a dove, and restedupon him.
And then in Acts, chapter two,pentecost, which is past Sunday,
pentecost, Sunday, woo, woo 50days after Easter.
Yep, the tongues of fire restedupon their heads, right Came and
(05:16):
rested upon, and that was, likeyou know, this empowering
moment of the spirit of Godfilling them.
So I think that language ismeant to point to the idea of a
special filling of the Spirit aswell, as it's not the Spirit
convicting you or confrontingyou.
The idea of rest is like I'myielded to the Spirit, I'm
submitted to the Spirit.
So I don't know.
(05:36):
Those are all the things thatcome to mind, yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I think sometimes with any sort of worship song,
you're going to feel maybe atheological juxtaposition with
the struggle of anthropomorphicthoughts being put onto God,
like you are giving humanattributes to God, whereas if
he's everywhere, does he everactually rest?
You're always going to bewrestling with that, but the
(06:00):
Bible uses language like that,so I think it's okay for us to
use language like that.
And then you're stilltheologically accurate by
drawing near to God, as you said, James 4a.
So yeah, I think that's notalways okay.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Did you sing that song recently, or something?
Speaker 1 (06:17):
I missed one several weeks ago, but when that
question was asked, it's an oldschool song, I think it's like
probably 2013 or something.
You know many moons.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Many moons ago.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Okay.
Next question is, in thecontext of 2 Corinthians, the
reoccurring use of the word, weseems to consistently refer to
Paul and his associates, whileyou refers to the Corinthian
church or y'all, probably right.
If this is the case, why do wecommonly apply verses like 2
(06:54):
Corinthians 4.1?
.
All right, let me see if I canget to 2 Corinthians 4.1.
And 2 Corinthians 5, 19 and 20,as if the we refers to all
believers.
All right, so therefore, thisis 2 Corinthians 4, 1,.
(07:15):
Therefore, having this ministryby the mercy of God, we do not
lose heart, but we haverenounced disgraceful,
underhanded ways.
We refuse to practice cunningor to tamper with God's word,
but by the open statement of thetruth we would commend
ourselves to everyone'sconscience in the sight of God.
Now then, it goes on, and ifour gospel is veiled, it's
(07:37):
veiled only to those who areperishing In their case.
The God of this world hasblinded the minds of the
unbelievers to keep them fromseeing the light of the gospel
of the glory of Christ.
Who blinded the minds of theunbelievers to keep them from
seeing the light of the gospelglory of Christ, who is the
image of God, for what weproclaim is not ourselves, but
Jesus Christ as Lord, withourselves as your servants, for
(07:59):
Jesus' sake.
So he's saying here why do weapply the we to all Christians
if it seems to be that Paul isjust referring simply here to
Paul and his crew?
That's sending them out?
And in fact there's anotherverse that he wanted us to look
at 519,.
That is, in Christ, god wasreconciling the world to himself
(08:20):
, not counting their trespassesagainst them and entrusting to
us the message of reconciliation.
Therefore, we are ambassadorsfor Christ, god making his
appeal through us.
We implore you, corinthianchurch, on behalf of Christ, be
reconciled to God for our sake.
He made him to be sin, who knewno sin, so that in him we might
become the righteousness of God.
(08:41):
Any thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Yeah, I think it's a really great question.
I love thinking in this way ofthat level of detail of going.
When he says we, who's hereferring to?
And that you know, the idea isthat there may be some things
that are only would only applyto Paul and his.
You know Paul and Timothy areis who he introduces second
(09:05):
Corinthians by right, so thosetwo, maybe perhaps others
included, like Silas orsomething like that.
But I think Paul and Timothyare the ones that second
Corinthians is addressed fromRight, so some things that may
just apply to them, um, and somethings maybe have a broad, like
he does use we in a broadersense, or us, even second
Corinthians five.
(09:27):
He says for our sake.
For our sake, the R is not justPaul and Timothy.
Yeah Right, that would be weird.
So he uses the plural we our torefer to all Christians there.
Similarly, like I have it opento second Corinthians seven
right now.
He says since we have thesepromises beloved, let us cleanse
ourselves from every defilement.
He's including all Christians,right.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
He's not just saying only Paul and my crew have to
cleanse ourselves from all thesedefilements.
It's all y'all, including us.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
So I do.
You know it might take a littlebit of digging in and study to
go okay.
Each time he says we in contextis he talking about just him
and Timothy?
But even there you go.
You know, if he's speaking ofhimself as an apostle, timothy
wasn't an apostle.
Paul was an apostle, right?
So if there's something that'sjust unique to Paul as an
apostle, you would think hewould use, I Right.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
But it is Timothy.
What's that?
But it is Timothy right Is thatSt Corinthians is with Timothy
right.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so if he's saying we, youknow he's not like we, meaning
me and the other apostles he'salready including Timothy, which
is kind of the next generationafter the apostles.
It's Timothy.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Could you say that's church leadership?
Yes, yeah, I think you couldsay so.
It may be like apostles,pastors, evangelists you know,
like teachers shepherds, yeah Uma pest.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, uh huh.
Right, the Ephesians four kindof church office, um, or, or
today we'd say elders anddeacons, or pastors and deacons,
right, um, um, churchleadership.
So yeah, you could say maybehe's just referring to church
leadership there, but I thinkwhere you would go the next step
is consider each individualcase and go okay, which one's he
(11:09):
talking about?
Does this apply to allChristians or just Christian
leaders?
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Right, I feel like what's hard about that?
Like just in 2 Corinthians 5,if you like, so you could say,
only Christian leaders aresupposed to be evangelists.
I guess you could say onlyChristian leaders are supposed
to be evangelists.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Is that like what the question is getting at?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Well, he's referring to this because that is, in
Christ, god was reconciled, theworld to himself, not counting
their trespasses against it andtrusting to us the message of
reconciliation.
So evangelism.
Therefore, we are ambassadorsfor Christ.
The we here.
If it's only Paul and Timothy,that's church leadership, god
making his appeal through us.
We implore you, corinthianchurch, on behalf of Christ, be
(11:48):
reconciled to God.
And then this is where it'sweird.
For our sake, he made him to besin who knew no sin, so that in
him we might become therighteousness of God.
And I'd say, like, if you'relooking at that as that first
person plural possessive andthat first person plural like
(12:09):
noun of we, that's only Paul andTimothy.
That seems to be missing out onthe context.
For our sake, he made him to beno sin.
Who—he made him to be sin whoknew no sin?
Speaker 2 (12:20):
That seems to be a— it's possible, he's going back
and forth between you know,saying we referring to him and
timothy and then us referring toall christians.
That's possible, and also.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
I think it's, it's possible that he's.
He's, when he says y'all to thecorinthians, he's telling
someone to be reconciled to godyeah and some of them were not
christian, and so he's kind ofyou know, we, we do this every
Sunday.
We say, hey, if you don't knowJesus, and we say like there is
no hope, you can't do any of thethings that we've said that
God's calling you to do.
You need to be reconciled toGod, repent from your sins and
(12:51):
trust Jesus.
And then I saw like hey, but ifyou are a person who knows
Jesus now I want you to go andlive out the things we just
talked about.
So it's like the double barrel.
You he's got non-believers andbelievers in mind as he's
talking here, and so they areboth.
You know, because if there wasunbelievers in that church, you
wouldn't need them to bereconciled to God.
(13:12):
And if there's unbelievers inthe church sorry, if there's
believers in the church, theydon't need to be reconciled to
God.
And if there's unbelievers inthe church, then it's not true,
for our sake.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
he made him to be sin , who knew no sin, so in him we
might become the righteousnessof God.
Would that be right?
Yeah, and so I think you canexpand beyond that too and go.
Well, are there other versesthat give similar type of
commands that you know?
Could that are more clearlyapplied to all Christians?
Yeah, um, I, I think even youknow the idea of an ambassador.
(13:48):
Is someone an officialrepresentative, right, right Of
some, the, the idea of beingmade in the image of God is
we're meant to be Imagers, yeah,ambassadors of God, in a sense
sense represent him on the earth.
And then you know we've sinnedand so redeemed in Christ.
(14:09):
You know, the idea of everyChristian being an ambassador
for Christ I think fits withplaces like 1 Peter, 2, 9.
You're a holy nation, a royalpriesthood right.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
So if you're saying everybody is a royal priesthood.
He's saying you all are a royalpriesthood, which means,
therefore, you carry with youthe value you need to go share
this.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah, the ministry.
What was a priest's job?
Right, you represent, you standin between God and people for
reconciliation and prayer andpraise, and so I think you could
cross-reference, look at someother verses about our identity
as Christians.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Right, and I think here's Paul writing to the Roman
church.
Therefore, since we have beenjustified by faith, we have
peace with God through our Lord,jesus Christ.
Through him, we have alsoobtained access by faith into
this grace in which we stand andwe rejoice in hope of the glory
of God.
So I think there's a reality,but he also talks about as he's
writing this.
He'll say hey, send a greetingsto whoever, whoever.
(15:11):
So there are parts that he isspeaking specifically.
Here's something for you only.
But a lot of times Paul goesback and forth with the we, in
the sense that we're allChristians here, and I think in
2 Corinthians 4 and then in 5,he's doing that same thing, and
again he's speaking to anaudience that might not have
(15:34):
some we in it.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
But the goal would be that allof them come to Christ and then
participate in the ministry ofChrist, which is reconciling
people to God in Christ throughthe gospel.
And so I think about Jesus'example too.
And you know they would repent,they would go and tell everyone
(16:03):
, and Jesus would.
Well, he told some people to bequiet more in the Jerusalem,
judea area, but when he was outin the more Gentile area he'd
say go and tell the demoniac guy, a legion, go and tell everyone
what the Lord has done for you.
The Samaritan woman at the well, you know, she goes and tells
the whole town.
So it's like when Jesus changesyour life, it makes sense that
(16:24):
you want to go and tell otherpeople about that, right?
So evangelism is not somethingthat's meant.
It definitely is something thatchurch leaders are called to do
Absolutely, and we bear thebrunt of the responsibility.
But part of what we do is alsothat we teach other people to do
the same thing.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Yeah, it's all about equipping the saints for the
work of ministry.
Yeah, otherwise we're not—ifthe salvation of the world was
dependent upon only churchleaders, then we would—we as
in—this word gets in the way—theChristian leadership would have
to spend a lot less time withthe flock and get out there
(17:01):
reaching the world, because thatwould be our role.
But there's a dual role,obviously, christian leaders are
supposed to be sharing thegospel, but we're also supposed
to be managing the flock, and sothat puts the impetus and onus
of your purpose really iswhatever you do, bring glory to
God, but then also sharingChrist everywhere you can.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Yeah, sharing Christ everywhere you can.
Yeah, I think it's there'swisdom in going.
Okay, paul, paul had a, um, hewas authorized as an apostle,
you know.
And so, um, when the Corinthianchurch, let's say they go and
they do evangelism, lead someoneto Christ, obviously they're
going to want to connect thosepeople to the church that has an
(17:40):
authorized leader, that has a,you know, an elder, a bishop, a
pastor, you know, who can teachthem sound doctrine and disciple
them.
But at the same time, like,yeah, you want evangelism and
discipleship to be happening ona smaller scale too, in organic
relationships and things likethat is basically everyone's
just wanting to submit theirlives to the word and encourage
(18:02):
each other.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Yeah, I think that's good, Okay.
Next question we got some goodones.
We got some good ones here, allright, okay.
I have a young gentleman whooccasionally attends a Tuesday
night men's group.
He is passionate about hisbeliefs.
He claims no God and Jesus.
He often speaks about my truth,his beliefs.
(18:23):
He claims no God and Jesus.
He often speaks about my truth.
He claims that when I think ofsuch and thus, I know that is
God telling me to do thus andsuch.
He bears the fruit of death inabundance.
How do I show love and patienceand speak life into this young
man?
How do I guard my flock fromthe deadly speech that this
young man brings to the group,from the deadly speech that this
young man brings to the group.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Wow, thus and such.
I like that, yeah, yeah, I likethe question.
I just taught on 2 Timothy 2 acouple Sundays ago at ECC.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Where it says the servant of the Lord must not
strive but be gentle unto allmen, apt to teach, patient in
meekness, instructing those thatoppose themselves, um, and you
know, god may grant repentanceto them um to acknowledging the
truth.
And so there there is this callto you do need to correct
(19:21):
people, but you need to do itwith patience and meekness and
gentleness.
So you know this is not like afalse teacher where you can be
harsh and sharp and direct.
You know this is a sheep who isstraying and struggling and
needs some gentle correction.
Straying and struggling andneed some gentle correction, uh,
(19:44):
and so I think it's good um tohave that heart and that desire
of like man.
I love what God's doing in thisperson's life, but, um, some
corrections needed.
How do I do it gently?
How do I do it with love?
It's a good question.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Yeah, I think that you're going to have to speak
into that, definitely.
So one time I had someone in mygroup go, hey, I'm a gay
Christian.
And then he went on like thatwas the beginning of his
sentence and I waited until hewas done talking.
I go hey, let me just clarify,there's no such thing as a gay
Christian.
(20:13):
Like, that is not a thing.
There is a Christian.
You may struggle with same-sexattraction, but that is the term
.
Gay Christian does not fit, andso it was awkward, definitely.
But I think stepping into thatawkwardness brings freedom and
that gay Christian actually thenrepented, and not in that
(20:34):
moment but months, maybe evenyears later repented and is now
walking in the faith, which Ireally appreciate that.
But I think that there's a realstruggle there.
When someone says my truth, butI love Jesus, it's as if they're
saying and I know there's a lotof good-hearted or maybe
(20:54):
well-intentioned might be theway to put it well-intentioned
people who really are trying tofollow God.
They just don't know thescripture, they have a lot of
zeal without knowledge, and sothey're like God and I have a
deal because they have some sortof feeling that they sort of
like put towards God becausethey have no other category for
it, as opposed to.
We've said this you know you'vegot God's word, god's spirit
(21:16):
and God's people, and if youhave God's spirit without God's
people or God's word, then youreally don't have God's spirit.
But it's hard to discern thatif you don't have God's people
and God's word.
And so what he might beexperiencing is just his own
flesh reporting on something andin the most well-intentioned
(21:37):
way, I think this—and I've hadpeople be well-intentioned, say
stuff like you know, it's justfinancially responsible for me
to live with my girlfriend.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
And I'm like that is not—it might make sense from a
secular point of view andbecause you haven't—you don't
know the scriptures well enoughand you're zealous to love God
and just give everyone like aspiritual hug, which I
appreciate, but if you don'tknow what the scriptures say
about sin and darkness andsexuality, then you're going to
(22:04):
lead people astray and that canbe dangerous, and for your own
soul one and then for others aswell.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Yeah.
So I think you know you gotta,you gotta speak into it, and I
like some things that come tomind when someone's saying stuff
like my truth, um, you couldyou truth you can bring up.
I think asking questions is agreat way to start.
What do you mean by your truth?
Jesus said I'm the way and thetruth and the life.
So there's not like a bunch ofdifferent truths.
(22:34):
I talked about this in mysermon from Sunday.
There's not competing truths.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Yeah, let's talk about that real quick.
So on Sunday you talked aboutthere's not Jesus versus Paul.
Talk more about what you meanby that.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Yeah, well, in the sermon brought up the idea that
there's people, you know, so,the super apostles, right, the
Corinthians, were kind of Meangirls.
Yeah.
Yeah, we're drawn to them andtheir teaching and, you know,
kind of doubting Paul.
And I was bringing up how, hey,there's people today who think
that you can be a Christian andkind of reject Paul Because a
(23:13):
lot of Paul's stuff is verycountercultural.
What he says about, you know,gender roles and marriage or the
church, what he says abouthomosexuality or the meaning,
like some of these things you'vejust brought up A lot of where
you're going to go for biblicalteaching on, that is the words
of Paul.
So a lot of people today arelike, well, you know, paul is a
chauvinist, he's a man of histimes, we don't have to listen
to him.
And you know what would go tothis idea of like, well, what I
(23:37):
feel like is this and myexperience tells me this about
it and if you start going downthat road, you know where
there's like Paul's truth andJesus's truth and my truth and
it obviously is very subjectiveand you don't have any
foundation to stand on.
Essentially, you're puttingyourself as an authority over
(23:58):
scripture instead of comingunder the authority of scripture
, and so I would go, you know,with this person who's saying,
like my truth is this or that,and so I know that it's right,
that's basically what they'resaying, right, god?
I feel this way.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
I have a special connection to Jesus that I'm—I
always call those people oracles.
You know, like I am an oraclefor God.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Yeah, and the Scripture gives you instructions
about that.
It says test the spirits Right,Cling to what is good or hold
fast to what is good and toreject what is evil.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Right, and I think sometimes again this goes back
to— the way you test is by thescripture.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Right by the scripture.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
So God's word, laid out before God's people, lets
you know if this is a spirit ofGod, spirit of the flesh, or
maybe even of the darkness.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
So anyway, yeah, you have to speak up about that in
particular.
So we got to test this by thescripture.
If there's no such thing asyour truth, if it is true, then
it will.
It's the truth, yeah, it'struth, and it will align with
scripture.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
What do you think that is about?
I think maybe this is probablya cultural reality that is just
ubiquitous.
It is everywhere.
All the time.
People are saying stuff.
You know, you do you and I'lldo me, and let's just not bother
anyone with what.
What is actually right or trueor good?
(25:14):
You know your truth, my truth.
Now can we just be on.
There are some things where youcan have you can wear t-shirt
and shorts or you can wear jeans, that is, you can have your
truth in that, I guess.
But when it comes to thingsgreater and beyond that, then
there is a part where thatfreedom stops and God's truth
(25:36):
and design commands us to get inline, and how.
Let's just you know from you onthe East side in line and how,
let's just you know from you onthe East side, in the heart of
Austin, how have you experiencedthe your truth being a
challenge?
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Yeah, um, I think the mindset of like the Bible is
outdated, archaic, it's, youknow, it's like it's such a
different world.
We live in a modern world today,you know, so a lot of what the
Bible teaches doesn't apply.
(26:11):
Therefore, I'm kind of going todecide for myself and here's
what I've grown up around, andhere's what I've seen, and
here's what I've grown up aroundand here's what I've seen, and
here's what I've seen in thehome, here's what I've seen in
marriage, here's what I've seen,you know, in my mom or my dad,
here's what I've seen in church,here's what I've seen on the
streets, here's what I and I'mgoing to kind of look at all of
that and try to decide formyself what's right, because you
(26:32):
know, the Bible is this oldbook that doesn't really apply
to me today and so, yeah, that'sgoing to impact a lot of, I
mean, some of the core thingsabout life Again marriage,
family, parenting, church, allthe you know, basic, fundamental
things about how to have a, youknow, a healthy life.
If you're throwing out what theBible says about all those
(26:54):
things, you're going to end uptotally lost, of course.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Yeah, I think that's the struggle, right, I think
that's the part where people are.
The biblical literacy of ourculture is so low.
So therefore, when someone sayssomething spiritual that sounds
good, you can gravitate towardand go like, hmm, that's a law
of attraction that must be inthe Bible somewhere, and I think
that's a struggle.
Okay, let's move on to thislast question.
(27:17):
Um, hold on, hold on, hold on.
Okay.
It says, uh, just curious abouthow Africa was for everyone.
I prayed for y'all, safe return.
He answered.
Praise him.
Well, I'm so glad you asked.
Uh, I did go with my son, austin, to visit our missionaries in
Northwest Africa and it was veryexciting to go and visit them
(27:39):
and specifically in the citywhere we went there was you know
what I loved about um beingthere?
I went to this one churchservice, um, which had, uh,
sub-saharan Africans and thenAfricans and or North I guess
what's opposite of sub aboveSahara Africans, and it was in
(28:04):
French and it was in English andit was in Spanish and it was
powerful, and we sang, weworshiped and it was just this
really, really sweet, sweet,sweet time.
I really enjoyed that.
The other thing that I sort ofthought was interesting is that
the problems that the Americanchurch faces were the same
problems the church faceseverywhere.
(28:25):
Every church deals withinfighting Every church deals
with.
You know someone said this andthat really offended me and I,
you know like that, the constantsort of like bickering, and you
know like that, the constantsort of like bickering, and you
know, as a, as a person from theoutside looking in and going
like, guys, you're less than 1%of the population.
(28:45):
The mega church is a church of30 people, so, or a church of a
hundred people is like a megachurch, wow, and so we need to
kind of be a little bit more onthe same team here.
Uh, now, granted, listen, arethere things that you, you might
want not to happen in yourchurch?
Yeah, but when you're being,when people are being persecuted
(29:06):
, kicked out of the countrybecause they're proclaiming the
name and the fame of Jesus, andum, there's just so many other
things to argue about.
Uh, or rather, there's so manythings that we need to be on the
same page about and supportingone another and I that was one
of the interesting things I sawwas like a real sense of um, I
(29:27):
don't know battling overterritory when you've got so
many lost people to choose fromright, like that was sort of
interesting, um, and so that wassort of wild.
And then also, like theconservative, um, uh, I guess
progressive thing is still isstill a thing like there's on
the conservative side, if you'renot doing the uh, 1689 london
(29:50):
baptist confession, you're not areal christian, like that kind
of thing was there, and so Idon't know if I want to
fellowship with you, and so thatwas an interesting dynamic that
I was sort of surprised to see.
There was the persecution ofpastors getting called into the
police and you know what are youtalking about at your meetings?
(30:12):
Why are you meeting?
Like that's a real thing, andthat was wild.
And then some of these pastors,with how many languages they
spoke, I was just like I am dumb.
So I was like we are not usingour brains to their potential
because clearly I could knowseveral languages by now and I
(30:32):
don't.
So that was amazing.
My son, austin, enjoyed it inthe sense that he got to
interact with other kids.
Some didn't speak English andthat was a challenge, but he
persevered through it.
He ate fish from the fishmarket Champ all the way through
(30:56):
.
Drew, yeah, he did.
Surprisingly, he used to be thepickiest person on the planet
and that changed him.
So if you have a picky eater,take him to a place where it's
rude to not eat everythingbefore you have him.
Take a culture class from alocal indigenous pastor that
pretty much says if you don'teat the food I'm giving you, you
don't love Jesus.
And then he's pretty much onboard he ate whatever's put
(31:17):
before him and it was powerful.
I thought that was reallyspecial and I really enjoyed it
and it was really cool.
To see business as missionglobally, especially in
countries that are closed, isthe only way that you can get in
and so you've got to be supercreative, and it made me think,
like why are we not usingbusiness as mission in the
(31:38):
United States?
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Business as mission just means you have a job, right
yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
And so you right, that's it right.
So it's like my reason forbeing here is to share Christ,
but I do a non-Christian job tofacilitate my ministering.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
That's like the majority of people everywhere,
though.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Right so.
But I think when you saybusiness as mission, no one
thinks about working in Austin,Texas, at like.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Dell.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
They're like oh yeah, that's nice.
No, no, no, seriously, your jobis to be at Dell to reach the
people at Dell for Christ.
Your job at Google is to reachthe other Google-ites for Christ
.
Your job at Apple is to reachthe other Apple-ites for Christ.
I think if we had that sort ofmentality, I just loved.
The perspective was somissional, it's like that was
(32:27):
their whole life.
And I think the only differencebetween one guy who was a chef
running a restaurant with thepurpose of sharing Christ, and
people here in the United Stateswas, like he just happened to
be in Northwest Africa.
So, like Jeff Mitchell, I think, is a good example.
He's one of our elders and heruns his business here in the
(32:48):
United States.
He, like, sends an email out toprospective clients, says I,
just so you know, this is, onepurpose of my life is to share
Jesus.
So I'm going to share Jesuswith you in this email.
Whether you believe it or not,I want to do the best job
possible.
I want to honor Christ, I wantto glorify the Lord, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah.
And God has blessed that, andso I'm like man.
It'd be really cool.
Now, granted, are there peoplethat would probably abuse that
(33:11):
and be like I'm a Christian,don't act like a Christian and
they cheat people and all thethings.
That would not be good.
So, if you're not, I guess havea good character.
Don't do that.
If you're like, yeah, mycharacter's suspect I probably
shouldn't represent Christanywhere, then you probably
should change.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Anyway.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
I feel like, but that I just love that.
I love the, just the.
I'm here as a chef, but I'mhere as a follower of Christ to
try and lead as many NorthwestAfricans to Christ as possible.
Yeah, I think that's what everysingle Christian should be like,
like I'm here working at Googleand I'm here to lead as many
(33:49):
Austinites to Christ as possible.
That would be motivating to me.
Yeah, and I just saw that andI'm going to have a phone call
with one of the guys.
Talk about missiology, which Ilove, that nice, um, and one of
the things that was brought up,and this is it's fascinating.
Uh, because I flipped this backup on them and, uh, they go
listen, I don't want to beinvolved in the indigenous
(34:10):
church, I just want to supportthe indigenous church and I need
to be above or not above, Ineed to be outside of it and
said it'd be really weird for meto be here and say, like,
because if you were saying like,should I not have the people
that are in my community at mychurch?
Should I just only minister tocertain people, or should I make
the gospel available to all?
(34:31):
Like, would it be weird for meto say like, hey, there should
be no of that kind of people atmy church or those kinds of
people excluded, or they need togo get their own church.
You would never say that itmight work better, but you would
never say that I blew his mindin one moment with that one,
because the challenge for himwas I don't want to ruin the
(34:53):
indigenous church by my presence.
I want to bless it and help itflourish and coach them.
And I was like my challenge waswould you ever say that in the
United States, amongst anything,wouldn't you want to be a part
of the indigenous group that youwere with and then therefore
you'd be the indigenous onebecause it's all part Anyway.
So we went through that.
(35:13):
That was an interestingconversation that we'll probably
talk more on.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Anyway, anyway, that's what I got.
Any other thoughts?
Well, I thought of like, uh,you know, paul leaving uh titus
in crete and telling him toappoint elders in every town,
and you know that, the idea ofCrete being a very different
kind of culture and different,um, yeah, environment, um for
ministry, and saying, all right,titus, it's not that I want you
(35:47):
to be the pastor over all ofCrete, I want you to raise up
leaders from this community.
You know who can be godly mento lead these churches.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Um, so I think there's, yeah, and I think that
was his intent but I think thereality for him was like he
would just remove himself fromany of the church experience.
I was like that.
That seems to be antitheticalto like the whole point.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, anyway, yeah,I got especially when you speak
the language and right, you'rein the culture of the indigenous
people.
Like you, you can fit in.
(36:16):
I'm not saying everyone needsto be quite Hudson Taylor, but
like I think there's a reality,like you could fit in with a
culture enough and people willaccept you as one of them.
Uh at least you know.
That's assimilation, right?
I think that's the primarything of like in America, one of
the things that we want to dois see people from foreign
countries come and assimilate tobe an American, not just like
(36:38):
take their whatever and bringthat culture here and say like,
no, I'm going to stick it to youguys and you're going to I'm
not saying that you can't dothat, but, like the, the way of
assimilation is that we sort oflike become one and I said when
you, when you don't do that inthe context that you're in, then
you're sort of refusing thatculture and you're not bringing
maybe a Christ culture into thatspecific indigenous culture.
(37:01):
Anyway, it was, it was, it wasa.
It was a great conversationthat I want to process more with
him.
Yeah, for sure, excited forthat.
Hey, thanks so much forwatching.
We would love to talk with you.
Faith, culture, everything inbetween, from our house to yours
.
Have an awesome week.
And welcome back to Pastor Plek's podcast.
I'm your host, pastor Plek.
Joining me in studio is noneother than Holland Gregg.
He is the lead pastor ofEastside Community Church down
the east side.
I'm so grateful for Holland andhis service and we're talking
some questions.
We're going to get caught upLots of catching up today.
(00:24):
There are so many questionsover the past several weeks that
have been brought to myattention that we have not been
able to address because I havebeen in Northwest Africa
visiting our missionary, whoshan't be named because we
cannot name him or her becauseof the clandestine operations
(00:44):
that are going on in that partof the world.
But what I can tell you is thequestion that first came up Are
you?
Speaker 2 (00:51):
ready, ready when you are.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Holando.
It says what is the song RestOn Us talking about?
What does it mean to invite thespirit to come rest on us?
Great question what is thatsong?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
The spirit was moving over the water.
Spirit come rest on us.
Great question what is thatsong?
The?
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Spirit was moving over the water.
Spirit, come rest on me.
Come rest on us.
Come rest on us.
Very good.
What does that mean?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Holland.
I'm not really familiar withthis song, but I've heard it
before, but I don't reallyremember what the rest of it's
about.
Only thing that comes to mindfor me from that particular line
is Genesis one, verse two,right when it says that, um, uh,
the spirit of God was hoveringover the waters, the dark,
chaotic waters, um, of the earth, before God formed and shaped
(01:42):
it.
And, and so you know as theidea before God formed and
shaped it, and so you know itwas the idea of God's presence
and that he was about to dosomething and bring order out of
chaos.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yeah, I like to bring order out of chaos.
It's like in my worshipexperience.
I'm like God, I've got all thismangled stuff in my head and
I'm asking for you to rest on me, to bring rest to my soul, to
bring order to my chaos, all ofthat.
So maybe it's like just toexperience God personally, and
(02:18):
then it's also like a posture ofhumility and surrender, meaning
like you're asking the HolySpirit to come upon you and do
his work.
Now you're not saying that youdon't have the Holy Spirit to
begin with, because, as aChristian, you are indwelt by
the Spirit.
But there's two different partsof the Holy Spirit, right or
not?
Two different parts of the HolySpirit, but two different
things the Holy Spirit does.
He indwells believers as adeposit for your guarantee that
(02:42):
God has bought you by Jesus'blood and that you are his.
And then the second is that youare filled up by him and
empowered by the Holy Spirit ofGod to do work of ministry Right
.
And so what I think is going onhere, when you're asking the
Holy Spirit, if you're aChristian, you're asking the
Holy Spirit to rest on you.
You're asking him to empoweryou to go forward and do great
(03:02):
things for Christian ministry.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
I think of things you know.
You're like how can he rest?
Why would I need to ask theSpirit to rest on me if he
already dwells inside?
Speaker 1 (03:15):
of me.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
And I think it's similar to like God, I want to
be in your presence right.
What does that mean, if God'somnipresent?
Aren't you always in hispresence.
But the idea of in his presenceis like a sense of intimacy and
closeness.
So you think of, like James 4.8, draw near to God and he'll
draw near to you.
How do you get nearer tosomeone who is everywhere?
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Right, right.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Unless it's speaking of, in a sense of, like,
relational closeness.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Intimacy.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Intimacy, and so in a similar way, like.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Because you could be sitting next to a person on a
really crowded airplane and bereally close to them, but not
draw near to them.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, yeah, similar to like you know, yeah, sitting
next to someone is differentthan sitting next to them and
looking at them in the eye.
Yeah, and so, like the idea ofGod, like, let your shine, your
like, may his face shine uponyou like the Aaronic blessing,
right?
Um, that means not only is heomnipresent, but he is being
present to you in a manifest, apowerfully manifest kind of way.
(04:15):
I think the same thing is whatI, you know like with the Holy
Spirit is like Paul says hewants to be filled with the Holy
Spirit Right, even though healready is indwelt by the Holy
Spirit.
There's a sense of a type ofmanifestation of the Spirit that
produces spiritual growth orboldness.
(04:35):
You know Acts 4, the believers.
It says that they're filledwith the Holy Spirit and then
begin to proclaim the word ofGod with boldness.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Right and they were already indwelt by the Spirit.
Right Acts, chapter 2.
But they're actually now askingfor a filling.
Yeah, Do not be drunk with wine, but be filled by the Spirit.
And so here you see themactively engaging in drawing
near to God.
He fills them up with the HolySpirit.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Boom, boom, I think the other things.
When Jesus was baptized, theSpirit of God descended, you
know, like a dove, and restedupon him.
And then in Acts, chapter two,pentecost, which is past Sunday,
pentecost, Sunday, woo, woo 50days after Easter.
Yep, the tongues of fire restedupon their heads, right Came and
(05:16):
rested upon, and that was, likeyou know, this empowering
moment of the spirit of Godfilling them.
So I think that language ismeant to point to the idea of a
special filling of the Spirit aswell, as it's not the Spirit
convicting you or confrontingyou.
The idea of rest is like I'myielded to the Spirit, I'm
submitted to the Spirit.
So I don't know.
(05:36):
Those are all the things thatcome to mind, yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I think sometimes with any sort of worship song,
you're going to feel maybe atheological juxtaposition with
the struggle of anthropomorphicthoughts being put onto God,
like you are giving humanattributes to God, whereas if
he's everywhere, does he everactually rest?
You're always going to bewrestling with that, but the
(06:00):
Bible uses language like that,so I think it's okay for us to
use language like that.
And then you're stilltheologically accurate by
drawing near to God, as you said, James 4a.
So yeah, I think that's notalways okay.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Did you sing that song recently, or something?
Speaker 1 (06:17):
I missed one several weeks ago, but when that
question was asked, it's an oldschool song, I think it's like
probably 2013 or something.
You know many moons.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Many moons ago.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Okay.
Next question is, in thecontext of 2 Corinthians, the
reoccurring use of the word, weseems to consistently refer to
Paul and his associates, whileyou refers to the Corinthian
church or y'all, probably right.
If this is the case, why do wecommonly apply verses like 2
(06:54):
Corinthians 4.1?
.
All right, let me see if I canget to 2 Corinthians 4.1.
And 2 Corinthians 5, 19 and 20,as if the we refers to all
believers.
All right, so therefore, thisis 2 Corinthians 4, 1,.
(07:15):
Therefore, having this ministryby the mercy of God, we do not
lose heart, but we haverenounced disgraceful,
underhanded ways.
We refuse to practice cunningor to tamper with God's word,
but by the open statement of thetruth we would commend
ourselves to everyone'sconscience in the sight of God.
Now then, it goes on, and ifour gospel is veiled, it's
(07:37):
veiled only to those who areperishing In their case.
The God of this world hasblinded the minds of the
unbelievers to keep them fromseeing the light of the gospel
of the glory of Christ.
Who blinded the minds of theunbelievers to keep them from
seeing the light of the gospelglory of Christ, who is the
image of God, for what weproclaim is not ourselves, but
Jesus Christ as Lord, withourselves as your servants, for
(07:59):
Jesus' sake.
So he's saying here why do weapply the we to all Christians
if it seems to be that Paul isjust referring simply here to
Paul and his crew?
That's sending them out?
And in fact there's anotherverse that he wanted us to look
at 519,.
That is, in Christ, god wasreconciling the world to himself
(08:20):
, not counting their trespassesagainst them and entrusting to
us the message of reconciliation.
Therefore, we are ambassadorsfor Christ, god making his
appeal through us.
We implore you, corinthianchurch, on behalf of Christ, be
reconciled to God for our sake.
He made him to be sin, who knewno sin, so that in him we might
become the righteousness of God.
(08:41):
Any thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Yeah, I think it's a really great question.
I love thinking in this way ofthat level of detail of going.
When he says we, who's hereferring to?
And that you know, the idea isthat there may be some things
that are only would only applyto Paul and his.
You know Paul and Timothy areis who he introduces second
(09:05):
Corinthians by right, so thosetwo, maybe perhaps others
included, like Silas orsomething like that.
But I think Paul and Timothyare the ones that second
Corinthians is addressed fromRight, so some things that may
just apply to them, um, and somethings maybe have a broad, like
he does use we in a broadersense, or us, even second
Corinthians five.
(09:27):
He says for our sake.
For our sake, the R is not justPaul and Timothy.
Yeah Right, that would be weird.
So he uses the plural we our torefer to all Christians there.
Similarly, like I have it opento second Corinthians seven
right now.
He says since we have thesepromises beloved, let us cleanse
ourselves from every defilement.
He's including all Christians,right.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
He's not just saying only Paul and my crew have to
cleanse ourselves from all thesedefilements.
It's all y'all, including us.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
So I do.
You know it might take a littlebit of digging in and study to
go okay.
Each time he says we in contextis he talking about just him
and Timothy?
But even there you go.
You know, if he's speaking ofhimself as an apostle, timothy
wasn't an apostle.
Paul was an apostle, right?
So if there's something that'sjust unique to Paul as an
apostle, you would think hewould use, I Right.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
But it is Timothy.
What's that?
But it is Timothy right Is thatSt Corinthians is with Timothy
right.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so if he's saying we, youknow he's not like we, meaning
me and the other apostles he'salready including Timothy, which
is kind of the next generationafter the apostles.
It's Timothy.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Could you say that's church leadership?
Yes, yeah, I think you couldsay so.
It may be like apostles,pastors, evangelists you know,
like teachers shepherds, yeah Uma pest.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, uh huh.
Right, the Ephesians four kindof church office, um, or, or
today we'd say elders anddeacons, or pastors and deacons,
right, um, um, churchleadership.
So yeah, you could say maybehe's just referring to church
leadership there, but I thinkwhere you would go the next step
is consider each individualcase and go okay, which one's he
(11:09):
talking about?
Does this apply to allChristians or just Christian
leaders?
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Right, I feel like what's hard about that?
Like just in 2 Corinthians 5,if you like, so you could say,
only Christian leaders aresupposed to be evangelists.
I guess you could say onlyChristian leaders are supposed
to be evangelists.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Is that like what the question is getting at?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Well, he's referring to this because that is, in
Christ, god was reconciled, theworld to himself, not counting
their trespasses against it andtrusting to us the message of
reconciliation.
So evangelism.
Therefore, we are ambassadorsfor Christ.
The we here.
If it's only Paul and Timothy,that's church leadership, god
making his appeal through us.
We implore you, corinthianchurch, on behalf of Christ, be
(11:48):
reconciled to God.
And then this is where it'sweird.
For our sake, he made him to besin who knew no sin, so that in
him we might become therighteousness of God.
And I'd say, like, if you'relooking at that as that first
person plural possessive andthat first person plural like
(12:09):
noun of we, that's only Paul andTimothy.
That seems to be missing out onthe context.
For our sake, he made him to beno sin.
Who—he made him to be sin whoknew no sin?
Speaker 2 (12:20):
That seems to be a— it's possible, he's going back
and forth between you know,saying we referring to him and
timothy and then us referring toall christians.
That's possible, and also.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
I think it's, it's possible that he's.
He's, when he says y'all to thecorinthians, he's telling
someone to be reconciled to godyeah and some of them were not
christian, and so he's kind ofyou know, we, we do this every
Sunday.
We say, hey, if you don't knowJesus, and we say like there is
no hope, you can't do any of thethings that we've said that
God's calling you to do.
You need to be reconciled toGod, repent from your sins and
(12:51):
trust Jesus.
And then I saw like hey, but ifyou are a person who knows
Jesus now I want you to go andlive out the things we just
talked about.
So it's like the double barrel.
You he's got non-believers andbelievers in mind as he's
talking here, and so they areboth.
You know, because if there wasunbelievers in that church, you
wouldn't need them to bereconciled to God.
(13:12):
And if there's unbelievers inthe church sorry, if there's
believers in the church, theydon't need to be reconciled to
God.
And if there's unbelievers inthe church, then it's not true,
for our sake.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
he made him to be sin , who knew no sin, so in him we
might become the righteousnessof God.
Would that be right?
Yeah, and so I think you canexpand beyond that too and go.
Well, are there other versesthat give similar type of
commands that you know?
Could that are more clearlyapplied to all Christians?
Yeah, um, I, I think even youknow the idea of an ambassador.
(13:48):
Is someone an officialrepresentative, right, right Of
some, the, the idea of beingmade in the image of God is
we're meant to be Imagers, yeah,ambassadors of God, in a sense
sense represent him on the earth.
And then you know we've sinnedand so redeemed in Christ.
(14:09):
You know, the idea of everyChristian being an ambassador
for Christ I think fits withplaces like 1 Peter, 2, 9.
You're a holy nation, a royalpriesthood right.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
So if you're saying everybody is a royal priesthood.
He's saying you all are a royalpriesthood, which means,
therefore, you carry with youthe value you need to go share
this.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah, the ministry.
What was a priest's job?
Right, you represent, you standin between God and people for
reconciliation and prayer andpraise, and so I think you could
cross-reference, look at someother verses about our identity
as Christians.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Right, and I think here's Paul writing to the Roman
church.
Therefore, since we have beenjustified by faith, we have
peace with God through our Lord,jesus Christ.
Through him, we have alsoobtained access by faith into
this grace in which we stand andwe rejoice in hope of the glory
of God.
So I think there's a reality,but he also talks about as he's
writing this.
He'll say hey, send a greetingsto whoever, whoever.
(15:11):
So there are parts that he isspeaking specifically.
Here's something for you only.
But a lot of times Paul goesback and forth with the we, in
the sense that we're allChristians here, and I think in
2 Corinthians 4 and then in 5,he's doing that same thing, and
again he's speaking to anaudience that might not have
(15:34):
some we in it.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
But the goal would be that allof them come to Christ and then
participate in the ministry ofChrist, which is reconciling
people to God in Christ throughthe gospel.
And so I think about Jesus'example too.
And you know they would repent,they would go and tell everyone
(16:03):
, and Jesus would.
Well, he told some people to bequiet more in the Jerusalem,
judea area, but when he was outin the more Gentile area he'd
say go and tell the demoniac guy, a legion, go and tell everyone
what the Lord has done for you.
The Samaritan woman at the well, you know, she goes and tells
the whole town.
So it's like when Jesus changesyour life, it makes sense that
(16:24):
you want to go and tell otherpeople about that, right?
So evangelism is not somethingthat's meant.
It definitely is something thatchurch leaders are called to do
Absolutely, and we bear thebrunt of the responsibility.
But part of what we do is alsothat we teach other people to do
the same thing.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Yeah, it's all about equipping the saints for the
work of ministry.
Yeah, otherwise we're not—ifthe salvation of the world was
dependent upon only churchleaders, then we would—we as
in—this word gets in the way—theChristian leadership would have
to spend a lot less time withthe flock and get out there
(17:01):
reaching the world, because thatwould be our role.
But there's a dual role,obviously, christian leaders are
supposed to be sharing thegospel, but we're also supposed
to be managing the flock, and sothat puts the impetus and onus
of your purpose really iswhatever you do, bring glory to
God, but then also sharingChrist everywhere you can.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Yeah, sharing Christ everywhere you can.
Yeah, I think it's there'swisdom in going.
Okay, paul, paul had a, um, hewas authorized as an apostle,
you know.
And so, um, when the Corinthianchurch, let's say they go and
they do evangelism, lead someoneto Christ, obviously they're
going to want to connect thosepeople to the church that has an
(17:40):
authorized leader, that has a,you know, an elder, a bishop, a
pastor, you know, who can teachthem sound doctrine and disciple
them.
But at the same time, like,yeah, you want evangelism and
discipleship to be happening ona smaller scale too, in organic
relationships and things likethat is basically everyone's
just wanting to submit theirlives to the word and encourage
(18:02):
each other.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Yeah, I think that's good, Okay.
Next question we got some goodones.
We got some good ones here, allright, okay.
I have a young gentleman whooccasionally attends a Tuesday
night men's group.
He is passionate about hisbeliefs.
He claims no God and Jesus.
He often speaks about my truth,his beliefs.
(18:23):
He claims no God and Jesus.
He often speaks about my truth.
He claims that when I think ofsuch and thus, I know that is
God telling me to do thus andsuch.
He bears the fruit of death inabundance.
How do I show love and patienceand speak life into this young
man?
How do I guard my flock fromthe deadly speech that this
young man brings to the group,from the deadly speech that this
young man brings to the group.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Wow, thus and such.
I like that, yeah, yeah, I likethe question.
I just taught on 2 Timothy 2 acouple Sundays ago at ECC.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Where it says the servant of the Lord must not
strive but be gentle unto allmen, apt to teach, patient in
meekness, instructing those thatoppose themselves, um, and you
know, god may grant repentanceto them um to acknowledging the
truth.
And so there there is this callto you do need to correct
(19:21):
people, but you need to do itwith patience and meekness and
gentleness.
So you know this is not like afalse teacher where you can be
harsh and sharp and direct.
You know this is a sheep who isstraying and struggling and
needs some gentle correction.
Straying and struggling andneed some gentle correction, uh,
(19:44):
and so I think it's good um tohave that heart and that desire
of like man.
I love what God's doing in thisperson's life, but, um, some
corrections needed.
How do I do it gently?
How do I do it with love?
It's a good question.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Yeah, I think that you're going to have to speak
into that, definitely.
So one time I had someone in mygroup go, hey, I'm a gay
Christian.
And then he went on like thatwas the beginning of his
sentence and I waited until hewas done talking.
I go hey, let me just clarify,there's no such thing as a gay
Christian.
(20:13):
Like, that is not a thing.
There is a Christian.
You may struggle with same-sexattraction, but that is the term
.
Gay Christian does not fit, andso it was awkward, definitely.
But I think stepping into thatawkwardness brings freedom and
that gay Christian actually thenrepented, and not in that
(20:34):
moment but months, maybe evenyears later repented and is now
walking in the faith, which Ireally appreciate that.
But I think that there's a realstruggle there.
When someone says my truth, butI love Jesus, it's as if they're
saying and I know there's a lotof good-hearted or maybe
(20:54):
well-intentioned might be theway to put it well-intentioned
people who really are trying tofollow God.
They just don't know thescripture, they have a lot of
zeal without knowledge, and sothey're like God and I have a
deal because they have some sortof feeling that they sort of
like put towards God becausethey have no other category for
it, as opposed to.
We've said this you know you'vegot God's word, god's spirit
(21:16):
and God's people, and if youhave God's spirit without God's
people or God's word, then youreally don't have God's spirit.
But it's hard to discern thatif you don't have God's people
and God's word.
And so what he might beexperiencing is just his own
flesh reporting on something andin the most well-intentioned
(21:37):
way, I think this—and I've hadpeople be well-intentioned, say
stuff like you know, it's justfinancially responsible for me
to live with my girlfriend.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
And I'm like that is not—it might make sense from a
secular point of view andbecause you haven't—you don't
know the scriptures well enoughand you're zealous to love God
and just give everyone like aspiritual hug, which I
appreciate, but if you don'tknow what the scriptures say
about sin and darkness andsexuality, then you're going to
(22:04):
lead people astray and that canbe dangerous, and for your own
soul one and then for others aswell.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Yeah.
So I think you know you gotta,you gotta speak into it, and I
like some things that come tomind when someone's saying stuff
like my truth, um, you couldyou truth you can bring up.
I think asking questions is agreat way to start.
What do you mean by your truth?
Jesus said I'm the way and thetruth and the life.
So there's not like a bunch ofdifferent truths.
(22:34):
I talked about this in mysermon from Sunday.
There's not competing truths.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Yeah, let's talk about that real quick.
So on Sunday you talked aboutthere's not Jesus versus Paul.
Talk more about what you meanby that.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Yeah, well, in the sermon brought up the idea that
there's people, you know, so,the super apostles, right, the
Corinthians, were kind of Meangirls.
Yeah.
Yeah, we're drawn to them andtheir teaching and, you know,
kind of doubting Paul.
And I was bringing up how, hey,there's people today who think
that you can be a Christian andkind of reject Paul Because a
(23:13):
lot of Paul's stuff is verycountercultural.
What he says about, you know,gender roles and marriage or the
church, what he says abouthomosexuality or the meaning,
like some of these things you'vejust brought up A lot of where
you're going to go for biblicalteaching on, that is the words
of Paul.
So a lot of people today arelike, well, you know, paul is a
chauvinist, he's a man of histimes, we don't have to listen
to him.
And you know what would go tothis idea of like, well, what I
(23:37):
feel like is this and myexperience tells me this about
it and if you start going downthat road, you know where
there's like Paul's truth andJesus's truth and my truth and
it obviously is very subjectiveand you don't have any
foundation to stand on.
Essentially, you're puttingyourself as an authority over
(23:58):
scripture instead of comingunder the authority of scripture
, and so I would go, you know,with this person who's saying,
like my truth is this or that,and so I know that it's right,
that's basically what they'resaying, right, god?
I feel this way.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
I have a special connection to Jesus that I'm—I
always call those people oracles.
You know, like I am an oraclefor God.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Yeah, and the Scripture gives you instructions
about that.
It says test the spirits Right,Cling to what is good or hold
fast to what is good and toreject what is evil.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Right, and I think sometimes again this goes back
to— the way you test is by thescripture.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Right by the scripture.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
So God's word, laid out before God's people, lets
you know if this is a spirit ofGod, spirit of the flesh, or
maybe even of the darkness.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
So anyway, yeah, you have to speak up about that in
particular.
So we got to test this by thescripture.
If there's no such thing asyour truth, if it is true, then
it will.
It's the truth, yeah, it'struth, and it will align with
scripture.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
What do you think that is about?
I think maybe this is probablya cultural reality that is just
ubiquitous.
It is everywhere.
All the time.
People are saying stuff.
You know, you do you and I'lldo me, and let's just not bother
anyone with what.
What is actually right or trueor good?
(25:14):
You know your truth, my truth.
Now can we just be on.
There are some things where youcan have you can wear t-shirt
and shorts or you can wear jeans, that is, you can have your
truth in that, I guess.
But when it comes to thingsgreater and beyond that, then
there is a part where thatfreedom stops and God's truth
(25:36):
and design commands us to get inline, and how.
Let's just you know from you onthe East side in line and how,
let's just you know from you onthe East side, in the heart of
Austin, how have you experiencedthe your truth being a
challenge?
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Yeah, um, I think the mindset of like the Bible is
outdated, archaic, it's, youknow, it's like it's such a
different world.
We live in a modern world today,you know, so a lot of what the
Bible teaches doesn't apply.
(26:11):
Therefore, I'm kind of going todecide for myself and here's
what I've grown up around, andhere's what I've seen, and
here's what I've grown up aroundand here's what I've seen, and
here's what I've seen in thehome, here's what I've seen in
marriage, here's what I've seen,you know, in my mom or my dad,
here's what I've seen in church,here's what I've seen on the
streets, here's what I and I'mgoing to kind of look at all of
that and try to decide formyself what's right, because you
(26:32):
know, the Bible is this oldbook that doesn't really apply
to me today and so, yeah, that'sgoing to impact a lot of, I
mean, some of the core thingsabout life Again marriage,
family, parenting, church, allthe you know, basic, fundamental
things about how to have a, youknow, a healthy life.
If you're throwing out what theBible says about all those
(26:54):
things, you're going to end uptotally lost, of course.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Yeah, I think that's the struggle, right, I think
that's the part where people are.
The biblical literacy of ourculture is so low.
So therefore, when someone sayssomething spiritual that sounds
good, you can gravitate towardand go like, hmm, that's a law
of attraction that must be inthe Bible somewhere, and I think
that's a struggle.
Okay, let's move on to thislast question.
(27:17):
Um, hold on, hold on, hold on.
Okay.
It says, uh, just curious abouthow Africa was for everyone.
I prayed for y'all, safe return.
He answered.
Praise him.
Well, I'm so glad you asked.
Uh, I did go with my son, austin, to visit our missionaries in
Northwest Africa and it was veryexciting to go and visit them
(27:39):
and specifically in the citywhere we went there was you know
what I loved about um beingthere?
I went to this one churchservice, um, which had, uh,
sub-saharan Africans and thenAfricans and or North I guess
what's opposite of sub aboveSahara Africans, and it was in
(28:04):
French and it was in English andit was in Spanish and it was
powerful, and we sang, weworshiped and it was just this
really, really sweet, sweet,sweet time.
I really enjoyed that.
The other thing that I sort ofthought was interesting is that
the problems that the Americanchurch faces were the same
problems the church faceseverywhere.
(28:25):
Every church deals withinfighting Every church deals
with.
You know someone said this andthat really offended me and I,
you know like that, the constantsort of like bickering, and you
know like that, the constantsort of like bickering, and you
know, as a, as a person from theoutside looking in and going
like, guys, you're less than 1%of the population.
(28:45):
The mega church is a church of30 people, so, or a church of a
hundred people is like a megachurch, wow, and so we need to
kind of be a little bit more onthe same team here.
Uh, now, granted, listen, arethere things that you, you might
want not to happen in yourchurch?
Yeah, but when you're being,when people are being persecuted
(29:06):
, kicked out of the countrybecause they're proclaiming the
name and the fame of Jesus, andum, there's just so many other
things to argue about.
Uh, or rather, there's so manythings that we need to be on the
same page about and supportingone another and I that was one
of the interesting things I sawwas like a real sense of um, I
(29:27):
don't know battling overterritory when you've got so
many lost people to choose fromright, like that was sort of
interesting, um, and so that wassort of wild.
And then also, like theconservative, um, uh, I guess
progressive thing is still isstill a thing like there's on
the conservative side, if you'renot doing the uh, 1689 london
(29:50):
baptist confession, you're not areal christian, like that kind
of thing was there, and so Idon't know if I want to
fellowship with you, and so thatwas an interesting dynamic that
I was sort of surprised to see.
There was the persecution ofpastors getting called into the
police and you know what are youtalking about at your meetings?
(30:12):
Why are you meeting?
Like that's a real thing, andthat was wild.
And then some of these pastors,with how many languages they
spoke, I was just like I am dumb.
So I was like we are not usingour brains to their potential
because clearly I could knowseveral languages by now and I
(30:32):
don't.
So that was amazing.
My son, austin, enjoyed it inthe sense that he got to
interact with other kids.
Some didn't speak English andthat was a challenge, but he
persevered through it.
He ate fish from the fishmarket Champ all the way through
(30:56):
.
Drew, yeah, he did.
Surprisingly, he used to be thepickiest person on the planet
and that changed him.
So if you have a picky eater,take him to a place where it's
rude to not eat everythingbefore you have him.
Take a culture class from alocal indigenous pastor that
pretty much says if you don'teat the food I'm giving you, you
don't love Jesus.
And then he's pretty much onboard he ate whatever's put
(31:17):
before him and it was powerful.
I thought that was reallyspecial and I really enjoyed it
and it was really cool.
To see business as missionglobally, especially in
countries that are closed, isthe only way that you can get in
and so you've got to be supercreative, and it made me think,
like why are we not usingbusiness as mission in the
(31:38):
United States?
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Business as mission just means you have a job, right
yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
And so you right, that's it right.
So it's like my reason forbeing here is to share Christ,
but I do a non-Christian job tofacilitate my ministering.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
That's like the majority of people everywhere,
though.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Right so.
But I think when you saybusiness as mission, no one
thinks about working in Austin,Texas, at like.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Dell.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
They're like oh yeah, that's nice.
No, no, no, seriously, your jobis to be at Dell to reach the
people at Dell for Christ.
Your job at Google is to reachthe other Google-ites for Christ
.
Your job at Apple is to reachthe other Apple-ites for Christ.
I think if we had that sort ofmentality, I just loved.
The perspective was somissional, it's like that was
(32:27):
their whole life.
And I think the only differencebetween one guy who was a chef
running a restaurant with thepurpose of sharing Christ, and
people here in the United Stateswas, like he just happened to
be in Northwest Africa.
So, like Jeff Mitchell, I think, is a good example.
He's one of our elders and heruns his business here in the
(32:48):
United States.
He, like, sends an email out toprospective clients, says I,
just so you know, this is, onepurpose of my life is to share
Jesus.
So I'm going to share Jesuswith you in this email.
Whether you believe it or not,I want to do the best job
possible.
I want to honor Christ, I wantto glorify the Lord, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah.
And God has blessed that, andso I'm like man.
It'd be really cool.
Now, granted, are there peoplethat would probably abuse that
(33:11):
and be like I'm a Christian,don't act like a Christian and
they cheat people and all thethings.
That would not be good.
So, if you're not, I guess havea good character.
Don't do that.
If you're like, yeah, mycharacter's suspect I probably
shouldn't represent Christanywhere, then you probably
should change.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Anyway.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
I feel like, but that I just love that.
I love the, just the.
I'm here as a chef, but I'mhere as a follower of Christ to
try and lead as many NorthwestAfricans to Christ as possible.
Yeah, I think that's what everysingle Christian should be like,
like I'm here working at Googleand I'm here to lead as many
(33:49):
Austinites to Christ as possible.
That would be motivating to me.
Yeah, and I just saw that andI'm going to have a phone call
with one of the guys.
Talk about missiology, which Ilove, that nice, um, and one of
the things that was brought up,and this is it's fascinating.
Uh, because I flipped this backup on them and, uh, they go
listen, I don't want to beinvolved in the indigenous
(34:10):
church, I just want to supportthe indigenous church and I need
to be above or not above, Ineed to be outside of it and
said it'd be really weird for meto be here and say, like,
because if you were saying like,should I not have the people
that are in my community at mychurch?
Should I just only minister tocertain people, or should I make
the gospel available to all?
(34:31):
Like, would it be weird for meto say like, hey, there should
be no of that kind of people atmy church or those kinds of
people excluded, or they need togo get their own church.
You would never say that itmight work better, but you would
never say that I blew his mindin one moment with that one,
because the challenge for himwas I don't want to ruin the
(34:53):
indigenous church by my presence.
I want to bless it and help itflourish and coach them.
And I was like my challenge waswould you ever say that in the
United States, amongst anything,wouldn't you want to be a part
of the indigenous group that youwere with and then therefore
you'd be the indigenous onebecause it's all part Anyway.
So we went through that.
(35:13):
That was an interestingconversation that we'll probably
talk more on.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Anyway, anyway, that's what I got.
Any other thoughts?
Well, I thought of like, uh,you know, paul leaving uh titus
in crete and telling him toappoint elders in every town,
and you know that, the idea ofCrete being a very different
kind of culture and different,um, yeah, environment, um for
ministry, and saying, all right,titus, it's not that I want you
(35:47):
to be the pastor over all ofCrete, I want you to raise up
leaders from this community.
You know who can be godly mento lead these churches.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Um, so I think there's, yeah, and I think that
was his intent but I think thereality for him was like he
would just remove himself fromany of the church experience.
I was like that.
That seems to be antitheticalto like the whole point.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, anyway, yeah,I got especially when you speak
the language and right, you'rein the culture of the indigenous
people.
Like you, you can fit in.
(36:16):
I'm not saying everyone needsto be quite Hudson Taylor, but
like I think there's a reality,like you could fit in with a
culture enough and people willaccept you as one of them.
Uh at least you know.
That's assimilation, right?
I think that's the primarything of like in America, one of
the things that we want to dois see people from foreign
countries come and assimilate tobe an American, not just like
(36:38):
take their whatever and bringthat culture here and say like,
no, I'm going to stick it to youguys and you're going to I'm
not saying that you can't dothat, but, like the, the way of
assimilation is that we sort oflike become one and I said when
you, when you don't do that inthe context that you're in, then
you're sort of refusing thatculture and you're not bringing
maybe a Christ culture into thatspecific indigenous culture.
(37:01):
Anyway, it was, it was, it wasa.
It was a great conversationthat I want to process more with
him.
Yeah, for sure, excited forthat.
Hey, thanks so much forwatching.
We would love to talk with you.
Faith, culture, everything inbetween, from our house to yours
.
Have an awesome week.
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