October 23, 2025 • 56 mins
Pastors' Perspective is a one-hour call-in program where listeners can call in and get answers to questions about the Bible, Christianity, family, and life. The program is live Monday through Friday from 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM Pacific. You can call 888-564-6173 to ask your questions.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:16):
Hello and welcome to Pastor's Perspective. I'm your host Brian Perez,
and we are here live in the studio on this Thursday,
the 23rd of October. Give us a call if you've
got a question about the Bible, the Christian faith, just
about anything that's on your mind. We'd love to hear
from you at 888-564-6173-888-564-6173. Hello.
(00:39):
Queen is fast approaching. Next week, we often get calls
about the holiday. Well, we had an in-depth discussion this
past Monday when Char Broderson and Justin Thomas were on,
so you might just want to go look for that episode.
We archived it on Facebook, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify
because we answered a lot of questions about the holiday
on that episode. But, uh, if you have a question,
(01:02):
About anything else, call us up, 888-564-6173. That phone number
is also posted on the bottom of your screen if
you're watching on Facebook, YouTube, or Instagram right now. We've
also got a QR code that you can scan, and
that'll take you right to a page on our website, Kwave.com,
where you can fill out the form and submit your
(01:22):
question online. But the best way to get an answer
is to call in.
At 888-564-6173. Answering your questions today, we've got Pastor Brian
Broderson from Echoes of Mercy.com and Pastor Phil Metzger from Calvary,
San Diego. What's going on, guys? Hey, it's good to
be here. Wasn't expecting to be here, but I am
(01:45):
here and I'm so glad that I am.
Here instead of where I previously was in the hot seat,
they say, but yes, thank God I'm, I'm here with
you in a different kind of a hot seat, kind of,
kind of the warm seat yes it's like a warm seat, yes.
Although sometimes we get questions that make it seem like
(02:05):
we're on the hot seat, yeah, sometimes we can handle
those though. Yeah, those Halloween questions though, that'll put you
in the hot seat right there, you know, those are
all any Halloween question is going to fill because Phil is.
Go ahead, finish the sentence. I know Phil is gonna
(02:26):
take his kid, his grandkids trick or treating, so he's,
I don't have anybody to do that for, so I
just decided that I am no longer answering those kinds
of questions.
You gave up on this. And listen, Brian and I
have a gift for, even if the question's not a
hot seat question, we end up there somehow anyway. So
we're ready. This is true. All right, so there's other
(02:48):
ways you can get your question to us. You can, uh,
send it to us on the pastor's perspective Facebook Messenger,
or you can DM us on the pastor's perspective Instagram.
You can
fax us. You can mail a letter, but I don't know,
so many ways. But the favorite way of ours is
when you call in at 888-564-6173. Christian and West Covina wrote,
(03:10):
I've been a Christian since I was a boy. I
remember the first time I accepted Christ as my Savior
and felt the Holy Spirit for the first time. It
was powerful and real. By the time
I was 15, I had become a worship leader, and
I truly believed I was walking closely with God. But
along the way, I fell into sin and started running
from God for a long time. Recently, I began reading
(03:33):
a book about the Holy Spirit. As I'm on this
journey to truly know the Holy Spirit, I can't help
but wonder if maybe I never really knew Him like
I thought I did.
Here's what's been weighing on my heart, says Christian. When
I was younger, I used to hear that still small
voice of God so clearly. But now, as a man
39 years old, I can't seem to hear it any more.
(03:54):
I'm trying with everything in me to get closer to God,
to chase after His heart, but that voice I once
knew so well feels silent.
It's hard to tell the difference between God's voice and
my own thoughts. So my question is this, how does
the Holy Spirit speak to you? How can I learn
to recognize His voice again? Brian, what do you say
(04:14):
to Christian?
It's not a Halloween question, so I threw it, um.
Well, I think the fact that he's asking this question
is a good indicator that
Whether or not he feels like he has sort of
(04:35):
a crystal clear connection with the Lord, that God is
working in his life, that he's seeking to um
You know, grow, grow again, uh, beyond.
His past experiences and I, I think I'm, I'm assuming that,
(04:56):
you know, his season of kind of
I don't know, walking away from the Lord or however
he would define it, that that's the past and I
would say don't, don't live in condemnation of the past,
just know that the Lord has um accepted you and
you know, you're you're restored to him and just keep
cultivating your spiritual senses by.
(05:22):
staying in God's word regularly and, you know, prayer and
fellowship and and those those things that we do, you,
you know, to cultivate our Christian life. And don't get
so hung up on feeling something.
Um, you know, sometimes we feel things when we read
the Bible or when we worship or when we pray,
(05:45):
we feel close to God or we feel like, uh,
you know, he's really hearing us and you know, other
times we don't feel it. And that's where by faith,
we continue to do it believing that despite my feelings
or lack of feelings that God's word is true.
(06:07):
And so I stand on that and I think, I
think if you just keep doing that.
There will come a time when that sensitivity.
That you're looking to experience again will be there. Phil Metzger.
It's such a great question and the way it was worded,
(06:28):
you know, was so great and um I'm sure there's
probably so many people that, you know, hear it and
go wow, that's that resonates. I was thinking too, to
what you just said, Brian, about the, the reality that
like God is like God is like whether we're hearing
him or not, he's not a silent god. He's a,
he's a communicative god. um, he always has been and he,
(06:49):
he always will be. He, he, he wants to communicate, right?
And so
I think a lot of times for us, you know,
to the question like, well, how do I get back
to that place?
You know, when time goes by and we've kind of
walked away from the Lord or we're just, we just
let life get busy or whatnot, we, we learn to
listen to other voices and, and kind of like forget
(07:12):
how to listen to God. So, as much as, yeah,
I definitely agree like we cannot let like lean on
our feelings or like the fact that God has to
be speaking in some mysterious way, you know, beyond the
word of God, beyond community, beyond fellowship.
But I also think too, I have to like my
part to play in in in listening to the Lord
is a part of that is like just pushing out
(07:33):
the other voices that are always trying to like take control.
We used to have great analogies. In the digital world,
we've lost these great analogies, but in the old analog world,
we used to have those great analogies like, you gotta
tune the radio to the right channel. You remember when
you could like move the dial, you know, it's just like,
you could hear it but not totally, you know, those
of you in the digital world only, you don't know
(07:54):
what I'm talking about. All of you, um, people that do,
you know, or like the bunny ears on the TV.
Do you remember you had to tune the channel, right?
You know, and.
Uh, so did you, yes, do I remember the bunny ears?
remember that? Remember when you had to control for years.
Hold on, half of our audience right now is thinking
bunny ears, real bunnies. What are you guys talking about?
(08:16):
You know, you could hardly ever get it right either. Uh, wait,
what did they call them? They, they called them some
rabbit ears, yeah, they called them rabbit ears, and it
was ears or rabbit ear. That's, yeah, it was an
antenna that you set on top of your television.
Uh, you know, you could, you could move it a
little bit around on the top of your TV and
(08:36):
it was connected to the back of your TV and
these two antennas went up and they were, you know,
picking up the TV waves that you needed and so
if your TV wasn't bringing in a, you know, a
clear picture if it was
You know, it used to get this like black, uh,
look like kind of salt and pepper where everybody was
(08:59):
behind the screen of salt and pepper, and then you'd
have to piddle around with the rabbit ears to get
a clear picture. Yes, that is a thing of
History past and right now people are watching us on
YouTube and Facebook and we look crystal clear, maybe a
little bit fuzzy. Lots of snow, lots of black and white.
(09:19):
Isn't it crazy? I don't want to get totally distracted
from our
From the the question, I think we both have done
a good job answering it, uh, but it is crazy
though how
You
Adapt to your environment as your environment changes and then
(09:39):
once you adapt, it's, it's hard to even imagine functioning
in the previous way, you know, like, I mean, I
honestly asked myself.
How did we survive without not having a phone with us?
You know, how did we go around the world? How
did we do all of these things? How did our kids,
(10:03):
how did I go out as a kid? And, you know,
if I ever wanted to get in touch with my parents, which,
you know, I probably didn't, but had I wanted to,
you know, I would have had to have some change
in my pocket. I would have to find a phone booth.
I would have to know my phone number.
I would have to call and they would have to
(10:25):
be home to answer it. So and you might actually
use a rotary phone in that phone booth, yeah, yeah,
that was before dial tone so all of that and
then today, you know, if you
I, I can speak for myself, and I know this
is true of other people. If I walk out of
my house and suddenly realize I do not have my
phone on me, that is a, it's a mini crisis
(10:47):
for just a few seconds, but it's there. It's a panic.
It's like, oh my gosh, how could I possibly go
out today without my phone? Yeah.
Yeah, yep, this is true. That's so 100%. What does
that mean, uh, in relation to the question, Phil? It
Because you're the one that got me off on this
(11:08):
tangent with your rabbit ear. No, but it's a good
point too, because it's like we, and I again, I'll here,
let me tie it back to the question. Because like,
here we go, like, like we used to survive, like
we did it, we did all those things. We got
places using an old Thomas Rand map or McNally or
whatever it was, like, we, but then when we don't
(11:29):
have those things, we move on and we lose the skills.
And I do think, and here it is, you ready
for the tie in?
If we have moved away from hearing from God for
so long in our lives, we do have to practice
the presence of God, right? That's the old Brother Lawrence book.
We have to like tune out these other voices and
learn to hear from God again. So I did my
best to bring that back, but, um, I'm still caught
(11:50):
on the fact that, yeah, dude, my, my driver's license
is now on my phone. They have that beta now
in California. You can do that.
Yes, you can do that. Oh good, I gotta do that.
I don't take my wallet anywhere now, so if I
don't have my phone, I can't call and nobody, and
I have no proof of anything. So yeah, I was
gonna say now you can leave the house if you
realize you left your wallet at home. It's like, oh well,
(12:13):
at least I have my phone. I mean, you don't
need your wallet. The only, the only problem still.
Is that your battery might run out. So that's, that's
the downside of it, right? Wallets don't do that. Was
your wallet, you know, you could just reach in your
back pocket and pull it out. But you know, there,
there are times when I'm like, I'm rushing to catch
a flight and I've got my boarding pass on my
(12:33):
phone and I've got like 1% of power left, OK,
if I don't get this thing.
Like the iPhone has to be fully charged before I
get on a plane, otherwise I am losing my mind
on that. Yeah, no, 1%. Well, you know, maybe 2%.
I don't know. It's in the rail 10% still. It's
(12:55):
the rail too close for comfort.
All right, Christian, thank you for sending in your question
using the, uh, pastor's perspective page on Kwave.com. 888-564-6173 is
the number to call us today, and, uh, let's go
to the phones now. Here is Steven, who is calling
in from YuaiA listening on FM 107.9 Kwave. Hey, Stephen,
(13:18):
how can we help you today?
Hey, what's up guys? Um, not much.
Thanks for taking my call. So, uh, I've noticed a
lot of Christians use the phrase don't judge, quote unquote, um,
as a way to avoid accountability. I'm not saying everyone
does that, but I definitely think people do. I never do. No,
(13:40):
I'm joking. No, I'm joking.
Uh, when I read scripture, it seems Jesus actually taught
us not to judge, but how to judge, if you will.
In Matthew 7, he says, do not judge, but then
think he adds, first take take the plank out of
your own eye.
Then you'll see clearly to remove the spec from your brothers, um.
(14:01):
And then I think in John 7, he says, he
even says without judge without judgment. So, to get right
into the question, um, how do we, you know, as
Christians keep that balance in the modern church without becoming self-righteous, right? Like,
I'm just over here judging everyone, but also not fearful
of offending someone.
If they're caught in sin as an example, and um,
(14:22):
you know, lovingly correcting them when it when we're called to.
All right, Phil Metzger, how do you do it?
Yeah, because I'm the standard on that, so let me
teach you here, Steven.
No, it's, it's a good question, Steven, and you're right. When, when, um,
when Jesus talked about not judging, it does certainly like
Yeah, I mean the the the idea of to judge,
(14:43):
it just means to like discern or evaluate or condemn.
So it has like so many different like expressions that
you can, some of those are positive, some of those
are negative. And so obviously when Jesus is talking about
not judging, he's talking about you and me not bringing
condemnation upon someone for something that is currently happening that
may not define the rest of their eternity.
(15:04):
Right, it's not our, we don't, we're not the ones
who condemn. We have no right to do that. But
the idea of like of um evaluating or discerning is
biblical and and that and that certainly is biblical as
it relates to your question though, about like, how do
you do that? Like how do you hold somebody accountable
for their sin, that that kind of enters to me
(15:25):
a different realm that is beyond just judgment, right? So
like if I'm talking to somebody and there's something going
on in their life, and then they say, hey, don't
you judge me.
I might wanna find out like, well, what, what do
you mean by judging you? It sounds like you're already
judging yourself, right? Anybody that would say to me, Don't
judge me is already feeling that pressure of conviction. So
(15:45):
I would, I would bring that up to them. I
do think that like, there is a, there is a
place for, um, good, healthy accountability in people's lives, um,
you know, I mean, Jesus is the greatest example of
that of like, you know, if, if to to have
communication and to work these things out, talk it through.
Um, where there's relationship, there can be incredibly hard and
(16:06):
difficult conversations, but the idea of judging in the Bible
has these like, I mean, it can mean discerning or evaluating.
Those are good qualities. On the other hand, when Jesus
says don't do it, he's talking about condemnation. We need
to avoid condemning people. Brian.
Yeah, that's great, Phil. Um, also, you know, Jesus says,
you know, because some, some people want to take that,
(16:27):
you know, don't judge and and meaning like you, you
can't judge anything. Jesus.
I, I think you, you said it, Steven. Um, it's
not that we're not to judge, but we're not to
judge in certain ways, and that's what Phil is talking
about in, in a way that ultimately condemns. But Jesus
said in John, I think chapter 7 maybe, uh, he
(16:49):
says judge righteous judgment. So it's not that we can't judge,
we just need to be careful that we're not judging
unrighteously when we judge.
What do you think, Stephen?
I think that is a fantastic answer. And, uh, I
just think like, in my life, when like I've been, um,
you know, in, in habitual sin or whatnot, I've had
(17:10):
brothers in Christ gently remind me, hey, you shouldn't be
doing this. These are the actions that need to be taken.
It could come off as judging, but it's actually the
loving thing to do for me personally. Yeah, that's good.
Yeah, and, and you know, when, when people are in sin,
there are many times that they're, they're highly defensive because,
(17:33):
you know, they, they already know they're guilty, but they
don't want you to point it out. So it's, it's
a tricky thing and you know, to do that. And
sometimes it's inevitable that you're going to get people upset
just because, you know, it's like the dog that barks
the loudest is the one that got hit. So that's
kind of what happens.
(17:54):
And just the very idea of not like anybody that
would say don't judge me obviously is coming from a
Christian context. I, I, I, I've never heard a non-Christian say,
why are you judging me? That's, that's like Christianese language,
you know, and not, you know, so I think like,
you know, yeah, when do, when I'm when I'm not
doing well, everything feels like judgment. That's the truth.
(18:15):
All right, Steven, thanks for your phone call today on
Pastor's Perspective. 888-564-6173. How about we go to Jessie in Ontario, California,
listening on FM 107.9 as well. Hey, Jessie, how can
we help you today?
Hey guys, how are you guys doing? I hope you're,
you're good. Um, I have a question regarding John 6.
(18:38):
60 through 67, where Jesus speaks of uh
The eating of the flesh and drinking of the blood
and a lot of disciples depart because of the confusion,
I believe. I don't, I don't remember exact, the right
words that it says, but it's kind of around that area,
and I'm a little confused just like the, even the
(19:00):
apostles were. If you could help me out with that clarity,
and I would really appreciate it. So what part is
it that confuses you though?
Well, now we know literally what what he meant about.
The flesh and the blood, but back then, I mean
they didn't even have the Holy Spirit as we do now,
(19:21):
and they didn't have all the clarity that
That a lot of us do not like, we have
people like you guys that can tell us back then
it was just, you know. They didn't even have a
rotary phone back then. I mean, I don't know how
they called in a radio program. Wait, there were no
radios either. Anyway, Pastor Brian, what do you say to Jess? Yeah,
I think, you know, Jesus occasionally will speak very provocatively, intentionally.
(19:48):
He's, he's wanting to accomplish something and here, I think
he's using very provocative language language. Now, of course, like
you said, we, we know, and they would know later
that eating my flesh and drinking my blood was a
reference to the bread in the cup that we celebrate
(20:09):
in communion. That reminds us of the body and the
blood of Jesus.
At the time though, it, it just sounded like cannibalistic,
and that's why some people said, hey, this is too much, we,
we're gonna leave. But Jesus himself clarifies that he's not
speaking literally. When he says these words in, uh, let's
(20:33):
see what verse is it here. Verse 63, he says,
the spirit gives life, the flesh profits nothing.
The words that I speak to you are spirit and life.
So Jesus makes it clear here, I'm talking about something spiritual,
I'm not talking about a literal eating of my flesh
(20:54):
and drinking of my blood.
Now, of course, fast forward in church history, and you
have uh Roman Catholicism that adopts the idea that somehow
the the bread and the cup of communion are literally
being changed into the body and blood of Jesus. Um,
I think Jesus' words here would make it clear that
(21:16):
that is not happening. He's talking about something spiritual. Phil Metzger, uh, Brian,
let me ask you something, and just because I think
it adds or it just to the point that you
were just making here.
We both know, we all know, Jesus could have made
it clear the first time he said it, yes, right,
but then he, like you said, and I, I wanna
(21:37):
go back to that, like where he, he kind of
Creates a provocative moment and then explains it. Why do
you think he does that rather than just say, hey guys,
I'm gonna say something spiritual to you, you know what
I mean? Like I mean, why not just say that? Why, um,
I should have called my question in, but I'm on,
so I got my moment my shot here. I, you know, Phil,
(21:59):
I think that Jesus, you know, we know from many
passages in the Gospels that
Uh, even the disciples themselves were sort of dull of hearing, uh,
so to speak.
They weren't getting the message at times. Um, Jesus says,
beware of the leaven of the, of the Sadducees and
(22:21):
the Pharisees. They're like, oh my gosh, we didn't bring
enough bread. He's upset that we didn't bring enough bread, so,
you know, we see that they're not getting certain things.
And so, of course, if that's the case with the disciples,
that's the case with the multitude even more so.
So I think sometimes what Jesus is doing is he
is actually, he's wanting to make sure.
(22:44):
You know, uh, he's getting people's attention. It would be
like you would do, or maybe I would do, you know,
you get up and you're preaching and all of a
sudden you say something that is just so
Ridiculous. It has nothing to do with the message or anything,
but you just blurt out something and and everybody suddenly
is like, what? And, and you're like, aha, I got
(23:05):
your attention. That's my objective. I think Jesus is doing that.
I think when Jesus says stuff like, um, you know, uh, it's.
If your eye offends you pluck it out. If your
hand offends you, cut it off. Did Jesus really want
anybody to pluck their eye out or cut off their hand? No,
he didn't. He's trying to get them to understand this
is serious business here. You need to really pay attention.
(23:29):
And that's the danger of not drawing closer to Jesus,
because you might read something in scripture or whatever and
just assume, oh, this is what he wants me to do,
or people have done that. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And
that's why, that's why we're all supposed to have communion
with the Father, so that we can draw closer and
just ask, so what did you mean by you want
(23:49):
me to go to this foreign country or whatever, you know,
and that's when we get more details. Uh, Jesse, does
this help you?
Oh, very much. Thank you guys so very much. Awesome.
Thanks for calling in today here on Pastor's Perspective. 888-564-6173
is our number. Let's talk to Greg and Lake Elsinore
(24:09):
listening on FM 107.9 K wave. Hey, Greg, what's going on?
How are you doing? How are you doing? Fine. How
are you? I'm doing all right. Um, my question is, uh, I've,
I've been a, a Christian off and on.
My, for most of my life, I'm 54 right now.
The last 3 years have been the, uh, most difficult years, uh,
(24:35):
health concerns, health issues that I can't, uh, get diagnosed, um,
A divorce, my dog, like, I don't have a place
to live, all these different things. My question though is,
That with all of this, my faith has been really tested. Um,
my heart is extremely, um, because of my, my life
(24:56):
cir circumstances or whatever else.
I've, I've protected my heart and I can't get through.
To a
Broken contrite heart to where I'm, where there's gratitude, where
there's gratefulness, where there's, you know, just, uh, understanding grace.
I, and I feel like I'm just going through the
(25:18):
motions and I don't want to do that. I, I
really want to experience a real relationship with God and,
and have faith and, and, and believe and have real relationships.
And I don't know how to get there.
All right, Brian, start with you.
Well, Greg, you know, there, there are times where we
(25:38):
kind of talked about it a bit earlier already. You know,
there are times when you just, you can only move
forward by faith, meaning that you, you have to move forward.
Regardless of your circumstances. So your circumstances might not change
(26:01):
and your feelings might not necessarily change, but you have
to do the right thing and the right thing is to,
you know, seek God and to keep praying and to
keep trusting, even though the circumstances are not at all.
(26:22):
Um, looking like.
I'm, I'm good with God and God's good with me.
My circumstances kind of seem to be indicating maybe that
I I'm not connected with God and, and God's upset
with me, and I'm still in some sort of sin
or something like that. So, you know, there there are
(26:43):
those times in life where this is where the scripture
is so important to be able to take God at
His word and then just to stand on it, even
though
Nothing around you indicates that what the what the word
is saying is, is actually the case. So, you know,
you think of a biblical example, you think of somebody
(27:04):
like Abraham. So God tells Abraham when he's, uh, old, um,
that he is going to have a child through his
wife Sarah. She is old as well.
And years go by and nothing seems to.
be at all indicating that that is ever going to happen. It,
(27:28):
all the circumstances seem to say the opposite. Abraham's just
getting older and older, so the likelihood that he's gonna
be having a kid, it just seems to be decreasing
as time goes on. But Abraham holds on to the promise.
He still believes it despite everything around him.
And that's, and you know, Abraham is known as the
(27:51):
father of faith, and he's known as the father of
faith because we have these different aspects of his life
where we see him exercising faith. He's believing God, he's
trusting God despite the circumstances that he's in.
Phil, about a minute.
Yeah, I'll be quick then. Um, just to agree with
what Brian's saying there, I, I, I think like, you know,
(28:12):
Romans 12 talks about the renewing of our mind. I
think you might be putting too much emphasis on my
heart needs to, to get there. When the Bible's description
to what you're saying is, have your mind be renewed,
be transformed by God, um, you know, there's good old
fashion like surrender, submission, obedience. These things will move your heart.
(28:32):
If you have a hard heart.
Work more on repentance and forgiveness and submission and surrender
and obedience, and watch your heart change rather than assuming
your heart's got to change, then you could do those things.
Walk in those things and watch your heart change. Greg,
does any of this help you?
Uh, yeah, it's just, uh, it, it, my heart is,
(28:54):
you know, I mean.
I just don't want to have, have God say, you know, I,
I never knew you. You've done these things and, you know,
tried to do this, but my heart, you know, the gratitude,
the gratitude is what moves you to do things. I
hear people that say, yeah, I've been, you know, I
had an encounter with God and I was different for
(29:15):
the rest of my life because of the gratitude. I'm
just not connected to that. Mm.
All right, uh, we'll see if we can offer a
little more advice when we come back from the break
here on Pastor's perspective. If you haven't called in yet,
you still have time. We're gonna be in the studio
for another 30 minutes or so at 888-564-6173. Pastors Brian Broder.
(29:37):
And Phil Metzger answering your questions here on Pastor's Perspective.
We're here every Monday through Friday because you've got real
questions and we've got real answers from real pastors live
on the radio weekday afternoons from 3 to 4 Pacific. 888-564-6173.
(30:18):
We're back on Pastor's Perspective. I'm Brian Perez with Pastors
Brian Broderson and Phil Metzger. Luke, we're gonna talk to
you in just a little bit, but first we want
to finish our conversation with Greg. It looks like Greg
hung up, but I think we wanted to, uh, finish up, uh,
after he, you know, said at the end about, uh,
how he often hears people say that they're grateful for
(30:38):
what they're going through and then boom, the heart changes, and,
but Greg says, I'm not at that place yet. How
do I get there?
What would you guys say to him?
Um, I, I'll just say a couple of thoughts there. I, again, I,
I think there's this idea that like he's gonna feel
something that's gonna push him in that direction and make
it all, you know, like all start clicking into place.
(30:58):
All the dominoes are gonna start falling in his direction.
When quite often this is about like, uh, relationship with
Christ doesn't mean like, you just, you know, it all
just clicks. It means like, no, I, I work at this. I,
I'm going to engage my heart. I'm gonna engage my mind.
I'm going to make the necessary steps for
Um, my benefit in relationship with Christ. And so, you know,
(31:21):
I think gratitude is a great example of that. The
assumption that people just feel gratitude and then they walk
in that is, is incorrect. I think that's a choice
that you make. Like, I choose gratitude, and then I
begin to experience that gratitude as I walk in faith
and that's. Yeah, I, I think that's a, I think
that's exactly the case. And I was gonna point to
(31:42):
Abraham again, uh, in the New Testament in the in Romans.
Where, you know, God gives Abraham a promise and it
says that he um, he acts on the promise even
though it's not immediately fulfilled. So he gives glory to God.
(32:03):
Even though the promise is 25 years away and uh
he's just saying, OK, God told me this, so I'm
gonna glory in that, and I think that that's, that's
what we're saying. You don't, you don't wait till you
feel gratitude before you act on gra uh act, you know, thankful.
You just, you know, you just, you just move in,
(32:26):
in that direction.
And for anyone who might have joined us in the
middle of the conversation with Greg, let's just make something clear.
Are we saying that Greg should be thanking God for
his divorce, for his health problems, for, I think he said, uh,
his dog dying or something, or he should he be
thanking God for those things? No, that's not what we're saying.
(32:50):
We're saying that he needs to thank God that despite
these things.
Uh, God is still with him. God is still at work,
God is faithful. These are just things that happen in life.
It's not because God hates him. It's not because he,
you know, maybe even, I don't know, remember if he
(33:12):
said that he was away from the Lord for a
season or what. It, it's not because of that either,
because lots of people go away from the Lord and
this doesn't happen to them. So these are just the
things that happen in life, and he needs to be
thankful that despite these things, God
He is still with him. God loves him and God's
working even when he can't really see it.
(33:34):
There's this false assumption that gratitude should be easy and
that's a false assumption, you know, so like to be
thankful doesn't mean like everything's going good, therefore I am
thankful or if nothing's going good, then I have to
thank God for all the lousy stuff going on. No, no, no,
we work hard at at like really looking at what's
happening in my life and going, OK, yeah, like example, OK,
(33:56):
I'm in I I got divorced, but Lord.
I'm still here, and if I am still here, you
have a purpose for my life. And I have no
clue what that is, and I'm not even gonna pretend
to even know cause I'm not in a great place,
but I know that you like it, it just requires
us to do a little bit more intellectual work in
our own lives, um, of understanding rather than just assuming
(34:17):
I'm just gonna feel something and it's gonna all work out. Um,
gratitude is, is hard work sometimes.
Indeed
Yes, indeed, and you'll never believe what just happened, right?
What just happened is the verse that I wanted to share.
Happens to be in the section of this Bible that
(34:38):
no longer exists because remember I told you about my
Bible that the pages fell out. Well, those were the
pages that fell out. Well then, lo and behold, what's
the reference? I'll look it up in my, it's OK.
I got the gist of it. I don't have the
chapter and verse. So the Romans 4, I don't remember
the exact verse, but ironically, here I'm I'm turning to
(35:00):
my Bible to go to it and it's like.
Oh yes, these are the chapters that are missing from
this particular Bible. Those are some important chapters missing in
that Bible. I know it's like, but most of the
chapters are here, you know, there's only like 4 missing,
so I haven't been able to depart with the Bible.
That's what you get for ordering a Bible from Tamu. Yeah,
(35:22):
so just got to order all your Bibles at the
chapel store of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa. All the pages
are there. All the, you know what? I think I
got this Bible at the chapel store actually.
And the pages were originally in it. They fell out.
Just to make that clear, yes, we don't sell Bibles
with missing pages at the chapel store. All right, 888-564-6173.
Let's talk to Luke and Menefee listening on FM 107.9
(35:46):
K wave. Hi Luke, thanks for calling in today.
Hi there, how can we help you?
Oh, so,
My grandma died.
Hm.
A little while back. Mhm.
And I know.
(36:11):
You still with us, Luke?
Yeah, she's in heaven. Mhm.
Having fun?
OK. But you miss her? Is that what you're
Is that what you're? Yeah, he's sorry, this is his dad.
He's having a little tough time talking about it, but
(36:33):
he's basically, uh, just asking, you know, he knows she's
having fun in heaven, but he wasn't ready for her
to go, and he says, ask if there's anything in
the Bible that, um, it says that can comfort him
or make him feel better while he's here, you know,
thinking about her. Oh man.
Our hearts go out to you, Luke and.
(36:55):
Luke's dad, yeah, Luke that, if you, if you're listening,
you know, that that's really difficult and um I remember
when my um
My children's grandparents died, and particularly my, uh, the grandfather,
and I remember my daughter who was considerably older than you.
(37:16):
I remember how just hearing the news of that just
really broke her heart because she was really, really close
to him.
Um
And that that's always hard. It's, it's never gonna be easy,
but
I, I think though, this is, this is where
Uh, the Bible is so, so wonderful, and Jesus is
(37:39):
so wonderful because what the Bible teaches us that Jesus
did is he conquered death.
So, people who die, they actually go into the best
place you could ever possibly imagine. Actually, it's so good
you can't even imagine it. It's beyond our, our comprehension.
(38:00):
And so I think sometimes it can be helpful to
remember this, even though your
Hurting because you miss your grandma to just remember that
she is in the perfect place. She is in a
place that is like, oh my gosh, you know, this is,
this is the best place imaginable and here's the great,
(38:25):
great news, you'll be with her again someday. And that's
the beauty of what Jesus did. We're death doesn't finish
our relationships.
Our relationships await us on the other side, and they
go on forever in a perfect environment, never to be
(38:45):
disrupted again. So I know that's a lot for to
take in as a 9 year old, but you know,
just just think there's a verse in Psalm 16 and
it says this, it's a description of heaven in a sense.
It says at um speaking about God at your right
hand is um
(39:08):
Uh, joy.
Um,
Pleasures evermore is a different version? Yeah, it's the same,
but the first part is, um, joy.
your right hand is fullness of joy.
And in your presence, this is it, I finally got it,
in your presence is fullness of joy, at your right
(39:32):
hand is pleasure forever.
So, here's Grandma's experience, fullness of joy.
And pleasure.
And that pleasure is only gonna
You know, increase when everybody's there ultimately together, and that's
what the future holds for those who believe in Jesus,
(39:53):
like you do. Luke, what was your favorite thing about
your grandma?
Uh,
The presents?
The presence.
That's a good answer. Like the presents that she would
get for you?
Yeah. Yeah, grandmas are so good at that, aren't they?
(40:17):
My wife, she gets.
My grandchildren lots of presents. Yeah, so we, we totally
get it because she knew how much or you knew
how much she loved you because she knew the kind
of things that
You loved receiving and yeah, that can be tough. Phil,
would you pray for Luke and his family? I would
love to. I want to say too, nobody gets better
(40:37):
gifts than grandma's do, no one. And that's a hard thing, Luke.
So yeah, let me pray for you, buddy. Thank you
for calling and thank you for letting us kind of
share a couple thoughts. And yeah, Father, I just wanna
pray for our buddy Luke right now, and I'm thankful
that he got to um he had a grandma that
that loved him so much.
(40:58):
And I pray Jesus that you would comfort Luke's heart,
that he would remember that he didn't lose his grandma,
he knows where she is. He's just missing his grandma.
And help them to really help them to understand that difference. Lord,
I'm so grateful that the very fact that Luke feels
this pain is a reminder that that's because he was
(41:19):
made for eternity. He was made to be with you
with his grandma. And so Lord, just comfort him, use
the family to bring comfort, comfort the whole family, and um, yeah,
just show Luke a lot of grace in this season
in Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen. Thanks, Luke, for calling in today to Pastor's Perspective.
(41:40):
888-564-6173 to Mike in Rancho Cucamonga. We go now. Thanks
for calling in, Mike. How can we help you today?
Um, hi, how are you guys doing today? Doing well, thanks.
I'm a little, I'm a little sick. I got a,
got a upper respiratory infection, so I'm not feeling too
(42:03):
great right now. But um I kinda wanted to follow
up on, I, I didn't catch his name, but he
was talking about, um, you know, he lost his place
to live, he got a divorce.
And some and his health and, you know, something about
his dog.
Right, that was Greg, yeah. Mhm. Yeah.
(42:24):
Um, so I'm kind of like in that situation like, um,
I've basically been homeless for the last 2 years.
Um, my health is, is not great.
And I was with um
I was with a woman that I'm no longer with now,
(42:46):
and I kind of knew from the beginning that we
were unequally yoked. Like I just, um, the spirit inside
me kind of let me know. And so I tried
to resist her for a while and, you know, she
stayed persistent and I caved and, you know, later on
I learned that she was into like witchcraft and stuff
like that.
(43:07):
And, um, you know, for the 3 years that I
was with her, um,
She would, she would, um, like abuse me, like hit
me and stuff, and, and, um, you know, talk really
bad about me and, uh, kind of, kind of like
Um, you know, like take my masculinity away, and, um,
(43:32):
just not only that, like I, I stayed with her
knowing that that's not what God had for me and,
you know, that's not what God had for her.
And um so what's your main question for us, Mike? Well,
and so I'm just feeling really distant from God and,
you know, from Jesus and
(43:55):
When, like you're in a situation like I'm in.
It's hard to, it's hard to believe and it's hard
to see that he's there with you.
Now, quick question for you, Mike, are you involved with
any church community? Do you have people that you can
talk to, that you can see face to face and
(44:17):
Anything like that? No, I've, I've completely isolated myself. Oh,
you've isolated yourself.
Yes. OK.
Um, and that's a question that I didn't get to
ask Greg before the line dropped, but it's very important
to be in community with people. Phil, what would you
say to Mike? And we don't know his circumstances of
(44:37):
why he cut himself off or isolated himself from church
or whatever, but what would you say? Yeah, I mean,
you know, Mike, a lot of what you're saying there,
I'm really, I'm, you know, we're sorry for where you're at, um.
Again, like, you know, without sounding, yeah, without knowing kind
of so many like details, the first thing I wanna say, Mike,
and I, and I'm just like more and more convinced
(44:57):
of this, the longer I've been a Christian, and the
longer I've been pastoring is like, community is life saving.
I really mean that. Even when community is lousy, and I'll,
I'll be as transparent as I can. Sometimes, man, being
around other Christians, being around church, it can be frustrating.
People can say things that are just mean, mean spirited, hurtful, wrong,
all that.
But I gotta tell you, overall, man, the, there's so
(45:20):
much value, and this is why the Bible tells us
to be in community, that we're, there's an iron sharpening
iron impact that is, um, spicy sometimes, but so necessary
in our lives. And I think the fact that you're,
you know, even just that little addition there of I'm
isolating myself, buddy, I wanna encourage you, stop isolating yourself.
(45:41):
And the best way to, you know, sometimes we can
isolate even around a bunch of people. I don't think
being around people is like the key. It's about opening
myself up to people who would love me and care
for me and say, I'm not doing well. It's one
thing to call in to us and say, I'm not
doing well, but
Man, we don't have a, a, a, a friendship with you.
We don't have a relationship. We're not in your life,
(46:03):
and you need to encourage you need to invite people
to be a part of your life. Plug into a church.
I'm sure I'm, you know, we're, we, we've got places,
I'm sure wherever you're at that we could recommend to you.
It's so critical. Beyond that, I would just say like
a lot of what you said about where your life
is at, and, you know, you're super honest and transparent,
appreciate that, like, you know, you knew you shouldn't be
(46:24):
with this gal, but then you still kind of went there.
And so I would say like the reason sometimes we
feel distant from God is because we're living in a
way that is distant from God. Like we're, we're, we're
moving ourselves away. God remains so consistent and ready, but
we move ourselves away. And so how do I stop,
(46:44):
you know, being far from God, through repentance, through humility,
through forgiveness. Lord, I need you. Forgive me. I've been
walking away and don't expect to have to feel better
about it.
I, I really want to encourage you on this mic,
and then I'll stop and, and invite Brian to share
share something too.
We have to stop assuming that if we feel something,
(47:04):
then it must have been real. The truth of the
matter is that if you invite Christ back into your heart,
you invite him to once again take residence and to
just rule over you. He will do these things. We
have to believe His word in our lives, not just
how we feel about what is happening. Right.
Yeah, that, that was great, Phil. I don't have much
(47:25):
else to add except I would say, um, based on
the very last thing you're saying, yes, you know, we
have to make a commitment and, and stick with it.
That this is the thing, you know, what happens is
people get in trouble and then they're like, oh, I
need Jesus to help me, Lord, help me, and then
things kind of, you know, improve a little bit. OK, Lord,
(47:47):
thank you. Um, I'm kind of take the wheel myself again,
you know, this, this happens over and over again. So,
It, it's really a matter of just saying, Lord, I'm,
I'm really giving you control of my life, which means
I'm going to do things your way instead of mine.
I'm not gonna get into a relationship with somebody who
doesn't know you. I'm not gonna involve myself in things
(48:09):
that you declared in scripture that I'm not to be
part of. I am going to put myself in the the.
Community of believers. I am going to read the Bible
and as I read it and think about it, I'm
going to believe that God, you are doing a renewing
(48:32):
work in me, um, and you have to keep doing it. That's,
that's it. You just have to say this is what
I'm gonna do the rest of my life and know
that God wants you to do that and know that
it'll help you to do it, so you just commit
to do it and you start doing it, and it
might take 30 days to see a change. It might
take
A year, but you just keep doing it.
(48:52):
So people might be thinking, well, it's because Mike was
with this woman who was practicing witchcraft and everything, so
God must have put a spell on him, or this woman, not,
not that God put spells on him. I mean, you know,
this woman witchcraft. Let's get this straight. Yeah, let's get
this straight. Can we edit that? Oh wait, it's live. Um,
but you know, people saying that she must have put
(49:13):
this spell on him and that's why he's in the
situation that he's in and, uh, what would, how would
you answer that?
I, I would say don't worry about that. I mean,
you know, if she did or didn't is not the point,
that you have the power, whatever.
Happened, you have the power to move beyond it by
just submitting to Jesus and doing what he says. So
it's not like, OK, I want to follow Jesus now,
(49:36):
but there's this curse on me, so I can't do
it because the devil's holding me back. No, the devil's
not holding you back. You make the decision, you move
forward and don't worry about what the devil has done
or not done. Yeah.
Mike, thanks for your phone call today on Pastor's Perspective,
and everybody watching and listening. Remember to keep Mike in
your prayers. Also Greg, who we spoke with earlier and Luke,
(49:57):
and we've had so many good calls today. So if
you missed any portion of the program, go back and
listen to the archives and, uh, keep our fellow listeners
and viewers in your prayers. 888-564-6173. Cassandra calling from YaiA.
What's your question for us today on Pastor's perspective?
Hi, um, so I'm calling because I just read Matthew 27:25, and, uh,
(50:24):
in that, it says, and all the people answered and
said his blood be on us and our children. Are those,
are those Israel people that said that and
I was wondering if, like, I know that in it
talks about wars with Israel, but I was just curious, like,
I wonder if that's why they have so many wars
(50:45):
also if they are the people that said this because they,
you know, wanted or they said, you know, blood beyond
us and our children. Hm. What would you say, Brian?
Yeah, I do, I do think that there is a connection. Yes,
I think that this is a, um, you know, so
these are the leaders of the nation, they're speaking, you know,
(51:06):
for the nation, they're speaking for the people and this
is the general sentiment of the people. Of course there's
uh a remnant of people that are following Jesus and
will come to believe in Jesus, but the vast majority
of the nation continues to reject Jesus. And so as
the spokespersons for the nation.
(51:26):
They are basically saying, you know, right before that, they
said we have no king but Caesar.
So they're, they're announcing their allegiance not to Yahweh and
his Messiah, but they're announcing their allegiance to Caesar, and
then they're saying his his blood be upon our head
(51:46):
and our children. So they're kind of just calling down.
A judgment upon themselves that I do think if you
look at the history that followed these events that you
would have to say that these are manifestations of the
(52:07):
judgment that they brought upon themselves to some, to some degree,
not to excuse the, the human instruments that were involved
in the various persecutions and things like that.
And not to say that somehow they weren't wrong because,
you know, God cursed them so you couldn't, uh, that's
just the way it went. It it doesn't alleviate any
(52:28):
human responsibility. It's just the fact that they took themselves
out from under the protective care of God and out
from the covenant relationship with him. What do you think
of that answer, Cassandra?
Um, uh, when I was reading it, I text my
husband immediately and I was like, oh my gosh, I
don't know if I'm reading this correctly. I should probably ask,
(52:49):
you know, for some guidance because I just thought my
mind was blown like, oh wow, I never, when I
read it prior, I never got that connection. Hm, Phil,
anything to add? No, just good job, great reading, way
to pay attention.
Yeah, awesome. Thanks for calling in today to Pastor's Perspective
at 888-564-6173. I think we got time for one more call. Robert, quick,
(53:12):
what's your question?
Speaker 2 (53:14):
First question, number one, there's 6 days of creation and
which ended with, you know, the evening in the morning
was the 6th day, for example. But the 7th day,
the day of rest, he never says in the evening
and the morning were the 7th day. what does that
do to young earth theory, and how long was the
7th day and how long is the day of the Lord?
Speaker 1 (53:35):
All right, Phil, 45 seconds.
Sure, no problem. OK, I'll give you a minute. No,
I'm just kidding. Well, you know, obviously not gonna get
much in on that, but they, we have to draw
the assumption that as the days are going and it's
being defined this day, this day, this day, this day,
there's zero reason to assume the 7th day wasn't exactly
the same amount of time. There's no reason to assume
(53:56):
that day was unique from all the other days, even
though it says that he rested, there's no reason to
believe it was anything but a normal day, just like
all the other 6 days. Brian, what would you add?
Uh yeah, I would just say the 6 days are
specific days of creation, so he's, you know, evening in
the morning.
Each of these days, the the at the end of
(54:18):
the 6th day.
The creation is finished. So the 7th day, there's no
need to add an evening and a morning because there's
not another day of creation that is being chronicled there.
All right, Robert, thank you for your phone call today
here on Pastor's Perspective, and we've just about run out
of time, but we will be back tomorrow. God bless
(54:39):
you guys. Thanks so much for listening and watching. As
I said earlier, we're gonna archive today's episode on Facebook, YouTube,
Apple Podcasts, and Spotify if you want to listen to
it again or share it with your friends, or if
you have run out of things to pray about and
pray for, you can listen to the program and, uh,
For our listeners who called in today with some really
just hurting situations that they are in. And if you've
(55:02):
got a question for us, first of all, sorry if
we couldn't answer it on today's program, but we will
be back tomorrow between 3 and 4 p.m. Pacific time.
So write down your question so that you don't forget
it and then call in Manana. For Pastors Brian Broderson
and Phil Metzger, I'm Brian Perez, and Pastor's Perspective will
be back tomorrow. We'll talk to you then.
Hello and welcome to Pastor's Perspective. I'm your host Brian Perez,
and we are here live in the studio on this Thursday,
the 23rd of October. Give us a call if you've
got a question about the Bible, the Christian faith, just
about anything that's on your mind. We'd love to hear
from you at 888-564-6173-888-564-6173. Hello.
(00:39):
Queen is fast approaching. Next week, we often get calls
about the holiday. Well, we had an in-depth discussion this
past Monday when Char Broderson and Justin Thomas were on,
so you might just want to go look for that episode.
We archived it on Facebook, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify
because we answered a lot of questions about the holiday
on that episode. But, uh, if you have a question,
(01:02):
About anything else, call us up, 888-564-6173. That phone number
is also posted on the bottom of your screen if
you're watching on Facebook, YouTube, or Instagram right now. We've
also got a QR code that you can scan, and
that'll take you right to a page on our website, Kwave.com,
where you can fill out the form and submit your
(01:22):
question online. But the best way to get an answer
is to call in.
At 888-564-6173. Answering your questions today, we've got Pastor Brian
Broderson from Echoes of Mercy.com and Pastor Phil Metzger from Calvary,
San Diego. What's going on, guys? Hey, it's good to
be here. Wasn't expecting to be here, but I am
(01:45):
here and I'm so glad that I am.
Here instead of where I previously was in the hot seat,
they say, but yes, thank God I'm, I'm here with
you in a different kind of a hot seat, kind of,
kind of the warm seat yes it's like a warm seat, yes.
Although sometimes we get questions that make it seem like
(02:05):
we're on the hot seat, yeah, sometimes we can handle
those though. Yeah, those Halloween questions though, that'll put you
in the hot seat right there, you know, those are
all any Halloween question is going to fill because Phil is.
Go ahead, finish the sentence. I know Phil is gonna
(02:26):
take his kid, his grandkids trick or treating, so he's,
I don't have anybody to do that for, so I
just decided that I am no longer answering those kinds
of questions.
You gave up on this. And listen, Brian and I
have a gift for, even if the question's not a
hot seat question, we end up there somehow anyway. So
we're ready. This is true. All right, so there's other
(02:48):
ways you can get your question to us. You can, uh,
send it to us on the pastor's perspective Facebook Messenger,
or you can DM us on the pastor's perspective Instagram.
You can
fax us. You can mail a letter, but I don't know,
so many ways. But the favorite way of ours is
when you call in at 888-564-6173. Christian and West Covina wrote,
(03:10):
I've been a Christian since I was a boy. I
remember the first time I accepted Christ as my Savior
and felt the Holy Spirit for the first time. It
was powerful and real. By the time
I was 15, I had become a worship leader, and
I truly believed I was walking closely with God. But
along the way, I fell into sin and started running
from God for a long time. Recently, I began reading
(03:33):
a book about the Holy Spirit. As I'm on this
journey to truly know the Holy Spirit, I can't help
but wonder if maybe I never really knew Him like
I thought I did.
Here's what's been weighing on my heart, says Christian. When
I was younger, I used to hear that still small
voice of God so clearly. But now, as a man
39 years old, I can't seem to hear it any more.
(03:54):
I'm trying with everything in me to get closer to God,
to chase after His heart, but that voice I once
knew so well feels silent.
It's hard to tell the difference between God's voice and
my own thoughts. So my question is this, how does
the Holy Spirit speak to you? How can I learn
to recognize His voice again? Brian, what do you say
(04:14):
to Christian?
It's not a Halloween question, so I threw it, um.
Well, I think the fact that he's asking this question
is a good indicator that
Whether or not he feels like he has sort of
(04:35):
a crystal clear connection with the Lord, that God is
working in his life, that he's seeking to um
You know, grow, grow again, uh, beyond.
His past experiences and I, I think I'm, I'm assuming that,
(04:56):
you know, his season of kind of
I don't know, walking away from the Lord or however
he would define it, that that's the past and I
would say don't, don't live in condemnation of the past,
just know that the Lord has um accepted you and
you know, you're you're restored to him and just keep
cultivating your spiritual senses by.
(05:22):
staying in God's word regularly and, you know, prayer and
fellowship and and those those things that we do, you,
you know, to cultivate our Christian life. And don't get
so hung up on feeling something.
Um, you know, sometimes we feel things when we read
the Bible or when we worship or when we pray,
(05:45):
we feel close to God or we feel like, uh,
you know, he's really hearing us and you know, other
times we don't feel it. And that's where by faith,
we continue to do it believing that despite my feelings
or lack of feelings that God's word is true.
(06:07):
And so I stand on that and I think, I
think if you just keep doing that.
There will come a time when that sensitivity.
That you're looking to experience again will be there. Phil Metzger.
It's such a great question and the way it was worded,
(06:28):
you know, was so great and um I'm sure there's
probably so many people that, you know, hear it and
go wow, that's that resonates. I was thinking too, to
what you just said, Brian, about the, the reality that
like God is like God is like whether we're hearing
him or not, he's not a silent god. He's a,
he's a communicative god. um, he always has been and he,
(06:49):
he always will be. He, he, he wants to communicate, right?
And so
I think a lot of times for us, you know,
to the question like, well, how do I get back
to that place?
You know, when time goes by and we've kind of
walked away from the Lord or we're just, we just
let life get busy or whatnot, we, we learn to
listen to other voices and, and kind of like forget
(07:12):
how to listen to God. So, as much as, yeah,
I definitely agree like we cannot let like lean on
our feelings or like the fact that God has to
be speaking in some mysterious way, you know, beyond the
word of God, beyond community, beyond fellowship.
But I also think too, I have to like my
part to play in in in listening to the Lord
is a part of that is like just pushing out
(07:33):
the other voices that are always trying to like take control.
We used to have great analogies. In the digital world,
we've lost these great analogies, but in the old analog world,
we used to have those great analogies like, you gotta
tune the radio to the right channel. You remember when
you could like move the dial, you know, it's just like,
you could hear it but not totally, you know, those
of you in the digital world only, you don't know
(07:54):
what I'm talking about. All of you, um, people that do,
you know, or like the bunny ears on the TV.
Do you remember you had to tune the channel, right?
You know, and.
Uh, so did you, yes, do I remember the bunny ears?
remember that? Remember when you had to control for years.
Hold on, half of our audience right now is thinking
bunny ears, real bunnies. What are you guys talking about?
(08:16):
You know, you could hardly ever get it right either. Uh, wait,
what did they call them? They, they called them some
rabbit ears, yeah, they called them rabbit ears, and it
was ears or rabbit ear. That's, yeah, it was an
antenna that you set on top of your television.
Uh, you know, you could, you could move it a
little bit around on the top of your TV and
(08:36):
it was connected to the back of your TV and
these two antennas went up and they were, you know,
picking up the TV waves that you needed and so
if your TV wasn't bringing in a, you know, a
clear picture if it was
You know, it used to get this like black, uh,
look like kind of salt and pepper where everybody was
(08:59):
behind the screen of salt and pepper, and then you'd
have to piddle around with the rabbit ears to get
a clear picture. Yes, that is a thing of
History past and right now people are watching us on
YouTube and Facebook and we look crystal clear, maybe a
little bit fuzzy. Lots of snow, lots of black and white.
(09:19):
Isn't it crazy? I don't want to get totally distracted
from our
From the the question, I think we both have done
a good job answering it, uh, but it is crazy
though how
You
Adapt to your environment as your environment changes and then
(09:39):
once you adapt, it's, it's hard to even imagine functioning
in the previous way, you know, like, I mean, I
honestly asked myself.
How did we survive without not having a phone with us?
You know, how did we go around the world? How
did we do all of these things? How did our kids,
(10:03):
how did I go out as a kid? And, you know,
if I ever wanted to get in touch with my parents, which,
you know, I probably didn't, but had I wanted to,
you know, I would have had to have some change
in my pocket. I would have to find a phone booth.
I would have to know my phone number.
I would have to call and they would have to
(10:25):
be home to answer it. So and you might actually
use a rotary phone in that phone booth, yeah, yeah,
that was before dial tone so all of that and
then today, you know, if you
I, I can speak for myself, and I know this
is true of other people. If I walk out of
my house and suddenly realize I do not have my
phone on me, that is a, it's a mini crisis
(10:47):
for just a few seconds, but it's there. It's a panic.
It's like, oh my gosh, how could I possibly go
out today without my phone? Yeah.
Yeah, yep, this is true. That's so 100%. What does
that mean, uh, in relation to the question, Phil? It
Because you're the one that got me off on this
(11:08):
tangent with your rabbit ear. No, but it's a good
point too, because it's like we, and I again, I'll here,
let me tie it back to the question. Because like,
here we go, like, like we used to survive, like
we did it, we did all those things. We got
places using an old Thomas Rand map or McNally or
whatever it was, like, we, but then when we don't
(11:29):
have those things, we move on and we lose the skills.
And I do think, and here it is, you ready
for the tie in?
If we have moved away from hearing from God for
so long in our lives, we do have to practice
the presence of God, right? That's the old Brother Lawrence book.
We have to like tune out these other voices and
learn to hear from God again. So I did my
best to bring that back, but, um, I'm still caught
(11:50):
on the fact that, yeah, dude, my, my driver's license
is now on my phone. They have that beta now
in California. You can do that.
Yes, you can do that. Oh good, I gotta do that.
I don't take my wallet anywhere now, so if I
don't have my phone, I can't call and nobody, and
I have no proof of anything. So yeah, I was
gonna say now you can leave the house if you
realize you left your wallet at home. It's like, oh well,
(12:13):
at least I have my phone. I mean, you don't
need your wallet. The only, the only problem still.
Is that your battery might run out. So that's, that's
the downside of it, right? Wallets don't do that. Was
your wallet, you know, you could just reach in your
back pocket and pull it out. But you know, there,
there are times when I'm like, I'm rushing to catch
a flight and I've got my boarding pass on my
(12:33):
phone and I've got like 1% of power left, OK,
if I don't get this thing.
Like the iPhone has to be fully charged before I
get on a plane, otherwise I am losing my mind
on that. Yeah, no, 1%. Well, you know, maybe 2%.
I don't know. It's in the rail 10% still. It's
(12:55):
the rail too close for comfort.
All right, Christian, thank you for sending in your question
using the, uh, pastor's perspective page on Kwave.com. 888-564-6173 is
the number to call us today, and, uh, let's go
to the phones now. Here is Steven, who is calling
in from YuaiA listening on FM 107.9 Kwave. Hey, Stephen,
(13:18):
how can we help you today?
Hey, what's up guys? Um, not much.
Thanks for taking my call. So, uh, I've noticed a
lot of Christians use the phrase don't judge, quote unquote, um,
as a way to avoid accountability. I'm not saying everyone
does that, but I definitely think people do. I never do. No,
(13:40):
I'm joking. No, I'm joking.
Uh, when I read scripture, it seems Jesus actually taught
us not to judge, but how to judge, if you will.
In Matthew 7, he says, do not judge, but then
think he adds, first take take the plank out of
your own eye.
Then you'll see clearly to remove the spec from your brothers, um.
(14:01):
And then I think in John 7, he says, he
even says without judge without judgment. So, to get right
into the question, um, how do we, you know, as
Christians keep that balance in the modern church without becoming self-righteous, right? Like,
I'm just over here judging everyone, but also not fearful
of offending someone.
If they're caught in sin as an example, and um,
(14:22):
you know, lovingly correcting them when it when we're called to.
All right, Phil Metzger, how do you do it?
Yeah, because I'm the standard on that, so let me
teach you here, Steven.
No, it's, it's a good question, Steven, and you're right. When, when, um,
when Jesus talked about not judging, it does certainly like
Yeah, I mean the the the idea of to judge,
(14:43):
it just means to like discern or evaluate or condemn.
So it has like so many different like expressions that
you can, some of those are positive, some of those
are negative. And so obviously when Jesus is talking about
not judging, he's talking about you and me not bringing
condemnation upon someone for something that is currently happening that
may not define the rest of their eternity.
(15:04):
Right, it's not our, we don't, we're not the ones
who condemn. We have no right to do that. But
the idea of like of um evaluating or discerning is
biblical and and that and that certainly is biblical as
it relates to your question though, about like, how do
you do that? Like how do you hold somebody accountable
for their sin, that that kind of enters to me
(15:25):
a different realm that is beyond just judgment, right? So
like if I'm talking to somebody and there's something going
on in their life, and then they say, hey, don't
you judge me.
I might wanna find out like, well, what, what do
you mean by judging you? It sounds like you're already
judging yourself, right? Anybody that would say to me, Don't
judge me is already feeling that pressure of conviction. So
(15:45):
I would, I would bring that up to them. I
do think that like, there is a, there is a
place for, um, good, healthy accountability in people's lives, um,
you know, I mean, Jesus is the greatest example of
that of like, you know, if, if to to have
communication and to work these things out, talk it through.
Um, where there's relationship, there can be incredibly hard and
(16:06):
difficult conversations, but the idea of judging in the Bible
has these like, I mean, it can mean discerning or evaluating.
Those are good qualities. On the other hand, when Jesus
says don't do it, he's talking about condemnation. We need
to avoid condemning people. Brian.
Yeah, that's great, Phil. Um, also, you know, Jesus says,
you know, because some, some people want to take that,
(16:27):
you know, don't judge and and meaning like you, you
can't judge anything. Jesus.
I, I think you, you said it, Steven. Um, it's
not that we're not to judge, but we're not to
judge in certain ways, and that's what Phil is talking
about in, in a way that ultimately condemns. But Jesus
said in John, I think chapter 7 maybe, uh, he
(16:49):
says judge righteous judgment. So it's not that we can't judge,
we just need to be careful that we're not judging
unrighteously when we judge.
What do you think, Stephen?
I think that is a fantastic answer. And, uh, I
just think like, in my life, when like I've been, um,
you know, in, in habitual sin or whatnot, I've had
(17:10):
brothers in Christ gently remind me, hey, you shouldn't be
doing this. These are the actions that need to be taken.
It could come off as judging, but it's actually the
loving thing to do for me personally. Yeah, that's good.
Yeah, and, and you know, when, when people are in sin,
there are many times that they're, they're highly defensive because,
(17:33):
you know, they, they already know they're guilty, but they
don't want you to point it out. So it's, it's
a tricky thing and you know, to do that. And
sometimes it's inevitable that you're going to get people upset
just because, you know, it's like the dog that barks
the loudest is the one that got hit. So that's
kind of what happens.
(17:54):
And just the very idea of not like anybody that
would say don't judge me obviously is coming from a
Christian context. I, I, I, I've never heard a non-Christian say,
why are you judging me? That's, that's like Christianese language,
you know, and not, you know, so I think like,
you know, yeah, when do, when I'm when I'm not
doing well, everything feels like judgment. That's the truth.
(18:15):
All right, Steven, thanks for your phone call today on
Pastor's Perspective. 888-564-6173. How about we go to Jessie in Ontario, California,
listening on FM 107.9 as well. Hey, Jessie, how can
we help you today?
Hey guys, how are you guys doing? I hope you're,
you're good. Um, I have a question regarding John 6.
(18:38):
60 through 67, where Jesus speaks of uh
The eating of the flesh and drinking of the blood
and a lot of disciples depart because of the confusion,
I believe. I don't, I don't remember exact, the right
words that it says, but it's kind of around that area,
and I'm a little confused just like the, even the
(19:00):
apostles were. If you could help me out with that clarity,
and I would really appreciate it. So what part is
it that confuses you though?
Well, now we know literally what what he meant about.
The flesh and the blood, but back then, I mean
they didn't even have the Holy Spirit as we do now,
(19:21):
and they didn't have all the clarity that
That a lot of us do not like, we have
people like you guys that can tell us back then
it was just, you know. They didn't even have a
rotary phone back then. I mean, I don't know how
they called in a radio program. Wait, there were no
radios either. Anyway, Pastor Brian, what do you say to Jess? Yeah,
I think, you know, Jesus occasionally will speak very provocatively, intentionally.
(19:48):
He's, he's wanting to accomplish something and here, I think
he's using very provocative language language. Now, of course, like
you said, we, we know, and they would know later
that eating my flesh and drinking my blood was a
reference to the bread in the cup that we celebrate
(20:09):
in communion. That reminds us of the body and the
blood of Jesus.
At the time though, it, it just sounded like cannibalistic,
and that's why some people said, hey, this is too much, we,
we're gonna leave. But Jesus himself clarifies that he's not
speaking literally. When he says these words in, uh, let's
(20:33):
see what verse is it here. Verse 63, he says,
the spirit gives life, the flesh profits nothing.
The words that I speak to you are spirit and life.
So Jesus makes it clear here, I'm talking about something spiritual,
I'm not talking about a literal eating of my flesh
(20:54):
and drinking of my blood.
Now, of course, fast forward in church history, and you
have uh Roman Catholicism that adopts the idea that somehow
the the bread and the cup of communion are literally
being changed into the body and blood of Jesus. Um,
I think Jesus' words here would make it clear that
(21:16):
that is not happening. He's talking about something spiritual. Phil Metzger, uh, Brian,
let me ask you something, and just because I think
it adds or it just to the point that you
were just making here.
We both know, we all know, Jesus could have made
it clear the first time he said it, yes, right,
but then he, like you said, and I, I wanna
(21:37):
go back to that, like where he, he kind of
Creates a provocative moment and then explains it. Why do
you think he does that rather than just say, hey guys,
I'm gonna say something spiritual to you, you know what
I mean? Like I mean, why not just say that? Why, um,
I should have called my question in, but I'm on,
so I got my moment my shot here. I, you know, Phil,
(21:59):
I think that Jesus, you know, we know from many
passages in the Gospels that
Uh, even the disciples themselves were sort of dull of hearing, uh,
so to speak.
They weren't getting the message at times. Um, Jesus says,
beware of the leaven of the, of the Sadducees and
(22:21):
the Pharisees. They're like, oh my gosh, we didn't bring
enough bread. He's upset that we didn't bring enough bread, so,
you know, we see that they're not getting certain things.
And so, of course, if that's the case with the disciples,
that's the case with the multitude even more so.
So I think sometimes what Jesus is doing is he
is actually, he's wanting to make sure.
(22:44):
You know, uh, he's getting people's attention. It would be
like you would do, or maybe I would do, you know,
you get up and you're preaching and all of a
sudden you say something that is just so
Ridiculous. It has nothing to do with the message or anything,
but you just blurt out something and and everybody suddenly
is like, what? And, and you're like, aha, I got
(23:05):
your attention. That's my objective. I think Jesus is doing that.
I think when Jesus says stuff like, um, you know, uh, it's.
If your eye offends you pluck it out. If your
hand offends you, cut it off. Did Jesus really want
anybody to pluck their eye out or cut off their hand? No,
he didn't. He's trying to get them to understand this
is serious business here. You need to really pay attention.
(23:29):
And that's the danger of not drawing closer to Jesus,
because you might read something in scripture or whatever and
just assume, oh, this is what he wants me to do,
or people have done that. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And
that's why, that's why we're all supposed to have communion
with the Father, so that we can draw closer and
just ask, so what did you mean by you want
(23:49):
me to go to this foreign country or whatever, you know,
and that's when we get more details. Uh, Jesse, does
this help you?
Oh, very much. Thank you guys so very much. Awesome.
Thanks for calling in today here on Pastor's Perspective. 888-564-6173
is our number. Let's talk to Greg and Lake Elsinore
(24:09):
listening on FM 107.9 K wave. Hey, Greg, what's going on?
How are you doing? How are you doing? Fine. How
are you? I'm doing all right. Um, my question is, uh, I've,
I've been a, a Christian off and on.
My, for most of my life, I'm 54 right now.
The last 3 years have been the, uh, most difficult years, uh,
(24:35):
health concerns, health issues that I can't, uh, get diagnosed, um,
A divorce, my dog, like, I don't have a place
to live, all these different things. My question though is,
That with all of this, my faith has been really tested. Um,
my heart is extremely, um, because of my, my life
(24:56):
cir circumstances or whatever else.
I've, I've protected my heart and I can't get through.
To a
Broken contrite heart to where I'm, where there's gratitude, where
there's gratefulness, where there's, you know, just, uh, understanding grace.
I, and I feel like I'm just going through the
(25:18):
motions and I don't want to do that. I, I
really want to experience a real relationship with God and,
and have faith and, and, and believe and have real relationships.
And I don't know how to get there.
All right, Brian, start with you.
Well, Greg, you know, there, there are times where we
(25:38):
kind of talked about it a bit earlier already. You know,
there are times when you just, you can only move
forward by faith, meaning that you, you have to move forward.
Regardless of your circumstances. So your circumstances might not change
(26:01):
and your feelings might not necessarily change, but you have
to do the right thing and the right thing is to,
you know, seek God and to keep praying and to
keep trusting, even though the circumstances are not at all.
(26:22):
Um, looking like.
I'm, I'm good with God and God's good with me.
My circumstances kind of seem to be indicating maybe that
I I'm not connected with God and, and God's upset
with me, and I'm still in some sort of sin
or something like that. So, you know, there there are
(26:43):
those times in life where this is where the scripture
is so important to be able to take God at
His word and then just to stand on it, even
though
Nothing around you indicates that what the what the word
is saying is, is actually the case. So, you know,
you think of a biblical example, you think of somebody
(27:04):
like Abraham. So God tells Abraham when he's, uh, old, um,
that he is going to have a child through his
wife Sarah. She is old as well.
And years go by and nothing seems to.
be at all indicating that that is ever going to happen. It,
(27:28):
all the circumstances seem to say the opposite. Abraham's just
getting older and older, so the likelihood that he's gonna
be having a kid, it just seems to be decreasing
as time goes on. But Abraham holds on to the promise.
He still believes it despite everything around him.
And that's, and you know, Abraham is known as the
(27:51):
father of faith, and he's known as the father of
faith because we have these different aspects of his life
where we see him exercising faith. He's believing God, he's
trusting God despite the circumstances that he's in.
Phil, about a minute.
Yeah, I'll be quick then. Um, just to agree with
what Brian's saying there, I, I, I think like, you know,
(28:12):
Romans 12 talks about the renewing of our mind. I
think you might be putting too much emphasis on my
heart needs to, to get there. When the Bible's description
to what you're saying is, have your mind be renewed,
be transformed by God, um, you know, there's good old
fashion like surrender, submission, obedience. These things will move your heart.
(28:32):
If you have a hard heart.
Work more on repentance and forgiveness and submission and surrender
and obedience, and watch your heart change rather than assuming
your heart's got to change, then you could do those things.
Walk in those things and watch your heart change. Greg,
does any of this help you?
Uh, yeah, it's just, uh, it, it, my heart is,
(28:54):
you know, I mean.
I just don't want to have, have God say, you know, I,
I never knew you. You've done these things and, you know,
tried to do this, but my heart, you know, the gratitude,
the gratitude is what moves you to do things. I
hear people that say, yeah, I've been, you know, I
had an encounter with God and I was different for
(29:15):
the rest of my life because of the gratitude. I'm
just not connected to that. Mm.
All right, uh, we'll see if we can offer a
little more advice when we come back from the break
here on Pastor's perspective. If you haven't called in yet,
you still have time. We're gonna be in the studio
for another 30 minutes or so at 888-564-6173. Pastors Brian Broder.
(29:37):
And Phil Metzger answering your questions here on Pastor's Perspective.
We're here every Monday through Friday because you've got real
questions and we've got real answers from real pastors live
on the radio weekday afternoons from 3 to 4 Pacific. 888-564-6173.
(30:18):
We're back on Pastor's Perspective. I'm Brian Perez with Pastors
Brian Broderson and Phil Metzger. Luke, we're gonna talk to
you in just a little bit, but first we want
to finish our conversation with Greg. It looks like Greg
hung up, but I think we wanted to, uh, finish up, uh,
after he, you know, said at the end about, uh,
how he often hears people say that they're grateful for
(30:38):
what they're going through and then boom, the heart changes, and,
but Greg says, I'm not at that place yet. How
do I get there?
What would you guys say to him?
Um, I, I'll just say a couple of thoughts there. I, again, I,
I think there's this idea that like he's gonna feel
something that's gonna push him in that direction and make
it all, you know, like all start clicking into place.
(30:58):
All the dominoes are gonna start falling in his direction.
When quite often this is about like, uh, relationship with
Christ doesn't mean like, you just, you know, it all
just clicks. It means like, no, I, I work at this. I,
I'm going to engage my heart. I'm gonna engage my mind.
I'm going to make the necessary steps for
Um, my benefit in relationship with Christ. And so, you know,
(31:21):
I think gratitude is a great example of that. The
assumption that people just feel gratitude and then they walk
in that is, is incorrect. I think that's a choice
that you make. Like, I choose gratitude, and then I
begin to experience that gratitude as I walk in faith
and that's. Yeah, I, I think that's a, I think
that's exactly the case. And I was gonna point to
(31:42):
Abraham again, uh, in the New Testament in the in Romans.
Where, you know, God gives Abraham a promise and it
says that he um, he acts on the promise even
though it's not immediately fulfilled. So he gives glory to God.
(32:03):
Even though the promise is 25 years away and uh
he's just saying, OK, God told me this, so I'm
gonna glory in that, and I think that that's, that's
what we're saying. You don't, you don't wait till you
feel gratitude before you act on gra uh act, you know, thankful.
You just, you know, you just, you just move in,
(32:26):
in that direction.
And for anyone who might have joined us in the
middle of the conversation with Greg, let's just make something clear.
Are we saying that Greg should be thanking God for
his divorce, for his health problems, for, I think he said, uh,
his dog dying or something, or he should he be
thanking God for those things? No, that's not what we're saying.
(32:50):
We're saying that he needs to thank God that despite
these things.
Uh, God is still with him. God is still at work,
God is faithful. These are just things that happen in life.
It's not because God hates him. It's not because he,
you know, maybe even, I don't know, remember if he
(33:12):
said that he was away from the Lord for a
season or what. It, it's not because of that either,
because lots of people go away from the Lord and
this doesn't happen to them. So these are just the
things that happen in life, and he needs to be
thankful that despite these things, God
He is still with him. God loves him and God's
working even when he can't really see it.
(33:34):
There's this false assumption that gratitude should be easy and
that's a false assumption, you know, so like to be
thankful doesn't mean like everything's going good, therefore I am
thankful or if nothing's going good, then I have to
thank God for all the lousy stuff going on. No, no, no,
we work hard at at like really looking at what's
happening in my life and going, OK, yeah, like example, OK,
(33:56):
I'm in I I got divorced, but Lord.
I'm still here, and if I am still here, you
have a purpose for my life. And I have no
clue what that is, and I'm not even gonna pretend
to even know cause I'm not in a great place,
but I know that you like it, it just requires
us to do a little bit more intellectual work in
our own lives, um, of understanding rather than just assuming
(34:17):
I'm just gonna feel something and it's gonna all work out. Um,
gratitude is, is hard work sometimes.
Indeed
Yes, indeed, and you'll never believe what just happened, right?
What just happened is the verse that I wanted to share.
Happens to be in the section of this Bible that
(34:38):
no longer exists because remember I told you about my
Bible that the pages fell out. Well, those were the
pages that fell out. Well then, lo and behold, what's
the reference? I'll look it up in my, it's OK.
I got the gist of it. I don't have the
chapter and verse. So the Romans 4, I don't remember
the exact verse, but ironically, here I'm I'm turning to
(35:00):
my Bible to go to it and it's like.
Oh yes, these are the chapters that are missing from
this particular Bible. Those are some important chapters missing in
that Bible. I know it's like, but most of the
chapters are here, you know, there's only like 4 missing,
so I haven't been able to depart with the Bible.
That's what you get for ordering a Bible from Tamu. Yeah,
(35:22):
so just got to order all your Bibles at the
chapel store of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa. All the pages
are there. All the, you know what? I think I
got this Bible at the chapel store actually.
And the pages were originally in it. They fell out.
Just to make that clear, yes, we don't sell Bibles
with missing pages at the chapel store. All right, 888-564-6173.
Let's talk to Luke and Menefee listening on FM 107.9
(35:46):
K wave. Hi Luke, thanks for calling in today.
Hi there, how can we help you?
Oh, so,
My grandma died.
Hm.
A little while back. Mhm.
And I know.
(36:11):
You still with us, Luke?
Yeah, she's in heaven. Mhm.
Having fun?
OK. But you miss her? Is that what you're
Is that what you're? Yeah, he's sorry, this is his dad.
He's having a little tough time talking about it, but
(36:33):
he's basically, uh, just asking, you know, he knows she's
having fun in heaven, but he wasn't ready for her
to go, and he says, ask if there's anything in
the Bible that, um, it says that can comfort him
or make him feel better while he's here, you know,
thinking about her. Oh man.
Our hearts go out to you, Luke and.
(36:55):
Luke's dad, yeah, Luke that, if you, if you're listening,
you know, that that's really difficult and um I remember
when my um
My children's grandparents died, and particularly my, uh, the grandfather,
and I remember my daughter who was considerably older than you.
(37:16):
I remember how just hearing the news of that just
really broke her heart because she was really, really close
to him.
Um
And that that's always hard. It's, it's never gonna be easy,
but
I, I think though, this is, this is where
Uh, the Bible is so, so wonderful, and Jesus is
(37:39):
so wonderful because what the Bible teaches us that Jesus
did is he conquered death.
So, people who die, they actually go into the best
place you could ever possibly imagine. Actually, it's so good
you can't even imagine it. It's beyond our, our comprehension.
(38:00):
And so I think sometimes it can be helpful to
remember this, even though your
Hurting because you miss your grandma to just remember that
she is in the perfect place. She is in a
place that is like, oh my gosh, you know, this is,
this is the best place imaginable and here's the great,
(38:25):
great news, you'll be with her again someday. And that's
the beauty of what Jesus did. We're death doesn't finish
our relationships.
Our relationships await us on the other side, and they
go on forever in a perfect environment, never to be
(38:45):
disrupted again. So I know that's a lot for to
take in as a 9 year old, but you know,
just just think there's a verse in Psalm 16 and
it says this, it's a description of heaven in a sense.
It says at um speaking about God at your right
hand is um
(39:08):
Uh, joy.
Um,
Pleasures evermore is a different version? Yeah, it's the same,
but the first part is, um, joy.
your right hand is fullness of joy.
And in your presence, this is it, I finally got it,
in your presence is fullness of joy, at your right
(39:32):
hand is pleasure forever.
So, here's Grandma's experience, fullness of joy.
And pleasure.
And that pleasure is only gonna
You know, increase when everybody's there ultimately together, and that's
what the future holds for those who believe in Jesus,
(39:53):
like you do. Luke, what was your favorite thing about
your grandma?
Uh,
The presents?
The presence.
That's a good answer. Like the presents that she would
get for you?
Yeah. Yeah, grandmas are so good at that, aren't they?
(40:17):
My wife, she gets.
My grandchildren lots of presents. Yeah, so we, we totally
get it because she knew how much or you knew
how much she loved you because she knew the kind
of things that
You loved receiving and yeah, that can be tough. Phil,
would you pray for Luke and his family? I would
love to. I want to say too, nobody gets better
(40:37):
gifts than grandma's do, no one. And that's a hard thing, Luke.
So yeah, let me pray for you, buddy. Thank you
for calling and thank you for letting us kind of
share a couple thoughts. And yeah, Father, I just wanna
pray for our buddy Luke right now, and I'm thankful
that he got to um he had a grandma that
that loved him so much.
(40:58):
And I pray Jesus that you would comfort Luke's heart,
that he would remember that he didn't lose his grandma,
he knows where she is. He's just missing his grandma.
And help them to really help them to understand that difference. Lord,
I'm so grateful that the very fact that Luke feels
this pain is a reminder that that's because he was
(41:19):
made for eternity. He was made to be with you
with his grandma. And so Lord, just comfort him, use
the family to bring comfort, comfort the whole family, and um, yeah,
just show Luke a lot of grace in this season
in Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen. Thanks, Luke, for calling in today to Pastor's Perspective.
(41:40):
888-564-6173 to Mike in Rancho Cucamonga. We go now. Thanks
for calling in, Mike. How can we help you today?
Um, hi, how are you guys doing today? Doing well, thanks.
I'm a little, I'm a little sick. I got a,
got a upper respiratory infection, so I'm not feeling too
(42:03):
great right now. But um I kinda wanted to follow
up on, I, I didn't catch his name, but he
was talking about, um, you know, he lost his place
to live, he got a divorce.
And some and his health and, you know, something about
his dog.
Right, that was Greg, yeah. Mhm. Yeah.
(42:24):
Um, so I'm kind of like in that situation like, um,
I've basically been homeless for the last 2 years.
Um, my health is, is not great.
And I was with um
I was with a woman that I'm no longer with now,
(42:46):
and I kind of knew from the beginning that we
were unequally yoked. Like I just, um, the spirit inside
me kind of let me know. And so I tried
to resist her for a while and, you know, she
stayed persistent and I caved and, you know, later on
I learned that she was into like witchcraft and stuff
like that.
(43:07):
And, um, you know, for the 3 years that I
was with her, um,
She would, she would, um, like abuse me, like hit
me and stuff, and, and, um, you know, talk really
bad about me and, uh, kind of, kind of like
Um, you know, like take my masculinity away, and, um,
(43:32):
just not only that, like I, I stayed with her
knowing that that's not what God had for me and,
you know, that's not what God had for her.
And um so what's your main question for us, Mike? Well,
and so I'm just feeling really distant from God and,
you know, from Jesus and
(43:55):
When, like you're in a situation like I'm in.
It's hard to, it's hard to believe and it's hard
to see that he's there with you.
Now, quick question for you, Mike, are you involved with
any church community? Do you have people that you can
talk to, that you can see face to face and
(44:17):
Anything like that? No, I've, I've completely isolated myself. Oh,
you've isolated yourself.
Yes. OK.
Um, and that's a question that I didn't get to
ask Greg before the line dropped, but it's very important
to be in community with people. Phil, what would you
say to Mike? And we don't know his circumstances of
(44:37):
why he cut himself off or isolated himself from church
or whatever, but what would you say? Yeah, I mean,
you know, Mike, a lot of what you're saying there,
I'm really, I'm, you know, we're sorry for where you're at, um.
Again, like, you know, without sounding, yeah, without knowing kind
of so many like details, the first thing I wanna say, Mike,
and I, and I'm just like more and more convinced
(44:57):
of this, the longer I've been a Christian, and the
longer I've been pastoring is like, community is life saving.
I really mean that. Even when community is lousy, and I'll,
I'll be as transparent as I can. Sometimes, man, being
around other Christians, being around church, it can be frustrating.
People can say things that are just mean, mean spirited, hurtful, wrong,
all that.
But I gotta tell you, overall, man, the, there's so
(45:20):
much value, and this is why the Bible tells us
to be in community, that we're, there's an iron sharpening
iron impact that is, um, spicy sometimes, but so necessary
in our lives. And I think the fact that you're,
you know, even just that little addition there of I'm
isolating myself, buddy, I wanna encourage you, stop isolating yourself.
(45:41):
And the best way to, you know, sometimes we can
isolate even around a bunch of people. I don't think
being around people is like the key. It's about opening
myself up to people who would love me and care
for me and say, I'm not doing well. It's one
thing to call in to us and say, I'm not
doing well, but
Man, we don't have a, a, a, a friendship with you.
We don't have a relationship. We're not in your life,
(46:03):
and you need to encourage you need to invite people
to be a part of your life. Plug into a church.
I'm sure I'm, you know, we're, we, we've got places,
I'm sure wherever you're at that we could recommend to you.
It's so critical. Beyond that, I would just say like
a lot of what you said about where your life
is at, and, you know, you're super honest and transparent,
appreciate that, like, you know, you knew you shouldn't be
(46:24):
with this gal, but then you still kind of went there.
And so I would say like the reason sometimes we
feel distant from God is because we're living in a
way that is distant from God. Like we're, we're, we're
moving ourselves away. God remains so consistent and ready, but
we move ourselves away. And so how do I stop,
(46:44):
you know, being far from God, through repentance, through humility,
through forgiveness. Lord, I need you. Forgive me. I've been
walking away and don't expect to have to feel better
about it.
I, I really want to encourage you on this mic,
and then I'll stop and, and invite Brian to share
share something too.
We have to stop assuming that if we feel something,
(47:04):
then it must have been real. The truth of the
matter is that if you invite Christ back into your heart,
you invite him to once again take residence and to
just rule over you. He will do these things. We
have to believe His word in our lives, not just
how we feel about what is happening. Right.
Yeah, that, that was great, Phil. I don't have much
(47:25):
else to add except I would say, um, based on
the very last thing you're saying, yes, you know, we
have to make a commitment and, and stick with it.
That this is the thing, you know, what happens is
people get in trouble and then they're like, oh, I
need Jesus to help me, Lord, help me, and then
things kind of, you know, improve a little bit. OK, Lord,
(47:47):
thank you. Um, I'm kind of take the wheel myself again,
you know, this, this happens over and over again. So,
It, it's really a matter of just saying, Lord, I'm,
I'm really giving you control of my life, which means
I'm going to do things your way instead of mine.
I'm not gonna get into a relationship with somebody who
doesn't know you. I'm not gonna involve myself in things
(48:09):
that you declared in scripture that I'm not to be
part of. I am going to put myself in the the.
Community of believers. I am going to read the Bible
and as I read it and think about it, I'm
going to believe that God, you are doing a renewing
(48:32):
work in me, um, and you have to keep doing it. That's,
that's it. You just have to say this is what
I'm gonna do the rest of my life and know
that God wants you to do that and know that
it'll help you to do it, so you just commit
to do it and you start doing it, and it
might take 30 days to see a change. It might
take
A year, but you just keep doing it.
(48:52):
So people might be thinking, well, it's because Mike was
with this woman who was practicing witchcraft and everything, so
God must have put a spell on him, or this woman, not,
not that God put spells on him. I mean, you know,
this woman witchcraft. Let's get this straight. Yeah, let's get
this straight. Can we edit that? Oh wait, it's live. Um,
but you know, people saying that she must have put
(49:13):
this spell on him and that's why he's in the
situation that he's in and, uh, what would, how would
you answer that?
I, I would say don't worry about that. I mean,
you know, if she did or didn't is not the point,
that you have the power, whatever.
Happened, you have the power to move beyond it by
just submitting to Jesus and doing what he says. So
it's not like, OK, I want to follow Jesus now,
(49:36):
but there's this curse on me, so I can't do
it because the devil's holding me back. No, the devil's
not holding you back. You make the decision, you move
forward and don't worry about what the devil has done
or not done. Yeah.
Mike, thanks for your phone call today on Pastor's Perspective,
and everybody watching and listening. Remember to keep Mike in
your prayers. Also Greg, who we spoke with earlier and Luke,
(49:57):
and we've had so many good calls today. So if
you missed any portion of the program, go back and
listen to the archives and, uh, keep our fellow listeners
and viewers in your prayers. 888-564-6173. Cassandra calling from YaiA.
What's your question for us today on Pastor's perspective?
Hi, um, so I'm calling because I just read Matthew 27:25, and, uh,
(50:24):
in that, it says, and all the people answered and
said his blood be on us and our children. Are those,
are those Israel people that said that and
I was wondering if, like, I know that in it
talks about wars with Israel, but I was just curious, like,
I wonder if that's why they have so many wars
(50:45):
also if they are the people that said this because they,
you know, wanted or they said, you know, blood beyond
us and our children. Hm. What would you say, Brian?
Yeah, I do, I do think that there is a connection. Yes,
I think that this is a, um, you know, so
these are the leaders of the nation, they're speaking, you know,
(51:06):
for the nation, they're speaking for the people and this
is the general sentiment of the people. Of course there's
uh a remnant of people that are following Jesus and
will come to believe in Jesus, but the vast majority
of the nation continues to reject Jesus. And so as
the spokespersons for the nation.
(51:26):
They are basically saying, you know, right before that, they
said we have no king but Caesar.
So they're, they're announcing their allegiance not to Yahweh and
his Messiah, but they're announcing their allegiance to Caesar, and
then they're saying his his blood be upon our head
(51:46):
and our children. So they're kind of just calling down.
A judgment upon themselves that I do think if you
look at the history that followed these events that you
would have to say that these are manifestations of the
(52:07):
judgment that they brought upon themselves to some, to some degree,
not to excuse the, the human instruments that were involved
in the various persecutions and things like that.
And not to say that somehow they weren't wrong because,
you know, God cursed them so you couldn't, uh, that's
just the way it went. It it doesn't alleviate any
(52:28):
human responsibility. It's just the fact that they took themselves
out from under the protective care of God and out
from the covenant relationship with him. What do you think
of that answer, Cassandra?
Um, uh, when I was reading it, I text my
husband immediately and I was like, oh my gosh, I
don't know if I'm reading this correctly. I should probably ask,
(52:49):
you know, for some guidance because I just thought my
mind was blown like, oh wow, I never, when I
read it prior, I never got that connection. Hm, Phil,
anything to add? No, just good job, great reading, way
to pay attention.
Yeah, awesome. Thanks for calling in today to Pastor's Perspective
at 888-564-6173. I think we got time for one more call. Robert, quick,
(53:12):
what's your question?
Speaker 2 (53:14):
First question, number one, there's 6 days of creation and
which ended with, you know, the evening in the morning
was the 6th day, for example. But the 7th day,
the day of rest, he never says in the evening
and the morning were the 7th day. what does that
do to young earth theory, and how long was the
7th day and how long is the day of the Lord?
Speaker 1 (53:35):
All right, Phil, 45 seconds.
Sure, no problem. OK, I'll give you a minute. No,
I'm just kidding. Well, you know, obviously not gonna get
much in on that, but they, we have to draw
the assumption that as the days are going and it's
being defined this day, this day, this day, this day,
there's zero reason to assume the 7th day wasn't exactly
the same amount of time. There's no reason to assume
(53:56):
that day was unique from all the other days, even
though it says that he rested, there's no reason to
believe it was anything but a normal day, just like
all the other 6 days. Brian, what would you add?
Uh yeah, I would just say the 6 days are
specific days of creation, so he's, you know, evening in
the morning.
Each of these days, the the at the end of
(54:18):
the 6th day.
The creation is finished. So the 7th day, there's no
need to add an evening and a morning because there's
not another day of creation that is being chronicled there.
All right, Robert, thank you for your phone call today
here on Pastor's Perspective, and we've just about run out
of time, but we will be back tomorrow. God bless
(54:39):
you guys. Thanks so much for listening and watching. As
I said earlier, we're gonna archive today's episode on Facebook, YouTube,
Apple Podcasts, and Spotify if you want to listen to
it again or share it with your friends, or if
you have run out of things to pray about and
pray for, you can listen to the program and, uh,
For our listeners who called in today with some really
just hurting situations that they are in. And if you've
(55:02):
got a question for us, first of all, sorry if
we couldn't answer it on today's program, but we will
be back tomorrow between 3 and 4 p.m. Pacific time.
So write down your question so that you don't forget
it and then call in Manana. For Pastors Brian Broderson
and Phil Metzger, I'm Brian Perez, and Pastor's Perspective will
be back tomorrow. We'll talk to you then.
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