March 10, 2025 • 54 mins
DJ and Brad meet up to discuss what God's peace is really all about, more so through times that are tough and painful.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome. This is the Men Church Stuff Podcast.
(00:17):
This is the show where brothers-in-law DJ Culp and Brad Coleman talk about stuff from
our perspective as men. It's a show for anyone who wants to hear how Christians interact
with the world. And don't worry, we're real. We've grown up in church and we want to share
our experiences with you. We'll talk life stuff, church stuff, man stuff, and stuff
(00:39):
stuff. Here we go.
Greetings listeners here and there and everywhere, all across the land. This is the Men Church
Stuff Podcast. I am one of your hosts, DJ Culp, as always here with my beloved brother-in-law,
(01:00):
Brad Coleman. Brad, what's up, man?
I don't look as good today.
I'm sorry?
Yeah, I don't look as good today because my technology's not working.
Yeah, right. Your lines are a little fuzzier, Brad. Are you feeling okay?
Yeah.
Anytime that you move your head, it's like you kind of blur for a second. So maybe Brad...
(01:21):
Technology is great when it works.
Yeah. Yeah. I learned early on in my teaching career that technology is awesome unless it's
not. And if it's not, it will ruin your day. And what sucks is I actually remember... I
(01:43):
don't know what the lesson was, but I remember the very first time because it didn't take
long. I think within the first two weeks maybe of me teaching public school, starting back
in 09, I walked in and I was like, okay, I've got this planned out. We're going to have
a great lesson today. It's first year teaching, kind of didn't really know what was going
on. And I don't remember what technology did not work, but it didn't work. And I thought,
(02:08):
oh crap, I don't know what to do. I am rendered useless right now. And that's something that
you don't learn, especially in our technology driven society, like in your educational curriculum,
like technology this, technology that. But what happens when it fails you?
(02:29):
You know what I learned as a pastor?
From the hip, man. What's that?
With doing sermons with PowerPoint, that if you don't have a PowerPoint, it can't mess
up.
That's true. So to play it safe, you don't use technology.
That's right.
And at that point, I think we probably need to sign off, Brad. What we'll do is we'll
(02:50):
have a phone conversation and you and I will just talk about stuff.
You think Jesus had Peter just holding up like big cards?
Cue cards.
But for the audience, so everybody can see in the back. Oh, he said, my piece, my piece.
(03:12):
Okay, all right. I was confused.
During the sermon on the mount, during the sermon on the mount, like Jesus not only had
a scribe writing stuff down, but like they had a poster board and like the whole presentation.
This is what he said. This is what he said. Hang on, Jesus. The people in the back can't
read this yet.
(03:32):
That's funny. So listeners, when this drops, if you are, if you don't know this yet, I
will, I will have already made a, an announcement in our Facebook, our Facebook group page and
I'll drop it in Instagram. We don't have a lot of following in Instagram. I'm actually
Brad, I'm considering even closing down Instagram because I think we, we just don't have a lot
(03:56):
of, a lot of followers.
But I mean,
DJ Instagram is not about us. You can't just close down Instagram because we don't have
followers. Yeah, we're just going to close it down. I didn't know you had that deep in
your pockets where you could just buy Instagram and change its name. Like why or something
else?
Yeah. Yeah, that's true. X has already taken, right? So, but no, once you get to like start
(04:23):
adding X is it's the changes to bad things. Bad things happen. Or as a, as a, as a, what
is it? Is it Bilbo? I think that said, and where, and where darkness lies, bad things
will follow.
But no, what I'll do is by, by this point, when this episode drops, I will have already
(04:46):
made a, an announcement in our Facebook group page and on Instagram that we will have, we
will have a YouTube, a YouTube video page, a YouTube channel. Sorry, there we go. That's
my dinosaur talking. We'll have a YouTube channel. It will have already gone live. So
we will have already been, been live for a couple of days. So listeners, if you weren't
(05:07):
aware of that, you can, you can head over to, you can search men church stuff in, in
the YouTube search bar and you'll find our, you'll find, you'll find our channel. So again,
and with that, like us. Yes. Like, yes. Thank you, Brad. Yeah. Like and subscribe. Follow
us.
Yeah. I know with YouTube dynamics that, that matters even more than, than some of these
(05:32):
other podcasts. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. So Brad, let's, let's, let's get into our
topic today. So our topic has to do with clinging to God's peace. And the really, so listeners,
(05:56):
I think I probably said this on the show before that I've got a, I've got a stack of, of bulletins
from our, from our, the church that we attend. And then I've got a running list, you know,
on a, on a, on a note on my iPhone of just topic ideas. So anything that, anything that
(06:16):
our pastor says, you know, during, during a sermon, if it's something, it's, if it's
something in the bulletin that spawns an idea, what I'll do is I'll highlight it or I'll
circle it and I'll just put in big capital letters, show. So this one actually comes
from not really the Christmas story, but we normally talk about it during Christmas, but
(06:37):
it's, it comes out of Luke two, where let me get to my Bible app here. Luke two.
I gotta get in, I gotta get into the groove of reminding myself that we're actually starting
(07:00):
a YouTube. So the things that I do, I know I'm the same way during the show.
Yeah. All right. So, so the clinging to God's peace and I'll just read kind of the, where
this idea came from. There was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous
and devout looking forward to the constellation of Israel and the Holy Spirit was upon him.
(07:24):
And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before
he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came by the Spirit into the temple and when the
parents brought the child Jesus, right, Joseph and Mary, to carry out for him the custom
of the law, then he took him in his arms and blessed God and said, now Lord, you are letting
your bond servant depart in peace. According to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation,
(07:48):
that you have prepared in the presence of all the peoples, light for the revelation
for the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel. And it says here, and his father and
mother were amazed at the things which were being said about him and Simeon blessed them
and said to his mother, Mary, behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rise of
many in Israel and as a sign to be opposed and as a sword and a sword will pierce your
(08:12):
own soul, but as a sign to be opposed to the end that thoughts from, that the thoughts
from many hearts may be revealed. Yeah, and just to kind of give a little bit more of
a specification as to where our pastor kind of went with this, I've got here written in
(08:33):
the margin that peace is not the absence of obstacles and suffering, but it's the presence
of Jesus in the midst of storms. So, Brad, just to kind of kick it off, sort of framing
it that way, what are some, what's a time that sticks out to you in your life that you
have experienced God's peace in that way? A lot. Cool. And I think of the verse that
(09:03):
says that for God's peace, the peace that Jesus gives passes understanding. So, as someone
who deals with anxiety and depression, like sometimes that's a daily episode for me of
deep in my soul, deep in my being, there's peace. But on the surface, there's a lot more
(09:38):
panic and anxiety. Like the things that I get anxious about, you know, I acknowledge
a lot of times aren't going to matter in two weeks.
Yeah, for this too shall pass.
Yeah, or like, oh, I have a meeting and I'm like so anxious about it. And I know even
if it goes horrible, yeah, it's going to be okay. Because I have that peace that God has
(10:04):
got me that if the worst thing that the world looks that could happen to me is that I die.
Right?
Right.
And scripturally, that's the best thing that can happen to me is I go home and be with
Jesus. So I have that peace. But, you know, there's a lot of anxious turmoil and stuff
(10:25):
that I deal with on a regular basis. And so I mean, as far as a example, probably just
walking through all of the struggle. Gosh, it's about 10 years ago now, you know, where
(10:48):
I was I was on medication that was really messing with the way that I thought and the
way that I things I was struggling with obsessive thoughts and wasn't realizing at the time
that it was all that was tied to this medication that I started taking. And then, but just,
(11:10):
I kept going, I kept praying. And it was one of the most difficult times of my life, you
know, and I've shared, you know, one of the darkest times of my life. But I never felt
abandoned by God. Even there were times when it's like, I can't hear you. I can't feel
you. Yeah.
Like holding on to that truth that I know you hear me and I know that the way that I
(11:37):
feel right now is not truth. So I'm going to keep, you know, talking to you about it
and plugging on. And again, it was difficult. I don't want to downsize it. It was the darkest,
probably, year to year and a half of my life almost destroyed my life in a lot of ways.
(12:02):
And it was like I was in a daily battle. And so in a lot of ways I lost my peace. But I
still had the peace of God that no matter what, even if all of these things, these struggles,
all of these fears, all of this stuff came to fruition, that the God was going to, you
(12:24):
know, take me home and welcome me home at the end of my life.
So dude, dude, yeah, that's some really, really good insight, I think. That like when you
said that I didn't have peace necessarily the way that we think about it. Because normally,
I don't know about you, but I know for me, it's a really, really big tendency on my part
(12:50):
to try to define peace even in that context, you know, that we're talking about as sort
of just this the way that has been lifted off. And now everything is hunky-dory. I'm
on cloud nine and I'm good. When in actuality, what you said was, I mean, it's so simplistic
and it's true, but it's also profound that I did not feel abandoned by God. God didn't
(13:13):
actually leave me high and dry to kick me to the curb until I kind of dressed myself
back up and made myself, what's the word, made myself like not approachable, but help
me out. What's, I'm trying to think of the word. I almost had it. But like, I've got
(13:40):
to clean myself up before I can come to you. I'm trying to think of the word for that.
I don't know why I can't right now. But yeah, like, I think it's really profound.
Presentable.
Presentable. Thank you very much. Yes, that's the word I'm looking for. Because God doesn't
require that of us because we actually can't do that. And yeah, again, I think it's really
(14:02):
profound that you had that. I think for me, I mean, really the thing that sticks out,
I think the most for me whenever I think about like the peace of the Lord, if I go through
all of my life experiences, the day that I hung up the phone with the music education
(14:32):
supervisor at the University of Mississippi. And the last thing that I really want to do,
listeners, you know, if you're new to the show, I teach at a small Christian university.
If you're not new to the show, you will have known that. I've got a doctorate from Ole
Miss, doctorate in music. But the move, the process of the move is really something that
(14:53):
completely changed everything about my life, about Shera's life, about our marriage, about
our relationship with each other. I mean, it was absolutely earth shattering. So oftentimes
I like a lot of life experiences, a lot of life experience can't really trump that, like
(15:15):
what was happening at that season of our life. And so I got off the phone with the music
education supervisor and I knew in what he was saying, I knew he was telling me, you
need to come down as a formality. We want you here. We're going to offer you money.
You're accepted. Let's do it. I mean, I can tell that was the narrative, or at least that
(15:36):
was the sense that I got. So when I hung up the phone, I was in our house in Murray, Kentucky,
and I was in our living room and I spoke these words out loud because I didn't know what
else to do. And I said, God, if this is not your will, I need you to close the door because
(15:58):
I knew all I had to do was say, yeah, let's do it. And it was a done deal. But I knew
that there was so much tension in the whole process between both me and Shara, our tension,
not just with each other, but our tension in life goals. I'm not going to necessarily
(16:22):
say our tension with the Lord, though I definitely know that at that point in time, even she
was having a lot of pushback. Or when I say she was having, she wasn't having pushback,
she was the one pushing back. And she would say that. So at that point in time, I was
like, I really thought that that phone conversation would have absolutely overcomplicated things
(16:48):
for me. I just knew that this was going to make things even harder. And when I prayed,
God, if this is not your will, I need you to close the door. There was like, I almost
had a visual sense of God saying, you need to wait, you will be fine. And it was a sense
(17:12):
of peace that really, I think one of probably the only times in my life, Brad, that I've
almost palpably been able to understand what you mentioned you're out of Philippians 4,
and the peace of God will surpass all understanding. It was one of those moments where I was like,
I have no idea why this is happening. I don't know where this is coming from. But I also
(17:36):
have no other choice than just hold on to it. And again, like you mentioned, I think
it was really more of a not necessarily the sense that God was relieving me of weight.
Because I mean, at that point in time, I suppose he did a little bit, but I mean, I still had
to tell Shara, hey, I know the University of Mississippi has not been in our radar, and
(17:59):
we haven't talked a thing about it. But you know, and so, as you mentioned, all of those
variables were still very much at play. But the fact that I knew God was not abandoning
neither me or our marriage gave me that sense of peace.
Yeah. Well, and again, I think a lot of times we think of like the 23rd Psalms, you're right,
(18:25):
that the green pasture is still waters, that's peace. Right? And then we go into the valley
of the shadow of death or the valley of the deepest darkness, and that's not peace. So
what's going on around us is not at peace. But we can be at peace. And we can be at peace
(18:49):
in God, even when we're not completely at peace in ourselves.
Yeah. Yeah. No, like, and I think, I don't know about you, but my rationality, God has
just wired me to be very rational, very logical and analytical. My rationality doesn't enjoy
(19:12):
what you just said. My rationality really kind of hates that. You know, like, I can't
order the ducks in this row. It doesn't make any sense, you know?
No, no, no. Peace? No peace. Not, not, yes. Are you at peace? Yes and no. Are you at peace
or not?
(19:33):
No, no, no, no. You have to explain this, you know? I have to understand it.
And I think, too, like, when we look at peace, like, biblically, right, so erene, that's
the Greek word, erene, which, for peace. But it's derived from the word aero, meaning to
(20:01):
join or to tie together into a whole.
W-H-O-L-E. Yes, yeah. Not throw into a hole, not together in a hole. Lord, we're here gathered
in this hole, like you told us.
In this hole, right.
So we get our peace. It's a cave. That's a hole, right?
(20:23):
Bundled homophones.
But, you know, it's bundled like a bundle of sticks, bundled together, a bundle of firewood,
bundled together as a whole. And just, it's all there. Everything. And so, again, so I
guess for me, the peace of God is, and part of that is the acknowledging and the experiencing
(20:48):
of us being joined together with God. The Holy Spirit lives in us. We're joiners in
the Kingdom. So even on our worst day, even on our hardest day, even when the whole, you
know, even when our life is falling apart around us, and we're still joined to God,
we can have that peace. I think that's, for me, that's deep. It's deep.
(21:15):
Yeah.
It's the anchor. And maybe if you make that picture, it's like the ship is getting tossed,
but the anchor's going to hold.
Yeah.
So the anchor holds.
Yeah, I just came up with that.
That's right, Brad.
Yeah. It's a great analogy, you know.
(21:37):
That's right. You witnessed it here, folks. Brad had the first original thought of that
particular metaphor in all of human existence. So then, Brad, let me ask you this. And I
don't want to chase too much of a tangent here, but this is a question that I think
(22:00):
that I have danced around a lot of times, but it just occurred to me how to vocalize.
When you think about, say, a topic like this, right? So we're talking about clinging to
God's peace and discussing it through not the absence of obstacles and suffering, but
the presence of Jesus in the midst of storms. Do you think about it differently as Brad
(22:29):
and as a pastor? Like, how often, Brad, does your humanity take this type of topic and
experience it in a different way than the way that you would translate it as a pastor?
Does that make sense?
(22:51):
Sort of.
Because if not, I can edit this out.
Well, no. So let me say this. I don't know. Maybe it's an answer to your question. Maybe
it's not. The sermons on Sunday are just as much for me as they are for anybody else,
(23:12):
and sometimes more, I think, for me. And sometimes I think I get it in advance, and sometimes
I have to be reminded. And I've said this before. I can't count the times where your
sister has looked at me and going, you know, I heard a sermon about that recently. Maybe
(23:37):
you should go listen to it. The implication is, hey, remember what you preached on Sunday?
Go review your notes.
And again, I think for me, that's just the proof of the pudding that, look, I get to
be the mouthpiece to speak what God has said and God's truth while I'm learning it with
(24:00):
everybody else, while I'm having to remember it. So in that sense, there is kind of sometimes
that separation between Brad who is preaching and Brad who is being preached to by himself,
(24:21):
or by the Holy Spirit. And sometimes I think I get it double. It's like, okay, leading
up to this, knowing I was preaching it, God's hitting me with it, and then in the middle
of the sermon. I mean, I don't know if anybody ever knows, because I don't have these crazy
inflections in my face like some people.
Yeah, right. That's true.
(24:43):
There's definitely times during a sermon when God just hits me with something in the sermon
that I wasn't expecting. And so, as someone standing in front of everybody, I feel like
everybody just saw that. But for everybody else, it was probably just, I just paused
(25:09):
a second and went on.
I really appreciate how Pastor Brad, every now and then he'll pause because it tells
me that he's being really intuitive or he's being really sensitive to the words that he's
saying. Now what's happening is Brad's going, wow, yeah, I guess I do that.
Sometimes Brad's going, that's not fair, God. Did you have to point that out right now?
(25:34):
In front of everybody? Come on.
Right, right. In public? It's a private conversation in public. So let me ask you something, so
the peace and storm, what do you think you would have done, and I kind of turned the
corner a little bit, but what do you think you would have done if you were one of the
apostles in the boat in the storm while Jesus is taking a nap? What does DJ do?
(26:03):
To be honest, knowing my personality and so, and to give you a little bit of context as
to why I'm going this direction, there's only been one time in my life where I have actually
been, I'm going to use the word scared, I haven't been terrified, but there's only been
one time where I've been scared.
(26:24):
Just once? You were only scared once in your whole life. That is incredible.
Oh, dude. Yeah, you didn't know this about me, did you?
Yeah, wow, you are so brave.
Yeah, that's bulletproof right there, baby.
Can't wait to hear about this one time when you were scared.
No, there's only been one time where I've been scared in a boat on water, and out of
(26:46):
nowhere, it was actually on Kentucky Lake. Listeners, one of the things that Brad and
my dad and I love to do is go fishing, and we go fishing on Kentucky Lake, and if you're
ever in the area, go check out Kentucky Lake if you're a fisherman, really, really good
fishing waters. But Brad, dad and I were fishing, I was back in high school, and out of nowhere,
(27:14):
like a storm, and it wasn't a huge one, it was big enough, storm just really came out
of nowhere, and I saw the waves react. It was a breezy day, it wasn't still and calm,
but it was very workable, and when the storm came up, in less than five minutes' time,
(27:39):
we went from just sort of, I don't know if you'd call them waves necessarily, but the
water's just kind of tossing your boat sort of here and there to probably three foot,
four foot waves in five minutes' time. It was really nowhere, or no time at all, and
dad was driving, and I could tell that dad was scared, but what was I doing? I was not
(28:08):
about to stand up. What was I trying to do? I was actually trying to A, keep my own balance,
and B, try to figure out, all right, which way is the boat going to go, so I'm going
to try to almost counterbalance to make sure that there's enough weight that if we hit
the water wrong, it'll be fine. So to answer your question, Brad, what do I see myself
(28:31):
doing? First of all, I have no idea how bad this storm was, but clearly it's worse than
I can imagine.
Let me put it this way, okay? Four of those guys on that boat were seasoned fishermen,
and they're scared. They're scared.
So in that case-
That's a pretty big storm.
(28:51):
It's a pretty big storm. It's bigger than the one that I've ever experienced. So what
would I do? I think I would keep my butt in its seat and then just hold on for dear life.
I don't think actually in this case, and I don't know if you've ever heard of anybody
think about it this way, but I don't think that I would have been brave enough to stand
(29:12):
up and go to Jesus. I don't really think I would have been able to do that, but to that
point, I'm not a seasoned fisherman, right? I don't live on the water. But I would... Would
I have thought we're going to die? I mean, I may have thought, I mean, this is going
(29:32):
to happen. This sucks, I guess. I don't know what I would have done. But again, knowing
my personality, I think I would do whatever I could to try to contribute to controlling
the situation. Again, like I said, with that day in the boat, okay, if we're coming down
(29:54):
to the right on this wave, I need to lean to the left or whatever the case is. My personality,
I don't think that I would have joined in the communal freaking out. You know what I
mean? I don't see myself fueling that fire. What about you though?
(30:17):
Well, I would have been probably more internally than externally. I tend to be like take charge
in those situations. But again, ADHD, anxiety, all that stuff, right? People who don't deal
with that, who are now dealing with that, are trying to have to figure out how to deal
(30:40):
with that. As someone who deals with those things very regularly, it's like, oh, this
is just another day. We just amped it up a little bit. I don't know. I think there's
a lot that just depends on what happened before, if I'm honest.
That's fair.
(31:01):
Jesus is sleeping in the boat. I mean, I think part of me would side with, Jesus, don't you
even care? How are you sleeping? How are you sleeping in the storm? But I definitely think
I would have been one that wouldn't have woken him up. Now, the question is, would have
been like, hey Jesus, save us, or hey Jesus, we're going to die. Hey Jesus, I can't believe
(31:24):
you're sleeping. I don't know. But I think that I would have been one, even if it was
yelling across the boat, Jesus! Jesus! Get up!
I think I would have acknowledged on some level, hey, we need Jesus to be being Jesus,
(31:52):
which he is. But he's sleeping, right? So, well, he's obviously not aware of all of this.
I think when Jesus laid down to take the nap, he knew exactly what was going to happen.
He knew the storm was coming. He controls the storms. He gets up and he rebukes the storm
(32:13):
afterwards and the storm goes quiet. And now they're more afraid. Instead of being afraid,
like what? Nobody saw that one coming.
So actually, let's see. No, no, no, no. Yeah. So to that point, and this is something that
I, and you know, as you mentioned, I think it does depend, you're right, contextually
(32:37):
what has happened before. Because when you said, you know, four of these guys were seasoned
fishermen, like that was their profession. The part of me that kind of doesn't believe
the assumption, because I like, I've never heard anybody say it this way, but I just
can't believe the assumption that this storm just appeared. Like storms don't do that.
(33:01):
You know, so the four fishermen, I would have assumed would have seen something like this
coming. Now, how fast it came on, that's a different thing.
The storms do come on quicker than sometimes than we think.
Right.
Yeah. When I think they're doing their stuff, right? They're doing what they know to do.
Right.
To keep them safe. But it's not working.
(33:24):
Yeah. And, and this is something that the more that I've read it, the more profound
and almost terrifying, if I can use that word, that it becomes after Jesus calmed the storm,
right? And it became calm. He said to them, where is your faith? Now, my question, I'm
(33:46):
going to press pause because my question is not like, did Jesus just end it there and
just kind of give him this? Like, this isn't a rhetorical question, guys, you know, I need
your answer. Or did he, or was it like this?
Did they wake him up?
And then did he go back and take a nap? Like, did he go back to sleep? You know, like, where's
your faith?
(34:06):
Is Jesus grumpy in the morning? Jesus grumpy when you wake him up from a nap? He looked
at the storm and said, shut up!
Sorry, sir. Sorry. You realize we were interrupting your nap?
Yeah, my bad.
And the wind and the waves just went, like,
Well, here's the thing that gets me.
(34:27):
I'm in trouble with daddy.
I know. Every time that I read this, again, as the older I get, the more profound this
becomes. The disciples said to each other, who then is this guy who commands even the
winds and water and they obey him? So hang on. Like, again, I'm going to put it in. How
would DJ say this? Yeah. Who the heck is this guy that when he commands the winds and the
(34:52):
water, they obey him? Like, that caveat, they obey him is not this dude's a lunatic yelling
at the weather. Yep. I do that. And the weather means like, you will be on your way.
When Jesus says, let it snow, it snows.
That's right.
Like, boom.
When I say let it snow, the weather goes, oh, okay, well, we'll have 70 degrees tomorrow.
(35:14):
You know, it's the, okay, you tell me what to do. I will spite you. But the disciples
didn't know.
So the question with that conversation, right, with Jesus saying, you know, hey, guys, where's
your faith?
Yeah.
So what is he saying? What is he saying? Do they not need to wake Jesus up?
(35:38):
That's, dude, that's deep right there, man. Like, where's your faith?
And the question is, too, is like,
Jesus was, I mean, Jesus is probably not telling them, hey, just stop trying.
Right.
And just let the boat sink.
Yeah, I know. That's right.
(35:59):
But they're with the Son of God. When the Son of God is in your boat, do you need to
be afraid of the boat sinking? Even when it looks like it? And I go to Peter walking on
the water, right? He sees the wind and the waves. He sees them.
Like I have, Brad, I have often visualized what on earth wind looks like. And I have
(36:24):
and clearly I know this is that this is obvious. There's nothing profound about it, but I have
no earthly idea what the heck wind looks like.
I didn't know it. I didn't know it looked, you know, but yeah, you're right. Peter saw
the wind.
Gosh, that's amazing.
And so, yeah, it's crazy. And I don't have an answer, right? I just have questions. Like
(36:49):
I don't know 100%. I could sit here and go, I think probably, you know, because the other
question is, when Jesus is saying, hey, do you have faith? Was he saying, hey, did you
even talk to my dad about it?
Right.
Like you just said, hey, Father, will you calm this storm? Will you have calmed it?
(37:13):
I think that this is...
We're like the apostles in one sense in the story. We're experiencing it without all the
answers.
Right.
Well, now, Jesus, what do you mean by that?
In the defense of the disciples, though, I think this gives us really, really accurate
insight into who they saw Jesus as actually being. I think they saw him just as another
(37:39):
rabbi. Now, I think they probably knew that he was radical in comparison to the Pharisees
and the Sadducees. But like, what would make them say, who the heck is this guy that he
commands even the winds and the water and they obey him?
(37:59):
And I would disagree with you. I don't think they saw him just another rabbi. I think they
saw him as the Messiah. I think they had their own ideas of what that meant.
I think that's legit.
I think they thought that he was going to be an earthly Messiah and set up an earthly
kingdom.
So they were still looking for the Jewish...
He was going to be David.
Yeah, right.
(38:20):
But he was going to be like a super David. Like as awesome as David was, Saul killed
his thousands and David is 10,000s and Jesus is 150,000s. He was just going to be this
awesome king. They've obviously seen him do miracles. So he has the power of God. So I
(38:41):
just think they're figuring out who he is. But I think they knew he was more. And I say
that because Peter's interaction with him, when Jesus does the whole miracle kind of
deal with the fish, or at least he looks at it that way.
Are you talking about the coin?
No, no.
(39:01):
Or the net?
Yeah. When he tells them to cast the net on the other side and they cast it and it's...
Oh, and that's at the calling of Peter.
Right. And Peter falls on his knees and goes, get away from me. I'm a sinful man. You can't
give me your enemy.
That's true.
I think about Nathaniel, truly this is the Messiah. Because, oh, you said this because
(39:24):
you saw me, or I said I saw you under the fig tree? Well, you're going to see greater
things than this. So I think they are doing, in one sense, what we do a lot, at least I
don't know anybody that's not guilty of this on some level, which is putting God in a box
and limiting him. I mean, sure, a guy can do that, but... You don't just tell the storm
(39:51):
to shut up and calm down and it does it.
And it does. Yeah.
And so I think they're seeing these things and every piece is just helping them to see
more and more who Jesus is. But it's terrifying.
Yeah.
Right? Because here is Jesus, who's the guy who needs to take a nap.
(40:13):
But yeah, so there's this humanity, but yet he wakes up and he rebukes the storm and somewhat
rebukes his apostles. And I'm with you, DJ. Did he lay back down to finish his nap? I
don't know. Hey, now that everything's quiet, can you guys be quiet too? And I tell the
(40:38):
wind and waves to be quiet.
Feel free to join me.
Right. I tell the wind and waves to be quiet. They're quiet. I tell the demons, they can't
speak. They don't speak. So could you guys?
That's right. For some reason or another.
Just for a little while, just let me have a nap. Okay? I'd appreciate it. Thank you.
That's true, man.
(41:00):
But yeah, peace. So the reality is they didn't have to lose their peace at any point because
they're with Jesus. But they did, in one sense, because they were afraid. Because fear
can start to steal our peace. What gets me is God sent them into that storm. He went
(41:30):
with them, but he sent them into the storm. Nobody's going to comment.
This is really deep.
Well, it is. Because I think, again, peace, love, joy, love, joy, peace. Those are huge.
(41:55):
What I'm coming back to, Brad, what I'm coming back to is your insinuation of where is your
faith.
I don't think that's my insinuation. I think it was Jesus'.
Well, but no, no, no. I know you're right. Yeah. I know that you're not writing this.
(42:18):
I don't know. I don't know. Can you tell me where to find it?
No, what I meant, though, is the way that you were thinking, the frame of mind that
you were in when you said, and he said to them, where is your faith? I had never considered
this until you said that was, in fact, Jesus telling them, guys, you didn't have to wake
(42:44):
me up. You could have done this. I want to be very, very transparent right now. That
thought does not compute. You know what I mean? My brain rejects it.
Elijah was a man like us, and he prayed that it would not rain, and it did not rain on
(43:09):
the earth for three years and six months until he prayed that it would rain, and then it
did. So now, our prayer has to be in line with God's will. But we can deduce, I think,
safely, make the implication that God's will for his apostles was not to drown in the sea
(43:33):
that day.
Right. And I think that's also fair. I certainly am not trying to superimpose a truth that's
not there, but at the same time, we don't know, based on the text, we don't know what...
I'm going to tell you, and I don't know this for sure, but with the kind of MO that I have
(43:58):
put together in my brain with people like Peter, right? I bet he tried it later.
Oh, you know... Oh, dude, you know he had to have...
Be quiet.
Cloud, go away.
Yeah, just one more one.
Cloud. I want that one, though, to look like a dinosaur. I want this one. You don't like
(44:21):
brontosaurus.
Yeah, I think about him walking on water, and I think, I bet every time he walked by
a puddle, every time he looked at the sea, he thought about that. I wonder how many times
that he stepped into a puddle and then like...
So I want to rehash this because it just popped in my mind. And listeners, if you'll remember
(44:46):
a couple episodes, several episodes ago, Brad and I were sort of recapping our Christmas
experience and how Brad was under the weather and I had the flu. But, dude, I was hurling
and I heard my son praying with my two daughters and my wife. I heard my son saying, Dear God,
(45:18):
please don't let daddy get sick anymore. Now, the flu didn't go away, but I did not actually
get sick, like, you know, vomit. And then he prayed later on that day, Dear God, please
let us go and see Uncle B and Aunt Babby, Carrie, Beth, and Isaiah and Hannah. And the day before
(45:47):
and three days after, I felt like complete junk. But that day, I believe, holy Brad,
skeptics out there, if you're listening to this, I don't care what you have to say. Sorry.
Like, like right now, not right now, that I felt, I felt good enough, not just to be
(46:14):
able to get out of the house, but to spend what two and a half, three hours with you
guys, including eating a meal, a Christmas meal. This there is there is no other explanation
that I can come to except that God heard Noah's prayer and Noah didn't. I don't I'm going
to say this, I'm going to be bold enough to say this, Brad, that Noah did not pray that
(46:38):
just simply flippantly hoping that God will say, yeah, you know what, I got time for that.
But rather that that he heard Noah praying, knowing that God was going to answer his prayer.
And I think that that that right there relates directly to what everything we're talking
about, like what is the peace of God? I'm going to be honest, I don't I don't have the
(47:04):
kind of peace, the kind of faith or or how do I how do I how do I say this right? Again,
I'm trying to put ducks in a row here. I think it's I don't have the kind of faith that brings
about the kind of peace that lets me that lets me be able to still walk around with
my with my chest puffed out thinking, yeah, right now I'm not I'm not doing too great,
(47:27):
but God's got me like I don't I don't have I don't have that on a 24 hour basis.
You know, I keep coming back to this. Faith, right? Faith, which faith, faith, believe
in God, believe in God, he is who he said he is believing he can do what he said he
(47:50):
can do, believing he's going to do what he said he will do, you know, and then he's done
what he said he did. Believe in God. I think sometimes there's there's so many things that
we get caught up in. I need to do this. I need to do that. I need to do this as a Christian.
I got to do this. I don't do that. Don't do this. Do this. Do that. Right. That that one
(48:11):
of the biggest things to the apostles to others, ultimately to us, the guy goes is faith. Believe
me. Yeah. How do we how do we get saved? We believe God. We turn to him in repentance.
We believe him. We confess him. Right. Like, like through faith, you know, by grace, you
(48:35):
are saved through faith. Right. And not of my not works of myself. Not of works. So like,
God wants us to believe. What if we believed him more? What if we believed it tells us
to be like little children? Yeah. You know, I think one of the most surprising things
for our kids probably is, is that we teach them to trust God a lot more than probably
(48:57):
sometimes we know where you go. Then we actually trust God. Yeah, that's right. No, no, no,
that's safe to drink. Well, why aren't you drinking it? Not only is it safe, it's good.
Then you trust God too much. No, you can't. Right. So, so why don't we? Yeah. And again,
(49:19):
I think this is the daily bread, right? The daily bread. I don't, I don't want daily bread.
If I'm honest, I want, I want yearly bread. I want, I want decadely bread. Decadely bread?
I want storehouses of bread. I want to know the bread is there. But I'm supposed to trust
God for my daily bread as the provider, which is faith. Because I've got to say, I know
(49:50):
that the provider of bread is going to give me my daily bread. Yeah. Now that doesn't
mean I sit on my sofa and go, can't wait for the bread delivery. Where's the manna? Yeah.
We're sitting out. I mean, right. Even with the man in the wilderness, they had to go
get it. That's right. They can pick it up. I think some of us, you know, we're missing
(50:14):
out on our blessings, we're missing out on our peace because we need to go pick it up.
And then for some of us, I think we're trying to outrun it. I mean, I think again, 23rd
Psalm, surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. I'll dwell in
the house of the Lord forever. So they're going to pursue me. So in a sense, if we belong
(50:36):
to God, God's peace is pursuing us. And hey, even if you're out there and you don't belong
to God yet, you haven't been saved, you feel that drawing, you feel God taking, yeah, that's
His peace pursuing you because He wants you to be part of His family. Yeah. He wants to
forgive you for your sins. He wants to save you because you can't save yourself. And He
(50:57):
wants forever. I mean, I'm going to plan on this. Let me just pull this up and just share
this and probably my final thought, probably not.
Actually, no, it'll need to be because I teach in seven minutes.
No, no way. No, we're going to have to go another, you know, more score.
(51:20):
I'll just send an email to my students. Sorry.
I'm still going to give you the test. I'm just not going to be there. So good luck.
I'm just going to tell you that they would not be upset at all if you didn't show up
on the day of the test. Most of them probably wouldn't. Let me see if I can find it. I don't
(51:43):
have it. OK, here we go. Here we go. Jeremiah 31.
19. Actually, 20.
20. I was close. OK.
We were close. That's actually pretty like I'm kind of like, wow, how did you know that?
(52:05):
Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a delightful child? Indeed. As often as I have spoken against
him, I certainly still remember him. Therefore, my heart yearns for him.
I will surely have mercy on him, declares the Lord. I love that.
Because the guy goes, Ephraim, you sinned. I had to bring judgment against you.
(52:25):
I had to say these things. I had to call you out on your crap.
I love you. And not only do I love you, but my heart yearns for you. I want you to be.
Like, I want you to abide in me. I want to be able to pour out my blessings on you.
And that's like I want. For you to be close to me.
(52:49):
Yeah, I mean, that's that's incredible. That's incredible.
And that's and you know, and as a closing thought that.
I'm speaking both from personal experience and concept.
And it oscillates depending on depending on like how stupid or how awesome I am.
(53:11):
But like. The closer you get to God, the more peace you're going to have.
Again, it's not not the lack of obstacles because life is life.
I mean, I would I would argue the closer you get to God, probably the more.
The more obstacles. I mean, it's it's yeah, very, very, very could be true.
Very well could be true. But I think as well as.
(53:32):
As well as what you said, but the greater peace. Yeah, the greater peace.
And you learn that that those obstacles.
Don't have the power to steal your peace. Yeah.
When you're with God. All right.
So I got to land the plane because I got to get out of here.
But to to that point, great up listeners.
(53:54):
Thank you for hanging out with us, for tuning in.
Remember, like and and subscribe and share the show.
You know where you can go anywhere to get your podcast.
Again, if you're watching this on YouTube, please, please give us a like.
And a like and a subscribe.
You can see my broad range of emotions that I show throughout the show.
Right. Yeah. Yeah.
(54:14):
But yeah, get in contact with us.
You can email us at MenChurchStuff at Gmail dot com.
You can also follow us on our Facebook group page.
MenChurchStuff.
You can follow us on Instagram if you want at MenChurchStuff.
But beyond that, Brad, I love you, buddy.
Love you, too.
Enjoy giving a test.
(54:34):
I know, dude, I'm going to.
You tester.
I know. Listeners, we love you and we will catch you next time.
Bye bye now.
Welcome. This is the Men Church Stuff Podcast.
(00:17):
This is the show where brothers-in-law DJ Culp and Brad Coleman talk about stuff from
our perspective as men. It's a show for anyone who wants to hear how Christians interact
with the world. And don't worry, we're real. We've grown up in church and we want to share
our experiences with you. We'll talk life stuff, church stuff, man stuff, and stuff
(00:39):
stuff. Here we go.
Greetings listeners here and there and everywhere, all across the land. This is the Men Church
Stuff Podcast. I am one of your hosts, DJ Culp, as always here with my beloved brother-in-law,
(01:00):
Brad Coleman. Brad, what's up, man?
I don't look as good today.
I'm sorry?
Yeah, I don't look as good today because my technology's not working.
Yeah, right. Your lines are a little fuzzier, Brad. Are you feeling okay?
Yeah.
Anytime that you move your head, it's like you kind of blur for a second. So maybe Brad...
(01:21):
Technology is great when it works.
Yeah. Yeah. I learned early on in my teaching career that technology is awesome unless it's
not. And if it's not, it will ruin your day. And what sucks is I actually remember... I
(01:43):
don't know what the lesson was, but I remember the very first time because it didn't take
long. I think within the first two weeks maybe of me teaching public school, starting back
in 09, I walked in and I was like, okay, I've got this planned out. We're going to have
a great lesson today. It's first year teaching, kind of didn't really know what was going
on. And I don't remember what technology did not work, but it didn't work. And I thought,
(02:08):
oh crap, I don't know what to do. I am rendered useless right now. And that's something that
you don't learn, especially in our technology driven society, like in your educational curriculum,
like technology this, technology that. But what happens when it fails you?
(02:29):
You know what I learned as a pastor?
From the hip, man. What's that?
With doing sermons with PowerPoint, that if you don't have a PowerPoint, it can't mess
up.
That's true. So to play it safe, you don't use technology.
That's right.
And at that point, I think we probably need to sign off, Brad. What we'll do is we'll
(02:50):
have a phone conversation and you and I will just talk about stuff.
You think Jesus had Peter just holding up like big cards?
Cue cards.
But for the audience, so everybody can see in the back. Oh, he said, my piece, my piece.
(03:12):
Okay, all right. I was confused.
During the sermon on the mount, during the sermon on the mount, like Jesus not only had
a scribe writing stuff down, but like they had a poster board and like the whole presentation.
This is what he said. This is what he said. Hang on, Jesus. The people in the back can't
read this yet.
(03:32):
That's funny. So listeners, when this drops, if you are, if you don't know this yet, I
will, I will have already made a, an announcement in our Facebook, our Facebook group page and
I'll drop it in Instagram. We don't have a lot of following in Instagram. I'm actually
Brad, I'm considering even closing down Instagram because I think we, we just don't have a lot
(03:56):
of, a lot of followers.
But I mean,
DJ Instagram is not about us. You can't just close down Instagram because we don't have
followers. Yeah, we're just going to close it down. I didn't know you had that deep in
your pockets where you could just buy Instagram and change its name. Like why or something
else?
Yeah. Yeah, that's true. X has already taken, right? So, but no, once you get to like start
(04:23):
adding X is it's the changes to bad things. Bad things happen. Or as a, as a, as a, what
is it? Is it Bilbo? I think that said, and where, and where darkness lies, bad things
will follow.
But no, what I'll do is by, by this point, when this episode drops, I will have already
(04:46):
made a, an announcement in our Facebook group page and on Instagram that we will have, we
will have a YouTube, a YouTube video page, a YouTube channel. Sorry, there we go. That's
my dinosaur talking. We'll have a YouTube channel. It will have already gone live. So
we will have already been, been live for a couple of days. So listeners, if you weren't
(05:07):
aware of that, you can, you can head over to, you can search men church stuff in, in
the YouTube search bar and you'll find our, you'll find, you'll find our channel. So again,
and with that, like us. Yes. Like, yes. Thank you, Brad. Yeah. Like and subscribe. Follow
us.
Yeah. I know with YouTube dynamics that, that matters even more than, than some of these
(05:32):
other podcasts. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. So Brad, let's, let's, let's get into our
topic today. So our topic has to do with clinging to God's peace. And the really, so listeners,
(05:56):
I think I probably said this on the show before that I've got a, I've got a stack of, of bulletins
from our, from our, the church that we attend. And then I've got a running list, you know,
on a, on a, on a note on my iPhone of just topic ideas. So anything that, anything that
(06:16):
our pastor says, you know, during, during a sermon, if it's something, it's, if it's
something in the bulletin that spawns an idea, what I'll do is I'll highlight it or I'll
circle it and I'll just put in big capital letters, show. So this one actually comes
from not really the Christmas story, but we normally talk about it during Christmas, but
(06:37):
it's, it comes out of Luke two, where let me get to my Bible app here. Luke two.
I gotta get in, I gotta get into the groove of reminding myself that we're actually starting
(07:00):
a YouTube. So the things that I do, I know I'm the same way during the show.
Yeah. All right. So, so the clinging to God's peace and I'll just read kind of the, where
this idea came from. There was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous
and devout looking forward to the constellation of Israel and the Holy Spirit was upon him.
(07:24):
And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before
he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came by the Spirit into the temple and when the
parents brought the child Jesus, right, Joseph and Mary, to carry out for him the custom
of the law, then he took him in his arms and blessed God and said, now Lord, you are letting
your bond servant depart in peace. According to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation,
(07:48):
that you have prepared in the presence of all the peoples, light for the revelation
for the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel. And it says here, and his father and
mother were amazed at the things which were being said about him and Simeon blessed them
and said to his mother, Mary, behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rise of
many in Israel and as a sign to be opposed and as a sword and a sword will pierce your
(08:12):
own soul, but as a sign to be opposed to the end that thoughts from, that the thoughts
from many hearts may be revealed. Yeah, and just to kind of give a little bit more of
a specification as to where our pastor kind of went with this, I've got here written in
(08:33):
the margin that peace is not the absence of obstacles and suffering, but it's the presence
of Jesus in the midst of storms. So, Brad, just to kind of kick it off, sort of framing
it that way, what are some, what's a time that sticks out to you in your life that you
have experienced God's peace in that way? A lot. Cool. And I think of the verse that
(09:03):
says that for God's peace, the peace that Jesus gives passes understanding. So, as someone
who deals with anxiety and depression, like sometimes that's a daily episode for me of
deep in my soul, deep in my being, there's peace. But on the surface, there's a lot more
(09:38):
panic and anxiety. Like the things that I get anxious about, you know, I acknowledge
a lot of times aren't going to matter in two weeks.
Yeah, for this too shall pass.
Yeah, or like, oh, I have a meeting and I'm like so anxious about it. And I know even
if it goes horrible, yeah, it's going to be okay. Because I have that peace that God has
(10:04):
got me that if the worst thing that the world looks that could happen to me is that I die.
Right?
Right.
And scripturally, that's the best thing that can happen to me is I go home and be with
Jesus. So I have that peace. But, you know, there's a lot of anxious turmoil and stuff
(10:25):
that I deal with on a regular basis. And so I mean, as far as a example, probably just
walking through all of the struggle. Gosh, it's about 10 years ago now, you know, where
(10:48):
I was I was on medication that was really messing with the way that I thought and the
way that I things I was struggling with obsessive thoughts and wasn't realizing at the time
that it was all that was tied to this medication that I started taking. And then, but just,
(11:10):
I kept going, I kept praying. And it was one of the most difficult times of my life, you
know, and I've shared, you know, one of the darkest times of my life. But I never felt
abandoned by God. Even there were times when it's like, I can't hear you. I can't feel
you. Yeah.
Like holding on to that truth that I know you hear me and I know that the way that I
(11:37):
feel right now is not truth. So I'm going to keep, you know, talking to you about it
and plugging on. And again, it was difficult. I don't want to downsize it. It was the darkest,
probably, year to year and a half of my life almost destroyed my life in a lot of ways.
(12:02):
And it was like I was in a daily battle. And so in a lot of ways I lost my peace. But I
still had the peace of God that no matter what, even if all of these things, these struggles,
all of these fears, all of this stuff came to fruition, that the God was going to, you
(12:24):
know, take me home and welcome me home at the end of my life.
So dude, dude, yeah, that's some really, really good insight, I think. That like when you
said that I didn't have peace necessarily the way that we think about it. Because normally,
I don't know about you, but I know for me, it's a really, really big tendency on my part
(12:50):
to try to define peace even in that context, you know, that we're talking about as sort
of just this the way that has been lifted off. And now everything is hunky-dory. I'm
on cloud nine and I'm good. When in actuality, what you said was, I mean, it's so simplistic
and it's true, but it's also profound that I did not feel abandoned by God. God didn't
(13:13):
actually leave me high and dry to kick me to the curb until I kind of dressed myself
back up and made myself, what's the word, made myself like not approachable, but help
me out. What's, I'm trying to think of the word. I almost had it. But like, I've got
(13:40):
to clean myself up before I can come to you. I'm trying to think of the word for that.
I don't know why I can't right now. But yeah, like, I think it's really profound.
Presentable.
Presentable. Thank you very much. Yes, that's the word I'm looking for. Because God doesn't
require that of us because we actually can't do that. And yeah, again, I think it's really
(14:02):
profound that you had that. I think for me, I mean, really the thing that sticks out,
I think the most for me whenever I think about like the peace of the Lord, if I go through
all of my life experiences, the day that I hung up the phone with the music education
(14:32):
supervisor at the University of Mississippi. And the last thing that I really want to do,
listeners, you know, if you're new to the show, I teach at a small Christian university.
If you're not new to the show, you will have known that. I've got a doctorate from Ole
Miss, doctorate in music. But the move, the process of the move is really something that
(14:53):
completely changed everything about my life, about Shera's life, about our marriage, about
our relationship with each other. I mean, it was absolutely earth shattering. So oftentimes
I like a lot of life experiences, a lot of life experience can't really trump that, like
(15:15):
what was happening at that season of our life. And so I got off the phone with the music
education supervisor and I knew in what he was saying, I knew he was telling me, you
need to come down as a formality. We want you here. We're going to offer you money.
You're accepted. Let's do it. I mean, I can tell that was the narrative, or at least that
(15:36):
was the sense that I got. So when I hung up the phone, I was in our house in Murray, Kentucky,
and I was in our living room and I spoke these words out loud because I didn't know what
else to do. And I said, God, if this is not your will, I need you to close the door because
(15:58):
I knew all I had to do was say, yeah, let's do it. And it was a done deal. But I knew
that there was so much tension in the whole process between both me and Shara, our tension,
not just with each other, but our tension in life goals. I'm not going to necessarily
(16:22):
say our tension with the Lord, though I definitely know that at that point in time, even she
was having a lot of pushback. Or when I say she was having, she wasn't having pushback,
she was the one pushing back. And she would say that. So at that point in time, I was
like, I really thought that that phone conversation would have absolutely overcomplicated things
(16:48):
for me. I just knew that this was going to make things even harder. And when I prayed,
God, if this is not your will, I need you to close the door. There was like, I almost
had a visual sense of God saying, you need to wait, you will be fine. And it was a sense
(17:12):
of peace that really, I think one of probably the only times in my life, Brad, that I've
almost palpably been able to understand what you mentioned you're out of Philippians 4,
and the peace of God will surpass all understanding. It was one of those moments where I was like,
I have no idea why this is happening. I don't know where this is coming from. But I also
(17:36):
have no other choice than just hold on to it. And again, like you mentioned, I think
it was really more of a not necessarily the sense that God was relieving me of weight.
Because I mean, at that point in time, I suppose he did a little bit, but I mean, I still had
to tell Shara, hey, I know the University of Mississippi has not been in our radar, and
(17:59):
we haven't talked a thing about it. But you know, and so, as you mentioned, all of those
variables were still very much at play. But the fact that I knew God was not abandoning
neither me or our marriage gave me that sense of peace.
Yeah. Well, and again, I think a lot of times we think of like the 23rd Psalms, you're right,
(18:25):
that the green pasture is still waters, that's peace. Right? And then we go into the valley
of the shadow of death or the valley of the deepest darkness, and that's not peace. So
what's going on around us is not at peace. But we can be at peace. And we can be at peace
(18:49):
in God, even when we're not completely at peace in ourselves.
Yeah. Yeah. No, like, and I think, I don't know about you, but my rationality, God has
just wired me to be very rational, very logical and analytical. My rationality doesn't enjoy
(19:12):
what you just said. My rationality really kind of hates that. You know, like, I can't
order the ducks in this row. It doesn't make any sense, you know?
No, no, no. Peace? No peace. Not, not, yes. Are you at peace? Yes and no. Are you at peace
or not?
(19:33):
No, no, no, no. You have to explain this, you know? I have to understand it.
And I think, too, like, when we look at peace, like, biblically, right, so erene, that's
the Greek word, erene, which, for peace. But it's derived from the word aero, meaning to
(20:01):
join or to tie together into a whole.
W-H-O-L-E. Yes, yeah. Not throw into a hole, not together in a hole. Lord, we're here gathered
in this hole, like you told us.
In this hole, right.
So we get our peace. It's a cave. That's a hole, right?
(20:23):
Bundled homophones.
But, you know, it's bundled like a bundle of sticks, bundled together, a bundle of firewood,
bundled together as a whole. And just, it's all there. Everything. And so, again, so I
guess for me, the peace of God is, and part of that is the acknowledging and the experiencing
(20:48):
of us being joined together with God. The Holy Spirit lives in us. We're joiners in
the Kingdom. So even on our worst day, even on our hardest day, even when the whole, you
know, even when our life is falling apart around us, and we're still joined to God,
we can have that peace. I think that's, for me, that's deep. It's deep.
(21:15):
Yeah.
It's the anchor. And maybe if you make that picture, it's like the ship is getting tossed,
but the anchor's going to hold.
Yeah.
So the anchor holds.
Yeah, I just came up with that.
That's right, Brad.
Yeah. It's a great analogy, you know.
(21:37):
That's right. You witnessed it here, folks. Brad had the first original thought of that
particular metaphor in all of human existence. So then, Brad, let me ask you this. And I
don't want to chase too much of a tangent here, but this is a question that I think
(22:00):
that I have danced around a lot of times, but it just occurred to me how to vocalize.
When you think about, say, a topic like this, right? So we're talking about clinging to
God's peace and discussing it through not the absence of obstacles and suffering, but
the presence of Jesus in the midst of storms. Do you think about it differently as Brad
(22:29):
and as a pastor? Like, how often, Brad, does your humanity take this type of topic and
experience it in a different way than the way that you would translate it as a pastor?
Does that make sense?
(22:51):
Sort of.
Because if not, I can edit this out.
Well, no. So let me say this. I don't know. Maybe it's an answer to your question. Maybe
it's not. The sermons on Sunday are just as much for me as they are for anybody else,
(23:12):
and sometimes more, I think, for me. And sometimes I think I get it in advance, and sometimes
I have to be reminded. And I've said this before. I can't count the times where your
sister has looked at me and going, you know, I heard a sermon about that recently. Maybe
(23:37):
you should go listen to it. The implication is, hey, remember what you preached on Sunday?
Go review your notes.
And again, I think for me, that's just the proof of the pudding that, look, I get to
be the mouthpiece to speak what God has said and God's truth while I'm learning it with
(24:00):
everybody else, while I'm having to remember it. So in that sense, there is kind of sometimes
that separation between Brad who is preaching and Brad who is being preached to by himself,
(24:21):
or by the Holy Spirit. And sometimes I think I get it double. It's like, okay, leading
up to this, knowing I was preaching it, God's hitting me with it, and then in the middle
of the sermon. I mean, I don't know if anybody ever knows, because I don't have these crazy
inflections in my face like some people.
Yeah, right. That's true.
(24:43):
There's definitely times during a sermon when God just hits me with something in the sermon
that I wasn't expecting. And so, as someone standing in front of everybody, I feel like
everybody just saw that. But for everybody else, it was probably just, I just paused
(25:09):
a second and went on.
I really appreciate how Pastor Brad, every now and then he'll pause because it tells
me that he's being really intuitive or he's being really sensitive to the words that he's
saying. Now what's happening is Brad's going, wow, yeah, I guess I do that.
Sometimes Brad's going, that's not fair, God. Did you have to point that out right now?
(25:34):
In front of everybody? Come on.
Right, right. In public? It's a private conversation in public. So let me ask you something, so
the peace and storm, what do you think you would have done, and I kind of turned the
corner a little bit, but what do you think you would have done if you were one of the
apostles in the boat in the storm while Jesus is taking a nap? What does DJ do?
(26:03):
To be honest, knowing my personality and so, and to give you a little bit of context as
to why I'm going this direction, there's only been one time in my life where I have actually
been, I'm going to use the word scared, I haven't been terrified, but there's only been
one time where I've been scared.
(26:24):
Just once? You were only scared once in your whole life. That is incredible.
Oh, dude. Yeah, you didn't know this about me, did you?
Yeah, wow, you are so brave.
Yeah, that's bulletproof right there, baby.
Can't wait to hear about this one time when you were scared.
No, there's only been one time where I've been scared in a boat on water, and out of
(26:46):
nowhere, it was actually on Kentucky Lake. Listeners, one of the things that Brad and
my dad and I love to do is go fishing, and we go fishing on Kentucky Lake, and if you're
ever in the area, go check out Kentucky Lake if you're a fisherman, really, really good
fishing waters. But Brad, dad and I were fishing, I was back in high school, and out of nowhere,
(27:14):
like a storm, and it wasn't a huge one, it was big enough, storm just really came out
of nowhere, and I saw the waves react. It was a breezy day, it wasn't still and calm,
but it was very workable, and when the storm came up, in less than five minutes' time,
(27:39):
we went from just sort of, I don't know if you'd call them waves necessarily, but the
water's just kind of tossing your boat sort of here and there to probably three foot,
four foot waves in five minutes' time. It was really nowhere, or no time at all, and
dad was driving, and I could tell that dad was scared, but what was I doing? I was not
(28:08):
about to stand up. What was I trying to do? I was actually trying to A, keep my own balance,
and B, try to figure out, all right, which way is the boat going to go, so I'm going
to try to almost counterbalance to make sure that there's enough weight that if we hit
the water wrong, it'll be fine. So to answer your question, Brad, what do I see myself
(28:31):
doing? First of all, I have no idea how bad this storm was, but clearly it's worse than
I can imagine.
Let me put it this way, okay? Four of those guys on that boat were seasoned fishermen,
and they're scared. They're scared.
So in that case-
That's a pretty big storm.
(28:51):
It's a pretty big storm. It's bigger than the one that I've ever experienced. So what
would I do? I think I would keep my butt in its seat and then just hold on for dear life.
I don't think actually in this case, and I don't know if you've ever heard of anybody
think about it this way, but I don't think that I would have been brave enough to stand
(29:12):
up and go to Jesus. I don't really think I would have been able to do that, but to that
point, I'm not a seasoned fisherman, right? I don't live on the water. But I would... Would
I have thought we're going to die? I mean, I may have thought, I mean, this is going
(29:32):
to happen. This sucks, I guess. I don't know what I would have done. But again, knowing
my personality, I think I would do whatever I could to try to contribute to controlling
the situation. Again, like I said, with that day in the boat, okay, if we're coming down
(29:54):
to the right on this wave, I need to lean to the left or whatever the case is. My personality,
I don't think that I would have joined in the communal freaking out. You know what I
mean? I don't see myself fueling that fire. What about you though?
(30:17):
Well, I would have been probably more internally than externally. I tend to be like take charge
in those situations. But again, ADHD, anxiety, all that stuff, right? People who don't deal
with that, who are now dealing with that, are trying to have to figure out how to deal
(30:40):
with that. As someone who deals with those things very regularly, it's like, oh, this
is just another day. We just amped it up a little bit. I don't know. I think there's
a lot that just depends on what happened before, if I'm honest.
That's fair.
(31:01):
Jesus is sleeping in the boat. I mean, I think part of me would side with, Jesus, don't you
even care? How are you sleeping? How are you sleeping in the storm? But I definitely think
I would have been one that wouldn't have woken him up. Now, the question is, would have
been like, hey Jesus, save us, or hey Jesus, we're going to die. Hey Jesus, I can't believe
(31:24):
you're sleeping. I don't know. But I think that I would have been one, even if it was
yelling across the boat, Jesus! Jesus! Get up!
I think I would have acknowledged on some level, hey, we need Jesus to be being Jesus,
(31:52):
which he is. But he's sleeping, right? So, well, he's obviously not aware of all of this.
I think when Jesus laid down to take the nap, he knew exactly what was going to happen.
He knew the storm was coming. He controls the storms. He gets up and he rebukes the storm
(32:13):
afterwards and the storm goes quiet. And now they're more afraid. Instead of being afraid,
like what? Nobody saw that one coming.
So actually, let's see. No, no, no, no. Yeah. So to that point, and this is something that
I, and you know, as you mentioned, I think it does depend, you're right, contextually
(32:37):
what has happened before. Because when you said, you know, four of these guys were seasoned
fishermen, like that was their profession. The part of me that kind of doesn't believe
the assumption, because I like, I've never heard anybody say it this way, but I just
can't believe the assumption that this storm just appeared. Like storms don't do that.
(33:01):
You know, so the four fishermen, I would have assumed would have seen something like this
coming. Now, how fast it came on, that's a different thing.
The storms do come on quicker than sometimes than we think.
Right.
Yeah. When I think they're doing their stuff, right? They're doing what they know to do.
Right.
To keep them safe. But it's not working.
(33:24):
Yeah. And, and this is something that the more that I've read it, the more profound
and almost terrifying, if I can use that word, that it becomes after Jesus calmed the storm,
right? And it became calm. He said to them, where is your faith? Now, my question, I'm
(33:46):
going to press pause because my question is not like, did Jesus just end it there and
just kind of give him this? Like, this isn't a rhetorical question, guys, you know, I need
your answer. Or did he, or was it like this?
Did they wake him up?
And then did he go back and take a nap? Like, did he go back to sleep? You know, like, where's
your faith?
(34:06):
Is Jesus grumpy in the morning? Jesus grumpy when you wake him up from a nap? He looked
at the storm and said, shut up!
Sorry, sir. Sorry. You realize we were interrupting your nap?
Yeah, my bad.
And the wind and the waves just went, like,
Well, here's the thing that gets me.
(34:27):
I'm in trouble with daddy.
I know. Every time that I read this, again, as the older I get, the more profound this
becomes. The disciples said to each other, who then is this guy who commands even the
winds and water and they obey him? So hang on. Like, again, I'm going to put it in. How
would DJ say this? Yeah. Who the heck is this guy that when he commands the winds and the
(34:52):
water, they obey him? Like, that caveat, they obey him is not this dude's a lunatic yelling
at the weather. Yep. I do that. And the weather means like, you will be on your way.
When Jesus says, let it snow, it snows.
That's right.
Like, boom.
When I say let it snow, the weather goes, oh, okay, well, we'll have 70 degrees tomorrow.
(35:14):
You know, it's the, okay, you tell me what to do. I will spite you. But the disciples
didn't know.
So the question with that conversation, right, with Jesus saying, you know, hey, guys, where's
your faith?
Yeah.
So what is he saying? What is he saying? Do they not need to wake Jesus up?
(35:38):
That's, dude, that's deep right there, man. Like, where's your faith?
And the question is, too, is like,
Jesus was, I mean, Jesus is probably not telling them, hey, just stop trying.
Right.
And just let the boat sink.
Yeah, I know. That's right.
(35:59):
But they're with the Son of God. When the Son of God is in your boat, do you need to
be afraid of the boat sinking? Even when it looks like it? And I go to Peter walking on
the water, right? He sees the wind and the waves. He sees them.
Like I have, Brad, I have often visualized what on earth wind looks like. And I have
(36:24):
and clearly I know this is that this is obvious. There's nothing profound about it, but I have
no earthly idea what the heck wind looks like.
I didn't know it. I didn't know it looked, you know, but yeah, you're right. Peter saw
the wind.
Gosh, that's amazing.
And so, yeah, it's crazy. And I don't have an answer, right? I just have questions. Like
(36:49):
I don't know 100%. I could sit here and go, I think probably, you know, because the other
question is, when Jesus is saying, hey, do you have faith? Was he saying, hey, did you
even talk to my dad about it?
Right.
Like you just said, hey, Father, will you calm this storm? Will you have calmed it?
(37:13):
I think that this is...
We're like the apostles in one sense in the story. We're experiencing it without all the
answers.
Right.
Well, now, Jesus, what do you mean by that?
In the defense of the disciples, though, I think this gives us really, really accurate
insight into who they saw Jesus as actually being. I think they saw him just as another
(37:39):
rabbi. Now, I think they probably knew that he was radical in comparison to the Pharisees
and the Sadducees. But like, what would make them say, who the heck is this guy that he
commands even the winds and the water and they obey him?
(37:59):
And I would disagree with you. I don't think they saw him just another rabbi. I think they
saw him as the Messiah. I think they had their own ideas of what that meant.
I think that's legit.
I think they thought that he was going to be an earthly Messiah and set up an earthly
kingdom.
So they were still looking for the Jewish...
He was going to be David.
Yeah, right.
(38:20):
But he was going to be like a super David. Like as awesome as David was, Saul killed
his thousands and David is 10,000s and Jesus is 150,000s. He was just going to be this
awesome king. They've obviously seen him do miracles. So he has the power of God. So I
(38:41):
just think they're figuring out who he is. But I think they knew he was more. And I say
that because Peter's interaction with him, when Jesus does the whole miracle kind of
deal with the fish, or at least he looks at it that way.
Are you talking about the coin?
No, no.
(39:01):
Or the net?
Yeah. When he tells them to cast the net on the other side and they cast it and it's...
Oh, and that's at the calling of Peter.
Right. And Peter falls on his knees and goes, get away from me. I'm a sinful man. You can't
give me your enemy.
That's true.
I think about Nathaniel, truly this is the Messiah. Because, oh, you said this because
(39:24):
you saw me, or I said I saw you under the fig tree? Well, you're going to see greater
things than this. So I think they are doing, in one sense, what we do a lot, at least I
don't know anybody that's not guilty of this on some level, which is putting God in a box
and limiting him. I mean, sure, a guy can do that, but... You don't just tell the storm
(39:51):
to shut up and calm down and it does it.
And it does. Yeah.
And so I think they're seeing these things and every piece is just helping them to see
more and more who Jesus is. But it's terrifying.
Yeah.
Right? Because here is Jesus, who's the guy who needs to take a nap.
(40:13):
But yeah, so there's this humanity, but yet he wakes up and he rebukes the storm and somewhat
rebukes his apostles. And I'm with you, DJ. Did he lay back down to finish his nap? I
don't know. Hey, now that everything's quiet, can you guys be quiet too? And I tell the
(40:38):
wind and waves to be quiet.
Feel free to join me.
Right. I tell the wind and waves to be quiet. They're quiet. I tell the demons, they can't
speak. They don't speak. So could you guys?
That's right. For some reason or another.
Just for a little while, just let me have a nap. Okay? I'd appreciate it. Thank you.
That's true, man.
(41:00):
But yeah, peace. So the reality is they didn't have to lose their peace at any point because
they're with Jesus. But they did, in one sense, because they were afraid. Because fear
can start to steal our peace. What gets me is God sent them into that storm. He went
(41:30):
with them, but he sent them into the storm. Nobody's going to comment.
This is really deep.
Well, it is. Because I think, again, peace, love, joy, love, joy, peace. Those are huge.
(41:55):
What I'm coming back to, Brad, what I'm coming back to is your insinuation of where is your
faith.
I don't think that's my insinuation. I think it was Jesus'.
Well, but no, no, no. I know you're right. Yeah. I know that you're not writing this.
(42:18):
I don't know. I don't know. Can you tell me where to find it?
No, what I meant, though, is the way that you were thinking, the frame of mind that
you were in when you said, and he said to them, where is your faith? I had never considered
this until you said that was, in fact, Jesus telling them, guys, you didn't have to wake
(42:44):
me up. You could have done this. I want to be very, very transparent right now. That
thought does not compute. You know what I mean? My brain rejects it.
Elijah was a man like us, and he prayed that it would not rain, and it did not rain on
(43:09):
the earth for three years and six months until he prayed that it would rain, and then it
did. So now, our prayer has to be in line with God's will. But we can deduce, I think,
safely, make the implication that God's will for his apostles was not to drown in the sea
(43:33):
that day.
Right. And I think that's also fair. I certainly am not trying to superimpose a truth that's
not there, but at the same time, we don't know, based on the text, we don't know what...
I'm going to tell you, and I don't know this for sure, but with the kind of MO that I have
(43:58):
put together in my brain with people like Peter, right? I bet he tried it later.
Oh, you know... Oh, dude, you know he had to have...
Be quiet.
Cloud, go away.
Yeah, just one more one.
Cloud. I want that one, though, to look like a dinosaur. I want this one. You don't like
(44:21):
brontosaurus.
Yeah, I think about him walking on water, and I think, I bet every time he walked by
a puddle, every time he looked at the sea, he thought about that. I wonder how many times
that he stepped into a puddle and then like...
So I want to rehash this because it just popped in my mind. And listeners, if you'll remember
(44:46):
a couple episodes, several episodes ago, Brad and I were sort of recapping our Christmas
experience and how Brad was under the weather and I had the flu. But, dude, I was hurling
and I heard my son praying with my two daughters and my wife. I heard my son saying, Dear God,
(45:18):
please don't let daddy get sick anymore. Now, the flu didn't go away, but I did not actually
get sick, like, you know, vomit. And then he prayed later on that day, Dear God, please
let us go and see Uncle B and Aunt Babby, Carrie, Beth, and Isaiah and Hannah. And the day before
(45:47):
and three days after, I felt like complete junk. But that day, I believe, holy Brad,
skeptics out there, if you're listening to this, I don't care what you have to say. Sorry.
Like, like right now, not right now, that I felt, I felt good enough, not just to be
(46:14):
able to get out of the house, but to spend what two and a half, three hours with you
guys, including eating a meal, a Christmas meal. This there is there is no other explanation
that I can come to except that God heard Noah's prayer and Noah didn't. I don't I'm going
to say this, I'm going to be bold enough to say this, Brad, that Noah did not pray that
(46:38):
just simply flippantly hoping that God will say, yeah, you know what, I got time for that.
But rather that that he heard Noah praying, knowing that God was going to answer his prayer.
And I think that that that right there relates directly to what everything we're talking
about, like what is the peace of God? I'm going to be honest, I don't I don't have the
(47:04):
kind of peace, the kind of faith or or how do I how do I how do I say this right? Again,
I'm trying to put ducks in a row here. I think it's I don't have the kind of faith that brings
about the kind of peace that lets me that lets me be able to still walk around with
my with my chest puffed out thinking, yeah, right now I'm not I'm not doing too great,
(47:27):
but God's got me like I don't I don't have I don't have that on a 24 hour basis.
You know, I keep coming back to this. Faith, right? Faith, which faith, faith, believe
in God, believe in God, he is who he said he is believing he can do what he said he
(47:50):
can do, believing he's going to do what he said he will do, you know, and then he's done
what he said he did. Believe in God. I think sometimes there's there's so many things that
we get caught up in. I need to do this. I need to do that. I need to do this as a Christian.
I got to do this. I don't do that. Don't do this. Do this. Do that. Right. That that one
(48:11):
of the biggest things to the apostles to others, ultimately to us, the guy goes is faith. Believe
me. Yeah. How do we how do we get saved? We believe God. We turn to him in repentance.
We believe him. We confess him. Right. Like, like through faith, you know, by grace, you
(48:35):
are saved through faith. Right. And not of my not works of myself. Not of works. So like,
God wants us to believe. What if we believed him more? What if we believed it tells us
to be like little children? Yeah. You know, I think one of the most surprising things
for our kids probably is, is that we teach them to trust God a lot more than probably
(48:57):
sometimes we know where you go. Then we actually trust God. Yeah, that's right. No, no, no,
that's safe to drink. Well, why aren't you drinking it? Not only is it safe, it's good.
Then you trust God too much. No, you can't. Right. So, so why don't we? Yeah. And again,
(49:19):
I think this is the daily bread, right? The daily bread. I don't, I don't want daily bread.
If I'm honest, I want, I want yearly bread. I want, I want decadely bread. Decadely bread?
I want storehouses of bread. I want to know the bread is there. But I'm supposed to trust
God for my daily bread as the provider, which is faith. Because I've got to say, I know
(49:50):
that the provider of bread is going to give me my daily bread. Yeah. Now that doesn't
mean I sit on my sofa and go, can't wait for the bread delivery. Where's the manna? Yeah.
We're sitting out. I mean, right. Even with the man in the wilderness, they had to go
get it. That's right. They can pick it up. I think some of us, you know, we're missing
(50:14):
out on our blessings, we're missing out on our peace because we need to go pick it up.
And then for some of us, I think we're trying to outrun it. I mean, I think again, 23rd
Psalm, surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. I'll dwell in
the house of the Lord forever. So they're going to pursue me. So in a sense, if we belong
(50:36):
to God, God's peace is pursuing us. And hey, even if you're out there and you don't belong
to God yet, you haven't been saved, you feel that drawing, you feel God taking, yeah, that's
His peace pursuing you because He wants you to be part of His family. Yeah. He wants to
forgive you for your sins. He wants to save you because you can't save yourself. And He
(50:57):
wants forever. I mean, I'm going to plan on this. Let me just pull this up and just share
this and probably my final thought, probably not.
Actually, no, it'll need to be because I teach in seven minutes.
No, no way. No, we're going to have to go another, you know, more score.
(51:20):
I'll just send an email to my students. Sorry.
I'm still going to give you the test. I'm just not going to be there. So good luck.
I'm just going to tell you that they would not be upset at all if you didn't show up
on the day of the test. Most of them probably wouldn't. Let me see if I can find it. I don't
(51:43):
have it. OK, here we go. Here we go. Jeremiah 31.
19. Actually, 20.
20. I was close. OK.
We were close. That's actually pretty like I'm kind of like, wow, how did you know that?
(52:05):
Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a delightful child? Indeed. As often as I have spoken against
him, I certainly still remember him. Therefore, my heart yearns for him.
I will surely have mercy on him, declares the Lord. I love that.
Because the guy goes, Ephraim, you sinned. I had to bring judgment against you.
(52:25):
I had to say these things. I had to call you out on your crap.
I love you. And not only do I love you, but my heart yearns for you. I want you to be.
Like, I want you to abide in me. I want to be able to pour out my blessings on you.
And that's like I want. For you to be close to me.
(52:49):
Yeah, I mean, that's that's incredible. That's incredible.
And that's and you know, and as a closing thought that.
I'm speaking both from personal experience and concept.
And it oscillates depending on depending on like how stupid or how awesome I am.
(53:11):
But like. The closer you get to God, the more peace you're going to have.
Again, it's not not the lack of obstacles because life is life.
I mean, I would I would argue the closer you get to God, probably the more.
The more obstacles. I mean, it's it's yeah, very, very, very could be true.
Very well could be true. But I think as well as.
(53:32):
As well as what you said, but the greater peace. Yeah, the greater peace.
And you learn that that those obstacles.
Don't have the power to steal your peace. Yeah.
When you're with God. All right.
So I got to land the plane because I got to get out of here.
But to to that point, great up listeners.
(53:54):
Thank you for hanging out with us, for tuning in.
Remember, like and and subscribe and share the show.
You know where you can go anywhere to get your podcast.
Again, if you're watching this on YouTube, please, please give us a like.
And a like and a subscribe.
You can see my broad range of emotions that I show throughout the show.
Right. Yeah. Yeah.
(54:14):
But yeah, get in contact with us.
You can email us at MenChurchStuff at Gmail dot com.
You can also follow us on our Facebook group page.
MenChurchStuff.
You can follow us on Instagram if you want at MenChurchStuff.
But beyond that, Brad, I love you, buddy.
Love you, too.
Enjoy giving a test.
(54:34):
I know, dude, I'm going to.
You tester.
I know. Listeners, we love you and we will catch you next time.
Bye bye now.
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