April 28, 2024 • 17 mins
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In this heartening episode of Hope in Him Today, host Gary Miller takes us on a deep dive into the journey of faith, highlighting the quintessential values of embracing our unique paths and demonstrating respect for others' divergences. As he enlightens listeners with an inspired interpretation of Romans 12:6, Miller underscores the importance of shunning judgement that stunts spiritual growth, instead celebrating the wide-ranging gifts that God has granted each one of us.
He explores how churches and ministries that advocate ubiquity in action and thought often diminish the veracity of biblical teachings. Echoing that there is no 'right' or 'wrong' way of worship, Miller calls upon a gamut of worship forms, dispelling the myth of a one-size-fits-all approach to faith. Taking cues from the diverse abilities of pastors, teachers, and preachers, Miller illustrates the critical role each unique gift plays in God's all-encompassing plan.
In this episode, personal anecdotes form the crux of Miller’s address, promoting the idea of cherishing our distinctive gifts rather than passing judgement. As he concludes, he invites listeners to appreciate the inherent differences within their communities, underlining how acceptance can foster significant growth in our faith journeys and communities alike.
Delving into various religious and theological perspectives, the host discusses his personal routine of drawing insight from a wide array of religious texts ranging from the Book of Mormon and Psalms to the Quran. He stresses on the importance of open-mindedness in spirituality, showing listeners the enrichment he has personally experienced from broadening his religious horizons.
The primary message revolves around favoring grace and the gifts from God, dismissing the 'us versus them' mentality, and cultivating understanding and acceptance. As Miller champions diversity from start to finish, this episode of Hope in Him Today is one that will inspire listeners to embrace difference and walk journeys of faith hand in hand.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:05):
There, friends. Gary Miller here. This is Hope in Him Today.
Great to have you with us. Thanks for stopping by.
If you're a frequent flyer, man, I appreciate you. And if you're someone who's
new to this party, welcome.
I would encourage you to go to hopeinhimtoday.com and take in all of what we have there.
You can use as much or as little of those episodes as you like.
(00:26):
It's our intention, it's our hope, and we are confident that if you'll hang
around here long enough, you'll get excited about Jesus.
And then if we have that occur, then we have done our job.
So welcome. I want to talk to you today about a verse that is just so personal to me.
It has been a guiding light, kind of an anchor, if you will,
(00:48):
in my faith journey, because it applies not only to how I'm perceiving my own
walk, but how I perceive others.
I don't know if you've noticed this, but you and I just have the capacity to
be so wildly judgmental and arrogant sometimes about the way other people are
(01:10):
walking their faith journey.
And we do that sometimes while making just these wild assumptions about things.
And we don't know those people. We don't know what's going on with them.
We don't know where they've been, what they're going through and where they're going.
Only they and God does. And yet we make these crazy judgments.
And I tell you, whether we're judging others wildly incorrectly or we're judging ourselves.
(01:37):
Wildly incorrectly, this verse is really kind of, it helps me reset in a really
practical and simple way.
Romans chapter 12, verse 6. I'm going to give this to you from the living Bible.
I love the way that this is so simple, the way this is rendered.
Romans 12, verse 6 says, God has given each of us the ability to do certain things well.
(02:01):
God has given each of us the ability to do certain things well.
If you flip it over to the King James, it says, having then gifts differing
according to the grace that is given to us.
Each one of us is kind of running this race grace at our own pace and in our
own ways most of our frustrations often come because we have some,
(02:25):
interesting set of expectations in our head that we've created and yet we kind
of blanket and throw those on everybody else and when they're not doing those
things we get frustrated we get frustrated with them or we kind of look down
on them or we judge their walk or how they're doing things,
not understanding or remembering this simple promise. God's given us gifts differing.
(02:48):
We're all going to do this a little different.
One of the, I think, sort of premier turnoffs in so much of Western Christianity particularly,
because that's where I've lived, obviously, is this notion that we're all supposed
to be and think and act exactly the same in our expression of faith.
(03:10):
And that somehow that's unity and fellowship.
And that's just not true at all.
I mean, the Bible certainly doesn't know anything about that.
We had some very different characters, different personalities,
different backgrounds, different talents, different gifts, different flaws,
different missteps, right?
We see this all throughout the scriptures.
(03:32):
And so this notion that we're all supposed to be the same, and you better be
just like me, this is foreign to scripture.
Now, we do this in our sort of religious systems, our denominational systems.
We try to get everybody to kind of look and act and sort of talk the same.
And in doing so, I think we squash and kind of bury the truth of this verse,
(03:57):
that everyone has gifts differing.
You know, I think about where I came from in ministry. We would often say,
you know, so-and-so really has a pastor's heart.
You know, they have the gift of a pastor's heart. I think about Pastor John
Gann down in San Antonio, Texas. just dear friend of mine.
We've been walking this journey with Jesus for a long, long time together.
(04:20):
And he, to me, has the pastor's heart 100%. He's the guy that you drop into the worst part of town.
He's going to be knocking doors, trying to find people he can help,
feed, clothe, teach, love on.
He's the guy taking the call at three o'clock in the morning.
And that's like, Like, he is all over driving wherever he needs to go to and
(04:43):
doing whatever he has to do to serve, whether people that are in his congregation,
people that are not. I mean, it's just like...
Talk about a pastor's heart. He's like the definition of it,
right? And then there are other people that are really good teachers,
really good preachers, but don't have that pastor's heart, right?
They have a different gift. It doesn't make them less or doesn't make them worse
(05:05):
or better or whatever. It's just different.
You've got people that will worship in the most subdued ways you can imagine.
You know, hymns out of a, what do we call them, the old green and red back hymns
in our Baptist world. But, you know, I guess they're green over in the Latter-day Saint world, right?
(05:25):
Even though I just read them out of my phone. But, you know,
there are people that worship in that way.
It's sort of slow and quiet and subdued, and they just get so much out of it.
And then there are others that are literally running the aisles.
There's like a 16-piece band, and the organ player is just jamming in between
(05:47):
every line of the sermon, and that's how they worship, and it works really well for them.
And there's this idea that you and I have to embrace that God can be present
and is present in both of those forms of worship.
We get in all kinds of trouble when we think, oh, no, one is right. The other one's wrong.
(06:11):
That's not true. The Bible doesn't have anything to say about that.
If the scripture is silent on it, then it's silent.
This is now just a scruples issue. It's a preference issue, right? Right.
Maybe you do prefer like pew jumping, praise and worship. Wonderful.
Maybe that drives you insane and you need it much more subdued. Wonderful.
(06:32):
You have gifts differing according to the grace that's given to you.
And those gifts work for you. And God's got something for you in those systems. Embrace that. Right.
But when we embrace it and remember this truth, then we stay away from the trouble
of starting to think that we own the franchise.
Like my former worship is the way my Bible translation is the way, right?
(06:54):
My church is the only way.
I mean, think about that for a minute. I mean, if we really think that through
outside the confines of just what we've been told repeatedly,
that's a, that's a weird idea scripturally, you know, like there's just one thing.
And by the way, if you're making the claim that you are the one,
(07:15):
your group is the one, your ministry is the one, friends, people have been making
that claim for a long time in all kinds of different religious groups and congregations.
I appreciate the zeal, but we might want to think about, wait a minute,
instead of an us versus them place, maybe we can lean into Romans 12 and go,
(07:36):
you know, we just have gifts differing.
God's extending this amazing grace of his, and it's showing up in different
ways in different places.
Provided it's not contrary to the scripture, then we're on safe ground.
I'm not suggesting that if you have the gift to sling back a 12-pack of beer
in rapid time, that that's a gift you should embrace.
Of course not. I think that's a bad plan. Don't do that.
(08:00):
But if it's in line with the scripture, then we're on safe ground.
And I know for some of you, the last two minutes, you're just ready to take
me out into the street and throw rocks at me.
But really, I think we need to be careful about this and really lean into this
idea that we do have gifts differing.
(08:21):
There are people that have the ability to sit and listen and empathize and connect with people.
They have hyper high emotional intelligence. I mean, it is awesome.
And they can just bridge with anybody.
And then there are other people that just don't have that gift at all.
They're completely like unaware and can say the dumbest things because they
(08:45):
don't have that same degree of awareness emotionally.
And they're just but yet that person who's unaware has all these other gifts
in other ways that are incredible.
Incredible that's why god brings us together in these congregations or small groups or churches or.
Assemblies because this this difference that's there allows the grace to show
(09:08):
up in all these ways that we would never think of as people as we naturally
think everything's got to look the same sound the same be the same but god's
bringing all these people in in different ways and if we would embrace that,
it could do amazing things for our congregations, for our small group, for our Bible study,
for whatever kind of formation or title you have in your group that when you
(09:32):
talk about how you meet, imagine the impacts it could have.
I think that'd be impressive. Sorry, my chair is noisy as I'm spinning while
I'm talking, kind of rocking in my chair here creaking in the background.
I've had people write to me and like, if you just notice, talk about gifts differing for a second.
And I'll just give you an example. And while I'm here, I'm not even going to edit this out.
(09:57):
I'm just going to pull it up on the feed on our podcast feed because I don't
remember them off the top of my head because I record these things in batches.
So I remember some of it, but I don't remember a lot of it in terms of like
when I sort of preached what.
But if you look over the last, We've been doing this run in April of an episode every day.
So let's take a look at a particular kind of gift that I have,
(10:21):
which is I am a many lanes, large window theology person.
Okay. Like, as hard as I've tried since I very first got introduced to Jesus,
as hard as I've tried to try to just identify with one place, one group, one thing.
One lane, it just never works for me. I find so much truth in so many places.
(10:46):
I think God gives us that for a reason. I just really embrace that, right?
So if you just look at the last episodes, let me walk you through this just
from my own personal experience and how I've embraced this, despite people not understanding it.
When I first got married, Crystal did not get this.
It frustrated her to no end. She used to say, can we just pick one?
(11:06):
Over the years though, So she's learned to appreciate all these perspectives.
And now if you hear her talk, if she's getting into a serious spiritual conversation,
she'll be drawing references from a lot of different places.
I've sort of trained her in this, right?
But God has extended that grace to her as well, and it can be really a positive experience.
Now, I'm not suggesting it's the way for everybody. It just happens to be the way for us.
(11:30):
So yesterday we did a three-minute devotional on revelation and promotion,
and we used something from Mike Murdoch.
Mike Murdoch is a pretty, not pretty, very famous, well-known word of faith
preacher, largely associated with the two topics that he's most well-known for,
wisdom and prosperity, right?
So material prosperity for the believer, wisdom for the believer.
(11:53):
His teaching could easily, you could take any of his books and teach it at a
business seminar just as easily as you could at a church service.
He's just that kind of guy. But you would see him on like TBN,
the Word Network, that kind of stuff.
Day before that, we did a study out of Mosiah 1, which is clearly Latter-day
Saint stuff. That's out of the Book of Mormon, okay?
(12:15):
Before that, we did something out of Psalm 141, okay? That seems pretty fair.
Day before that, we did something from John Chrysostom. I see I said it wrong again.
Chrysostom. I've been saying it wrong for like ever, right? That has real Catholic vibes.
Day before then, we do Francis Chan, kind of an evangelical guy for a time.
(12:38):
It almost seemed like he was an emergent guy, but not.
And well-known, we would say evangelical guy.
Day before that, St. Therese is obviously Catholic, a doctor of the church, as a matter of fact.
St. Josemaria Scrivula, day before, Catholic, founder of Opus Dei.
Day before that, Thomas Akempis. We took that from a book that is like one of
(13:00):
the books, like if you're discerning for the priesthood and the Catholic church.
You read that book amongst others, right?
Then we did decoding the will of God, watch, pray, believe, receive, no Jesus, no direction.
Those were all Book of Mormon, Book of Mormon, Book of Mormon. So you see this mix.
The reason I share that with you is because I've just embraced that mix in my life.
(13:23):
Like the most interesting thing I've read in the last year. Well,
let me clean that up because people run with things too fast.
One of the most interesting things I've read, read multiple versions of,
and I'm still actively reading, is the Quran. Are you familiar with this book?
Now, that's not something you would typically think someone in my lane would be reading.
(13:44):
To me, it is fascinating.
If you scrolled through like my YouTube shorts feed or my reels,
you would think I was either Catholic or I had somehow become a Muslim,
the way that the content breaks down,
because I enjoy being challenged by the way that they sort of teach and think
(14:08):
in a lot of their theology.
I'm very interested in it. So why do I share that with you?
Not because I think you should go do the same thing. For some of you,
that's a nightmare, like having all of these influences.
It just wouldn't work for you. You have different gifts than I do.
Mine aren't better. Doesn't mean that I'm super deep because I do this.
(14:28):
It just means that I know the lanes that I travel best in, the gifts and the
extension of the grace that God has extended towards me.
Me, you know the lanes that you travel best in with the grace that God has extended towards you.
I would just say that the two takeaways in this are, one, let's remember this
(14:50):
as we're looking at others.
And knowing that God can choose and use all kinds of things to bring about His work and His glory.
People that talk different, look different, worship different,
read different, preach different.
They have different abbreviations on the spine of the scripture.
They might have different names or different religions altogether, or so we would think.
(15:13):
But I think often we would discover that they're not so different than we are.
So one, it's just to realize that, remember that as we're approaching the world,
this is a very, very real thing.
God can use all kinds of things to bring about his work and his glory.
But two, I think it reminds us to both embrace our own gifts and use them and
(15:40):
embrace the gifts of others and make sure they're being used and heard and that
we're not squashing that down,
which I think in religious settings we often do.
There are voices in your congregation right now, in your small group,
in your cell group, in your Bible study, in your virtual small group,
in your congregation, assembly, quorum, whatever.
(16:05):
There are voices that have some amazing things to say, but they say them different
or they might come from a different background. They may look different.
They might have some different persuasion than you do.
And so they're not either sharing it because they think they're going to get
shut down or they've already tried and been shut down. And so now they're not going to do it.
We need to make sure that they get heard.
(16:27):
And we need to make sure that people are hearing us too. That we're giving people
the best Most honest version of what god is working in us Not some cookie cutter
copy everybody else version. Are you with me?
Now that's not to the point of rebellion and disobedience and sin.
That's not what i'm saying I'm saying if it's in line with the scripture then,
We're on safe ground embrace your gifts.
(16:48):
I and I guess thirdly I would add I said two takeaways, but there's three,
Let's just be careful When we start assuming the posture gesture that our team,
our group, our thing owns the franchise. Remembering that everybody makes that claim.
A lot of groups make that claim. So that's not new. What does Ecclesiastes say?
(17:09):
There's nothing new under the sun. That's nothing new.
Whenever we do that, we naturally, whether we're well-intentioned and zealous
or just something else, we naturally create an environment of us versus them.
And when we are us versus them in our congregation or with others that we encounter in the world.
That is, I think, the best definition of what Paul meant when he said,
(17:30):
you're frustrating the grace of God.
I think you and I frustrate the grace of God when we do that,
and we're not experiencing the very best he has for us.
Give this scripture a good review. Give it some thought in the secret place.
I know that God will have something for you there. We'll see you next time.
Music.
Music.
(00:05):
There, friends. Gary Miller here. This is Hope in Him Today.
Great to have you with us. Thanks for stopping by.
If you're a frequent flyer, man, I appreciate you. And if you're someone who's
new to this party, welcome.
I would encourage you to go to hopeinhimtoday.com and take in all of what we have there.
You can use as much or as little of those episodes as you like.
(00:26):
It's our intention, it's our hope, and we are confident that if you'll hang
around here long enough, you'll get excited about Jesus.
And then if we have that occur, then we have done our job.
So welcome. I want to talk to you today about a verse that is just so personal to me.
It has been a guiding light, kind of an anchor, if you will,
(00:48):
in my faith journey, because it applies not only to how I'm perceiving my own
walk, but how I perceive others.
I don't know if you've noticed this, but you and I just have the capacity to
be so wildly judgmental and arrogant sometimes about the way other people are
(01:10):
walking their faith journey.
And we do that sometimes while making just these wild assumptions about things.
And we don't know those people. We don't know what's going on with them.
We don't know where they've been, what they're going through and where they're going.
Only they and God does. And yet we make these crazy judgments.
And I tell you, whether we're judging others wildly incorrectly or we're judging ourselves.
(01:37):
Wildly incorrectly, this verse is really kind of, it helps me reset in a really
practical and simple way.
Romans chapter 12, verse 6. I'm going to give this to you from the living Bible.
I love the way that this is so simple, the way this is rendered.
Romans 12, verse 6 says, God has given each of us the ability to do certain things well.
(02:01):
God has given each of us the ability to do certain things well.
If you flip it over to the King James, it says, having then gifts differing
according to the grace that is given to us.
Each one of us is kind of running this race grace at our own pace and in our
own ways most of our frustrations often come because we have some,
(02:25):
interesting set of expectations in our head that we've created and yet we kind
of blanket and throw those on everybody else and when they're not doing those
things we get frustrated we get frustrated with them or we kind of look down
on them or we judge their walk or how they're doing things,
not understanding or remembering this simple promise. God's given us gifts differing.
(02:48):
We're all going to do this a little different.
One of the, I think, sort of premier turnoffs in so much of Western Christianity particularly,
because that's where I've lived, obviously, is this notion that we're all supposed
to be and think and act exactly the same in our expression of faith.
(03:10):
And that somehow that's unity and fellowship.
And that's just not true at all.
I mean, the Bible certainly doesn't know anything about that.
We had some very different characters, different personalities,
different backgrounds, different talents, different gifts, different flaws,
different missteps, right?
We see this all throughout the scriptures.
(03:32):
And so this notion that we're all supposed to be the same, and you better be
just like me, this is foreign to scripture.
Now, we do this in our sort of religious systems, our denominational systems.
We try to get everybody to kind of look and act and sort of talk the same.
And in doing so, I think we squash and kind of bury the truth of this verse,
(03:57):
that everyone has gifts differing.
You know, I think about where I came from in ministry. We would often say,
you know, so-and-so really has a pastor's heart.
You know, they have the gift of a pastor's heart. I think about Pastor John
Gann down in San Antonio, Texas. just dear friend of mine.
We've been walking this journey with Jesus for a long, long time together.
(04:20):
And he, to me, has the pastor's heart 100%. He's the guy that you drop into the worst part of town.
He's going to be knocking doors, trying to find people he can help,
feed, clothe, teach, love on.
He's the guy taking the call at three o'clock in the morning.
And that's like, Like, he is all over driving wherever he needs to go to and
(04:43):
doing whatever he has to do to serve, whether people that are in his congregation,
people that are not. I mean, it's just like...
Talk about a pastor's heart. He's like the definition of it,
right? And then there are other people that are really good teachers,
really good preachers, but don't have that pastor's heart, right?
They have a different gift. It doesn't make them less or doesn't make them worse
(05:05):
or better or whatever. It's just different.
You've got people that will worship in the most subdued ways you can imagine.
You know, hymns out of a, what do we call them, the old green and red back hymns
in our Baptist world. But, you know, I guess they're green over in the Latter-day Saint world, right?
(05:25):
Even though I just read them out of my phone. But, you know,
there are people that worship in that way.
It's sort of slow and quiet and subdued, and they just get so much out of it.
And then there are others that are literally running the aisles.
There's like a 16-piece band, and the organ player is just jamming in between
(05:47):
every line of the sermon, and that's how they worship, and it works really well for them.
And there's this idea that you and I have to embrace that God can be present
and is present in both of those forms of worship.
We get in all kinds of trouble when we think, oh, no, one is right. The other one's wrong.
(06:11):
That's not true. The Bible doesn't have anything to say about that.
If the scripture is silent on it, then it's silent.
This is now just a scruples issue. It's a preference issue, right? Right.
Maybe you do prefer like pew jumping, praise and worship. Wonderful.
Maybe that drives you insane and you need it much more subdued. Wonderful.
(06:32):
You have gifts differing according to the grace that's given to you.
And those gifts work for you. And God's got something for you in those systems. Embrace that. Right.
But when we embrace it and remember this truth, then we stay away from the trouble
of starting to think that we own the franchise.
Like my former worship is the way my Bible translation is the way, right?
(06:54):
My church is the only way.
I mean, think about that for a minute. I mean, if we really think that through
outside the confines of just what we've been told repeatedly,
that's a, that's a weird idea scripturally, you know, like there's just one thing.
And by the way, if you're making the claim that you are the one,
(07:15):
your group is the one, your ministry is the one, friends, people have been making
that claim for a long time in all kinds of different religious groups and congregations.
I appreciate the zeal, but we might want to think about, wait a minute,
instead of an us versus them place, maybe we can lean into Romans 12 and go,
(07:36):
you know, we just have gifts differing.
God's extending this amazing grace of his, and it's showing up in different
ways in different places.
Provided it's not contrary to the scripture, then we're on safe ground.
I'm not suggesting that if you have the gift to sling back a 12-pack of beer
in rapid time, that that's a gift you should embrace.
Of course not. I think that's a bad plan. Don't do that.
(08:00):
But if it's in line with the scripture, then we're on safe ground.
And I know for some of you, the last two minutes, you're just ready to take
me out into the street and throw rocks at me.
But really, I think we need to be careful about this and really lean into this
idea that we do have gifts differing.
(08:21):
There are people that have the ability to sit and listen and empathize and connect with people.
They have hyper high emotional intelligence. I mean, it is awesome.
And they can just bridge with anybody.
And then there are other people that just don't have that gift at all.
They're completely like unaware and can say the dumbest things because they
(08:45):
don't have that same degree of awareness emotionally.
And they're just but yet that person who's unaware has all these other gifts
in other ways that are incredible.
Incredible that's why god brings us together in these congregations or small groups or churches or.
Assemblies because this this difference that's there allows the grace to show
(09:08):
up in all these ways that we would never think of as people as we naturally
think everything's got to look the same sound the same be the same but god's
bringing all these people in in different ways and if we would embrace that,
it could do amazing things for our congregations, for our small group, for our Bible study,
for whatever kind of formation or title you have in your group that when you
(09:32):
talk about how you meet, imagine the impacts it could have.
I think that'd be impressive. Sorry, my chair is noisy as I'm spinning while
I'm talking, kind of rocking in my chair here creaking in the background.
I've had people write to me and like, if you just notice, talk about gifts differing for a second.
And I'll just give you an example. And while I'm here, I'm not even going to edit this out.
(09:57):
I'm just going to pull it up on the feed on our podcast feed because I don't
remember them off the top of my head because I record these things in batches.
So I remember some of it, but I don't remember a lot of it in terms of like
when I sort of preached what.
But if you look over the last, We've been doing this run in April of an episode every day.
So let's take a look at a particular kind of gift that I have,
(10:21):
which is I am a many lanes, large window theology person.
Okay. Like, as hard as I've tried since I very first got introduced to Jesus,
as hard as I've tried to try to just identify with one place, one group, one thing.
One lane, it just never works for me. I find so much truth in so many places.
(10:46):
I think God gives us that for a reason. I just really embrace that, right?
So if you just look at the last episodes, let me walk you through this just
from my own personal experience and how I've embraced this, despite people not understanding it.
When I first got married, Crystal did not get this.
It frustrated her to no end. She used to say, can we just pick one?
(11:06):
Over the years though, So she's learned to appreciate all these perspectives.
And now if you hear her talk, if she's getting into a serious spiritual conversation,
she'll be drawing references from a lot of different places.
I've sort of trained her in this, right?
But God has extended that grace to her as well, and it can be really a positive experience.
Now, I'm not suggesting it's the way for everybody. It just happens to be the way for us.
(11:30):
So yesterday we did a three-minute devotional on revelation and promotion,
and we used something from Mike Murdoch.
Mike Murdoch is a pretty, not pretty, very famous, well-known word of faith
preacher, largely associated with the two topics that he's most well-known for,
wisdom and prosperity, right?
So material prosperity for the believer, wisdom for the believer.
(11:53):
His teaching could easily, you could take any of his books and teach it at a
business seminar just as easily as you could at a church service.
He's just that kind of guy. But you would see him on like TBN,
the Word Network, that kind of stuff.
Day before that, we did a study out of Mosiah 1, which is clearly Latter-day
Saint stuff. That's out of the Book of Mormon, okay?
(12:15):
Before that, we did something out of Psalm 141, okay? That seems pretty fair.
Day before that, we did something from John Chrysostom. I see I said it wrong again.
Chrysostom. I've been saying it wrong for like ever, right? That has real Catholic vibes.
Day before then, we do Francis Chan, kind of an evangelical guy for a time.
(12:38):
It almost seemed like he was an emergent guy, but not.
And well-known, we would say evangelical guy.
Day before that, St. Therese is obviously Catholic, a doctor of the church, as a matter of fact.
St. Josemaria Scrivula, day before, Catholic, founder of Opus Dei.
Day before that, Thomas Akempis. We took that from a book that is like one of
(13:00):
the books, like if you're discerning for the priesthood and the Catholic church.
You read that book amongst others, right?
Then we did decoding the will of God, watch, pray, believe, receive, no Jesus, no direction.
Those were all Book of Mormon, Book of Mormon, Book of Mormon. So you see this mix.
The reason I share that with you is because I've just embraced that mix in my life.
(13:23):
Like the most interesting thing I've read in the last year. Well,
let me clean that up because people run with things too fast.
One of the most interesting things I've read, read multiple versions of,
and I'm still actively reading, is the Quran. Are you familiar with this book?
Now, that's not something you would typically think someone in my lane would be reading.
(13:44):
To me, it is fascinating.
If you scrolled through like my YouTube shorts feed or my reels,
you would think I was either Catholic or I had somehow become a Muslim,
the way that the content breaks down,
because I enjoy being challenged by the way that they sort of teach and think
(14:08):
in a lot of their theology.
I'm very interested in it. So why do I share that with you?
Not because I think you should go do the same thing. For some of you,
that's a nightmare, like having all of these influences.
It just wouldn't work for you. You have different gifts than I do.
Mine aren't better. Doesn't mean that I'm super deep because I do this.
(14:28):
It just means that I know the lanes that I travel best in, the gifts and the
extension of the grace that God has extended towards me.
Me, you know the lanes that you travel best in with the grace that God has extended towards you.
I would just say that the two takeaways in this are, one, let's remember this
(14:50):
as we're looking at others.
And knowing that God can choose and use all kinds of things to bring about His work and His glory.
People that talk different, look different, worship different,
read different, preach different.
They have different abbreviations on the spine of the scripture.
They might have different names or different religions altogether, or so we would think.
(15:13):
But I think often we would discover that they're not so different than we are.
So one, it's just to realize that, remember that as we're approaching the world,
this is a very, very real thing.
God can use all kinds of things to bring about his work and his glory.
But two, I think it reminds us to both embrace our own gifts and use them and
(15:40):
embrace the gifts of others and make sure they're being used and heard and that
we're not squashing that down,
which I think in religious settings we often do.
There are voices in your congregation right now, in your small group,
in your cell group, in your Bible study, in your virtual small group,
in your congregation, assembly, quorum, whatever.
(16:05):
There are voices that have some amazing things to say, but they say them different
or they might come from a different background. They may look different.
They might have some different persuasion than you do.
And so they're not either sharing it because they think they're going to get
shut down or they've already tried and been shut down. And so now they're not going to do it.
We need to make sure that they get heard.
(16:27):
And we need to make sure that people are hearing us too. That we're giving people
the best Most honest version of what god is working in us Not some cookie cutter
copy everybody else version. Are you with me?
Now that's not to the point of rebellion and disobedience and sin.
That's not what i'm saying I'm saying if it's in line with the scripture then,
We're on safe ground embrace your gifts.
(16:48):
I and I guess thirdly I would add I said two takeaways, but there's three,
Let's just be careful When we start assuming the posture gesture that our team,
our group, our thing owns the franchise. Remembering that everybody makes that claim.
A lot of groups make that claim. So that's not new. What does Ecclesiastes say?
(17:09):
There's nothing new under the sun. That's nothing new.
Whenever we do that, we naturally, whether we're well-intentioned and zealous
or just something else, we naturally create an environment of us versus them.
And when we are us versus them in our congregation or with others that we encounter in the world.
That is, I think, the best definition of what Paul meant when he said,
(17:30):
you're frustrating the grace of God.
I think you and I frustrate the grace of God when we do that,
and we're not experiencing the very best he has for us.
Give this scripture a good review. Give it some thought in the secret place.
I know that God will have something for you there. We'll see you next time.
Music.
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