How Do We Reconcile The Seemingly Different Scriptures As It Relates To Faith And Works? - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Ben Cline, Gary Schick and Johnathan Hernandez.

Gary Schick

You know what I kind of appreciate about these questions? One, every week they're honest. And two, it not only allows us to look at the scripture, but also there's things, and today's gonna be one of them, where we've kind of heard this, but is that exactly how it was? You know what I mean? So I know for my part, I'm gonna dig into that a little bit too. But anyway, it's just kind of good to be able to look into scripture and history and then back to scripture again, and where it all kind of comes together. So here is today's question that kind of deals with a little of both. "How do we reconcile the seemingly different scriptures in Romans and James, as it relates to faith and works? Martin Luther could not reconcile them." So, Jonathan, what have you got on this?

Jonathan Hernandez

Yeah, so I have quite a few scriptures, so we'll try to see what we can get through. So I started with James 2:24, and it says, "you see then that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone." But then when we jump to Romans or jump backwards, I guess to Romans, we have Romans 3:28. It says, "therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from deeds of the law." And so when we look at those two scriptures, we'd say, "Whoa, those kind of contradict each other, right? And we know that scripture doesn't contradict itself, and so when I looked at this, I looked at the word justified out of here. And my Greek's not very good so, so sorry, but it's δικαίωσις(dik-ah'-yo-sis). And so to define that, it would say, "to show to be righteous or declared righteous," are the two meanings for this word. And so we look in Romans and in Romans, it's more of like a legal meaning and so it's 'one who's declared righteous or acquitted.' And so we'd say that's the process of justification. You know, there's a process where we become right with God, we're sinners and we repented and then we believe in Christ. And so therefore, Christ declares us righteous. And so that's the way we would look at those things, and then we would see this throughout the whole book of Romans. And then also in Galatians and Titus, they kind of follow the same declared righteous process. And to kind of give you scriptures within that, we'd have like Romans 3:24, "Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." Then we'd have Romans 4:2-5, Galatians 2:16, Galatians 3:24, and then Titus 3:7. And with these each, they would be walking that line of being declared righteous and instead of being shown to be righteous. And then the second meaning, like I said, "is to be shown to be righteous," and we'd see that here in the book of James. And James says, "we see Abraham's work show He was righteous," and this is out of James 2:21-23. "Don't you remember that our ancestor Abraham was shown to be righteous because of what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar?" And so we're seeing this same word, "justified," but in a different light. With Romans it's, "to be declared righteous," and here it's that we're being "shown to be righteous." James 2:25, where it talks about Rahab, is another example, she was shown to be righteous with God by her actions. And so they just can continue to walk down this line of showing to be righteous. And so I think a lot of times when we look at this word, and even any words, we look at them and we think of our meanings for everything. And so we're using that through the scriptures instead of looking "Okay, what does the intended word here mean when we look at these things?" So, we would say, "okay. James, isn't disagreeing with Paul by saying that we are declared righteous by faith and works." And, you know, even though they look like it's two totally different things, they're still walking the same line. And so that's kind of how I would put this, you know? The main goal of Paul is to teach the true meaning of justification by faith alone and how a person is saved. And then in James, they're teaching how to declare the genuineness of someone's faith. And so we're seeing that's where---I guess that's what I wrote down---how I looked at it and how I would justify how these all come together. Or reconcile it.

Gary Schick

And it's not an easy question. I mean, Luther did struggle with it as we'll see. But excellent, thank you. Ben?

Ben Cline
Yeah. Thank you, Jonathan. You know, I was looking through this last night and this really is one of those questions that I really appreciate, because it's one that really makes us delve in scripture. And so, you know, just looking into the passages that are in Romans and the passage that is in James, you know? One of the things that I was thinking about is that God has certain desires for us as Christians, as followers of Him. And, you know, one desire is that we have faith in the finished work, the finished work of Christ on the cross. And that's a desire that He has for us. And that is something that He says, "Believe in this, and you will be saved," but He also has the desire for us to walk in righteousness. You know, holiness is a big, big topic in scripture. And, you know, in Romans, Paul makes the argument that we are justified by faith apart from the law. And it's really interesting, I came across Romans 6:1-2, and he says, "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?" And he says, "may it never be. How shall we, who died to sin still live in it?" And then I think that James is actually kind of answering that question, and he says, "We don't continue to live in sin. We live in holiness." You know, I came across an article last night, too, you know, as I was looking through different things. And the person who wrote this article, they said, "James doesn't teach a different gospel than Paul. He simply emphasizes that faith and works are inseparable. James warns about hiding in a merely theoretical faith that has no practical relevance." And I just thought that was such a great way to put that. That our faith is, you know, practically what saves us and what declares us as righteous before God. But there is a result, right? There's a result from that. And that is that God wants us to live a holy life before Him. And, you know, there's passages in Titus 2, just a couple of passages I wanted to read real quick. And these are two passages that I think tie these two ideas together very, very, succinctly. And this is Titus 2 starting in verse 11, it says, "For the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation to all men." And then it says, "Instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires. And to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age; looking for the blessed hope in the appearing of the glory of our great God and savior Jesus Christ. Who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed. And to purify for Himself, a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds."

Gary Schick
"Zealous for good deeds." Saved by faith, but the good deeds should follow.

Ben Cline
Yeah, exactly. And then he ends that by saying, "These things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority and let no one disregard you." And that's the approach that I think both Paul and James are taking. They're speaking it with authority and they're not allowing anyone to disregard those words. The other passage, you know, you guys know Ephesians 2:8-10. You know, that we're saved by grace through faith, and it's not by works so that none of us can boast. But then it talks about, in verse 10, that we were created by Christ Jesus for the works that He laid out before us. And so those things are tied together in scripture, they're inseparable.

Gary Schick
Well, and as I looked into this, you know, I kind of thought about that little piece there too, about Luther and his struggle. With what he saw as a contradiction between Paul and Romans and James. And, you know, he did not seem to like the book of James. He appears to have taken an issue with it. He didn't think it expressed the nature of the gospel, because it appeared in his mind to contradict Paul's statement about justification, by being justified by faith. And because it didn't seem to directly mention Christ after the opening verse. And so here's what Luther actually said, he said, "Therefore, St. James epistle is really an epistle of straw compared to these others, for it has nothing of the nature of the gospel about it." So that, there's a slam; but it gets worse. So he was openly critical of James. He wondered if it belonged in the Bible. He never though, and this is important, he never formally proposed that it should be removed from the scriptures though. Even though he didn't like it, he didn't say we should take it out. And he did, however, interestingly suggested it be taken out of the schools. So here's the first guy saying, "Let's pull it out of the school." And here's what he said about that, he said, "We should throw the epistle of James out of this school, for it doesn't amount to much. It contains not a syllable about Christ, not once. Does it mention Christ except at the beginning? I maintain that some Jew wrote it, probably, who wrote it and probably heard about Christian people, but never encountered any. Since he heard that Christians place great weight on faith in Christ, he thought, 'Wait a moment. I'll oppose them and urge works alone. And this, he did." Well, those are really strong words. But here's something really interesting about Luther. So outwardly he's, "I don't want James," but when I was in seminary, somebody did a statistical analysis of all of Luther's quotes of scripture. And here's, what's really cool. Luther quoted James as often, and with the same authority to which he gave any other scripture. Anything that Paul wrote or anywhere else. So he didn't like it, because in his mind it contradicted. But at the same time, he quoted it as frequently as any other scripture. And I think what we have to keep in mind friends, is historically where Luther was coming from. You know, today James is like the favorite book of most Christians I know, because it is so practical in how we live out our faith. What does living faith look like? But in Luther's day, that wasn't exactly the question. In Luther's day, the church of Rome had so befuddled the gospel by saying, "You know, faith is good, but you can't be saved without faith plus doing these works." And then even defining what these specific works of righteousness were, that had to be added to your faith. And this was a struggle for Luther. If you know his story, he wanted to earn his salvation. I mean, he was going to his confessor every day saying, "And I had this thought and I had that thought." To the point where his confessors said, "Luther, come to me when you got something worth confessing," you know? But he was right in the sense that, "I can't be pure enough for a holy God." Until he came to Paul's words (Romans 1:17), where Paul is actually quoting Habakkuk 2:4. "The just shall live by faith." This is Luther's salvation verse. This is where he is set free from trying to earn his salvation. The just will live by faith, will be justified by faith; as you pointed out in the scriptures you guys each read. And that's a quote that he pulls up again in Galatians 3:11. And by the way, it's also quoted by the author of Hebrews in Hebrews 10:38. Which, some believe Paul could have been the author of Hebrews, we don't entirely know. I think where it all comes together for me is, Ephesians 2:8-9. Paul says it so beautifully, "For it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith---this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God---not by works, so that no one can boast." So Paul, for the people in the time of the reformation, and for us as well makes it crystal clear: you are saved by faith, not by works. However, and this is where we sometimes forget. We also gotta look to verse 10 for Paul writes, "We are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." So Paul is saying, "look, you're saved by faith, not because of anything you do." And yet he continues, "and saving faith then has this fruit of good works." Yeah, it's not getting the cart before the horse. We're saved by faith and saving faith does good works. And this is where he and James actually come together, because they're answering different questions. Paul is saying to brand new believers who are trying to work their own way into heaven, "Cut it out. You can't do that. You can't work your way in, this is a gift you receive." James is saying to those new believers, "And now having received this faith, this is how you live it out." And curiously, while, you know, mentioning the fact of James, he really does only name Jesus right there at the beginning. But he refers to Jesus over and over again in the sense that he is quoting Jesus' teaching. Particularly, from the Sermon on the Mount, which is all about how we live out our faith. All through his beautiful, practical letter. So on the surface, do they seem to contradict? Sure. But when you dig in, James and Paul, as you guys pointed out, walk hand in hand. And Luther, on the surface, can't stand the book of James, but underneath, when it gets practical, when in terms of living out our faith, he's quoting James just as much as anybody else, because it's God's word. And, you know, we make a lot of a guy like Martin Luther, because he was the springboard to the reformation. But his words, thankfully are not divine scripture, are they? You know, they were a guide to the people of his time, as they were really shaking free from something heavy. A heavy chain that we are not walking in today. So we gotta give Luther a little bit of a break for his strong words, which are overboard, because he was facing something that was overboard. And that was the idea that somehow, it's Christ plus all the merits of the saints, plus what you and I can do plus...and you just can never do enough if you're trying to earn your way in. So, is there any more that you guys have on that?

Ben Cline
No, this is great!

Gary Schick
Yeah. Kind of fun to dig into the history too, isn't it? We're living in hard times. He did too.

What Did Jesus Mean In Matthew 3:15? - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Ben Cline, Gary Schick and Johnathan Hernandez.

Gary Schick
Well, here's the question guys, "In Matthew 3:15, what did Jesus mean when he said 'permit it to be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." Jonathan, what do you think?

Jonathan Hernandez
Yeah, so this portion of scripture is talking when Jesus walks up to John the Baptist and asks him to baptize him. And we all know that John's like, "Wait, what? Shouldn't you be doing this to me?" And so, you know, we get into this verse where Jesus says, "permit it to be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." And so as we look at this, I look at it as, so this is the completing of every righteous requirement. This is what Jesus is basically saying. "I've come to complete all these things," and we see that on the cross, "but here I'm fulfilling the the cleansing of the lamb." Cause He's the lamb that dies for us, the sacrificial lamb. So He was a sacrificial lamb, this is the cleansing of Him in that sense the Lamb's supposed to be spotless, blemish. And obviously we know that Jesus, you know, has no sin. So the baptism that John is baptizing with is that repentance. And we would ask, "Okay well, why is Jesus being baptized when He has nothing to repent of?" Right? He's already clean, He's already spotless, but He's taking these on for us, you know? And ultimately He'll die on the cross for our sins. So this is how I see it, as that was the fulfillment of every righteous requirement leading up towards that cross.

Ben Cline
Yeah, again it's important, like Jonathan did, to look at the context of that verse. And just to understand that Jesus definitely did not have to be baptized. He didn't need the baptism of John, because again He didn't have anything to repent for. Jesus was perfect and he didn't have any sin but, you know, you think of this as a time of transition too. Where people had been following John the Baptist and they'd been following his teaching and he had been teaching them about two things. He had been teaching them about repentance, and then the second thing was very closely tied to that. They were, you know, repenting in anticipation for the coming Messiah, and now this time of transition, they're transitioning from following John and his teaching to following Jesus and His teaching. This really was the launch of the public ministry of Jesus into the world and He would be teaching sinners about Himself.

Ben Cline
And so when you think about Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist, again, He really had no need of the baptism of repentance. But it was a way for Him to identify with the sinners that He came to save. And it really was a beautiful picture as well, just the baptism that happened that day. There were really a couple of cool things that I think came out of that. You know, number one: that being baptized by John the Baptist was, you know, I think a validation of John's teaching and his ministry. And then also you see in that baptism, a picture of the three persons of the Godhead who are involved. You know, Jesus being baptized in water, He was picturing his death, burial, and resurrection. And then, you see the Holy Spirit's presence there with the dove just showing His presence of truth and His presence of peace throughout the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. And then the Father also coming in and they could audibly hear His voice and saying that He was pleased with His Son and also loving Him through that sacrifice that He would be making. So just some thoughts. I mean, I'm not sure if, you know, I answered this particular question, but there's some thoughts that I think relate back to that question.

Gary Schick
Well and, you know, one thing that I was thinking was, as we look at this verse, and I think you guys did a great job with it. We look at it in the context of what comes before and after. And so I'm just gonna pause here and read the passage from Matthew, starting at verse 13. It says, "then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan, to John to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him saying, 'I need to be baptized by you and you come to me?' But Jesus answered him, 'Let it be so; for thus, it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness,' then he consented. And when Jesus was baptized immediately, He went up from the water and behold, the heavens were open to Him and He saw the spirit of God, descending like a dove and coming to rest on Him. And behold, a voice from heaven said, 'this is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased." And so, just to kind of recap what you both said. Number one: John got it right with his question, "I need to be baptized by you Jesus, cause you're the sinless one," you know? And so Jesus is not coming for the washing wave of His sins, just like He didn't go to the cross for His sins. But He is, from the baptism to the cross identifying with, actually it starts at the conception when He identifies with us and our humanity. But now, He is really identifying His mission. He's come to be identified with the sins of the world, even though they are not His. And to walk in this life in a public way, and at the same time, as He is identified with us, the Holy Spirit and the Father---the other two aspects of the Triune God---identify with Him publicly. The Spirit descends upon Him, and the voice from heaven, "Here is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." And so at his first public identification with us in our humanity, the Father and the Spirit publicly announce His divinity. And as you pointed out so well, the whole mission is encapsulated. And even right down now, you know, to our baptism, which is different than the baptism of John. It was, you know, repentance and preparation for the Messiah. And here He is now, ours looks back on Him and celebrates. You know, everything we do in baptism, no matter what your background is on that, it's still really about the same thing. It's about Jesus. It's about the washing away that He came to do, that we receive by faith in Him and just how totally exciting that is!

How Do We Deal With Christians Who've Committed Suicide? - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Ben Clein and Johnathan Hernandez.

Jonathan Hernandez
So our question this morning is, "if you have known some people who knew Jesus and were great human beings, but resorted to suicide, how do you continue to keep that hope that they lost so easily? So this morning I'll let you kick that off Ben.

Ben Cline
All right. Well, normally we're joined also by pastor Gary Schick over from Emmanuel church in Scottsbluff, and we just wanna say that I hope that you're having a nice time with your family. And this is a question that came to us this week and, you know, this is a very difficult question. It's a question that is difficult to talk about, even amongst ourselves really. Like, you know, if we have, you know, this question come up in a family conversation it's difficult to talk about. The subject of suicide really is, it's not only difficult, but I think it's also a very complex topic. And so, you know, just trying to address this particular question, you know, the first thing that I would say Jonathan, to our listeners is that, you know, I'm so sorry for any loss that you guys might have experienced through the tragedy of suicide. You know, it's a tragic thing. It's not something that God wants for us, and it's a very painful thing to go through. So, you know, first of all to say, I'm sorry, and we grieve with you. You know, and the second thing is maybe more of a matter of advice when we're dealing with a question like this in particular. Is that, when we come across somebody who's dealing with thoughts of suicide, you know, we don't really know everything that's going on with this person. We don't know what they're struggling with and it's typically very difficult to know what's going on in the depths of a person's heart. And so it's so important for us, if we know somebody who's struggling with this, you know, it's important for us to work with them, to try to get them the help that they need. And so there's really a number of reasons why somebody might struggle with thoughts of suicide, and we don't know exactly what that is. It might be a physical thing that they're dealing with, it might be a loss that they're dealing with. There's a whole bunch of different reasons. But thankfully there are people out there who are very well trained to help those who are struggling with this issue. And, you know, there's a national hotline that you can look up, you know, if you're struggling with thoughts of suicide. We would encourage you first of all, to get in touch with the people at this hotline. It's an anonymous thing, from what I understand, and I can give you the number right now. It's 1-800-273-8255, and that's the national lifeline for suicide prevention. So, you know it in that case, you know, you need to call that number and get in touch with them. And, you know, if you know somebody who is having, you know, thoughts of suicide and you're afraid for their safety, the best thing for you to do is also to call the local authorities. So, but anyway, that's just part of this answer, you know, getting them the help that they need. But we have a more specific question this morning, right? And that's, you know, how do we keep the hope? Well, we all face trouble, and we can all even face despair in our lifetime at some point. But each one of us, what we have to understand is that we have access to the hope that God offers to us. And one of the places that you can go to in scripture and really see the depth of human emotion, is to the Psalms. And so real quick, I just wanted to read through Psalm 6, and this is a Psalm of David. I'm gonna read to you from the New Living Translation, it says, "Oh Lord, don't rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your rage. Have compassion on me, Lord, for I am weak. Heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony. I am sick at heart. How long, oh Lord, until you restore me? Return, oh Lord, and rescue me. Save me because of your unfailing love. For the dead do not remember you. Who can praise you from the grave? I am worn out from sobbing all night. I flood my bed with weeping, drenching it with my tears. My vision is blurred by grief; my eyes are worn out because of all my enemies. Go away, all you who do evil, for the Lord has heard my weeping. The Lord has heard my plea; the Lord will answer my prayer. May all my enemies be disgraced and terrified. May they suddenly turn back in shame." And, you know, I read through a passage like that and it's like, "well yeah, there's been times in my life where I've been there." Maybe to that extreme, maybe not to that extreme, or maybe further than that extreme. You know, we've been in places where we've been in despair and, you know, the Psalms also offer hope. Psalms 42:11, it says, "why are you cast down, oh my soul? Why are you at turmoil within me?" And then it says, "Hope in God. For I shall again, praise Him---my salvation and my God." And, you know, as we look to the New Testament, it offers the hope of God. And one of the things that I think that we can do to retain that hope that we have and to really cling to that anchor, that God is, to remember those promises. There's one in Romans 8:1 where he says "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." So if you know Jesus Christ is your savior, there is no condemnation from God. And that's, you know, something important for us to remember, to keep our hope intact. And then also, Hebrews 13:5 reminds us that God will never leave us and will never forsake us. So just some thoughts on this topic. I hope that that's helpful to somebody.

Jonathan Hernandez
Well, thank you. So I wanna try to tackle this from the angle of, how do we in our everyday life, I guess, continue to search for God and continue to walk forward in some of these areas. And so one of the first areas I wanna talk about is, examine your heart. In Proverbs 4:23 it says, "above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it." And I think that's super important, that as we go throughout life, no matter if it's listening to somebody talk to us, or what are we listening to? What are we putting into our bodies? What are we watching on TV? What type of music are we listening to? All these things that are coming into our lives, we need to guard from some; actually probably quite a bit of that stuff, cause not all of it's really edifying to us. And so we need to make sure that we are guarding our hearts, cause we're all gonna experience difficulties. You know, so we see a lot of those things. And I think also, as we guard our hearts, we also need to think and look at, how's our attitude towards things. I think a lot of times I could become a doubter or a downer. A lot of times, if I don't guard my heart and allow myself to say, "okay, what area of my life is not in order or not into the place of what Jesus wants for me?" And so I could become a downer and as I start going down that rabbit hole, unfortunately, sometimes you grab a hold of somebody else and you bring them with you. And so we need to make sure that we're guarding our hearts, checking our attitudes, making sure that they're in a good place, you know? That way we're encouraging people instead of bringing them down. One of the second things we would look at would be, meditate on God's word. How much of God's word are we actually in, you know? Cause a lot of times we say, "Hey, make sure you read your Bible." And you're like, "oh man, I'm gonna read 17 chapters today," and then in reality, I read my devotional and that's about as far as I get into the word. So we need to make sure that we are in the word: we are studying it, we are reading it. There's so many exciting things in there. You could never read through the entire Bible and say, "oh, that was boring," cause there's just so much. And there's so much that God brings to the forefront as you read through it. I mean, how many times have you been reading through scripture and then all of a sudden you say, "I don't remember reading through that," even though you've read through the Bible multiple times, and through that section multiple times. So there's always something new and exciting. We need to make sure that we are reading as, whatever it may be. If we're reading through three chapters or we're reading through the Bible in a year, there's always something that we can look for through scripture. The other thing would be to pray; how is our prayer life? You know, I know when I first started going to church, my prayer life was "God bless my food, bless my family, Amen." And that was probably about it. And you know, I remember my pastor back then, he challenged us to pray for more than three minutes and I'm like, how does that work? You know? I've only prayed for three minutes. And so then, you know, just stepping into three minutes realizing, "oh, that was actually pretty easy." We took our church through this thing called The Journey, and we challenged them to pray for half a day and just to see the looks on their faces. I was like, "I was in the same place," you know? I've been that place. But just make sure that we keep our prayer life active, you know? There's always something that we can pray for. You know, there's always something that we can go after God in prayer for. So just grab a hold of those and just say, "Okay God, I'm gonna spend, whatever it may be," you know? The fourth thing would be to renew your mind. And we could see that in Romans 12:2, "Do not conform to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is---His good, pleasing, and perfect will."

Jonathan Hernandez
I think a lot of times our mindsets get out of place or go into somewhere that it shouldn't be. If we're dealing with depression, then our mindset's always in that depressed place and we're always, you know, seeing those things and if you have anxiety, you know, your mindset's always, "what's gonna happen? What's gonna happen?" I've dealt with extreme anxiety in my life and I know how that can be just a rabbit hole of me just continuing to go into directions or places that God never intended for me to be in. And so, just allowing Christ to renew our minds, and we do that through reading the scripture and just allowing the scripture to really help remove some of these mindsets that we have, as we, you know, just live in our everyday world. So the next one would be to build up your faith in God, and we do that through, you know, making sure that we're in the word. Making sure that we have a prayer life. Making sure that, you know, even memorizing scripture, you know? So when we feel like the enemy is coming after us, you know, we have something to go back to, you know? If I don't have any scripture or anything like that when the enemy attacks me, what happens? "You're probably right, I'm gonna go with you," you know? But we see this as Jesus was tempted in the desert, that he had scripture that he went back to and he said, "okay, this, this, this," instead of saying, "oh, I guess you're right. Am I really the son of God? I don't know." He had scripture that he went back to, you know? He had the word of God that he used. And then we look at, offer praise and Thanksgiving. How much are we actually engaged in worship in our everyday lives? One of my friends, whenever I go over to his house, he always has praise and worship music playing. It's just softly in the background, most of the time you kind of really don't hear it. And until you really pay attention, they're like, "Hey, I know that song." And so, just finding areas, you know, places where you can just praise in that for that little bit. Just as you're driving down the street, instead of listening to whatever you're listening to put on some worship music and, you know, just spend, you know, it takes me two minutes to get to work. So that's not really a whole song, but I can listen to something to really just help me get into the place of praise as I drive to work. And then the last thing is that, make sure that we're nurturing our soul, our spirit and our body. You know, that we're actually taking care of ourselves. It's more than just the spiritual, cause we actually have a physical body here on earth. So if we're not taking care of it, well guess what, we're having to take all kinds of medication to try to get healthy. You know, so we just need to make sure that we're taking care of our bodies, that we're eating right, we're exercising, all the things that your doctor says that you should have been doing already.

Ben Cline
They know what they're talking about.

Jonathan Hernandez
Yes, they actually know what they're talking about. So make sure that you're taking care of your body, taking care of those things that you need to be taking care of. So hopefully that will help you guys as you kind of approach that in more of a daily discipline area of life. So, I guess we'll go ahead and close in prayer, unless you have something else that you wanna add to that.

Ben Cline
No, that's great. I just, you know, I think the last thing is just a word of encouragement. I mean, be encouraged in life, be encouraged in the word of God and be encouraged through prayer.

Jonathan Hernandez
Yeah, and I think it's important too, that we are present within our relationships. You know that we can notice some signs, you know? Cause I always hear people say, "well, I wish I would've noticed a sign" and not saying that they weren't present, but a lot of times, you know, our friendships are more through social media, so we're not really seeing things. And so I think, as we build one on one in person relationships, that we're actually present in those relationships, we're hearing and we're asking the tough question, "Hey, how are you really doing?" I don't want to hear, "oh, I'm blessed and highly favored," you know, the Christian terms that we use. But actually say, "well, how are you really, really doing?" To getting down to some of those things.

Acceptance in the LGBTQ+ Community - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastor Gary Schick.

Gary Schick
Well I'll tell you what, I really wish that I had my cohosts with me today, because I got, I guess really not a very difficult question. But one that's culturally relevant and yet one that many of us, I guess, wanna shy away from, because there's so much war about it in our times. Nevertheless, here it is. I got this in an email from Russ Garrett the station manager, and here is what he wrote, "Hello Gary, I was wondering if your team would like to address this issue. This is an email I received requesting an interview with 'this' artist. Maybe you can help our listeners know how to respond to such people and what the Bible has to say about this issue. Thanks. Russ/Hope Radio KCMI." Alright, so the email that Russ received was this, and this is, I don't have a name with this, just an anonymous listener, "as we are well into pride month," which ended yesterday by the way friends, it was in the month of June. "As we are well into pride month, Rito Rhymes has been trekking his way through gay clubs as a cis-heterosexual man, and has experienced something he never expected, but needed...validation from the gay community. As someone struggling with evidence of his own attractiveness, based on persistent rejections from cis women, he noticed drastically more acceptance and validation from gay men as he immersed himself into the community's nightlife. Rito can delineate and/or rap the following: ---His own experience of more acceptance and love from the LGBTQ+ community. How an embrace from the LGBQ+ community helped him rebuild his confidence, and finally, how he is working his way to the top as a visionary nerd rapper." This email that was forwarded on to me from Russ left me with several questions, and maybe you as some of our listeners. And by the way, if this is one of those topics that you don't wanna be talking about in the home among younger children, this might be a point to either send them out of the room or come back and listen to this one later. But, it left me with a lot of questions. I guess I'm not fully culturally up to date, I didn't know what cis heterosexuals were (cis men, cis women). So, first of all, even to begin to respond to this listener, I had to do a little digging for myself. So, the definition I found online is essentially this, "A cis heterosexual, be it man or woman is a person who is identified at birth by a doctor as either male or female, and feels like that is what they are, male or female." Which, kind of interesting, the way it was phrased there. As if doctors are sort of randomly putting these titles on people based on some genetics, when the Bible's pretty clear, "In the beginning, God created them male and female. So, we already see the tension that we're going into, because as Christians we have a biblical worldview that says, "No, it's not doctors that assign us anything at birth. It's what God has created male and female, those are the two categories that we see in the scripture. Nevertheless, we live in a time where we just kind of want to gloss over that, and for a variety of reasons we live in a world that is redefining. And so a cis heterosexual is a person who would identify themselves, just in the good old fashioned way, Male or Female. Nevertheless, it is called, in our times, as what is identified by, at birth, by a doctor and then feeling in accord with that. Whether that person is of an orientation that is heterosexual or homosexual, but they would identify themselves with the sex gender of their birth. Next, I had to just dig in and ask the question, what is a nerd rapper? I knew what rap was, what rap music is. Apparently it's rap music that includes topics like technology and science. And then finally, I'm not even up to date on the Christian contemporary music chart, so I'm sure not up to date on the secular scene. Who is Rito Rhymes? Well, he's obviously a contemporary nerd rapper who seems to have been surprised by and appreciative of how he was received in the gay community, though not part of it. And finally, just in case anybody out there is not quite sure, although I think we probably all know about by now, what is pride month? Well, it's a month that's been designated as the month to promote, celebrate and affirm the LGBTQ+ community. Their lifestyle and the contributions to society of people who are identified with that movement and way of life. And certainly, you know, as with every month designation, we're talking about celebrating people who have come out from under an oppression of one kind or another in society, and yet have made positive contributions toward it. And then finally, in answer to the writer of the initial email's question basically is, he's wanting an interview with this person, some kind of a response. What can we say about the acceptance that Rito Rhymes says he has experienced in the gay community? Well, in a sense, we can't say anything good or bad, it's simply his experience. A person who's had his own struggles, a person who's struggled with his own identity, perhaps apparently not his sexuality. He identifies himself as heterosexual, yet he's kind of struggled to find his niche there, for whatever reasons. And I don't know him, I don't know how he treats others, but he hasn't felt well received by the women that he has reached out to. Nevertheless, he appears to have been received well by gay men. And I don't know enough about the gay community to really respond to that other than what I have heard, which is just hearsay, but that they are an accepting community, not only among their own, but among those who come among them. And particularly it seems, and again, this is probably a stereotype, but that the gay community in particular, often associates itself with the arts. And so, maybe not too surprisingly that a heterosexual rapper would find appreciation and acceptance when he has reached out to them and gone in among that community. But also this is posted to me and my co-hosts--who are not with me today--and from Russ asking, "So what's a biblical response to this topic and this issue in our times? And to this lifestyle in our culture, especially, perhaps to the mainstreaming of the gay lifestyle in our culture?" Well, the biblical response is twofold, and it's very simple. Number 1: The Bible calls us to love our neighbors as ourselves, whoever they may be, regardless of all the things that divide us in the world today. Whether it's race or creed or even sexual orientation, the Bible says, "love your neighbor as yourself." And when Jesus was pressed on this question, He brought up the hot topic of His time. He gave us the parable of what we call The Good Samaritan, which in our culture seems pretty mild. In fact, there's even a Good Sam's Club out there. But if you were living in the Israel of Jesus' day, you would not call any club a Good Sam's Club, because the Samaritans were those people that the Jewish people of Jesus' community felt most distant from, most disconnected from, most at odds with. They did not even cross the line into each other's territories. There was, in the Jewish mindset, no such thing as a good Samaritan. And yet Jesus uses a Samaritan to describe someone who is being neighborly and kind. Without affirming what Samaritans believed or what they did on Mount Gerizim where they worshiped. Jesus used this; a person of a different life, a different belief, a different faith. It would've been regarded, and we would still regard it, as a cult offshoot of Judaism, which was not Judaism. We would not have probably wanted to use this as an example, but Jesus uses this very intentionally to say, "Look, this is how you treat people: you treat them with love, you treat them with respect, you treat them with support, you treat them with kindness. You share with them the good news of the gospel that washes away sins and truly changes lives in radical ways." Samaritans were so looked down on and it's interesting that when Jesus even addressed a Samaritan, the woman at the well, and here is a person who is in sexual sin. She's been married seven times, she's living with a guy now--she's not even married to him--and Jesus is treating her gently. And she brings up the topic of the whole Samaritan/Jewish divide and Jesus, He doesn't affirm what the Samaritans believe anymore than He affirms what she's doing sexually in her life. But He keeps bringing her back to the salvation question, which will change all of the other things in her life, and used the gospel as the powerful thing to change life. You know, this is a great one for us because we are living in a world where these issues are not pushed away in the closet anymore. There is so much that once upon a time, we all agreed: This was right, this was wrong, and if it was wrong, sure didn't do it, and there are some things we didn't even talk about. Now it's all on the table, it's all being talked about. And more than that, it's all being accepted culturally. So how do we respond to that? You know, we live in a time of what we might call, culture wars and slowly as Christians, I think we are learning that when we take up the sword of the state for the cause of Christ and just try and outlaw everything that we see in the Bible to be wrong, it comes back to bite us. It's not working out well. And maybe that's the reason that Jesus told us, and the scriptures told us, and Paul tells us in his letters, "we don't war with the weapons of this world. Those who pick up the sword of the state," as Jesus put it, "those who take up the sword end up dying by it." That's not our weapon friends. We take up the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. And friends, I just want to give you a comforting thought: The gospel is far more powerful than the sword of the state. And really it is the only method capable of bringing lasting change, not only to a culture, but to the hearts of individual people and those that we love. And this again, is a topic where once upon a time you might have said, "I don't know anybody of that lifestyle. I don't know anybody of that orientation." Well, today you do, and you're in school with them, and you're at work with people of that lifestyle, and you probably have people in your extended family who are there.

Gary Schick
And so, how do we respond? Jesus has told us how to respond: You love your neighbor, you pray for your neighbor, you do good to your neighbor, you work for their good, and you share with them the good news of the gospel. All of that said, this does not mean that the Bible condones all lifestyles and all life choices, concerning marriage and sexuality, the Bible is very clear. In Genesis 1 and 2 we read, "In the beginning, God created them male and female," and I camped on this a little bit just as we were sort of even getting into this topic. Biblically, this is not something that a doctor decides. They're just identifying what God put there to begin with. Now, I know there are some genetic variations and things that can lead to some confusion, but essentially there from creation are what is called male and female. And interestingly enough, in the first marriage God brings together a male, a female, and calls this, "that relationship in which to become one." And Jesus comes along, and when he's asked about divorce, which was a hot topic in his time, (And it's still a hot topic in our day), and He affirms marriage, not as God allowed it. "Yeah, it can be broken under this circumstance," or whatever He says. But look at what God's intent was at the creation. That that should be our goal as well. What did God intend? And Jesus takes us back to Genesis 1 & 2 and He says, "in the beginning, He created them male and female and the two shall become one." And then Jesus says, "what God has made one flesh, let not man put us under." So, in that statement, Jesus is reaffirming everything that Genesis 1 and 2 tells us, not only about our sexuality, but also about the nature of marriage, that it is between one man and one woman. And He reaffirms what the Bible says about sexuality, which not only cuts out the LGBTQ+ approach to sexuality, but even the way many heterosexuals treat it. This is not something that you move into or try out for a while. "If it's good, if we like it, if we like each other. If the relationship seems good, then we'll sprinkle a little holy water on it and get married, tie the knot." No, no, no friends, sexual activity of any kind outside of marriage, the Bible prohibits, calls it sin. When we come to the topic of marriage, the Bible says it's between one man and one woman. And that is where the sexual relationship is to be, it is to be a monogamous union, not including anyone else's faithfulness within the relationship. And why is this? Because it reflects the relationship between Christ and his other counterpart, which is His church, His bride. And so marriage in scripture is taken to a very high place as to be this holy, monogamous faithful woman, or union representing the relationship of Christ and His church. So, even within the Christian Church there's many who are gonna balk at this, because this is God's ideal. And that it is to be a lifelong and healthy and beautiful and upbuilding relationship between one man and one woman. And we'll go farther with that. It is also to be a procreative union, or at least open to that gift. And again, this is not where our culture has taken it. We have made it all about personal pleasure, personal choices personal decisions; personal, personal, personal, if there's one thing that defines us as Americans, which is, we are people of choice. And yet the Bible says, "No, God actually has some other intentions for these things." So, nevertheless, that's what the Bible says, same sex relationships, living together relationships, relationships that were less than monogamous. This is not unfamiliar to the writers of the Bible. This was rampant, all of this. Everything that's going on in our culture today was fairly rampant in the culture of the Old Testament, the pagan cultures of the Canaanites, the Ammonites, the Hittites, the Moabites, the Egyptians. I mean, it happened among them. When we come to the New Testament era, the Greek and Roman cultures we're very accepting of all of these lifestyles. The only thing that's really different today, is that today in our culture the same sex partnership has been raised to the status of marriage. We did not see that in the ancient world. While these relationships were common, what was also still agreed on then was that the marriage relationship was for the purpose, essentially, of being a procreative union. And that can't happen in a same sex union. Male and male, female and female do not procreate, something else has to happen. And so, that is a sense in which we have gone a step beyond in our culture, but nevertheless, the Bible speaks to all of this. And again, rather than going to war with those who are different from us, and don't have the Bible's perspective, it talks about what the gospel can do. And it also takes sexual sins and it does something else we don't intend to do. For some reason, we tend to elevate those things. It levels them out with everything else. When Paul writes, in his letter to the Corinthians, who lived in a city that was very sex saturated. I mean, right there in Corinth was the temple to Aphrodite in which I guess there were something like a thousand prostitutes; that was how they worshiped Aphrodite. So talk about a sex saturated culture. This is what Paul writes, he says to the Corinthians, "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God. Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral." That is, those who take sexual activity outside of marriage be it heterosexual or otherwise. "Neither the sexually immoral nor idolators, nor adulterers." Those who break the marriage vow. "Nor men who submit to or perform homosexual acts. Nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunker, nor verbal abusers, nor swindler will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were, but you were washed, you were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ, and by the spirit of our God." So Paul does everything that we don't like here. Number one, he does identify this sin as a sin, and there's a reason he didn't just randomly come up with it because he wanted to give a hard time to people in that community. No, this sort of sexual activity was very normal and accepted in the Greek culture, it may not have been something they would've called marriage, but it would not have been unusual. And he's bringing these people around to the biblical perspective and saying, "No, this is sin," but then he does something else that a lot of us don't like. He's not raising any sexual sin above other sins. He's putting it right down among those who are unkind to each other verbally. Something that unfortunately, a lot of Christians have no problem with, what today in the culture is called hate speech. And the Bible says, "you know what, hate speech is not acceptable either." He just blanketly gives a catalog of many sins: some that we would frown on, some that we would turn a blind eye toward and say, "you know what, God doesn't turn a blind eye toward any of this stuff." And then he says this, "and by the way, some of you found yourselves in each of these categories. There were some among you, Christians in Corinth, who at one time were among those who were sexually immoral, who were idols, who were adulterers, who performed sexual homosexual acts, who were thieves, who were greedy for money, who were drunkards, who were verbally abusive, who were swindlers. And you were among those who are not inheriting the kingdom of God, but you came to Christ. You heard the gospel, you received Jesus, and you were washed not just with baptism, but you were sanctified inwardly. You were made a new person, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the spirit of our God, and you have taken a new path in life." Culturally, we're told that people can't change. They can't come out of certain lifestyles. And I'll say it: a lot of things that Paul talks about in this list are hard things to break off of, setting aside the sexual identity question. I know of people who struggle and are dying under the addiction to alcohol. There are some things that are hard to break ways with. There are hard things to part ways with and take on a new path. But Paul is telling us that through the gospel and the power of the spirit, all things are possible. So what does the Bible say? Though it may not be politically correct, continues to call anything, but the marriage of one man, one woman in a monogamous relationship, open to the gift of children sin. On the other hand, for all those who don't fit that category who have fallen short, and Jesus says, "Remember, even anyone who has looked at a woman less fully has committed adultery." So guess what? We all fall into that category. At some point, the gospel says "yet, there is forgiveness, yet there is a way out. Yet, there is a new path, back to God's plan from the beginning." So, probably ruffled some feathers today. Love your neighbors friends, pray for them, have a close eye toward your own life and how well you are measuring up to the biblical ideal. And together let's be receptive of the good news of Jesus. What he died on the cross to cleanse us from. And seeking by the power of the spirit to honor Him with our thoughts, with our words, with our deeds, with our eyes, with our actions, with how we respond to one another, how we treat one another, how we accept one another and how we then in Christ choose to live.

What Does God Have To Say About Stress? - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Ben Clein, Jonathan Hernandez, and Gary Schick.

Gary Schick
So here guys is the question for today from one of our listeners. The individual writes, "I can't help but wonder if the cause of increased stress in so many people's lives, isn't the result of them thinking they don't need God. What does God have to say about stress? How can we address this topic biblically and give people real and eternal solutions? Jonathan, what do you think?

Jonathan Hernandez
Yeah, so I guess as we look through scripture, the word stress really doesn't pop up. But we see other things like anxiety or fear. Definitely, "Do not fear," shows up what 365 times I think, throughout scripture, and so we can look to some of those. I guess one of the scriptures that I was looking at was in Philippians 4:6, it says, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer, petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to the Lord and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus." And so I think for me, stress has been something that really, burdened me for most of my life. You know, it's stress about the easiest and the smallest things to the biggest things. And you know, as we are, hopefully on the other side of COVID, I'm hoping we see a lot less stress in people's lives. But with this scripture, the thing I like, you know, really we need to present these things to God. "Okay, I'm struggling with the fear of COVID," or you know, whatever the fear is that we're struggling with. Our anxiety and those types of things, that we just take those to God and allow Him to just really, you know, cause it says, "guard your heart and your mind and allow Him to show us what we need to look to or look forward to." And then just finding things to help us deal with stress. Obviously, some worship music, just put on some worship music, you know, spend time worshiping or in the word. Those are definitely great areas to help reduce stress. And then also just look at, "Okay, why am I stressed?" Is it because of work? Do I have way too much stuff going on? And then just looking at those things that, "Okay, what can I take out of my life to help reduce stress?" And then just finding, for me, finding something extracurricular, like, I play disc golf. And so just finding a place that I can just go and relax, and a lot of times it's usually just talking to God as I'm throwing around Frisbees. So yeah! Good

Gary Schick
Good! Ben?

Ben Cline
Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I was just thinking about, you know, the fact that that word stress is not actually mentioned in the Bible either, but you know, we definitely see other mentions of it. The word trouble is in there, talks about that as well, Jesus talks about that. But I think there's different areas where we maybe, typically experience stress in our lives, and Pastor Jonathan was talking about some of those things. You know finances, our jobs, our relationships, illness can cause a lot of stresses, hardships and trials and things like that. But one of the places that I was reading about, the fact that we're supposed to not be worried about those things in life, but to be relying on Christ, is actually in Matthew 6:25. It says, "For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life as to what you'll eat or what you will drink, nor for your body as to what you'll put on." And then it says, "Is not life more than just food and the body more than clothing?" So the example that's used there is, you know, the stresses that we experience because we're worried about those physical things in life, but then he goes on and he gives the example of God taking care of His creation. The creation that we can look out at and see. And so in verse 26 it says, "Look at the birds of the air that they do not sew nor reap nor gather into barns. And yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?" Then in verse 27 it says, "And who of you by being worried, can add a single hour to his life?" That's a question that I need to have going on in my mind over and over again, because I think quite the opposite happens when we worry, is that we maybe are taking years off of our lives. But then in verse 28 it says, "And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow. They do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all of his glory clothed himself, like one of these. But if God so clothed the grass and the fields, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you?" And then he says, "You have little faith." You know, what an interesting perspective as we think about the worries and the troubles and the stresses that we have in our life. God wants us to have faith in Him, and He wants us to be concentrated on Him.

Gary Schick
What a relevant, couple of passages you guys dug into. I mean, Jonathan with, "Have no anxiety about anything," boom! Right, spot on scripture for that. And then as you were talking, Ben, I was thinking, "and did Jesus mention about, 'and do not worry about gas prices?" But I mean, He was addressing that because He was talking about the everyday concerns. Where's the food gonna come from? Where are the clothes gonna come from? And today, you know, where's the money for the gas tank gonna come from? And here's the thing our listener, you know, I think in some ways, right? Yes, our culture has drifted from God and that has created stresses, but stress is part of life for unbelievers and believers and we all face it. I think the difference though, and we've been talking about it without even really maybe recognizing it, is the fact that as believers we have some resources to draw on that the unbeliever doesn't. And the thing that we've been talking about today, the name of the show is Ask the Pastor, but what are we pastors asking? And to answer your question, we're asking God's word. And so the scripture is so abundant. And again, you're right. The specific word stress may not have shown up in any of the translations we are reading. It might show up in some translation, but the concept of worries, concerns anxieties, and not only specific scriptures, but I mean, story after story in the Bible takes us to God's people going through some really stressful stuff and how God carried them through. This morning in Men's Bible study, we were talking about the life of Joseph, and talk about stress. He was thrown in a pit and sold into slavery, you know? And how faithfully God carried him through. As I was kind of thinking about this question last night, just to, I don't know if we ever mentioned it to you listeners, but basically we get the question the day before and we kind of all go home and think about it. And it's really neat how God puts together our answers the next day when we come together. But a verse that has just been so meaningful to me so many times in stressful situations: 2 Corinthians 1:8-9. The apostle Paul writes, "We do not want you to be uninformed brothers about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure so that we despaired even of life. Indeed in our hearts, we felt that very sentence of death; but this happened so that we might not rely on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead." So Paul doesn't give us the nitty gritty details of what was the stress, apparently the Corinthians knew something of what stress he was under in Asia. But he tells us that he would "despair even of life." And then he gives this wonderful perspective, "Yeah, we felt like we were even under the sentence of death, but this happened that we might not rely on ourselves, but that we might learn in a sense to rely on God who raises the dead." And maybe you're out there just gasping for breath saying, "I don't know what to do." Time to turn it over to God friends, and to rely on the promises of God's word. You know, another great verse, Isaiah 41:10, "So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you and uphold you with my righteous right hand." That's a verse I memorized a long time ago, going through some, what were called, Navigator's Material, they're a great ministry out of Colorado. If you will lay verses like that aside in your heart, God, the Holy Spirit can bring them back to you when you are in crisis mode. When you are under stress, just remember, "Hey, I am with you says the Lord." You know, Jesus words, "Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble at heart, and you'll find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Jesus wants us to give the big burdens to Him and just asks us to be faithful today with what He has for us to do. I think we so often get so ahead of ourselves. My worry is, I don't know about you guys, there are things mostly down the road, things that just don't usually happen, you know? And then the real things that maybe we should be stressed about, we never saw coming. But God gets them through, gets us through. I think another, and I think Jonathan addressed this so well, was just the importance of prayer. You know, for 1 Peter 5:7, "Cast all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you." Romans 8:26 says, "But in the same way, the spirit helps us in our weakness. We don't know what we ought to pray, but the spirit himself intercedes with groans, that words can't express." And then finally, and in a sense, our listener was doing this by asking us the question. But I think we do it in a much more personal way within the setting of a small group, Bible study, or the fellowship we have at church. And that is to share our burdens with one another in Christ. Galatians 6:2 says, "Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ," which of course is to love one another. And so, by all means listener, don't feel guilty that you're stressed, stress happens. Stress is part of life. It's really more a question of, where do we channel that? Do we take it to God in prayer? Do we remind ourselves of the truths of God's word? Do we share our burdens with others to pray for us? Do we take the opportunity, as Jonathan put it, to just get outside and enjoy some of God's green earth and fresh air? Those are all healing things in stressful times. And in a way, praise God that we are in stressful situations, because that means probably that we're in situations where God can use us. I mean, look at the life of Paul, so much of it was stressful and yet God filled him with renewed joy every day. And may He do it for us too!

Intergenerational Ministry Part 4

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Kiley Callaway, John Mulholland and Jon Simpson.

Jon Simpson
So, we kind of ended the last session and we kind of want to pick up there again and continue this bonus session. So we ended with a reading in Psalms, was it 77 or 78?

John Mulholland
Part of Psalm 78.

Jon Simpson
About the responsibility really, that God has certainly built into the nation of Israel. But really, we could go back and say, He built this into the creation, the way in which He created us as human beings. The way we're produced, the way that we knit together. And where this knowledge and how this knowledge and all this, is supposed to be passed on, it really is in the family. And so why don't you read that again, John?

John Mulholland
Yeah, so Psalm 78: Failed Family Discipleship. There are 72 verses, I'm just gonna start at the beginning and just read through verse four, which is where we ended off. "All my people, listen to my instructions. Open your ears to hear what I'm saying, for I will speak to you in a parable. I will teach you hidden lessons from our past, we've heard and known stories our ancestors handed down to us. We will not hide these truths from our children. We will tell the next generation about the glory seeds of the Lord, about His power and His mighty wonders." So, there's a, I wanna say it's in 1 Corinthians 12, Paul talks about the reason, like, we have stories from the past. He says, "they're written as an example to us," and I think I'm getting the order wrong. Like, he talks about how they're written as an example, and they're written as a warning. I tell my people that, like, I basically have four sermons that I tell on repeat. This is one of those sermon stories; stories from the past to warn us and stories as an example. I think that's what the Psalmist is honing in on, like, "I will teach you hidden lessons from our past." So the things that happened, the historical things that happened to the Jewish people, were actual historic events. These are literal, these things happened, and they are parables, they're metaphors. They're teaching a deeper spiritual reality, and that is like, we don't want to just tell them, "Yeah, we were, you know, we came across the red sea and bladdy, blah, blah, blah." We wanna tell them what that means, right? And that's, you know, kind of our job as pastors, is not just to tell people what the Bible says, but what it means. And I just love verse four, "We will not hide these truths from our children." See that? That tells me that there's a tendency in our sinful nature to not---

Jon Simpson
Yeah, and like I said last time, there's even this message to parents, "you should not influence your children in the arena of what their faith is. What they're gonna believe in, they need to decide for themselves." And of course, we're getting into this in a lot of areas where children are being given the responsibility, whatever you wanna call it, to choose a lot about who they are. But this is a cultural value. I know people that, you know, my oldest daughter, she grew up, went to college and then after college she was working a job. She was around her peers and there would be, I don't know, conversations maybe about things happening in the world related to faith, related to politics or whatever. And I remember she said, "Dad, there's this girl in my office over at work, and she said, 'you know, growing up we never talked about religion or faith. We never talked about politics, in our home it never came up." To which my daughter said, "That's all we talked about in my home growing up." Like, I don't know how, you know, she just couldn't relate. But I know there's a lot of people, your faith is private, it causes conflict, so does politics. But these things are really important to our lives and how they work, and they're important if we're going to hand it off to the next generation. Then we have to talk about, and we have to be comfortable with it. But parents need to be empowered and encouraged. There's a way to do it that works, there's a way that doesn't. Like, how do you approach, you know, influencing your children without embodying them? How do you do a good job of impressing things on them, you know? And one of them is, you don't make a decision not to talk about these things.

John Mulholland
So you just used that word impress.

Jon Simpson
Yes.

John Mulholland
So the NLT does, (sorry I'll flip back to Deuteronomy, if I know my Bible), "Repeat them again and again," like that is in other translations and I think in the Hebrew it says, "Impress them on your children." And the concept of that is like, I have a clay tablet and what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna impress, I'm gonna rub on that clay tablet with a sharp tool, with an implement, and I'm gonna impress that into the clay tablet so that it looks like what I want it to, and that's gonna require time. Like, I'm gonna impress that on them and like, that's our role, and I think that we just live out the Christian faith.

Kiley Calloway
Right. But if we go back to Deuteronomy, can't we read that and just find some, just practical things that parents can do day-to-day that are simple? Yes, I believe it does.

John Mulholland
"Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, all your soul, all your strengths. You must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I'm giving you today." So I am not a disciple of Jesus Christ. I don't mean, I go to church; I don't mean, but I go to small group. But I give, but I serve; if I am not a disciple of Jesus Christ I am not going to pass on the faith of Jesus Christ to my children. I'm not going to. It starts with, so the way, like I have all this written down.

Kiley Calloway
You have to be a disciple.

John Mulholland
Personal! This is a personal thing.

Kiley Calloway
Yes.

John Mulholland
Not just a Christian, a disciple. This starts with me. If I'm not a disciple of Jesus Christ, committed myself wholeheartedly, that doesn't mean perfectly (like those things we talked about off air), but I have to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Repeat them again and again to your children. Like, this is so practical. Talk about them when you're on the road or when you're at home, when you're going to bed and when you getting up.

Kiley Calloway
Home, road, and going to bed.

John Mulholland
So when I go to bed at night, I need to have some sort of religious interaction with my children. Pray with them.

Kiley Calloway
Awesome concept.

John Mulholland
It's amazing.

Kiley Calloway
Yes. So we still at our house, we swap each night. So like, one night I'll get my daughter and then the next night I'll get my son. We still put them to bed. Hopefully she doesn't watch this, because she's 15 years old.

John Mulholland
Right? I bet she hates that....No I'm kidding, she probably likes it.

Kiley Calloway
She loves it. And you know, she has a prayer that she prays religiously. She's memorized it, but it's hers, right? And then I pray for them. And now my wife takes it a step further, cause she loves to talk. But you know, she'll talk with them and all that, but we've been doing that since birth. And until they tell us, you know, we're too old for this, we'll probably still do it, but we do that religiously.

John Mulholland
So, but this ought to help us with what we ought to be encouraged to do for us and parents when you're at home. So here's the deal, if you're sitting at home and you're sitting in your living room and all of you are doing this (pretends to type on the phone).

Kiley Calloway
Get the Bible app.

John Mulholland
This is what you're discipling them into, is looking at their device. Like, what am I talking about with my kids when I'm at home? What are we talking about when we're on the road? Does everybody just retreat into their devices the second we get into our car? Or are we using that time to intentionally disciple? Like, you've got to decide that as parents. So that's like so personal, I have to be a disciple. I have a practical responsibility to my children and what if I don't have kids to the next generation? And then the last piece, "Tie them on your hands, wear them on your forehead as reminders. Write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates."

Kiley Calloway
Now, what does that mean?

John Mulholland
That's missional.

Kiley Calloway
What does that mean for us practically?

John Mulholland
That means I'm gonna get a Jesus fist bumper-sticker and put on my car! No, it means that I am gonna live out my faith in the marketplace. That means I'm going to like, this is like hands in scripture. When we read the word 'hands,' we're gonna take actions. We're gonna do Christian things: We're gonna love them, we're gonna serve them, we're gonna give generously. We're gonna, like, do Christian things. And then wear them on your forehead as reminders. It means our minds are gonna be oriented towards God. Write them on your doorpost of your house and, like, we are going to proclaim Jesus with our lives publicly. Not by holding up a sign, well it might be that, for some people it might be that. But we are gonna demonstrate that we have committed ourselves wholeheartedly to God's commands in the public square.

Kiley Calloway
Like, this is so easy---but so deep.

Jon Simpson
Well, it is pretty simple. And the breakdown, we just had a marriage retreat and we talked about, and every one of the things we talked about in all of this, there is, and people need to realize there's an attack against every piece in our world and our culture. And that is a spiritual attack. So we have an order that God created things with. The order is, as I taught in that is God: husband, wife, children. That's the order. So if you have a husband, the man in the home, is not connected to God in a way that he's following God, he's learning and growing spiritually. Then there's a breakdown in the rest of the structure in terms of this whole handoff. I mean, mom can be really serious about following Jesus and getting the family to church.

John Mulholland
And you know what? Thank God for that! How many families do we have in our churches where mom is the spiritual leader?

Jon Simpson
Yes! However that doesn't, there will be a breakdown there. So my challenge is that, "Yeah, men, you're called to be spiritual leaders and you've got to be moving in this arena of your faith and growing and engaged." And it makes a big difference when that happens. And so, I'm just saying there's a tax against so many things in all of this, you know, "oh, religion is for women and children, you know?" Whatever you want to do. And this gets handed off generationally because that's a belief, those are beliefs that are in our culture. And so, you know, just like in the nation of Israel when they moved into the land of Canaan, they had issues with the culture around them and constantly they were wooed away to follow the culture around them. And we have that same battle, it's probably the biggest battle we have. And just like in those days where it was, you know, demonic, satanic worship, that really they were being pulled away to. I mean, it's those kinds of things that we battle with today. But taking the responsibility and the church impressing this, you know, upon families and this is how it's supposed to work. Well, it's a challenge following Jesus and encouraging people to do it. I just encourage parents, like yeah, you know, it matters how you live your life. If you really grab onto this and follow Jesus, that is going to be the greatest influence, because your kids care about what you do more than what you say. How you live your life matters more than what you teach them. But use the church, back to our whole conversation, use the church as a reinforcement. It matters the church was created for you to help you grow as a family. So the church can provide ministries that are designed for your kids. It can help through a season of 'that's difficult' junior high and high school. Those are big pieces, you know, so coming to church matters, but you can't just put it all there. You've got to be working, your side of it as parents and understanding that God designed parents to do that. So thanks for joining us for this bonus episode. I hope that's been helpful and encouraging to you. We believe that God created you as parents to influence your children and to disciple them. We know that God has put this generational connection where grandparents play a significant role as well, and supporting and encouraging that. And so we just, our prayer for you is that you would continue to be empowered and that you'd live it out. You'd trust God's process, His plan, and that you would be following Jesus. We know if you are, then you're going to pass off your faith to the next generation. So thanks for joining us for this session and for the series. God bless you again.

Was Palm Sunday Actually Palm Monday? - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Gary Schick.

Gary Schick
Alright, well today's question, "If Jesus was crucified in the year 33 A.D.," and then in parenthesis, "(figured from Luke 3, the 15th year of Tiberius Caesar would've been A.D. 29 or 30)," end of parenthesis. "Nissan 14, A.D. 33 would have been on Friday and lamb selection day, Nissan 10," Nissan, by the way, was the name of the month in that calendar, "would have been Monday. Does this mean that what we refer to as Palm Sunday was actually Palm Monday?" And then again, in parenthesis, the questioner writes, "John 12:1 says Jesus was in Bethany six days before the Passover. John 12:12 says it was the next day that He road into Jerusalem," end of parentheses. So the question is, "what we've always called Palm Sunday, was it perhaps Palm Monday?" So first of all, what I really appreciate about this question is that it's from somebody who obviously cares, loves God's word, loves digging into the minutiae of scripture, and wants to, you know, know that we get it right. And I appreciate that, because sometimes the things that we have traditionally ascribed to, 'this' or 'that,' aren't always right. I think I've, in a previous episode, perhaps referenced the fact that there's some question about exactly where Mount Sinai is. Is it where we've always placed it? Or is it maybe in Saudi Arabia? Which in biblical times was Midian, which is actually where the Bible places it. But that's a different question, maybe the question for next week, I'm not sure. But what day did Jesus ride into Jerusalem? What day was the triumphal entry? Why is it that we call it Palm Sunday? Was it Palm Sunday? Was it Palm Monday? Well, I have to admit, this is kind of one of those "back when I was in school," kind of reminds me of those math story problems. And those things would always make my head spin, and I really struggled with those. And truly, while I appreciate the listener's desire to get to the bottom of it, this is kind of a question that I really wish Ben was here for, cause it makes my head hurt. And I did what I think a lot of us would do, I just kind of jumped on the internet and as I kind of looked here and there, I got even more confused. And then I did what we should all do, I went back to the Bible. So listeners, when you're facing a question, whatever it is, absolutely great to reach out to us here on ask the pastor, great to reach out to your own pastor, great to see what you can find on the internet, but please, please, please begin with the Bible. You know, the reformers had it right when they determined that the best commentary on scripture, is scripture. And I really feel that the answer is right here in the Bible. First, I checked the four gospels. What can we learn about the day of triumphal entry? Matthew does not give any day indicators to what day that was, Mark does not indicate the specific day. Luke does not specify the day of the triumphal entry, but as our listener pointed out, we do get some clues from the gospel of John. John 12:1-2 says, "Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore, came to Bethany where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. So they gave a dinner for Him." And in verses 12 and 13 we read, "The next day," that is, the next day after this meal, which occurred six days before the Passover. "The next day, the large crowd that had come to the feast, heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of Palm trees and went out to meet him crying, 'Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel." And so why is it called Palm Sunday? It's because they waved Palm branches as they heralded him as king, as he road into Jerusalem. So that's what the scripture says. Now, study notes and study Bibles are also helpful. And by the way, those same reformers who told us "the best commentary on scripture is scripture," were also the first to come up with a study Bible. The Geneva Bible was the first study Bible. It had notes in the margins, those notes are not scripture.

Gary Schick
They are not infallible, but they can be helpful. And I took a look at the study note from my ESV Study Bible on John 12:1, and it explains, "Six days before the Passover, most likely refers to Saturday, since the Passover began Friday evening at sundown." So John 12:1 tells us six days before the Passover, 'Jesus arrives at Bethany.' The study note reminds us, that's most likely Saturday, because it's six days before Passover, beginning on Friday evening at sundown. And so, verse 12 notes, "Jesus enters into Jerusalem on a donkey the next day, the day after Saturday." And so we come to Sunday, called Palm Sunday, once again because of the Palm branches. So this actually would've been a great question for coming up on Easter week, but it's still a good question for us. And what's the takeaway for us, again, looking to the Bible? I think our listener was also trying to kind of pin down what year it was and that's where we get into something that gets a little murkier. In terms of the years that we are in, we are now in A.D. 2022, theoretically, 2,022 years after the year of Jesus' birth. Back at the time that Jesus was born, they weren't dating the calendar based on when he was born, actually that doesn't come for hundreds of years later. First of all, there was a monk named Dionysius Exiguus, a monk in 525 A.D., his intent on working out when exactly Easter would occur in the coming years. Tried to figure back and dated year one as the year of Jesus birth. Later on, they dated 1 B.C. as the year before Christ's birth, and so you'll notice, there is no year zero in our calendar. It's either 1 A.D. or 1 B.C., and BC literally means "Before Christ." A.D. literally means, it's Latin, it means Anno Domini, and that means, "The year of His reign." Dionysius did a fairly good job, but going through the historical records, sifting through, you know, when Herod was king, when Caesar entered his throne, actually, we now know that Jesus was born somewhere between, what we are calling, between 4 & 6 B.C. Luke tells us that Jesus was about 30 years old when he began His ministry. And so, I appreciate our listener trying to figure out, you know, the exact time, day, year and even the month of Nissan, but it's a little murky exactly what year in our current calendar, all of this falls out in. So that's where it's not so helpful to try and figure some of those things out. What is helpful is to base our figuring on what the scripture does tell us. And it tells us, six days before the Passover, Passover beginning Friday evening, brings us to Saturday for the dinner and then the next day riding into Jerusalem on Sunday. Sometimes I think, friends, we tend to, in our desire for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, even go on and just make questions harder than they need to be. I love the simplicity of scripture, the clarity of scripture, and by the way, where scripture isn't absolutely clear. It's okay for us not to be absolutely clear, because the things that need to be absolutely clear have been manifestly made clear in scripture. I love, since we're in the gospel of John, those verses toward the end of the gospel. Where it says, you know, many other things Jesus said and did and miracles He performed. In fact, so much so that if all of it were written down, the world couldn't contain the books. But these have been written that you may know that Jesus is the Son of God, and that by believing in His name we are saved. That's the key, the whole of scripture brings us to Jesus and salvation through faith in His name. I'm so glad we can trust the scripture, it's accurate, it is testified too on the outside. We know from outside sources that, "Yep, there was a man in Galilee named Jesus performing miracles and teaching and doing great things. Yep, He was crucified under Pontius Pilot." These are historical figures, they're not just myths made up. We can pinpoint the times that Jesus lived in, and He was definitely a man of His times and yet so much beyond them, because He was, and is, God in the flesh. And so, hope that's helpful to our listener. Hope it also gives some insight to all of you as listeners, in terms of sifting through the questions that you come up with. And then by all means, please do continue to reach out to us, and we will do our best, looking at the same Bible that you're looking at, to try and come to as much clarity as we can find in the scriptures. But just always know, where it gets fuzzy on the edges, that's okay. The Bible was written to bring us to Jesus, to faith in His name, and to grow us and to be more like Him in the process of our life. So keep your focus there, on your discipleship, your walk with the Lord as you first come to Him and then grow in Him. And let's make that our prayer today.

Why Do People End Their Prayers With Amen? - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastors features Gary Hashley, Tim Hebbert and Brad Kilthau.

Brad Kilthau
We've got a question before us that might seem very simplistic, but I think it's something that we obviously need to talk about. And the question is just simply this, "Why do people end their prayers with amen?" You would think that maybe we would just know this, but when you start thinking about it and understanding where some folks come from in the church, maybe we do need to talk about this a little bit. Because you know, everyone's familiar with the word, 'amen,' but are they familiar with what it means and why we really use it at the end of our prayers? Some thoughts that I put together on this question is: I believe that a lot of people just believe it's a mere ritual in the church. You know, that's the way the church has always finished the prayers. That's the way we're gonna finish them; with 'amen.' And then there are other people I believe, that think that it's kind of a majestic type of word. In other words, "if I use this word, 'amen,' then I can kind of get a little twist towards what I want out of this prayer." And so, let me just share a few thoughts before I turn it over to you Gary. But, you know, 'amen' is really a universally recognized word, but it's a whole lot more significant than just, "I'm signing off." I always think about the Looney Tunes, you know, "That's all folks!" You know? And I think for a lot of people, that's what 'amen' means, "That's all I'm done, I'm done with my prayer." But when you really study the word, 'amen,' you find that you can use the word 'amen' a lot in your prayer, through the prayer. And it's an effective way of really saying, "may it be in accordance with the will of God." In fact, to me, it's a marvelous reminder that any discussion on prayer must begin with the understanding that prayer is to bring us in conformity with God's will. It's not, we put 'amen' at the end so that we can ensure that God will give us our will, it's always to be the Lord's will when we pray. And when you look at the word, 'amen,' another thing that sometimes, I think we don't see and understand, is that 'amen' is a direct reference to Jesus Himself; the one who taught us how to pray. I think about the Lord's prayer, as it says in Matthew 6, "Jesus taught us to pray this way: 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever." And then notice how Jesus ended that prayer and how He taught us how to pray, "Amen," okay? So what was Jesus saying? Jesus was saying, "This is really about me," because when you go to Revelation 3, you actually find that the title 'amen,' actually refers to Jesus Himself. It says, "Jesus is the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation," in Revelation 3:14. So, Jesus not only taught us to pray and to ask for the Lord's will by saying 'amen' at the end of our prayers, but He modeled it in His life. We're coming into the Easter celebration, good Friday and so forth, and we remember when Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane and He was praying passionately. And remember how He prayed in Matthew 26:39, He said, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet, not as I will, but as you will," Jesus finished His prayer with an 'amen.' "As your will is Lord," He was saying to His father, "as your will is." And when we look at this, you know, Jesus is our greatest example about using this 'amen,' referring to Him in our prayers, referring to the will of the Father with our prayers. But we also see, of course, when we look at some of the writers of the New Testament, His brother James. When he told the church to stop bragging about and boasting about what you're gonna get done in a day he said, "Maybe you oughta say this in prayer, 'if it is the Lord's will, then I will do this.' In other words, he started the prayer with an 'amen.' "Amen Lord, is this your will that I will get this accomplished in my day?" And then we think about his closest friend, John. In his earthly ministry, the apostle John actually said this, he said, "This is the confidence that we have when approaching God, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears." There's the 'amen' again. It's not a ritualistic thing, it's asking for the will of the father. And so Gary, I'm gonna turn it over to you. Is there some more thoughts we could have on this, word 'amen' in our prayers?

Gary Hashley
Well, you people out there in Radioland don't realize that Brad does a lot of the legwork for us to get ready for this. From the standpoint of, he takes the questions that we've been given or we come up with and then he kind of breaks it down and, "Okay, Tim's gonna start and he's gonna cover this part and then I'll step in and then Brad will close whatever." And he put something down for me that really got me thinking. I mean, I've been doing this pastor thing for 40 years now, and he said, "Gary continues with the link between amen and obedience." And, you know, I sat and I thought, 'what does he mean by the link between amen and obedience?' And the more I thought about it, the more, you know, we do Brad, we think about 'amen' like the end of a book. Where the author's done and says 'the end,' as if amen is God's version of the end. In fact, the very last word of our Bible, the very last word of the book of Revelation is the word 'amen.' And it's not saying, "Okay, we've reached the end." As you've said, he's saying, "So be it, this is the way it is, this is the truth." And so this thought of, a link between the word amen and obedience, I realize that saying 'amen' to God is acknowledging a few things. It's acknowledging: He's God and I'm not (I think that's part of it), You are God, and I'm not, He has the authority to declare what's right, and what's wrong, and I'm gonna submit and I'm going to carefully obey. And as I did some research, Brad got my mind going here, I never claim to know it all, and so I'm learning all the time, I found myself in Deuteronomy 27.

Gary Hashley
Where Moses and the elders of Israel are going to take the people and they are going to have, basically a service together in a sense. And the Levites are going to make some statements, and the people are to say "Amen," or "Okay, we're on board, we'll obey." For instance, it says, "cursed be the man who makes a carved or cast metal image. An abomination to the Lord, a thing made by the hands of craftsman and sets it up in secret, and all the people shall answer and say, 'Amen." In other words, "Okay, we'll do that. We won't make idols." The next one, "Cursed be anyone who dishonors his father or his mother, and all the people shall say, 'amen." I mean, doesn't God say, "Don't make graven images?" Okay, doesn't God say, "honor your father and mother?" The next one, "Cursed be anyone who moves his neighbor's landmark." In other words, "you don't cheat property lines." The people say, 'amen;' okay, we'll fall in line with that. Cursed be anyone who misleads a blind man on the road, and all the people shall say, 'amen;' okay, we'll obey that one. Cursed be anyone who perverts the justice, due to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. And all the people say, 'amen,' okay we'll submit to that. Cursed be anyone who lies with his father's wife, because he's uncovered his father's nakedness, the people answer 'amen." And so you go down, "Cursed be anyone who strikes down his neighbor in secret, and the people say, 'amen." One pastor in a message said, "Moses speaks to the people, as he's about to take charge he says, 'you are about to become God's chosen people and make sure that you follow his commands.' And the people said, 'Amen, we'll follow His commands." So he says, "What's the conclusion? Amen is not just a word. Rather, it is a decision we make to follow God." So to say, 'amen' is saying, "Okay God, you're in charge, okay God, you make the rules, okay God, you deserve me to obey, okay God, I'm going to choose to follow your direction and guidance and leading in my life." So really there is a connection, Brad, I didn't think about it prior to now, but there is a connection to, 'amen' is saying, "God, your will not my will." But how many of us pray and we believe if we say, "In Jesus name," we get points towards what we want? And if we say, 'amen,' we get more points towards what we want as opposed to, God says, "make our request known," but in the end we say, "Amen, God, whatever you want, and I'm on board, I will submit to what you have for me to do." So, yeah, 'amen,' we can say it so mindlessly. In fact, we can say the whole Lord's prayer, we call it, mindlessly. But when we think about what we're saying, we're saying, "Okay God, you're God, I'm not God. You're in charge, I'm not. God, if you say so, that's the way it is." I remember when Gaither came out with the song, God said it, and I believe it, and that settles it for me. My mom, when she was alive, said, "No, God said it and that settles it. Whether I believe it or not." And so 'amen' is basically saying, "God, you are God. I submit." So Tim, the ball's in your court.

Tim Hebbert
You know, I'm sitting here listening to both of you guys, cause I'm going to the, almost the same exact places. We we're trying to approach this word from different angles, yet we come up with the same conclusion every time. Amen, one of the things, and both of you touched on it a little bit. I fear at times it's become one of those throwaway words in the Christian culture. And I hate to say this, but because lots of our folks, and I've been guilty of it in my past too, "Praying for you." Well, that sounds good, but that means I got to do what I'm saying that I was gonna do. But it becomes one of those automatic responses that we have, "Amen," and I'm guilty of this in a sermon, I'll make a point and I'll say, "amen?" and I'm trying to get agreement with people. Well, you know what, that's really not what that was for, "Oh amen! So be it." So, what does that mean to me in terms of, how do we link that word to praise and worship? I think the word 'amen' is a position of the heart, "So be it." And both of you brought up the Lord's prayer and I had in my notes to bring the Lord's prayer up, "Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name." So be it, "your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." So be it. Every one of those statements in that prayer that Jesus is taking the time to teach us how to pray, how to position the heart when we pray. How we approach coming into communion with our heavenly father, every time we make a statement with it, it should end with an 'amen' or with a, 'so be it,' because that's just my heart position Lord. As Gary, you said, "You're in charge, I'm nothing more than a follower. Whatever path you take me down, so be it, I'll follow that path. Whatever thing you've called me to do, so be it, I'm there to do that." But don't you think praise and worship begin with a heart of obedience? We can't really worship the Lord unless our heart is positioned in that place of obedience. That you are who you say you are, you are the all in all. And so when we use that word flippantly, or as a prayer, it's okay as a prayer and folks don't get me wrong. But what I'm saying today is, what's the position of your heart? Is your heart in a place where you always are saying to the Lord, "So be it. Whatever you want, that's what I want. Whatever your will is, that's what I crave in my life. It's not about me, it's always about you." I want to end with this passage from 1 Chronicles, and just to set it up, David is in the process that brought the ark in. And it's in a place of importance, and now it's time to celebrate and he begins to pray. What my Bible says, "The David's song of Praise," but he's basically worshiping God in a sense complete heart position of holiness. Wanting to get as close to the Lord as he can get. Starting with verse 30, this is chapter 16 of 1 Chronicles, in each one of these sentences I could say amen to, "Let all the earth tremble before him. The world stands firm and cannot be shaken." So be it, "let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice. Tell all the nations, 'the Lord reigns," amen. "Let the sea and everything in it shout his praise," so be it. "Let the fields and their crops burst out with joy," amen. "Let the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord, for he is coming to judge the earth," so be it Lord. "Give thanks to the Lord for he is good," that's a double 'amen.' Amen and Amen. "His faithful love endures forever. Cry out, 'Save us oh God of our salvation," amen. "Gather and rescue us from among the nations, so we can thank your holy name and rejoice and praise you," so be it. "Praise the Lord, the God of Israel who lives from everlasting to everlasting," amen. And the passage ends by all the people shouted, "Amen!" Praise the Lord. So where's your heart position today?

How Do We Discern The Will Of God? - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastor Ben Poole

Ben Poole
So, last week I was asked, knowing there was just gonna be me today, and with everything going on in my life, (leaving the area, moving, and kind of uprooting our family) I was asked to talk about what it looks like and how we discern the will of God in our life. That's really a huge topic, but I think one that is so incredibly important for the Christians, especially in today's world. We have so much going on in the political realm and you have Christians on both sides of the aisle saying, "This is right and this is wrong," or "this is right and this is wrong." And we have the political climate, we have our kids in schools and the things they're learning, and I mean, there's so many things. And at the same time, we are trying to live our life according to God's word. Trying to do what's right, to live right, and there's so many things in society and culture that are pulling us in one direction or another. It's interesting, being pastors we, I guess I should just speak for myself, becoming a Christian really was kind of a natural thing for me. I struggled with it, but there was more natural, because I was raised in the church. My parents were in leadership, Sunday school teachers, my dad was an elder. I mean, all of these things, it was just sort of a natural thing for me. But for a lot of my friends who didn't grow up with that, it was kind of crazy. And then to become a pastor, really kind of in some ways begins to build a wall between my friends and even some family members who aren't Christians. And it's kind of a battle, and you look at it like, "Okay, if I'm supposed to be living my life out with God and sharing Him, why is there a wall being built between us? Why is it becoming more difficult to reach people?" And man, there's so many things that go into that. And I think I've shared this before, but nearly 30 years have gone by and I have one of my close friends I grew up with, is starting now making his walk towards Christ. And I don't take credit for it, I give that all to God and now God has worked that out. But I look back and all those questions I've asked, but I've stayed faithful to God, and that has been the thing that has really made change in other people's lives. And it might not make sense in the moment to do what God wants me to do, but God's down the road, He knows what's coming, we just need to be faithful. And so, I wanna talk about this a little bit today, but I really want to look at it beyond my thoughts. I want us to look first at the scriptures to see what God's word says to some degree on this topic, because so really the root questions: what is God's will for us? What is the underlying, you know, what's the meaning of life? Where do we find this? And it really comes down to, what we see in the Old Testament, and Jesus even talks about it when He's asked, "What is the greatest commandment? And Jesus says, 'Well, it's to love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the second is like it: to love your neighbor as yourself.' These wrap up and complete all the law and the prophets." I mean, that is the foundation. Okay, listen to that. That is the ultimate will of God, is that we would love Him, and we would love people. If that is what we only hear today, just hear that: the will of God at its greatest foundational moment is to love God and to love people. If we do that, if we live that out in our lives, and our daily walk with Him, every single thing that's left will work itself out. Now it's not saying that we should be negligent of what God has called us to, but if that's where we need to start, that's the best place to start is: am I loving God? Am I loving people? There's some other passages I wanted to talk to you about as well. First one comes from 1 Corinthians 2, Paul's writing to a church that is struggling with their identity and the call that they've had. They're struggling with sin in the church and allowing sin to continue. And so God's imparting wisdom through Paul to this church, and I wanna read from 1 Corinthians 2, starting in verse six. "We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we declare God's wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began." And he continues on, but there's a really pertinent point that I want to really take to heart as a Christian in verse 15, "The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment for who has known the mind of the Lord, that He may instruct him?" And the end of verse 16, "but we have the mind of Christ." As Christians, we're not left alone to our own devices, thank God for that! Through God's holy spirit and the work in us, our minds are not even our own. We have been given the mind of Christ. I mean, think about that. Oftentimes we don't talk about the spiritual side of things in the Western world. It's what I can do with my senses, what I see, the feel, the touch, the smell, the hear, right?

Ben Poole
Things need to be tangible, but God is not just tangible, He's spirit, and He works in us and He has given us the mind of Christ. Another passage comes from Philippians 4, when Paul's writing to this church and it was a great encouraging letter. He's talking about, in verse 17, "So I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do." Those were, essentially the unsaved, is how he was talking, "in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality. So as to indulge in every kind of impurity with a continual lust for more." And this is where it turns, "you, however, Christians, do not come to know Christ that way. Surely you heard of Him and were taught in Him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught with regard to your former way of life to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires. To be made new in the attitude of your minds, put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." And so he's telling us, when we became Christians, that old me, the old Ben had to die, had to cease to exist, to put on the new self. I am not who I was, and that has to be true for us if we're going to follow the will of God. That we have to die to ourselves, Jesus even says in one of His gospels, "if you're gonna follow me, you need to take up your cross daily." Everyday, we have to choose to die to let God be the one who truly leads us in our life. Another one that Paul writes about is in Colossians 3, "Since then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and you've put on the new self, which is being renewed in the knowledge, in the image of its creator. Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised, or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. Therefore as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body, you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom. And as you sing Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God and whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God, the father through him." I live for passages like these, for these words in my life. So what does all this have to do with discerning the will of God? Well, it's actually really simple. If I had woken up today, and I had chosen to die to myself and follow God. To focus on these things, to rid my life of that old nature: the struggles, the sins, and to get rid of those out of my life and I can follow God. I believe that every choice I make in following Christ through my daily walk is going to be living out the will of God. A lot of that comes with freedom. We are not stuck in a loop of, this is just what we do now, but God has given us a great freedom to choose how we're going to serve Christ. And that can look in a lot of different ways. So for me, I have the heart of a pastor, I love being a pastor, but what is that gonna look like? Well, it's not going to be, in the near future it's not going to be serving in a church only. Or in that just being part of what I do, but it's investing in people who've entered into hospice care, who are reaching the end of their physical life. And I get to reach into that in a special way with the person who's about to die, but also their entire family that's there. And I get to share Christ and live out my life for Him, and some have talked about, "well, how did you know that's where you needed to go?" It was one of two times in my entire life where God opened up one door. I always ask when I'm coming up to a change in life or a move, "God, is this what you want me to do?" And oftentimes, pretty much every other time, except two times, there's always been multiple doors that I could walk through. And it was sort of frustrating, but when you realize it's kind of a gift from God, He's saying, "you can do this, this, or this, and I'm gonna bless either one or each one. No matter which one you choose, I'm gonna walk with you and I'm gonna bless you through this. You get to choose," and that's what I've done. A lot of times, it's through a lot of great counsel from people, Christian mentors that I have. Obviously through tons of prayer, talking about all of this with my spouse, my wife, even my kids and my parents. And just getting a lot of people involved, especially in the prayer side of things to let God lead. The one thing that I did, especially this time was, I asked God, "if this is not what you want me to do, if you do not want this to happen close that door. Because to be completely honest with you, I have no desire to leave the valley. I have no desire to live in Missouri because I hate humidity, it does not do well with me. But God opened up this one door, and so I chose to honor Him with the call He has put on my life, not just as a pastor, but as a Christian. to walk faithfully through that door. And I'll be honest, there are things that I feel like I need answers to, these questions that I have, and God has not given me the answers, not yet. But what I have seen through this is, every step of the way when something needed to be done or a certain time had to be met, every single thing has worked perfectly. I mean, God has just opened up this door, and so I say all this to kind of wrap it up to tell you, "Follow Christ, read His word, love God, love people, and God's gonna work out the rest in His perfect way and His perfect timing. And on the other side of it, when we answer to God and He says, "will you go?" Treat it like Isaiah did, "Here I am; send me." And then walk through that door. Don't look back, just go and I promise you will see God do some of the most amazing things. But follow Him, read His word, trust Him that He has your best interest in mind. That may not look right in the world's eyes, but trust Him and let Him do the leading and then just follow Him and walk through the door. This is such a huge topic, and I know that this can go into so many different directions. But that's just my encouragement for you is, you are not who you were. You have been bought with a price by the blood of Jesus, and He is not going to leave you hanging out to dry. He's going to lead you. We just have to be prepared to say, "Yes, I will go."

Intergenerational Ministry - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Kiley Callaway, John Mulholland, and Jon Simpson.

Kylie Calloway
So, we were talking before getting ready, and John Mulholland just went to the what conference?

John Mulholland
D-6 Conference.

Kylie Calloway
D-6 Conference in Florida, on Intergenerational Ministry. So we just found that very intriguing. So we actually began to question him, and that's how we we're developing our topic today. So tell us a little bit, first of all, about the conference, and what this intergenerational thing even means.

John Mulholland
Sure. So D-6 is, I think they've been around for, I wanna say 15 years. D-6 is based on Deuteronomy 6. So, and I'll just, the part where they really get their--

Kylie Calloway
John, would you read that?

John Mulholland
I would read that, I will read that. The Israelites have left Egypt, have left slavery in Egypt. They're on their way to the promise land, sort of, before they take their 40 year wandering thing, and God through Moses is giving instructions about what's gonna happen. So Deuteronomy 6:4-9, "Listen, Oh Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I'm giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you're at home and when you're on the road, when you're going to bed and when you are getting up. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." So D-6, this is like their foundational text of, it's the role of believers. In this case, it would've been the role of good Jews, because that's where, you know, we flow through the Bible. It would be the role of good Christians to pass along the faith to the next generation. Some things that they really find, I guess, find as values; that parents have priority in discipleship. The church is there to come alongside, the church has a role, but it's an equipping role. It's a support role, it's those kinds of things. But the main purpose of the conference is to talk about what it looks like to have a church, to have a faith that is intergenerational in nature, that's passing on that faith to the next generation. But intergenerational, it's not just one way, it's not just going down to the next generation, but it's also, you know, as a person who is in my, I think I'm Gen X, this is a lot of things that we talked about. Like how, not only are people, (I guess boomers) passing on faith to me, but what am I doing in their discipleship? So it's intergenerational, it's not one way, but that discipleship piece flows both ways.

Kylie Calloway
I love that. I actually did my master's thesis on that scripture of family ministry back in the day, more than 15 years ago. But I love that the parents are the main disciples in the home and not the church, and that as the kids come, we should just be capitalizing on what's already taking place in the house.

John Mulholland
Right, and it deals with how, as a church, we set up programming, and I mean, there's probably a million things that we could talk about over the next three and a half sessions. But, just like trying to help, trying to switch that from, you know, we live in a culture where we're constantly looking for the expert to do the thing that either we can't do for ourselves or we don't want to do for ourselves. So our culture, I think makes it easy to hand off roles and responsibilities to other people. And how do we help the church not continue to facilitate that handoff, but to give that role and responsibility back to parents? And we took all of our pastors, all of our wives went as well. We have two new pastors at Westway, one of them is in that family ministry slot. So it was a really good piece, not only for him as he's developing and learning in his role and his responsibility at our particular church, but also from a big picture standpoint. Cause this is not like, at least at Westway, family ministries is not just the job of Zane as our pastor of family ministries. But each one of our pastors, whether it's on the creative arts side or the adult side, or even on me, like each one of us need to be brought into that intergenerational piece. Cause then we're just doing the exact same thing that we don't want to do, but we're just doing it in the church and just saying, "No, that's your job to do this thing," but it's really all of our jobs. So it was an awesome, it was a great week to be able to get away and spend time with our team in Florida.

Kylie Calloway
So the amazing thing is, before you even went to this conference, God was already working in you about intergenerational ministry. And I think it's amazing as the senior pastor or the lead pastor, whatever you wanna call yourself there, and then as the family pastor, that he actually is up under somebody that is bought into this, because a family pastor would want to just be kind of an island unto himself. So tell us a little bit about what the Lord was dealing with in you about intergenerational ministry and how kind of all this came together.

John Mulholland
Sure. So I was late to ministry in life, I guess I was in the marketplace, I had a real job outside of ministry. And then, over a period of time, I just felt like God was calling me into ministry. So in 2000, 2005, I'd gone back to school, started working at a church in Eastern Iowa as their student minister. And I had a really great first ministry experience, and I had a wonderful lead pastor. And about three years in, that youth ministry had begun to shift in. So I was there for six and a half years, about three years in, we began to notice that we had more unchurched kids coming into our ministry than we had church kids. And it wasn't that we were necessarily losing church kids, but we were reaching unchurched people. And I don't know that there was one particular thing that happened, but one of the things that we noticed, especially with these kids who were unchurched was, you know, like we had them at youth group or we had them on Sunday morning in our Sunday morning ministry. There were a lot of times where it felt like what was taking place was, like, not gospel transformation, but sort of behavior management. Like, we could as a church, sort of control what was happening in our building, but then for many of these kids, cause over a period of time, we got to know their life situation, and many of them came from very dysfunctional home lives. And again, I don't know if it was one thing, but there was a switch kind of, at some point. It was like, you know, "If all we're doing," I mean, "we can proclaim the gospel to them and God is absolutely faithful and God's gonna do what He wants in that hour or that two hours a week." And we did see evidence of transformation and at the same time, it's like, we can do all of these things, but at the end of youth group we're sending kids back home into this, whatever this dysfunctional environment is, or after Sunday morning. And at that point it was kind of like, "Well, what we really need to be doing is, we need to figure out a way to get their parents," like that's as good and beneficial as it is to minister these kids and disciple these kids. And I believe those things are true 100%. The real, I guess, the real long-term change was gonna happen when we could reach the family unit. And that began, so that was like, I wanna say that was 2008, 2009. So that's like a 14, 15 year kind of journey for me then of, what does it look like to try and reach families? And I mean, that caused all sorts of inner turmoil, not only in me, because I had to be honest and think about what I was doing in my student ministry. Like, if I believed that parents were the primary disciple makers of children, like, what systems and structures was I setting up that were the opposite of that? Like, you know, I had this belief system and there were so many things that I was doing that are like, "Well, I really don't believe that, because...Like, I'm doing these things and they're unintentionally hindering that handoff back to parents." We had parents who, you know, at the same time were bringing a lot of unchurched kids into our ministry, and we didn't have a lot of parents who felt this way, but we had, I would say we had some who didn't want their kids exposed to that other element of kids that were coming in. And that was a challenge. I think as three senior pastors, lead pastors, whatever you wanna call us, I think we probably experienced that from people within our own, like adults in our church body, you know? We wanna make like, what's the element that we're letting in, we don't wanna keep those people out. I know we would never say those things, but kind of in the back of our minds. So, when I would have those conversations, it was like, "Well, what would it look like then, if you discipled your children at home, they came to youth group and interacted with and discipled those kids that you don't want your kids hanging out with? And then we, as a church could focus our ministry on equipping you to disciple your children and then being a--" who was it, Spurgeon that said, 'a hospital at the gates of hell,' "then we can then serve our function as being a hospital for people who had no idea who Jesus is." So then I'm not worried about like, and that sounds strange, but I'm gonna just let that sit. I'm not worried about like, it's not my job to disciple a kid who knows Jesus in a family that knows Jesus, because that's the parent's job. So I can equip you, I can serve you, I still want to edify them, I still want them to come to youth group and learn and grow. But what I really want them to do is to love and serve people who don't know Jesus and befriend them, and then hopefully get those kids into your house. Those unchurched kids into your house so they can see, you know, what the faithful Christian life looks like. So that was, I think that was really step one and I know we're coming up on our time, so I think I wanna stop cause like, there are obviously a number of things that happened after this, but initially it was a shift of man. We have these kids in for an hour a week and I'm really concerned that like, again, God can do whatever He wants to with an hour a week, and I'm really concerned that what we're doing, as good as it might be, and when we see fruit from it, we're thankful for that. I think we can be more faithful to what God calls us to be.

Jon Simpson
Yeah, you're talking about getting the church on mission and encouraging, not just the adults, but the families to reach out and be able to reach others. And that's really key for the church in America to accomplish what we're called to do. I think we hear a lot about people leaving the church. And through COVID that's accelerated and even been amplified. So it's like, you know, getting discipleship, which is really what you're talking about in a sense, it's discipling parents so that they're able to disciple their kids. And what have we done as a church? Or are we doing things like you were saying, to short circuit that, or even say to parents, "Hey, no, no, no, you can't do that. We'll do that. We've got it."

John Mulholland
Yeah. Bring your kids here. We've got it.

Jon Simpson
We'll take care of it. And that really is an attitude that as a youth pastor, I started a youth ministry. I wanted to handle it. And maybe part of it is cause you were older when you started doing stuff, but you had a little more insight into that. It took me a while to figure some of that stuff out and go, oh boy. You know, honestly, to see kids that were really a part of my youth group and leaders and then they leave, go off to college and it just falls apart and you're like what happened? And obviously that's a constant battle for anybody that ministers to young people. But yeah, if we can get the kids to grab it and grow.