How Should We View Social Media As Christians? - 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 Gary Schick, Ben Cline, and Jonathan Hernandez.

Gary Schick
So today's question, I'll kind of read it and then I'll explain it. It says, "Would your team like to tackle this article and help our listeners develop safeguards for their own personal use of social media? How should we view the phenomenon of social media?" So it was a Christianity Today article about a pastor. I think he was doing something called direct texting, and I don't know, is that even different than just regular texting? I'm not media savvy enough to know. But basically it was some conversation, and his wife knew about it, others knew about it and seemed to be okay with it. But at some point, it seemed to cross some kind of a line and he is now out of ministry. Which is a sad, always a sad thing to see a brother in Christ fall in a way that. And we've, boy, I've been hearing about it, really, my whole adult life, how ministers will fill in different ways. But the broader question is: Hey, all of us are involved in social media somehow. You know, whether it's through our computers or our phones, you know, if we have a Facebook page or something (more often than not, our churches have pages). It is so easy to communicate, and so easy to express ourselves. And there are so many ways we can connect, which is a good thing, but we can also get into trouble. You know, so how do we view it? And what safeguards should we set? Jonathan, what are your thoughts?

Jonathan Hernandez
Yeah, for sure. With social media really dominating our way of communication, I guess nowadays, we definitely need to take a step back and say, "Okay, these are the guardrails, the safeguards that I'll have in place as I communicate." I think, if we look in scripture, in 1 Thessalonians 5:22 it says, "Abstain from every form of evil." Or in the King James it says, "Abstain from all appearances of evil." And so how do we look at that and say, "Okay, as I interact on social media, I need to make sure that I'm living to the standard of what Christ set for us." And so, you know, what are we looking at? What are we, I guess, viewing as we're on those things? Having safeguards in place like: okay, if I notice anything that would be revealing of a lady, I'm not gonna look at those things. You know, we're friends with so many people on social media. I looked the other day and I'm friends with like, 1,100 people, or something like that. And how many of those people do I actually even know? And I'm just sitting here accepting friend requests from everybody, and not really looking to see, "who are these people?" And then, you know, you accept somebody and then, you know, a few days later you get a private message from them. And you know, all kinds of different things can be from that. And so we need to guard, I guess in that too, like, who are we friend requesting? You know, who are we allowing to become friends of ours on social media? I know I have a friend that his thought is always, "Well, if I don't accept them, how are they gonna hear the gospel?" And you know, I think about that; that's a good thought to have. But we also have to be cautious in how that looks, or how that goes. You know, I can't accept everybody, because some of these ladies that are on there, shouldn't be on my profile. So, that way I don't have to worry about looking at what they're posting, you know? So having those safeguards, you know, as a man, for those things. Another safeguard is, my wife has every password of mine. She knows every one of my social medias that I have---the passwords to those. She has access to my phone. Anytime she says, "Hey, let me look at your phone," you know, I have no problem handing it over. So I think having those safeguards in place, you know, as a husband and wife we know what our spouses are doing on social media. And we're okay with them looking at our phones whenever they feel that they need to. As a leader, I think, the Bible says that we'll be held at a higher standard, you know? So that also goes for us when we're on social media. You know, just like this pastor who had gotten in trouble, you know? His wife knew about the messages, the lady's husband knew about the messages, and they all felt like---I'm guessing we're just reading into the story. We're guessing that they're okay with the texting back and forth between those two, but at some point, where did it go? Um, too far. And so we have to know, what are our boundaries in that? Is my communication with another female, that's not my wife, or my mom or sister, you know, they can't go to a certain level of intimacy. They have to stay on that broad, you know, that baseline communication. And so, I think having some of those in place and knowing, "Okay, this is what I have in place, and I won't steer from that path. I'm not gonna test the boundaries." Cause I think we like to do that is, "If I get this close to the cliff without falling off, I'm okay." And no, we don't need to be that close. We need to have the boundary before the cliff, you know? So that way, we're not tempted to look over. And so I think those are kind of, you know, for me, my boundaries. I would probably include more stuff, but I just think, kind of that base thing of my communication. You know, I'm not communicating with women without my wife knowing about it. If I text somebody she knows that, "Hey, I texted this lady, this is the reason why I texted her." And so that way she knows, and she hears what I'm talking about.

Ben Cline
Yeah. Thank you Jonathan. I, you know, just echo a lot of the things that you said. I was just thinking, as you were talking too, that our lives have changed so much in the past 15 years, right? You know, I remember getting, and this was a long time ago, just to give you a hint of how old I am. But this was a long time ago that I remember getting my first friend request, which was over email for this new thing called Facebook. And it was from a family member, so I contacted her and I was like, "What is this?" And, you know, I just remember, and now our lives are so much revolving around the internet and, you know, access to and communicating so easily with other people on all these different apps. And, you know, it's just definitely something that we need to have a plan in place for. And I like the word that you used Jonathan: boundaries, because I think that that's really what it all comes down to. Is that you might be in a situation where you are married, right? And so you can set up those boundaries with your spouse. And you can say, "You know, I'm not gonna have that kind of interaction with somebody else without you having access to what's happening." And then also, the boundaries go further beyond that. Like you were saying, Jonathan: that you don't wanna walk right up to the edge of the cliff, just because it's the edge of the cliff and you're allowed to do that. But you set those boundaries back further. And there's a great passage, in Proverbs 4:23 it says, "Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life." You know, and there's a bunch of other verses that are surrounding that, that are talking about what it looks like as a follower of God, as a believer in God. To follow after the path that He has laid out before us, and it's not a path of the world, it's a path of righteousness. And so, those boundaries that we set are boundaries that need to reflect that righteousness that God wants us to live in. And you also brought up 1 Thessalonians 5:22. I think when situations like this come up that, you know, we read about in the article, that was brought up to us; that that's one of the first thoughts that comes to mind as we're thinking about scripture. Is, you know, that we need to, "Abstain from all appearances of evil," because our intentions matter. And I think looking at this particular situation, that there were maybe not any ill intentions, but the truth of the matter is that appearances matter too. And so, and the reason why, is because there's a world who's looking on, and they need to be viewing, you know, Christ-like characteristics within us. And then, another thing that I was thinking about too is, you know, that we need to remember all of the things that Christ has done for us. In 1 Peter 2, just a few verses in here, it says, "For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps. Who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth. And while being reviled, He did not revile in return while suffering. He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting himself to Him who judges righteously. And He himself bore our sins and His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness for by His wounds, you were healed." And then verse 25 is so true about us. It says, "For you are continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls." And, you know, what powerful words I think those are, for us as believers. And really just, you know, if you're wondering how to handle situations in social media, I say, just go back to those two words: boundaries and righteousness. And those are some good guidelines.

Gary Schick
Right. Good stuff, Ben and Jonathan, you know, it is kind of an interesting thing. The internet, it's a new thing in the world, but there's no new sins. And so the internet is an opportunity, I think for, there's a lot of great ministry opportunity there to share the word of Christ. But there's also a lot of opportunity there to get into trouble. You know, I think I heard another pastor talking and I think he said this was a Woody Allen quote. I don't know, I don't follow Woody Allen at all, but I think it's a good quote. Something to the effect that people are themselves, only more so. And I think that is true when people get on social media. I think they're themselves, only more so. I think there's a sense in which, in the privacy of your own home or whatever, you just kind of feel comfortable. Which is good, but you can also kind of let some boundaries or barriers down. They could lead in some negative directions and, you know, without getting into the article that Russ shared with us, you know, it was one of those kinda difficult situations. It wasn't that a sin had specifically been committed, and yet it had drifted to a place where it just wasn't a good situation. And so, I think you guys both had some great scriptures there. Another one that came to my mind is Ephesians 5:3, "But among you, there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality or of any kind of impurity or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people." So, you know, and I think there's so many ways that people can get into trouble on the internet. I mean, one is viewing inappropriate things. And so, you know, the words of Job kind of come to my mind, you know? "I set a guard over my eyes lest I should look at a woman lustfully." And so, you know, clear back in the Old Testament, Job was already uttering the wisdom of Jesus. You know, basically, watch your eyes. And of course, the internet is a very visual place, so that's one safeguard to have in mind. Another, I think, important safeguard is, putting a guard over our mouths. You know, James talks about the tongue. And not only in this situation, there was some kind of texting going on that would not quit, and wasn't going in a good direction. But Christians do not always reflect Jesus well on Facebook and other places on the internet. I mean, who was it? A guy I used to listen to on the radio, he'd talk about angry evangelicals. And you know, that is not a phrase that should exist. Evangelical means good news. We are proclaimers of the news of Christ. So how is it that we have become, in the world, really viewed over and over again for what we're against instead of the Jesus we're for? So anyway, I just jotted down three things that I think are helpful. Number one: would I want everyone to see this? Would I feel comfortable with everybody seeing either what I'm seeing or what I'm writing or what I'm seeing, you know? Is this open to the world? Because guess what, and this is the trick, and this is where I think social media and the internet can operate, not only is a good thing where it can be ministry, but it also can be one of Satan's lies. And that is that old lie, "Well, nobody will know. Nobody will see." No, good grief, everything you put on the internet's there forever. And first of all, if you wouldn't want everybody to be aware of it, you shouldn't be doing it anyway. That there you've crossed that line of sin. But also you've believed a lie, because at some point, everything you've put out there is likely to be open to the world. And so, you know, would I want everybody to see this? Both as a safeguard to say, "Well, you know, no. Then I probably shouldn't be putting it up there." And guess what, at some point they probably will. Also, I think it's a good question to ask ourselves, "How much time am I spending here?" You know, some of these things are really neither good nor bad, but they can sort of become all consuming. And I don't know, maybe we're getting used to it now, and we're starting to level out. But I remember when I was, you're talking about your first friend on Facebook, I remember when I was trying to learn how to use Facebook. And it just felt like it was like, taking up, you know, I would get home from my day and I would, "What are you doing? He's on Facebook." I was just trying to learn the stupid thing, you know? And early on, I was like, "I need to back away from this." And I kind of barely go on there at all anymore. I'm trying to wish people happy birthday, that's about it. But for a lot of people, it can just kind of become all. And so, maybe no sin is happening, but if it's dominating your life, if it's taking you away from the face to face in touch relationships with people right in front of you, that's not healthy. And I think this is the big one over all of it, "Am I bringing glory to Jesus? Does this glorify Jesus Christ? Am I lifting up the name of Jesus? Or am I getting caught up in all these arguments about culture or politics or whatever it is?" And you might have some really great views and some good points, but honest at the end of the day, if you haven't directed people toward Jesus, what good is it gonna be a thousand years from now? You know, I mean, when we direct people to Jesus, that could be good a thousand years from now, cause they could be a thousand years in eternity with Him versus without Him. I mean, you could be right in everything you're saying and doing, but if you're not pointing people to Jesus, what is it all about in the end? And I guess the counter question is, "Are we distracting from Jesus? Are we becoming known for something else? Are we, as evangelicals, known for anything but the gospel?" Which is what our name is, you know? Evangelical comes from the Greek εὐαγγέλιον; good news gospel. If we're about, I'm not saying that other things aren't important that we shouldn't be working toward a lot of things, but the good news of Jesus Christ needs to be front and center and not detracted from us at all.

What Are Some Of The Indications That Something Is God's Will? - 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 Mike Clement and David Clement.

Mike Clement
All right, so this is a family thing we've got going here tonight. And tonight in church, we actually touched on the whole idea of God's will. When I was a teenager, that was a big thing. We were all wondering what God's will was for our life. And we talked a little bit about it from the word, but I'd like to ask you guys. And I'm gonna start with you, Ariel. What were some of the indications to you, that something was God's will for you or was it God's will for you?

Ariel Clement
First of all, when I went away to college (at that time a lot of people sent their kids to a Christian college to find a mate), and I was not interested in finding a fellow because I had seven brothers and I had all kinds of male companionship; sometimes more than I wanted. And so I was not interested in finding a man to fulfill me at that particular point in time. But my parents had prayed for us as kids that we would marry godly, either men or women, depending on whether what was appropriate there. And I personally hadn't thought a lot about it, but I did because my parents had been so fervent in that. I had prayed also that God would provide for me a special person, but I was not looking for a person. And God did provide in my husband while we were in college. God provided a godly man for me to help me in life and to complete me. The areas that I am weak in, God has him very strong in. And so, I think that if we are willing to follow God and that is our desire, that God will bring people and situations into our life. So that we know that we are doing what He wants us to do.

Mike Clement
Okay. Very good. Did you have a checklist? I mean like in even an unofficial checklist?

David Clement
Bald. Overweight?

Mike Clement
Wow. It was pretty---sorry listeners, you can't see what I look like.

Ariel Clement
My main concern was that he would love the Lord and that he would desire to serve God in whatever God wanted for him. And that he would be someone who was a hard worker and would do what he needed to do so that God would be able to use him.

Mike Clement
You know, I don't think that's a bad thing. I've heard of people that had a big checklist for, "Oh, the person I have to marry needs to be this, that, and the other thing." And if somebody has a checklist like that, there's two things that they ought to do. One is they ought to see if the things that they're expecting are biblical. That really ought to be the main thing on your checklist, you know? Am I wanting what God wants? And another thing would be, do you measure up in those areas? It's one thing to want somebody who is this, that, or the other thing, but are you there? I remember hearing on a message that Howard Hendricks preached on. He's talking to some fella, and he had this great big, long list and he asked the guy, "How many of those things on your list are true in your life?" And he is like, "Well, I had to start scratching some things off." Anyway, so Dave, what about you? How have you discovered God's will for your life?

David Clement
Well again, that's something that people oftentimes ask and desire to know. I think the biggest thing about knowing God's will for our life is: first of all, we need to know God. And we need to have a desire to know Him more. And then we need to ask God to reveal these things to us. I don't think it's as hard as some people like to make it feel. I know when I was younger, I used to think, "Oh, this is just this magical thing that's out there and you’ve got to search for it. And you'll never know if you really have it or not." It's just this magical thing. But what I found in my life at least, was that it wasn't that difficult, as I was going through life doing what was there; God revealed Himself to me. And I think that that's the key, I think part of that is realizing what God has gifted you in. You know, God's gifted, and that's something that I'm walking through with my daughter right now. And she's just graduated high school and just, "Look, your taking some of the things that God has gifted you and some of the things that you get pleasure from and being simple about it." You know, again God doesn't want to punish us by forcing us to do His will, you know? And God's will isn't something that we're just gonna hate. That's not necessarily what's there. Oftentimes God, like you mentioned tonight, He gave us these talents and abilities from before we were born. Knowing what He had planned for us in the future. And so, now there's always room for growth, you know? Just because God's challenged you in this one way, it doesn't mean you don't have anything that you have to work on for the rest of your life, to accomplish His will. That's not true. We do have to strive for other aspects of it, but a lot of times, God, at least I've found in my life is, that God will just delight me in the things that He is bringing me to. And I just follow Him. And the scripture says, "Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." And, you know, when we are doing what He asked us to do, and when we are following Him, then He reveals His will to us.

Mike Clement
Yeah. The passage says, "To make God known in your ways, and in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will give you the desires of your heart." And there's a whole explanation of that. The passage that I used tonight in church was Ephesians 2:10, and most of us know Ephesians 2:8-9, "For by grace, you have saved through faith---and that not of yourselves, that is the gift of God. Not of works lest any man should boast," which is a reminder to us that you cannot earn your salvation. You could never be good enough, you could never change enough. You can't undo anything that you've already done. It's not possible to earn God's forgiveness, but it goes on to say, "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them." And so it goes on to say, "On the one hand, you're not saved by works, but you're saved under good works." There are things that God intended for your life, and in fact, He created you in such a way that you could do what He wants you to do. One way to discern God's will for your life is, "Is this something I can do?" Now, it may be something that you don't like to do. It may be something that you need to learn how to do better. But if something is not possible for you to do, you don't have to worry about that. The Christian life, I should add, is not possible to live in the power of the flesh. It is not possible to live the way God wants us to live just by our own means and our own ability. But He's given the believer the Holy Spirit dwelling within, to empower us. So we can live the Christian life the way God wants us to live. "But even before," this verse says, "Even before you were born, you were His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Which He prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." God had a plan for your life. And so, the verse tells us that God does have a plan for our life. And the verse goes on to tell us that whatever that plan is, that we're already equipped. We have the tools that are necessary to be able to learn to do that. There's some things that I enjoy that I'm not very good at. You know, I'd like to play basketball, some kinds of basketball with the teens at camp and different things. I am never gonna be a basketball player. If I devoted my whole life to being a basketball player, I would've been a miserable failure, and been miserable at it. There's actually a Christian book that was written a number of years ago. And the fellow, in His book, said that God's will is fluid. It's not specific. God's will for you isn't necessarily one thing or another, there are a number of options you can choose out of all those options and be perfectly in God's will. And what was interesting, was he started using Bible characters and he said "Like Isaiah. He didn't have to be a prophet. He could have done something else." Well, I think the guy doesn't know what he's talking about. I think Isaiah had to be a prophet. Apostle Paul said, "Woe is me if I preach not the gospel." And now, there may be some flexibility within God's will, but I don't think it's a toss up. I believe that He has a perfect will. Now I do believe that in order for us to understand His will for our life, we need to want to do it.

David Clement
Well, I think that's something that's very key, you know? And, you know, people often think of God's will, as far as it comes to a mate people. And that's one thing that I thought was just cool here recently, just talking to one of the people in our church. Obviously, and mom talked about it just a little bit ago with the idea of sending your kids off to school to find a mate. And, you know, find a Christian just to find a Christian mate. And these folks in our church, they prayed about where to send their kids, because they knew that that was a possibility. The interesting thing is, all three of their kids went to school and none of them found their godly mate at school. They all found them. They found godly mates, but not at school. You know, but it was just a reminder to me of being where God wants you to be when God wants you to be there. One of them, one of the young ladies was up at camp. She was just at a camp retreat, and there was a young man there all the way from the state of California that she would've never met probably any other way. However, she was where God wanted her to be. And he was where God wanted him to be. And he wasn't there to have fun, he was there to work. He was there working with his family. And here, God had brought both of them, following the Lord, and God had brought both of them together. But the same is true in every aspect, not just that one, you know? I know that I was a pastor for a while, an interim pastor in a church here in town for a while. And I never really thought myself as being a pastor before. You know, again, I didn't really see myself gifted in that area. Didn't really see myself along those lines of preaching. But the more that God, I considered myself a servant. God really, when I do things for people, I find the most pleasure in helping people. And it's just for bringing me the most pleasure in my life, is when I'm able to help people. And so, you know, whether it's at work and doing a service for people at work. I own my own business now, and I get pleasure in that. But God worked on my heart when it came to taking this position as the interim pastor. And as I thought, "No, no, no, I'm not a preacher. I'm not a speaker. I'm not any of these other things." God said, "No, but these people need to see somebody." And I realized that I could serve people and still get great pleasure and joy out of it. Even though it was serving in a way that I wasn't comfortable doing. And so, my spiritual gift, if you wanna call it that, still was in play there. It wasn't that I was an evangelist. It wasn't that I was a great speaker or anything else. But God touched my heart through the spiritual gift that these people need somebody. And it was a way that I was able to serve the Lord by realizing, "Yeah, the Lord had gifted me." Not necessarily in that. And that's a whole other story about a pastor's responsibilities and his jobs. But in all reality, speaking from the pulpit is one of his least responsibilities.

Does God Knowing The Future Negate Our Free Will? - 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

All right. Well, our question for today is, "Does God knowing the future, negate our free will? Do we have a free will? What is the extent of that will?" Well, I can freely say I have no choice, but...actually, Jonathan, would you get us started on, kind of a tough question? Where do free will and predestination meet? Or do they?

Jonathan Hernandez

Yeah, definitely. So this question definitely could be a four or five episode type of question. You know, we could really dive into a lot of theology, I guess, and debates and different things with this. You know, free will, predestination, those type of different things; we could hop into a lot of those. But, you know, I think for me, I think of this question and sometimes I think we want every answer to every single thing. We wanna know God completely, and I think that's a great thing for us to go after, cause we should go after knowing God as much as we can. You know, but I think of things like, "how can God be three in one?" You know, that's a question that I think we can go after forever and not fully, you know; our finite minds can't fully comprehend some of these things and stuff. And so, you know, I think of some of those questions. But you know, I think of 1 Corinthians 10:23, and it says, "you say 'I'm allowed to do anything,' but not everything is good for you. You say 'I'm allowed to do anything,' but not everything is beneficial." You know, we have free will to pick these different things, but how much of it is beneficial for us to actually do? You know, I can freely decide to, you know, do something that's harmful, but is it actually beneficial in the end? You know, when we see this verse it's making it, you know, why it's true that we have the right to do anything we want. The truth is, everything we do is not beneficial for us too. And then, how beneficial is it for us, or for the people that are around us too? You know, I think of that question. Even as in 1 Corinthians 10:23, if we jump to the next verse in 24, it says, "Don't be concerned for your own good, but also the good of others." You know, so I, when we think about free will we have to also think about, "if I have free will to do anything or everything, is it beneficial? Not only to me, but for, you know, the people that are around me. And if it's not beneficial for us, then should we be doing it?" You know? So I look at some of those things. Like I said, we could go for a long time on a lot of these questions. So I think we look at free will and then divine sovereignty. You know, is it human's responsibility and then is it God's responsibility? You know, where is the line, you know, in that. And so I had just a couple verses that we could look at. John 1:12, it says, "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God and to those who believe in His name." So we would look at that and we would say, "Is that human responsibility, or is that divine sovereignty?" And based off of what we just read, we'd probably say that's human responsibility. But if we go to the next verse in 13, it says, "Who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." We'd look at that, and we'd say that leans more on divine sovereignty. So, you have these two back-to-back verses and one's human responsibility and one's divine sovereignty. And we could actually go to Matthew and we have the same thing in 11:25. And it says, "At that time, Jesus answered and said, 'I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and the prudent and have revealed them to the babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. All things have been delivered to Me by My Father and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor the father, anyone knows, except the son. And the one to whom the son wills to reveal Him." We would look at that and we'd say that's divine sovereignty. And then if we jump to the next one, it says, "Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." And we'd say that one's human's responsibility. So, we could go back and forth on this, you know, debate, and I guess, depending on what church you're raised in, you'd have the two different Calvinist thought processes or the median thought processes. And so, that's kind of where I'm sitting. That I'm kind of in the middle on that.

Ben Cline

So you're saying that you're a Calvinist Armenian?

Jonathan Hernandez

Yeah. Somewhere in the middle.

Ben Cline

So, like you said, this is one of those hot questions. And it's a hot question because we don't understand it, and so we debate it a lot. And, you know, thinking of how the question itself was worded. You know, he talks about, or the listener talks about God knowing the future. And I think another way of thinking of God knowing the future; another way to say that is that He's sovereign. That He's sovereign over all things. And what that means is that He has control and He has full understanding over all things. And those are two things that we don't have.

Gary Schick

We are always trying to get them though, aren't we?

Ben Cline

Right. Yeah, we don't have full control, we don't have full understanding over all those things. But in that sovereignty, it's so interesting because, you know, in that sovereignty that God has, He has given us the free will to make choices. And, you know, how does that work exactly? Well, we don't know. It's impossible, I think, for us to fully understand, you know, how those two things intertwine together. But there, I think, are a couple of things from scripture that we do know for sure. One of those things is that God knows all things. I was reading through Psalm 139 and in the first four verses it says, "Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold oh Lord, You know it all." And that Psalm just goes on and talks more and more about the knowledge that God has. He knows everything about us. He knows our future, He knows our past. And, the other thing that we know for sure is that God has given us the ability or the free will to make choices. And we see that even back all the way to the first human beings on earth, right? That God gave them the ability to make choices. And what did they choose? Well, they chose something like you were saying Jonathan, "that was not beneficial." And yeah, it messed a lot of things up. And, you know, I can't blame that on them, because I can't say that, you know, I wouldn't have made the same choice. But, you know, God did give us those choices. But another thing that we know for sure is that we must choose God or be eternally separated from Him. And Romans 3 makes that very clear, like you were talking about with the responsibility that we are accountable for our choices. It says in Romans 3:19 that we are accountable to God. But you know, even though we find difficulty in trying to understand this, I think that there's a couple of warnings in this first of all. You know, one is that there are a couple of extremes that people take. One is: the extreme of emphasizing God's sovereignty so much that it eliminates our free will, at least in our minds. And that's kind of like the scenario where we're just all these pre-programmed robots that God has created that are walking around on the earth, and we really don't have any free choice. But, you know, the other extreme is: emphasizing the free will of man so much that in our minds, it means that God doesn't still have full control. And, you know, both of those things are not, you know, a biblical way of thinking of things. I came across this quote as I was reading about this. It says, "The truth is that God does not violate our will by choosing and redeeming us. Rather, He changes our hearts so that we will choose Him." And then they talked about 1 John 4:19 that says, "We love Him because He first loved us." And then, John 15:16, where he says, "You did not choose me, but I chose you." And so we have these dynamics that just make things, you know, so interesting for us to think through. But there is a point of encouragement here too. That the sovereignty of God is not meant to be something that we're, you know, to be really concerned or anxious over. It's supposed to be something that gives us comfort. And, you know, so I guess my encouragement is: even though we don't, and never will completely understand that, you know, to have comfort in that fact that God is sovereign over our lives, but that he's also given us the free will to make choices.

Gary Schick

Right. Well, you know, and it's a hard question. A lot of people struggle with it. I think the reason is, as you guys have both pointed out, and I love this, cause you come from really different backgrounds, but I think we're in agreement here. Both sides of this question are actually true. God is fully sovereign, knows the future, determines every outcome. On the other hand, we are absolutely free and act entirely as free agents. And so someone said, "Well, you can't have it both ways, there's a contradiction." Well, but there's also something in this world called a paradox. And it's a place where two outwardly opposed truths come together as one. And we see throughout scripture, as you have pointed out, and I think Jonathan, you did a great job of taking us to several scriptures where we have both truths. Man is freely choosing; God is sovereignly determining. And so it's not an either or, they're both occurring. And so we see this throughout scripture, that those predestined for good, whose actions, and those who are predestined in some ways for evil; both according to their own desire, and yet nevertheless fulfilling God's will. And so like, for example, you know, we would look at the Old Testament. We read about these pagan princes, like Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus and others, and they are freely acting on their own. They don't even know the Lord, and yet they are fulfilling to the letter, His good plan. We see it in the New Testament. We see it in Judas. Judas is fulfilling scriptures that we read about in Psalms, and yet he is completely acting on his own, and receiving the penalty for it. And preeminently, of course, we see it in Jesus Himself, who fulfills God's will in all things. And personally, I respectfully disagree with those who say, and I didn't hear it from either of you guys today, "That God, you know, He knows what we are gonna choose in the future. And then He just sort of shapes the future around our choices." I think rather, He doesn't weigh it on us, but He takes the lead in all things. We are not predestined according to our choices, but according to His will. Nevertheless, we act as free agents, and I think your scriptures pointed that out. I also think of, you know, that story between the sun and the wind. And they both said, "Well, let's see who can get that guy to take off his coat." And so I think a lot of times we think about God's predestining work as if it's somehow forced. It's a little bit like the wind. "And so he just blows harder and harder and he gets colder and colder, and the guy just wraps his coat around him tighter and tighter. And then the sun says, 'my turn' and he just warms the guy up and the guy just, 'oh, it's a warm day,' and he just takes off his coat." And so you see, there he's freely acting, but also in response to what something greater is doing. And so, we do act according to our natures, and I guess left to just that, nothing good is gonna come. So I'm glad that God is sovereign, and I'm glad that He intercedes. And actually, I think if anything, He's curbing the outcomes of what I would set in motion. And I really also love, not only what Jonathan shared, but Ben, what you were saying about the comfort aspect of this. While these truths, kind of like this was pointed out in the Trinity, it's a little beyond us. We can kind of glimpse it, you know, we can see it in different things. Nevertheless, it is given to us as a comfort. And so I just want to close with a few words here from Ephesians that put the predestining work of God in terms of a comfort to us. "In Him, we have obtained an inheritance. Having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the council of His will. So that we who were first to hope in Christ, might be to the praise of His glory. In Him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. Who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory." And it's a passage that's talking about our salvation, it's a passage about the fact that we freely embrace the salvation in Christ. And yet, that God in His sovereignty is sealing us and destining us to greater things than we could ever hope for. And so, you know, I think what it really comes down to as a comfort is, is that in Christ we don't do what we would just do naturally on our own. We don't slip. We place our hand in a hand that is much firmer than ours. And the grip is tight, for our benefit. You know, when I'm holding my kids, as I'm walking on the hike and there's kind of a steep drop, they're not saying, "Oh dad, you know, leave me alone so that I can fall off this cliff." They're saying, "You know, thank you. That you hold me fast and I can enjoy the view from the comfort of being kept safe in your arms." And I think that is the healthier way to look at what is frankly, a mystery.

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.