Pastor Plek's Podcast
Pastor Plek's Podcast
The Spirit Empowers Believers
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358: What does it mean when worship songs ask the Spirit to "rest on us" if He already indwells believers? How should we respond when someone claims "my truth" in a church setting? These profound questions launch our conversation with Pastor Holland Greig.
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And welcome back to Pastor Plek's podcast. I'm your host, pastor Plek. Joining me in studio is none other than Holland Gregg. He is the lead pastor of Eastside Community Church down the east side. I'm so grateful for Holland and his service and we're talking some questions. We're going to get caught up Lots of catching up today. There are so many questions over the past several weeks that have been brought to my attention that we have not been able to address because I have been in Northwest Africa visiting our missionary, who shan't be named because we cannot name him or her because of the clandestine operations that are going on in that part of the world. But what I can tell you is the question that first came up Are you?
Speaker 2:ready, ready when you are.
Speaker 1:Holando. It says what is the song Rest On Us talking about? What does it mean to invite the spirit to come rest on us? Great question what is that song?
Speaker 2:The spirit was moving over the water. Spirit come rest on us. Great question what is that song? The?
Speaker 1:Spirit was moving over the water. Spirit, come rest on me. Come rest on us. Come rest on us. Very good. What does that mean?
Speaker 2:Holland. I'm not really familiar with this song, but I've heard it before, but I don't really remember what the rest of it's about. Only thing that comes to mind for me from that particular line is Genesis one, verse two, right when it says that, um, uh, the spirit of God was hovering over the waters, the dark, chaotic waters, um, of the earth, before God formed and shaped it. And, and so you know as the idea before God formed and shaped it, and so you know it was the idea of God's presence and that he was about to do something and bring order out of chaos.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like to bring order out of chaos. It's like in my worship experience. I'm like God, I've got all this mangled stuff in my head and I'm asking for you to rest on me, to bring rest to my soul, to bring order to my chaos, all of that. So maybe it's like just to experience God personally, and then it's also like a posture of humility and surrender, meaning like you're asking the Holy Spirit to come upon you and do his work.
Speaker 1:Now you're not saying that you don't have the Holy Spirit to begin with, because, as a Christian, you are indwelt by the Spirit. But there's two different parts of the Holy Spirit, right or not? Two different parts of the Holy Spirit, but two different things the Holy Spirit does. He indwells believers as a deposit for your guarantee that God has bought you by Jesus' blood and that you are his. And then the second is that you are filled up by him and empowered by the Holy Spirit of God to do work of ministry Right. And so what I think is going on here, when you're asking the Holy Spirit, if you're a Christian, you're asking the Holy Spirit to rest on you. You're asking him to empower you to go forward and do great things for Christian ministry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I think of things you know. You're like how can he rest? Why would I need to ask the Spirit to rest on me if he already dwells inside?
Speaker 1:of me.
Speaker 2:And I think it's similar to like God, I want to be in your presence right. What does that mean, if God's omnipresent? Aren't you always in his presence. But the idea of in his presence is like a sense of intimacy and closeness. So you think of, like James 4.8, draw near to God and he'll draw near to you. How do you get nearer to someone who is everywhere?
Speaker 1:Right, right.
Speaker 2:Unless it's speaking of, in a sense of, like, relational closeness.
Speaker 1:Intimacy.
Speaker 2:Intimacy, and so in a similar way, like.
Speaker 1:Because you could be sitting next to a person on a really crowded airplane and be really close to them, but not draw near to them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, similar to like you know, yeah, sitting next to someone is different than sitting next to them and looking at them in the eye. Yeah, and so, like the idea of God, like, let your shine, your like, may his face shine upon you like the Aaronic blessing, right?
Speaker 2:Um, that means not only is he omnipresent, but he is being present to you in a manifest, a powerfully manifest kind of way. I think the same thing is what I, you know like with the Holy Spirit is like Paul says he wants to be filled with the Holy Spirit Right, even though he already is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. There's a sense of a type of manifestation of the Spirit that produces spiritual growth or boldness. You know Acts 4, the believers. It says that they're filled with the Holy Spirit and then begin to proclaim the word of God with boldness.
Speaker 1:Right and they were already indwelt by the Spirit. Right Acts, chapter 2. But they're actually now asking for a filling. Yeah, Do not be drunk with wine, but be filled by the Spirit. And so here you see them actively engaging in drawing near to God. He fills them up with the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2:Boom, boom, I think the other things. When Jesus was baptized, the Spirit of God descended, you know, like a dove, and rested upon him. And then in Acts, chapter two, pentecost, which is past Sunday, pentecost, Sunday, woo, woo 50 days after Easter.
Speaker 2:Yep, the tongues of fire rested upon their heads, right Came and rested upon, and that was, like you know, this empowering moment of the spirit of God filling them. So I think that language is meant to point to the idea of a special filling of the Spirit as well, as it's not the Spirit convicting you or confronting you. The idea of rest is like I'm yielded to the Spirit, I'm submitted to the Spirit. So I don't know. Those are all the things that come to mind, yeah.
Speaker 1:I think sometimes with any sort of worship song, you're going to feel maybe a theological juxtaposition with the struggle of anthropomorphic thoughts being put onto God, like you are giving human attributes to God, whereas if he's everywhere, does he ever actually rest? You're always going to be wrestling with that, but the Bible uses language like that, so I think it's okay for us to use language like that. And then you're still theologically accurate by drawing near to God, as you said, James 4a. So yeah, I think that's not always okay.
Speaker 2:Did you sing that song recently, or something?
Speaker 1:I missed one several weeks ago, but when that question was asked, it's an old school song, I think it's like probably 2013 or something. You know many moons.
Speaker 2:Many moons ago.
Speaker 1:Okay. Next question is, in the context of 2 Corinthians, the reoccurring use of the word, we seems to consistently refer to Paul and his associates, while you refers to the Corinthian church or y'all, probably right. If this is the case, why do we commonly apply verses like 2 Corinthians 4.1?. All right, let me see if I can get to 2 Corinthians 4.1. And 2 Corinthians 5, 19 and 20, as if the we refers to all believers. All right, so therefore, this is 2 Corinthians 4, 1,.
Speaker 1:Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. Now then, it goes on, and if our gospel is veiled, it's veiled only to those who are perishing In their case. The God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. Who blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel glory of Christ, who is the image of God, for what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants, for Jesus' sake.
Speaker 1:So he's saying here why do we apply the we to all Christians if it seems to be that Paul is just referring simply here to Paul and his crew? That's sending them out? And in fact there's another verse that he wanted us to look at 519,. That is, in Christ, god was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, god making his appeal through us. We implore you, corinthian church, on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God for our sake. He made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Any thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's a really great question. I love thinking in this way of that level of detail of going. When he says we, who's he referring to? And that you know, the idea is that there may be some things that are only would only apply to Paul and his. You know Paul and Timothy are is who he introduces second Corinthians by right, so those two, maybe perhaps others included, like Silas or something like that. But I think Paul and Timothy are the ones that second Corinthians is addressed from Right, so some things that may just apply to them, um, and some things maybe have a broad, like he does use we in a broader sense, or us, even second Corinthians five.
Speaker 2:He says for our sake. For our sake, the R is not just Paul and Timothy. Yeah Right, that would be weird. So he uses the plural we our to refer to all Christians there. Similarly, like I have it open to second Corinthians seven right now. He says since we have these promises beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement. He's including all Christians, right.
Speaker 1:He's not just saying only Paul and my crew have to cleanse ourselves from all these defilements. It's all y'all, including us.
Speaker 2:So I do. You know it might take a little bit of digging in and study to go okay. Each time he says we in context is he talking about just him and Timothy? But even there you go. You know, if he's speaking of himself as an apostle, timothy wasn't an apostle. Paul was an apostle, right? So if there's something that's just unique to Paul as an apostle, you would think he would use, I Right.
Speaker 1:But it is Timothy. What's that? But it is Timothy right Is that St Corinthians is with Timothy right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so if he's saying we, you know he's not like we, meaning me and the other apostles he's already including Timothy, which is kind of the next generation after the apostles. It's Timothy.
Speaker 1:Could you say that's church leadership? Yes, yeah, I think you could say so. It may be like apostles, pastors, evangelists you know, like teachers shepherds, yeah Um a pest.
Speaker 2:Yeah, uh huh. Right, the Ephesians four kind of church office, um, or, or today we'd say elders and deacons, or pastors and deacons, right, um, um, church leadership. So yeah, you could say maybe he's just referring to church leadership there, but I think where you would go the next step is consider each individual case and go okay, which one's he talking about? Does this apply to all Christians or just Christian leaders?
Speaker 1:Right, I feel like what's hard about that? Like just in 2 Corinthians 5, if you like, so you could say, only Christian leaders are supposed to be evangelists. I guess you could say only Christian leaders are supposed to be evangelists.
Speaker 2:Is that like what the question is getting at?
Speaker 1:Well, he's referring to this because that is, in Christ, god was reconciled, the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against it and trusting to us the message of reconciliation. So evangelism. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ. The we here. If it's only Paul and Timothy, that's church leadership, god making his appeal through us. We implore you, corinthian church, on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. And then this is where it's weird. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. And I'd say, like, if you're looking at that as that first person plural possessive and that first person plural like noun of we, that's only Paul and Timothy. That seems to be missing out on the context. For our sake, he made him to be no sin. Who—he made him to be sin who knew no sin?
Speaker 2:That seems to be a— it's possible, he's going back and forth between you know, saying we referring to him and timothy and then us referring to all christians. That's possible, and also.
Speaker 1:I think it's, it's possible that he's.
Speaker 1:He's, when he says y'all to the corinthians, he's telling someone to be reconciled to god yeah and some of them were not christian, and so he's kind of you know, we, we do this every Sunday. We say, hey, if you don't know Jesus, and we say like there is no hope, you can't do any of the things that we've said that God's calling you to do. You need to be reconciled to God, repent from your sins and trust Jesus. And then I saw like hey, but if you are a person who knows Jesus now I want you to go and live out the things we just talked about. So it's like the double barrel. You he's got non-believers and believers in mind as he's talking here, and so they are both. You know, because if there was unbelievers in that church, you wouldn't need them to be reconciled to God. And if there's unbelievers in the church sorry, if there's believers in the church, they don't need to be reconciled to God. And if there's unbelievers in the church, then it's not true, for our sake.
Speaker 2:he made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so in him we might become the righteousness of God. Would that be right? Yeah, and so I think you can expand beyond that too and go. Well, are there other verses that give similar type of commands that you know? Could that are more clearly applied to all Christians? Yeah, um, I, I think even you know the idea of an ambassador. Is someone an official representative, right, right Of some, the, the idea of being made in the image of God is we're meant to be Imagers, yeah, ambassadors of God, in a sense sense represent him on the earth. And then you know we've sinned and so redeemed in Christ. You know, the idea of every Christian being an ambassador for Christ I think fits with places like 1 Peter, 2, 9. You're a holy nation, a royal priesthood right.
Speaker 1:So if you're saying everybody is a royal priesthood. He's saying you all are a royal priesthood, which means, therefore, you carry with you the value you need to go share this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the ministry. What was a priest's job? Right, you represent, you stand in between God and people for reconciliation and prayer and praise, and so I think you could cross-reference, look at some other verses about our identity as Christians.
Speaker 1:Right, and I think here's Paul writing to the Roman church. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord, jesus Christ. Through him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. So I think there's a reality, but he also talks about as he's writing this. He'll say hey, send a greetings to whoever, whoever. So there are parts that he is speaking specifically. Here's something for you only. But a lot of times Paul goes back and forth with the we, in the sense that we're all Christians here, and I think in 2 Corinthians 4 and then in 5, he's doing that same thing, and again he's speaking to an audience that might not have some we in it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. But the goal would be that all of them come to Christ and then participate in the ministry of Christ, which is reconciling people to God in Christ through the gospel. And so I think about Jesus' example too. And you know they would repent, they would go and tell everyone, and Jesus would. Well, he told some people to be quiet more in the Jerusalem, judea area, but when he was out in the more Gentile area he'd say go and tell the demoniac guy, a legion, go and tell everyone what the Lord has done for you. The Samaritan woman at the well, you know, she goes and tells the whole town. So it's like when Jesus changes your life, it makes sense that you want to go and tell other people about that, right? So evangelism is not something that's meant. It definitely is something that church leaders are called to do Absolutely, and we bear the brunt of the responsibility. But part of what we do is also that we teach other people to do the same thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's all about equipping the saints for the work of ministry. Yeah, otherwise we're not—if the salvation of the world was dependent upon only church leaders, then we would—we as in—this word gets in the way—the Christian leadership would have to spend a lot less time with the flock and get out there reaching the world, because that would be our role. But there's a dual role, obviously, christian leaders are supposed to be sharing the gospel, but we're also supposed to be managing the flock, and so that puts the impetus and onus of your purpose really is whatever you do, bring glory to God, but then also sharing Christ everywhere you can.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sharing Christ everywhere you can. Yeah, I think it's there's wisdom in going. Okay, paul, paul had a, um, he was authorized as an apostle, you know. And so, um, when the Corinthian church, let's say they go and they do evangelism, lead someone to Christ, obviously they're going to want to connect those people to the church that has an authorized leader, that has a, you know, an elder, a bishop, a pastor, you know, who can teach them sound doctrine and disciple them. But at the same time, like, yeah, you want evangelism and discipleship to be happening on a smaller scale too, in organic relationships and things like that is basically everyone's just wanting to submit their lives to the word and encourage each other.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's good, Okay. Next question we got some good ones. We got some good ones here, all right, okay. I have a young gentleman who occasionally attends a Tuesday night men's group. He is passionate about his beliefs. He claims no God and Jesus. He often speaks about my truth, his beliefs. He claims no God and Jesus. He often speaks about my truth. He claims that when I think of such and thus, I know that is God telling me to do thus and such. He bears the fruit of death in abundance. How do I show love and patience and speak life into this young man? How do I guard my flock from the deadly speech that this young man brings to the group, from the deadly speech that this young man brings to the group.
Speaker 2:Wow, thus and such. I like that, yeah, yeah, I like the question. I just taught on 2 Timothy 2 a couple Sundays ago at ECC.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Where it says the servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient in meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves, um, and you know, god may grant repentance to them um to acknowledging the truth. And so there there is this call to you do need to correct people, but you need to do it with patience and meekness and gentleness. So you know this is not like a false teacher where you can be harsh and sharp and direct. You know this is a sheep who is straying and struggling and needs some gentle correction. Straying and struggling and need some gentle correction, uh, and so I think it's good um to have that heart and that desire of like man. I love what God's doing in this person's life, but, um, some corrections needed. How do I do it gently? How do I do it with love? It's a good question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that you're going to have to speak into that, definitely. So one time I had someone in my group go, hey, I'm a gay Christian. And then he went on like that was the beginning of his sentence and I waited until he was done talking. I go hey, let me just clarify, there's no such thing as a gay Christian. Like, that is not a thing. There is a Christian. You may struggle with same-sex attraction, but that is the term. Gay Christian does not fit, and so it was awkward, definitely. But I think stepping into that awkwardness brings freedom and that gay Christian actually then repented, and not in that moment but months, maybe even years later repented and is now walking in the faith, which I really appreciate that. But I think that there's a real struggle there.
Speaker 1:When someone says my truth, but I love Jesus, it's as if they're saying and I know there's a lot of good-hearted or maybe well-intentioned might be the way to put it well-intentioned people who really are trying to follow God. They just don't know the scripture, they have a lot of zeal without knowledge, and so they're like God and I have a deal because they have some sort of feeling that they sort of like put towards God because they have no other category for it, as opposed to. We've said this you know you've got God's word, god's spirit and God's people, and if you have God's spirit without God's people or God's word, then you really don't have God's spirit. But it's hard to discern that if you don't have God's people and God's word. And so what he might be experiencing is just his own flesh reporting on something and in the most well-intentioned way, I think this—and I've had people be well-intentioned, say stuff like you know, it's just financially responsible for me to live with my girlfriend.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I'm like that is not—it might make sense from a secular point of view and because you haven't—you don't know the scriptures well enough and you're zealous to love God and just give everyone like a spiritual hug, which I appreciate, but if you don't know what the scriptures say about sin and darkness and sexuality, then you're going to lead people astray and that can be dangerous, and for your own soul one and then for others as well. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think you know you gotta, you gotta speak into it, and I like some things that come to mind when someone's saying stuff like my truth, um, you could you truth you can bring up. I think asking questions is a great way to start. What do you mean by your truth? Jesus said I'm the way and the truth and the life. So there's not like a bunch of different truths. I talked about this in my sermon from Sunday. There's not competing truths.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's talk about that real quick. So on Sunday you talked about there's not Jesus versus Paul. Talk more about what you mean by that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, in the sermon brought up the idea that there's people, you know, so, the super apostles, right, the Corinthians, were kind of Mean girls. Yeah. Yeah, we're drawn to them and their teaching and, you know, kind of doubting Paul. And I was bringing up how, hey, there's people today who think that you can be a Christian and kind of reject Paul Because a lot of Paul's stuff is very countercultural.
Speaker 2:What he says about, you know, gender roles and marriage or the church, what he says about homosexuality or the meaning, like some of these things you've just brought up A lot of where you're going to go for biblical teaching on, that is the words of Paul. So a lot of people today are like, well, you know, paul is a chauvinist, he's a man of his times, we don't have to listen to him. And you know what would go to this idea of like, well, what I feel like is this and my experience tells me this about it and if you start going down that road, you know where there's like Paul's truth and Jesus's truth and my truth and it obviously is very subjective and you don't have any foundation to stand on. Essentially, you're putting yourself as an authority over scripture instead of coming under the authority of scripture, and so I would go, you know, with this person who's saying, like my truth is this or that, and so I know that it's right, that's basically what they're saying, right, god? I feel this way.
Speaker 1:I have a special connection to Jesus that I'm—I always call those people oracles. You know, like I am an oracle for God.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the Scripture gives you instructions about that. It says test the spirits Right, Cling to what is good or hold fast to what is good and to reject what is evil.
Speaker 1:Right, and I think sometimes again this goes back to— the way you test is by the scripture.
Speaker 2:Right by the scripture.
Speaker 1:So God's word, laid out before God's people, lets you know if this is a spirit of God, spirit of the flesh, or maybe even of the darkness.
Speaker 2:So anyway, yeah, you have to speak up about that in particular. So we got to test this by the scripture. If there's no such thing as your truth, if it is true, then it will. It's the truth, yeah, it's truth, and it will align with scripture.
Speaker 1:What do you think that is about? I think maybe this is probably a cultural reality that is just ubiquitous. It is everywhere. All the time. People are saying stuff. You know, you do you and I'll do me, and let's just not bother anyone with what. What is actually right or true or good? You know your truth, my truth. Now can we just be on. There are some things where you can have you can wear t-shirt and shorts or you can wear jeans, that is, you can have your truth in that, I guess. But when it comes to things greater and beyond that, then there is a part where that freedom stops and God's truth and design commands us to get in line, and how.
Speaker 1:Let's just you know from you on the East side in line and how, let's just you know from you on the East side, in the heart of Austin, how have you experienced the your truth being a challenge?
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, I think the mindset of like the Bible is outdated, archaic, it's, you know, it's like it's such a different world.
Speaker 2:We live in a modern world today, you know, so a lot of what the Bible teaches doesn't apply. Therefore, I'm kind of going to decide for myself and here's what I've grown up around, and here's what I've seen, and here's what I've grown up around and here's what I've seen, and here's what I've seen in the home, here's what I've seen in marriage, here's what I've seen, you know, in my mom or my dad, here's what I've seen in church, here's what I've seen on the streets, here's what I and I'm going to kind of look at all of that and try to decide for myself what's right, because you know, the Bible is this old book that doesn't really apply to me today and so, yeah, that's going to impact a lot of, I mean, some of the core things about life Again marriage, family, parenting, church, all the you know, basic, fundamental things about how to have a, you know, a healthy life. If you're throwing out what the Bible says about all those things, you're going to end up totally lost, of course.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's the struggle, right, I think that's the part where people are. The biblical literacy of our culture is so low. So therefore, when someone says something spiritual that sounds good, you can gravitate toward and go like, hmm, that's a law of attraction that must be in the Bible somewhere, and I think that's a struggle. Okay, let's move on to this last question. Um, hold on, hold on, hold on. Okay. It says, uh, just curious about how Africa was for everyone. I prayed for y'all, safe return. He answered. Praise him. Well, I'm so glad you asked.
Speaker 1:Uh, I did go with my son, austin, to visit our missionaries in Northwest Africa and it was very exciting to go and visit them and specifically in the city where we went there was you know what I loved about um being there? I went to this one church service, um, which had, uh, sub-saharan Africans and then Africans and or North I guess what's opposite of sub above Sahara Africans, and it was in French and it was in English and it was in Spanish and it was powerful, and we sang, we worshiped and it was just this really, really sweet, sweet, sweet time. I really enjoyed that. The other thing that I sort of thought was interesting is that the problems that the American church faces were the same problems the church faces everywhere. Every church deals with infighting Every church deals with. You know someone said this and that really offended me and I, you know like that, the constant sort of like bickering, and you know like that, the constant sort of like bickering, and you know, as a, as a person from the outside looking in and going like, guys, you're less than 1% of the population. The mega church is a church of 30 people, so, or a church of a hundred people is like a mega church, wow, and so we need to kind of be a little bit more on the same team here.
Speaker 1:Uh, now, granted, listen, are there things that you, you might want not to happen in your church? Yeah, but when you're being, when people are being persecuted, kicked out of the country because they're proclaiming the name and the fame of Jesus, and um, there's just so many other things to argue about. Uh, or rather, there's so many things that we need to be on the same page about and supporting one another and I that was one of the interesting things I saw was like a real sense of um, I don't know battling over territory when you've got so many lost people to choose from right, like that was sort of interesting, um, and so that was sort of wild. And then also, like the conservative, um, uh, I guess progressive thing is still is still a thing like there's on the conservative side, if you're not doing the uh, 1689 london baptist confession, you're not a real christian, like that kind of thing was there, and so I don't know if I want to fellowship with you, and so that was an interesting dynamic that I was sort of surprised to see. There was the persecution of pastors getting called into the police and you know what are you talking about at your meetings? Why are you meeting? Like that's a real thing, and that was wild. And then some of these pastors, with how many languages they spoke, I was just like I am dumb. So I was like we are not using our brains to their potential because clearly I could know several languages by now and I don't. So that was amazing.
Speaker 1:My son, austin, enjoyed it in the sense that he got to interact with other kids. Some didn't speak English and that was a challenge, but he persevered through it. He ate fish from the fish market Champ all the way through. Drew, yeah, he did. Surprisingly, he used to be the pickiest person on the planet and that changed him. So if you have a picky eater, take him to a place where it's rude to not eat everything before you have him. Take a culture class from a local indigenous pastor that pretty much says if you don't eat the food I'm giving you, you don't love Jesus. And then he's pretty much on board he ate whatever's put before him and it was powerful. I thought that was really special and I really enjoyed it and it was really cool. To see business as mission globally, especially in countries that are closed, is the only way that you can get in and so you've got to be super creative, and it made me think, like why are we not using business as mission in the United States?
Speaker 2:Business as mission just means you have a job, right yeah.
Speaker 1:And so you right, that's it right. So it's like my reason for being here is to share Christ, but I do a non-Christian job to facilitate my ministering.
Speaker 2:That's like the majority of people everywhere, though.
Speaker 1:Right so. But I think when you say business as mission, no one thinks about working in Austin, Texas, at like.
Speaker 2:Dell.
Speaker 1:They're like oh yeah, that's nice. No, no, no, seriously, your job is to be at Dell to reach the people at Dell for Christ. Your job at Google is to reach the other Google-ites for Christ. Your job at Apple is to reach the other Apple-ites for Christ. I think if we had that sort of mentality, I just loved. The perspective was so missional, it's like that was their whole life.
Speaker 1:And I think the only difference between one guy who was a chef running a restaurant with the purpose of sharing Christ, and people here in the United States was, like he just happened to be in Northwest Africa. So, like Jeff Mitchell, I think, is a good example. He's one of our elders and he runs his business here in the United States. He, like, sends an email out to prospective clients, says I, just so you know, this is, one purpose of my life is to share Jesus. So I'm going to share Jesus with you in this email. Whether you believe it or not, I want to do the best job possible. I want to honor Christ, I want to glorify the Lord, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And God has blessed that, and so I'm like man. It'd be really cool. Now, granted, are there people that would probably abuse that and be like I'm a Christian, don't act like a Christian and they cheat people and all the things. That would not be good.
Speaker 1:So, if you're not, I guess have a good character. Don't do that. If you're like, yeah, my character's suspect I probably shouldn't represent Christ anywhere, then you probably should change.
Speaker 2:Anyway.
Speaker 1:I feel like, but that I just love that. I love the, just the. I'm here as a chef, but I'm here as a follower of Christ to try and lead as many Northwest Africans to Christ as possible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's what every single Christian should be like, like I'm here working at Google and I'm here to lead as many Austinites to Christ as possible. That would be motivating to me. Yeah, and I just saw that and I'm going to have a phone call with one of the guys. Talk about missiology, which I love, that nice, um, and one of the things that was brought up, and this is it's fascinating.
Speaker 1:Uh, because I flipped this back up on them and, uh, they go listen, I don't want to be involved in the indigenous church, I just want to support the indigenous church and I need to be above or not above, I need to be outside of it and said it'd be really weird for me to be here and say, like, because if you were saying like, should I not have the people that are in my community at my church?
Speaker 1:Should I just only minister to certain people, or should I make the gospel available to all? Like, would it be weird for me to say like, hey, there should be no of that kind of people at my church or those kinds of people excluded, or they need to go get their own church. You would never say that it might work better, but you would never say that I blew his mind in one moment with that one, because the challenge for him was I don't want to ruin the indigenous church by my presence. I want to bless it and help it flourish and coach them. And I was like my challenge was would you ever say that in the United States, amongst anything, wouldn't you want to be a part of the indigenous group that you were with and then therefore you'd be the indigenous one because it's all part Anyway. So we went through that. That was an interesting conversation that we'll probably talk more on.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:Anyway, anyway, that's what I got. Any other thoughts? Well, I thought of like, uh, you know, paul leaving uh titus in crete and telling him to appoint elders in every town, and you know that, the idea of Crete being a very different kind of culture and different, um, yeah, environment, um for ministry, and saying, all right, titus, it's not that I want you to be the pastor over all of Crete, I want you to raise up leaders from this community. You know who can be godly men to lead these churches.
Speaker 1:Um, so I think there's, yeah, and I think that was his intent but I think the reality for him was like he would just remove himself from any of the church experience. I was like that. That seems to be antithetical to like the whole point. Yeah, yeah, yeah, anyway, yeah, I got especially when you speak the language and right, you're in the culture of the indigenous people. Like you, you can fit in. I'm not saying everyone needs to be quite Hudson Taylor, but like I think there's a reality, like you could fit in with a culture enough and people will accept you as one of them.
Speaker 1:Uh at least you know. That's assimilation, right? I think that's the primary thing of like in America, one of the things that we want to do is see people from foreign countries come and assimilate to be an American, not just like take their whatever and bring that culture here and say like, no, I'm going to stick it to you guys and you're going to I'm not saying that you can't do that, but, like the, the way of assimilation is that we sort of like become one and I said when you, when you don't do that in the context that you're in, then you're sort of refusing that culture and you're not bringing maybe a Christ culture into that specific indigenous culture. Anyway, it was, it was, it was a. It was a great conversation that I want to process more with him. Yeah, for sure, excited for that. Hey, thanks so much for watching. We would love to talk with you. Faith, culture, everything in between, from our house to yours. Have an awesome week.