pod 11 - pt 4

The speaker discusses the idea that persecution can actually strengthen the faith of believers and encourage others to proclaim the gospel without fear. They reflect on the challenges faced by early Christians in ancient Rome and how their faith stood strong despite the constant threat of death. They emphasize the importance of maintaining a genuine relationship with God amidst the distractions and busyness of life. The speaker also warns against getting caught up in performing good works for the approval of others, stressing that faith should be rooted in a personal relationship with God. They highlight the simplicity of faith and the power of believing in God's ability to make all things possible. The speaker concludes by emphasizing the importance of trust and genuine faith in one's relationship with God. yeah but I'm in Philippians 1 verse 12 when Paul Paul says now I want you to know brothers and sisters that what is happening what are you saying what's in your nose bro yeah and it says in Philippians 1 verse 12 it says now I want you to know brothers and sisters that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel as a result is become clear throughout the whole place the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I'm in change for Christ and because of my change most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and they're all the more to proclaim their gospel without fear Wow so I mean that's pretty that's pretty young clear or saying that like through his persecution and his change that like everything's giving other believers encouragement and like lack of fear to step out into the faith mmm yeah it's pretty it's just crazy how much they stood for their faith mm-hmm and like cuz on nowadays it's like oh yeah I stand for my faith when people bully me in the schoolyard but these people were like it wasn't like Christianity was one of the biggest religions it was like a minority in most places and think about ancient Rome ancient Rome was a like this is where most of them died it was an absolutely horrible and a really nasty place like I do Asian history so a bit of a nerd with that stuff but um one of the disciples like I remember it was was in the reign of Nero in Nero is recognized as one of the most evil people yeah and he actually had him beheaded in front of him like fool just cut his head off and did not care it was crazy how I think it was they said often every single day a Roman would see about one person die every single day because it was just so often and to be a minority even after all that stuff and seeing like it wasn't like ah like I've never seen a person's diet him before but imagine seeing a person die every single day obviously don't want that happen to you and just being like oh yeah like I know I'm gonna die for this but I'm do it anyways and crazy like and they could have done in many ways like think about being thrown into the Colosseum if I found out that for being a Christian I was gonna get thrown into the Colosseum against a gladiator or like a lion or something um I would really struggle to have faith in those in that situation having like a peaceful death like you're saying all these other other people were getting like chased by a lion yeah I want to be that make an example of like they would do that and have that public spectacle to remind any Christians that hey this is what your future is if you continue to have faith in God if you continue to try and advance the gospel and yet even in the midst of that in their culture they still stood on their faith. That is inspiring. Yeah it's just crazy but yeah it's crazy how persecution is such it's an act that your faith is worth it really I know that sounds really weird like oh worth it like I'm dying and I'm getting beaten up for my faith but it shows that people don't like try to end something because for no reason it means you were doing something that's different and it means it's something that stands out and it's something that is actually going to reach people it's actually worth more it's worth so much that people would cost your life for it you're standing up for something that's way more significant than just another thing and it's crazy but another question I have about faith for you is so obviously in later years with faith how have you kept your faith growing in God when things get busy when it's when it's hard to find that space to just sit down with God when it's hard to just have that time and like in all the noise and all the distractions just to sit down and keep having faith just talk to God and see what he has next. Yeah I think that is one of the hardest things in a world that's so fast-paced in a world where there is so much distraction that can take our attention to actually keep a simple genuine relationship with Jesus in our daily lives and I think that that is something that is a challenge because I think that we can find ourselves at times in life just so caught up in doing lots of good things too that we've got to forget who we're doing it like we sometimes forget who we're doing it for and that that is God that the joy is actually our relationship with Jesus for ourselves yeah and I don't think we ever graduate from that like whether you're a pastor or or whatever you are and many people doing so many great things for God I don't want to be guilty of just doing great things for God but not knowing God now there's that there's that passage in the Bible that says like that is such a scary passage where where it says like you did you prophesied in my name you did great things on my name yeah but I never knew you like that is terrifying that we could be like that as Christians that we can be so caught up doing good things but we forget our relationship with God and so I think it comes back to that like I think so much about our faith is simple but when we get distracted we complicate our faith when we get you know caught up in other things we miss the main thing and I think that that is the biggest challenge to make sure that we keep the main thing the main thing and that's our relationship with God we're in the Bible praying doing those simple things they matter and if you do them long enough if you can do them consistently enough you will get stronger the same as when you brush your teeth for two minutes in the morning and two minutes at night that is better than brush brushing your teeth for one hour once a year just all the time they make a difference yeah yeah like imagine that verse imagine being like the most famous pastor of all time bringing thousands of people to know his name prophesying his name but not actually knowing him because it's just crazy that thing of how when you go to heaven him saying I never knew you and it's crazy like so many people are like oh yeah but I did all this for you you know I built this church for you and I was a pastor and I evangelized but if you don't actually have a relationship with him it's completely different like so many religions it's such a based on so much based on works and I feel like if we base our religion and our relationship on works then it's it's not faith it's just doing things to gain something and if anything it's it's just our own actions but those actions should actually come through our relationship with him those actions are good but those actions should only come through our actual relationship and actually knowing him and actually feeling like to grow closer and to actually love God more we're going to step into faith into those situations as well and that's it's just so important to remind ourselves that like you were saying that it's not just work as a relationship yeah they can actually become an idol like when you are doing good works you can do that because you want to get the approval of other people yeah pressure people or you want to make sure people notice what you're doing and you can find yourself chasing that and that's you're putting that in front of God it's like whether you're a success or a failure before God you're saved yeah right you've got his love yeah and you never graduate beyond that doesn't matter what you do in life we all need God's grace we only God's love and when we start thinking that we're going to impress God with our good works I think that you know we want to do those things but for the right reasons yeah relationship with God is the reason and out of that flows good works not the other way in like hey if I do all these good things then I'll have a better relationship with God I make make relationship with God the ultimate prize definitely ultimate thing that you're about and that's that's the reward you know be genuine yeah yeah come make things about the um make me think about what's that I think Paul a lot in in his letters he talked about like the the circumcision groups yeah um and how they're they're pretty much just like pressuring other Christians to get circumcised in order to get saved and like Paul's basically tells them like it's not about like any of the the works that you do it's just faith faith is so much greater than that yeah genuine relationship with him yeah so much greater than any any acts that you could do before God I think yeah yeah it's so true and it's funny that passage that that it's it's just like chasing an external thing is going to get God's approval and it's like the whole message of the gospel is God's grace yeah and out of that none of us are deserving for our best works and our best behaviors we all still need God's grace yeah yeah and I mean in Mark 9 verse 23 it makes it so clear how how Jesus is idea on faith is is it shouldn't be this big spectacle like oh my goodness like I'm going to preach this Friday it's a massive step of faith he legit says if you can said Jesus everything is possible for one who believes and it's so simple he legit just casually says yep everything is possible if you actually believe in me like it's great and he says it's so simply but it's so much greater than the simpleness of that yeah and I think it shouldn't be this big spectacle like I stepped out in faith today that's so good and that's amazing but like God sees that God was in court is like that's so good that's all that matters it's a relationship thing and I think he also expects that of us as well is to actually have that faith just like in a relationship you expect the partner to be loyal to you God expects us to have that trust to be to have that genuine faith with him they can only become be real if you actually believe in him and that's it like it's what we keep saying faith is trust so it's putting that like the Bible repeatedly reminds us that we need to be like a child with our faith where we don't try and do things in our own ability but we trust him and I think that that is such a great picture a child doesn't really doubt your ability to catch them if they jump to believe you're gonna do it you know yeah hungry and they ask you to get him something to eat they don't doubt your ability to do it they just trust that you can get it for yeah sometimes we get so smart for our own good we think about like I think what you said before said we can think about all the worries and things that could go wrong and they're worse than even what happens and we talk ourself out of faith and don't get self out of trusting God because of the circumstances where I think part of the journey of being a disciple of Jesus is just learning to be childlike and just continue to trust God even when it doesn't make sense yeah I mean like I remember when I was a kid I think I've told this story I don't know if I've taught on the podcast but when we're going to the pool with my my brother and my and my dad when we were really young and my brother was just he was about two and he didn't like he thought that he could do anything and then dad was just gonna be there to save him so we're like swimming and then he just starts sprinting to the deep end and this is like a toddler just sprinting the deep end and he's getting ready my dad is freaky it's like what are you doing and he just jumps because he had the faith that no matter what happens dad's gonna be there you know dad's gonna save him that's that childlike faith we have to have the situation is no matter what happens God is there God is gonna save us God is gonna prevail God is going to be there in all things and I remember it was just crazy I remember I was like why do you keep doing it and he was just like oh cuz that's gonna be there I was like I was it was good that I didn't see it then but it's crazy now how God's shown me that that story of how we can have faith like that constantly is that childlike yeah yeah yeah do you have a verse or a question yeah go for it go for it so I want to ask what what your opinion is on like how how Christian should deal with like ongoing sin and I know that I've definitely struggled with that yeah just your perspective on it yeah I think I think that's that's a great question I reckon when it comes to sin all the way back to the Garden of Eden we've always tried to hide it in our humanity you know you see that with Adam and Eve where they were naked and then they try to cover up and hide their bodies and they try to hide the fact that they'd eaten from this tree of good and evil that they shouldn't have eaten from and and all the consequences of that and where they just kind of saw their inadequacy and all those kind of things and I reckon that that is often a human response that we try to hide sin we try to hide what's going on there but when we look at the gospel and we look at Jesus he's all about being authentic and being real mmm and I love the fact that he can handle us being honest about our sin like yeah I mentioned it before said he knows what we're going through before we even say it and I think one of the most beautiful things we can do is the confession of our sins for sure confessing to God our sins being honest with him about where we have found where we've got wrong and I think another element that is having a trusted friend that we can be honest and confess and be accountable to when it comes to our sins as well there is something about confessing our sins to somebody and being honest about it being authentic that I think builds trust but also is good for our soul that we are not trying to hide it but we're putting ourself in a position where I'm like hey I'm accountable to you I've messed up here and I want you to hold me to this standard to try and be better and to not do this again and I love the Bible is so clear that if we confess our sins he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness that we can always go to God and be honest with him and that he will forgive us of our sins I think confessing our sins to God and confessing to one another not not not confessing to be like well I need Jesse or Seb's approval to be forgiven we've got a middleman there we are forgiven immediately from God when we go to God with our sins but I think it's good for us to have that accountability at times to confess our sins to one another with a trusted friend or someone that we can we can be confident that we'll keep it you know confidential or accountable but someone that we can just be real with that's really important yeah because I think sometimes when we allow sin to just stay in the dark and we don't bring it out into the light you know it can really overtake our lives but when we we put light lights a great disinfectant light is something that when we put it on it it makes us realize oh I've messed up here and I need a friend to help me get back on the right path yeah I think that that is something that I reckon that particularly your generation coming through you've seen a lot of stuff where people have tried to hide sin yeah I tried to hide things and I what I love about your generation is that you're very authentic and transparent and you just want the real thing you don't just want like play church where it's like hey we want everything is to have cool lights and cool sound you're like a generation coming through that's saying we don't care about all that stuff we just want real worship we just want to really know God we just want to be genuine and real we don't want fake leaders we don't want fake faith we want the real thing and I think that that takes vulnerability and accountability and you know I'd much prefer people to be just honest and real and to try to be impressive you know there's a whole bunch of hidden sin underneath that we're not being honest with yeah for sure yeah and confessing is a big part of like repentance as well like yeah the first first thing you have to do is confess and admit that you've done something wrong and then trying to rely on God better in the future so that you don't fall into like the acts of the flesh and stuff like that yeah I think we as a society we hate weakness we spend so much time trying to make ourselves look good and strong and powerful and look at social media it's a highlight reel for all of our successes and things we're doing yeah we're not necessarily like listing our sins on there and like putting a picture of here's me and my mistake and failure and my sin like we're not often doing that like we're often presenting to the world the good things that we do and doing that even subconsciously not even in an arrogant way we just often presenting that but I think that we struggle in our kind of society with weakness and being really like open and vulnerable about where we've got it wrong and I think I think what's impressive is Christians that can be really real about their shortcomings I think that people feel like they can relate to that they can connect with that weakness yeah that's so good yeah yeah I think with weakness I mean look at everything as soon as there's a weakness in a product I have to make a new one as soon as there's a weakness in anything people want to be do more I want to change themselves as soon as I see a weakness in there and looks or just a little bit something different that they didn't see before they don't like they immediately have to scrap it up and restart everything they feel like they have to change their whole life to just feel good about it but we're only going to be truly satisfied in the faith that we have in God yeah yeah yeah I guess going going off weakness I guess with for my for myself and like ongoing sin the things that I've I've struggled with I had like Jesse to talk to about because I didn't struggle with like pornography for like three years yeah and it's only saying that God's like freeing me from now and showing me like the only way I can be free from it is by relying on him because every time I try to do it myself it just um like fails every time but yeah I think being able to like talk to obviously God first but then bringing that to a friend where I can talk to him about that um just has really helped me like also staying accountable as well with yeah um yeah you know who that also helps said is it helps the person that is struggling with it that doesn't feel like anybody else is struggling with it and they can look at someone like both of you and so gee it looks like seven Jesse just got it all together I must there must be something wrong with me but actually by you speaking up on that and saying yeah I have struggled with that and I need God's help on that and yeah I've repented and I'm and I'm trying to work on that it is inspiring to others to say well I've got failures too and I want to I want to be like that I want to I want to confess my failures my sins and try to work to grow better and to grow stronger in those areas and I can overcome it with God when we don't share our weaknesses we just share our strengths all the time people feel like yeah maybe this isn't for me because I'm just too weak and I can't make it through I think it's an important thing to be sharing our successes but also sharing our failures