Ministry Leadership w/ Lance McKinnon

Welcome to the GC Podcast. This year, we’re centering on Kingdom Culture and exploring how it transforms ministry and equips leaders for kingdom living. Through conversations with Grace Communion Seminary professors and a few other guests, we’ll explore how their teachings equip ministry leaders to embody kingdom values.

This is the GC Podcast, where we help you grow into the healthiest ministry leader you can be. Sharing practical insights and best practices from the context of Grace Communion International Churches. Here’s your host, Cara Garrity.

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Cara: Hello friends, and welcome to today’s episode of GC Podcast. This podcast is devoted to exploring best ministry practices in context of Grace Communion International churches.

I’m your host, Cara Garrity, and today I’m excited to have Dr. Lance McKinnon as our guest. Dr. McKinnon is a professor at Grace Communion Seminary, and today we’re going to continue exploring our 2025 theme of Kingdom Living through the GCS course, Foundations of Christian Leadership, that Dr. McKinnon teaches.

Thank you so much for joining us today, Dr. McKinnon.

[00:01:24] Lance: Glad to be here.

[00:01:25] Cara: Excellent. So, like I said, we have this year the theme of Kingdom Living that we’re going to be exploring throughout the year. And so, I’m wondering, what does Christian ministry and the foundations of Christian ministry have to do with the concept and the practice of Kingdom Living?

[00:01:47] Lance: Yeah, that’s a question about relevancy, right? How is this class relevant to our lives, especially for the Christian life? And that’s always a common question for just about anything. What purpose does it serve? Is this actually going to help me?

So how is it relevant to the practice of kingdom living? And when we talk about kingdom living, we’re basically talking about the Christian life, the life we’re made for. So, what this class aims to do in the context of ministry is to get underneath it to visit the foundations, specifically the theological foundations. of Christian ministry.

What that means in a sense, is we want to deal with what’s real. And that actually leads to the relevancy, right? I like to say, there’s nothing more relevant than reality. If you don’t have, if you don’t know the reality, then things are going to go off. When we’re talking about kingdom living, then we need to know the reality of that kingdom.

Whose kingdom is it? Most specifically, who is the king? That makes a huge difference in how you live in that kingdom. If the king is a tyrant, you’re going to live very differently than in a kingdom where the king actually likes you and is for you. With that understanding, the class begins really with a heavy dose of theology.

And it’s a challenge for this class because it’s actually a ministry class, so it’s not one of our theology classes. I have to feed people with a fire hose in the beginning. And for some it’s a review from our theology classes, if they’ve taken those. And for others it’s an introduction to it.

They’re going to get a heavy dose of some big building blocks, if you will, some foundational theological. And then from there, what I aim to do, what we want to do in the class is to integrate that into the practice of ministry. I think one challenge we often have as pastors, or even as students and seminarians, is we get in our head like, okay, I’m going to learn this theology. I got it. I figured it out, I know the terminology. I can spout out certain concepts and understandings. Okay, but so now let’s go do some ministry. Now we’re going to leave that behind and get busy, right?

And we separate it in our mind, like theology is over here — we do our work, and we get that done with. And now we go do the real thing. Now we’re going to do real ministry. But that’s not the way to think about it.

They actually go together. You can’t separate them because ministry has a shape. It has a reality. And we have to explore that, namely who Jesus is. Because He’s the ultimate ministry, minister, and it is His ministry. So that makes a huge difference in how we go about ministry, knowing that it’s His; it’s not ours. That in itself will certainly change how we go about it.

And one thing I do in this class is I try to expand it where it’s more than just ministry, because we’re not really just talking about things we do in the church or beyond. We’re actually talking about the point that you’re focused on in these podcasts, and that is Kingdom Living.

So, the things that are in the class, that yes, it gets focused on ministry and specifically towards pastors or leaders, because those are the ones who are typically taking the classes. But it’s much broader than that. What we’re really talking about is what we’re made for, what God created us for.

So, it’s not “this only applies to a pastor or somebody in Christian ministry.” It’s “no, this actually applies to everybody.” Everybody. So, it’s really the big picture type of approach. And then we take that and then work it out and how we do ministry in our churches.

For example, the way it’s structured — or I should say, part of the structure that kind of weaves throughout the class — is I really want the students to be asking and answering the question of who is Jesus. So that’s the big block. That’s how we approach it, not how we do certain things in ministry, but who is Jesus?

And that is the reality that will actually help us answer those other “how” questions that come up. So, one way I do that is I — and this is just a pedagogical way of slicing things up to graph something, so it’s not meant to make some kind of doctrinal statement. But in order to really focus on Jesus, I break it down to five things, and it’s His birth, His life and ministry, His death, resurrection, and then ascension and promised return.

So, using those five aspects of the life of Christ, I connect that to five aspects, if you will, of ministry. And that’s worship, discipleship, service, fellowship, and sharing or witness. So, I connect those, and there’s a lot of overlap. It’s not exactly one to one, but it’s a way of getting at these things that we typically call ministry in the church, things we do, practices, and connecting it to who Jesus is, because the reality is, we’re not doing something apart from Jesus.

So, Jesus is over here; we know who he is. But now we’re going to go do worship, and we’re going to do discipleship, and ministry, and fellowship; we’re going to do evangelism, as if it’s something detached from Jesus. Rather, it’s actually in Jesus that we have those things. Does that make sense?

So, it’s trying to help make the connection and integrate really the big theological concept of union with Christ. And that’s because that’s the reality. That’s actually where we are. We’re in union with Him. So, by making those connections, it helps as you go through the class, you work out some of that.

For example, worship, we talk about worship. And that’s a big umbrella ministry or purpose, if you will, that really encapsulates all of them. When you’re doing discipleship, you’re worshiping. When you’re doing ministry, it’s an act of worship. So, all of these, in a sense, can come under worship, but I group it with Jesus’ birth because that’s the incarnation.

So, we see the grand purpose that God has for us, and that is to be worshippers, to actually, as the Westminster Catechism puts it, to glorify. It says, “the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” That’s another way of saying worship.

And C. S. Lewis makes the point that to glorify God and enjoy Him forever are one and the same thing. Glorifying God is seeing Him for who He is. And if you see Him for who He is and know Him, you’re going to enjoy Him because He’s that beautiful. He’s that amazing. That’s worship. That’s what we’re made for.

So, when God sends His Son in the Incarnation, He does so to bring us into worship. And you see that in the birth narratives, if you’re reading through at the Christmas season the birth narratives, worship closely tied to the story of the incarnation. Jesus comes on the scene; He’s born, and the angels come down and there’s a whole host of heavenly angels in worship.

So, it’s like when the kingdom breaks in, worship breaks out. And so, we see that worship is very much tied to what Jesus brings in His Incarnation, what He brings to us. He’s actually freeing us to enter into the worship that Father, Son, and Spirit have been engaged in for all eternity. So that’s where worship now becomes not just some task we do or something we do on Sunday or some ministry we’re involved in. No, it’s the shape of our entire lives and what we’re going to be doing for all eternity.

So, it’s a lot bigger than how we sometimes just think of ministry like this one aspect: we’re going to worship today. We worship every day and every minute of the day because that’s what we’re made for.

So that kind of helps make the connection between the foundations and what we do in worship. And we do the same thing with discipleship, connect that with the life and ministry of Jesus. We see as we go through the Gospel stories, what is Jesus doing in His life every single day? When He’s doing ministry, what is He doing? He’s actually following the Father. Everything He does, He’s following the Father.

Especially in the book of Luke, you see this very clearly — everything He does in the Spirit. So, He’s not out there doing His own thing making stuff up as He goes. What does He say? I can do nothing; I only do what I see the Father doing.

He doesn’t do anything on His own. He’s doing everything as a follower of the Father, and that’s discipleship. And so that helps us unpack when we talk about discipleship, what we’re really talking about is following Christ. And we put those together.

And then when we talk about ministry — I like to use the word service. It’s a little broader, and it helps us escape some of the baggage that we may attach to the word ministry. But I like to connect that to the death of Christ.

What we see on the cross, there’s actually a window into the heart and character of God. This is a God who makes room for us, who actually lays His life down for another. So, it’s not just this one thing He does when He’s on the planet, if you will, it’s actually His whole orientation. What we see in Father, Son, and Spirit, in that moment, it’s that God for all eternity has been laying His life down. The Father makes room for the Son, and the Son makes room for the Father. Their whole orientation is to lay Their life down for one another. That’s who God is.

Of course, it doesn’t come with pain and suffering in the Godhead; it’s full of joy. That’s what life is all about, is making room for the other, that relationship.

Of course, when Jesus goes to the cross, He has pain and suffering because He’s having to fight against our orientation where we resist that. We don’t know how to lay our life down for one another. We live for ourselves, and Jesus has to undo that, so He goes to the cross. And that’s really, to me, where ministry springs from.

Ministry or service is participating in the death of Christ. When we serve another, when we do ministry, we are, in a sense, we’re laying our life down and focusing on the other. So, it’s not a task that we do to mark off the list. Oh, now I’ve done my service, now I can actually have a little time for myself.

But rather, it’s actually entering into, a little more deeply, the life we’re made for. Because we’re going to be serving for all eternity. And sometimes that could be like, really? That’s a bummer. Because our thinking is we don’t want to serve. I want to be served. We go on vacation; I want to be served. That’s the way we tend to think about things.

But when we really understand the joy and fullness of the eternal life of God and we see that They actually for all eternity have been serving one another, we have to repent of the way we think of service. And we’re actually made for service, and that’s where real life is.

That’s where the joy is. Yeah, in a sense, we’re called to die to self. And that’s very difficult, right? It’s really hard to go to the cross, to take up the cross daily and to die to self. However, there’s a resurrection.

To the resurrection, I link to fellowship because it’s at the point of resurrection that Jesus becomes the head, the new head of humanity. The new creation has begun. And if we go back to the garden, we see the fall. What essentially happened, what is the net result of the fall is loss of fellowship. Adam and Eve are now hiding in the garden. Why are they hiding? They have been alienated.

Their minds have been distorted. And now they are fearful of this God who has always been for them, Who’s there. But now they’re hiding. The resurrection is undoing all that. So now we’re being restored back to proper fellowship. In fellowship, we’re actually participating in the resurrection. The resurrected life of Christ is one way to look at it.

And then for the Ascension, when Jesus ascends, I like to link that to mission, witness. And I use the word sharing again to expand what’s going on there. This is one I think that gets truncated and tricky really quick.

People tend to think that evangelism is something we do here and now. It’s a task that we can only do in this lifetime. And we do it so other people can be saved, can come to know the Lord. But when the curtain rolls up and this life is over, we’re done. We’ve done our work. We put our time in. We don’t have to witness anymore. No more missions. No more evangelism.

But I think there’s a bigger way of looking at this. Witness and evangelism is actually part of the heart of God. In this way, God is a sharing God. He shares everything He has with us. And actually, in Father, Son, and Spirit, they share everything with one another. Everything’s shared. Nothing is held to themselves.

So, when God comes to us in Jesus Christ, He’s actually sharing Himself with us completely. And the Ascension is the culmination of that. Jesus ascends back to the right hand of the Father, and sends the Spirit, right? So, what is the Spirit? The Spirit is actually the life of Father and Son — that relationship, He’s sharing Himself with us.

So that’s what I would actually call mission; that’s what we’re doing. We’re trying to share with others this life of God. We’re trying to share who God is so others can be brought into it. And that’s a sharing that won’t end when the curtain rolls up.

So, we’re in the kingdom, right? We’re talking about kingdom living. For all eternity, we’re still going to be sharing. We’re going to be gazing upon Christ and sharing with one another how beautiful He is. We’re never going to grow tired of that. It’s like sharing something marvelous in this world as an analogy. Maybe it’s a sunset or some beautiful scenic overlook or something.

And you want to share it, right? You want to, wow, look at this and look at that. So, you’re always sharing it. But with Christ, it’s that we have a personal relationship with Him. C. S. Lewis brings this out. I think it’s in The Great Divorce. He does a good job in helping us picture this.

That is, in our personal relationship with Christ, it’s going to look different than, say, yours, Cara, or someone else’s. Because I’m unique. I’m a distinct person. And so that relationship’s going to have certain nuances that others don’t have. So, in the kingdom, I have something specific to share about the Lord that I have come to know.

And so, I can actually share that with you. And you’re going to have something unique and specific to share about the Lord that you know. So, for all eternity, we’re going to be sharing this. And we’re going to — it’s going to be fun. So, we’re still going to be on a mission, right? It’s just, it won’t be sharing with people who may be resisting it.

We’re going to want to share and receive from one another a little more who this God is, and since He’s eternal and as great as He is, we have all eternity to do that. And we will never grow bored of it. It’s hard to picture that because we tend to truncate mission to just this life and I would like the students to see beyond that. No, you’re actually participating in the life that you’re going to have for all eternity. And that expands a little bit and maybe helps remove some of the fear that we sometimes have with mission.

It doesn’t have to be that scary. It’s just sharing what we know of Christ, sharing who He is from our experience and what we’ve seen and from the way He’s revealed Himself to us in His word.

So that’s a very long answer to your question, sorry about that. But the reason why it’s a long answer is we’re trying to deal with the foundations, the theological foundations in the class and how that unfolds into the practice of ministry which is just another way of saying practice of kingdom living, actually living out the reality we have in Jesus Christ.

[00:21:01] Cara: Yeah, absolutely, that is such a rich course. It sounds like it really explores a rich full, holistic picture of what that looks like for a Christian ministry to be founded on and reflective of the full ministry of Jesus. I especially really love that image, this idea of mission as sharing and sharing that’s eternal because it’s reflective of who God is eternally, not just something that is an action on this side of eternity.

So, thank you for sharing that. And it does sound like this course is very rich, so this might be a hard question. But if you had to say one major takeaway from the course that would develop our practice of Kingdom Living, what would that be for students that might take this class?

[00:22:13] Lance: Yeah, actually it’s a fairly easy answer for that one because it is one of the main theological foundations that affects everything. And that is basically our union with Christ. We hit that the very first week, and it’s woven all the way through. So, understanding union with Christ is critical for ministry and life all together.

It changes everything. It really is the difference between grace and works. And it’s what God has accomplished in Jesus Christ. He has brought us into relationship with Him in a very intimate way in the Spirit. So, I’ll use this analogy, and it’s just an analogy. Sometimes they can get you in trouble, right?

But I don’t use this in my class, but it’s a way of talking about this aspect of union in Christ. Because what it does is it opens up the understanding of participation and that’s how we engage in ministry. And that’s how we engage in Kingdom Living. It’s a life of participation. But in order to participate, there has to be something to participate in.

And that is our union in Christ. So, this is my analogy. Just don’t let it go too far. It breaks down. But I like to look at union in Christ like this. It’s God has come down in Christ and given us a big hug. I know that’s kind of syrupy, but He’s given us a hug. And I use the word hug, H U G, to stand for holy union with God.

So that’s what He’s done in Christ. He has embraced His creation. He’s embraced us all in this holy union with God. Okay, so that’s one aspect of it. That’s the union, right? But it’s a relational union, which is why I like the picture of a hug. We are to respond to His embrace. There’s a response; it calls us to respond to it.

So, if somebody gives you a hug, what is the fitting response? It’s to hug back. So that’s the response. We embrace His embrace. So that’s what I would call participation. We’re not doing something new or different. We’re actually participating in what He’s giving us. So, we embrace back. We return the hug, which means something, right?

If you ever hug somebody, you have to actually conform to their shape. You can’t just hug in any old way. You hug according to how they are, who they are, right? So, there is a specificity in our response. It’s got to fit who He is.

For example, if you’ve ever hugged somebody who didn’t want to be hugged, have you ever done that? It’s a really awkward moment, right? Maybe they fold their arms, and you hug them and they’re just stiff in your arms. That’s a really awkward hug. And that’s a picture, I think, of what it means to be an unbeliever. It is to think that God doesn’t love us, that He doesn’t embrace us. Maybe we picture God is standing there with His arms folded, scowling at us, doesn’t want anything to do with us.

But in Jesus, what we actually come to see — and this is why Jesus, one of the reasons Jesus came, was to give us a revelation. He came to help us see, no, this Father actually loves you, and His arms are wide open for you. He has embraced you, so you can hug back. But what we do, instead, when we don’t see that full revelation, is we fold our arms.

And we don’t embrace, we don’t participate. And that’s actually a picture of hell, if you really want to get into that topic. That’s a good illustration for it. You’re actually refusing the grace that God gives you. And that makes it very awkward. And it’s not like the Father is going to say I’m not going to hug you anymore; I’m done with you. No, He’s always going to hug us.

And if we want to resist for all eternity and stand there with our arms folded and stiff, then that’s going to be hell for us for all eternity. So that analogy of union with Christ, like I said, I don’t really use that in my class. Maybe I will.

But I think it does apply when we’re talking about ministry or anything that we’re participating in what He’s doing. But that means it has a shape; it has a direction. We can’t just do anything we want, and say, oh, I’m participating in ministry. No, because it’s His ministry. It’s His hug, if you will.

And it’s got to conform to Him. It’s got to be fitting, if that makes sense. So that would be the main takeaway that kind of runs throughout the course. Because the last assignment in the course is the paper where the students are to work through these aspects of ministry, work through worship, discipleship, and fellowship and so on, and articulate a philosophy of ministry.

That takes into account these theological foundations and a primary one that I look for if students are listening. I want to make sure they understand what union in Christ means and how that affects all five of those areas of ministry and how you’re going about it. Because if you go into ministry without understanding that you’re in union with Christ, ministry is going to be a burden, it’s going to be fearful, and it’s going to chew you up, especially for pastors. Pastors can really get chewed up in ministry if they think they’re doing something for God and not participating with God. Huge difference. And it does have a huge effect on the experience of pastoring or doing any kind of ministry, really, if we see it that way.

So that, I would say that’s the major takeaway. The number one thing I hope students get, if they don’t get anything else, is to understand that aspect, that they’re in union with God. And therefore, it’s all about participating in what He’s doing.

[00:28:45] Cara: Yes, and as you talk about this course, and that key takeaway, that you want to make sure students get from the class, it’s really clear to me that our theological understanding of ministry does impact our practice in ministry.

[00:29:08] Lance: Yeah, that gets right to the relevant aspect of it, especially for those who are engaged in ministry or consider themselves ministry leaders. Like I just mentioned, ministry can really chew you up if we don’t understand whose ministry, it is and who we are participating in.

Yeah, when we talk about healthy leaders, healthy church rhythms one implication to make that practical is we really have to define what we mean by healthy, right? And the only way to do that is, again, to know the reality. So again, there’s nothing more relevant than reality.

Being a church leader, being a pastor or even just understanding what the church is, who the church belongs to, all those kinds of things will determine what we mean by healthy. I’ll just tell you this experience. When I got my doctorate, I did my dissertation on healthy church.

And what I wanted to do was, similar to this class, I wanted to find the foundations of it. So, what do we mean when we say healthy church? What does that mean? What are we actually measuring, right? So, I went through this grueling process of studying, and I’ve read every book I can find on healthy church.

There’s lots of them, and what I discovered a lot of times is a lot of the material written on Healthy Church really is just church growth material repackaged as healthy church approaches. So, we talk about being healthy, but when you really get into some of the material out there, what you’re really finding is church growth measured by numbers.

And that’s not bad; of course, yeah, we want our churches to grow numerically. However, that’s not the best way of measuring growth to determine health because for example, you can have some cults, some pretty odd types of churches, if you will, that are growing exponentially. But I wouldn’t say that’s healthy, right?

Because that’s not what the church is. And you can think of other examples of that. Cancer, for example, grows, but it’s not healthy growth. So, you really have to define what it is that we’re talking about to understand what growth really looks like. And so what we’re talking about is relationship with the Lord.

So, what is growth in that term? How do we measure that kind of growth? And we would measure it with faithfulness. It’s being faithful. In other words, we trust this Lord that we belong to. And the more we come to know Him, the more our trust in Him will grow. That’s probably a better way of measuring health. Are we growing to know the Lord, right? Are we growing in our faith? Are we growing to trust Him?

It’s funny, as I went through this long process of writing this dissertation and studying in all these books and all these different authors and looking at all these different case studies and trying to figure out what it is that healthy church really is and what is the practical implication of it, and in the end, I just laughed. I was like I’ve gone through all this work, read all these books, and written hundreds of pages, and in the end the takeaway I got was this: prayer and study. That was it. You got to be kidding me. All this — I didn’t need to write a dissertation to come to that conclusion, right?

Seemed like that’s something I should already know. But it was really that simple. It really was, because prayer and study really is a direct participation in the life of Father, Son, and Spirit. That is how we humbly come before Him and receive the life He has for us. And that was actually really eye-opening for me to see that it’s really that simple.

And we just tend to complicate it like crazy in the church when we start getting into ministry and trying to be effective and efficient and successful. And what happens in our culture, terminology, and concepts, and ideas infiltrate what we’re doing, and we forget that health is determined by our relationship in Christ. It’s not measured by other secular measurements.

It doesn’t mean there aren’t other things that obviously are part of the church, but the primary, the center, the focus is that — especially when it comes to healthy leader — we were talking about the five areas that I divide the class up in.

I actually have a section where I talk about what does it look like to be a healthy leader, or say a pastor, to be more specific. And I use each of those things. For example, the first one on worship: a healthy leader is first and primary a worshipper of the Lord. That’s what it means to be a healthy leader, is to be a worshipper.

And the opposite of being a worshipper of the Lord is called idolatry. And idolatry leads to bondage, whereas Christ-centered worship, leads to freedom. And I’ve heard, I don’t remember who said this, but someone said that he has found that pastors are some of the most free people he’s ever met, but they can also be some of the most bound people, if you will, in bondage.

So, it depends on your orientation, who you’re worshiping. And then as a disciple, a healthy leader is a disciple, right? There’s always so much talk about leadership, and there’s we talk about leadership in the class a lot. And I think sometimes we get confused because leadership, typically in worldly terms, is being top dog and everybody follows me and does it my way. But that’s actually not the picture we get of Jesus as a leader.

Essentially, you don’t really — as you go through the Gospels, you’re not really being told that Jesus was a great leader. He was actually a great follower. Everything He does is following the Father. He only does what the Spirit leads Him to do. And sometimes we’ll say, “Oh, how do you know you’re a good leader? Look behind you and see who’s following.”

And I say there’s some truth to that, but it doesn’t really hold up to how Jesus led, right? Because when He went to the cross, first, He didn’t look behind Him. He set His face to the cross and He went forward. But had He looked behind Him, He would have found that nobody was following.

So, does that mean Jesus was not a good leader? No, He was a great follower. He was following the Father, doing His will. And in doing that — yes, I’m using words here, semantics but — in doing that, yes, He was a leader but challenged people’s understanding. And when we talk about leadership, we’re really talking about following.

And maybe here’s another quick analogy to illustrate this, and it falls apart pretty quick too. But in Christian circles, in ministry, I say especially for a pastor, you can’t be a good leader without being a good follower. It’s like these — I don’t know, there’s probably a term for this — but have you ever been in a big dance?

This happens at camp dances at times. Somebody will start a line, right? And you put your hands on the shoulders of the person in front of you, and somebody puts their hands on your shoulders, and this line forms, and the line worms around the dance floor. You ever done that?

I think that’s fairly decent picture of what I’m talking about. So, whoever starts the line, I guess you can say that would be Jesus Christ, and we’re just following Him. But somewhere in that line, when you’re a leader, you’re only an effective leader, as long as you’re following the person in front of you, right?

Long as you keep your hands on that person and follow in step, then the person behind you can follow the lead. But are you really being a leader or are you being a follower? The best leaders are good followers. That analogy does break down at some point, but it’s a picture of understanding leadership as a disciple.

First and foremost, we’re disciples. That’s what it is. Because if we start thinking we’re leaders in the sense that I’ve got to get people to point A to point B, that’s going to crush you. It’s going to wear you out. Whereas, again, look at Jesus, He goes to the cross, nobody’s following Him, but He goes for the joy put before Him.

He doesn’t get to the end, “Man, I didn’t get anybody to follow me. I’m a failure.” No, not at all. He’s following the Father wherever that leads.

I think that gives a lot of freedom for pastors who may feel like their ministry was a failure, or they’re not good leaders. Again, how do we measure that? Faithfulness. You’re faithful to the one you’re serving, and the one you’re following. And that’s the third thing I would talk about is healthy leaders are servants.

That’s what ministry is, serving. However, it can’t be self-serving. That’s sometimes what actually happens where self-serving leaders do things that, in the end, serve ourselves, and that leads to bondage. But we’re serving Christ that leads to freedom.

And that’s one of the things that comes up in one of the books we have in the class that was really an eye-opener for me. And that was understanding that when we do ministry, when we’re serving, we’re not actually serving our communities, our churches, our supervisors. We’re actually serving the Father. We do ministry through the Father.

I never thought about it that way. I always think, don’t we serve, don’t we minister to the world? No, not directly. We minister to the Father. This is what we see Jesus doing. He actually is ministering to the Father for the sake of the world.

So, there’s a difference there. So, for pastors and church leaders to understand that our service is to God. First and foremost, that’s our service. And then, because of that, as a result of that, there’s a benefit to the world. So yeah, we can say we serve our communities, and we know what we mean by that.

But just to help understand, there’s a freedom in knowing that what we’re doing. And our service is primarily to the Father. So, what that does is it frees us up to follow what God is leading us to do. And it protects us from the bondage of basically being enslaved by our community or even our church members.

If we think we’re serving them directly, then we’re going to need their support, their praise. We need to know they’re following us. But if our service is to the Father, for the sake of the world, then we just serve Him. And we don’t have to fret about people not liking our service, if that makes sense. Because sometimes serving God means sharing things that people don’t want to hear.

There are passages that our culture doesn’t want to hear these days. But if you’re really going to do ministry and be faithful to God’s word, you’re going to have to share those aspects of Kingdom Living may lead to some crucifixion, if you will, because people don’t want to hear it.

But you don’t have to worry about that. If people reject what you’re saying, that’s okay because you’re not actually serving them, if that makes sense. It’s confusing because you are serving them, but you’re serving the Father by doing His will. And that is actually the greatest service you can render to the world.

But then the last thing you have for healthy leaders, I’d encourage them to understand you’re a person. You are a person. So, individualism can lead to bondage. If we’re leading from an individualism type of thinking, that’s going to lead to bondage. But person or people in a relationship — that’s what it means to be a person. You’re in relationship.

So, leadership is always going to be in relationship primarily to God, to Jesus Christ. And then that will flow out into our relationships with others.

And the last one — I actually used a whole book for this because I think it’s a great perspective. It’s The Steward Leader by Scott Rodin. Healthy leaders are stewards. They’re stewards, meaning they’re not owners. They don’t see their churches as their churches. It’s the church, it belongs to Christ. Their ministries aren’t their ministries. It’s Christ’s ministry. And so on.

They’re just called to be stewards. And that really helps us think through some of these issues. And, again, it feeds into the understanding of we’re participating. This is not our show. It’s not what we’re doing. It’s what the Father’s doing. It’s His ministry. Jesus is the head of the church; we are not.

And that really frees us up. It makes ministry actually a lot of fun because we don’t have to worry about the results. God gets the results. He just calls us along to participate. And it’s a lot of fun. I think about the disciples following Jesus. They probably had a lot of fun along the way.

They got to see some pretty amazing things that Jesus did. The disciples did not turn water into wine. Jesus did, but they got to be part of that. That’s pretty cool. And ministries are a lot that way.

When I was a pastor, there were things that happened that I did not expect. Responses and certain things that happened that I didn’t do that. I know I didn’t do that. That was pretty amazing. That’s when ministry is a lot of fun, when you hold on to it loosely, and you just participate, and you see what God does. He does some amazing things. But where it gets scary is when we think we’ve got to produce the results. We got to do something amazing.

We got to get this person to respond in this way, or we got to get this end result. Then you just start beating yourself up when you don’t get those end results, but when we can relax and just faithfully serve Him, and then see what He does with it, ministry can be a blast. It really can be.

And there’s a lot of freedom in it. And I really try to help students see that. Because I was a pastor for a while, and I’ve seen pastors get chewed up in ministry. And really, it’s because of not seeing who God is and our relationship to Him. So, it makes a huge difference, especially for church leaders.

So that’s another long answer to your question.

[00:45:00] Cara: Lance, thank you so much for sharing. And I think as you share, it has become really clear that the foundations and especially the theological foundations of ministry have really significant implications to our practice of ministry and how we grow and develop as healthy leaders.

And so, I want to encourage our listeners and our leaders to look into this course, to talk with your leadership team, to talk with your supervisor and consider if, and when an appropriate time would be for you to take or even audit this class. Because it sounds like this is a course that is relevant to any of our ministry leaders in GCI.

So again, thank you so much, Lance, for giving us a lot to think about, a lot to meditate on and for teaching this class. We really appreciate all that you have to offer because of all that God has given to you.

And as is our practice with GC Podcast, I’d like to end our show with the word of prayer. And so, would you be willing to pray for our churches, our pastors, and our ministry leaders in GCI?

[00:46:29] Lance: Yes, love to. Thank you very much. Now let’s pray together.

Our heavenly Father, Lord, thank you so much for this opportunity to explore a little more of who You are and the difference that makes in knowing You and participating with You.

Lord, we thank You for Your word to us, that You’re always speaking to us, calling us to Yourself. And today we think specifically of pastors and leaders in ministry, those who are actively serving You in the church. And we thank you for the great privilege that is and the opportunity that it gives to grow in knowing You a little more.

And as we grow to know You more, we do grow in faith. We grow to trust You because You are trustworthy. And so, I just want to ask a blessing on our pastors, specifically church leaders in our churches who maybe are struggling, who are feeling the weight and burden that we place on ourselves in ministry and ask that You can free them. Help them see You in a new light, to see You for who You actually are, and where there can be a freedom, a lightness that comes, that light yoke that You give us that comes in knowing You.

So, Lord, we just ask that blessing on them, and we thank You for being a blessing. God, You bless us, and You call us into ministry not to burden us and not that You need us but because You love us, and You want us to enjoy the life You’ve given us to share in. And there’s so many opportunities in ministry to participate in the life of Your Son that You sent to us. So, Lord, we thank You, and we love You for all the amazing things You’ve done for us, and for who You are. And we just pray all this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

[00:48:18] Cara: Amen. Well friends, that’s all we have for today. So, until next time, keep on living and sharing the gospel.

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Thanks for listening to the GC Podcast. We hope this episode inspired and equipped you to lead with health and purpose. We would love to hear from you. If you have a suggestion on a topic or if there’s someone who you think we should interview, please email us at info@gci.org.

Cathy Deddo—Year C Transfiguration, Easter Prep 1–4

Welcome to the Gospel Reverb podcast. Gospel Reverb is an audio gathering for preachers, teachers, and Bible thrill seekers. Each month, our host, Anthony Mullins, will interview a new guest to gain insights and preaching nuggets mined from select passages of Scripture in that month’s Revised Common Lectionary.

The podcast’s passion is to proclaim and boast in Jesus Christ, the one who reveals the heart of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And now onto the episode.

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Anthony: Hello, friends, and welcome to the latest episode of Gospel Reverb. Gospel Reverb is a podcast devoted to bringing you insights from Scripture, found in the Revised Common Lectionary, and sharing commentary from a Christ centered and Trinitarian view.

I’m your host Anthony Mullins, and it’s my delight to welcome our guest, Cathy Deddo. Cathy is a Bible teacher speaker and retreat leader. In the past, she has worked on campus staff at InterVarsity Christian Fellowship teaching students at Virginia University and Claremont Colleges in California. She is the author of The Letter of James, a Bible study commentary and guide, and she earned a master’s degree in theology from Fuller Theological Seminary.

Cathy, thanks for being with us and welcome to the podcast. And since this is your first time on the pod, we’d like to get to know you a little bit, your story, your backstory, and how you’re participating with the Lord these days.

[00:01:31] Cathy: Okay. Well, you gave some good information about my life in the past. I guess the best thing to say is that my husband, Gary, and I have made a big change in our lives in the last two years.

We moved from Illinois, which was our home for 23 years, and came out here to Pennsylvania to live near two of our daughters and their families. And I was doing a lot of Bible studies. I was doing some online Bible studies for Grace Communion International and others.

But actually, I took a job at a school. it’s a collaborative school that meets two times a week, and then they have homeschool assignments for the other three. And I’ve been working there for the last two years and this year I am creating and teaching a survey of the Old Testament for the middle schoolers. So that’s a big shift for me to be now ministering primarily with children instead of adults.

The other big part of my life is being a grandmother. I have six grandkids here in the area and then we’re waiting for our seventh here, but our tenth overall to come in a couple of months. My youngest daughter is having her second child and that has just been the greatest joy of my life. So having a chance to pour into our grandkids is a great privilege.

[00:03:12] Anthony: Do you have a favorite grandchild? Nope.

[00:03:18] Cathy: No. They’re so unique. When you’re with the one you’re with, they’re your favorite. But then when you’re with the next one, they are. Because they’re all just incredibly unique and such a sign of God’s grace in this world that He keeps bringing new life into this broken world. It’s really amazing.

[00:03:42] Anthony: It is amazing, and I only have one grandchild. And so, she is my favorite. It’s easy to say that.

[00:03:50] Cathy: Yeah, that’s right, just don’t say it to her.

[00:03:54] Anthony: That’s right. Well, we have the challenge, Cathy, of trying to get through five this month. So, we’re going to get right into it. And I’m anxious to hear what the Lord has to say.

So here we go. Our first pericope of the month is 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2. I’ll be reading from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for Transfiguration Sunday on March 2.

Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with complete frankness, ¹³ not like Moses, who put a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that was being set aside. ¹⁴ But their minds were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, the same veil is still there; it is not unveiled since in Christ it is set aside. ¹⁵ Indeed, to this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds, ¹⁶ but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. ¹⁷ Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ¹⁸ And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. 4 Therefore, since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart. ² We have renounced the shameful, underhanded ways; we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God.

Cathy, Paul writes about having quote unquote, such a hope, which leads to complete frankness. Help us understand what Paul is saying here.

[00:05:55] Cathy: I will try. So basically, what is the hope we have that leads to being bold or frank? That is being open and confident in the gospel. This is really the approach I took here.

So, from what I can gather in studying the letters to the Corinthian Christians, some in the church, and maybe many, are struggling with suffering, which is tempting them to kind of shrink back, especially suffering that stems from being followers of Jesus. Corinth, as you probably know, is a very pagan and promiscuous city, very prosperous, at least for some. And a lot of people were offended by the gospel message, and they rejected it.

Many wanted to listen to messages involving meaningless speculations. Most wanted to have reaffirmed to them what they already believed and practiced.

There may have been a hope that being a follower of Jesus would also involve less trials, less difficulty in life in general. But those who became worshippers of the true Creator and Redeemer God found themselves actually outcasts of much of the Corinthian culture, society, business. And [they] were regularly treated unfairly, were being persecuted. Maybe today we’d say they were marginalized.

In addition, part of what Paul is dealing with is that there were false teachers creeping into the church, and they were offering a more attractive message, one that promised to make them more powerful, respectable, or maybe to suffer less. And these false teachers used underhanded or manipulative methods to gain a following, which he’s sort of alluding to at the end of the passage. They offered ideologies or easy practices that sounded like what people might want to hear.

So, all these problems tempted the Christians to be less confident or bold in living out of their relationship with Christ. And the fact that they were tempted in this way is telling Paul something. Their problem is they don’t fully understand or remember the wonderful, life transforming work of God’s love that Jesus accomplished for them. They don’t grasp the hope they have in Christ.

The easy, agreeable, and pleasing messages of the false teachers are tempting the believers to misplace their hope. Well, maybe you could say, to connect it to the passage some more, that puts a veil over their hearts. Because they’re placing it in formulas for success and security, pathways to respectability in society here and now, rather than the radical and all-encompassing eternal hope that God has for us in Jesus.

They were tempted to trade in their true hope for a new heaven and earth where all things will be finally made right and new. And I would say that this then was leading them to be distracted each day in their lives now from receiving and living in a share of the real life — God’s kind of life that he was offering them.

So one of the places that Paul is speaking about this greater amazing hope that begins this passage is just a few verses after this passage in 4:17. He speaks of the painful trials he has been going through as slight and momentary compared to the eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison that is being prepared for him and for us as well.

He spoke of these trials at the beginning of the letter. You’re familiar with the beginning of it. He said there that these trials were so severe that he and his companions were despairing of life itself. But here he proclaims that the living God will bring good out of his suffering and ours in such a way that we can look at our trials, no matter how big or small they are, as slight and momentary.

As Paul has spoken of his ministry and his sufferings so far in this letter up to this point, he does so to remind them of the absolute surpassing worth of the gospel that he had already preached to them, and they had received. And so now he says, Since then, we have such a hope, we act with complete frankness, or as this is translated in the ESV, we are very bold.

This word means confidence, not being ashamed. And later in the passage that you just read, in verse 1 of chapter 4, Paul says, because this is our ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. We do not become weary or saint. The life lived in Jesus is one of confidence and freedom in him and not becoming weary.

How can that be? Because it seems to me that we often do become weary, and we become tempted to hedge on proclaiming the whole gospel and forget its goodness and hope of glory that is ours in Christ. How do we live in this hope? Paul speaks here of living with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord.

We are to continually look away from ourselves to Jesus. We are to take real time to focus again and again on him, to hear from him and his Word, to pray as Paul speaks in other places, continually. And I think that when we shrink back or grow weary, it’s because, honestly, we’ve dropped our focus away from the living, present Jesus.

And we begin looking at ourselves, our lives, our ministries, our circumstances, which veils our vision, veils our heart. We cannot see them rightly, these various things we’re dealing with right now, except through him, as we anticipate his involvement, his oversight, his presence and purpose being worked out in them to his glory and to our good.

We can become tempted to evaluate Jesus’ presence and work in our lives through the lens of our feelings or circumstances. And I think this is part of what is going on for them. We can become tempted to add to the gospel other keys or principles or formulas that we can depend on out of fear rather than living in the growing and deepening relationship that he wants to give us because we wonder if that’s going to be sufficient for us in this broken world.

Yeah, we need Jesus. But we start thinking that we need Jesus plus, plus counting on something else that we start to regard as essential. But he’s basically saying, when we do this, we have trouble seeing Jesus for who he really is. When we are seeing him through our own lens of our issues and our situation, we kind of lose track of who Jesus is.

We need to turn it around and behold him. And then through looking at him, we can look at our lives. This is what can help us continue to be bold and confident in the whole gospel, in this hope. Paul is correcting that false and underlining view of the sufficiency of Christ. He’s indicating that what is central and essential in our lives is beholding Jesus.

Beholding is a continuing action here. It’s not something we do once. We turn again and again to Jesus, coming again under his good and life giving rule and reign, being arrested again by our vision and understanding of who he is, so that we can freely and joyfully, with frankness, live according to his will and ways, without compromise.

Our confidence is never in ourselves, our doctrines, our relationships, even our understanding. We cannot be self-sufficient or self-justifying. It makes us blind. The living God through Jesus Christ and by the Holy Spirit is the source and measure of all life, all goodness, all truth, all beauty. This is true for all of us.

So, we live out of our trust of and hope in all of who this Jesus is. The same yesterday today and tomorrow. That’s their hope. That’s the hope that enables us to be bold. And here is the really wonderful point. I love this. God will transform us as we fix our eyes on Jesus, not on ourselves. As we see and know him, as he is made known in scripture, we are led to repent and turn to him again.

Every time he helps us to see our trust has drifted to other things rather than himself. I think we know that we can’t transform ourselves. I haven’t succeeded so far. Paul does not transform himself. Paul knows this, and he lives by that reality in Christ. And this is why, at the beginning of the letter, he can praise the God of comfort, even in his deepest sufferings.

This is why he can rejoice in that glory that awaits him, and all those who put their trust in him, and even the whole creation. This is why he speaks boldly. And this is why we can.

[00:15:46] Anthony: You know, even though 2 Corinthians 3 wasn’t written to us, it certainly, I think we can rightly say, was written for us.

If the people of Corinth were distracted, oh my, we are distracted people. We are deluged by information every day, more than we know what to do with. And so, it is so easy to become distracted. And this is one of the reasons why the repeated coming to Scripture is so important. Because when we come to Scripture, we once again get glimpses, revelation about the triune God.

And we do this by the Spirit. And so, I’m going to ask you and invite you, Cathy, to share with us, what does this passage tell us about the God revealed in Jesus Christ?

[00:16:33] Cathy: Well, I think the most amazing thing that it tells me is that he desires a face to face, deeply personal communion. I don’t think I’ve ever stopped being amazed by that.

He wants us, he wants relationship with us, and he has done everything necessary to woo us and to grow us up in him. And he is glorified, not when we try to do stuff for him all the time, but when we trust him to transform us and to enable us to share in his glory. I just can’t get over him being a God like that.

He does not shame us, but he seeks to lift us up to share in his own life. That is the heart of who he is.

[00:17:21] Anthony: Hallelujah. Praise God.

Well, we need to move on to our second passage of the month. It is Romans 10:8b-13. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for the first Sunday of Easter Prep (Lent) on March 9. Cathy, would you read it for us, please?

[00:17:42] Cathy: Sure.

But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim), ⁹ because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For one believes with the heart, leading to righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, leading to salvation. ¹¹ The scripture says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” ¹² For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. ¹³ For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

[00:18:32] Anthony: Amen. If you were heralding this passage to a congregation, maybe your congregation of middle schoolers or your grandchildren, what would be the focus of the proclamation?

[00:18:43] Cathy: In looking at the whole chapter Paul is talking in this section, he’s been talking about this for the chapter, about righteousness. And what is righteousness? Well, righteousness fundamentally means right relationship. What does it mean to live in right relationship with the God who created all things?

And so, in right relationship with each other and with all of creation, what does it mean to live according to the grain of reality? To live in a way that fits with the truth about life. That’s what righteousness is all about. That’s what he’s been dealing with here.

So, at the beginning of the chapter, Paul talked about the error of believing that righteousness is attained by our own efforts to be righteous. In other words, trusting that if I work hard enough or in certain ways, I can, quote, make the grade, so to speak. I will have done enough to keep God happy or to gain a righteous reputation, whatever it is I’m looking for.

In this section that I’m at, the beginning of the chapter, he’s referring primarily to those who were seeking passionately to become righteous by following the law of Moses. But the truth is we can all be tempted at times to rely on our own efforts to show God or others how righteous we are. And this effort can come out in a variety of ways.

Paul is telling us here that Jesus is the one and only Lord of all. So, living in right relationship with God simply must be shaped by this reality — by who he really is. And who we really are in light of him. So, in verse 9, he says, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord. And believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” He reasons in the next verse that this is so because one believes with the heart leading to righteousness and one confesses with the mouth leading to salvation.

So, I would basically want [our] focus right here to be righteous. To live in right relationship with the God, who created us and redeemed us for himself, is to acknowledge that Jesus is our Lord and God. And to acknowledge it with our whole being. He is the one who rightly has total authority over us. And so, we can gladly trust him.

To confess is to say with or to agree with. So, when we confess, we are affirming with conviction the truth that Jesus alone is Lord of all. Paul goes on to say exactly that in verse 12 when he talks about how there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile because the same Lord is Lord of all. And this simple phrase, “Jesus Christ is Lord,” was the first creed of the church.

So, we take some time to unpack this point he’s making here. When we affirm that Jesus’ lordship is the actual reality of all things, then we are also turning away from any and all other lords. We are denying lordship to anyone or anything else, even our own efforts to be righteous. We recognize Jesus Christ only, exclusively as Lord and God.

Don’t we live in a world full of other things that cry out to be lord? Things that tell us that we need to put our trust in them to tell us who we really are and how to live. They promise to give us identity, security, meaning, purpose, hope, but all these other potential lords are idols. Again, including our own efforts to be righteous because they’re false.

All their promises are false and will betray us if we put our trust in them. There really is only one true Lord. Paul fills out, fills out the meaning of confessing with our mouths that “Jesus is Lord,” by saying that we’re also to trust with our hearts that God raised Jesus from the dead in order to receive the salvation that God has wrought for us in Christ.

So, when Paul speaks of the heart, he’s really talking about, as I’m sure you know, our whole being, our whole selves. So, what he’s saying is, what I confess with my mouth, I want to trust with my whole being. And what we trust in with our whole being, we are outwardly confessing. We outwardly affirm to ourselves and to others who is truly Lord.

We say our amen to what is true about Jesus Christ. And in that way, we are whole or wholly surrendered to Jesus. St. Augustine said that our hearts are idol makers. We are often tempted to put something else in that place of lordship in our lives.

As I was thinking about this, I guess in some ways I would say that most of our idols, if not all, fall into two basic categories. The first one is the idol of our hopes for various things in this life, or our plans, agendas. These things can become lord, and they will lead us to put our trust in whatever we think will help us to realize those hopes.

And secondly, I think really even our fears can become our idols. They can reside in the center of our lives, so they prioritize, shape, and control our decisions, our actions, and our reactions. And as I said, the beginning of the chapter where he’s talking about trying to create your own righteousness, ultimately an idol, as we’ll see as we go on, Paul is saying that believing, receiving, acting on, and confirming the truth that Jesus is Lord means we turn away from all these other false lords.

When we seek to grow out of trust in who he is, what he has done, is doing, is continuing to do, will do, not only for us, but in the world as its Lord and Savior. And this involves a daily dying to ourselves and turning to the one who made us and knows us so much better than we know ourselves. It involves a living relationship with the one who’s Lord.

I know I’m kind of hammering on this, but I think sometimes we start thinking that really, we are trying to have our efforts in something else than continually trusting in him, turning away from other things.

Like one of the things I wanted to say, I’ve been praying for a lot of really heavy duty things recently, a lot of things happening in the world in our nation that I find very distressing. But what helps me to pray is I start each time by acknowledging this wonderful truth again that Jesus, the one who is present with me in my prayers is the Lord of all, including time and space.

So, this brings me back to Paul’s words at the beginning of the chapter on righteousness with God and others to attain by our own efforts. He says in verse 3 — this is such an interesting point to me — he says those who are seeking to establish their own righteousness did not submit to God’s righteousness. So, it’s interesting to realize that sometimes we can get so caught up in serving the Lord to make him pleased with us that we’re actually not submitting to the Lord and being led daily by him.

To trust wholeheartedly in the God of Jesus Christ is to daily seek to hear from him, to daily ask him to help us see where we’re tempted, to daily learn to love his sanctifying work in our lives. And the wonderful promise that he gives in verse 11 is that anyone who places this kind of trust in the Lord Jesus will not be put to shame.

We will not find that we were foolish to place our lives, our hearts, our minds, and all of our relationships, hopes, and fears into his hands. He is faithful, and he is true. He knows us better than we know ourselves. He is more committed to our good than we are. We can count on him, absolutely. I was thinking that this is a great passage for the beginning of Lent, because it’s a time where we really can take a look more deliberately at the different ways we are tending to trust in other things instead of Jesus, handing them over to him gladly again and placing our lives under his care.

[00:27:41] Anthony: Amen. And amen. No one who believes in him will be put to shame. Absolutely. Oh, that’s such assurance in that statement that you won’t be left standing at the altar, that he is devoted to us more than we’re devoted to ourselves. He knows us the best and loves us the most. Hallelujah. Praise God.

We’ll transition to our next pericope of the month. It’s Philippians 3:17-4:1. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for the Second Sunday of Easter Prep, Lent on March 16.

Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. ¹⁸ For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. ¹⁹ Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. ²⁰ But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. ²¹ He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself. 4 ¹ Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved. So the apostle gives his readers a warning about living as enemies of the cross of Christ.

What a trepidatious warning. In what ways should we modern readers be on guard about living as if we are enemies to Christ’s cross?

[00:29:32] Cathy: Okay. Well, Paul begins this section encouraging the Philippians to imitate him, right? That’s where this passage begins, and to pay attention to, or to focus on those who are walking or living according to the pattern of Paul’s own following after Christ himself.

The reason that he gives this is because there are so many who are living or walking as enemies of the Cross of Christ who could influence them. So, Paul is basically, at the beginning of the passage, pointing out two opposite ways of living or, in the Greek, walking in our lives. And as Christians, basically, who are we to pattern our lives after?

Well, Paul is saying on the positive side: those who are following after Christ. But he’s also taking the time in this passage to help them recognize the patterns of those who live opposed to the grace of God that has been given to us in Jesus and why doing that will never lead to light.

First point I want to make is that he is saying in this world there are competing voices, competing ways to live. It’s kind of obvious, but I don’t know if we always realize this. We do not live in a neutral space in this world. And we need to be wise by who we’re influenced by. We actually live in a world that is hostile to the grace of God. Paul says there are many who walk as enemies of the cross, who are actually opposed to God’s grace, who reject it and promote its rejection.

Here he repeats this fact with tears. He’s clearly grieved by their rejection of God. And concerned about the undermining effect these people have already had on the Philippian Christians. So, his warning is basically indicating, he says this at the end, to stand firm in Christ. And this isn’t a passive activity for Christians in the fallen world.

We live in a world where, as we’ve already talked about, there’s all kinds of voices and pressures around us that are happy to tempt us to distrust God and his good purposes for us and for all of his creation. I think this, in and of itself, is helpful for us to remember. I think that’s the first point.

Paul is using really strong and sobering language here, since he knows the danger they’re in. And it is kind of shocking, isn’t it? How can it be that some, even many, would oppose the wonderful grace of God that is offered to us in Christ? But Paul is indicating here, although it makes no sense, that there’s no good reason to regard Jesus as an enemy, yet there are those who do. And we shouldn’t be naive about this.

The result of that situation is there are many ways that we can be tempted to live contrary to the grace of God, and these temptations might come from some people that we deeply care about. In some sense, they always come from those we care about to some degree, and I think we often find ourselves sharing in Paul’s tears and the tears of Jesus over Jerusalem.

Now, it’s interesting to me that Paul says these people live as enemies of the Cross of Christ. I thought a lot about this. Isn’t the Cross of Christ where we see the very center and heart of God’s grace? It’s right there where we see what it costs to extend his grace to us, to come down and rescue us, to free us from the grasp of evil and death and our rebellion against them.

It really is the measure of our deep need. I think it is humbling and hard to look at how costly our rescue is to God. I think sometimes we really don’t know if we want grace to be so costly to him. Surely we’re not that bad, that deceived, that lost, that God himself would have to come and be rejected, and spat upon, and lied about, and mocked, and stripped, humiliated, killed in the most shameful way possible, to save us, to rescue us, to lead us to life.

How humiliating. The grace of God poured out at the Cross offends our pride. The Cross of Christ fully challenges any attempt to justify ourselves, to give ourselves life, identity, meaning, or significance. And this is why some live rejecting it as enemies of the Cross. We can be tempted at times to be ashamed of what Christ has had to do for us.

But Jesus himself rejected the shame that was aimed at him to give us eternal life. And he is not ashamed of us. That’s why turning to Christ involves true repentance. Turning away from pride, arrogance, self-sufficiency, self-centeredness to receive life from the Lord himself.

And when we are dealing with people who live as enemies of the Cross, that’s what they don’t want to do. We don’t want to have to stop justifying ourselves. They don’t want to find themselves not sufficient. In order to help these Christians who have already died to their pride and receive the extravagant grace of God, Paul expands on what walking as an enemy of the Christ looks like in verse 19, “their end is destruction, their God is the belly, and their glory is their shame; their minds are set on earthly things.” I’m just going to look at two of the phrases here. (That’s too much, obviously.) First, he says their God is the belly. The people whom Paul is warning about worship comfort and pleasure here and now. They want to go their own way; they want to avoid suffering and discipline and live in the moment.

They want to give themselves whatever pleasures they create. That is the way of those ashamed. By contrast, Paul and the Philippian Christians were suffering for their faith in Christ, as Paul has already made clear earlier in the letter. And we know there are many Christians today in the world who suffer for living under the good and reign of Christ. Some even dying for their faith.

Jesus, we recall, told his disciples that in this world we would have tribulations. And I think it’s when we’re suffering that this temptation to listen to those who are living as enemies of the Cross can be strong.

Secondly, Paul says their minds are set on earthly things. And this is already obviously connected to the worship of immediate pleasures. They’re caught up in wanting all they can have from this earthly life: security, control, lack of suffering, power, fame. Well, they are lovers of the world and what they believe it can offer them. So how do Christians stand firm in Christ when encountering these influences?

Well, Paul reminds them and us that our ultimate citizenship is in heaven. We actually don’t belong to this fallen world. We are not its possessions, and we are not its slaves. Which, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go ahead and answer your second question, because this is connected, which is to talk a little bit about having our citizenship in heaven.

Paul indicates, again, that this is not our home. We are here as ambassadors, as resident aliens, as foreigners, because we belong heart, soul, and body to the living triune God. We’re united to him, and that means that all we’re dealing with here good, evil will not be the last word about who we are, what the meaning of our lives will be, what our purpose and the final end will amount to.

Jesus Christ, our risen Lord, will have the last word about us. And hopefully that helps us to be able to take this world lightly. And going back to the looking at your sufferings as slight and momentary because we know where we really belong. We live anticipating the glorious and sure future coming of Christ.

And I love this. [Paul] says, [Jesus] will return and transform our body of humiliation to conform it to the body of his glory, which is what he kind of goes through, right? He had a body of humiliation, but it was resurrected glorious. And he shares that with us. He will do this with the same power that enables him as Lord to place all things under his feet.

We see his power in his own suffering and death and vindicating resurrection. And once again, we will not be ashamed. We will be completely vindicated in our faith and our hope in Jesus Christ, belonging to him, to walk in the pattern of the gospel, to stand firm in an often hostile world. It means to live in light of this sure and certain future, knowing that what is coming is infinitely better than any life we can try to create for ourselves here.

We can work diligently in Christ to know him and to make him known, but at the same time, we can take ourselves and our efforts lightly. Our trust is in his presence, his working, not in ourselves, not in any earthly power. He alone can make everything new, put everything right. Yes, it’s hidden right now, but it will be gloriously manifested one day.

We are not alone. We can turn again each day to fill our vision with Jesus, fill up our hope in him. We can weep over those who are rejecting his grace at this point and intercede for them. But we don’t have to be tempted to walk in their ways, which only leads to hopelessness and destruction.

[00:40:17] Anthony: And in light of what Cathy just said, we can reread chapter 4, verse 1. “Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown. Stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved. “Amen. Amen.

Let’s pivot to our next pericope of the Month. It’s 1 Corinthians 10:1-13. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for the Third Sunday of Easter Prep and Lent which is March 23. Cathy, read it for us please.

[00:40:54] Cathy:

I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, ² and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, ³ and all ate the same spiritual food, ⁴ and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. ⁵ Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness. ⁶ Now these things occurred as examples for us, so that we might not desire evil as they did. ⁷ Do not become idolaters as some of them did, as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play.” ⁸ We must not engage in sexual immorality, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. ⁹ We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents. ¹⁰ And do not complain, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. ¹¹ These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come. ¹² So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall. ¹³ No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.

[00:42:21] Anthony: Well, this month, we have two warning passages. Lucky you, Cathy, you get to deal with the warnings. So, what should we make of the warning given in this passage to the church in Corinth about the ancestors of spiritual Israel?

[00:42:38] Cathy: Take a breath. All right. So again, I think it kind of helps to consider the letter as a whole to understand this passage. What were the Corinthians dealing with and what were Paul’s concerns with them?

So we’ve talked a little bit about already Corinth, because we’ve had other passages. Let me just say again, the city was characterized as a self-sufficient and self-congratulatory culture, obsessed with peer group prestige and success and competition. One of the funny things about them is they prized a good rhetoric, which they actually defined as being able to be persuasive more than being truthful — kind of reminds me of today.

The church itself was quite diverse and included Jews and Greeks, wealthy and poor, masters and slaves. The tendency to boast in one’s status, wealth, pervasive powers, plagued the young church coming in from the society as a whole. And this is obvious when you read the whole letter.

Overall, they were a gifted congregation, but the temptation to trust in their own wisdom and strength of character was a strong one for some of them. So, from Paul’s words over the whole letter, it would seem that some of them at least were tempted to trust in their knowledge about Christ rather than in Christ himself.

This led to a misunderstanding and misuse of their freedom in Christ. They thought that their knowledge about Jesus and his work in their lives led to a freedom to accommodate the culture in ways that didn’t conform to life in Christ. For instance, some boasted in their supposed liberty to eat foods offered to idols as sacrifices at the pagan festivals.

So, you could say they had their doctrine down, but they would then turn and live as they saw fit. Because they were proud of having their doctrine down, Paul had taught at length in the preceding passages that to live in the freedom of Christ is to live in the ongoing relationship with the living Lord, trusting only and only in him, receiving always from him. And then only on that basis, helping others do the same.

He warns against misusing and abusing their freedom since that route would only lead them back into the slavery of sinful ways of thinking and acting. So, then looking at the passage itself, Paul is holding up as an example or a type for the Corinthians and for us, what happened to the generation of Israelites who did not get to enter the promised land but died in the wilderness.

He is warning here that they, as the Church, were not to desire evil as the Israelites did or be idolaters as they were or to grumble as they did. They were not to put Jesus to the test as those Israelites had put God to the test.

Okay, well, what does all that mean? That’s what we’re asking. Well, before these four admonitions, Paul talks in the first five verses about the Israelites all sharing in the reality of God’s presence and working in their lives. They had all passed through the same cloud and the same sea. They had all partaken of the same spiritual bread and drink that sustained them through their wilderness experience. And he further explains that the ultimate source of their sustenance was Christ himself.

So, however we understand exactly what he’s referring to here, I’m not going to go into that. The point Paul is making is that they were all led by the same reality. They all passed through a kind of baptism to live to the God who faithfully and fully provided for them. But despite God’s faithfulness in various ways, they chose not to live in ways that counted on and corresponded to the living reality of God’s provision and guidance that he was providing for them.

In other words, they decided to live as if God really wasn’t who he said he was, and as if he really wasn’t providing for them the way that he was. And this is the temptation that Paul is warning the Corinthians again. They have Christ, but some are tempted not to live fully on the basis of his real living presence and work each day.

Some were not submitting to his guidance, continually turning to hear his word to them and act on his faithfulness. Instead, they were tempted to trust in their doctrines of Christ or their wisdom about spiritual things rather than Christ himself. Their competence was in their sophisticated knowledge or their ideas about Christ.

And sometimes I think they were really regarding him more as a principle or an abstract power or an impersonal and universal force they could tap into. And thinking about him this way justified their continuing to be more concerned about their reputations, their success, or their status in their culture.

When they were tempted to trust in their wisdom about Christ or their principles, they were in danger of actually moving away from Christ of becoming like the Israelites, having idols, grumbling, putting God to the test. What they were really starting to do is trust in themselves. Christ himself, his active will and way, is the reality they were to conform to in a daily living worship relationship of prayer and trusting obedience to his word.

Paul is saying this is the only way to true freedom and joy that he offers us. So, it seems that what Paul has been saying is that one is only free when they are fully compelled to live in Christ, under Christ, and in trusting, fellowship, and communion with him. By trusting in something else other than the present living out of Christ every day, they were in danger of being enslaved by their own desires for good reputation They need to make good impressions on others to be influential and successful in the eyes of others. That’s the strange thing — trusting in things about Christ leads us away from Christ We are to have all our strings attached to Jesus.

We are under him alone. And in all ways, we are not living in real freedom when we live apart from him, but only when we are living in and under him, when we are free from all these idols, including ourselves. No other authority will lead to real freedom.

[00:49:27] Anthony: Well, Cathy, I want to read verse 13 again, because I’m going to ask for your exegetical commentary on it. And it says, “No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength. But with the testing, he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.”

It seems to me there’s assurance there; there’s hope there. There’s a chance to exhale because a lot of people are going through heavy things. What say you?

[00:50:02] Cathy: Yeah, this is actually a very interesting verse, and it would take a lot longer than we have to unpack it totally, but I certainly like to give a stab at it. So, we live in a world where we encounter constant temptations, right?

We’ve been talking about this all the way through, to stop counting on Christ’s real presence and work in our lives and in our fallen world. We may be having issues from external circumstances, like you were just mentioning, like sickness, accident, persecution, and we usually refer to these things kind of more as trials.

But we can also be having issues more internally, as desires to commit sinful thoughts or actions, and we usually call these temptations. Paul is really talking, I would say here, about both avenues. But it’s best to translate this probably temptations, because he is most concerned about the common danger of both, of all of this, which is to distrust God and instead start placing our trust in other forces, powers, or even trusting in ourselves, because life is hurting right now.

Well, this was the same for the Corinthian Christians. The temptation to secure their reputations or to be secure and safe, as I said, suffer less, would be coming at them from their surrounding society, from the people they were dealing with every day, maybe even from family members. But such temptations can play on our own strong internal desires and fears both, right?

We have what’s going on outside, kind of how we’re responding to it. It was these kinds of temptations that played on the Corinthians confidence in themselves so that some of them were putting themselves in compromising situations, such as participating in pagan festivals, that’s the immediate context.

And paradoxically, it would seem that there were some in the church. Who also wanted to justify their succumbing to substance abuse temptations by claiming it was such an unusually strong temptation and no one else had ever faced anything like this before. How do we deal with this? Paul’s addressing basically, I would say kind of three things.

One is we will encounter temptations and trials in life, and they will oftentimes tempt us to stop trusting God. One of those temptations is to so trust in ourselves that we pridefully place ourselves in compromising situations. And then three, the temptation to attempt to justify why we couldn’t resist a sin and fall into the temptation.

So, what is Paul’s answer to these three facts that the Corinthians and we and all persons face? Well, Paul’s first point here is to disabuse ourselves of the belief that we are alone in any of the temptations we face. We all struggle at times to trust God in the middle of whatever we’re dealing with. I think that is the crux of the Christian life in this fallen world.

But he’s saying, God is faithful. And he is available and with us, even as we face trials and temptations. All the temptations out there are common to humanity. They’re not unique to us. We are not having greater temptations than people did years ago. Our particular time is not different, and none of it is a surprise to God.

God is never calm, certainly at their root. All the temptations, as I’ve said, is to not trust that God is here. That he loves us, and he is working this out for our good.

[00:54:02] Anthony: Hallelujah. Praise God.

[00:54:04] Cathy: He will be faithful to redeem it, and to deliver us. I’m sorry.

[00:54:09] Anthony: Nothing to apologize for.

[00:54:11] Cathy: And isn’t that what he says?

God is faithful. There is never a time where God will not act according to his character and purposes. It’s just not going to happen. He reassures them that God will not allow the temptation or trial to be so strong that they cannot escape because he will provide a way out. That doesn’t mean they have to find it — they’re not in an escape room.

In other words, when you’re being tempted, where is God? The answer is right here. Right here. He never left. You are not on your own with God watching from a distance to see how you will do. He is acting. He is available by his word and Holy Spirit. So, as we face whatever temptations and trials we’re in, we can take his living presence seriously.

We can look away from the temptation to God, trust he has a way out, look to see what he is providing because he’s sufficient. I didn’t think I’d get through this whole thing without crying, but there we go. Yeah.

[00:55:14] Anthony: I as you were talking and thinking through this, my mind went to 1 John where we’re assured that God is love. Not that he has love, like this is one of his tools in the toolbox. His very essence, nature, and substances is love. He is love and God can only do who he is. He cannot act out of character else he would be a liar, and he is not a liar.

[00:55:44] Cathy: No, he’s not a liar. We’ve been going through our own trials, and I’ve been realizing again and again, no trial is visited on us except by the God who loves us.

We are his love. He is making us more able to receive it. We can trust him no matter what it is we’re going through. Doesn’t mean it’s easy. It’s kind of a wrestling, but that’s what it is.

[00:56:11] Anthony: And it’s interesting to me because as we transition into the homestretch and our final passage of the month. I was going to ask you to make the text personal, but you’ve already done that for us.

I’ll still ask you to do it again. But that’s, I think, a word for all of us. That’s when there’s congruency with what the text is telling us, with what’s going on in our lives. And we keep coming back, as you said repeatedly through this podcast, that if we just continue to trust, to trust in the one who is looking at us, who is with us, it makes all the difference. He is not only making a way, but he is the way, he’s the way out, the rescuer and deliver.

Our final passage of the month is 2 Corinthians 5:16-21. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for the Fourth Sunday of Easter Prep / Lent on March 30.

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we no longer know him in that way. ¹⁷ So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being! ¹⁸ All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; ¹⁹ that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. ²⁰ So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God. ²¹ For our sake God made the one who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

This passage … wow!

[00:58:26] Cathy: Yeah!

[00:58:28] Anthony: It is something! I wish we could have spent the entire hour here, but it’s all been good. It’s all gospel but tell us about the gospel contained within. Well, tell us about this ministry of reconciliation.

[00:58:39] Cathy: I will confess that this passage was the one I ended up spending the most time on and rewriting and rethinking about really more than the others. Yes, there’s too much here to have time for.

Let’s just start by going over what exactly this reconciliation is in order to talk about ministry of reconciliation. So, Paul says in this passage that God in Christ has reconciled us to himself. Well, what does that mean? Well, reconciliation very simply assumes that there is a damaged or broken relationship that needs to be fixed.

And in our relationship with God, the brokenness is on our side, and it goes deep in the fall. Humanity became, as Paul says elsewhere, lost, dead, and without hope in the world. The truth is we cannot know God on our own, who he really is, and we cannot know who we really are and who we were created to be.

We are bent towards running away from God, wanting our own way, feeding our desires, resentments, ambitions, et cetera. And we have utterly lost our capacity to know and trust God, to receive from him, and to live in the overflowing love he has for us. For us to have real relationship, real communion with God would require a work in us, not just a work for us.

We would need to be rescued from evil and death, made able to see and know the triune God, to receive his love and thereby know the reality of everything. We would have to have our darkened minds not only flooded with light, but our eyes able to see it. God would have to do something from his side that would reach to ours as well.

All this twistedness, mess, and suffering would have to be undone all the way down to its root. He had to undo the root cause or issue of the alienation, distrust, and rebellion. It couldn’t be superficial. It’s not fairy dust. It’s not a mental flip in his head or a psychological trick. God would somehow have to do a work in us that would put us on a new foundation, a new footing, that would enable us to live in good and right relationship with him.

And it would be a costly suffering and atoning act. And in Christ, God has done this work. That’s what Paul is proclaiming. God has, in Christ, reconciled himself to us in the life, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. The Son of God entered into our sinful humanity and has taken on our sin, our fallen nature, our diseases, our sufferings, and our death.

In order, ultimately, to separate us from our sin and heal us from the inside out. At his own cost, God has cleared the way for all who have rebelled against him in unbelief and distrust to come back to him. He holds nothing against us but instead offers forgiveness and even the power to receive forgiveness, so that we might live out a reconciled relationship with our Creator and Redeemer God.

God in Christ is undoing, redeeming all the evil, sin, damage, and brokenness of all of his creation. In verse 19, Paul says in Christ God was reconciling the world or cosmos to himself. So, for those of us who have received Christ, who have put our lives under his wonderful reign, and are now participating in this wonderful ongoing work, we are now, as he is saying, his ambassadors. We are participating in this wonderful work. We participate in it, first of all, by simply living in this new life of right relationship that he gives us. We bear witness of his goodness and reality as we grow up in the reconciliation that he has done for us, as we receive his sanctifying work in our lives.

And we participate in this ongoing work when we proclaim to others this wonderful news. God makes his appeal for all to receive the gift of reconciliation he has accomplished through those who have already received it. So having opened the way, God is doing the ongoing work of drawing others to himself, the outworking of his atoning reconciliation isn’t finished. Thank God.

He’s continuing his work to get the world to receive the free gift of his having reconciled the world to himself. And we are a part of this outworking, we participate, as I said, as his ambassador.

And I think one of the main ways we participate is simply by living in him, by growing in him, by trusting in a right relationship with him ourselves. God in Christ has made us his own. He’s made me his own. He’s given himself to me. He’s committed to transforming and growing me into this new life with him and in him. So today, again, I get to say amen to him and do his work in me. I get to come to love his sanctifying work in me, as arduous as it sometimes is, to let his Holy Spirit lead me to repentance and trust in him again and not in myself.

I have never found it easy or automatic, but I do rejoice in where he has brought me already and I look forward to seeing him complete the work. I have found in my life that the more I know his grace and kindness towards me, the more I want to press on to know him, the more I want to be like him, and so the person he created me to be.

I want to live suspended in his grace every day, and this participation in his work in me is a witness to myself and to others of his good, holy, and living reality. God makes his appeal through me, as he once again leads me to act out of complete devotion and trust in his faithfulness in his work in me and in the world. God makes his appeal through me when he enables me to repent of my resentment, unforgiveness, my pride, instead of acting on them.

He makes his appeal through me when he reminds me in his word of his good character and purposes and helps me once again to hand my fears over to him so that I can receive and attend to his good grace in the actual moment I’m in. And he has made his appeal through me often, I have found in my life, when he has taken me through wrenching situations and then actually use them in my caring for others.

He is making his appeal through me when he leads me to cry out with tears in prayer for our world and for the people I know are suffering. And recently, he’s been making his appeal through me as he puts me into places where I keep having to admit that I’m not in control, that I’m not adequate to the task, and that I need to depend fully on him, which is something he longs for me to do, and something I resist.

What I’m trying to say is that I am often surprised at how God works in me and makes his appeal through me. I’m often surprised to find out what this ongoing ministry looks like for me. I’m always discovering anew the ways that God is at work in and through my life to make his appeal. I believe it can be tempting to think that this wrestling, sanctifying work that he’s doing in us is something apart from his making his appeal. That simply isn’t true.

You can’t separate the work he is doing in you from the work he is doing through you. And that’s very humbling. My job is to follow God’s work in my life and trust that he will make his appeal through all the various twists and turns. And, of course, as I follow him, he gives me opportunities to proclaim to others the new footing on which God has placed his creation and every creature. We can proclaim to those who don’t yet know him, that contrary to all the lies about God, this God is not against us, but he is for us. And he has blazed a path for us to return to him. The door is open to God. It’s truly amazing.

[01:07:45] Anthony: It’s humbling, is it not, Cathy? He doesn’t need me to make his appeal.

[01:07:50] Cathy: No, he doesn’t.

[01:07:51] Anthony: He wants me.

[01:07:53] Cathy: Yeah.

[01:07:54] Anthony: Out of his goodness, he created out of love. And it’s this joyful participation in that appeal, but he doesn’t need me to do it, but he wants relationship, real relationship with me for that appeal to be made. And so, my final question to kind of wrap up our podcast together relates to that.

I’m just curious, how has this passage of scripture renewed your thinking about God, which you’ve already alluded to, but also your fellow human beings? How has it reshaped your thinking about the people you encounter?

[01:08:31] Cathy: Well, I’d say that for me this passage, but also just a lot of what I’ve been going through. We have a lot of people, as you were saying, who are suffering in their lives. Some know Christ, some don’t.

I’ve thought a lot about something Paul talks about, of sharing in the sufferings of Christ. That for me, living in this ongoing ministry of reconciliation to others, yes, it’s a joyous, but for me, a lot of times it’s been a suffering because I feel so sad about what people are going through.

And I’ve come to realize victoriously, but also just amazing that praying for them, praying with them, coming alongside of them is oftentimes what God is calling me to do as he makes his appeal to them. I hope this makes sense,

[01:09:36] Anthony: It does.

[01:09:37] Cathy: But I guess I would just say that I have been amazed, and this was part of what I was trying to say is he is making his appeal through this mess that’s me and that he’s working through.

I don’t have to get my act together over here so that I can have him making his appeal over there when I look good. That the wonderful, amazing thing is nothing is wasted. Nothing’s wasted. He uses it all for his glory. And sometimes I think what he’s doing is he’s making his appeal to others through me in my weakest points, in the places I don’t want him to be, because I want to look more together than I do.

[01:10:29] Anthony: You’re not alone, sister.

[01:10:31] Cathy: And that is mind blowing to me. It’s just so good and so amazing. And that’s basically what I would say that this whole thing has been for me.

[01:10:41] Anthony: Well friends, as we wrap up, I wanted to share an encouragement with you and a thought for us to really contend with from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He said, “May God in his mercy lead us through these times, but above all, may he lead us to himself.”

[01:10:59] Cathy: Yes. Amen.

[01:11:00] Anthony: Amen. And amen.

Friends, this podcast is not a one man show. Thankfully … it wouldn’t be very good. It’s a team of people, and I’m so blessed to work with Elizabeth Mullins and Reuel Enerio and Michelle Hartman who put this together for you. I hope it’s a blessing.

Cathy, I want to thank you for your time, your energy, just the capacity to teach scripture — a gift God has given you. So thankful for your words of encouragement here today. And for a final word of encouragement, we’re going to ask you to pray and bless us on our way.

[01:11:32] Cathy: Sure.

Heavenly Father, we are so grateful that you love us more than you love just being yourself, the triune God, but you’ve come down and you have made us your own. And I am so grateful for your relentless love for us. I’m so grateful for all the people who will hear this, not because I got a chance to be a part of it, but because you want to speak to them.

You love them. You love them so much. So much more, I’m sure, than they realize a lot of times. And I trust that you will use your words of Scripture and anything, anything that was helpful here to your glory and to their good. We praise you and we thank you, in the good and glorious name of Jesus, Amen.

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