Seth: 0:05

Hello, everyone. We would just like to take a moment and welcome you to the first episode of the Followers of Christ podcast. So this is a new podcast for all of us here. We are all new to this, so you might have to bear with us a little bit. But the ultimate goal here is just to glorify God, to take a moment, share about how he's changed our life, to share some of Jesus with you guys, and just hope that we can all grow along the way. We do have a website. It is focpod.com. And if you would like to contact us, it is contact at focpod.com. So we have a couple of hosts here today. We have Stephan, Mike, Jonathan, and my name is Seth. So we're all going to just take turns going through a couple of things here. And first, we're going to have Stephan with our opening prayer and gospel message.

Steffen: 0:55

Good morning, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. And now we ask if you close your eyes, bow your head. Father God, thank you so much for allowing us to be here. Thank you so much for letting us open up our eyes and have another day. Thank you for all the blessings, all the many blessings, little, big, everything. Everything is a blessing because everything is from you, Lord. We count every day as a blessing from you. No matter what the day is, good day, bad day, doesn't matter, challenging, wonderful day, it is all a blessing because it is all from you. Glory to God. For you let us be here to have another day. Lord, we pray that you pour your favor out on everyone who is listening. We pray that you open up the eyes of their heart. We pray that you are able to open up the eyes of their heart so they can see you. Lord, we know the world knows who you are, but we pray they know who you are. Lord, we thank you so much for everything that you've done. Thank you so much for everything that you're doing. And we love you. We love you. We love you. And we thank you so much for everything that you're going to do. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Everybody, have you ever had that tug on your heart, right, that you know there's something going on out here? Because you look at that next person and say, man, they're happy, they're full of joy, or they don't let the world bother them, or they have this certain peace, this certain something going on in their life. He said, man, I want some of that. I want to be able to feel like they feel. I want to have that same outlook on life that they have. And then you ask that individual, what's going on with you, man? Why are you acting this way? You're always happy or you're always full of peace. You don't let the world agitate you or irritate you. You don't get angry, frustrated, grouchy. What's going on? And you tell them, you have Jesus in your life. And that's, you just let them know, hey, you know, our Father, our Father God in heaven loves us so much, so, so much, that he sent his only son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, here. to die for our sins. Father God sent them here because everybody, I don't care who it is in this world, we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There's no perfect person on this planet. I don't care what movie star, sports, you know, sports player, actor, whatever. Doesn't matter. They are not perfect. The only perfect being in this world is Lord Jesus, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So we would share and tell them that, hey, Lord Jesus came here. He died for our sins and he came back to life. He was resurrected on the third day for us. He took on the sins of the entire world. said that we would have the opportunity, the chance of a lifetime to have eternal life and live with Jesus Christ, live with our Father God. Ladies and gentlemen, that is the gospel. You too can just tell everybody how you feel and share what's on your mind. Never let fear hold you back. Never let fear hold you back. Fear is not a fruit of the spirit. Fear is not a fruit of the spirit. So when anybody asks you, why do you feel the way you feel? What's going on in your life and you're able to share one of them because you'll feel that tug on your heart. That's that Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit telling you it's time. Let them know who you are, what your identity is, or who your identity is in. Me, my identity is in Lord Jesus Christ. All praise and glory be to Him. God, oh, praise and glory be to God, our Lord, our Lord. We love you, Lord.

Seth: 6:12

Thank you, Stephan, for sharing that. I mean, that is, you're absolutely right. That is a powerful message. And it's a message that we hope every single person who listens to this, it resonates with them. Whether you are already saved, you've been a Christian for 20, 30 years, you've been a Christian for two months. You know, that message is what has impacted all of us. It's changed all of our lives. It has just made us a new creation in Christ, and we just hope that if you haven't heard that before, if you've heard it a couple times, but you have some questions, you're struggling with some things, wrestling with some things, we definitely want to hear from you. We would love to hear if maybe you heard it that time, and your heart's just on fire, and you've accepted Christ, and you just want to know maybe what are some next steps, or you just want to share it. You just want to celebrate it with someone. Please Please let us know. We would love to celebrate that moment with you. We would love to walk through any questions you might have. So just once again, you can always reach us at that email, contact at focpod.com. And just let us know. We would love to hear from you. So next up, we're going to have Brother Mike just kind of walking through the purpose behind why we're doing this, going through our mission statement, and just kind of a couple words from his side about what that means.

Mike: 7:30

Thanks, Seth. My name is Mike. And I'm going to share the mission statement. To reflect on the love of Jesus by walking with our neighbors, growing in faith, fostering curiosity, and building community along the way. So I'm going to speak it for myself here. I'm not here to teach. I'm here to share. Grow and extend the love of God. This podcast is for all walks of life. The Bible says, whosoever so. whosoever decides to join in on the pod. We're about to go on on the pod journey. We're about to go on. Consider yourself family. So welcome to Followers of Christ podcast.

Seth: 8:16

Awesome, Mike. Thank you. And then we got Brother Jonathan over here going to just talk through what our episode is about today.

Jonathan: 8:24

Hey, good morning, everybody. Yes. This is season one. of episode one, and we like to take the time to kind of give you an overview of what today's episode is going to be about. Each one of us, as you have heard from our brother Seth, we all have a verse that we like to share with you guys. And so this episode, we're just going to kind of talk about what these verses mean to us and why we believe that these verses verses are so powerful for us so our episode for today is just what what are verses why we pick these verses

Seth: 9:13

yeah awesome all right well then without too much delay here you know we definitely want to get into the meat of things and start talking through it so first up we got mr stefan over here with his verse

Steffen: 9:28

My verse that I chose is 1 Peter 4.10, which states, As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God, which means that Christians should use their God-given spiritual gifts to serve others within the Christian community. It emphasizes that these gifts are not for personal gain, but for the benefit of the whole body of Christ, reflecting God's grace. So here's more of a breakdown of that verse. So as each one has received a gift. This highlights that every believer has received at least one spiritual gift from God. These gifts are varied. and diverse reflecting God's manifold grace. Minister it to one another. This means to serve others using those gifts. It's a call to active participation and ministry within the church community. As good stewards of the manifold grace of God, this emphasizes That believers are not owners of their gifts, but rather managers or stewards of God's grace. They are accountable to God for how they use their gifts. So in essence, 1 Peter 4.10 encourages believers to discover their spiritual gifts. Use them to serve others and do so with a grateful heart, recognizing that it is God's grace that enables them to serve. So to me, that's all about my heart, right? So for the longest, I could never... And see, and for those out there, you may say, I don't know what my spiritual gift is. And it's okay. You might not know, but others around you do. Your family members, your friends. They'll tell you, oh man, I see you're doing great things here or you're doing God's work here. You're encouraging, you're teaching, you're leading. The gifts could be several different things, but whatever your gift is, use it to serve others. Like me, I love to help. All I want to do is serve. We have a a couple of different outreaches that we have. One is Santa for the Homeless. Shout out to Santa for the Homeless and the homeless team that makes everything happen doing God's work. Love y'all. And we also have our men's outreach at Bethlehem Church. The Feed the Hungry community outreach as well. Shout out to y'all. We love y'all too. Praise God for everybody who has that drive to serve. You might not have that drive to serve, but whatever it is, whatever's on your heart, it'll come to light. So just let God use you. If you don't recognize it, somebody else will. Praise God. And that's it for me. What do y'all think?

Seth: 13:15

Yeah, I mean, that's a That's a true thing. When you read about spiritual gifts and you start to learn about those, you start to see some of those in action, maybe around your church or with your family members and friends. It can be a little confusing to try to figure that out for yourself. We're typically our worst critics when it comes to looking at ourselves. So we might look and think, oh, we don't have any gifts. How can I claim that I have a spiritual gift or think that I've been given something like that? But You know, as we're going through maturing in our faith, as we're called in and then we grow with those around us, there are definitely areas that we're going to stand out in. And there's actually one resource that's pretty interesting that if you guys are kind of interested in what your spiritual gift might be, it's very similar to some of the personality tests you might have seen out there. There's a website called churchgrowth.org. They offer a free spiritual gifts website. Just assessment you can take. And I believe it's around 110 questions that just kind of gauge how you react to certain things like evangelism, how you react to confronting someone when you know that they're in a sinful state and you're trying to do so in a loving way to try to bring them back in. Or if you're just really good at the administrative side, like organizing and keeping things going. So that's something I would just say. If you're out there, you're kind of curious. You haven't had a chance to really ever assess what that looks like for yourself. Give that website a look. We're not affiliated or anything. That's just something personally that I've gone in and used just to kind of look at some things. I believe for mine, it was shepherding, evangelism, and teaching were the three things. on my assessment that came back, but you guys might have something different. That's another thing too. If you find something out pretty cool, you know, let us know. We'd love to hear about that. But Jonathan, Mike, you guys got any, any feedback or ideas along spiritual gifts?

Jonathan: 15:24

Yeah, I think, I think this is a powerful verse because I think for me, for a lot of us, we're in that journey of still trying to figure out like what our spiritual gifts is. And like Stefan said, like over time, God will reveal like what your spiritual gift is. I know for me, it's helping others. Like Stefan said, Stefan and I kind of share a lot of, a lot of similar spiritual gifts, but that doesn't mean like, What y'all's spiritual gift is, it could be completely different from mine, Stefan, Mike's, and Seth. And that's okay. You know, we don't all want to be the same spiritual gift because I think that would be kind of, how should I say it, not boring. Because that's why we're called to be creatures and pastors and going out helping communities because we all see a different spiritual gift within us. So I think that's my take on Stephen's verse. And I think, again, it's a powerful verse and something that we should all take to heart and just kind of ask the Lord, hey, Lord, what is it? What is this spiritual gift that you've given me? And he will reveal it to us.

Seth: 16:50

Yeah, that's awesome. And what you just said, it actually, I don't mean to kind of butt back in here, but that just pulled me back to another verse. about spiritual gifts. And if you're kind of interested about exactly what Jonathan was just describing, if you look at Romans 12, six through eight, this is in the NIV that says, we have different gifts according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith. If it is serving, then serve. If it is teaching, then teach. If it is to encourage, then give encouragement. If it is giving, then give generously. If it is to lead, Do it diligently. If it is to show mercy, then do it cheerfully. So that's exactly what you're describing, Jonathan, is we each have different ones. And it's a beautiful thing to have that mixing bowl because then we can complement each other and just grow as a whole body of Christ. Brother Mike, you got anything?

Mike: 17:51

Yeah. Well, in verse 11, It breaks the gifts down into two different categories. And I'm getting this from the NIV. This is 1 Peter 4.11. It says, If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so for the strength that God provides. So for me, I often fall in the trap of preparedness. I'm always looking to the left. And my brother over here, I'm looking to the right of my brother over there, and I'm listening to that loud voice inside that says, you can't do it like that. You're not smart enough. You just can't do it. You're not able to. That's how it is. So instead of not trusting in God and obeying his commands to love him and to love my neighbor, I'm just thinking of myself. So I just need to trust and obey God and do time and his time. like y'all be saying, reveal it to me. So I just need to take that step of faith.

Seth: 19:04

That's awesome. Stephan, do you got any kind of final thoughts to close us out on your section?

Steffen: 19:13

Oh, great feedback. Oh, great feedback, by the way. I love it all. It's so many different avenues and routes that we could take, going through the Bible, talking about spiritual gifts. But for me, my heart, and I believe that's what everybody, and that's what God is doing through all of us, is posturing our heart on where we should be and what we should do. For me, mine is serving. Part of the baptism team, the greeter team, part of the Santa for the Homeless team. Praise God for just those opportunities to let me be able to see those things that I've seen, to be part of those experiences. The last time we were out for the Santa for the Homeless community, I had an opportunity to pray with strangers. Now, two years ago, I wouldn't have done that. I couldn't even tell you anything about that. But to show you how God did a work in my life and on my heart, Now I find myself praying for strangers and thanking God for the opportunity to be able to do so. So that's it for me in a nutshell, y'all.

Seth: 20:34

Awesome. Awesome. That is great. And, you know, for the listeners out there, it's just kind of give you a little sneak peek. So Stephan is my father-in-law and it's actually really cool to get to do this with him. There's a lot of chances that we just get to see each other grow. And then coming in and meeting Jonathan and Mike, getting to see that too, just in the short period of time, we've all known each other. Definitely see a lot of those gifts just kind of flourish and start to grow over time. And, you know, we just praise God that he's constantly working in those ways because without him, I mean, none of this would even be possible. So, but Brother Mike, let's bring it over to you and your verse.

Mike: 21:16

And my verse is Matthew chapter 5, 14 through 16. This is coming from the NIV. I'm an NIV kind of guy. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, they let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. Since I was a young kid, I've always been that quiet kid in the corner. Socially awkward. Never thought I was special. But since I can remember, I've had these creative tendencies. And I love to show off whenever I create. I just don't want to be there whenever it's presented. Anyways, what I'm trying to say is we all have something to give. We all have a gift to light up this dark world. So let it shine. That's all I got, man. Anyone got something to

Steffen: 22:19

say? It's a beautiful ending. Yes, I do. Well said, brother Mike. Well said. When I think about Traverse, I think about work, for example. We've had individuals that have been going through things. It's been a couple years ago, we had a brother that Went through something and he came straight to me to tell me about the problem he was going through. And I was kind of shocked. But then when he told me about the seriousness of the situation that was going on at home, I'm like, brother, let's pray. So we stood right there in the middle of the floor praying, you know, forklifts going everywhere, honking, beeping, didn't care. We're giving glory to God, praying for his situation. And he said, you know what, man, I feel better. Thank you. I needed to hear that, you know. And then it makes me think about as I was going to work. I've been going to Walmart forever, of course. But, you know, I get off work six o'clock in the morning. I'm sitting in the parking lot waiting on it to open. I will come in every day and see the same lady at the door every single day that I would go there. Right. And we always, you know, speak. Hey, good morning. Good morning. You know, all that kind of good stuff, that general conversation type. I'm like, how you doing? You good today? Oh, yeah, I'm good. You? I'm good. Okay. This one day I walked past. How you doing this morning? You all right? She said, no. Of course, I stopped dead in my tracks. Came back to talk to her. What's going on? She told me about her situation. She knew her sister was getting ready to pass and how heavy that was on her. Her sister lived separately. And nobody heard from her. And when they went over there to go check on her, they found her unconscious laying on the floor. Don't know how long she was being there, how long she was there, but she was still alive. But when they took her to the doctor, they told her that, you know, time was running out. And I was like, oof, man. So we stopped. We prayed, you know, and, you know, this is the first time I ever prayed for somebody that I knew. I knew, but I didn't know. So I went ahead and got my stuff from throughout the store and said, hey, I'll check on you later. She said, okay, you have a blessed day. I said, you too. I got in the car thinking, man, I just prayed for a stranger. I have never done that. That is a first for me. I see God has been getting me out of my comfort zone, telling me I need to be just like Mike's verse, need to be that light. that he made me to be. So yeah, to sum it up, I love your verse, brother. I feel God working on me personally to push me, well not push me, but to guide me in that direction of being that light that he wants me to be. So thank you, man. That was a great verse, bro. Oh, hold on. I want to add one more thing that makes me think of, and I was looking at 1 Peter 2.12, right? Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. That was a mouthful right there. You know what I mean? But that's all I had,

Jonathan: 26:15

gentlemen. I guess I'll speak. So this verse, Mike's verse, I think it can apply to anybody, right? But this one kind of sticks out to me because as Mike stated a little bit, You know, I've kind of been the shy guy as well growing up. And something that the listeners will find out about all four of us is we all share something in common, you know, whether it's how we were raised or anything like that. But our ultimate goal is to bring Christ and let people come to the saving knowledge of God. But this verse, there's so much like, For me, I can experience it sometimes at work or when I'm at the house or wherever I'm out and about. And you feel the darkness just kind of creep around you. But if you're a believer in Christ, your light shines and it repels the darkness. And it is hard to be that believer that tries to share the light with others, and people sometimes just don't want to listen. But our light shines brighter when we do present the gospel to people. And with that, I'll just say that we just got to keep pressing forward.

Seth: 28:02

Yeah, that's a wonderful way to put that, Jonathan. And, you know, Stephan, you touched on this, and Mike, you touched on it. Pretty much everybody has kind of brought that up, but the way that this one kind of hits me especially is that I know that sometimes it can feel like, especially the church that we go to, Bethlehem Church, it's It's fairly large. It's not to the megachurch status by any means at all, but it's a larger crowd. And so you see somebody like our pastor, Pastor Jason Britt up there, who's just so gifted and just, you can just tell that the Holy Spirit is working through him and very humble and committed to following God's leading and all that he does. You see someone like that up there. And when you think about, you know, you are a light, and that you were meant to share that light, not to be put under a bowl. Sometimes you might think of somebody like that. You might think of someone who gets up there and delivers a powerful message, who ties it in and makes it relatable, and then just makes everybody feel welcome and just comfortable talking to them and approaching them and just being that extroverted type person, but in a very loving and caring way. But we all have opportunities to do that. It doesn't have to be on a stage. It doesn't have to be on TV. It doesn't have to be on a podcast. It can be just in our home with our family members. We never know what burdens they might carry, especially day to day. We all get busy. We all get tied up in things. And we could easily just come home and think, you know what, I'm going to eat some dinner. I'm going to go lay down and go to sleep because I'm exhausted. And you might not know the burden that your spouse is carrying or the burden that your children are carrying from a tough day. From a family member who you maybe you haven't heard from in a while, you know, just reaching out to them, just giving them a phone call, just saying, hey, you know, haven't haven't talked to you in a couple of months. Just thinking about you would love to check in. Those little things can all be ways to be light and just offer a chance just to come beside them and walk with them through anything that they might be facing. I mean, we just don't know. Sometimes it's just like Stefan was talking about the opportunity to pray with the with the lady in Wal-Mart. who was the greeter, if he did not take the time to at least speak to her every time he came in there and just, Hey, how are you doing? How's your day going? You know, there, especially in the South, a lot of times it's, Hey, you know, we're good. Yep. And everybody just goes their own way. Like it's very rare. And that's, it's a, it's a very rare thing. Someone's honest and they're like, Hey, I'm not doing good. That'll almost always catch you immediately. Cause we're just so used to hearing. Yeah. You know, I'm good. I'm good. And everybody goes their separate ways, but to have that moment, where they actually allow you in a little bit and say, hey, actually, I'm not doing good. And to stop and think, okay, let me not just say, oh, I'm sorry to hear that and move on. You step into that moment with them and you show that love. And it's just a beautiful thing. And we all have opportunities to do that. We may feel like we don't. We may feel like that we're in some type of position where we don't have influence. We don't have the ability to step beside somebody. But If you just take a moment to pray every day, short little prayer, something along the lines of, God, just show me someone who I can be a light to today that you guide me to and that I act under your guidance, under your leading and loving and caring and showing them this love and care in a real way. And just something that simple. And then just following. The next thing is being obedient. You know, Stephan could have walked away when he heard her say, you know, not doing too good or something's not good. He could have been like, oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. And another thing we'll throw out is a, I'll pray for you. And then we just go on. How many times just, I know personally, I've said that to people and I don't, I forget about it, but he stopped in that moment. Nope, we're going to pray right here. And that is powerful. You know, we got to experience that. One of our Bible study groups at a Cracker Barrel had a waitress who, We just asked like, hey, is there anything we can pray for you about? And she thought about it for a minute and found out, you know, she was going back to nursing school, which is wonderful. That's such an exciting time. But just had a moment to pray with her in that. And, you know, a lot of times people throw that out and it's not a bad thing to say. It's just make sure that you do mean it. And if you have a chance to pray in that moment, just do it. It doesn't have to be 40 minutes long. It doesn't have to be 10 minutes long. It could be a 10 second prayer with that person. But that that's just an opportunity. God has opened up for us to be that light. Mike, you got any final thoughts, buddy?

Mike: 32:58

Shine bright like a diamond. I like everything y'all said, man. Y'all have truly enlightened me. I can't go after that, dude. I can't follow you, man.

Jonathan: 33:17

Nah, but

Mike: 33:20

I can't say I can't say Stephan was there at the time when we went to one of our favorite wing places. I got to put it out there, man. Anyways, we have this brother. Shout out to Pastor D, Derek. I love you, man. Everywhere we go, man, he's like whoever's our waiter or waitress they'll pray for them they'll like grab their hand and you know it for me man sometimes it can be a little awkward you know deep down i'm like please don't do it please don't do it but i'm glad he does it every time man so he like he like he put out his fist like i guess it was like at the end of the service and to go like like he was giving her a fist bump and then he just like heavenly father and just starts laughing breaking out this prayer for her. And it really like made it, it made her day. So we found out all kinds of stuff about her and, and I guess she was kind of like on the fence of, you know, surrendering her life to Jesus. So it's all, it's all about being obedient and taking that step of faith. And it's just a step because sometimes it can look like a leap. You know, I've heard that take a leap of faith, but it's really just a small step. So that's all I got to say.

Steffen: 34:42

copy that. That's awesome.

Seth: 34:47

All right. Well, since I'm over here running my mouth anyway at the end of that time it just happens it happens to flow into my turn next so you know i'll just keep it rolling if you guys get tired there is a fast forward button or you can speed this up to 2x if you're tired of hearing me talking you can roll into my verse here so i'm going with proverbs 3 5 through 6 and you know i gotta be i gotta be different i'm out of the esv so i gotta make it difficult on everybody sorry if you gotta download a different version of the app on your phone or something but my verse says trust in the lord with all of your heart and do not lean on your own understanding and all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. And for a long time, this has been a verse that stuck out to me since high school. I remember one of my friends in high school named Jeffrey, and he gave me a Bible. And this was one of the ones that was kind of highlighted in there that I guess that certain Bible, I don't remember exactly what version it was or anything like that. But this was one of the ones that was highlighted in there. And it had a story about how there was basically someone during the time of, I believe it was World War II, one of the soldiers there. And this was his favorite verse. And it was something he would recite every time he would go out. He was a medic. And he would go out and basically kind of just say this over and over and just basically pray to God to trust in him as he was going out and serving those soldiers. And it was a very interesting thing that this one just stuck out with me for so long. There's been times in my life where I've definitely not done this. I mean, it's like for this to be the verse I would pick, but then I look back at so many moments where it's like I put a air quote trust in the Lord with all my heart and I'll give a prayer or I will bring something to God and say, Lord, I want to trust you with it. And then it's like in the back of my mind, I want to think until tomorrow at 12 p.m. And if it's not happening by then, then I'm going to do something to try to make this work out and go in a certain way. And so it's like trust, but with a, with a time limit. And that's just not how that works. And the amount of times that I've thought things just weren't going to work out for one reason or another, but it always comes through just great, better than anything I could ever think of. And it's always God doing that. It's like when I try to look at things through my narrow lens of trust, What I see going on, you know, I can't see what's going on in the room next door to me. You know, my dogs might be in there driving my wife crazy. I don't know. They probably are. They do a lot. But there's things that like I can't see around me that I just want to try to control or I want to take my very narrow viewpoint and try to frame how I think the future is going to look based off of what I can see now. And giving that trust to God to say, you know what? I know I don't know what this is going to look like. It might be scary. It might be overwhelming. It might just be I don't even know how to feel about it because I don't know what the potential outcome could be. And just actually leaning on him, not on my own understanding, not on how I feel about a situation or I think a situation should go. That is what this means to me. And it's something I've been trying to get better at. And there are definitely certain days where I feel like I'm doing a better job. I'm sure I'm sure that there's a lot of other ways that I could be doing a whole lot better. But and then there's those days where it's like I'm just trying to control every little piece of it. And it's exhausting. That's the main thing is that when you're trying to do that and you're trying to have control over things you can't have control over. You're trying to have things that you can't possibly know the outcome of. It is exhausting, and it will just wear you down so quick. But we have a loving, we have an all-powerful, we have an all-knowing, just always-with-us God who is there. He loves us. He cares for us. Yes, sir. It's something that we can't even comprehend. Because our version of love in our mind can't even come close to what His love is. We can read so many verses in the Bible about His love. We can see that He demonstrated it, as Stephan talked about with our gospel presentation, by Jesus coming here and taking on a punishment we all deserved. And He gives us the gift of salvation because there is nothing we could do to earn it. And to think that There's still times where I feel like, oh, I need to try and hold on to something because I have a trust issue. But there's all these examples. It's just crazy. It's like I feel like sometimes I might need like a little thump in the back of my head. From God, if he could do that to just say, hey, like, stop, stop doing what you're doing. Look at me. Stop that. Or, you know, another analogy, if you got cats and they act up and you get the little squirt bottle and you like spray them with the water. I need that in my life a lot. But yeah, that's just what this verse is to me is just trying to live this because it's something that I've looked at for so long. But it's just not something that I've lived for a long time and something I still struggle with today. is trying to lean more into that trust. I do think it's something that's important that we all do. What do you guys think?

Steffen: 40:27

That old saying, say what you mean and mean what you say. When I think of your verse, that's the first thing that jumps out at me. I've been constantly fighting with myself to mean what I say. So I say, oh, yeah, I trust God. Then just like you stated, in my mind, things aren't going my way, or I think I could do it quicker this way, or it'd be quicker if I do it this way. I'm really not trusting in God. I'm trying to do what he does. I'm acting like God. I need to step out the way. He's standing right there at the door like Steph. I'm knocking, man. I'm trying to come in. All you have to do, all you have to do is just move out the way. Open the door, move out the way, let me come in and do what I do. But here I am. I'm being a knucklehead, which I've, you know, been a knucklehead a lot. A lot. Yeah, more than I can tell you. So, I mean, hey, I'm talking, you know, You heard the expression, knock on wood, how about knock on cement? You know what I mean? I'm like, guys talk about me. Man, would you just open up the door and get out of the way? Let me do what I do. Quit trying to be me. You are not me. That is my problem. So when I think of your verse, that's what I think of. Like, man, I really need to stop trying to be God and just be quiet, be still. and know that he is God and let him do his thing. That's all I got. Yes,

Jonathan: 42:19

sir. You kind of have me laughing over here because I think about Jesus coming in and slamming the door down and you're in the way and he's trying to tell you, get out of the way. Oh, man. Brother, brother. This verse, I kind of have an analogy. It's like Like, you know how we're on the road and we're all driving, right? We're in our lanes. And please forgive me for all the other drivers, but I'm just going to use this as an analogy. When he says, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding and all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your path. I think of it as a car, you know, just going down the highway. And when you start driving, to veer off the Lord saying hey let me take the wheel let me bring you back into the center of the line because you know what's going to happen is if you don't that car is just going to start to veer off and before you know it it's going to either hit the median or it's going to run off the side of the road and it's just like whoa wait what just happened and it's because you know you weren't paying attention you weren't trusting the Lord and it's like And then the Lord will bring you back on the road and keep going straight.

Seth: 43:48

So when you started talking about that, the first thing that came to my mind was Jesus take the wheel by Gary Underwood. Sorry, that's just where my mind went.

Jonathan: 43:59

But you're absolutely right. I knew it was going to resonate with somebody. I was like, I'm just waiting for it.

Seth: 44:10

And, you know, there's the parody version of that song, Cletus Take the Real, but that's a different thing. Cletus Take the

Steffen: 44:19

Real. I

Seth: 44:19

love it. I

Steffen: 44:19

love

Seth: 44:22

it.

Steffen: 44:22

Mike, what you

Mike: 44:23

got, buddy? Mike, what about

Steffen: 44:23

you?

Mike: 44:25

Yeah. What comes to mind is one of my friends. Sometimes he, like, every now and then he'll say, like, look for the good in everything. And, like, At present times, when I'm going through something, my vision is blurry. Like someone said earlier about control, I just want to take control of everything. Every step I take, even though I know I'm going to go left when I should have gone right. But I think when I look back on life, I realize how much God has been present in my life. And I just wish that I could just, you know, just like the Bible says, be still and know that he's God. And just, I wish I had that in my mind, which I know I probably need to get a tattoo of it so I can see it everywhere I go, you know, just be still. He's here. He's there everywhere we go, you know. Yes, sir. That's amazing. Amen. And that's, That's all I can say about that.

Seth: 45:42

Yeah, that's awesome. All right, well, we got Mr. Jonathan here to close us out on the topic. So what you got, Jonathan?

Jonathan: 45:51

Yeah, so the verse that I picked, y'all, is Matthew 6, verse 24. And I'm reading out of the NIV. And it says, No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. And the reason I chose that verse is because it applies to modern day life, like just the way we are. You know, when you serve God, you know, he provides everything for you. But when you start being selfish and think of your own ways, then you started running into the problem of trying to serve the world versus serving God. And he's saying, he's clearly saying in that verse that, hey, you can't be on the fence about this. You're either going to serve me and love me with everything you got, or you're going to serve the world and be further and further away from me, right? And so I just, I want that verse to be an encouragement to a lot of the listeners because I want them to know that God loves them, man. God loves them. And like Stephan said, he sent his son to die on the cross. And that's what this podcast is about. That's why all four of us are together is to spread the gospel and spread the word. So a lot of people, in here and come to the saving knowledge of Christ. And with that being said, what's y'all's take on it?

Steffen: 47:43

Well, I'll tell you, that's, that is very, I mean, that's definitely an interesting one. Because the, you know, like you said, for the, about money, let's see, hold on one second. No one can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. Yes, because 1 Timothy 6.10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. So now it You know, money, of course, definitely is mentioned as definitely one mess. But there's also, you know, my opinion, you know, I think of other things as like cell phones, for example. You know, we said, man, we need to be rooted in God's word. Now, cell phones can be used for good. Cell phones can be used for evil. Like me and Brother Jay were talking about this yesterday. Right. Right. So, you know, in my mind, I'm thinking, OK, I'm going to come in and I'm going to study and I'm going to do this. And then you have all these Bible apps on your phone. Then, you know, all of a sudden, you know, like me, my mind is, oh, well, I could watch a, you know, a wrestling video or watch, you know, something sports or fighting or tigers or whatever. I could watch something different than that. Something different turns in the, you know, time. wasted when I should be studying for God's word. You know what I mean? So it's like I'm sitting there looking at something I shouldn't be looking at versus what I need to look at to help enrich and open up my mind and my heart. So that, you know, I'm thinking, oh, I could just look at this for one minute. That one minute turns into 30 minutes, turns into two hours next to, you know, I'm sitting there sleeping like, man, I was supposed to be studying. I'm going to sit up here looking at something I shouldn't be looking at. What is going on? And then you know how this system in this world is today. You know, you think you're looking at, you know, the jungle safaris and the lions and the hyenas attacking. And, you know, that's a whole nother story. That's a whole nother podcast. But sitting there trying to watch those videos and all of a sudden you see something you don't want to see. Like, what is that? Hold on. I didn't ask for this garbage. So, you know, I'm fussing at my phone yesterday. I don't want to see no garbage, you know.

Jonathan: 50:22

Yeah,

Steffen: 50:23

I remember that. We

Jonathan: 50:27

were in the park yesterday and he and I were just talking. And for those listening, Stefan calls me Brother Jay. That's short for Jonathan. So if y'all hear that, that's how he refers to me as a nickname. Yes,

Steffen: 50:46

sir. Yes, sir. We have. we were blessed to have fun and be able to just, you know, walk and talk and enjoy and look at everything that God has given us. So at that moment in time, we said, we are here to serve God, to think about God and focus on what he has done for us. And everything, every little blessing, it was fantastic. Not to get sidebar here, but, you know, to get back on track. So the, for me, the other master can be cell phones. And that's all I got.

Mike: 51:30

My weakness

Jonathan: 51:34

is cat videos, so... Whether they're singing or talking or which one? All of the above. They're all

Mike: 51:44

cute and funny. They always pull my heartstrings. Copy that. For me, I can replace money with myself. Instead of relying on God, I rely on What I believe my strengths and my weaknesses are, not what he tells me, what he says about me. I always think about what can I do? How can I do it? I got to do it this way, but how? I'm always thinking about me. And it leads to one thing, that's doubt, that's fear, that's worry, stress. So if I don't trust in God, I bring in all those things in my life and my heart, and it hardens my heart. But if I focus on him, it produces faith, and only faith can please God. Yes, sir.

Seth: 52:41

Well said, brother. That's awesome. And I think looking at this too, one of the important things is it's not necessarily saying that some people take this verse or they take 1 Timothy 6.10 And they'll use that as a way to be like, see, no one should be wealthy or no one should have wealth or no one should have money or you shouldn't save money. It's almost a twisting because it's not necessarily saying that to have this is bad, but it's where are you elevating it? Are you putting money? Are you putting and replace the word money for anything else? Are you putting your career above God? Are you putting some type of title that you're chasing above God? Are you putting a promotion, an opportunity to promotion? Are you putting some type of athletic endeavor above God? So that's the thing is it's not saying that it's necessarily wrong in that way, but it can definitely, you know, we see it all the time. especially in the modern world, is that a lot of times as people get more of something, it doesn't always have to be money, but a lot of times it is money, that it leads them into a path that's away from God. And it leads them to replace God in their life with that thing. But you could also see it used for wonderful things. You can see a wealthy person who is totally devoted to God. Their heart is set on Him. on just keeping him first. And they turn around and they use that wealth to give generously in their community. They sponsor missions trips. They sponsor church planning. They sponsor just all sorts of things. They give through their church so that way their church can go out and spread the gospel in their community. They can love on those in their community. So there's definitely, you know, there's not, it really depends on the idolatry aspect of this. There you go. Wow. All you hear is songs about getting money, about just building wealth. You see movies around that. You read stories where that's like the whole background. A lot of times when you read success stories, it's all around, okay, someone was once in an impoverished state and they're now wealthy. And that's kind of the narrative that's driven. And so that puts that desire, you know, of course, Satan will use whatever he can to tempt us. And he knows that that's a pretty big tool for temptation. It unlocks the ability to engage in other temptations a lot of the time and to just fall into that sin even deeper. But it's just about taking a step back. As Stephan and Jonathan were saying, a phone, it can be your phone. It could be video games. Are you spending all your time? And it's not to say that you can't enjoy these things. It's just, are you putting them into a position to where they are above God in your life? That that is the first thing, and that you read your Bible in between Call of Duty matches. Is that what you're doing, or do you take the time to say, okay, God is number one in my life, and then I'm going to take time to go enjoy a hobby after I take care of the first things that come first with Him? And then also, having a way to bring that in. You can... God wants to be a part of everything in your life. He doesn't want to just be an add-on, you know, the first 30 minutes of the morning and then on Sunday morning. You know, the first 30 minutes is you do your Bible reading and then on Sunday morning when you're at church and the rest of the day you leave him out. He's meant to be and he wants to be and he will be if you allow him to in every aspect of your life. And that can look like different things for different people. But that's just to me like this one is very heavy on the idolatry side and just making sure that you're not placing something above God.

Steffen: 57:14

That is true. That is definitely true. And I want to throw in Matthew 6, 33, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Seek first the kingdom of God. Everything of what you just said. Yes, sir. I just had to throw that in. Sorry.

Seth: 57:37

No, absolutely. That's it. If you guys want the Cliff Notes, go look at that. You can fast forward through my part again. There's your Cliff Notes version. Oh, man. Jonathan, you got any final thoughts for us, buddy?

Jonathan: 57:57

That's it, man. The word masters, it's like it was stated earlier. It could be anything. But we have to keep our hearts pure and we have to say, okay, I'm not going to focus on, you know, cell phones or whatever have you or video games. I got to make God my priority, you know, and that's a struggle. And long story short, that's a struggle, but it's an everyday thing that we need to serve him to the best of our ability.

Seth: 58:32

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Guys, that's pretty much the end of our episode content. Now we do have a closing prayer section coming up here in just a second. Mr. Stephan, he's going to take us through that. Like I said at the beginning, and you can probably tell listeners that we kind of settled into this a little bit. At first, this is our first episode doing this, so definitely need a little bit of grace, need a little bit of patience as we kind of figure things out, get audio quality dialed in, all that fun stuff. But If you if you have something you want to hear, if you have a topic that's kind of on your heart, something that maybe you've had a question about or maybe we said something in this episode that you're like, oh, you know, that's interesting. Maybe one of the supporting verses we brought up to kind of accompany our core verses that you want to hear about. Just please. Let us know. We want to make this engaging. We almost want to make this kind of like a two-way conversation to where you guys are giving us some ideas. You guys are saying what you want to hear. Of course, we're going to have different topics we talk about in the episode. But if there's something you want to hear, now's a great time to let us know, especially as we're getting this started and building it out. We're still coming up with episode ideas. So if you guys have anything you would love to hear, If you got feedback like Seth, you need to be quiet. And we like Jonathan's voice more or Mike's voice more. So let them talk. That's good, too. I'll take it. Anything you got like that. And there will be some Easter egg things in future episodes. I will say if you hear us mention chicken wings in a future episode. Chicken wings. If you hear anything about chicken wings, it doesn't count on this episode because I'm bringing up the Easter egg now. But in future episodes, if you hear the word chicken wings and you email us that and you say, here's the time stamp of when it was said and who said it at our email contact at FOC We'll do something. I don't know. Maybe we'll send you a gift card for some chicken wings or we'll send you a picture of one of us eating some chicken wings. Who knows? Yes. We'll figure it out from there.

Jonathan: 1:00:41

It won't be for me.

Seth: 1:00:45

Yeah. Everybody else on this call, you're disqualified from this. So y'all can't email and pretend to say something about

Mike: 1:00:53

chicken.

Seth: 1:00:54

Sorry, man. Sorry. And family, immediate families disqualified. Sorry. Anybody in that realm is immediately disqualified. But beyond that, you know, it's kind of like lottery rules. You can't work for it and also play it. But yeah. What's that?

Jonathan: 1:01:10

Wah, wah,

Seth: 1:01:12

wah. We got to get a sound board in here. Oh, yeah. But yeah, so we will have our closing prayer here with Mr. Stephan.

Steffen: 1:01:24

And so before we start, we definitely want to say we're not theologians. We're not Bible scholars. We're not teachers. We're not pastors. We are four brothers that came together. To give glory to God. Everything we do, everything we say is to give glory to God. All right. So now if we misspoke or if we have any bumps in the road, if there's anything, just like Brother Seth said that you'd like to share, please email us and let us know. And we would gladly and be happy to bring that up next time.

Jonathan: 1:02:07

Yeah, real quick. Real quick, with that being said, we want to be held accountable as well. So if we, like Stephan said, if we misspoke something, you guys let us know so we can be like, okay, let's go about this a little differently. And I just figured I had to throw that in there because, again, we want to be held accountable for whatever we do. But we want to give God all the glory for everything that he's done.

Steffen: 1:02:38

Absolutely. Absolutely. So with that being said, Father God, thank you so much. Thank you so much for allowing us to come together to have this time together to speak about your word, Lord. We pray that your word has meditated in someone's heart, that someone's ears and someone's eyes have been opened because of your word. We thank you for the opportunity to come together. And we thank you so much for everything that you've done. We thank you so much for everything that you're doing. And we thank you so much for everything that you're going to do. We love you with all our heart and soul. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.

Jonathan: 1:03:26

Amen.