Transcript
Danny Price: everyone, welcome to episode 29 of Table Talk Discussions podcast. I'm really excited for this episode. I'm here with Shane Finley and also here with our new youth pastor, Tony. And Tony, I've already forgotten it. What's your last name again to remind me?
Shane: That's alright. LaMoria. Tony LaMoria.
Danny Price: Lemuria. So Tony Lemuria. So for those of you who don't know, or maybe haven't been to church for a second, Tony's our new youth pastor that we just hired. He was able to teach this last Sunday for the first time. Really cool just to hear his his heart, hear him share a little bit of the word.
Danny Price: um So yeah, Tony, I just figured we'd open up and just have you introduce yourself a little bit. Whatever you feel comfortable sharing, just go for it.
Shane: Okay, cool. So, you know, like so many people, I have a broken background, you know, and, but I was fortunate with just the experiences from my my younger life, they really shaped me. And I think a lot of the brokenness, and I shared a little bit of that, but just a broken family, or parents divorced, remarried, and then the difficulties I had as a kid, some of them that perceived, some of them real, but nonetheless, my experience, right? But those experiences shaped me, and I think that's really what led me into ministry later on, and lot of my ministry has been focused in either teaching the Word at some some level or counseling, and so that's kind of the background I come out of.
Shane: um In between some education stints, I had a short career as a Marine Corps officer and learned a little bit of some different things of the world from that experience and that's great but um yeah that's kind of that's kind of my career background and and how i was shaped a little bit because the military had a lot of shaping in me then i got married while i was in seminary and we've had five kids and we just celebrated our 21st anniversary so that kind of brings us up to date we just moved here three weeks ago
Danny Price: Nice.
Shane: And we're going.
Danny Price: Yeah, you're in it. um
Shane: Yeah.
Danny Price: Where did you, did you end up going to seminary? Where did you go to seminary? I don't know if i caught that.
Shane: Yeah, so I went to seminary, Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and then I did some following stuff at some, one at a Presbyterian school, Reformed Theological Seminary, and then one at an American Baptist Seminary, which no longer exists.
Shane: It's called the Northern Baptist Seminary.
Danny Price: Oh.
Shane: It was up in Tacoma, Washington. what's What's the background of Grand Rapids? Like, what's the... Yeah, they were a, ah they were a GARB school, so General Association of Regular Baptists. Okay.
Shane: Yeah.
Danny Price: I had no idea. Awesome. Really cool. What would you say just to give, i guess, if there's parents listening to this or, and honestly, to people that are just curious, what are some of your passions or some of your vision for the youth ministry?
Danny Price: Obviously I know that's kind of putting you on the spot cause you're coming into a system, you know, this is your second or whatever it is, second week on the job.
Shane: No, it's okay.
Danny Price: um What are, what are some of the things that you envision for the youth? Some of the things that you're passionate about, some of the driving forces behind what you want to do?
Shane: Yeah. ah So, you know, real briefly, I don't think there's anything new. We're not reinventing the wheel. We're not unique and in our vision for reaching kids with Christ and for Christ. But maybe the things that I articulate the most, and i actually haven't written up on the board up here, is our end goal is to produce kids who are mature in their faith.
Shane: And that has some, you know, that expounded out, that means some specific things for us, but they're also discerning. So they know how to use the word of God in their lives and discern what really is the word of God compared to all the
Danny Price: Mm-hmm.
Shane: facade things that are out there and then that they're equipped for missional living. So mature discerning and equipped for missional living. And think the real strength we have here is that, you know, we have a team that is that is already strong and going and we have the right proportion of leaders right now for the amount of kids that we have and kids are excited. So we just got to capitalize on those strengths and the start.
Shane: let's say, being more intentional with our specific mission. So those are like my driving things.
Danny Price: That was well said.
Shane: and yeah
Danny Price: Yeah, that's really well said. That's awesome.
Shane: Also, while we're sitting while we're sitting in here, Danny, if we're going to talk about his passions, one of them has to be Captain in America because there's about 900 Captain America things in his in his office.
Danny Price: um Yeah, go ahead
Shane: And I still haven't heard the full story of why.
Danny Price: ahead. Why Captain America?
Shane: maybe, maybe that's for a different time.
Danny Price: Are you a
Shane: i don't know how long the story is. No, I'll give it it's real brief.
Danny Price: and
Shane: But there's a there's a little Captain America right there. And he's one of those, like straight little guys with the little American flag patch on him. um But when So when I was in the Marine Corps, at one time i actually had a record for the Marine Corps obstacle course.
Shane: And part of that was because I was just really athletic and i had these gymnastics skills. And so when we went to Iraq, I had ah some men who strapped that specific Captain America figure to mar the front of my Humvee and they called me Captain America.
Danny Price: ah
Shane: And so I came home with that and i had like two other guys and I had him kind of displayed and people thought, oh, he collects Captain America. And so I've gotten all these things since. and and And actually I do love Captain America.
Shane: So I'm glad that that's the thing, you know, not like ceramic cows or something, but um those are, yeah. So that's why I've got this whole display and I love it. He's my hero. Yeah.
Danny Price: I love that.
Shane: yeah
Danny Price: That's an admirable thing to, yeah, not I wouldn't say idolize, but just to collect. That's awesome.
Shane: Yeah. Captain America is good. You know, it was like Iron Man. Tony Stark's character might not be the character you really want. You know what I mean? But Captain America, I like it. It's good.
Danny Price: patriotic stands for good values, strong, athletic, all these good things that we all want to be.
Shane: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Danny Price: i love that. That's cool. Well, cool. um So for those of you guys listening, Tony, again, Tony preached on Sunday. So we have questions for him. ah Shane, I wanted to open this up to you too.
Danny Price: I'd love to hear from Tony first on most of these questions, but if there's something that you're like, Oh, I have a little bit to talk about that. I don't want this just to be siloed just for,
Shane: Yeah, sure.
Danny Price: just for Tony, if that makes sense.
Shane: Yeah, sure.
Danny Price: So if you're like wanting to jump in wherever, wherever it makes sense. um So I'm going to jump off just from David's question. So we had a couple listeners send in some questions. This is from David and I'm going to read it verbatim.
Danny Price: You talked about, and this this again, this is a Tony, you talked about behavior modification versus spiritual transformation. Where do you see the overlap between the two and how do efforts towards obedience fit into the spirit's work of heart level change?
Shane: Okay, so um first of all, let's talk about the overlap. And I really think from a biblical standpoint, all right, and we have to be careful here. So I want to acknowledge, first of all, that these questions and the answers to these questions, anybody could find fault with something we're going to say, because if people want to be
Danny Price: Mm-hmm. Hmm.
Shane: against the Bible or find fault with it, they're going to find fault in our answers. But if we're going to be faithful to the scriptures, we have to we have to lean a little stronger one way. So in my ah my opinion, my understanding of the scriptures,
Shane: um the only overlap is in appearance, right? The world cannot produce spiritual fruit without the spirit. But there are some things that can look like fruit, but they're still human effort, right? So someone can display patience through Buddhism, learned patience, but I think a great metaphor would be something like Now there's a lot of great metaphors out there for this, but I think one of my favorite is ah a flowing river versus pump house.
Shane: if If it's God, it's flowing, and it's it's generative, and it's not me. But if it's a pump house, there's effort there, and I have to strain, and I can only go so long before the effort finally catches up with me, and I will lose it.
Shane: And Christians aren't perfect. We are still going to be using human effort sometimes. But the point is is that there will be fruit that is lasting, that is generative, that is from God. And really, God and me are the only ones who are going to know the difference sometimes.
Shane: because I know that I'm feeling the peace and it's not an effort at times. right And so I think that's where the overlap is.
Danny Price: Yeah.
Shane: And then I think the second thing that really goes into that question is how can I know the difference sometimes? And I think that's the Spirit's work. I think the it says the Holy Spirit is the one who convicts.
Shane: And so the Holy Spirit will be the one to convict me and say, you know, this this isn't spiritual fruit. this is This is self-discipline that you're doing. Or I might be thinking of it a different question, but I'm thinking of a different question that that came up earlier too, and it was, um how do you know if it's not just the world circumstances, life's,
Danny Price: Yeah. Yeah.
Shane: life's difficult circumstances that are coming against you, or it's the Lord disciplining you. And that's kind of what I'm talking to right now, is we know if the Holy Spirit is convicting us.
Danny Price: yeah
Shane: The challenge there for the for us, though, is I think we really are in a day and age where we are not being discipled enough to listen to the Spirit's conviction. And we're we're a culture that even within the Christian church, we make so many excuses for things. We put off things or we...
Shane: You know, we joke about things like, oh, Mama Bear showed up because you don't mess with my kids. And we make these kind of little Christian sins are okay. The word of God only goes so far in my life. But he understands if if Mama Bear gets poked or if, you know,
Shane: If somebody says something bad against my friend, then I'm going whoop your butt kind of thing.
Danny Price: Right.
Shane: Right. and And we do that.
Danny Price: Yeah.
Shane: And so we condition ourselves against listening to the spirit's conviction in our lives. So I think that's more of the challenge for us. And I know I went to different question, but that's my answer.
Danny Price: No, that's, that's great.
Shane: Yeah. Yeah, and i the one thing I would add to that is, you know, because I totally related to your illustration about, you know, you're wanting come back to your wife. Like if your wife's bringing something an argument or whatever, and, um you know, whether it your wife or anybody. And, you know, I think for me, like I like what you just said about sometimes it's only you and the and God who knows when it's when it's the spirit. Yeah.
Shane: And the main way I'm able to really see that is how I feel about it afterwards. Like, let's just say the person I acted in such a way the person would never know. One of the main things that makes me able to know is do I feel prideful and justified because I beat you or I did what I was supposed to do? Or do I feel humbled and honoring God because God got me through something?
Shane: God gave me the strength where, you know, I can walk out of all all sorts of situations and fool all sorts. of people right but
Danny Price: Yeah.
Shane: and all these things that are not from God. And so that's one thing that for me helps me understand that too. The other thing I will say, and a lot of people don't know this because I don't think you mentioned it But that really made me respect your whole point on that during the sermon was knowing you have a therapy background.
Shane: Because a lot of people who have a therapy background focus so much on behavior modification. And so I was really interested when once you so brought that up as the spiritual transformation versus modification because...
Shane: you know I know a lot of Christians, even who have background in therapy, or done you know just who they'll they'll focus a lot on the behavior modification. until i was really I was just pre excited to hear. I really appreciated hearing your perspective when I know you have done lots of reading on behavior modification. and you know and You have to to have your degrees. and you know so Anyway,
Shane: I want to caveat on that, too, because I think this is a good point.
Danny Price: Yeah, that's cool. Hmm.
Shane: It might be worth lingering on for a minute. But the idea that, you know, we're talking about us. And I think sometimes people will say, well, how can I recognize the spiritual fruit in others? And I think sometimes we'll get too caught up on that.
Shane: Right. and And it's worth what the discussion. But we're talking, I think what Pastor Shane and I are talking about is paying attention to what's going on in us. But I think there's another metaphor I love. And it's the idea of, you know, real fruit versus wax fruit.
Shane: You know, and I think sometimes the way I can know if that was real fruit or not, it's not by watching whether somebody gives 10 hours to the soup kitchen every week, or if somebody seems to be a good teacher or something. But after I've come in contact, a bowl of wax fruit can look like real fruit from a distance. But the closer I get, maybe there's just little glimpses of the way it shines, the way it shines, or when I finally touch it and interact with it, or right? Once I have that contact of experience with it, just something doesn't feel right. And I think that that can just be a caution, not a judgment thing, but saying, hey, I want to pay a little bit of more attention to this before I get too involved with this, air quote, group.
Danny Price: Right.
Shane: Mm-hmm.
Danny Price: Yeah. it It does say, you know, in the Bible that we will know them by their fruit, but I think it is interesting. i think a lot of people will spend, and I think myself included, sometimes we see something good from someone else. And I think this is a little were talking about. We see something good from someone else and we were skeptical or critical. And we're like is that real fruit? Do they really have a heart? Like, do they really have a heart change? And I think of a lot of times when we have like a recent convert, um, we're very quick to try to judge and try to, um,
Danny Price: discern, I guess, is the best way to say that, to discern whether or not it's true change, it's true fruit. And i sometimes think we get in in the way of ourselves from being able to encourage them and bring them into the kingdom or encourage them in the kingdom, I guess, would be a better way to say that.
Danny Price: Awesome. um Shane, anything else to add to that before we move on to the next question?
Shane: i good that's go
Danny Price: Cool. This next question came in from Morgan, and i'll again, I'll just read it. The sermon highlighted the difference between our good agenda and God's agenda, with his agenda focused on transformation and bearing fruit.
Danny Price: I sometimes hear Christians use, in quotes, living in God's freedom to justify unrighteous choices. What does living in God's freedom actually look like in daily life, and how do we avoid misunderstanding it as doing whatever we want?
Shane: I think it's really powerful. And if it's okay, I'll take this first. but um First of all, I think that's what Galatians, Galatians just gives us so much wisdom there, right? This is one of those things where we have to read God's word and take some time and slow down to read the text and understand what it's telling us.
Shane: I think going into Colossians 2, we're going to learn a little bit about this. But... There's being a slave to sin means we can't do anything else.
Shane: And scripture says we were freed from being slaves to sin. It doesn't mean that we are are never going to be tempted. We're never going to struggle with that again. it means we're freed from it.
Shane: And of course, we can only be freed from that in Christ. So those of us who are freed, the freedom is now the ability to actually please God, and the action the the freedom to pursue, let's say, God's fruit, God's wisdom.
Shane: Like before, we couldn't. We couldn't even pursue God's wisdom we couldn't because we couldn't discern it necessarily. We could recognize some things, but we can't discern it and how to apply it into our life and then actually manifest what only the Spirit can manifest.
Shane: So... um discerning freedom in our lives is the freedom to be able to pursue recognizing in myself i really do want to live for you today i really do want to a psalm 119 i think verse 57 58 talk about i want i beseech the favor of god with all of my heart right and i know if that desire is really in me or not or if Let's use a metaphor again.
Shane: I'm driving down the road and I care about the speed limit just because I care. Like it's in me now. I want to do what's right. As opposed to only when the sirens and the you know the cherries on top just up appear in my rear view mirror.
Shane: It's the only time I care about it. When it's fear-based, when it's law-based. So I think that was a long answer. But I think maybe touching on the fear, too, because it says perfect love drives out fear.
Danny Price: No, it's good.
Shane: So if I'm living with less and less fear over time, and again, I don't want to communicate the idea that we have to be rid of all fear. I'm still afraid sometimes, right? But there's less, a lot less fear in my life to perform for God and earn his favor or fear of doing wrong or whatever consequences than there was a long time ago.
Shane: Yeah, what you say about we're we're not completely free of it. um This week as we're in Colossians he talks about the you that you would know God's will and that you would um that you would be continue being filled.
Shane: And that idea that we're never we're never completely in this in this earth, completely filled or free of everything. Now, we're set free, but...
Shane: we continue to struggle with those things. And I love what i love what you just said about, i don't think I've ever heard anyone say it that way, but Christ set you free from the bondage of sin. And so now you have the freedom to pursue him. um where we i mean we but We all know, I think we theologically understand it that way. I don't think I've ever heard it exactly what he said it though of the Until then, i might have pursued good, but I wasn't really pursuing God's way.
Shane: and you know And I really liked it. That's a good way of looking at it.
Danny Price: Yeah, that is good. I think that's something that I struggle with um or have struggled with is the freedom I think that sometimes I've lived in has just been, again, it's been behavior modification and appearances.
Danny Price: um And I've judged a lot of people for not feeling as guilty or as bad for things in their life that might need sanctification as I do.
Danny Price: And I think that's where I mean, it's a little bit of a pharisaical heart, I suppose. But adding extra rules and extra things in order to protect myself from sinning and from doing things that are against God's will, I think in that effort, a lot of times I'll look at other people and go, well why aren't you doing those things as well? Because you must not really care.
Danny Price: And it's taken me a while to come out of a lot of that. i I think I naturally have a little bit more of a prideful and judgmental heart towards people. And it's something that i've I've been learning to soften. I think God's been really working on me with that. But it's difficult, I think, to see other people living in that freedom. And I guess this is not the question, but I'm just taking that different direction. I think it's hard for me sometimes to see people living in freedom and then not go, that's just so unfair. like they really should They really should be caring more. like And knowing that it's more of an internal thing for me than it is for them. And I think the judge the judgment kind of starts to seep in. I start to wonder,
Danny Price: you know are Do they really even care? Are they really even saved? Because if they did, they would take things as seriously as I do, or I pretend to do, because obviously I don't. But I don't know if that resonates with you guys at all, but that's definitely something that I've struggled with.
Shane: Well, if I can just i not push, just kind of, I guess, dig into that a little bit. I mean, I do think there's a difference, though, of if someone's pursuing sin, right?
Shane: yeah That's not living in Christ's freedom. and it's i So I just want to clarify what you're saying. are you You're not saying, oh we should just not we should just be quiet about it and let someone pursue sin, right?
Danny Price: no, I think I mean more like things like I'm trying to think of something like, for example, drinking alcohol, like for example, something that weaker brother, stronger brother things, or, um, the amount of, amount of,
Shane: What do what do you Okay, so you're talking about like weaker brother, stronger brother kind of issues. Okay.
Shane: Okay.
Danny Price: let's see here, like, you know, if they're reading their Bible or if they know their Bible well or not, and certain things that I think are good things, and I will set them up to be a little bit higher in my mind, like, well, if they really were Christian, they would really care and they would they would do this or they would really dig into this thing or they really wouldn't, whatever it is.
Shane: Okay. Okay.
Danny Price: And I guess you can fill in the blank there. I don't need to get specifics.
Shane: Okay. They'd be convicted in the same area I am, you know.
Danny Price: Right. I'm not saying i don't want to make that.
Shane: Okay. yeah
Danny Price: There's a difference between just straight up sin.
Shane: Yeah. I just wanted to clarify that for anyone listening that you weren't saying that.
Danny Price: I'm not i'm not saying that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no.
Shane: I kind of figured I knew what you meant, but I wanted wanted to make sure. Yeah.
Danny Price: This is, and I think Tony already touched on this a little bit. This is my question, this next one. But how do we discern the difference between unfortunate life circumstances and discipline from the Lord?
Danny Price: does And then I guess I put in a sub sub-question, does that even matter? Does it matter one way the other of how we respond regardless?
Shane: Yeah, so i think so I think that second part, the part that you just said, the second part of that question, I think that touches more on like Romans 12 too. beers Be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you can discern what is the good, perfect, and pleasing will of God.
Danny Price: Mm-hmm.
Shane: I think outwardly it doesn't because our point the point is, right, I think what you're getting to is, does it matter? We're still going to be walking by faith. And so if if what the world sees and what we're experiencing is walking by faith, we're trusting God that he's sovereign over the circumstances. It's not going to matter if it's crummy life circumstances or if it's discipline from God. I'm supposed to walk by faith.
Shane: But I think the difference is, is if I'm being transformed by my mind and I'm the word is getting into me. Right. And I've been meditating on it and I understand what I need to look at. There's the difference for me.
Shane: So a crummy life circumstance comes against me, and i'm I'm aware of how I should be responding to this, or if it's the Lord's discipline, and I'm aware of the Holy Spirit convicts. Because he doesn't do that, right? He doesn't discipline us without the Holy Spirit's aid in convicting us. he He doesn't play games with us.
Danny Price: Hmm.
Shane: He's not the you know the God who's going be like, you figure out why I'm angry.
Danny Price: Hmm.
Shane: If you don't know, then, you know, that's... i So poor kids who have to grow up with that sometimes.
Danny Price: yeah
Shane: um But so listening to the Holy Spirit. But again, there's the discernment within me. And I think that's where the difference comes for us.
Shane: You know, it's not something like we can teach the world and say, here's here's how you they know the difference. We got to teach people the word. Like that old dollar bill illustration.
Shane: The FBI didn't study all the counterfeits.
Danny Price: Yeah.
Shane: They studied the dollar bill so that when the counterfeit came along, they could know the difference. So we just got to teach people, not just the word of God, but also the reality, the practical, like this that you're learning means this about your relationship with God.
Shane: It means this about his love for you. It means this about the character of God. Again, right? Like there are so many people who are God fearing well-intentioned Christians.
Shane: And they are maturing and they're growing, but they haven't learned the character of God. that's in scripture and they're comparing it with, or they're just, all they have to go by is their, the the references of human beings in their lives, whether it was fathers, grandpas, whatever bosses, right? Even sometimes.
Shane: And they know God's word, but they don't have the filter. They don't have this template to put it on top of something experiential to say. So when it, when it says that God's, um, God's patience is,
Shane: um not everlastingness in the word, when it talks about long-suffering, right?
Danny Price: Yeah.
Shane: Like if they don't understand what that means about God, they're just going to think, so what does that mean? Six years? he'll He'll endure me for six years? You know, and and we know, it you know it means says you know his patience going to last a lot longer than we are, than our trouble is.
Shane: And grace is is once for all, right? Right.
Danny Price: yeah
Shane: And we're always afraid, well, don't take that too liberally. Don't let that mean you can sin, right? And like kind of like what Pastor Shane was trying to highlight a minute ago. um But we confuse the issue sometimes, and i just think I think I'm getting off course here with the answer, but um we need to make sure that we're discerning because of what we know of the Word and what we know about God and His character and everything else.
Danny Price: Yeah.
Shane: Yeah, so... This is just a little side note, but something you just said about making sure we know the character of God.
Danny Price: Hmm.
Shane: I think we as Christians, we we're consuming way too much. even Christian, and I'm using hand quotes, material that is focused on us rather than focusing on getting to know God.
Shane: And yes c so I love what you said several weeks ago in a sermon.
Danny Price: Say that again.
Shane: You said, I'm kind of tired of these Jesus is my boyfriend kind of worship songs. Right. And and I think that's that's a really potent statement to the point you're making right now is yeah we've got too much Christian material that's centered on us as God's main priority when really it is his own glory yep through the proper manifestation of this relationship.
Shane: Yeah. And I will say I'm someone who's definitely was guilty of that. You know, i came to Christ in that kind of seeker movement, the whole, you know, I served at a church for years.
Shane: I mean, I served at a church where one sermon from the senior pastor was all about what vitamins and supplements you should take. in order to yeah yeah and i remember i yeah i went in his office i was only been there like three months and i was like dude if this is where we're i can't do this thankfully he got fired a year later and we kind of started moving things a little bit but but still i was in there was a lot of influence in my life on that and you know and and it's a confusing thing because
Danny Price: No. Are you serious?
Shane: For me, I definitely experienced transformation. I definitely experienced Jesus in my life. But then there was all this influence on that. So it was very easy to equate them together. And, you know, I think it's probably been the last 10 years that I've kind of been like,
Shane: ah, that, you know, like where, where's the line of, of, Hey, it's okay to be, um, you know, relevant to people who are spiritual seekers and of thing, but that is not the role of the church.
Shane: And that is not what, you know, we as Christ followers should be focusing on as like that so much focus on self versus the character of God and understanding God.
Danny Price: Yeah.
Shane: So, yeah.
Danny Price: Yeah. That's a great point. And that is popular. And I think probably Tony could speak to this more than anybody. Just being in therapy or counseling is a lot of therapy culture, a lot of there's so much.
Danny Price: And I think he alluded it to the sermon, so much self-help material out there. And I think it's very, I mean, we're we're naturally sinful and selfish. I'm just reminded that more in every day, just being a husband and a father of just how selfish I am.
Danny Price: And I think it's very easy to to reflect inwardly all the time of how is this serving me?
Shane: Mm-hmm.
Danny Price: How is this benefiting me? um And ah you know like like he said about the worship songs, so many worship songs are, I feel this, I do this in me.
Danny Price: um And not that I'm not trying to dis discount what God does inside of us you know by by the power of the gospel, because i think that um I don't think it should only be about God, because God does do a ah work inside of us, which is...
Danny Price: amazing and worthy of praise, but a lot of songs are, it's almost on this kind of like, yeah, that Jesus is my boyfriend, kind of that self-help kind of track of, oh, I just, I want to be, I want to be happy. I want to be joyful. I want to be this. I want to be that. i And it's, we're, we're worshiping more of what we feel and what we want to feel rather than actually who God is.
Danny Price: And then the joy that we could participate by by sharing with that with him and being co-heirs with Jesus and kind of what it says about now that we're in Christ, we're a new creation and being co-heirs with him.
Danny Price: So um I'm sure, Tony, you've seen that. just the the And I guess, as is that a new thing, the dominance of self-help and the dominance of just wanting, the your I guess, your best life now to like quote certain pastors, I guess?
Shane: well
Danny Price: is that Is that a new thing or has that kind of been around a while?
Shane: I think that's been around forever. that We read it in the Bible, right?
Danny Price: Hmm.
Shane: um and But I think that is the big difference between... Worldly wisdom, which there can be elements of God's wisdom present in worldly wisdom.
Shane: um And then God's wisdom. And it's I think self-help is is an excellent way. The secular world, the secular form of counseling, everything except gestalt counseling for the most part, is...
Shane: holding up a mirror to the person and letting them see themselves and then presenting to them, you know, some options, but letting them lead because the idea is you're the expert on your own life. And if I can hold the mirror up to and you can see it, then you can find your truth and we can find true healing.
Shane: from you finding your truth because your problem is is that you believe lies about yourself and you need to find your own truth about yourself.
Danny Price: Hmm.
Shane: And the difference us we're not holding up a mirror to them, we're holding up God's word to them. And hopefully as as they're looking into the mirror of God's word, they're seeing the inadequacy of of their human attempts and other things.
Shane: And then we can say, okay, how can we apply God's wisdom into your life? And that's really the difference. Yeah. And I love what you said, and I think there's that needs to be asked as a question like, how might we?
Shane: Instead of just pointing out the problem that we're worshiping way we want to feel rather than worshiping the God in the relationship in that moment, um how might we then start worshiping the God in the relationship and stop worshiping the way that we want to feel?
Shane: I think that's a really powerful question. I think that's going to be different for a lot of us based on our circumstances, our backgrounds, the trauma and baggage that we have. Right. But I think that's, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head there was stop worshiping the way we feel.
Shane: But how do I do that personally for me or the way I want to feel and start worshiping God?
Danny Price: Yeah.
Danny Price: Interesting.
Danny Price: Shane, anything else you want to add to that?
Shane: Yeah, no, no, that was good. Great.
Danny Price: Nice. We conquered that guys. We, we know everything about that topic.
Shane: as It is It's just like, well, how much more do we add?
Danny Price: That's how I feel. Sometimes I, I feel so guilty about this. I hope people listening know that when we move on from a question, it's not like, okay, we put that to bed. Never, never going to come back to that again. I solved that one.
Shane: We could go down rabbit trails all day. Yeah, we are not the shepherd, but we're we're shepherds and we're trying to do our best from what we've learned.
Danny Price: No.
Shane: Yeah.
Danny Price: And I don't have any formal training either. I've just, so a lot of things I say just completely discredit because I'm just, I'm a lay person just talking about whatever tickles my fancy fancies sometimes.
Shane: Yeah, you need to give yourself more credit. You've got got some good background.
Danny Price: Oh, um I'm going to skip my question because we kind of covered that, that second question about exhibiting the fruits. So we're going to move on to question five. And this is, this is from Shane.
Danny Price: I think this is the first question we've ever had from Shane.
Shane: Yeah.
Danny Price: Um, this this I hope it's good because if it's not, then I don't know if we we're going to any more. Just kidding. um
Shane: Wow.
Danny Price: This is, again, this is from Shane. Why do you think Christians get so easily caught up in the habit of focusing on behavior modification? What are the dangers of focusing on behavior modification as a Christian?
Danny Price: Can it ever be a means to an end?
Shane: God, man, what an odd, that is the best question I've ever heard. yeah
Danny Price: ah
Shane: No, so...
Danny Price: Way to suck up to the new boss.
Shane: I want to add one thing, one word to that question to, I think, make it just a little bit more appropriate for all of us. And that's why do Christians still struggle with behavior modification? Because that's our human nature. That's what we're born into, right? It's performance. That's the way of the world outside of the garden immediately. That's what Cain was so distraught about, right?
Shane: Like, why why aren't you why don't you like my performance as much as my brother's and I'm going to kill him?
Danny Price: Yep.
Shane: And then ever since then, i mean, why do we create idols? Because we want to perform for something. We want to receive, you know, OCD. Really, OCD is the this this internal need for affirmation that I'm doing good enough, that the world is under my control, that things like that. It's just we... we So why when Christians...
Shane: are freed by grace and the Holy Spirit in their life, do we still get caught up in performance and behavior modification? and And honestly, I really, like think it's because the world around us operates that way.
Shane: And unless we're discipled intentionally and well, and so let's do this first. there's two things. Unless we're discipled really well, we don't know how to step out of that.
Shane: I don't know practically how to take God loves me and he sent me, he died for me and and all this and all these other well-intentioned Christian platitudes and Christian platitudes can be really good. They were good. That's why they were created. But we don't know necessarily now in our life because they're so far removed or we've just heard them all our life. We don't really know what they mean. We don't know to apply them.
Shane: So how do I step out of the habits and the the patterns that have been built up in my life, needing performance and affirmation? how do I step out of that? And then I think the second thing is, is we can't just teach. We have to create a culture, which is like places like MVF, places like good churches that recognize we can't just teach the word of God. We have to create things.
Shane: a culture and not just a culture within our staff, but we have to create opportunities where people can come and engage in the things that they're already doing their lives, where the culture we're creating is different from the world's culture of having to perform and and where these habits and patterns
Danny Price: Hmm.
Shane: You don't need to act that way here. And we've got we've got different ways of of affirming and different ways of investing and different ways of teaching. So that's not the message you're receiving.
Shane: And so I think a lot of good churches are teaching good things, but they're not creating cultures where it can be practically experienced. And that's I think that's the challenge for us to overcome.
Shane: the fault that's assumed in that question. yeah how do we How do we get away? Well, and even a lot of our teaching, you know i mean, I've come back and listened to sermons of mine that it went, oh, that,
Shane: That sounded like behavior modification. That wasn't my intention. But, you know, if I was just listening and I didn't understand and I wasn't discipled properly, if I was just out there listening to I'd go, okay, so I just need to try harder. I need to be better at this. I need to do, you know, so so it's really, i mean, it's it's a very...
Shane: like I love what you said. i mean, by the way, you gave the right answer, so I want to thank you for doing it. just no did did ah that you know that's That's our human nature. That's who we are. that's pretty It's ingrained in our sin nature. And so if we're just sitting out there and we are not in an active situation,
Shane: you know, as ah as a newer believer or whatever, we're not in an active discipleship relationship, then and we have nothing to, to you know, nowhere to go to chew on that and to to talk about it with someone and have them help guide us, and then that's going to be our natural connection as well. Okay, I got to try that harder. I got to be better at that. I got to do this more. And then I think after a while, what happens is you hear from us all the all the time, hey, we want you to live free.
Shane: And then you feel like, man, I came here, you know, to want to this freedom in Christ, and now I just feel this heavy burden, you know, and then a couple years later, we give up.
Shane: And so that's, if you are a listener who's not in relationship with actual with with someone who's challenging you to grow and encouraging you and and able to talk this stuff through with you,
Shane: I that's why we are constantly wanting you to do that is because that's what's going happen is you're just going to get you're going to feel burdened eventually.
Shane: And we don't want to do that.
Danny Price: Yeah.
Shane: So, yeah, good.
Danny Price: Yeah.
Shane: Good point.
Danny Price: I would say too, this isn't my, this isn't my idea, but Matt Chandler talks about this. I listened to a sermon that there a while back. I think I brought it up on the podcast before, but for their children, I know, but,
Shane: No way. You listen to match. He loves men. I like that. That's good.
Danny Price: um but he talks about their children's ministry and how, what they focus on a lot early, especially early on, is the character of God and who God is.
Danny Price: And they don't really start talking about the things that are required of us until a little bit later on, until they they've established who God is. Because when they do say, okay, here's... like Especially like you know as for teenagers, like here's a good sexual ethic. Here's how we...
Danny Price: or to act, here's how we're here's how we are to obey. It's landing on the foundation of a God that they can trust. A lot of times we're really quick as Christians to say, here's what you're supposed to do to be a Christian.
Danny Price: you're You're supposed to do this. You're supposed to act like this. You're supposed to say these things and do these things and X, Y, Z. And a lot of times it's not landing on a foundation of who God is. And so it, like, you like I think you mentioned it earlier, Tony, there's no source.
Danny Price: You're not, it's not landing on a foundation of being able to trust who God is and go, wow, you're God is a creator of the universe and he loves me and I'm his child. you know as not Now that I'm saved, I can trust what he says and I can obey him and fully walk in that without having to to worry about whether or not it's good. And if you don't actually know that God is good or trust that God is good, or I guess to quote Tony, that good is God from the sermon, I love that you said that.
Danny Price: Then when you're trying to do all these behavior modification things, it's very easy to go, well, everyone else is teaching behavior behavior modification too. why why does Why is this any different? I mean, stoicism, there's so many different like paths right now of like good things, good discipline, good practices.
Danny Price: And why is why is what I'm doing any different? And because you're you're plugged into the source. You're plugged into the source of goodness. Yeah.
Shane: let's Let's highlight that for a second because I feel like we're in danger of missing this point. We've kind of said it, but I think we need to be more intentional. Because anybody out there who's not a Christian or is an opponent, of they're they're going to rightfully, with their unspiritualized, look at Christianity and say, you guys, you guys are just full of malarkey because Christianity is just behavior modification.
Shane: mean, look at history, right?
Danny Price: h
Shane: And look at what happens when there's moral failure by one of your leaders, right it's just behavior modification. You guys are just trying to pull the wool over your own eyes. And we need to just be very intentional saying, yeah, we screw up. Yes, we're still a human. But the point is is, we're talking about the difference between us just trying with more human effort all the time and God working within us.
Shane: And he's he's doing the transforming within us. and we're not transforming ourselves. And that may sound like a, you know, kind of a cheap way out of it just to put it all on God and say, we, you know, we don't really understand it.
Shane: There are a lot of hard things in the Bible to understand. First John, if no if you don't love, then you don't know God. And if you know God, then you, you, you know, love. And like, that's a really hard thing to teach. Is that, is that saying that, you know, the, the unchristian mother out there doesn't really love her children?
Shane: know, if there isn't real love, but we have to, some of these things are really difficult. So if they're difficult for us to to teach and articulate, then how hard is it for for a non-Christian mind to understand what we're trying to communicate? So we're talking about God transforming us from the inside and producing the fruit, not us producing it.
Shane: And we really believe that that's that's what happens. Yeah, good point.
Danny Price: Yeah, that's really good.
Danny Price: Let's see here. I'm going to move on to the next question. I think that was a great place to end that. This is again from Shane to Tony. You mentioned not being discipled as a young believer.
Danny Price: Later on, did do you have any people come alongside you and disciple you?
Shane: Yeah, and this is – I love – okay, so I've had an answer to before, and I love my answer to this because I hope it sets some other people free you too. um I did have a couple people come into my life.
Shane: One was my pastor who was also like a stand-in youth pastor. who was doing everything at the small church we were at for a while, and and he started that process for me. And then I got involved in Young Life, and Young Life began to teach me – um in In all of its excitement and its energy and everything else, it began to teach me that there is something called discipleship.
Shane: And it's it's a walk. It's something we have to we have to do and and submit to, right? um Surrender, if you will. That's ah the language of Scripture, surrender our lives to. um But then i began reading, I read a lot of Bill Bright's writings.
Shane: Bill Bright was the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ. And he and Billy Graham and Jim Rayburn, the founder of Young Life, were also very heavily influenced.
Danny Price: Mm-hmm.
Shane: Their lives were transformed by a woman, Henrietta Mears, who created Forest Home. And she was she was known as the teacher.
Danny Price: Mm-hmm.
Shane: And so I started reading some of her stuff too. and point in all that is all those people were dead except for Billy Graham before I became a Christian and started reading their stuff but their writings discipled me and my mind wasn't ready to receive their stuff until later in my discipleship journey anyway and God taught me some other things and so when God was ready he brought those things to my attention and so some of my disciples were people who were dead and gone but they influenced me through their writings and then through what there was known about their lives
Shane: And so this idea that discipleship is a relationship and it has to be somebody investing in me and then I turn around and invest in other people, I think that's too narrow. And people can people can be growing.
Shane: There's so much wisdom around us in books things. Yeah, jeff I mean, my only pushback against that would be I definitely think especially today i mean between books and podcasts, you know, I know like Danny, you would definitely agree you're being discipled by Mike Winger and Waze and we need relationships.
Danny Price: Yeah.
Shane: Yeah. But yeah. So the hard part that say in that is that sometimes a relationship will challenge you in an area that, you know, we can just go off.
Shane: You know, so sometimes it's a we need that relationship to so um to balance us and and challenge us and that kind of thing. And because because I've also known people who are great learners and they'll just they'll only consume. a certain theology or whatever, and then all of a sudden they'll just kind of, all of a sudden you find them out in left field somewhere without a balance. So that would be my only thing to put, to say with it.
Shane: I think that's a great that's a great thing to stay on for a second because i think one of the other questions was, how do you grow in wisdom?
Shane: Something like and that.
Danny Price: That's the next question. You can go ahead and jump into that now.
Shane: Yeah. yeah Okay.
Danny Price: yeah
Shane: So, because Shane kind of opened the door for this one. And there's, I want to say there's, all I can talk about is my experience, right? And there's things that scripture tells us, but I want to try to make it practical. So in my experience to come from the word of God, first of all, and so we have to know the word of God. He teaches us. He tells us early, he told Israel, and you have to teach the word. You have to teach these principles. You have to teach these laws, right?
Shane: um And so we have to get it in us. We have to know it first of all. But then secondly, there's this idea of meditating on it, which goes beyond just reading the Bible and it's figuring out wrestling with this. Right. And God's saying this is a little out of context, but I think we can play here. God's saying, come and reason with me. Right. And let's and he's talking about defending ourselves in that point. But the point is, he's he wants us.
Shane: to have conversation and relationship and struggle and wrestle with these things in our lives and be transformed by them and ah most of us would say change doesn't come without some kind of conflict transformation doesn't come without some kind of conflict in our lives and so he invites us into that kind of a relationship and it's okay So meditating on it and learning wrestling with it. And then I think the third thing in my experience that I've seen from other mature individuals and that I've experienced myself is that we really need people in our... So this is where the relationship piece comes that Shane was just talking about. We need people in our life who don't just come into our life and give us advice and tell us the word of God and tell us how to apply things. But we need people who can, in this accountability relationship and discipleship relationship, who can come alongside us and ask us the questions that cause us to wrestle. I think that's one of the best ways that wisdom develops in us.
Shane: Right? People who can say, hey can you do this for me? Can you just take, yeah I want you this week, I want you to do this. And I want you to kind of come and then next week come back and tell me what you think. or Or say, what?
Shane: Do you think that that was the best way to go about that? what do you What do you think about this? But asking those questions and causing us And I think that's in those safe relationships that God designed like that.
Shane: I think that's one of the best ways that wisdom gets developed and grows in us. Again, when it's based on God's word, not you know corporate, even corporate wisdom or consultancy kind of wisdom.
Danny Price: I have a lot of questions about this, or I have had a lot of questions about this internally about discipleship. I have grown up and I've heard so many opinions and interpretations of what discipleship means.
Danny Price: and how that relationship is supposed to look between two people. I've heard some people say you're only the only person you're being discipled is is by God. And so that's all that's all that discipleship means. I've heard other people say it has to be a one-on-one relationship between you and ah and a mentor, and like you guys have this special bond, kind of like Elijah, Elisha, so to speak.
Danny Price: um I've heard other people say it's supposed to be like a group thing, and then I disciple you. Everyone's supposed to have um a Timothy, and everyone's supposed to have everyone's supposed to have a Paul and a Barnabas.
Shane: the Barnabas and Yeah.
Danny Price: Yeah, so I've heard so many different opinions opinions and interpretations um are I don't know, i guess both of you just talk about this a little bit. Are we are we supposed to have people that we're being discipled by and people that we're discipling? is Are we just pointing to God? Because he's we're disciples of God, first and foremost. we're not disciple I'm a disciple of...
Danny Price: um you know, to quote like the the word, you know, some follow Apollo, some follow Paul, some follow so-and-so, but we're we're all supposed to follow God.
Shane: yeah
Danny Price: What's the right relationship that we're supposed to have with other people around us that are encouraging us? is Is that a very muddy question or does that kind of make sense what I'm trying to get at?
Shane: No, I mean, i think there's I think there's a lot of ways to look at it.
Danny Price: Like what
Shane: I don't mind if I hit this first. Nope. um I think there's the ideal and then there's God works in so many ways. um You know, i have known people who are deep, deep disciples. First of all, we're all disciples.
Shane: you You're either a good disciple of Christ or you're a bad disciple of Christ. If you call yourself a Christian, you're either lying and you're not, or you're a disciple. And um then the question is, are you a good disciple or a bad disciple?
Danny Price: Yeah.
Shane: you know And I've known people who at different times in their walk have all every gamut of everything you've just said. um you know I think sometimes like as a pastor, 95% of the relationships I'm around,
Danny Price: yeah
Shane: there's they're not there's not someone who's discipling me. I have to go seek that. And so there are times when I don't really have anyone in my life who I would say, yeah, that person is really discipling I have to find it from other teachers that I listen to. Like I'd say, hey,
Shane: You know, I've had periods where I kind of like say, hey, I'm going to sit under this teacher for a year and I'm going listen to every one of their sermons. You know, I'm going to my on my Sabbath, on my day off, I'm going sit down and I'm going to listen to their their sermon and I'm to take notes just like I was my church.
Danny Price: Huh.
Shane: um And then, you know, there's times where it's just different books I'm reading. There's times where it's the word of God. um there's But then there's also times, like I'm actually intentionally moving into a relationship like this right now with um with a local pastor who um but I have, I've had a friendship with, but I've kind of been like, Hey, I just, I went to him and i said, Hey, I just feel like I'm at a place where I really need this. Would you have time to kind of meet with me every other week in this, in this, you know, do this. And so he's going to do that with, with me. So, and I've had times where I do that. So I do think it's, mal I believe it's multifaceted and I, and I don't think there's one right way that God moves to everyone.
Shane: Ideally though, I would say that yes, most people, they have some sort of relationship that ah is at least going to challenge them, encourage them, lift them up, pray for them help them walk through growth.
Shane: So that would be my two cents.
Danny Price: Right. Right. Mm-hmm.
Shane: So I'm going to say kind of the same thing, just maybe for a different set of ears. um Everything that you asked, you know you and you kind of set up the question the way the world sets it up for us. Is it this or is it this? I've heard this, I've heard this, I've heard this. And the the truth is is that every one of those models or you know things that you gave us are portions of God's ultimate truth. Yeah, yeah all of those aspects, and Shane said that in a certain way. And so...
Shane: First of all, there's that. And then secondly, Scripture does, like all through Scripture, gives us this very holistic, complete, but also complex picture of what...
Shane: discipleship is. And so there's a difference between the ideal, what discipleship is, and then our best efforts and what we're doing. And so I think we should always be careful whenever we hear the word should, you know, we should say, hey stop shooting on me.
Shane: Right.
Danny Price: Yeah.
Shane: And I love that and in counseling, you use all the time. Just be careful when people start shooting on you.
Danny Price: Stop shutting.
Shane: And get away from it, right? Because um there's the ideal and then there's our best interpretations. And so we can take the good from all this. But I think in our job, especially in ministry, that kind of is, this is the point.
Shane: We're always trying to be more holistic. We're trying to be more complete in our discipleship approach. And we're taking... you know We're trying to take the best ah of things and put it all together and say, for us here, for this time, for this demographic of people, for for who God made me, whatever, this is this is my best approach to it.
Shane: So... let's Let's try to do more of that and and less of the, well, this is what Pastor So-and-so of Mega Church XYZ said and does, and this is what this book says and does, and you know this is my understanding from this one portion of Scripture.
Shane: And lets let's try to pursue that that again in that relationship.
Danny Price: Yeah, there's a lot there's a lot of information out there. It's easy to get information overload. Or just gravitate, I think Shane spoke to this earlier, just to gravitate towards what we personally prefer and not letting the word of God convict us.
Danny Price: It's very, I know this is just from a personal experience. It's very easy just to gravitate towards what I like or what makes the most sense to my mind with all my background and all those things. um Is there anything else you guys want to add just before we close? I think we're we're at a great spot right now. is there anything else just from the sermon, something that didn't make it into the sermon, Tony, or something, Shane, that you wanted just to wrap up with. Yeah.
Shane: I don't have anything I want to wrap up with. i thought I just thought it was a great sermon and was pleased with it. No, I got nothing. Just those really excellent questions from Shane. No, thank you. it was it was This is fun. this is ah This is a good time, and I love the the additional wrestling and digging.
Shane: So thanks for letting me be here.
Danny Price: Yeah. Sorry, um ah ah this isn't necessarily meant to be like a a whole poking session of all the things that you didn't say or miss. It's more, i guess, just a little bit of an experience to go little a little past and just kind of unpack some of those ideas that you had.
Shane: I think it's good to ask some of the questions that other people maybe walk away with asking.
Danny Price: so
Shane: so Yeah, that's great.
Danny Price: Yeah. So that's good. Well, thanks for being on the podcast, Tony. This was really fun. and I'm not sure how often you're going to be teaching, but hopefully you know if you you teach again soon, we'll have you back on.
Shane: Thanks for having
Danny Price: um For the listeners, we're starting Colossians, kind of what alluded to. So really excited. Colossians, there's a lot in there. It's a short book. It's only right four chapters, four chapters long.
Shane: After Jim.
Danny Price: So it's not, there's a lot in there for something being so small, which is usually the case with a lot of these books of the Bible. It's really interesting how some of these small ones just pack so much, so much punch.
Shane: I've heard it referred to as the king of the epistles.
Danny Price: So
Danny Price: yeah.
Shane: so yeah
Danny Price: Awesome. All right.
Shane: I haven't.
Danny Price: Well, wait, what did you say?
Shane: Maybe I'll research that.
Danny Price: i didn't catch that.
Shane: I said I've heard of it referred to as the king of the epistles because of its kind of positive focus. And then Ephesians is like the queen of the epistles. Yeah.
Danny Price: Interesting. Oh, interesting.
Shane: and
Danny Price: That's cool. um So yeah, if you guys are listening, again, pass this on to your friends, especially if people don't know Tony. um This is a great opportunity for you just to hear a little bit more of his heart. So if you're maybe maybe a parent or you know parents of youth, just so you can pass this on so that they can listen, hear a little bit of his heart.
Danny Price: Really exciting to have him on. Thanks again for listening, guys. As always, give us a thumbs up or a review if you guys enjoy what you're listening to. And again, just for Sunday, if you're listening to the sermon, we'd love to hear your questions.
Danny Price: So please just be thinking as you're listening to the sermon, not not to pick apart what Shane's saying, but if there's any clarification or things that you're curious about, we'd love to chat about that stuff in the future.
Shane: Amen.
Danny Price: So love you all. Appreciate you all listening. And we'll see you guys again same time next week. Bye-bye.
Shane: and man yeah
Danny Price: See you guys.
