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Balancing Boldness: Courage and Responsibility in Faith
59 Plays1 year ago
In this episode of Scripture Unfiltered, Dan Sanchez and Pastor Ridley Barron dive into the topic of boldness, inspired by a sermon from the book of Acts. They explore the concept of boldness in the Christian faith, examining its various facets and implications in modern life.
Timestamps:
00:54 Personal Reflections on Boldness
02:30 Balancing Boldness with Responsibility
05:25 Practical Applications of Boldness
11:36 Boldness with Time and Energy
20:52 Boldness with Finances
30:37 Boldness in Affection and Relationships
35:34 Overcoming the Fear of Boldness
37:20 Closing thoughts and call to action
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Transcript
Introduction and Theme of Boldness
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome back to Scripture Unfiltered, a podcast series from Grove Hill Church where we dissect this sermon from the previous Sunday. I'm here with Ridley Baron who preached out of the book of Acts on the topic of boldness.
Personal Experiences and Balance in Boldness
00:00:13
Speaker
And if you've read the book of Acts at all, you know there's plenty of stories to go from boldness in there. And while I won't be recovering what you talked about, Ridley, in this last sermon, you can go back to the previous episode. She's there in the podcast app.
00:00:28
Speaker
Um, I'd love to talk a little bit more about, I don't know how to frame it up, but like pushing all into boldness and the sacrifice, the opportunity cost of boldness and how much like, is there a balance in this whole thing of being too bold or not bold enough? And this is going to be a personal one because I'd shine a little bit of story of my story in it because this is something I've wrestled with because I felt like I, I love the idea of boldness. I love the idea of being.
00:00:57
Speaker
all in. I think I shared in a men's group one time, but my whole Christian journey started. I grew up in a Christian family and all that kind of stuff, but it really started taking shape when I was going to youth conferences like Acquire the Fire, where Ron Luce was an intense preacher from the stage and he wouldn't do that like, oh, just everybody close your eyes, put your head down.
Sacrifices of a Bold Faith Life
00:01:23
Speaker
and just say like you know raise your hand real quick if you want to accept Jesus no that's just not the way he led that ministry he'd be like if if you're ready to give yourself to the Lord and go all in I want you to stand up from your seat in front of a whole arena sometimes stadiums and be like I want you to stand up and shout I want the cross
00:01:41
Speaker
You know and in a quiet stadium You'd see a kid stand up be the first one and the second one and a third and then it started multiplying, right? But that's the kind of intensity and I went to the whole internship for two years and then spent two years on staff in that ministry and it was just That I don't know. I don't know what it was that ministry was just had a culture of boldness and intensity and
00:02:05
Speaker
I mean, so much so that they later went bankrupt because they spent too much money in bold, bold dreams, which I'll tie back later is an example I have for later. But I've always wanted to push hard. I've always been that person to kind of run to the altar and just commit my whole life. I think I've done that multiple times at multiple conferences.
Boldness in Adulthood: Balancing Family and Faith
00:02:27
Speaker
And now being 36,
00:02:29
Speaker
family for mortgage payment, house, involved in church. I find myself not at that extreme point of like when I was young and single and being able to give my whole life. Cause there's more to give now and it's different. It feels different, but sometimes I'm sitting here at my office, my desk, or I'm walking, pushing the stroller down the street, or, you know, you're just doing the dishes and it just intensity looks different. When you're, when you're single or when you have a lot, when you have essentially not a lot going on,
00:02:58
Speaker
intensity is a lot easier. Yeah. So I wanted to kind of make an episode about like, what do you do when you have that yes, that yes in your heart, you're like listening to a sermon, like the one you preached on Sunday, and you're just kind of like, he's right. Come on. Like intensity. Yes. Boldness. Let's do it. But at the same time, there's these things that kind of pull you back. Where do you find the balance? So before I go into like specifics, what do you think about this topic? I think it's a really hard thing to process.
00:03:28
Speaker
So let me start with the obvious. I don't think that most of us have to worry about being too bold because that's not the problem that most Americans face. Our problem is being too conservative in our following. We tend to be really focused on holding back what we think is ours or what we think God wants us to have.
00:03:53
Speaker
So sacrifice for most of us really isn't truly sacrifice at most. It's a little bit of an inconvenience. Whereas God through Jesus said, you know, true followers of mine are going to, are going to lay at all at my feet. They're going to, they're going to be willing to sacrifice
Dialogue with the Holy Spirit on Boundaries
00:04:13
Speaker
it all for me. Then you, then he began, like you said, you kind of start to grow up and you become an adult and you become mature and you have all these responsibilities.
00:04:23
Speaker
And you're going, OK, I know I have a responsibility to follow Jesus Christ, but I also have a responsibility to the woman I married to take care of her and that kind of stuff. I have a responsibility to the kids that God has blessed me with to provide for them those kinds of things.
00:04:40
Speaker
And I know there are people who would say, well, that's where you trust God. God's going to provide. Well, God did provide. He gave me a job that I need to go to, you know? And so I think there's this constant inner struggle, even for people like me, who've been a Christian for, at this point, 48 years of my life, this constant struggle and ongoing dialogue with the Holy Spirit, okay? What does it look like? What does it look like for me to be truly sold out and bold and courageous for the kingdom of God?
00:05:09
Speaker
Um, and where do I draw those boundaries on?
True vs Perceived Christianity
00:05:16
Speaker
Well, honestly, quite, you could call it almost foolishness and doing too much. Just almost like to prove a point. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. Being bold. I find that until I really like looked at what Christianity could look like, I thought Christianity was just kind of like a nice to have. Mm-hmm.
00:05:36
Speaker
One of the things when I first like recommit in my life about halfway through high school, like the Lord led me to this book. I think this was given to wave to me. I think I bought a different book and they gave this to me for free. It was literally like one of those things they just put in my bag, right? And ended up being like one of the best books I ever read. It's called Jesus freaks by DC talk.
00:05:53
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I've heard of that. There's a couple of these. This is like volume two. There's one and like there's an American version or whatever. This book is fantastic because I read through it and actually they're like short stories, probably like three, max four or five pages a story. But it goes and actually like shows you like what real Christianity looks like. You're like, no, this is what boldness looks like. These are like stories of martyrs, like you talked about in the sermon, people who actually gave their life.
00:06:20
Speaker
people who sacrificed or at least at great cost,
Faith as Transformative and Practical
00:06:23
Speaker
they became Christians, or just went and moved somewhere and became a missionary and did hard things. So there's old stories, new stories, it's full of full of stories. And I remember reading that being like, Whoa,
00:06:36
Speaker
This is different. This is different than the Christianity I grew up with. But it gave me a picture of it. And I feel like we could all do with some pictures like that. I almost wonder, it could almost be like a separate podcast we do is just tell some of the stories. Yeah, absolutely. Christian saints. Absolutely. I feel the same way about the book Insanity of God that I read several months ago, just eye opening that the links that people have gone to in order to follow the will of God for their lives, you know,
00:07:06
Speaker
I think the Bible very clearly, when you get over to Romans chapter 12 and Paul's talking about this, when he says, you know, you're supposed to be transformed by the renewing of your minds and that we become holy and living sacrifices. And we get that image of laying everything we have, everything we are on the altar of God. So that to me is the link that God asked us to go to. But I think what God does is for many of those things, he turns around and gives them back to us.
00:07:36
Speaker
to say, okay, now follow me in a godly way using this stuff. I mean, the first thing that comes to my mind is, you know, our kids, you know, you lay your kids on the altar and say, God, they're yours. Work your will out for them, use them however you want to. And then God says, okay, I'm going to do that, but I'm going to hand them back to you so that you can train them so that you can teach them and bring them up in the way of the Lord. So,
00:08:02
Speaker
I do think there's this ongoing dialogue, and I think it's an oversimplification for us to say, Dan Sanchez must pray the will of God over every one of his kids and let go of them. That's just way too simple. I think God wants this ongoing dialogue with us about where the give and take of that relationship looks like.
00:08:22
Speaker
Sometimes I've heard this is extreme cases, but there's like subtleties that play out with this. It's like they give their kids up to God and they're there for stop parenting. I've seen this play out in some dramatic ways I had when I was still in high school.
00:08:37
Speaker
Some we we'd moved from california to colorado and we had we hosted we some kid came and lived with us from california as a friend of my sisters and his mom literally said that on her sending him on the plane like oh i think like i'm giving him to the lord he eventually flew back because he can he he just couldn't stabilize his right i was like but i was i still in my mind of like she said that sending him out kind of like i finished well i'm like no you're just
00:09:05
Speaker
Letting go of responsibility. You know, one of the things, one of the conversations that I get a lot as pastor, whether it's like a personal conversation or just reading stories of people, an area where people have a real hard time with this is their personal health. We talk about trusting God with our personal health. So is it bad to go to a doctor? Is it bad to take medicine? Is it bad to seek, for lack of a better term, worldly answers to that question?
00:09:32
Speaker
Uh, and then, you know, the flip side of that conversation is people who go, no, that's God using the intelligence of men that he has given them to figure those things out. So where does that, where does that break down into our personal responsibility and our trust with God? Yeah.
00:09:49
Speaker
I've always thought about it. Well, this is where I've come to now after seeing some hardships for other friends that have like held on to the, I'm not even going to mention that I have cancer because then I won't have faith that I'm already healed kind of a thing and then suffers. And then I literally had a friend's wife go through that and then she passed and she never said goodbye to her kids because she didn't want to admit that she had cancer. I'm like, that's hard.
00:10:13
Speaker
I almost wonder if faith in that moment looks like I'm going to trust God with
Building Boldness Over Time
00:10:18
Speaker
my potential healing. And if he doesn't, that my family's going to be taken care of so that in my time remaining, my life will give him, I will have the most joy and the most peace that will give glory to him. If I get healed, then it'll give glory to him. If I die, then may my death give glory to him. I'm always like, is that the better way to go? Is that the faith component? I think that's a great way to put it because you kind of can, you can kind of
00:10:43
Speaker
wander off into that whole speak into existence kind of mentality that some churches have gotten into. And I don't see anywhere in scripture that that's a teaching that we've been given. Really speak your health into existence. Yeah, name it and claim it kind of thing. Because if that were the case, if it were simply just believing and speaking into existence, then Paul would have never had to pray three times for the thorn in his flesh to be removed. He would have had it done the first time and he would have never had to deal the rest of his life with it.
00:11:11
Speaker
He would have never had to write Romans 7 where he said the very thing I want to do, I don't want to do. He would have said, hey, I name and claim my healing and we're moving on. And there are certain things I believe with all my heart because of the rest of scripture. This is why context is so important that we have things that are put into our lives because God wants them to be there, because he wants us to face those challenges and bear that weight. So.
00:11:36
Speaker
So let's talk about how to increase boldness. And then for funsies, talk about how I can get to go too far in a few different major areas of life. And I mean like major areas. Let's talk about time and energy. Time and energy. So I think boldness is kind of like lifting weights. You got to start where you are and push yourself. Maybe my first act of boldness is that tomorrow when I go out to eat, I'm going to ask my waiter, can I pray for them?
00:12:07
Speaker
Maybe my next act of boldness is that I'm going to have a full gospel conversation with the person that I don't know at the grocery store or whatever. Maybe that leads me to start praying about actively going out and knocking on my neighbor's doors and saying, hey, how can I pray for you? It's an increasing thing. And what happens is when you express boldness and you find that God is faithful in your boldness, then it gives you confidence to go just a little bit deeper.
00:12:33
Speaker
Very much like lifting weights. The more you push yourself, the more you're able to pick up the next set of weights and go a little bit bigger with it. So I think that's a great illustration of what you're talking about here, time and energy. You don't pick up bigger weight overnight.
Intentional Living and Serving Others
00:12:50
Speaker
It takes time. And in the course of that time, there are moments where your growth actually will level out and you'll just have to be patient during that time because the next growth spurt will come.
00:13:02
Speaker
Of course, energy is a given. If you're going to lift weights, if you're going to express boldness, it's going to require you being intentional about it and using your energy to do it. You don't get permission just to sit back and go, okay, just fill me with boldness. It's going to come from your practicing your courage, practicing your boldness. That's how you see your boldness grow.
00:13:23
Speaker
Trying to put time, it's like, time almost becomes like, how do you be bold with your time? And you spend time, boldness looks like spending more time serving others than it is serving yourself. Yeah, absolutely. But then you can get into this thing of like, well, now I'm really busy.
00:13:41
Speaker
of which, like you said, it's like a weight game. It's kind of like, yeah, but many people are busy. Yet some still accomplish more in a given day because we all have the same amount of hours. I love looking at the lives of CEOs of big companies because they're some of the most disciplined people you ever run to. Usually the larger the organization, the more disciplined that one person has to be.
00:14:02
Speaker
And they're extremely regimented to the most extreme senses because they have to accomplish in 24 hours more than what most of us could even fathom can be done. Well, I'll even make it personal for me. The guy I was as a young pastor, young minister 20 years ago would not have been capable of leading a church this size 20 years ago because I did not have discipline that I have now. Obviously didn't have the maturity that I have now.
00:14:31
Speaker
the life experiences, those kinds of things. So I have no problem looking back at my life and looking at the failures, the mistakes, the struggles, and going every place I can see God's hand in it and how he was shaping me for such a time as this, to borrow the phrase from the book of Esther. So oftentimes I think about how to get more out of each day.
00:14:54
Speaker
It's hard because sometimes there's easy ones like, okay, spend less time on Netflix or just cancel Netflix, probably even better place to start. It makes it way easier to spend less time there.
00:15:06
Speaker
how do I be more intentional with the time that I'm giving?
Evangelism Strategies and Personal Comfort
00:15:09
Speaker
Instead of just spending time with my kids, absently, how do I be more engaged? How do I bring God into it? Can I pray for them? Can I be more intentional? Not just spend time with my wife, but actually spend this time even praying for her, reading the Bible together, or even just being more present with her instead of looking at the phone or something like that so that I'm seizing the most out of the time is a good place to start if you're
00:15:33
Speaker
If this idea is, if you have a yes in your heart for this and you want to start taking measures, these are probably some measures you can take. What would be another measure you could take with your time if you wanted to start being more bold? Oh, wow.
00:15:47
Speaker
I've made this comment. I can't remember if I did it at the beginning of the service that we live stream, but the quote that I had read where the guy said, when Paul, everywhere Paul went, there was a riot and everywhere Americans go and preach the gospel. It breaks out to a conference or a convention. And I think about how much time we spend sometimes even by accident within our holy huddles.
00:16:10
Speaker
where it's safe for us, which does a lot of good things for us. It encourages us and affirms us and that kind of stuff, but also can suck away our boldness because now we're no longer required to be bold because we're in the safety of our huddle. So intentionality about going outside of that circle of friends who we know to be believers and letting your gospel-filled life brush up against somebody else. It's kind of,
00:16:38
Speaker
kind of self-defeating for you to sit in front of the TV watching a movie going, I wonder how I could spend more time serving God because God's probably going, okay, turn the TV off and let's get started with that. And I think that's exactly what you were talking about a minute ago. Yeah. So you think we should like start street preaching? I'm not going to say no. I do think there's a time and place where those are effective, but I think we also have to be
00:17:03
Speaker
Not that we're trying to be sensitive in the sense that we don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, but I think we have to be sensitive to the culture that we are in as to what is the most effective way to minister to somebody, you know? I mean, God bless the guy who sits behind the NFL goalpost at every game with a John 3 16 poster, you know, and waves it around. And who knows? Maybe lots of people have picked up a Bible and read that at some point because of what he did.
00:17:29
Speaker
But I wonder the time, the energy, and even the money it took to buy an NFL football ticket if he couldn't have gone and been much more effective in a different environment, maybe buying 150 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and doing the homeless ministry in the streets right outside the stadium. So I think ongoing dialogue with the Holy Spirit about where do I make the best use of my time, talent, and skills?
00:17:57
Speaker
Because I think the reward on that is even more when you couple boldness with self-awareness. For somebody who's an introvert to say, I'm going to go stand up in the middle of my high school gym tomorrow and preach the gospel, I don't think that's the best use of your boldness because you probably aren't prepared to give a real explanation of the gospel anyway.
00:18:20
Speaker
maybe the best use of your boldness is to maybe have a quiet conversation in the hallway with a friend of yours who's lost. I know that's probably a strange example, but it kind of helps me think God gave us all unique gifts, unique personalities, unique skills and passions so that we would use them. You don't do the same thing I do because there's no point in both of us doing the same thing.
00:18:45
Speaker
Yeah, it would be hard to just stand up on a block and start preaching. I've tried to do like outdoor ministry before where you're like just trying to evangelize like randomly. I mean, they took me actually at the ministry I was working at that I mentioned previously, they actually took a bunch of us down to like Debellum in Dallas, which is like the club district. Yep. So awkward. I'd spent zero time at a club.
00:19:09
Speaker
Stand up look or sore thumb now everybody knows I'm feeling awkward. I'm looking awkward So no one's gonna like have a serious conversation with me the guy who took us there had previously had a life in clubs So he feels natural there. I'm like, dude Maybe you should have dropped me like at a I don't know like even a video game convention would have been
00:19:28
Speaker
I don't know if I would have been natural there either because I hadn't been to those, but at least I had played video games. I would have been able to strike up a conversation. I wonder if that's maybe the trick is go where the people are hanging out that are like you, that's not your church friends, but are doing the thing that you're into. For me, it'd be like a marketing conference of some kind and then work from there. Here's another, I think, decent example from my own personal experience.
00:19:53
Speaker
I do have the gift of public speaking, something that God's given me a comfort level doing. I could go out and spend an entire day in downtown Nashville on the street corner preaching the gospel and probably reach fewer people than I have done in one spring of coaching a Little League baseball team.
00:20:14
Speaker
Something else I really enjoy, something I'm really good at, but because I took the time to be in a place where I was comfortable, I was able to reach families who had never gone to church or kids who had never heard the gospel. And
Financial Generosity and Responsibility
00:20:26
Speaker
just over the course of three months of baseball season, impact some families for Jesus. I think, again, just a self-awareness of who you are and what God created you to be opens up more effective channels for using your courage and your time and your energy.
00:20:45
Speaker
moving from time and thinking about being bold with money. What would that look like? Do you kind of follow the Dave Ramsey model? Which is kind of like a, hey, make sure you're taking care of your own things first, but of course the end goal is to be as generous as possible. He's a proponent of pain tie than being generous, but he's also kind of got a system of saving, paying off debt, saving some more. Right.
00:21:13
Speaker
Being in do it kind of Budgeting and setting aside, you know portion forgot a portion for your savings a portion for retirement and then living off the rest Is that kind of do you just be generous within those means or can you do can you be more bold than that? I think I Think it's probably where I fall is kind of in that Be big and generous with your with your material items
00:21:40
Speaker
using good reason in the process. I think that's kind of what Jesus talked about a little bit when he said, you know, nobody sits down and builds a tower without first sitting down to determine the cost. He wasn't specifically mentioning a budget, but that's exactly what a budget does. A budget gives you the ability to kind of at least forecast a little bit about where your money's gonna be. But I think the purpose of that is in the end to be a more generous supporter of the kingdom of God.
00:22:11
Speaker
As a believer, I get, this is the profit me, I get real frustrated with people who maybe in their college years set up a long one, give $20 a month to the church, my automatic withdrawal, giving whatever recurring payment or whatever. And 20 years later, they're still giving $20 a week to the church, but they're more than happy to go buy a new car or take fancy trips and all that kind of stuff. And I'm not, I don't fault people for having that. I mean,
00:22:39
Speaker
Lord knows the richest man who ever lived was Solomon, who was obviously a follower of God. So there's a place for that. But I think the reason that Solomon was honored with that wealth was because his determination was that I'm going to honor God with my life.
00:22:52
Speaker
I feel like the New Testament's pretty clear that you should give to the point that it hurts. That's kind of like a good frame, but honestly, some people could be so strapped in, I guess, not paying attention enough to where the money's actually going that even giving $200 feels like it hurts when tithe for them might be $700 or something like that because of our spending habits as Americans.
00:23:16
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know what the latest statistics are, but it's something pretty embarrassing here in America, at least, that the majority of money that is given by the people who actually give regularly is given by people who are lower income. It's like they understand the value of supporting kingdom work and because they're not locked up into material things and wealth and prestige, those kinds of things, they have a much free and tender heart for the things that matter.
00:23:46
Speaker
And I think that's probably, you know, I can't remember the exact wording. I think it was the Psalmist who said, don't let me be so rich that I forget, you know, the kingdom of God. And don't let me be so poor that I become a beggar and a stealer. There's a balance there. Often sometimes wonder, I've seen people be radical in their giving and give everything. And sometimes I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
00:24:11
Speaker
Like there's certainly times and places for that, but sometimes I'm like, yeah, but the rest of us are going to have to bail you out next month because now you can't make rent. You know what I'm saying? That's a great point because the question you got to ask yourself before you sit down and write a check for your entire savings to go into the church is, okay, who's going to take care of me at this point? And obviously the spiritual answer is God, but God gave you a job. God gave you common sense. He gave you a paper and a pen to sit down and write a budget.
00:24:39
Speaker
Yes, he wants you to be very generous and very sacrificial in your giving. And he even goes so far to encourage us through Paul to do it with a deliriously happy heart, you know, to write those checks. But I do think you have to have some common sense that says, but next week I'm going to need to pay my electric bill and I don't need to be bailed out because of it.
00:24:58
Speaker
And there's certainly times to push it and give a little bit in faith where you're like, this is a little bit more than probably is wise, but I'm still thinking prudently, you know, and this might, I don't know, this might be too personal for the podcast and I have to trim this out afterwards. But last year I hadn't been giving enough.
00:25:15
Speaker
Or at least what would have been around a 10% mark. And I was giving, but I was like, clearly, I dropped it off dramatically. And I got let go for my job. And Amy and I were looking at finances, and we were talking about the tithe. And I was saving just because I saw, I don't know, I think I was like, at the rate we were spending, I wasn't putting nearly enough away into savings, and savings was dropping. So I was like, I got to keep this tanked up. And I cut it from the tithe. Bad idea.
00:25:45
Speaker
But it's what I did. And when Amy and I talked about it and we had, I don't know, maybe like 15 or I won't get into the math, but like I had a significant savings built up from doing that. But of course I just lost my job and I had enough money to kind of like, if under the gun, I could make it through to the end of December and not have another income supplied. And I knew it would take a while to get enough clients or business or a new job or something for that time. But we prayed about it and we're like,
00:26:16
Speaker
We have some, we have a chunk of change, but if we go back and paid what we should have been tithing, we're only going to have this much left, which will take us through mid to end of October. So there's going to be a few months left that we wouldn't have otherwise. So we prayed and we're like, you know, we should have done this. So we did. We, we just gave like a lump sum late. Sorry, Lord. Yeah. And guess what? We got to October.
00:26:42
Speaker
And it still really hurt. You know what I'm saying? Like I actually got my first client in October, like, like major client, but it wasn't quite enough then. So like, but God showed up in a total and a bunch of different ways in November and December and in January that made a huge difference. And then, and then, and then it took off and now, now I'm actually stable again and saving money and had tithing and all that kind of stuff. But I was like, man, it's kind of a God moment. So I don't know if, I don't know if that was too much,
00:27:10
Speaker
No i hope you don't turn that out because i think it's a great thing for people to hear especially right now because i mean everything that's out there tells us that with the economy as bad as it is that every family seems to be losing their savings because they're having
00:27:25
Speaker
you know, way too big of a grocery bill at the end of the month or the electric, you know, electrical bills going up, those kinds of things. So I think all of us are going to be faced with this challenge of as life gets more expensive, which the Bible is going to tell us, who's, where are you going to cut the corners? Are you going to try to cheat Jesus out of his money or are you going to
00:27:47
Speaker
cut back on some of the extracurricular things that you and your family enjoy, the luxuries that you can do without, who's going to pay the price for inflation? Because it will come. And I think your story is a great illustration that when you trust God enough to keep doing what you were told and commanded to do, that he will make the revisions for those answers.
00:28:08
Speaker
And I don't even think about it as like God's like, oh, this 10%, this is for God. I'm like, oh, like all of it's God. Right. He lets me keep some of it. Yes, yes. You know what I'm saying? Let me borrow it. Because I even got to a point where I was like trying, like I got laid off in late July and then I was trying to pitch and get clients. And I probably had like five sales meetings where I was pitching services. And I thought I was good. I thought I was going to be golden and have a couple of clients right away.
00:28:37
Speaker
Yeah. And I kept losing. I kept like not getting it. I was like, what is going on? Yeah. And I realized I'm like, you know, it doesn't matter how good I am at my career, my job, or if I have a following on social media or books that I've published and all this stuff, all this stuff. It doesn't matter. Like the Lord's going to provide. Like he, I'm completely dependent on him. And that's what I've learned through the whole thing. It's like I'm completely dependent on him for all that stuff. Yep.
00:29:03
Speaker
Maybe that's where the boldness comes from and the faith and the trust. That was the trouble. I was choosing joy during that time. Yeah, the shocking reality for most of us when our eyes become very, very wide open to the presence of God in our lives is that if it weren't for the generosity of God, we wouldn't have anything. I mean, nothing.
00:29:24
Speaker
And so for us to be naive enough to believe, hey, it's my great skills that got me this job. There's a million other people in America who have the same skills you do. You got that job because God said, I want you to be blessed this way. So, you know, I think it changes our perspective. I mean, you joked about it, but I think it's absolutely true. God does not own 10% of what I have. I get to borrow 90% of what he owns.
00:29:50
Speaker
that 90% is the provision for all the things that I need to do. It's kind of the way I see it now because I've been stuck at a place where I tried to do it under my own effort and it didn't work. I had to wait for him to show up. So I just waited and things happened. And great, great principle here that I heard years ago, I think as a teenager, I heard a pastor say this and I've heard it many times since, but what if God chose to bless you at the rate you choose to bless him? And it caused me to think a lot.
00:30:21
Speaker
Hmm. Not that God's a gumball machine. You could put time out to get something out of, but yeah, it's a good thought exercise more than, more than an actual, exactly.
Boldness in Love and Relationships
00:30:34
Speaker
It's not a formula for sure.
00:30:39
Speaker
Moving on to this last kind of question is about being bold with your affection. I often find that a lot of people like the idea of community, though I find that the more time you spend in the community, the harder it gets. The bigger your community, especially well-connected community, which is what everybody wants,
00:30:58
Speaker
Right. You're like, it's hard. And honestly, it hurts. Yeah, it hurts. And the more the deeper you go, and the wider that depth goes, the more chances for hurting. And I can only imagine like, you've been leading this church for, I don't know, six, six years now, I'm like,
00:31:15
Speaker
I mean, there's probably some pains that come with the territory because I see you like in the hallway introducing yourself to all the people. I mean, you and Lisa do a really good job of like getting to know the congregation. Of course, it will get to a point where you can't get to know everybody personally, but for all the time that you do have, you do a remarkably good job. So what do you have to say about being bold with affection? Is it better to love as much as possible?
00:31:45
Speaker
or to be, I don't know what to say, strategic with your love. I think, to me, the Bible was very clear that we should love lavishly. Very much the same principle with our giving. The scripture says, good measure pressed down, shaken together, and boiling over. It's going to come back to you on every wave. I think the same thing's true with your love. I feel my heart breaks for people who are
00:32:10
Speaker
who have been hurt in the past, who feel like they have to protect their heart or hold back their love. And I get that, I understand that, but the truth is, I think that's a trick from Satan because when they do that, it keeps them from experiencing love fully.
00:32:25
Speaker
you hold back, then you're gonna be held back from. And I think one of the greatest things I get to see as a pastor is when somebody finally breaks through that and learns, I'm not gonna hold the past as something to chain me down and keep me down. I'm gonna use that as a springboard to love more deeply and more freely. And when they get to that point, it's amazing how they begin to experience love at a different level.
00:32:53
Speaker
There's a book that was written that's really popular, and I find it's been helpful for a lot of people, but a lot of times it also goes too far, and it's a wonderful book called Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud. We get caught in these traps where we get easily manipulated by people, often parents, or even children.
00:33:12
Speaker
some kind of situation where people are manipulating us and hurting us because of their own hurt. So in the book, he talks about creating boundaries between you and them so that you kind of stop the hurt and kind of put them at the arm's length because they've proven to be hurtful. At the same time, I feel like a lot of people use that as a way to justify never seeing those people again. You know what I'm saying? Like, oh, I'm putting boundaries up because you hurt me and therefore I'm never talking to you again. I'm like,
00:33:41
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I don't think that's what Dr. Cloud meant, but at the same time, to be loving would be to continue to bless them, pray for them.
00:33:49
Speaker
do, do good, do good for them. Um, even try to mend the relationship of, if trust had been broken, like you talked about with forgiveness. Um, but at the same time trying to bring reconciliation in perpetuity, like it just doesn't end with that relationship unless maybe like your worlds away and not in their lives. I think Dan, if people, if people will just listen to what you just said, I think this, this whole podcast has been worthwhile because, uh, especially married couples, uh, where we,
00:34:18
Speaker
Every one of us 100% are human. We make mistakes. We're insensitive. We say the wrong thing at the wrong time. We don't show up when our spouse needs us. And if that causes hurt, then yeah, absolutely it does. But we have to work for reconciliation and an ability to move forward because if you don't, what you live is with a handicapped relationship the rest of your life.
00:34:42
Speaker
Now you multiply that over the course of 15, 20 years of being married, if you hold on to every hurt that you've ever had between the two of you, then you never really experienced the purity of love that God wants you to have in your marriage relationship. And marriage, marriage is a place where you see this come out the most, but it happens in a lot of relationships. Yeah. I've seen many, many Christians isolate themselves. They, they still love Jesus, but don't love their church, which is crazy. I'm like, you talked about that.
00:35:10
Speaker
But it happens. It happens a lot. With your kids, especially as they become adults, your kids will hurt you sometimes unintentionally, but it hurts.
00:35:18
Speaker
So, yeah. And the boldness is continuing to love and be lavish with your love and affection, despite the hurt. It's like, yes, they've wounded you, got you in the back and you're like, yep. And I'm still going to love you. I'm still going to bless you. I'm still going to pray for you. I think there's wisdom in the boundaries and what you will let them or not do, but are you continuing to try to pursue it anyway and bring and try to mend or at least try to say like salt the relationship or try to bring them closer to Jesus.
00:35:48
Speaker
Even if they're unbelievers, like are you at least trying to gently still nudge them towards Jesus? If wherever they're at, whether they're Christians, they need to grow or non-Christians, they need to come to Him. Can you push them one step forward with your love? So let's put the bar at the highest possible place. Jesus Christ is rejected by His disciples. He is being crucified by the Roman Empire and the Jewish community and His last words, some of the last words were, Father, forgive them. And that
00:36:14
Speaker
That's the most lavish love that possibly can be extended by the most perfect person who's never harmed anybody. And yet he did not hold back one ounce of his love for those who were rejecting him and putting him to death. And that's our model. So let's be bold.
Conclusion: Living Boldly in All Aspects
00:36:30
Speaker
Let's go love well, live well, spend our money well.
00:36:36
Speaker
It's a hard thing to do, but coming back, I shared the story of how I've always wanted to go with intensity. There are certainly times when you can go too far and not maybe hold enough back for yourself, whether it's time or money. But most of the time, we just got to continually push ourselves there. It's almost like that living sacrifice. I got to keep bringing myself back to the altar, which is why I'm glad that you preach with intensity the way you do, because I'm like,
00:37:01
Speaker
Let's think about how I'm spending those evenings again, because I'm slacking off and just watching movies or something like that. How can I be more intentional at that time? My money, my affection, energy, all that stuff. And again, intentionality requires energy. It's much easier to go sit at home on the couch and watch a movie with your kids than it is to get them out and go for a walk and talk about God's creation.
00:37:23
Speaker
So thanks for listening to the Grove Hill church podcast, where we try to impact the life of every person with the whole gospel by any means possible. And that includes this podcast. So if you're in a point where you want to live more boldly or know somebody who's had a yes in their heart, but needs a little bit of a nudge, you send them this episode, see what they think.