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Fresh Daily Help in the Gospel with Jeremy Pierre
428 Plays6 months ago
In this episode of Straight to the Heart, our host Rush Witt, sits down with Dr. Jeremy Pierre, Dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism, and Ministry, to talk about the daily help of the Gospel. They discuss the common misunderstandings of the Gospel and how taking small steps to make the gospel central to life offers freedom from pressures to perform for God and comfort during hard times.
JEREMY PIERRE ONLINE
Jeremy’s Website
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MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Shepherding the Pastor
The Gospel-Centered Life Series
The Dynamic Heart in Daily Life
For more about the podcast at New Growth Press online.
Timestamps:
1:38 - Intro
3:42 - How does the Gospel relate to your very busy life?
5:40 - When do you remember first hearing the gospel?
9:12 - How did the Gospel become "present tense" for you?
12:22 - The Gospel Gap
17:10 - Law and Gospel in Daily Life
19:18 - What would you like to say to little Jeremy in 1987?
22:06 - How can I make basic movements to be more in tune with the daily help of the Gospel?
25:02 - Which personal struggles do you think are driven by our struggle to embrace the Gospel?
31:44 - The Gospel gives freedom and comfort to parents too.
34:30 - How do I counsel myself when I feel the pressure to perform?
38:24 - The Importance of Close Friends for Gospel Encouragements
41:30 - Farewell
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to 'Straight to the Heart' Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
You're not waiting with your arms crossed till I kind of prove myself a little bit and then you'll help me the rest of the way. Jesus is advocating for me even when I utterly don't deserve it.
00:00:16
Speaker
I'm Rush Witt and you're listening to Season 3 of Straight to the Heart, a podcast from New Growth Press. Each episode includes thought-provoking conversations with leading Christian writers and
Jeremy Pierre's Background and Transformation
00:00:27
Speaker
thinkers. We hear who they are, what they believe, how they approach their work and ministry, and the moments in people who have changed their lives. In Straight to the Heart, we go beyond the books to connect with the remarkable people behind them.
00:00:41
Speaker
Today, I'm happy to share an encouraging conversation with Dr. Jeremy Pierre, who has served the Southern Seminary as the 6th Dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism, and Ministry since 2022, and he's also the Lawrence and Charlotte Hoover Professor of Biblical Counseling
00:01:00
Speaker
and has served as an executive pastor and dean of students prior to becoming dean of the Billy Graham School. Wow, that all sounds very important and it is, but really when it comes down to it, Jeremy is a regular kid from Cleveland who has been transformed by the gospel and he makes it his aim to minister that same gospel in his ministry through Southern Seminary and his local church.
00:01:24
Speaker
So it makes sense that we would talk almost exclusively about the fresh daily help, which is ours in the gospel.
Roles, Transitions, and Family Life
00:01:34
Speaker
This is Straight to the Heart. Jeremy Pierre, thanks for being a part of the Straight to the Heart podcast today. It's an honor to be here, my man.
00:01:46
Speaker
And you know, I know because we're friends and we keep up and I also kind of watch from afar, your life is mega full. So many things are going on and maybe just kind of update me. What are the big things happening in your life right now?
00:02:05
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, my life is probably no more full than anybody else's, but it is a lot of shifting. And so I'm Dean of the Graham School at Southern Seminary, which houses biblical counseling, among other things like missions and evangelism and music and education. I'm also serve at Clifton Baptist Church in various capacities as elder, as
00:02:32
Speaker
counselor, as friend, as whatever a church member, uh, hopefully should aspire to be. Um, I'm a dad of five children. The oldest is in college. The second oldest is about to launch for college. So lots of transition there. Um, and then married to, uh, my wife, Sarah, who is just the anchor of my soul, honestly. Uh, so there is, there's a lot going on.
00:02:57
Speaker
but learning to trust the Lord along the way with the things I'm responsible for and the things that are clearly outside of my responsibility. Well, that's really great. And one of the things that I love about everything that you shared and what I know about you is just looking at the different ways that you are serving, there is such a clear gospel thread right down the middle of all of it.
00:03:24
Speaker
And that gives us a great opportunity, I think, to spend our conversation today talking about something that's important to me, but also something I really feel my need of more. And that is to better understand how the gospel impacts my daily life. And I wonder how would you talk about your life or the relationship of your life to the gospel just on a daily basis now with so many things going on, so much great ministry,
00:03:54
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Yeah, yeah, great question,
The Gospel's Daily Impact on Life
00:03:56
Speaker
man. In fact, that's the heartbeat of life, isn't it? So we know the gospel is the message, the good news that Jesus Christ paid for our sins to reconcile us to God through his life, his death, his resurrection and his ascension. Now he sits and he intercedes for us even right now. So that's, that means that my relationship to God
00:04:23
Speaker
and God's relationship to me is fundamentally different because of Jesus Christ. And, you know, I talk in my classes as I teach counseling and practical theology. I talk a lot about the central design purpose of humanity. That's a really academic way of saying, why was I made?
00:04:46
Speaker
And I was made to know God and be known by him. I was made to love God and to be loved by him. And out of the overflow of that, I suddenly can love others and relate to them in the right ways. I can understand the events of my life in relation to God in different ways. So I guess what I'm saying is where that touches my daily life is
00:05:14
Speaker
I was made to know God. And so the daily things that I'm busy with, I can't disengage from that central purpose. Like these are means, even the setbacks, even the hard things, they're means by which God is conveying himself to me. And I know this because the main way he conveys himself to me through the gospel of Jesus Christ is already a done deal.
00:05:40
Speaker
So I'm curious, when I think about my life, I think back about when I think I first heard the gospel. That was at a basketball camp. I was about 18. That's how I became a Christian. But I also grew up going to church. But I just don't remember hearing the gospel. It's perfectly likely that my church was talking about the gospel. I wasn't listening. My ears were stopped up. I certainly didn't have
00:06:05
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faith to hear the gospel and embrace it until later. When do you think you first heard the gospel? Can you see a time? Was it repeated? You repeatedly hear the gospel or just one day suddenly the frequency tunes in? What happens for you?
00:06:25
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So for me, I was raised in just a really good, faithful little church with faithful little people. And I don't say that condescendingly because I was little when I heard the gospel and they were big, but I remember being convicted of my sin at the age of five or six through a Sunday school lesson taught by a teacher who now that I'm a teacher, I can look back and say objectively was not a good teacher.
00:06:54
Speaker
And she was kind of scary, and all the kids were scared of her because she was more gruff than she probably should have been. But she did a lesson on Romans 3.23. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Romans 6.23 is the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
00:07:12
Speaker
And when she taught me that I deserved death for my sin through Romans three 23, I believed her. I mean, it was, it was like the Lord used that fear to like convince me of it, but it wasn't temporary. I know because it lingered with me and, and it made me aware, man, when I, when I am vicious towards my siblings, when I, when I do not want to obey,
00:07:41
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That's true of something inside me. And when I heard that Jesus was willing to pay the price for that, it was thrilling to me as a child. So Rush, I mean, how can a child understand that? Did I really understand it at this point? It's really only explainable by the spirit of God. And then what confirms it is in God's mercy, I've walked in that sense.
00:08:08
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Now, you know me, so you know, I don't I can't even pretend to be perfect. I can't even pretend to be all that mature or good of a person. But, but that has sustained me sense that that's always the navigation point that I go back to when I'm scared of when I'm scared of
00:08:32
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you know, falling into patterns that I shouldn't fall into when I'm feeling guilty for what I have done. And for me, the predominant thing is probably I get frustrated that I'm not further along. I get mad at myself that why am I still impatient? Why do I still go back to these patterns of anything from self-pity to the pride of thinking that I work harder than anybody else? And
00:09:00
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Why do I do that? Well, it's something true inside me that nevertheless, Jesus is continually providing forgiveness and salvation for.
00:09:11
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Was there a time when the gospel became—maybe the way to say it is present tense, just kind of daily present tense—was that something that was coming up in your church when you heard the gospel, or did that come later for you when you realized, well, the gospel is not just about me becoming a Christian?
00:09:31
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but it has this aspect of power in my daily life.
Personal Growth Through Trials and Gospel Understanding
00:09:35
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When did that kick in? Dude, you're asking really good questions. For me, so this is, I'm giving you like a childhood scenario here, but I distinctly remember it was sixth grade, so I don't know how old you are in sixth grade. Are you what, 13 maybe? I don't know. Yeah, no, you're 11, you're 10. Yeah, okay.
00:09:53
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whatever you are I remember it was sixth grade and there was this speaker at I went to a little Christian school at the chapel and I might have misunderstood this speaker so I might be misquoting her but I remember the illustration she gave was a baseball card she said God has a baseball card of you in heaven and your pictures on the front and on the back is your stats
00:10:17
Speaker
and like Bible reading and how many people you've quote unquote saved. And how many minutes in prayer and all this stuff. And you want to have the highest stats you can so that God is pleased with your life. And I remember being utterly devastated by that.
00:10:43
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And like, I was, I was a very tender, conscience kid. And to me, basically that began a wrestling match with, am I even a Christian? And.
00:10:54
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Uh, I kind of wished I was jealous of my buddies who that just rolled off their back. But, but for me, that really sunk deep. And so I wrestled for a long time and, and, and thankfully I have very wise parents and of, of the various things they said to me, they took me to Titus three, five, right? Not, not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us.
00:11:17
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And I remember feeling for the first time that daily engagement that you're talking about, like, wow, okay. I knew earlier that I was saved by the gospel. Now I'm realizing a little bit further that I live by the gospel even right now. So that's the first time I can remember that sort of light bulb going off.
00:11:38
Speaker
Your, your story is full of these, like you've got this gruff teacher telling you about the wall. Then you have this other, this other teacher telling you your stats. You're not batting a high enough percentage as a Christian. Yeah. I mean, it's, yeah, that's amazing. You know, well, honestly, it comforts me because like, even when teachers kind of do it wrong,
00:12:05
Speaker
It can still go right in that sense. That comforts me, not that we as teachers should do it wrong, but it comforts me because I feel the responsibility of conveying accurately the gospel, you know, every time you're behind a pulpit or a lectern.
00:12:21
Speaker
Yeah, one of my favorite books, as I'm sure is yours, is How People Change. And in How People Change, one of the things that has been so helpful to me as a Christian and also as a pastor and in biblical counseling is the gospel gap
00:12:38
Speaker
that is discussed there that you know we have this real clear grasp on the gospel is this message that sort of brings me into God's covenant family and the gospel is what will be there in the end when I reach the finish line I go to be with Jesus or he returns first but this middle ground is what's really missing and and I wonder as you train counselors and in your church or through seminary in college
00:13:05
Speaker
how that plays out? How do you see that playing out in their development as biblical counselors? Yeah, that's a great question. Well, first you got to make them aware of it, which is why we teach that concept here. Okay. So the knowledge of it is very important, but man, Rush, I don't know. I don't know if this is a good thing to say or not. It's almost like you can't learn it.
00:13:33
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until you're afflicted in your soul, until something provokes your conscience to a new degree.
00:13:42
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Again, I want to be careful here because everybody's stories different, right? But like, maybe it's just fresh in my mind, because I'm about to preach it from Psalm 119 verse 75. And he just says, you know, I know, Lord, that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness, you have afflicted me. And then, you know, a couple verses later says, you afflicted me that I might not go astray, that I might learn your law. And
00:14:09
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To really see the gap that you have in the gospel, I think sometimes the Lord has to really make you aware of how far short you actually are falling, even though you're comfortably a Christian in one sense.
00:14:27
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And so this is, you know, I was recently reading, you know, another favorite book, J.I. Packer's Knowing God. And towards the end, he has this chapter called These Inward Trials. And he just makes this beautiful point.
00:14:43
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that as a person grows in God, it actually becomes less comfortable for him in terms of his self-knowledge, his awareness of who he is and his own propensities. And that's not because God wants you to feel crummier and crummier and crummier.
00:15:06
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But it is because he wants to more deeply and deeply and deeply convey his love to you that is not caused by your love for him. It's not caused by your obedience or your good mood or your happy frame.
00:15:23
Speaker
It's caused by, no, no, no, I love you because I love you. I love you because I set my affections on you before you were even born, let alone did anything to either tick me off or to make me happy. I love you because I love you. And that actually then strengthens us to live obediently towards him out of the freedom of a child who loves his dad.
00:15:54
Speaker
You may not know this, but many pastors feel isolated and helpless, especially those beginning pastoral ministry. Phil Newton and Rich Shadden know what this road is like, and they want to share what they have gained from pastoral mentoring. Rich, a young pastor receiving support and guidance from Phil, an older, more experienced shepherd.
00:16:16
Speaker
Their book, Shepherding the Pastor, helps new and upcoming pastors understand the common challenges and pitfalls that arise in the early years of ministry and to face difficulties with faith, wisdom, and patience. Using real-life examples,
00:16:33
Speaker
of their mentor-mentee relationship, they identify four key practices that will help pastors thrive despite the stresses of ministry—a deepening walk with Christ, faithful exposition of scripture, continual learning from mentors, and growth in skillful patience with their flock.
00:16:52
Speaker
Whether you are a seasoned pastor looking to help the younger, or a young pastor looking for mentoring help, you can find Phil Newton's and Rich Shadden's book, Shepherding the Pastor, when you visit NewGrowthPress.com.
00:17:08
Speaker
what you're describing was a real turning point in my Christian life because for a good portion of my Christian life, I didn't have a good grasp of what I came to know later was a necessary kind of distinction between the message of the law and the message of the gospel.
00:17:24
Speaker
And I had them really confused, but what I really appreciate about the point you were making is that it's important to be able to see the way God shows us our need for the gospel. That's that sense of affliction. But the only way that we can embrace the idea that God would do something like that and that it could be good is if we have just a bigger view of what the gospel is to begin with, that it is an announcement of good news that He will spare no cost
00:17:54
Speaker
to deliver to us and then keep ministering to our lives. I think that's probably really foreign. That was really foreign to me for a long time till, you know, some other friends like you had awakened me to that.
Understanding God's Love and Sharing the Gospel
00:18:07
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And it just seems like such an important part of the Christian life is so easily missed. Yeah, it really is because I think we are perpetually astounded by
00:18:18
Speaker
a being who is so much better than us and so different from us, that love is not an exchange in that sense. Even our love for God is not paying him back. It's not in any way causative. It's only expressive. It's only an effect of his prior love. And so we don't get that, right? Because if somebody hurts us or harms us,
00:18:44
Speaker
Or, or, or, you know, even marriages, even a married couple, if you just have one that is just moving away from the other and committing covenant breaking acts and like, we just can't imagine someone loving uninterrupted in that sense. Um, and, and yet that's God, right? It's, it's his love that is the foundation for, for hours. It's really remarkable, but you're right. It's the bigness of the gospel.
00:19:13
Speaker
that I think he's wanting us to grow in our comprehension of. So think about this for a minute, this might be interesting. Okay, let's imagine that you could go back and you could become Mr. Pierre in I'm assuming what is pretty close to 1987.
00:19:31
Speaker
when little Jeremy is in the sixth grade. And Mr. Pierre is little Jeremy's sixth grade Sunday school teacher. I want to know what would you tell little Jeremy that would be different than what you were taught to help maybe just give a clearer sense of the importance of the gospel at that young age? Yeah, that's a great question. And I want to I want to caveat it by acknowledging
00:20:00
Speaker
I was a kid and I probably wasn't paying great attention and they might've told me something really darn good and balanced and all the rest of that stuff. But I think when I was tortured in conscience back then, I think I would've just said to him, said to little Jeremy, what my parents probably ended up saying to me, and I know the people in my life ended up saying to me, and that is,
00:20:31
Speaker
You don't have to make God happy with you. Jesus did that already. That's the point. So, so, so, so here's, here's, I know they've said this. Obedience doesn't lead to faith and trust. Faith and trust leads to obedience. It's not the other way around. And I mean, honestly, even to this day,
00:21:00
Speaker
I, I have a tendency to get those two things mixed up. Like, okay, Lord, I have not been as faithful to, to dwell upon your word, to think Christian thoughts, to guard my mouth to whatever it is. I haven't been as faithful as I want to. I know I need to re-engage with that. It's almost like I want to get a couple reps in, get a couple good days in. Then I feel a little bit more confident approaching God.
00:21:26
Speaker
Yeah, and that's just foolish. That's just absolutely foolish. It's it's Lord. I need you to help me get in these good reps to get in these good days and you're not waiting with your arms crossed to like kind of prove myself a little bit and then you'll help me the rest of the way. I Jesus is advocating for me even when I utterly don't deserve it. That's that's remarkable.
00:21:53
Speaker
It is remarkable. That's astounding and that's the amazing center, the blazing center of the Christian life that we're trying to pursue. So let's go from 1987 and let's fast forward then to this present moment as there are many people, I mean I'm one of them, that finds himself
00:22:17
Speaker
kind of continually stuck back in either a sense that I need to be obeying in order to earn God's favor and love or keep it or living by some debtor's ethic where Jesus did all this for me now it's my job to pay him back and for somebody that finds himself there
00:22:36
Speaker
it can be hard to find the way forward. So getting back to basics is important. So what would you say to someone like me of just basic movement, spiritual movement? You've got to start moving in this direction to get more in tune with the daily help of the gospel. Well, here's one practical way that comes to my mind in answer to your question there. I think when we speak to God,
00:23:03
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It's helpful to admit to him how we see him. So it's interesting that we skip this sometimes, right? We know how we ought to see him, but I think we don't take the time to recognize how we actually are actively seeing him. And it can be as simple as this, Lord. Honestly, I don't think
00:23:29
Speaker
that you're going to accept my prayer right now because I've sort of been an idiot and I've gone astray. And if I were you, I wouldn't want to hear from me right now. But, and then you say what you know is true of God from whatever passage you're in that morning to what you heard on Sunday in your sermon. But I believe that you are who you say you are. And you say that you're going to accept my prayer.
00:23:58
Speaker
You say not only that, but that you will help me with the very sin that even right now in my heart, I still kind of am not that alarmed by. I know I should be more alarmed by it. I'm not. Lord, would you help me to be alarmed by it appropriately and to overcome it with the power that you say? I think in other words, there's a frankness that we need to have with God
00:24:26
Speaker
that we often avoid, and I think it's sometimes because we think it's an act of respect, but I think it's sometimes because we're just lazy about our requirement to be vigilant over our souls. And I think that's part of what repentance is, right? It's recognition of where I'm at,
00:24:48
Speaker
It's then recognition of where I ought to be. And then the bridge between the two is not me, it's God. It's God. And then my efforts flow from that acknowledgement of who God is to me.
Identity in the Gospel and Overcoming Anxieties
00:25:02
Speaker
I think that's very helpful to us as we try to think about this because it is so important to begin thinking in maybe refreshed gospel-centered ways. That can be really played out kind of language of being gospel-centered, but that's essentially what you're talking about is getting closer to a gospel centrality in life.
00:25:23
Speaker
You have had many hours to counsel people with a variety of different issues in which this issue of gospel centrality or daily reliance on the gospel is at the center. I wonder if there are a couple of those issues that come to mind for you that are counseling problems that are driven along by this confusion about how exactly do I relate to God? And if I'm not thinking in this daily gospel mindset, then
00:25:52
Speaker
It's a big reason that this problem keeps kind of driving along in my life. Yeah, that's good. That's a great question. You know, here's here's an example that came to mind as you were asking it. I counsel a lot of people
00:26:08
Speaker
who's are anxious about being their past or anxious about being just their family of origin or anxious about the fact that because this happened to me or because I've acted this way or because this is the pattern, then this is my life. This is, this is my identity. It's who I am. It's my destiny.
00:26:35
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And so where the gospel applies to that is it doesn't overlook all of the reality of real patterns, of guilt, of shame. It doesn't overlook even the harm that sometimes we inflict by being the way we are.
00:26:56
Speaker
It doesn't overlook our family of origin where maybe your mom or your dad patterned certain things that you now see emerging in your adult life and you're tempted to conclude, well, this is my stock. This is what I came from. I can't be otherwise. The Bible doesn't ignore all of those realities.
00:27:19
Speaker
and give some kind of a idealistic or childish vision of what changes, okay? But what it does do is it orders those things differently. It creates a new priority of identity. And so all those things may still be layers and aspects of your experience and of your self perception.
00:27:46
Speaker
But they suddenly get muted. They suddenly get demoted maybe as a better word. And the center of who you are, if you truly are trusting Christ, the center of who you are is beloved child of God. That means, I mean read John 17, that means that the father loves you with the same love he has for his son, Jesus Christ, because you are united to Christ by faith.
00:28:14
Speaker
that is who you are. And when God looks at you, that is his assessment of you. So God's assessment of you is more important than your assessment of you. And so that means, okay, but I still feel like I have this tendency or this characteristic or this pattern or this origin.
00:28:37
Speaker
And I think the reality of the gospel is, yeah, that's still something that you're gonna wrestle with in the present age when you are waiting to be fully completed in who you are in Christ, right? Until you see Him face to face, you're not gonna be entirely like Him. And yet, that destiny is the center of your identity in the present. And the more I am renewing my
00:29:07
Speaker
understanding of that, my trust in that. I'm feeding on that messaging rather than the messaging of these other things that I'm reminding myself of. I'm pouring over in my mind a million times. I'm reading this pop cultural book that explains this part of it. The less I'm listening to those voices and more to the voices of who I actually am and what I'm destined for,
00:29:37
Speaker
those things really do become more neutralized.
Counseling and Parenting with a Gospel Perspective
00:29:40
Speaker
They lose their explanatory power over who you are.
00:29:47
Speaker
I mean, for instance, I remember counseling a young couple and the wife in this couple was just convinced like my mother was extremely controlling and, you know, of the children. She was extremely manipulative of my father. And I see these same patterns in me and I'm just, she was so guilt-ridden whenever she would sort of say a cross word or do something that was manipulative.
00:30:15
Speaker
And it would just paralyze her. And this was the messaging that I shared with her. These are the things that we just reviewed for her what her core identity is versus what these secondary falling away identities are. And man, I mean, it wasn't like she heard it once and everything went away. But but as she started to grasp and trust that there's significant freedom from her anxiety that she experienced.
00:30:44
Speaker
This break is a good time to tell you about the Gospel Centered Life series. Lots of Christians talk about the gospel, but how many of us really understand and know how to apply it to our lives? In this life-changing training resource series, authors Robert Thune and Will Walker communicate both to the new Christian and the seasoned pastor the need for gospel renewal.
00:31:09
Speaker
By training people in the implications of the Good News, the Gospel Centered Life series helps pastors, leaders, and Christians everywhere who long to see gospel transformation in themselves and in their churches.
00:31:24
Speaker
You can find each book in the series, including The Gospel-Centered Life, The Gospel-Centered Life for Teens, The Gospel-Centered Life at Work, and The Gospel-Centered Community, as well as the Spanish edition, on our website, newgrowthpress.com.
00:31:42
Speaker
And parents too, because as you're talking about that dynamic of feeling like I'm getting locked in, my life is being determinatively locked into this way of being and I'm losing hope about it. Parents feel that a lot about how they are locking their kids into some bad, you know, spiritual habit they have or some character issue that they just have not been able to resolve. There's a lot of freedom there too, isn't there?
00:32:10
Speaker
Yeah, there really is, man. It's funny, of all issues you mentioned, I'll bet you the thing that I get most personally fearful of is that I would somehow be steering my children towards bad patterns of living that are going to be harmful to them and, you know, besmirch the name of Jesus in their eyes. And that's a weird word, besmirch, but you know what I'm saying? No, I don't know what you mean. That's a good word.
00:32:39
Speaker
I live with that fear, I think especially in times when I get into old patterns of if I'm exhausted.
00:32:48
Speaker
Or if I'm feeling put upon by, you know, the, by the world and all these demands, there's times where I get cagey. This is how, is how my wife and I jokingly refer to it. I don't think I'm cruel or mean, but I do think I'm, I just think I want to, I want to escape another, another conversation, another responsibility, another problem. And.
00:33:10
Speaker
It's just not the tender hearted receptivity of our God. And it makes me impatient. And it scares me that I'm patterning something to my kids. That in my mind and in my fears can be irreversible. And then I realize, you know, here's what the gospel says to that. They ought not be looking to me as a perfect model of who God is.
00:33:39
Speaker
And instead, what they ought to be looking for is a model of a repentant man who knows his need for the gospel. And so I'm bad at lots of things, but what I'm thankful that I think me and my wife consistently demonstrate is a repentance for our sin and acknowledgement of our need for Jesus.
00:34:03
Speaker
And then a personal trust, a personal confession of trust in front of the kids. We acknowledge when we sin against them. We acknowledge when we're even like, I don't know how to advise you. I think I'm making good decisions about your screen time or your this or your that or the other things. I'm doing my best, but I need wisdom from someone better than me. And that's God. So I'm just praying that that somehow takes in the sense of I'm modeling for them what gospel dependence looks like.
00:34:30
Speaker
So one thing that I think would be helpful to hear from you, it would help me to hear how you go about sort of counseling yourself in that moment when the pressure of your parenting is rising and you're feeling your own flaws coming out and you're concerned about the impact of them.
00:34:49
Speaker
What exactly are you doing to refocus yourself? Are you stepping away? Is there something you're doing with your Bible that's a routine? If you walk through just one example, that would be really helpful. Yeah. Well, so for me, it kind of works one of two ways. Either I'm myself convicted by something I'm doing wrong.
00:35:17
Speaker
And for me, that kind of then gets into patterns that that are that that can be appropriate guilt, but then can go beyond appropriate guilt to like, a wrong kind of like self flagellating, like the wrong kind of remorse. Okay, so that's when I'm kind of pricked in my conscience myself. And then there's other times where I'm just a stubborn jerk.
00:35:38
Speaker
And it takes confrontation from my wife or from someone else to point out like, Hey, the way you're coming across right now is not right. It's not pleasing to the Lord. So, so.
00:35:52
Speaker
So that's kind of just the provocation of me even being aware of, okay, something's going wrong. Now your question was specifically about that dynamic about parenting, like when I'm not acting right in front of my kids and you're tempted to feel fear of like, okay, what am I doing to them long-term? Well, I have found that this is why having small truths from scripture memorized
00:36:20
Speaker
you know, literal verses of scripture memorized or at least sort of clusters of concepts memorized to remind oneself of is just so vital and it's just so important. And so like a go-to for me, even about situations like the parenting is like Ephesians two, like eight through 10, particularly verse nine, right? That it's not our works that we boast in, verse 10,
00:36:49
Speaker
because we're his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. It gives me confidence that the good works that I'm supposed to be doing, okay, the good display of patience and love and all this to my kids that I should be doing. This is not something I'm capable of. It's not something
00:37:15
Speaker
that I can produce on my own. And God made it that way because I would boast in it if it's something that I found natural and easy and automatic. But he didn't. It's by grace you have been saved. That's actually verse 8. By grace you have been saved. It's not your own doing. It's a gift of God. And then that gives me confidence on the parenting front. My Lord has to save my children the exact same way.
00:37:46
Speaker
So if I'm kind of thinking I need to model good works for them so they can do good works and they can be saved, dude, that's forgetting the gospel for my kids, let alone for me. So again, what's being modeled is, man, the best I can do is I'm a miserable sinner who knows it, who is somehow deeply loved by God and made a saint.
00:38:12
Speaker
and made right in his eyes and therefore has the power to follow him.
Community, Friendship, and Spiritual Growth
00:38:19
Speaker
And so that's what I try to model.
00:38:22
Speaker
earlier you said that you really see your need for other, I think other people outside of yourself to speak truth. And you mentioned your wife and others. I wonder if, are there other people around church? You're obviously actively involved in your church and leading in your church, but are there people involved that kind of speak into your life that way and you check in with what's that like in your life?
00:38:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. I have a number of dear friends from different eras of my life that are still a very active presence in my life. I have a set of college friends, a set of seminary friends, and then I have a set of current friends at my church, and some of whom are fellow elders with me, who in various ways
00:39:09
Speaker
I can pour my heart out to and even tell them sort of embarrassing failures on my part and have them
00:39:22
Speaker
provide for me some reassurance in the gospel. Some reminder, yeah, Jeremy, that is a problem. You're right. You're right to see the way you are acting when you are stressed out or when you are feeling like life's demands are unfair. You're right to point out that that's wrong. But you also need to see
00:39:47
Speaker
that your confidence is in Jesus. And I mean, it sounds easy to say here, Rush, like, like in theory, but I'm telling you in those moments when your heart is weary and when you are humbled and then it's hard to like admit that stuff to hear that is like, it's like oxygen to a weary soul that's mixed up again.
00:40:08
Speaker
Uh, and, and, and is desperate in its need for the gospel. So, uh, I have a lot of, of, of very close friendships that I feel very comfortable doing that with. And I think that's been a preservative agent for me. Um, because, because I know.
00:40:26
Speaker
I know the danger and I've seen it in thankfully in lives of others that I can learn from by observing. When you cut yourself off and insulate yourself from guys having access to you at that level, you can become a monster pretty quickly. What about Ms. So-and-so from Cleveland, 1987? Where is she?
00:40:52
Speaker
She's with the Lord now. She's with the Lord. Yeah. And and very and and it was a it was a celebration of a homecoming of someone who remained faithful to the end. You know, it really is a beautiful picture because, you know, she was sort of a gruff person, honestly, and gruff with kids, gruff with with fellow adults and and rush.
00:41:17
Speaker
She never turned away from the Lord Jesus, and she always just served in the way that she could serve. And I actually really treasure that person, and I'm thankful for her. Well, Jeremy, I really treasure you, and I'm thankful for the conversation we've had today. Yeah, thanks so much, Rush. It's an honor to be on this podcast, and thanks for drawing everybody's attention back to the gospel of Jesus Christ as what honestly it sustains us like oxygen. So I appreciate you.
00:41:49
Speaker
Thank you for joining me for this episode of Straight to the Heart. You can help more people know about the podcast by subscribing, sharing, and rating the show in Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, I'm Rush Witt and this is Straight to the Heart.