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In the inaugural episode of The Debrief, Pastor Matt and Justin tackle questions submitted by community group leaders regarding Luke 1-4. Matt describes his own encounters with the voice of God answering a question about angels appearing to people. They go on to further explain the temptations Jesus faced as both God and man and the differences between temptation and sinning. Campus Pastor Adam Atchison shares how the power of a healing prayer service drastically changed his walk in Christ.
Real faith. Real life. Hosted by Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown of Sandals Church, The Debrief Podcast goes beyond Sunday conversations—diving into the questions, stories, and struggles that shape who we are. Thoughtful. Honest. Unfiltered.
Can you tell me what Periscope is?
Justin Pardee:Periscope is like a live video streaming thing that Twitter puts out. So Sandals Church Twitter is now broadcasting. So So
Matt Brown:we are on the Twitter.
Justin Pardee:Yeah. So yes. Exactly. We are on the Twitter.
Matt Brown:We are tweeting.
Justin Pardee:What's up, everybody? Welcome to episode one of the Debrief Podcast. I'm your host, Justin Party, and I'm hanging out today with our campus pastors here at Sandals Church, Andrew Bogenwright from Sandals Church Woodcrest. Hey there, guys. And Adam Acheson from Sandals Church East Valley.
Adam Atchison:What's up, friends?
Justin Pardee:We are super glad to have you guys hanging out here on the show. Now, Adam, you kinda recently made the jump from minister to being a full blown campus pastor here. And I gotta say, I feel like not only has your spiritual game just kinda leveled up, but your fashion game has really just like landed on point, man.
Adam Atchison:Yeah. The only problem with that is our listeners can't really see what you're talking about right now.
Matt Brown:This is
Justin Pardee:I could probably take a minute to describe to them how just sharp it is that you look.
Adam Atchison:I got
Adam Atchison:some Pumas on.
Justin Pardee:But I won't yeah. I'm I'm I'm pretty impressed, man.
Adam Atchison:Yeah. Alright.
Justin Pardee:Pretty impressed.
Matt Brown:Well, thank you.
Justin Pardee:Good job. It's a spiritual level up and a fashion one as well. So Hey, guys. Our whole point here, the Debrief Podcast, man, we want to really process and share what it's kinda like to respond to the sermon and obviously, as pastor Matt's preaching, he's not just preaching to the church, but to those of us that are part of the staff team, to you guys as campus pastors as well. So this last weekend was pretty incredible, man.
Justin Pardee:Mhmm. At all of our locations, we call people forward for healing prayer and I think, you know, there's obviously no way to figure that out, but it was an incredible, incredible response. What was that response like, up at Sandals Church Woodcrest after the services?
Adam Atchison:Yeah. It was absolutely incredible. I mean, just numerically, with 600 people in the room between two services, we had over a 100 people come forward for prayer.
Matt Brown:I mean,
Adam Atchison:you can do the math on that, which is incredible. And even more than that, we had been praying for the last three and a half years for a breakthrough for the people of Woodcrest. One of the challenges for us is when you live in a fluent neighborhood, it's it's challenging to get real with others. People don't wanna seem needy or like they don't have it all together. And, you know, we have a room where the lights are on.
Adam Atchison:We don't have cool blackout things like the main campus and everybody can see. You It was just such a win for that many people to say, hey, I'm not okay. And, know, we had people with broken marriages and fit need a physical healing and all those things. And it was amazing to see, you know, tear filled eyes of people saying, I'm ready to get real. I'm ready to make changes.
Adam Atchison:I'm ready to to let people know that I I need help. And it was a beautiful thing to see our church rally together and pray together. It it was awesome.
Justin Pardee:That's awesome. Man, East Valley is still fairly new as a church. Right? Just a couple of months still. What was it like out there?
Adam Atchison:Yeah. So we have a phenomenal response as well. About 25% of the people in the room went forward for prayer. And what blew me away is just the the various kinds of things people came forward for. Know, one of the most common is just epidemic in our culture, our society, and that's anxiety and depression.
Adam Atchison:But that wasn't it. I mean, many people were willing to come forward for physical healing for relational healing for addiction. One of the highlights for me was having my 13 year old son upfront praying for people as well. And I mean, people would come up to this front sider with marriage problems. And and I mean, he he prayed for a guy who has three months to live.
Adam Atchison:He's been told that he has three months to And so so just across the board, just the variety of hurt to just really express to to me that people are hungry for the healing touch of Jesus.
Justin Pardee:Yeah. That's awesome. I even down here at main campus, I was hanging out on stage during that prayer time and I saw a couple of our high school students come forward, not not for prayer, but to pray over people. And, man, that was that was just really awesome. So, obviously, pastor Matt was not just speaking to the people of our church, the reality is we're we're a part of Sandals Church.
Justin Pardee:Were there any parts of the message as he was talking about just the need to be healing and the need to be real about those things that stuck out to you personally or maybe beyond just stuck out like that really just challenged you personally?
Adam Atchison:Yeah. So one of the things for me that sticks out is I I I love how we focused on healing. But the first part of chapter five that Matt spoke to that we didn't read in church is this reaction of Peter to Jesus that meant I can't even be around you because I'm too much of a sinner. And how the story of the leper brought that home in a very tangible way. I mean, as we we saw that image of that leper from India, it made it very very profound just the kind of thing that Jesus was doing to touch a healer.
Adam Atchison:Excuse me, a a leper in in such a way that he's putting himself at risk as a communicable disease. And and I think it it really undoes our conception of God that that we are are too dirty. We are too unclean for him to to come into our presence. And and so I love how Jesus just really gave us a new insight to who God is. Whereas before, up to this point, was just we we there's this response that we see throughout scripture where where people are undone in the presence of God.
Adam Atchison:And and it's I'm I'm gonna die. You know? I just I can't even withstand the presence of God. And and to see Jesus sort of turn all that upside down in this in these two healing stories was really powerful.
Justin Pardee:Yeah. You know what I noticed when I got home, actually on Sunday night and I was jumped on Twitter. Sunday was world leprosy day, like, leprosy awareness day or whatever. Woah. And I just thought, how cool was it that that was part of the experience that we had as a church?
Justin Pardee:Really, really interesting. Pastor Andrew, was there what was your, like, personal challenge from this weekend?
Adam Atchison:Yeah. The the last point in Matt's message was healing happens when I do whatever it takes to get people to Jesus. Right. And I was just thinking about how how many people are in need of his healing and how little work it actually takes to move them forward. And I think sometimes for myself, you know, we're we're constantly caring for a large number of people, and it's easy to go, well, if they really want change, why don't they just move?
Adam Atchison:But these men help their friend, you know, by cutting a hole through the roof. And I I just thought about how how I can put forward the effort to move people to a place where they're willing to receive healing by just dragging them in or saying, hey, you need to be here. There's a few people I invited personally to come on Sunday because I knew they needed healing in their life. And, you know, people are spotty in church attendance, and so to make sure they're there that day so that they can receive healing, from God. And so I was just challenged to be more, proactive in my own faith in helping people receive healing.
Adam Atchison:Not necessarily just the people that come on Sundays, but even people I know throughout the community.
Justin Pardee:Right, man. That was the same same thing that really challenged me. We we actually got new neighbors just a couple of months ago. And I know just from conversations with them, they don't go to church at all. They kinda had religious experience, but they've said that that's like not really for them.
Justin Pardee:And I've just kind of been in this place where I'm like, well, I just wanna make sure that they really really like me and think I'm cool so that they're not afraid of so that they're not I don't know. Just not like don't have the weird church guy Christian stereotype. And I was thinking a lot about them at the end as well. Like, if I really truly care about my neighbors more than just trying to have cool conversations in the garage or over the fence or out in the backyards, man, am I really willing to do whatever it takes to help them reconnect with Jesus and find a place for them. So I yeah.
Justin Pardee:That was hands down the most challenging thing for me. Pastor Adam, let me just ask you a question because I know Mhmm. This several years ago, we did a similar healing service like this. And just because I know you, I know you had a really powerful experience there. And what was different about that was at that time, instead of calling people forward for healing, I think what pastor Matt actually did was ask people to boldly stand up in the middle of the church where they were at, and then called the rest of our church to lay hands and pray over them in the middle of service.
Justin Pardee:Can you just tell us about that, your experience you had?
Adam Atchison:Yeah. So the crazy thing about that in the summer of o nine is we were going through the gospel of John in the series we called Light. Pastor Matt was preaching on the woman at the well and and at the end of that service, as you mentioned, he had folks stand up and and the craziest thing about this experience, this story that I'm about to share is that that's necessary to understand for the context is that I was still in the in the throes of addiction. I was not following Jesus at this time. I was attending church.
Adam Atchison:I was listening week in week out to this vision of being real with with others. And it was going through one ear and out the other. And as I move forward to to put my hand on this young teenage girl who who I barely knew, something happened that is very difficult for me to put and articulate into words. The the the bottom line is the power of the Holy Spirit moved through my arm in a in a way that I had never experienced before and and had really haven't experienced since. And so what that did was that prepared the soil of my heart for this gospel truth that despite the fact that we are sinners, and despite the fact that so many of us can relate to Peter who's like, no.
Adam Atchison:I can't be in your presence. I'm too much of a sinner. And even later, we see that as Jesus wants to wash his feet, he he he he still is resistant.
Matt Brown:Mhmm.
Adam Atchison:And and he says, no. No. No. It should be the other way around. Peter's still trying to get this profound mystery of the gospel.
Adam Atchison:Is that that's what didn't make sense to me in the most beautiful way. And I think that that's what opened my heart up eventually to to get real and to confess this secret addiction that I had had for over a decade Mhmm. To to the to the one that I love the most, which was was my wife. And so that was the the beginning of a of an of a whole new path. That that was something that redirected the course of my life forever.
Adam Atchison:Having grown up in the church, having been saved for many years, I I would say that that's that's where the journey of truly following Jesus, not just believing in Jesus, but following Jesus began.
Justin Pardee:Yeah. And, you know, from what I understand, you've actually you've shared your story with us on sandalschurch.com. So if you're listening in and haven't heard some of pastor Adam's story, just go to sandalschurch.com, click stories and and his is on there. That conversation where you confessed your addiction to your wife ultimately led to a conversation where you confessed and met with pastor Matt Mhmm. Which I think, you know, that relationship over time is what led you to be in the the role and the position that you have now of caring for and leading and pastoring the people at Sandals Church East Valley.
Justin Pardee:So that's so cool, man.
Adam Atchison:And and the one thing that's cool is that God heals us for our own sake. Because he loves us. He he cares for us. That's the the my my one of my favorite points from the passage this week was that Jesus responds that he is willing. But the but the awesome thing is that it doesn't end there.
Adam Atchison:He he he does that for our sake, but for so much more as well. And so what what happens with healing is often he's doing a redemptive work that goes beyond the healing. He he he's doing that for a purpose so that we can then share the story, so that we can then be one of those four friends that digs the hole in the roof and does whatever it takes to get people to Jesus. And so that's that's just the if it just ends with our own healing, I I think we're missing the point. And so my hope is that for those of us who experience, had powerful experience this past Sunday, that it's the beginning Right.
Adam Atchison:Of a new journey that that that would then extend to to others as we share the story of what happened this weekend.
Justin Pardee:Totally. Man, I I just love that as you share that story, you remind us that that took place back in 2009. Mhmm. You know, we're creeping up on a decade ago. I think that's so great because, you know, when we say Sandals Church is a place you can be real, that's just not that's not something we say or put on postcards or whatever like that.
Justin Pardee:That's the truth, man. So Yeah. You know what? If you're listening here and there's something going on in your life like Adam talked about, the secret sin. Listen, these two guys hang out at both Sandals Church Woodcrest and East Valley every single weekend.
Justin Pardee:They're super legit. I just would encourage you guys to if you've got something that you are hiding with hiding or haven't shared with anyone yet before, we'd love for you to connect with them on the weekends.
Adam Atchison:Yeah. One of the points in Matt's message was healing happens when I'm ready to change. And it was so powerful. You know, you think of physical healing, whether it's cancer or whatever, is a very obvious thing that needs healing. And I would say the most common thing I prayed for on Sunday was it was really people who needed healing from their their sin.
Adam Atchison:You know, I had people coming forward confessing sins that they hadn't confessed to anybody before and and just saying, I'm ready to be healed. I'm ready to change. And and that readiness doesn't end just because we did a healing service on Sunday. I mean, it can be today. It can be tomorrow.
Adam Atchison:Whatever day, you know, you're ready. And God moved, and I text, with a few of them this week, and they're already making changes in their life, already changing things for their family. And it's a beautiful thing to see when they're actually ready to to make that change.
Justin Pardee:So cool. Well, thank you guys for coming on episode one here as we're figuring out the debrief. We appreciate you guys sharing your experiences on the weekend and your story as well. We appreciate it. Thanks, guys.
Matt Brown:Thank you. For having us. Yep.
Justin Pardee:That was great. I love the synchronicity of your voices there. Well, man, guys, if you joined us this last weekend at Sandals Church, it was really an incredible weekend at all three locations. I mean, you, Matt, were preaching from Luke five, called people forward for prayer. The worship time was just incredible.
Justin Pardee:And, man, I I we didn't really count or have any way to do that, but the response was amazing. I mean, across all three locations, we had hundreds, honestly, maybe even thousands of people come forward for healing prayer this weekend. Did you have any like just big takeaways or what stuck out to you this weekend Yeah. Personally?
Matt Brown:I think the first thing for me is, you know, the Bible always says that that Jesus healed the multitudes. He blessed the multitudes. And that's the first time in my life where I've ever felt like that adjective was appropriate to describe what I saw God doing in a church. The multitudes came forward and it's just a beautiful thing and it just shows you, excuse me, how broken society is and how how badly people are hurting. You know, at the 11:45 service, it it the crowds were so overwhelming that I just had to jump down into the audience and start praying over people.
Matt Brown:And I was amazed at a couple things. The first thing that was the most exciting to me was the ethnic diversity of our congregation. I just love that. I think it looks like heaven. Mhmm.
Matt Brown:And that's just beautiful. The second thing was the authenticity of the prayer requests. I mean, I had young couples just look me in the face, their pastor, you know, we're not pure and we need we need prayer for purity. And I I just appreciate that so much because that's the heart of our church is to be real. And, there was just such great joy in praying over people who care more about getting right with God than their reputation.
Matt Brown:And I think that's when God heals. And so that was really cool. Just people hurting and, you know, families that are broken and marriages that needed prayer, singles that needed a prayer. It was just absolutely awesome. I got to see, you know, people just collapse when hands were laid on them, and it was it was awesome, you know?
Matt Brown:Right. It was it was just a really, really exciting time for our church, and I loved it. So
Justin Pardee:Yeah. I thought it was so cool. Obviously, at at the main campus, that response was overwhelming. And then just making that additional call for group leaders and then other mature Christians to come forward and join us in in praying for people. I thought it was really awesome to see people kinda respond to that.
Justin Pardee:We had a couple people respond like, reply to us on Twitter and Facebook saying they came forward when we asked for extra help and that it was just a really cool experience for them to be able to pray over people and stuff.
Matt Brown:And I think that, you know, you know, the miracle we talked about, the miracle of the paralyzed young man, he's not the only one that was blessed that day. The four friends that brought him were also blessed. And so I think the neat thing for people in the audience was they got to transition from a viewer to a participant, and they got to not just hear about God's mercy and grace, but they got to experience it because there's something powerful. And that's kind of what I was trying to talk about with the last point. You know, when I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get people to Jesus, man, that's when I see miracles happen.
Matt Brown:When my life is all about me, what I want, what I need, what I need to learn. And, you know, you think about that house being packed out. Everybody was there, you know, pencils out, you know, scrolls, ready to take notes on the teaching of Jesus. But there were four people that were determined to get a friend to Jesus, and it's because of those four people that the miracle took place. Otherwise, it's just a great sermon, and we never hear about it.
Matt Brown:We probably don't know what Jesus talked about, and the Bible doesn't tell us. The sermon was inconsequential in comparison to the miracle that took place. And so I think that's if we as a church want to see God move in radical ways, we need to be asking ourselves on the way to church, who needs to be here? How do I get somebody here? How do I get somebody prayer?
Matt Brown:How do I help somebody? How do I open my home so that Jesus can touch lives? And when that happens, I think God shows up in miraculous ways.
Justin Pardee:Okay. I'm gonna put you on the spot here, but I I'm just thinking, you know, people came forward for prayer and and really that was it. That was the kind of the end of their experience with us at church this last weekend. And we had people come forward for all kinds of reasons, like you just shared. I mean, children with cancer, the whole gamut, you know, depression, anxiety, marriage, relational issues, all kinds of stuff.
Justin Pardee:Man, what would you say to somebody who came forward on Sunday morning or maybe Saturday night at main campus to be prayed over and now it's like two or three days later in the week, and they're just kind of wondering what that was about. I don't know. Is there an encouragement that you would bring?
Matt Brown:Yeah. I would say that, you know, the first step to healing is always honesty, being honest and saying I need help. And so that's why I try to share my story, my experience. One guy, I can't remember if he tweeted me or texted me, but he went forward for prayer, and he said he said, look, nothing happened. And I and I said, look, man, miracles are called miracles for a reason.
Matt Brown:Mhmm. And I think that's something that we need to keep in the forefront of our understanding of the work of God is that miracles aren't guaranteed, they don't happen all the time. You know, I always crack up and see a church sign that says, Miracle Healing Service, seven to nine, like the Holy Spirit's got it on the calendar. And that's just ridiculous to me. And so we don't know what God's going to do.
Matt Brown:We're not responsible for the results. We're responsible to be obedient. And I think that those people who came forward, they're telling God, okay, I'm ready for this to change. And now that allows God to be ready to work in their lives. And so give it time.
Matt Brown:You know, so much of what's happening and going to happen in their life started in that moment. But that's why I talked about the healing that took place in my life over a year and a half. I had five years of suffering, immense suffering, and it took a year and a half of healing. And it was a process of going to a counselor, going to doctors, and ultimately going for spiritual healing. And there was a lot of things that I had to do to change what it was that I was experiencing.
Matt Brown:And so I think that, you know, when we we look at the miracles of Jesus, we have to understand that Jesus is a supernatural phenomenon. He's the son of God and has power and authorities that we just don't have, and can command based upon his own will healing. We can't do that. Right. We can't command it.
Matt Brown:We can ask for it, but we can't command it. We can't mandate it. And so Jesus can. And so I think it's important that we realize that's why we worship him and not us, is because he's the one who's in authority over who gets the miracle. And and he's ultimately has the understanding, which is, again, true acts of worship are not that I worship God because he is good.
Matt Brown:I worship him because he is God. And so just because maybe I didn't get what I wanted doesn't mean that he isn't God and he isn't still good. And so we have to work through that process. But I just think so oftentimes, healing begins, according to James, when we get real, and we come before the elders. And so he talks about we didn't talk about we talked about the healing process, we didn't talk about the confession piece.
Matt Brown:And so James correlates confession with healing, and those two are married in a certain sort of way. And that's not to say that everybody who's sick is sinful or or wrong, but oftentimes there's a process that God wants us to experience so that we can change. And so, like, when you read the story of Job we talked about, the Bible says Job was a righteous man. That's how that's how the book opens. And we find out that he's not righteous as we compare him to God.
Matt Brown:He's righteous in comparison to other human beings. He is morally superior to anyone that he knew, anyone that was around him. But in the end, he was completely sinful in front of God's eyes and had to deal with that. And, you know, the pride of Job in his righteousness was self righteousness, and he had to be broken of that. And ultimately, then God allowed this tremendous healing to take place in his life.
Matt Brown:And so I think that that's that's key. So not everyone who's sick or diseased, it's the result of sin. It's the result of the consequences of sin, period. Not something specific you've All disease, all disaster is a result of God's judgment on the earth. Romans eight makes that clear.
Matt Brown:The whole earth is subject to the judgment of God because of the sin that we have chosen, you know, both our sin, you know, the sin that we commit, and the sins others commit. And so that's just the reality of living in a fallen world. And so we can ask for God to preemptively heal us, because the Bible says ultimately all ills will be healed. Everything will be made right. The earth will be cleansed.
Matt Brown:People's bodies will be made right. There will be healing. There's no more sickness. There's no more death. So ultimately, all our prayers are answered.
Matt Brown:The request for a miracle is a preemptive strike in terms of answering the prayer.
Justin Pardee:So I love that description. Man, for those of you guys, if you're listening and you maybe you weren't here or whatever, one of the things that I love that we're beginning to do now at all of our services, at all of our locations, every single weekend, we are closing the services just with the invitation to come forward for prayer with our ministers and prayer team members, you know, as other folks are leaving. I'm I'm really excited about that. So hopefully, some more of this can continue on throughout out the year. Well, hey, this is episode one.
Justin Pardee:So we've already got a couple of questions. And because you're already getting ready to preach Luke chapter six, most of the questions that we've got received so far for the show have come in from some of the earlier parts of Luke chapter one. So let me hit you with some of these. This is a great one from Luke chapter one, and this came in from Lindsay. She talked about in verse 12 that Zechariah was afraid, and the Bible said it was he was overwhelmed with fear when he sees the angel appear to him in a temple, then they have this conversation.
Justin Pardee:And she asked, why don't we hear about angels appearing in this way to people anymore?
Matt Brown:Well, I would say Lindsay needs to listen to my sermons because I've talked about my specific encounter with an angel, and it was terrifying. It was one of the most frightening experiences of my life, and it was specifically in regards to a young man in our church who had taken his life. He committed suicide, and I was asked to to, what do call it, do the funeral. And his father asked me a specific question. He said, isn't my son in hell?
Matt Brown:And that's a very, very difficult question to answer because his son's last act on earth was sin. Take taking your own life is, you know, murdering yourself. And so that's a difficult question to answer. And ultimately, we we never know the answer specifically. You know, we're not God.
Matt Brown:We don't know the situation. We don't know what's going on. I believe that God is certainly, you know, gracious and merciful and loving. But I was really torn up, and I didn't know how to answer that question specifically for this person. And so I went to sleep that night, and I was awoken in the middle of the night, and there was an entity.
Matt Brown:That's the only way to describe it. You know, it's so it's so funny. My kids always ask me to tell me what it looked like, and there aren't there's no descriptors here to describe what I saw. But it was powerful. It had form.
Matt Brown:It didn't have form. And it spoke, and it said he is with us. You know? And and and what I believe it was, it was an angel of the Lord, and he was telling me that Stephen was in heaven with God, and to preach that, and to teach that. And and then he told me to go to sleep, and not and he actually said, don't be afraid.
Matt Brown:Because I was terrified. Absolutely terrified. And it was it was the most powerful manifestation of anything spiritual that I've ever seen.
Adam Atchison:Mhmm.
Matt Brown:I've experienced things, I felt things, I've heard things, but that's the only time in my life where I actually saw it. And so it was terrifying and it it was scary. And, you know, I think part of the reason that, you know, Zechariah is silenced is he's gotta process that for for nine months or however long it was until John is born. Because for me, it was several months before I even shared that experience with somebody because it was so overwhelming and so powerful. And but angels are terrifying.
Matt Brown:They're they're warriors of God. They're messengers of the king of kings and the Lord of lords. And, you know, so often the depictions of what we see in non Christian philosophy and thinking angels are little chubby bunnies and they're cute and cuddly. And the book of Revelation says there's an angel who chains the devil. So I'm gonna I'm gonna guess that that angel is someone intimidating.
Matt Brown:So, you know, those are my thoughts on that.
Justin Pardee:That that angel does CrossFit or something. Yeah. Alright. Man, here we go. These these are this is great.
Justin Pardee:Okay. We got another one also in Luke chapter one. So later on, basically, because Zechariah responded, kinda didn't believe the angel when the angel said your wife's gonna be pregnant and you guys are super old and all that stuff. This is what the angel says, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place because you did not believe my words. And that's Luke chapter one verse 20.
Justin Pardee:So here's the question. How can we, like, have greater faith when we're hearing God say really challenging things to us?
Matt Brown:Yeah. You know, I think the first question is how do I discern when it's God and verse when it when it's me? And so kind of the measuring tool that I always use is I'm always suspect of believing it's God's voice when it's something I want to do. Mhmm. Because my my question is, why would God prompt me to do something I already want to do?
Matt Brown:Right. Typically, the prompting of the Holy Spirit is to cause me and to lead me to do things that I don't want to do, and that I'm resistant to. And so so the first question is how do we discern God's Spirit? The second question is is how is how do we have more faith on that? And the bottom line is we gotta trust God in the little things.
Matt Brown:I'm gonna I'm gonna guess because we don't know everything about Zechariah's life. I mean, you know, all that we know about him is contained in a in a few verses, that there were many, many times where, you know, he had encountered God, met God, heard from God, was obedient to God. And so the expectation by God here was, look, you have a you have a track record of listening, of being obedient, of following me. And so the expectation is that you're gonna do this. And because of his lack of obedience, there's a consequence.
Matt Brown:And I think that's important. I don't know if I answered your question specifically.
Justin Pardee:No. I think I think it sounds right. So the first part is really checking where is this coming from. Do I is this something I wanna do? And if it's not, then there's a greater likelihood that this is really something God's prompting you to do.
Justin Pardee:Let's say that's the circumstance is what yeah. How do you respond then if God says something really really challenging to you? Like that could range from everything to, you know, I'm the young adult here coming here and I'm hearing God through the sermon and reading the scriptures, challenge me challenging me to sexual purity. And that's a big challenge because I'm in a dating relationship and I'm Or maybe I'm here and I've got a couple kids and all these things. And I hear that God is challenging believers to, you know, give back 10% of their income.
Justin Pardee:And that's really challenging because money is tight. How do we have just like respond in greater faith to these challenges instead of just responding in immediate disbelief like Zachariah did? Zachariah?
Matt Brown:Yeah. Well, I I think that human nature is always to doubt to struggle and to wrestle. I mean, Mary questions the same thing. How can this be? So I think God is gracious to Mary because she's a young girl.
Matt Brown:Zechariah is an old man. And so, right, God is going to hold us accountable based upon, you know, our maturity and our our our spiritual makeup at that particular time. And so what I would say is is God is going to be gracious to you at the level that you're at. And so the more you mature and the more you grow, you know, the more immediate your response needs to be. So what I would say is this, is God has not asked us to do easy things.
Matt Brown:So he know, tithing 10%, which is something that I've done for, I don't know, about the last twenty five years of my life, It's just something that I trust God in and believe God in and have seen the fruits of that, and I enjoy I enjoy giving to the Lord. For some people, that's gonna be a hard thing, but you just have to ask yourself, you know, is my faith real or not? There's what I wanna do and there's what God wanted me to do. So Zechariah is told you're gonna have a kid, and oh, by the way, he's not Zechariah Junior, his name's John. So you're gonna have this kid, and you don't even get to name him what you want.
Matt Brown:So I think that's huge. But sexual purity, what what I would say is, you know, how do I know when it's God's spirit? If there's a scripture that speaks directly to it, like being sexually pure, that's God's spirit. And so you need to be obedient to that. And and I think that what you need to do is get in community and help people help you to figure out how to be obedient to that.
Matt Brown:And and by community, I mean, needs to be mature community. Because a lot of people come up to me and say, well, I'm called to ministry. Well, okay, we all are. How specifically is God calling you to ministry? Because he hasn't called you to be a pastor if he's not given you leadership.
Matt Brown:If you don't have leadership skills, you're not gonna be a pastor. Everyone's called to ministry. Everyone's called to serve. And so that's the thing I think a lot of people wonder. And that's the other thing is they feel like God's calling them to a greater level of service, but they're not exactly sure how to serve.
Matt Brown:And so that's a process of of becoming real with yourself and learning what your strengths are and what your gifts are and how you can utilize those to best serve God.
Justin Pardee:Got it. So, man, for those of guys that are listening, if you're if you're not plugged into community or anything, man, we'd love to help you do that. You can you can do that on your own. Just go to sandalssearch.com and click the button that says get involved, and we can help you figure out something that's right for you, whether you wanna join the group or join the team or whatever. If if not, man, just stop by on the weekends at any of our campuses, just the welcome centers at the main campus or any of the tents outside on the patios at either Woodcrest or East Valley.
Justin Pardee:We wanna help you get plugged in there. Okay. Here's a question from Luke chapter three. I love this one. It comes from Ethan who's in one of our young adult guys groups led by Dane.
Justin Pardee:And I'm just gonna read this one from what Dane's wrote in. Said a couple guys in my group are wondering about the genealogies of Jesus. The gospels of Luke and Matthew both open with different genealogies of Jesus, but they're slightly different. They're actually mostly wondering why they're the genealogies of Joseph and not Mary since Joseph isn't actually related to Jesus in any way and had nothing to do with his birth. Therefore, none of the people mentioned are really Jesus' ancestors.
Justin Pardee:They're kinda just like step ancestors. So what what's going on there? Can you help us
Matt Brown:figure Well, this the genealogies are are are are a point of confusion that often need clarity. So they are different. I think Matthew has 42 people in the lineage of Jesus, and I think Luke has 70 something, I think 77. So Luke actually mentions people that are not mentioned anywhere in the Bible in the lineage of Jesus. And so as we look at, you know, the the differences between these two, a lot of scholars try to reconcile that.
Matt Brown:And so let me give you a couple of thoughts, and then give you my thought. So the first thought is is that Matthew's account of the lineage of Jesus is the kind of political lineage of Jesus. You'll notice that kings are mentioned. Hezekiah, you know, David, a lot of these kings, a lot of the big names we see, you know, in in in that lineage. And so it's kind of the political lineage of Jesus, and it goes back to Abraham.
Matt Brown:So it's it goes all the way back to Abraham. And then Luke's account goes all the way back to Adam. And so right before in since we're in Luke three, it says that Jesus Christ was baptized by John and God the Father spoke and said, this is my son in whom I'm well pleased. And then as he opens the account of the lineage of Jesus, it says Joseph, the supposed, in ESV, the supposed son of Jesus. And so it's acknowledging that, you know, Jesus does not get his DNA from Joseph.
Matt Brown:And so some people think that Luke may be Mary's lineage. So that's her lineage. And so there's a couple reasons, you know, that they they would negate that. One is just cultural sensitivity. I mean, were not valued and esteemed at the level that men were.
Matt Brown:And so the question is, what is the male lineage? And so what may have happened there is Jesus and and Joseph and Mary from a small town from Nazareth, and so what may have happened is Mary's father may not have had any sons. So he could have adopted legally Joseph as his son, and then, you know, married in that way. Or I mean, there's all kinds of things that could happen there for the discrepancy. Sometimes brothers, if one brother died, his responsibility would be to marry his brother's wife.
Matt Brown:Okay. And then the children, although they would be his biologically, would be accredited to his brother. It's his brother's line. And so there's all kinds of confusion there. So we're not exactly sure, but some people think that that maybe it's one of Joseph's brothers is the difference.
Matt Brown:Others people think that it's it's Mary's lineage all the way back to Adam, the the son of God. And so and what I would say is I don't know. I don't have a clue. Okay. You know, Luke is not alive.
Matt Brown:We can't interview him as to why they're different. Matthew is not alive. I think my my opinion is is that Matthew is writing about the kingdom, the kingdom, the kingdom, and so he's trying to create a case for the kingly lineage of Jesus in Matthew, and so that's why you see so many of the kings mentioned. And then I think Luke is trying to make the argument for the new creation, the new Adam, new life. Right?
Matt Brown:He's gonna write acts. We need to be, you know, we need to be changed. And so he's writing for this new world, this new creation. And so that's why I think he goes all the way back to Adam. But we don't know.
Matt Brown:I mean, don't write commentaries on what they wrote. We just have the gospels and everybody else guesses. And so a lot of people think they know, we don't know.
Justin Pardee:Okay. So here here's a question on that. I think maybe somebody listening right now could almost have their mind blown a little bit. Right? Here you are, this pastor saying, I don't know necessarily what this part of the Bible is or or means or why it's written this way.
Justin Pardee:How how should we handle that in the scriptures if there's something we don't understand? Absolutely.
Matt Brown:So I think the first responsibility of a Christian is be obedient to what you do understand.
Justin Pardee:Mhmm.
Matt Brown:And then, you know, I I believe that if God wants me to know what the genealogies mean, he'll reveal that to me at some other time. And so I think the genealogies meant something specific to the original audience that, for whatever reason, has gotten lost over time. So there was a reason that those things needed to be there then to establish the case for Christ, and for whatever reason, throughout time, that has become less important for those of us now. And and and we don't know. We we don't know why there's differences.
Matt Brown:We don't know why I mean, Matthew starts his gospel with the genealogy. Luke doesn't start it until chapter three. And so, you know, they just do it different ways. And so, yeah, I would just say you're never gonna fully understand everything about scripture. You're just not.
Matt Brown:There's gonna be some things that you just don't understand. So don't worry about that because I don't think God has called us to understand absolutely everything.
Justin Pardee:I love that. I love that. Okay. I got two two questions here, two more, and these are both gonna come from Luke chapter four, which you preached on, two weeks ago. And both of these question came from Jesse's group.
Justin Pardee:So Jesse, thanks for sending these in. First one is from Ryan, and he basically just said, how can Jesus be tempted? And you talked about the Jesus was out in the desert, the wilderness for forty days. How could Jesus be tempted if he's God?
Matt Brown:Right. And there's I mean, there's a lot of pastors who are gonna disagree with me on this point. And I mean, I remember went to Baptist Seminary and and had a Baptist pastor that taught my class on this to say that Jesus Christ was never really tempted, and he believes that. I think he's absolutely wrong. Specifically, where's the verse?
Matt Brown:Hebrews four fifteen. I wanted to get the verse exactly. It says that we do not have a high priest who does not understand us, for he was tempted in every way that we are. And so Jesus Christ was tempted so that he could understand what it's he could understand the human experience, and so it had to be real tempting. So how theologically do do we make that work?
Matt Brown:And so it really comes down to our understanding of who Jesus is, and so Christians had to fight for this, and it it got really ugly for about three hundred years as to exactly who Jesus is. And we went back and forth before it was finally settled that Jesus is both God and man. Mhmm. And that he's not confused. He wasn't half God, half man, but he was fully God and fully man.
Matt Brown:And those were all kinds of councils and you can study all of that. But they finally came to this understanding that in somehow, someway, Jesus Christ's divinity was not lost, he was still God, but he was had become completely human. And so there's there's all kinds of nuances into figuring that out. But Jesus Christ, as a man, could be tempted. Jesus Christ, as God, could never be tempted.
Matt Brown:And so it is the man Christ Jesus that enters into the tempting. So how does that work? Philippians two verses five through 11 talk about gives us the Apostle Paul gives us this picture, right, of of the process by which Jesus Christ became a human being. So the Gospels just announce it, that he was born. Matthew says he's God with us, but doesn't elaborate on that.
Matt Brown:Luke says he's God's son, and doesn't really elaborate on that process. It's not until the Apostle Paul tells us in Philippians kind of what that looked like. And it says that Jesus Christ did not grasp onto deity, so he released it. He didn't hold onto it, but he humbled himself, and he submitted himself to becoming a slave. That's the word.
Matt Brown:And so what kind of slave was he? Human being. And so that's just a contrast word from his royalty to his humanity. And that's the best way that we can understand. You know, he went from, you know, the ancient audience, from Julius Caesar to a slave.
Matt Brown:And so he went from all rights to no rights, and he humbled himself to this process by which he entered into the human experience and had to go through everything that we do. What's miraculous about Jesus is that he was tempted just like we are, and I shared this in the message, way more than we are. Way more. I mean, he was starving. We talked about this.
Matt Brown:He was weak. He was hungry. I mean, he literally was dying. When you haven't eaten for forty days, you're in the process of death. And Satan personally tempted him for forty days.
Matt Brown:I mean, this is like, right, an all out spiritual onslaught. And Jesus was all alone in this. And that's the thing that's amazing about Jesus is that he endured the temptation as a human being, as a man. And he limited his divinity so that he would have to overcome that process as a human being. He did what Adam couldn't do.
Matt Brown:He said no. Adam was perfect, but he still failed. He was created sinless and then sinned. Jesus resisted it, and and and he overcame the temptation of the fruit. Here it is.
Matt Brown:Here it is. You know, same same strategy, just different apples, I guess, in the Gospel of Luke. And we have three specific ones, but the Bible says it was for forty days, so we don't know everything that he was tempted about. But Hebrews says he was tempted in every way that we are, so it was pretty extensive.
Justin Pardee:Right. And one of the things I just love so far about your responses to these questions is that there really is a lot of it's not, like, perfectly nailed down on all these other on all of these things, and just this willingness to be real about saying, man, we don't have all this figured out.
Matt Brown:Yeah. And I think that there's a really unhealth there's a really unhealthy desire to know everything. So one of the verses that people quote is it's in Corinthians, God is not of God of confusion.
Adam Atchison:Mhmm.
Matt Brown:And I tell people all the time, God's not confused, but we are. And so, you know, and that verse is completely taken out of context because what it's speaking to is orderly worship services. So don't get crazy, don't be bizarre, and so they take that verse and say, well, there's no confusion, therefore we're gonna understand absolutely everything. And that's why you have, you know, I'm a Baptist, you have 253 different denominations of Baptist, because everybody thinks they know exactly what God meant. Well, if that was true, we wouldn't have 253 versions of Baptists.
Matt Brown:You know, that doesn't mention Lutherans, you know, evangelicals. It doesn't it doesn't it doesn't mention Catholics and Orthodox and all these other groups that don't even agree with the 253 Baptists. And so I I just think it's really, really dangerous. And, you know, I love what Mark Driscoll says about the things that we're we're close fisted with, and we could do a podcast on what those things are. What what are the things that make you a Christian?
Matt Brown:And then what are the things that are open handed? These are the things that we believe, but we're not we're not a 100% on. Right. And so, you know, I just think that I I don't wanna say that I'm close fisted on this, but I really do believe Christ was really tempted. It just it's not helpful to me in any way, shape, or form if it was a quasi tempting.
Matt Brown:Because I'm not quasi tempted. I'm tempted. So.
Justin Pardee:Right. Okay. Well, here's a this is our final question, and it totally lines in. And this is from Grace and Jesse's group. And she just asked about what's what's the distinction between being tempted and sinning?
Matt Brown:Right. So I think that the the answer to that question is is a lot more complex than I I I would wish. But the answer is is we're sinners. So I I think that we oftentimes, we think of of sin simply as something that we do as opposed to something that we are. And so it's it's really hard to to delineate, you know, when is the exact moment when I slip from sin, from temptation to sin?
Matt Brown:And so, you know, James says that we are drawn to temptation because we're sinners. Right? So that's that that's why. I mean, we so in Jesus' case, right, the devil tempted him. James says, in our case, we tempt excuse me.
Matt Brown:We tempt ourselves. Sorry, guys. We tempt ourselves. We do the tempting. We don't need Satan to tempt us because we handle that on our own.
Matt Brown:So for me, I'm gonna share a a deeply personal experience is, is I think we all face temptation. So what I would say is, when is the temptation ceased to be sin? And it's when we leave it. And so I remember when I was I was dating my girlfriend before Tammy, and we were in a
Justin Pardee:Tammy's your wife now, for those who don't
Matt Brown:Tammy's my wife. We were we were in a sexual relationship. We were not we were not walking in accordance with scripture. And I had given my life to Christ and was was trying to figure out a way out of this relationship. And I remember one specific instance where we were at a house alone, and it was just us, and the opportunity was ripe for sexual temptation.
Matt Brown:She was willing, and I was wanting, and that was a problem. And I remember a specific moment when, okay, I can have sex. It's here. I want to do this. But I also remember I have a desire to not do this and follow Jesus.
Matt Brown:And I remember this moment very clear when I told her, I said, I have to go. And I just got up and left. So I was tempted, but I believe in that moment I was victorious. And as I left, I believe I ceased to sin because I walked away from it. And and I and I left then.
Matt Brown:And so what I would say is the victory I I wouldn't categorize it as when is it sin and when is it temptation? I would say the victories are, and what we need to celebrate are those moments when we walk away from temptation. Because I think we need to celebrate that and encourage that and, you know, praise God for those moments. Because I think we all feel so bad about the fact that we were tempted, and I I shared in the message, look, gotta get over that. You know, the only way you're not gonna be tempted is when you're dead.
Matt Brown:And so we're all tempted in different ways. You know, I love the way that you talk about food. It cracks me up. Because I do not look at food the way that you look at food, man. I mean, you know, I had no idea when we were at that meal the other night that there was a potential cupcake at the bottom of the ice cream.
Matt Brown:But that was a real moment for you.
Justin Pardee:Yeah. I pay attention to those.
Matt Brown:Yeah. Yeah. And I miss that. So we're all tempted we're all tempted with different things, and and and temptation takes very, different forms for us, but we need to celebrate those moments when, you know, if we, you know, are gluttonous or if we're a liar, you know, and we tell the truth, I was so tempted to lie and so tempted to make up a story, but I told the truth, man, and I think we need to celebrate those moments. I was so tempted to look at porn where I was all by myself, or I I started and I quit, and I I abandoned it.
Matt Brown:You know, I think we need to celebrate those moments. Some of the greatest moments for me at Sandals Church as a pastor is I remember one guy just greeting people in the lobby. He said, pastor, it's been six days since I looked at porn. Mhmm. So I praise God for that.
Matt Brown:Praise God for that, because he's saying no to this temptation. And in many cases, you know, when we repeatedly sin, it's no longer temptation, it's an addiction. And we're addicted to it, and we've got to completely change our behaviors. And so
Justin Pardee:At this point, are you talking about me and cupcakes? Because No. My heart is like on fire right now.
Matt Brown:So Yeah. I'm sorry. So so, you know, I think that, you know, temptation is when we're we're tempted to, you know, pursue something that's sin. So for me, you know, temptation is not noticing a woman who's beautiful or not seeing a woman saying, oh, that she's gorgeous. You know, the temptation is to meditate on that, focus on that, desire that Mhmm.
Matt Brown:Wish that my wife was that, that's when it becomes sin for me. And so for me, you know, what I do is I just say, well, she's beautiful, and I walk away. Mhmm. You know, because, you know, I'm dead if I don't notice. So but I'm a sinner if I indulge that temptation and and, you know, try to progressively go further.
Matt Brown:So I don't know if I can answer that. I know if I'm answering that question. That's a really, really tough question. What I would say, whatever the sin is, the Bible says run from it. Mhmm.
Matt Brown:So don't wonder. And if you're wondering, is this temptation or is this a sin? I would run. That think that's the biblical I think that's the sound advice, is to run from anything that you feel like isn't pleasing to God. You know, Paul says to Timothy, run from your youthful lusts.
Matt Brown:So anything that stimulates actually is the word that he uses. So anything that arouses you, anything that excites you, anything that draws you away from God's will for your life, you need to run from that because the chances are you're not gonna be victorious and you're gonna slip, you're gonna fall, you're gonna blow it. And so and that leads down to a whole another path, you know, of of thinking and feeling, and I just would encourage people to not have to embrace that. So but whatever you're going through, whatever's happened in your life, have Christians in your life that you can share too. So I think the beauty of this week's service was when we were overwhelmed with need, we had to have people just step up and pray.
Matt Brown:And I think that hopefully that awakened in our church, this reality that the Holy Spirit is in all of us. Mhmm. And we can all pray, we can all minister, we can all hear a confession, and we can all offer forgiveness if there's repentance. We can all do this in the name of Jesus. And so you don't need to talk to me.
Matt Brown:You don't need to talk to a minister. You need to talk to a mature Christian who loves God and loves you. And if they meet those two requirements, I think they can hear your confession, and you will be you'll be blessed. But, you know, don't beat yourself up, you know, when you're tempted, because I think we we live in a world that just temptation is everywhere. I mean, I I obviously, it's a political season, so I'm on Fox News and CNN, and every time there's there's literally pictures of women in scantily clothe, you know, outfits, and I'm on the new I'm I'm looking at news.
Matt Brown:Right. You know, I wanna find out who won the Iowa caucus.
Adam Atchison:Right.
Matt Brown:And and here this is, and it's just like, that's our world. Our world is is everything is sex. Everything is sin. And it's just, you know, it's it's really, really rough. And so we need to be open and honest about that.
Justin Pardee:Awesome. Man, I'm super excited about where this Debrief podcast is gonna go. Thanks for making the time to make this happen. And if you guys have questions that you wanna get to pastor Matt, just reach out to your community group leader this week. Let him know what you're wondering, and we'll get those questions from your group leaders on the show.
Justin Pardee:If you're not plugged into a group yet, man, reach out to us on the weekends. We'd love to help you get plugged in. This is the kind of conversations I think that happen in most of our or many of our community groups anyway. So, man, we're super excited to have you guys on this journey. We're obviously still kind of figuring it out with the podcast, but that was awesome.
Matt Brown:Alright. Thanks, guys, for listening. I love you, and I hope that you are growing in two fifty two in wisdom and in stature and favor with God and favor with men. That is our prayer for you, and there's no better way to change your story than to learn Jesus' story. So love you guys.
Justin Pardee:Well, hey, guys. Thanks so much for listening to episode number one of the debrief. Man, we are obviously still just figuring out this whole podcast thing for making this happen every single week. If you have got feedback about the podcast, you think it was too long, too short, think we needed more jokes, want my address so you can send me cupcakes, anything like that, do me a favor. Send me an email this week.
Justin Pardee:I'm Justinpasinpapa@sandalssearch.com. So Justinp@sandalssearch.com. I don't know. What's the alpha bravo Charlie version of the letter p? I'm going with papa.
Justin Pardee:I'm Justin p sandals search dot com and I'd love to get your feedback on the debrief. See you guys next week.