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This is The Oaks Equipped, a podcast from The Oaks Church in Liberty Hill, TX where Pastor Josh Mings talks through the stuff he didn’t have time to say on Sunday, answers the questions people are actually asking, and keeps things way more real than polished. Expect biblical truth, practical takeaways, and just enough humor to keep you guessing whether he meant it.
If you want to follow Jesus with clarity (and laugh at least once), you’re in the right place.
Welcome to The Oaks Equipped, a podcast designed to help you grow deeper in your faith. Each week we unpack sermon insights, explore what didn't fit on Sunday, and answer real questions, even the skeptical ones. Let's get equipped.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to the Oaks Equipped podcast. We're at week three of Advent, and good afternoon, Josh.
Speaker 3:Howdy, everybody. How are we doing?
Speaker 2:We're doing well and Christmas is That's just around the right.
Speaker 3:Get your presents ready.
Speaker 2:Well, we have to go get them first.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 2:Not that we'd really do that. Well, this week, you're talking about joy, which is a Christmas theme, joy to the world. Everyone loves joy. What was your big idea today? And I thought it was interesting.
Speaker 2:I thought you would go joy, you'd probably go to Luke or you went to Malachi. Yeah. Yeah. Malachi 4. Yes.
Speaker 3:Joy joy is a huge part of Christmas. Joy to the world. That's a that's a perfect thing. The the the idea came from, you know, the week before we looked at Joseph, the week before that we looked at Mary. Right.
Speaker 3:Well, kind of the next characters in the in the story are the shepherds.
Speaker 2:That's
Speaker 3:right. And the angels come to the shepherds, and they announce, hey. There's a savior and this is joyful. And so that's where the idea came. And then just as I got into the the text of it, I just started asking some questions, kind of pulling on the threads of, okay, what was in the shepherd's mindset?
Speaker 3:Like, really just kind of thinking through the expectation that people had about what God's big plan was. And so that's what led me to Malachi, which is the last book of the Old Testament, and particularly the end of that book. And there's just a promise that God gives. And I think what was in my mind at the time as I was preparing was, I wonder if this is what the shepherds were thinking. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:I wonder if this is what the people of Israel were thinking, you know, as the story of Christmas unfolds. And so it's just kind of a different way of personal reflection, just trying to pull on the strings. Okay. What's in their mind? And, you know, I think I made a good case that this was probably in the mind of at least a lot of the people at the time of the first Christmas and at the time of Jesus' life and ministry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you think of shepherds, low man in the totem pole in terms of society, probably not well educated, yet God brings angels. His glory is shown in the skies. It's an amazing firework show. A 100%. Well beyond anything we've ever seen.
Speaker 2:Yes. And yet the shepherds are the ones that are bringing, that the message is brought to.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Why would shepherds like be anticipating? How would they know about what was to happen?
Speaker 3:Well, think there's two things going on. So yes, I'll answer the anticipation part, but I think the first part of it is I think it speaks about the nature and character of God. It makes more sense that God would have sent an entourage to the king, to the palace, to the high priest to say, hey, the next phase of my plan is here. I need to let you guys know. But what does it say about God that he chooses to go to a person with a lowliest of profession
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:To bring them good news? And so I think that speaks to his kindness, that he sees what's mostly overlooked by other people. I think it speaks to his nature where he you know, all throughout the Old Testament, there's always fondness with the shepherd, which in that day would have been seen as a really low level, not important job. So I think it speaks to God. The anticipation, I think, is yes, while they probably weren't the most educated of people, being in a type of community in the first century where so much of their identity as a nation and a culture was centered around the stories connected in the Bible, they would be well familiar of God's ultimate plan.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And so them anticipating that there was a savior coming, the the Messiah, the Christ. Yeah. Messiah is just the word for Christ. They would know that.
Speaker 3:And they'd be hoping for it, longing for it to be liberated from the oppression that they were feeling as being under the thumb of the Romans, and then just desiring to have their national identity and and pride to be reassessed like we're our own people and our own kingdom, we want God to come and save us. And so they had that anticipation and the fact that they were shepherds, that feeling was felt from the lowest of the low, the shepherds all the way up to the palace. They all wanted that.
Speaker 2:That meta narrative was well understood among the Jewish people in matter whether you're high, low, whatever. I mean, we think of like 1776, we look back to that, but we're not looking forward to like us conquering a new land, but Israel, the people of Israel are looking for restoration and freedom from the Romans and the Messiah coming.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. That's why it's an identity shaping thing in the sense of they are oppressed and the stories that they would tell in hope and longing for the day that it would all be made right. It was very much central to everyday life and their way of thinking. And then in this case, the shepherds were the first people outside the inner circle to hear the day's coming. Yes.
Speaker 3:It's now.
Speaker 2:So you went back to Malachi four, and but you're bringing this in terms of the theme of joy, which he said was a deep, steady gladness that comes from knowing God through all of life's events. Yeah. Not just happiness, which is sometimes quick and, you know, a good day, bad day. But you're talking about a sustained joy or fulfillment fulfillment.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Happiness is cotton candy. It's amazing.
Speaker 2:And then it's and then it
Speaker 3:evaporates and gone. And what look. I don't ever wanna be the people that talk bad about happiness. There's a place for happiness,
Speaker 2:and
Speaker 3:and it's great, and and it's a grace that God gives. But for the the the true follower of Christ, there's something greater than happiness that's offered in joy. And as we've tried to tried to do in all of these sermons is is to show that joy is a person, peace is a person, hope is a person, and that's Jesus. And proximity to Jesus is how we experience joy.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's not emotion dictated on what's going on, but proximity to Christ means that we will experience joy. And so I went to Malachi because it kinda wrapped in a few of these themes. And, you know, Malachi is teaching, is giving this prophecy in a very low time in the nation's history. But it came with the promise that once someone is sent who will bring healing in his wings, that the people will go leaping like calves from the stall. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like being set free and joyful. And so that's the promise is that joy can come, but that joy is connected from another event, which is one would come with healing in his wings. So that's that's the connection. It's like, hey, this this ancient promise from the Old Testament, I assume the shepherds would know, was looking forward to the day when someone would come with healing in their wings, and then we would all just explode in joy like a like an animal being set free from a pin jumping out. And I think that the shepherds realized, hey, with this pronouncement that the Savior is here, that was the start of the day that we can experience that type of joy.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And the word or the metaphor wings carried with it a little bit more connotation than just, you know, something that's just fleet flying or easing its way towards this.
Speaker 3:It's really it's a nuanced it's a nuanced Hebrew word. The Hebrew word here is pronounced let me get this right. I don't pretend to be a scholar. Here it is. A kanaf.
Speaker 3:And it and it has it has it certainly means wings and deny deny that don't hear me wrong. I think what sometimes people do whenever they start talking about words and their meaning and their Greek or their Hebrew origin, they they treat it like it's some kind of trick. The words in your Bible, if you have, like, an English standard or a good Bible, they're right. So it's not to convey that they're wrong, but there's nuance to words. And what you'll what you discover is sometimes a word is picked by the editor that in other places the exact same word means something else.
Speaker 3:And that's not to deceive you or trick you, and it's certainly not to make it seem like there's some kind of secret knowledge about what these words mean. It's just that sometimes word care words carry a level of nuance. And in this case, this word has some nuance, and it's used in different ways across the new the Old Testament. Excuse me. And so in this case, Malachi is creating an image almost like a like a a giant bird or a mother hen that's pulling in her chicks to keep them safe.
Speaker 3:It's it's the connotation is safety, security, protection, advocating, but then there's a supernatural element to it that those wings, as they do those things, also brings about healing. But the exact same word is also used in other places of the Old Testament. For example, first first Samuel twenty four four and five. This is the story where David is on the run from Saul who's trying to kill him, and he's hiding in caves. And one night, he rolls up on Saul's cave, and he climbs in there, and he cuts off the corner of Saul's gar garment.
Speaker 3:So the word kenaf, well, it means wings. It can also mean the edge or the corner of a garment. Ezekiel 16 talks about this is God speaking, and he's like, I spread the the the corner of my kanoff of my garment over you and cover your nakedness. So it's a in the context, it's a covenantal thing where he's saying, hey. Your sinfulness, your nakedness, I cover you personally.
Speaker 3:So that that's using the words. In the in Ruth chapter three verse nine, this is the story where where Ruth is pleading for Boaz to be her kins and redeemer to save her, and he invites her she invites him to spread his wings, his kenaf, over her. That way she'll know that he has chosen to redeem her. So in a lot of ways, this this picture, it just carry this word carries nuance. Wings, protection, advocating, fighting for, but then it also can mean the fringe of a garment.
Speaker 2:Interesting. So this is all in Malachi. Four hundred years follow, complete silence, if you will, from a prophecy perspective. Everyone's still anticipating, the shepherds are anticipating still, But then Christ breaks the silence. The child is born.
Speaker 3:Child is born. Yes. Yeah. And listen to what the angel says. The angel is announcing he will say you know, his name is Jesus.
Speaker 3:He will save his people from their sins. Like, that is the the joy. That is the hope that we all can experience in the advent. And the shepherds were the first to hear this and proclaim this. But Jesus grows up.
Speaker 3:And what we did, I did I took a different approach. I don't know that this is I don't know if it's ever been taught on a Christmas sermon, but we jumped ahead. Because remember, the the the promise in Malachi is two parts. There would be healing in his wings that would bring joy, and then and then it would be the restoration of fathers to children and children to fathers. That would be one of the hallmarks of this joy is that it brought about a restoration.
Speaker 3:And so to me, I was trying to find the best New Testament example of this, And so I found the story of Jairus' daughter and then the woman with the issue of blood. Yeah. So that's that was my rationale in going there. But as I got into it, I found something that I just I couldn't believe. But, you know, I won't unpack all this stuff here.
Speaker 3:You can listen to the sermon, but that's a perfect example of fathers being being to the hearts of the fathers being turned to the the children and the children to the father. And it shows the joy that Christ is is offering as he's come into the world and these people are encountering him. So you tell me what you want me to drill down on, but that was kind of the rationale behind all of this is I see in the life and ministry of Jesus, he is the fulfillment of what Malachi promised.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And it's that trust that both Jairus and the woman had and the faith that they had in Jesus. Explicit faith. Right? I mean Explicit.
Speaker 2:The woman just touches his robe thinking that the power is, like you said, in the wing, and just touching his robe, she'll be healed.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so to that point, like that's kind of the moment. You know, she she I I made the point. She she knew her Bible. And if you know the story of the woman with the issue of blood, she touches the fringe, the the hem, the kanoff of Jesus' garment. So my suspicion is that she knew Malachi's prophecy.
Speaker 3:She knew what Malachi said, and she took the Bible literally, seriously. Yeah. And she has this terrible condition, and she remembers what God's word said. He will come with healing in his kenaf, in his wings, in the corner of his garment. And so she's like, I gotta touch it.
Speaker 3:And I think this week I just had this respect for her. It's like her faith was an action, not an idea.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Her faith, she moved from she knew her Bible, she knew what God said, and she was gonna act in a way that proved that she believed she knew what it said. And I just respect that. I think that that's a courageous woman. The second part of it that makes it beautiful, because Malachi's prophecy is that the hearts of the children will be turned to the father, This woman has no father. She's not like Jairus.
Speaker 2:Nobody's looking out for
Speaker 3:her. Nobody's fighting for her. Jairus is at least he's taking responsibility for his home. He's doing what every good father would do for their daughter. He's incredible.
Speaker 3:Where's the woman with the issue of blood? Where's her father? Neither. Where's her husband? Doesn't seem to be in the picture.
Speaker 3:And so her act of faith, she put into action what she believed. She took God's word literally, touched the hem of her garment, was healed, and then Jesus does something remarkable. Only place in the Bible where Jesus does this, he calls her daughter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think what you're saying there kinda connects to what you talked about last week in terms of with fear and control is to offer a prayer. We can offer a prayer and we should pray, but there are times when we often pray but also act. There are things that we can do. You talk about personal responsibility and such, but this woman acted, but there's things that, like last week Kim and I were doing something and she prayed, we agreed that we needed to do such and such, and then I came up with an action plan, she said, hey, let's do that, and it worked out great.
Speaker 3:A 100%.
Speaker 2:So prayer and action.
Speaker 3:A 100%. I think Jairus models for us the request. Jairus went to Jesus.
Speaker 2:There you go.
Speaker 3:Go go back and look at Jairus' prayer. If you will, will you? Yeah. I mean, what a you know, those who will come and act like they can demand God for something. That's that's ridiculous.
Speaker 3:Jairus models perfectly. If you will, will you? Yeah. And Jesus said, I will. And then to your point, then you have the woman with the issue of blood.
Speaker 3:She didn't act out of line. She didn't I'm trying to find the right way to say this because I've really been thinking about it a while. She didn't just do some reckless act of faith, some random reckless act of faith, meaning I'm just gonna do something ridiculous and then God will respond. Her her act of faith was actually rooted in God's word. Her act of faith was, I've read that there's healing in his wings.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna touch the wings. Yeah. So, you know, I've heard lots of stories of people who've tried to do things to get the attention of God. Our God is not evil. He's a loving father.
Speaker 3:And her act of it wasn't it wasn't the action in per se. It was the heart behind it. She believed God's word, and that was the outflow of her actions. So yes, you make the request known to God, just like Jairus. Or another option is you just act in faith and you step out just like the woman with the issue of blood did.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Asking God, you said over and over again based on the promises of God. Yes. Hold to those promises. Hold to those promises
Speaker 3:and act like you believe them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you said also joy is a person. You've mentioned this before, you said hope is a person, Peace is a person. And we need to draw closer to Christ if we're gonna experience joy, peace, hope. And you expanded a little bit more about this, that we need to be in God's word, we need to be drawing to the person of peace. Yeah.
Speaker 2:The person of hope.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I hope I hope if if nothing is clear, I hope this is clear from all the weeks of Advent, it's a person. You want hope? Spend time with hope. His name is Jesus.
Speaker 3:If you want peace, spend time with peace. His name is Jesus. And if you want joy, spend time with joy. His name is Jesus. Proximity, a passionate relationship.
Speaker 3:And you may be listening, you're like, I don't know how to do that. That's why we're here to help. This is what this is all about. Proximity to Christ, where you're spending quality time with him praying, reading your Bible. I think one practice that I could encourage everyone who listens to do is to think about whatever they're anxious about, concerned about, fearful about, whatever the case is.
Speaker 3:Make a list. Name those matters. And then my question is, do you have a corresponding promise from God that addresses each one of those concerns? So if you have a wayward child, what are God's promises that you're holding on to? If you have an ailment in your body, a sickness or disease, what promise of God in his word do you hold on to?
Speaker 3:And I don't mean to be mechanical or scientific in this, but to me that's a that's a good discipline to say, here's the real things going on in my life. I wanna hold on to God's promises, I just don't know how. Well, that's how what I would start. I'd list all the problems and then the corresponding promise that God makes. Be happy to walk through that with anyone to try to develop that with them so that that moment when the the crippling disease or the crippling ailment that's going on in your body, how can you have joy in that?
Speaker 3:Well, you turn to God's promises. And that makes Christ feel really close. That makes him feel really close as you're walking through those. And so that's the heartbeat behind this. Joy is not simply an emotion that we're gonna feel that will come and go.
Speaker 3:Joy is a person that's with us closely all the time.
Speaker 2:Christ with us, close to us.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:The circumstances are beyond that relationship. It's almost like we're in the inner circle. The problems are on the next level. But if we can keep our heart in inner circle that we're with Christ, that's where the joy resides, then we could take on these other things knowing that even if it doesn't prevail, like you said before, if he's willing and something does resolve, if not, we still have that joy.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Even it's not solved in this world, it will be solved It in the will.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Amen.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So this joy to the world, looking forward to Christmas, but we have upcoming services this Christmas Eve. You wanna talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 3:Yes. Very excited to worship as a church family. We have a overwhelming response of registrations for our Christmas Eve gathering. So very excited about that. We've got the kids choir, which I know will be special.
Speaker 3:And so and then we close out the Advent series as we talk about Christ is our home. And so I pray that this this weekend, as we get together on Christmas Eve, it'll be encouraging. But we're also going to we've been talking about it for a handful of months now. We'll be taking our special offering for our birthday gift to Jesus.
Speaker 2:That's gonna be exciting.
Speaker 3:And, yeah, it's just humbling to be such a young church and and be in a position where we can do this. We are almost there. So many people have given online or or sent in a check, and it's been wonderful. We we're about $10,000 away from our ultimate goal. And so my request is just to hear my heart.
Speaker 3:It's not the it's not the amount that matters as much as everyone doing what they can. The the New Testament commands us not to give out a compulsion. Do not want anyone putting themselves in any financial burden to give. But my request is that you sit down as a family and you say, what is it that we can do to help the missionaries? You know, Christmas is about the greatest missionary who ever lived.
Speaker 3:Christ left his home and his home was pretty nice.
Speaker 2:And
Speaker 3:he went to a different culture. He didn't go to a culture like his own, he went to a foreign culture. Just like missionaries do across the world today. They leave their home and they go to a different culture. And he brought the good news.
Speaker 3:And so the men and women in the five organizations that we've identified that we want to bless, they're following in the footsteps of Jesus. The Bible says how beautiful are the feet of those who carry the good news. And as a church, as your pastor, I'm I'm just gonna let you know that missionaries will always be near and dear to our hearts, and we wanna do everything that we can to use our strength to be a blessing. And so my ask is simple. It's not the amount.
Speaker 3:It's not the amount. Whatever it is that you can do, I'm just gonna ask you to give. If it's a dollar, it's a dollar. Praise be to God. That dollar would mean a whole lot more to the missionary who's trying to put put make everything work that they have.
Speaker 3:And so whatever you can do, just do that. And then bring that with you to the Christmas Eve worship gathering. And then we're gonna have a special time where we we pray for the missionaries, and then we we give these gifts to Jesus, and we ask him to take the gift and bless it and multiply it so that we can see folks come to know Christ because of the efforts of these missionaries.
Speaker 2:Yeah. We'll be able to bring those little envelopes forward place in a basket. What a great time just to take a moment and to pray for those missionaries, but to realize that little gift we give could mean exponential work that God does in these other countries, these It other just could be amazing.
Speaker 3:And my prayer has been, you know, because all the children will be with us, you know, we'll worship together as a whole church family. And all the children, I want their minds to be shaped by missionaries matter. Because you just don't know. What if God calls one of our kids our you know, that meets in the gymnasium right now with Dana? Like, plead with God to raise up missionaries in our church.
Speaker 3:These are the type of things that help shape that and mold that, you know. So we just bring attention to the things that we value most, and we value those who go. Yeah. And we wanna be a blessing.
Speaker 2:Just maybe a last note here is just that each of us in the next couple days as people are thinking about more and more about Christmas, Christmas services, that we have an opportunity to share the hope, the peace, and the joy that we've been talking about with with our folks, with our friends, our neighbors, even baby coworkers at this time. What a time to really bring hope and peace and joy to people. That's more than just a good show, a good movie on the TV.
Speaker 3:He's the light of the world, and we we carry that light in us as as we put our faith in him. And so any ways that we can, people are so open and ready. So let's all push back darkness around us by by by sharing that light and and showing how Jesus is our love and our passion. Yep.
Speaker 2:Let's give him heaven.
Speaker 3:Amen.
Speaker 2:Alright. Merry Christmas, Josh.
Speaker 3:Merry Christmas.
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening to the Oaks Equipped. If you want to learn more about following Jesus or get connected here at The Oaks Church, we'd love to hear from you. You can visit us online at exploretheoaks.org or email us anytime at helloexploretheoaks dot org. Stay rooted and stay encouraged. Until next time.