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In this episode of the Playmakers Podcast Matt & Nigel talk to Barbara, Noelle & Tom about the fruit of the Spirit and nurturing a healthy root to produce good fruit. We hope you enjoy the episode.
At the beginning of Galatians, Paul sets out his testimony as evidence of the truth of the gospel of Jesus and it's the same with us as disciples. The gospel of Jesus is true and our testimony of life is part of that evidence which illustrates that it's true. As Jesus says in Matthew Chapter 7 :16 "By their fruit you will recognise them."
So as we think about the message of Galatians in this Playmakers podcast, we're talking to real people and thinking about how the gospel of Jesus has transformed, underpinned and built the lives of men and women of God, men, and women in our community. How do they live in freedom and guard that freedom in Christ?
These are not the testimonies of people who are far away, but people who sit next to us at CCBS on Sundays and in small groups, real people who show that Jesus is Lord in their daily lives.
Hello and welcome to the Playmakers Galatians podcast. I'm your host, Matt, and I'm joined by my co-host Nigel. Hello Nigel. Hello, Matt.. So we are joined with new guests, uh, in the studio today. Um, I'm gonna ask you to introduce yourselves and say something really. Interesting about yourselves.
I'll start so that you can have some time to think. Uh, as I said, my name is Matt and, uh, when I was age 22, I came third in the National Wine Glass class sailing Championships. Wow. Introduce yourselves please.
Hi, I'm Noel. I just moved here from the States. in May, have been going to CCBs since then.
I had some good pizza for lunch today.
Fantastic. Great to have you, Noel. Thanks.
Hi, my name's Tom. I'm married to Noel and we met in California at Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry. Cool.
Nice to have you, Tom. Oh, and who's this?
My name is Barbara Barbara Bird, and I've been coming to the church for 32 years.
I'm a mar of two sons, a grandma of three and one little girl, which is the first in the family. Anything interesting? My grandpa. This is not about me, it's about my Grandpa . My grandpa was the Queen Mother's Toastmaster.
Wow. Okay. Barbara, you win . Thank you. Oh, hold on.
I haven't shared my interesting thing.
Oh, come on. Then. My interesting thing is I'm Nigel. I've been coming to the church for about three and a half years. My interesting thing is that married Tom and no. Wow.
Okay.
And they still together. Brilliant. .
So guys, we've got a big question, to ask you today. The question today is how do you care for your route to produce?
The best fruit. And do you wanna give us some explanation on that, Nigel? Okay. So
we're not tip toing around the edge Galatians anymore. We are diving right into the center because the most obvious passage in the whole Galatians that we need to talk about is Galatians Chapter five, The Fruit of the Spirit.
Because the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control against such things. There is no law. And it continues since we live by the. Let us keep in step with the spirit, and in many ways this is the most obvious passage and the biggest question, the idea of the vine in the fruit is actually one of Jesus' ideas.
It's from John 15 and Paul then takes it further and I think. That if we are, don't try and put me off, Barbara. I'm so sorry. I think that if we are thinking about the fruit, we need to think about the root as well, because the fruit that we produce is always consistent with our root and this is a series of sermons for me as far as I'm concerned.
So I wonder if the church over the years, Over the centuries has spent far more time polishing their fruit than they have dealing with their root. But that's another question. So finally, the most important thing, because I'm a petant, it is not fruits of the spirit . It is the fruit of the spirit, as Matt has heard on any number of occasions.
So how do you care for your route to produce the best fruit mat?
Okay. What do we mean by root?
That's a good question. Okay,
so what do you think we mean by roots?
Okay. I'll chip in with another question then that we can all ponder. Healthy roots or stunted growth is something that I want to talk about,
which isn't that dissimilar
really.
Is it? I think it's true. So we either so to the spirit or we so to our flesh, if we, so to our flesh, we don't
grow roots. Okay. So could you de sify that for us ? Because What do you mean by so to the flesh?
Well, I think it talks about, well worldly things. So you've talked about some of those things on your first podcast that I heard, which was brilliant.
so it's choosing what we give ourselves to, I think. Or do we give ourselves to kingdom and the spirit in our lives, or do we give ourselves to the flesh?
See, I would say that I'd agree with that. I think the, the, we can choose because we are not vines. We like v. We can choose where we put our roots.
Yeah. And where we put our roots is where we gain our nourishment from. Mm-hmm. , we do gain it from the sunshine and we do gain it from the rain, but actually the nutrients that are most important for a plant are in the soil. So then therefore, where do you feel your roots are
to anybody?
Okay, well I've probably lived a lot longer than you guys and so I've, I've just had a bit more practice and I've got things wrong on a number of occasions and learnt from it. So I learn now to. Rush to God as quickly as I can. So if I'm struggling or you know, there's some suffering going on, I go straight to God.
Cuz I've learned that if I don't , I just get myself in trouble. Really.
I wish I, I wish I could say that I did the same, uh, but I don't . Yeah, I, I, I often find that, that when, uh, when I'm faced with a problem, the first thing that I. Is I'm moan to my poor wife, . Oh. And, and uh, and, and what she normally says is, Okay, well, what does God say?
And that's when I go to God . So she's, she's a bit of a signpost in, in that regard. Um, uh, I mean, it, it used to be that I'd speak to absolutely everybody. Yeah. Um, before I go to God. Uh, but God's been prompting me. As well. Sometimes actually he, he's the one that will, will, uh, highlight the problem before I even know it's there, um, as well.
But again, coming back to the, you know, the, the, what we mean by, by Ru for me, when, when I read this question, it's um, how do I, how do I nurture the relationship Yes. That I have with God in order to be the best version of. That, that God wants me to be or to be more
Christlike. Yeah. Well, even, even
better, more Christlike
Absolutely. Good job. You are here, Barbara. Thank, Thank goodness. Uh, for you, what do other people think?
Okay. So I guess when I hear the main question about, , nurturing roots or nurturing relationship with God, my mind immediately goes to spiritual disciplines, which I feel like is a term that a lot of people don't like, , to hear maybe, the word discipline. but I think there's kind of a tension between.
Being a Christian, walking in freedom, and having this relationship with God that I want to tend to. So I want to be doing things like reading scripture, being in prayer, maybe fasting, maybe things like that. , just the, the normal spiritual disciplines, having community, et cetera, et cetera.
And then there's the tension of not wanting to be in religion in doing those things. So not wanting to constantly feel like I have to stick to doing these things, and if I mess up, then I've failed God and I've failed my community. I think that there's such a thing as having a really healthy relationship with, spiritual disciplines.
So yeah, when I, when I hear the question, that's what comes to my mind of what are the things that I'm doing to love God in my daily life. Like, having a good relationship with scripture and, and learning to love it, and having a good relationship with prayer and learning to love, , actually spending time in that, which I realize is maybe not the most.
Easy or natural thing for a lot of Christians.
So how have you learned to love it then? Because those things, for some Christians, those things you've said, particularly fasting, I would imagine, but prayer and those disciplines. They don't sound interesting to most Christians. I love them too, but how did you fall in love with them?
Yeah,
I'm still working on fasting, so I'll , but you have a nice pizza
So, well, I don't know. Tom and I had a, a little conversation about this yesterday actually. , we were talking about this, but I guess for me, , the. The falling in love with it is doing it again and again. , I realized that might not work or doesn't make sense, but for me, the act, the way that I fell in love with scripture was to say, Okay, I'm gonna come to this every single day.
And to begin with, it was the normal thing of like, this is an interesting, I'm not enjoying this, I don't understand this, et cetera, et cetera. But I actually found that. The more I did it, the more dependent I became on it. , the more dependent I became on time with God no matter if it was productive or not.
And like even if you're reading a chapter of Scripture day and you get through the chapter and you're like, Oh, I don't even know what good that did. It's the fact that I came to the Lord in scripture, in his word. I sat with him, I talked with him. And then I guess the more that I came to do that, the more.
Grew in love for it because I realized how dependent I was on it and on that time with him. So for me it really was a practice of just coming to it again and again and again. Even if at the beginning it didn't come naturally or wasn't easy for me, um, I'd say the same in prayer. So,
yeah, I, um, so I'd add to that a little bit, Noel and.
Uh, we're discussing this, , yesterday. Yeah. And we were talking cuz for me personally, I felt as though I have, I've always had a desire to love God, but I struggle. Firstly, I struggle a bit with the word discipline as it is. It's not a word that's come naturally in my life. Secondly, I don't love reading and I certainly don't love not eating.
So, it's sometimes I feel like I've gone through, through stages of feeling a bit, like every time I open the Bible, I'm either overwhelmed, like, where do I start? Or I'm for, I'm, I feel a little bored, or I feel a little, Where do I actually go here? Or what am I learning? Or, I've read this piece before.
Mm-hmm. . And I think something that I feel maybe is a, is a compelling question to ask is we are talking. doing things on a regular basis that just tend to, our relationship with God is asking ourselves why? Like, why am I doing this? Because, um, I feel a little bit like in the same way as if you are playing in a football team, your why towards training is that you wanna play the game.
and you don't just wanna play the game, but you wanna score a touchdown. You want, if you're, if we're talking about play makers in American football or you want your own thing, well except like you actually, you know, like, and, and the joy that you see someone, um, feel in those moments that didn't just come out of a, out of a vacuum that has come through months of hard work and training.
And I think sometimes the same is true is we want to. The fruit of the spirit in our lives. We want to see people's lives changed. We want to have the joy of seeing, um, those incredible stories of healing or of spiritual and emotional healing, uh, or physical healing that we see in people's lives. And we wanna be able to pray for people and see people changed.
But the, the emotion and the joy of those moments in our lives, I think can come through. spending time knowing who God is, understanding what God says about us, what God says about the lost, what God says about the poor, what God says about the church. And the more that we gain those things, it's almost like we are saying, Well, I'm part of why I'm doing this is because I want to see, I want to see God's love break out in my own life and I want, So it's almost, for me, it's almost.
Understanding that the, that part of my relationship with God, there's a why to it. There's a, I actually wanna see those amazing things that God talks about. Yeah. Um, happen. So it's like the same as, you know,
what's often encounter intuitive, it seems to me is that, um, as people, we want to see the fruit. So we want to see God do these amazing things.
And our automatic reaction when we want to improve our fruit is to focus on making our fruit. But the reality is it doesn't happen instantaneously if your roots aren't correct. If your roots aren't good. If they're not deep down, then actually the. One is producing is not going to be as good as it could be.
The difficult thing, I think for most Christians, particularly for new Christians, but it's also a problem for Christians who have been Christians for decades and decades, is to back off from the fruit and to think, Okay, why is my fruit small or bitter or strange, or, You know, deformed. I know that Morrison's would nowadays sell that through , but why is it the way it is?
Yeah. I think, uh, it's recognizing that it's a long game, not short game. So maturity can take a lifetime and in fact, we should work on it constantly. And even if you're 90, you can still go deeper. Yeah. And in fact, there's a danger in not going deeper, but James. Just going back to a point that was made earlier.
James talks about drawing near to God and he will draw near to you and that whole scripture speaks about if we draw near to God, there's a like a download of grace. It's. There's a divine exchange that happens whether we feel it or not, cuz there's a mystery. You know, we look, tend to look at things in a worldly way, don't we?
If we, if we sit and look at scripture or we sit and pray or we sit and meditate or whatever, and we sit there and think, Well, I didn't feel anything there, but there is a divine exchange that's happening because grace is being downloaded and it's, as our character changes, we become more Christlike and we bear fruit.
But it doesn't happen overnight. It happens during a lifetime.
I remember when I first became a Christian, and , like, so the fruit, it was like, Oh, wow, I've gotta be, I've gotta be all of that . it was a little bit overwhelming. And then as you, as you grow, as you, as you get to know God even more, actually, you start to notice, all of a sudden some of this fruit appears out of nowhere.
You make decisions, in a different way, than you may have done previously. So for example, if I look at my life, , 15 years ago where I was. , I was a womanizer, I was a liar. And yet I, I look a little bit later, a little bit further on, and we're talking maybe only.
Six months into me being a Christian, I'm none of those things anymore. I'm a, in fact, I'm a completely different person you know, the, the word says I'm a new creation, and you start to see that one thing that I did practically was on my bathroom mirror in my flat that had been a bachelor pad. I wrote down all the fruits of the spirit so that when I looked at myself in the mirror in the morning, I started to see actually this is where God is having an effect on my life.
And it wasn't that I was trying to be intentional in saying, Oh, right, okay, I wanna be particularly kind or I wanna specifically have self-control in this particular area is it was actually, I just want to get to know God more. And through that, through spending time with him, I'm gonna, I'm gonna start to look more and more like him.
I'm an adopter, , but something that I'm really interested in is, is family and how. you look like your family, whether or not you are blood related. So my children, although we are not blood related, they look like Esther and I in terms of the way that they speak, act, their sense of humor.
It's got, I think the words epigenetics and, and actually, you know, it's the same of us when we become children of God. Through epigenetics in a way. We, we start to just look more and more like him. And of course, you know, he's got, he's, he's the perfector of that fruit, isn't he?
Yeah, no, I think two really interesting things that kind of come out from what you're saying that is one is, , from your story, you, you've got to know who God is and certainly you've got to know what God says about you.
I think to, to get to that point, like I think one of the most vital things about tending to your root is understanding like who you're rooted in. You're rooted in God, but actually that God's foundational thoughts about you are love. Like God created mankind and he created humanity and said it's very good.
Everything else in Genesis one is good. And he looks at us, made in his image and says, That's very good. And God causes his children, God causes his beloved royal priesthood. And you can go on for all the different things that we are called at various points, but when you understand who you are, I think that does change your, your expectation.
, , , so I worked for a charity for children with various disabilities, and we were told not to use the word naughty because what you're doing is you're actually creating an identity statement, um, on that person based on their behavior. Whil instead, the bad choices that they're making or the difficult, the challenging behavior is how we put it, means that what this is right now is challenging, but actually who you really are.
Is is different. So that's one point. I think just the second brief point is I love how you were saying about putting the fruits kind of on the wall to look at. Cause I think again that's, that's us reminding ourselves daily of Cuz. Cuz the ultimate producer of the fruit of the spirit obviously is God is the Holy Spirit.
Yeah. So if we are looking at who he is in his output, we're also able to be inspired by how we. Want to look just like that. And I think, again, that psychologically is making a difference to then how we act in the day to day. As well as how we spiritually, intertwined
with God. Yeah, that's so good, Tom, because I was reminded that about 10 years ago, I looked at the fruit of the spirit and thought, What, what?
You know, there's so many of them. What's important? And I remember picking two that I thought I would love to see birthed in my life, and that was faithfulness and love. And so I set about, And asking the Holy Spirit to develop it. And you know, I almost forgot about it. And then we went through a season in the church where people were sending anonymous postcards, um, and they would sort of design them.
And somebody anonymously sent me a postcard. I mean, it was a good five or 10 years later saying, Just wanted to encourage you. You are faithful and loving. And I just thought, wow. That's amazing. God, you know, you've done that and that was because I was seeking it, I think, although it took rather a long time.
Yeah. Cuz sometimes we, we can't always see the, the birth of fruit in, in our lives. , you know, we, we've got blind spots and we, I think we do need people a, around us , Who can help us with that, who can, may not, not always, not just encourage, but maybe sometimes provoke us. So like, do you guys have, anyone that you're accountable to who can, can maybe help you decipher where, where you've seen this, this fruit grow?
Yes, I do. I mean, I, you know, obviously I've been in the church for a long time, so I've got, And deep relationships. I'm heavily into home group, great advocate for home groups, um, because if you walk with people during your life, you allow them into your life and you end up being authentic the longer you know them.
So that's really good. Um, so. Yes, I do have accountability partners and you know, recently I lost Brian and so I found those relationships incredibly valuable. I mean, they were a safety net, but I also found somebody who'd walked that path before I had and met up with them regularly to say, You know, I'm feeling like this is this normal and.
Yes, that's normal. That's okay. Um, and I was able to be open with them. And I think sometimes when you go through seasons, you need people. When you are going through difficult times, it's great to have relationships that you've formed in the good times. to be able to rely on as a safety net, really.
Mm-hmm. .
What about you guys? Uh, do you have people that you're accountable to?
Yeah. I'm reminded of a pastor that we both know, um, at Bethel. We were, in his office one day and we were sat around and he said, I just want you to write down five things that you hear from the Holy Spirit that he says that you are.
And we wrote down our five things, and then I, you know, he asked us to read them out. I read mine out and one of. Patience. And he said, Patience. I said, Yeah. And then he laughed at me, , um, and . Its basically like, Are you sure you heard that ? And I was like, No, I did hear that. And, and that was my little gentle, uh, accountability from him that I could work in my patience.
So . But I was just reminded of that story cuz that is someone that I'm accountable to and that is a good person to call things out in me. , But also made me think, because that was a couple years ago and in my eyes I'm still very much growing in that. , but kind of made me think of a question that I was thinking about when I heard this, this, question, if you don't mind my asking.
, but since he said that to me, I have not tried to produce patience in my life myself. Mm-hmm. , if that makes sense. Like I have not every day been like, All right, I gotta make sure that today I do something patient. You know? Because I think something that can be a bit dangerous when I think about this question is that I don't want my tending to my fruit.
To be a means to an end. Mm-hmm. , if that makes sense. Yeah. Like I don't want my like time with God, scripture, prayer, whatever it is. However you tend to your fruit to be, This is so that I can become. More patient in my life, even though that will happen as a result of my spending time with Jesus since he is patient.
Does that make sense? Like not wanting it to be a means to an end, but realizing that the tending to my fruit is the end and that that is the point. And that my fruit really a lot of the time is just gonna come out of that as a result. , almost like an overflow of the fact that I'm always with someone who is all of these fruits of the.
Yeah. If that makes sense. Otherwise, the fruit of the spirit becomes your God for you really. Right. Rather than the one who is God. Right. And deserves the glory. Yeah. And who is all these things, , we are doing it in a way, To serve him better and bring more glory to him. Yeah. Not for people to go, Oh, wow, aren't you so patient?
No. Oh, wow. You have so much self control. Oh, Matt, aren't you kind? Uh, no. it's much more about saying, Okay, fine. No, let's give that glory to God. Why? I think when, when I'm, when I do exhibit Fruit of the spirit. It's, and people comment on it. It's a way to just point people back to God. Yeah it's another testimony, , to give glory to the one who deserves the glory.
I just wanted to just step sideways again to this accountability thing, cuz I think it's really important. It's important I think to say that your, People that you're accountable to, the people you share life with, Change over time. So I've been a Christian for a long time and I've gone through different phases.
I've served in churches, I've served out of churches, I've done all sorts of stuff, and during. Those times God has brought into my life people who have been most helpful. So before, way before I was at the, uh, the, uh, community church here, a member of the community church was doing their counseling course and I needed a counselor, so they practiced on me.
And it was an incredibly helpful thing for me because I needed somebody to talk things over with and they gave me a discipline that I found incredibly hard to start with just to go back to the disciplines. Even he told me sit for half an hour in silence. Now that was really hard for me. in itself, I'm really good at it.
and it just helped me learn how to tune into God. And often if we have a relationship with people who we're accountable to that means we also have to sometimes trust that they know what they're doing more than we do, and that they give us those spiritual disciplines. And I've had other times where, , I've had people I've walked with.
I mean, my friend Jim, who was a pastor, a Baptist pastor, um, he died a few years ago. He was one of the pastors of one of the larger churches in the uk. Um, and he gave me time and I was just Nigel, and he gave me time and sat with me. And not only that, when I suggested something, he would take his notebook out and make a note of what I'd suggested and go back to it later.
That humility was, Awesome to see the fruit of the spirit in other people and to be able to imitate that and to see that it's just such a blessing. Mm.
That, um, what you've brought up there about disciplines is also pathways, you know, And it's really important that when we spend time with God, that we pray as we can.
We don't do it as we can't, and spiritual pathways are really important. So there'll be a way that you connect with God in this season. That is just fruitful for you. It brings you life and it's great. There's a, there's a, a good book, um, Berg, God is closer than you think. He's got a chapter on it in there.
It's very accessible. But I think as well, it's important not to be a one trick pony with your disciplines, you know, to sort of explore different disciplines. Like Nigel was saying, that centering prayer, I'm assuming that you were. Shown to sit in silence and yield to God. And I use that. I've seen so much fruit from that as a discipline, but as good charismatics, we find that quite difficult to do.
I think if you
can't, if you can't raise your hands and shout hallelu, it's not real worship, isn't it? Yeah, that's
right. But you know, to sit, you know, I've seen so much change and if you, if you can sense, that you have a sore spot to actually sit with. It can bring healing in that quietness, in that stillness.
and there's a maturing, that divine exchange again, that happens. So we ought not to be one trick ponies. We should explore all different types of discipline in our walk with God. And it's like a toolkit really, that you can bring out at different times. So we've talked
about silent prayer. We've talked about, uh, uh, about, uh, reading scripture.
Yeah. Um, uh, worship. , What other, what other pathways are
there? Well, we've talked about accountability and authenticity in relationship, but what about journaling? I mean, sometimes journaling is brilliant when you are struggling to, to get these things out of your head, or you're struggling to even wonder what you are thinking to actually journal.
Before God is a great way
actually as a writer cuz I'm not able to say this very often as a writer. Oh no. I've got a shelf full of little black books. I always take notes as, as Tom knows, I take notes at everything and the reason I take notes isn't because I go back and read them cuz I'm not great at going back and reading them, but it's my way of getting into my head.
I did a discipline. Actually, it was in the staff meeting here a few months ago. I made them all write haiku's about where they were with God . And it was a fascinating process because one, most of the people in the room aren't writers. They wouldn't even know where to start. So I had to explain what a Haku was.
Yeah, two, they're good charismatics and they love worshiping all the rest of it. And I actually had to comment in the corner of the room, Are we gonna do some real worship this morning, ? And the third thing was when they did. All of them. It was such an emotional moment because it made them. About as it does for me when I do that sort of thing.
It made them think about God in a way they had not thought, and they, they kind of moved their brain half a step to the left so that they were seeing God from a slightly different angle. It was just so. Wonderful to see. Yeah. Um, and, uh, that was God's idea, not mine. It needs to be pointed out. Yeah. So
if you wanna join the Holy Hi Haiku Pathway, , uh, we'll, we'll release Nigel's details
at the end of the, That's if you can leave Lust Busters for long enough.
Yeah. That's it. Yeah.
What, what other pathways have we. Well, I just think,
you know, when we talk about pathways, it's a, it's about, you know, do you like walking in nature? Do you connect with God in that way? Do you connect with God through music? Do you connect with God through books? So there are different seasons when you would find that more life giving, and it's just understanding that knowing what you need really is important.
Yeah, I agree. I think walking. Is an underrated discipline not only is it good for us for our bodies, but I think it also just, I think it clears the mind and I think it really helps to focus on, It either brings up thoughts that you've already, that you kind of had bouncing around in there that need to come to the surface.
But I think it also just creates space to be able to talk through things of God and to think through things. , the other discipline I was gonna bring up is, um, study. Yay. I think that we. I mean, we live in a culture that is very immediate, and I think if we're not careful, our preaching, or at least our consumption of preaching and worship is very based on the emotion we feel at the time.
And it's not based on, uh, where we take it next or how we take it further. Um, Nigel, you, you, you have a good Bible brain and I have forgotten. Who are the, the, the Jewish people or the group of people who. Go and study. It's an Act 17. I think. They go and study to see if Paul, they go into the scriptures and ask.
You could be mentioning in any way. Obviously I know the Bible off by heart cause I am so spiritually mature, . But, um, I think, well, I dunno, I'm thinking about the rabbis, but you know, the, well, the, the rabbis, what the rabbis did is they studied for a life, but I dunno, Tom, you'll have to, you'll have to, uh, maybe people could send in mystery postcards to us in order to be able to tell us what that is.
Start.
A mystery postcard thing. Again,
I love that blessing thing with the postcards where we used to do a a, a prophetic activation where you had a postcard with a picture on it and you'd write on the other side, put it out, and then people would be able to pick it up by the picture anywhere and read the thing.
And it was unbelievably accurate. It was wonderful. Sorry, Tom's still looking at his Bible. I found it. This is your new youth pastor, guys. He can't find Act 17 . No,
the Bur
testament, Tom,
the burs. .
Oh, yeah, yeah. Obviously I knew that. Oh,
absolutely. I think I did too.
I thought bes was, isn't that sort of, um, uh, Mexican food.
You've just reminded me of another spiritual discipline that we touched on fasting. Oh, sorry. Oh, fasting. Stop that. Now I, I know, I know. Some, some of us said that we, we struggle with that. I. I haven't struggled with fasting. Um, and which is strange cuz I, I flip in love food. I, I, I love it.
I find fasting just so. Powerful. , especially with letting God know how serious I am about a, a certain situation. It's normally, uh, for, for others rather than myself. I don't tend to fast for myself. It's, it tends to be for, for others who, who are struggling. And I think it, it just, as I said it, it reminds me that every time my tummy grumble.
And it does a lot on a, on a fast day. It just reminds me, Hang on Matt, you know, stop what you're doing and, and let's, let's really, really get, get into this no matter where I am, you know, I could be in a client meeting. Grumble, grumble, grumble. Oh, sorry about that. Hang on a second. You know, and then my mind's back to God, you know, straight back
where I.
So sorry. To bring back to that study point that I am now prepared to make , Act 17 verse 11, it says that they received the word in allness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so, um, and I feel like we, we could do more.
To, to go and explore the word of God and ex and, and examine the things that we are told by our pastors, by our preachers, et cetera. And that doesn't just have to be in my, my head, that isn't just read the Bible again and again and again and again. Although that's a great foundation. It's things like listening to podcast.
It's having different voices that you hear, It's reading books, and it's, um, it's challenging ourselves and I feel like as you do that, you grow. An understanding of who God is and it is a discipline to be undertaking those things and taking time in your day to try and grow your understanding of who
God, I think it's worth saying.
Just to add to that, cuz Tom, I think it's absolutely right, you're allowed to disagree with podcasts. You're allowed to disagree with the things you read. Yeah. Study doesn't work if you don't read things that challenge you. Yeah. Study So important. I think Peter Vincent calls it, You chew on the meat and you spit out the bones. I think that's a really good way to think about it.
I just wanna bring up a more challenging aspect, and this, this, okay, we are talking about the fruit. I'm gonna take a step us back just to Jesus. I know it's a helpful thing to do. In John 15, Jesus says those that produce fruit, they will be pruned so that they are even more fruit.
Now the fruit of the spirit that we produce isn't an end to itself in the sense of as soon as you start showing kindness, well, he's kind, you know, It's not that it is something to be grown, as Barbara said, it's over a lifetime. It is a, it's a thing that we do forever. Have you found your fruitfulness to be.
Pruned and grow more. Have you found that in your experience as you walk with God? Okay. How have you found that with your experience and walk with
God? Yes. I mean, I can remember a, a season, going back a few years now, when. My prayers hit the ceiling and, I didn't sense God's presence.
And actually it was when I was at Bible college, which was terrible, . It was just dreadful at the time. Yet I saw such growth and. one other time, I mean, I've already referred to losing Brian and the five years previous when Brian was ill. Matt, as you know, because I think it was you came after this, but, But you knew Brian.
Yeah. And he was ill for a number of years and, and it was a, a terribly difficult time. And yet I look back now and see such fruit in that time, a growing devotion between us because we were walking a journey that we hadn't walked before. And so there was a deep devotion that grew and my relationship with God, I just had to throw myself on him, even though.
Sometimes grief and sorrow robs you of your emotions. You are numb. I didn't feel any sense and yet there was a deepening so much of my relationship with God and so yes, and I think. Scripture talks about suffering, producing endurance, then character, then hope, and it was what I saw. Yeah, I saw it, You know?
But then I'm a bit older than you lot, so I've probably seen a bit more .
You're not as much older than me as yours, then . I know. But that's really good stuff. Really good stuff. Thank you. Good about you guys despite your youth?
I was thinking of a couple. So I would say I've been married two whole months now, so I know, I know a whole lot about that , but, um, um, completed it.
Um, but I was just thinking about how now, being married, living together, things like that, you kind of come into it. I guess I came into it thinking I'm a pretty. Selfless person and now . You know, there are just moments where you kind of go, Wow, I really thought. . I had kind of gotten that down. I mean, obviously I hadn't thought that as I'm, I'm young, but you know, in a sense you're like, Yeah, I'm, I'm pretty good there.
I bet you're more patient now though. Oh yeah. I'm growing there too. Um, we're talking to you, Tom , but I guess it's just kind of thing of like, even in this relationship, in, being married, the pruning that comes with it of being like, Oh no, there's so much more that you can grow in here that you didn't realize before.
I was also thinking, generosity, being a spiritual discipline and how I think as you grow with the Lord, like when you first learn to be generous, I feel like the Lord, or at least my experience is the Lord, is very quick to kind of that scripture that says, when you give, it will come back to you.
That that comes quite quickly. And I've noticed that as you grow in generosity, I almost feel like the Lord, Not that he's throwing challenges away, but I mean, yeah, even in the sense of like, But will you give when you maybe only have x or will, will you give in this situation? Will you give in this situation?
And that there's always room for growth. because I think that's just how, that's just how God is. It's just who he is. , so yeah, I don't know. There's some places where I think I've seen pruning or growth. In those areas.
Faithfulness, I think is the, is the one for, for me, really, really challenged in that.
In other podcasts podcast I've mentioned, , that when our business has gone through really, really tough times just to throw yourself on God again, you know, and it's like, he says, Okay, I'm gonna provide, I'm there, I'm, I'm holding onto. Then something big happens again, and he's saying, I'm, I'm still here.
You know, and I'm really, really pushing you to the limit. I mean, if I look at the history of our business, and I won't say its name, it's not gonna be a shameless plug, but, um, we've been through recession, we've been through Brexit, we've been through pandemic, Um, and we're still here. But God told me right at the beginning it was still gonna be here.
It's, but every time it's felt like. You're sure you trust me. You're sure you trust me. You're sure you're faithful. And now I can, I can comfortably say that I believe that God is gonna give me and our business, our daily bread. Cause that's what he promised, right? Promised to give us the daily bread. Not quarterly
Not, not annually. You know, not five years. Our daily bread because God does what he says he's gonna do. So yeah, specifically in, in the era of faithfulness, that's where, where I've received my pruning.
Okay, so we do need to tie this up and to roll this up a bit. I think there's a few things I wanna say and I really feel one has got to be a book plug and it's a book plug. I dunno whether anyone else will even know this book, but we talked a lot about the spiritual disciplines. And the best book I've ever read on the Spiritual Disciplines is Richard Foster's book.
Absolutely brilliant. I was gonna talk, I was gonna say something
about that actually. Yeah. So obviously I've hit the, hit the right tone there. Richard Foster's book, Uh, The Spiritual Disciplines is a classic. It's the one they use at colleges and all sorts of things. It gives a really good. Basic introduction to different spiritual disciplines.
It talks about it.
Now, we haven't mentioned this specifically. Barbara happens also I understand, to be a spiritual director. Mm-hmm. , which is a very old fashioned term for somebody who will walk. Through this stuff with you and has done the reading and the study and the training in order to be able to help people grow.
But you don't have to find yourself a spiritual director. You can find yourself a good friend. I always, always, always try and spend time with people who are bigger than me. In their faith. It's so important because I am so aware of what a child I am when it comes to things, and I'm also aware there are people who look at me as one of the people who's bigger to spend time with.
The best way I've heard this described is everybody should have a Timothy, Everybody should have a barn, the bus, and everybody should have a. The Timothy is the one you, you help and you lift up. The Barnabas is the one who's on the same level as you, who you encourage each other, and the Paul is the one who is bigger than you and will lift you up.
And it is awesome stuff. Love that. And I would also say join a house group. We haven't said it enough in this. Join a house group because walking through stuff, building relationships, loving people is so important. And I apologize profusely for talking so much, but this is a subject I am so passionate about.
And it's so important because I think it always comes down to discipleship, the failures of our churches. The failures of us as Christians and Christian leaders comes down to the fact we don't disciple people properly. We can do all the worship, everything as well as you want, but unless we connect with people and we draw them through like Jesus did, we will never see the not the revival revival's great.
But we will never see the sustained growth and depth of people. Yeah. And I've talked a lot there. Thanks, Nigel.
No, I think that's a, a perfect way to, to wrap up. So I just wanna thank our guests, Barbara, Tom Noel, thank you for joining us and thank you, everybody who's listening.