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Join host, Tuck Choate, and executive pastor, Bennett Holloway, as they discuss Temple Church's Sunday sermons in more detail, explore everyday application of biblical truths, and answer listener questions - all to help you strengthen you in your spiritual walk. Expect meaningful conversations that will encourage you in your faith journey.
Tuck Choate 0:08
Welcome temple family and friends. We're so glad to have you joining us for another episode of Temple talk. This podcast aims to engage our faith community through thoughtful biblical discussions centered on God's word. Our goal is to explore Scripture together to discover the wisdom that has for our lives. In this podcast, we'll be diving deep into God's truths and discussing how they impact our daily living. We're eager to unpack the riches of the Bible with you all our extended church family. And now here's welcome temple family and friends to another episode of Temple talk. As always, I am tuck Choate and joined by our pastor Bennett Holloway Bennett, how are you doing?
Bennett Holloway 0:45
I am doing well. I'm doing well. I'm excited to do chapter 13 of Nehemiah. It's an interesting one. And I'm excited to do that with you right now.
Tuck Choate 0:56
Absolutely. Before we get into the meat of the sermon, a couple of things that I want to talk to you about next week, we have a special service coming up. I know we have Lord's Supper, we have some baptisms, talk us through what that'll look like and some of the importance of what we're going to see next Sunday.
Bennett Holloway 1:17
Right. So the ordinances that we see in Scripture are baptism and communion. And so these two things are beautiful symbols. And they're things that we're going to be walking through and participating with new believers, or maybe those that haven't taken that first step of obedience in believers baptism, or we're also be really coming to the Lord, we'll be coming to the table. And we'll be breaking bread and drinking juice and reflecting on the sacrifice that Jesus Christ paid on the cross. So big picture is out there, if you are listening, and maybe you're confused about what baptism is, I can walk you through real quick, if you don't mind, why we do it, and the example that we see in Jesus Christ and the example that we see in the New Testament. But really, what we believe is that baptism is an outward symbol of an inward commitment. And what it does is it gives us an opportunity to display to everyone that's observing that we are a new creation, that we have our old self is gone. And the new South has been written that we have risen with Christ, and so that we are doing it because Jesus Christ did it before he began his ministry. But then also, we're doing it because he commissioned us, He commanded us to do it, through the Great Commission, making disciples of baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So a big aspect of this is we do it by immersion, because that's what that word baptismal actually means. And also, we do it by immersion, because that's the example that Jesus Christ gave, as we walk through the, the order that we see in the Great Commission as we walk through the symbol that it represents. We believe wholeheartedly that baptism is meant after you've accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. And it's meant we call believers baptism submersion. And so if you're like me, maybe you were raised in a background that did sprinkle babies, or something along those lines, my mom and dad, were intentional about dedicating me under the Lord in that special way. But I did not accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior out of the womb, and the Lord needed to do something. So draw me into saving knowledge that ultimately led and me recognizing No, I need him. And I want him to be my Lord and Savior. I've confessed with to my mouth that Jesus is Lord, Romans 10, nine, and I believe in my heart, that God raised Him from the dead, then, therefore you are saved. So I believe that, For God so loved the world, that He sent His one and only Son that whosoever believes in Him, will not die, but have everlasting life. And then John 317, that God did not send Jesus into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. And so that is an outward display a symbol of what God has done in my life. And so we've got baptisms happening on various ages. We've got some are that are getting baptized, that are older, that have made decisions to make Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior many years ago. And then we've got some that are young children that are saying, Yes, we believe in this and they've met with us pastors, and we've walked through things and their mom and dad have come to a point to where they're confident in their ability to discern whether or not they're ready for baptism. And so we're participating in believers baptism on Sunday, the 29th and it's going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be big celebration, because what actually is being represented right there is changed eternities and Mr. Maher prayer, my prayer is that people that look and watch the testimony fleshed out in the display of obedience, we see in these, these people getting baptized, that the Holy Spirit will use it to draw people into recognizing, I want that I need that I need to be saved, and I want to live sold out to the Lord as well. And so it's going to be a lot of fun. And we always try to invite family members and people that we know that don't know the Lord, because we're going to be sharing testimonies throughout the process. And we're already praying for those family members that are coming that we know don't know the Lord. And so it's gonna be a really beautiful time, where we celebrate in the family in the church body, as we recognize these these people that are really following and steps of obedience, and joining our church and being baptized into the life of our church. And so we're, we're excited about that. And we're thankful that God gave us that. And then on the other side of it is we're doing the communion. We're doing communion at the end of service. And so the big thing that we've been trying to emphasize is that we just spend some good time preparing ourselves, to participate in communion, that we're preparing our hearts. And we're stepping into this one with a level of reverence and respect, not not being scared. But a level of reverence and gratitude, thankfulness, as we get to participate in communion together as believers in Jesus Christ, remembering the body that was broken, and the blood that was shed through the example, not only of Christ, right, but also through what he's commanded us to do, up there in the upper room before he went to cavalry. So it's gonna be a fun service, it's gonna be a lot of fun, it's gonna be exciting, it's gonna be celebratory. And I'll be teaching a little bit on both of those things. As we walk through it.
Tuck Choate 6:58
Wonderful. I'm greatly looking forward to it, I always get a little bit emotional at baptisms. It's just, it's a joy that just flows out to see people dedicating their lives in that way
Bennett Holloway 7:12
to have an outward expression and seeing someone that's dry, and come up right after they've held their breath underwater, and they come up. It is, it's a beautiful thing, special, very special. It's not supernatural, but it is very special.
Tuck Choate 7:27
And if people want to be able to join in that, can they still do that?
Bennett Holloway 7:31
Yeah. So the way that I would go about it right now between now and then is to reach out to the church at 252-633-3330. And you can talk to, you can talk to a pastor, you can request a conversation. As we get closer, obviously, it's going to be a little more difficult to organize those conversations and those dialogues. But even if we can't get it in right now, then we can baptize the next week and the next week and the next week. The baptism isn't meant to only be on one day. And so what I believe will happen and can happen as we as we pray continually, as we live by the Bible. As we share joyfully and meet together, we're going to see more baptisms come about, because ultimately, we're worshiping God through obedience, but also we're seeing, we are making Jesus known. And as we make Him known to the way that we live our lives, more people will come to know Him as their Lord and Savior.
Tuck Choate 8:27
Love it. And then another thing that Dr. Ewart started the sermon with before he got into Nehemiah is that he prayed for our new pastor that the Lord has for us here at Temple that we haven't met yet. We are still actively searching for that person. But God knows who he is already. And he prayed specifically for that person, that we don't know who it is. And I loved it actually reminded me of something that I did years ago, that I prayed for my wife, Chelsea, before I met her. And I actually wrote down some of my prayers, I prayed for her heart, I prayed for her safety for her family situation, even before I met her. And I would say God, you know who my future wife is, you know, Chelsea, even though I didn't know that name at the time, protect her, prepare her to meet me. And he did. And when we got married, I actually handed over my little booklet of prayers that I had prayed over her. And I felt like we did that yesterday. With our pastor. We don't know who he is, but God knows who that person is. And we're already praying for him specifically. And I think it's such a powerful thing that we don't always do because we are limited by our minds. What we can see and are here and now. And instead of letting God have that power through our prayers to say, you know, and we're praying for that, alright, so a week or two ago Oh, in Nehemiah, we saw the people rejoicing at the dedication of the rebuilt walls. The temple was ready to go. And they were at a spiritual high, they were on fire. But this week, we Nehemiah comes back, and he has a lot of things to put right, because they have fallen away. They have gone into disobedience again. And it's just a cycle that we see so often in the Bible of a spiritual high, followed by a need for for change and reform. So this time, Nehemiah is having to confront their sin, their compromises, and he's coming in and he's he's being a little rough about it. What do we do with with situations like this, where we're seeing, you know, how can we take this and apply it to our lives because I don't want to be rough in the way that I handle.
Bennett Holloway 10:55
Nehemiah potental Nehemiah pulls out here, so you don't want you don't want to go in and pull out here and, and get physical? Because he chased people out. And yeah, Nehemiah, it was incredible. So there's some things in here for chapter 13, that I think are so much fun to talk about. And it really begins it really opens the floor to some dialogue, as we think through this chapter, as we think through the book of Nehemiah, and, and Israel itself. And we think through us here at Temple, and something that that is interesting here is as Nehemiah for a season, he leaves, and then he returns. And when He returns, he finds that there are significant levels of compromise that have taken place. And the categories of that compromise, I think are beautiful. They're paralleled in the New Testament. They're paralleled when you see Jesus Christ, lead in the cleansing of the temple. They're paralleled when it comes to stewardship, and the talents and the teachings of Jesus Christ. And so when we look through chapter 13, we have to recognize the specific context in which he returns. And the people of Israel have already begun compromising on the very thing a couple chapters earlier, they had pledged to and committed to the covenants that their leaders that their that their spiritual leaders that their priests have signed, right, Nehemiah was the first one he they signed these commitments, and Israel committed to these things and pledged and said, Yes, we are in they've done so much of the hard work. They've they've they've rebuilt the wall, they've they've seen God do some incredible things, and overcome some significant, some significant enemies. And then all of a sudden Nehemiah comes back, and he sees them compromising on one, the, the standards that they had for holiness and the purity of the temple. But then the repercussions of that which leads to this, this, this drift that's taken place to where there's compromise on the provision of the people. So therefore, through the lack of provision for the people, the people that would typically be doing the ministry of the temple, where then they were found in the fields, trying to make money for their family to survive. And we see really this overall compromise and this brokenness in Nehemiah, as he looks at the people and recognize as one Tobiah needs to be expelled from the Church and this intermingling with with these different people, groups that that we committed not to do. And we've we've compromised in this. And so he comes in hard, and he chases them out. And then he also acknowledges and leads the people into restoring the tides and the Sabbath commitment. And re emphasizes this deep, deep need for us to recognize this covenant of marriage, and how important it is for people to be a part of the same covenant, as as we see in Scripture teaches of being equally yoked. So with Nehemiah 13, there's just been a lot of fun seeing how he corrects and addresses and holds accountable. The people within really the modern day church. Let's say that people that are part of the youth, people that have agreed to be held accountable to the standards. They previously said, Yes, we're all in the Lord. You have you have at all. We're all yours. And then they've drifted. And it's led to compromise. And it's led to disobedience. And that's led to a lack of purity and lack of focus and then an inevitable Both cycle that is it plagues. Christians, it plagues the church, it plagues mankind as this lack of dependence on God. And this focus shift that takes place that gets them off mission.
Tuck Choate 15:13
Dr. urut spoke of it as a fire, you can, you can start off the fire, it's blazing strong. But no matter what you do if if you leave it to just burn on its own, it will grow dimmer, eventually go out and you're left with with a pile of ash, it will
Bennett Holloway 15:31
consume the fuel, it will either run out of oxygen, or the temperature will be too low. For the for it to take place. Yes, fire will inevitably go out unless it's fed,
Tuck Choate 15:42
right. And that's what he was talking about is he relates that to us and to the example that we see in Nehemiah is that there needs to be a constant feeding of the fire, but then also of ourselves to keep this momentum going otherwise, it will just inevitably peter out to nothing. And I think that's where we we find ourselves here with the push for small groups especially but the push to be in the word, the push to be in prayer. Because without these, you know, adding that fuel to the fire of our spirituality, it's it's going to go out just as or as we see in Nehemiah, just as sure as a fire that we see in our backyard.
Bennett Holloway 16:22
Right. So what it comes down to is how we are all growing in Christ's likeness, and the role that the church has in the discipleship process of being apprentices of Jesus Christ. And so I think that as we've worked through as a church, what it means to seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, we keep coming back to these these disciplines or these virtues, that mean that the something that we will do is we worship God, we affirm God's worth by honoring and glorifying Him through our words and our actions, something that we just do as Kingdom seekers, as people that really are apprentices of Jesus Christ, we pray continually, we approach God with appropriate honor, and persistently, and fervently pray, submitting to His will, with thanksgiving. These are these are disciplines that have to be exercised. These are commitments that require a next step and action or response by us. But what I see them doing is they create a healthy space that stroke the flames, but the Holy Spirit uses to set us on fire. It's also a level of accountability with ourselves as he really leads us in that process. Because I just think it's a beautiful illustration that he gave through fire, that we can really see the Holy Spirit desiring to move in our lives as followers of Jesus Christ.
Tuck Choate 17:51
And you said, it's a discipline. And it's an exercise those two words that you use, really kind of showcase the fact that it, it doesn't always come easy, or it doesn't always come naturally. It's something that we have to build up and practice within ourselves to where it becomes a habit to where it becomes easy,
Bennett Holloway 18:11
right? Well, when we understand the value and the consequences of it, it becomes easier to choose it, right. And so if we come to a place to where we recognize really what the Word of God is, and we really understand the authority of Scripture, we're going to want to live by the Bible, the Holy Spirit is going to when we're desiring to seek the will of God, that will drive us to a dependency of praying continually, right. And so these things, so it's both a discipline that has to be done. But it's also something that the Holy Spirit develops in us in the character of Jesus Christ as we seek first his kingdom as we're outwardly focused. He's the one that cultivates this need and desire in us to even step out in this. So this is a beautiful balance that we see in the life of a believer to where it's yes, we have to walk out our faith. But the only reason that we can even walk or have faith is by the grace of God, and what he's doing and what he's done through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit by sending a son. And so it's this thing that's happening in us and to us, as he's developing us to look more like him. And it's difficult and abstract, but the reality is, we see in Scripture, we see all throughout the from Genesis to Revelation, we see the story of Jesus Christ restoring and reconciling that which was broken and drifted. Right and so we see God healing and restoring and reconciling that which was broken and Jenna assess, and we will see it in fullness at the end. It's just we're in this beautiful in between where what's our role? And how are we held accountable, not only in the context of church, but also in the context of our personal private relationships with God.
Tuck Choate 20:14
One of the other things that you mentioned that I want to go back to is as Nehemiah was coming back and seeing the situation after he had been gone for a little while, you mentioned that even the Levites needed to go work in the fields. And that is a direct consequence of actions of other people. So the Levites, were not supposed to be working, they were supposed to sustain themselves on the tithes of the other tribes. And when those tribes weren't fulfilling their obligations, the Levites could no longer do their work, because they had to go get food from somewhere. And I think it's something that speaks to something that we don't always pay attention to is that our sin? And what we do in our lives has a direct effect on the people around us.
Bennett Holloway 21:04
So the question that I would ask because of that statement, is, okay, so let's just acknowledge here for a second, that when we live in a way to where we don't share joyfully, which has consequences to where maybe we're not living by the Bible, and we're not serving others, we're not making Jesus known. We're not, we're not living out these disciplines, or it's, it's led to us compromising on the commitments that we've made right to the Father, and to the mission, that he's the commission that he's put us on Earth to accomplish. As we sit down as we think through it. Something that I think is just very important is recognizing that all of us, every single one of us, at the end of time will be standing before him in fullness, his fullness, and we're going to have to recognize that there are things that we need to acknowledge that we didn't steward, well, there's a grace that he's going to give, but there's going to be people, and this is where my heart breaks, there are going to be people that come before Him. And recognize in that moment how true and real he is. And they're going to receive exactly what they chose, by rejecting Him throughout their life. They're gonna receive that in fullness. And so where I would challenge us to really try to pray through is, is recognizing that the level of accountability that we're talking about here, isn't just within the context of a believer in a covenant. This is the level of accountability that has eternal consequences. And so what I would challenge us and if we can get outside of our temporal short term stuff, and we can have eternal perspective, what we are going to what will be cultivated in us is a burden for people that do not know him. It's going to be a burden for people that we see every single day that have not experienced the grace that God has given the hope and the joy that's been made available through His Son, Jesus Christ, like, like this outwardly focused burden that we have. And that's where some people we have a differentiation is, we think that because they are we are sin, people choose to do that, then that means we need to try to get people not to sin. And the problem with this alignment that I see is, is that ultimately, our desire is to share the gospel of the solution to a problem that happened in Genesis that God provides the partial answer to right now which is available to every single person with breath through the gospel of Jesus Christ. And his sacrifice that breaks this, this threshold that was it used to be inherited by blood, but now it's inherited through faith, and it crosses a threshold generationally, and nationality wise, and now all the sudden that when the gospel is presented, that people have a choice to receive, the Holy Spirit draws them into a revelation of a need of a Savior. And ultimately, people accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. And then that shift takes place to where now all of a sudden they're a part of the church and the very bride that Christ established and is coming back for and then all this On the level of accountability that takes place in the context of the church has a different heartfelt disposition. That we, it's not because our motivation is for the sake of soul care, it isn't for anything else, that our desire is to see a people that is in pursuit of holiness. But they also have this burden to get outside of themselves to share the gospel. That's why we worship God we pray continually. We live by the Bible, we share joyfully we meet together, we serve others, we make Jesus known, because these, in their very essence, are this deep, deep burden, to recognize that God has a will. And God has a way. And it's been revealed through Scripture. And it's been revealed through the Son, Jesus Christ, who came, died and rose again. And then therefore, through faith, we can be saved, and walk in not only the forgiveness of our sins, but also experienced life to the fullest depth possible that we can today. By leaving it, the way he's taught us to live it, they will be done. And so all of a sudden, the shift takes place. And when Nehemiah comes back to a people that he thought all they got it, they get it, we've seen a move, we've seen him do it, and all the sudden he comes back from his vacation, and he turns around and looks and he sees the absolute inward corruption that has taken place in the very thing that they sought purity, for obedience towards commitment towards when he sees all of this, he holds them accountable. And I think that's a beautiful description of prioritizing this level of accountability within the context of this covenant, this commitment that's been made by the people. And the way that Nehemiah ends, it is one that we pray. It's, it's, it's beautiful. And so what I think, remember me, oh, my God, for good. And this deep, deep desire to see thy will be done, to see his temple restored, to see his church reconciled, to see the bride prepared, but also, honestly, the bride also to be as full and jam packed as possible. Because there are people that are outside the walls of our church right now that desperately need him. And I'm not saying that just because I'm judging them. I'm saying that because of what I've experienced in the revelation of this dependency on Christ that we see in New Testament church that we're dealing with right now. So I love looking at Nehemiah, I love looking at the purpose. I love looking at chapter 13. But if we can't take this and shift it to say, Okay, how does it impact us today? That's part of the purpose of this podcast. That's part of the desire that we had to take it from an incredible message with incredible intentionality, as the word of God being taught, shifting towards application emphasis, and the impact that it should make and every single believer and how it recalibrates us how it feeds the flame. And so that this is a really a, a desire that Tucker and I have to allow this podcast to do the very thing.
Tuck Choate 28:40
Yeah, it's it's taking it from an intellectual words on the page, and hoping to be able to put it into a heart because as you said, when we're looking at the world, and we're frustrated with the sin, the devastation and the evil that's out there, we can't make a difference in what's going on, without God. And in order to make a difference, we can't just go out and change someone's mind, we have to change their heart, and we have to give them the good news. Give them the gospel, and allow God to come in and make those changes.
Bennett Holloway 29:22
Yeah, this desire to where I want to give him every opportunity possible, to leave the call unto himself, people that are lost. I mean, I deeply desire to give every opportunity possible. And it may look different in different ways, different venues, different, you know, aspects of evangelism, but if we can, if we can shift the perspective to be pre evangelizing, and Luke quite literally sharing our testimony as to what God's done, and casting a vision of what he's going to do, I can just see it For a shift, and a wave that takes place in our city, here in New Bern, and I believe that that's something that the Lord is setting up.
Tuck Choate 30:09
Absolutely. So I kind of wanted to pose a question to the people in our third chair and the people that are sitting at home listening to us, I really want to put it on your heart as you're listening, to examine your life, to view it as that fire that wherever it is, it is growing dimmer without you consistently feeding that fire. So I want you to think of a way that you can continually feed that to sustain your passion, to continue to feed it, to tend it to poke and prod it sometimes in a painful way, as you are moving things around inside your life inside your fire, so that it doesn't shrink and die out. I think along with that, is to be able to lean on God and to be able to lean on your brothers and sisters when God convicts us of our sin. And that's not always an easy thing. Because there will be something that has come out that you recognize you have made a mistake, you have been doing something that you don't want to do. And to be able to share that with them to get prayers to get wisdom. And, and we need those things to help us break what Dr. You are called the scripts of our persistence. And we have a script of what we do that we just go back into. And we start following the script again.
Bennett Holloway 31:39
Yeah, I mean, that's beautiful. And I think that's part of the way when we let relationships, cross thresholds that lead to vulnerability in the context of small groups, where people care more about you, and your relationship with the Lord than what you can bring to the table, right and what you have to offer, when we can get to those spaces, right, we're going to see that very thing take place a discipleship take place to where we can sit there and say, Hey, I'm not alone. This is what was a struggle. And this was what we've been through. And this is where I'm at. And the more that we get to do that, the more the enemy will flee. Because he doesn't want that. He specializes in making people feel like they're all alone. He specializes in isolation. He specializes in lies that specifically prevent the very thing that we know. James five, we know that confessing to our brothers and sisters in Christ will lead to healing, we know that it's going to be good when light is shine in the deepest, darkest places of our lives. And in the space of trust and community of discipling. That happens in the context for us here at Temple in small groups. That's something that we must strive for, and not settle, if we don't have.
Tuck Choate 32:55
Absolutely. So we have a listener question. And I think it really ties into what we've kind of been talking about here. It says my daily prayer life has fallen off. I started out motivated, but I struggled to stick with it. Do you have any practical tips for making praying a consistent habit?
Bennett Holloway 33:13
So something that, you know, as we sit down and we walk through praying continually, and rewatch through Matthew six, nine, First Thessalonians, 516, through 18, Philippians, four, six, as we fervently persistently submit to His will, with thanksgiving, one of the there are many different tools on which we can use to develop this discipline, and grow in maturity, on how we can understand Lord Thy will be done. And so an aspect of that spiritual discipline that I've experienced, and that your tech you brought up, and that you're going to walk us through is really praying through using the word of God as a supplement of guide to pray through scripture, so that the Holy Spirit, you're praying scriptures back to him. And so we're using his words, his promises him and his perfect revelation and the word of God as a guide in these processes to say, Okay, Lord, I want to sit in the Scripture. And I want to walk through it and pray, Holy Spirit, opened my eyes, softened my heart to the very things that are contradictory to this passage. And so just to give you guys some context, with talks about to walk us through, Donald Whitney is a professor out of Southern, he's an author. He also has written a couple different books on spiritual disciplines. But this one right here, this book is a short book that some of our small groups are even studying right now. But it's called praying the Bible. And so tuck really felt to the Lord push upon his heart, a practical application, and he's going to walk us through it right Now on the broadcast, so if you don't have your Bibles, stop, open it to Psalm 121. So you can get a real good practical application. And if you don't, if you want to do it later, then just take some notes. And he's going to lead us through it.
Tuck Choate 35:15
Yeah. So this book was given to me my by my wife. And it's been wonderful to read through. It's a little bit difficult writing for myself, but the what he has to say in there is life changing as far as how you pray. Because if we think about conversations that we have with people in our lives, they are two way conversations and what you have to say I then build off of, and then you respond to that. And so what Donald Whitney was talking through is if we just sit down and close our eyes and pray, we ended up saying what he says is the same old things about the same old things. And it's okay to pray about the same old things. Because the things that are important in our lives are generally important in our lives, our family, our health, our friends, our relationship with God, those things don't change throughout the days or the years. But when we fall into a rut of what we say about them, we can get a script that becomes monotonous to ourselves. And it makes it difficult to continue to want to pray. When you say I said the exact same thing yesterday. It's hard to do it again.
Bennett Holloway 36:32
Yeah, definitely. We've run out of stuff, right. And so it becomes mundane. It becomes a box list becomes a thing we just do checkoff. That's right. Yeah. So what so that what you're getting at is this is going to spice up your prayer life, right. That's what you're giving us example, spice up your prayer life. So walk us through it.
Tuck Choate 36:49
Yeah. So he talks through find the psalm, that's one of the easiest things to do because it is a prayer. It's a song to God, that already gives us something to work off of. So I'm going to read through psalms 121, I'm going to read it a verse or two at a time, and then pray with us. So verse one says, I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does that my help come, My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. So Father, we lift our eyes to you, you are the great God and Father who has created this world with your voice, you alone are our help. For you alone are sovereign and all the earth. You can and you will help us when we call and father we call on you now for help. Help us to see our situation rightly. Help us to see our sin. Help us to know how to move forward with whatever situation we are in now and give us wisdom and love. Give us patience and perseverance. Give us a vision of ourselves that you have of us. Help us to see ourselves clearly not as others see us for good or for bad, but how you view us as beloved children who need a father who need a shepherd. So verse three says he will not let your foot be moved. He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. Thank you, Father, for your immovable and ever persistent presence in our lives. You secure us, and you watch over us when we are most vulnerable. Verse five says, The Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade on your right hand and the sun will not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. I pray that you watch over us, Bennett and myself but also for the third chair that's here with us listening. We pray that you will guide us to guide them in their struggles now for your shelter us, you shade us, and you keep us safe. verse seven says the Lord will keep you from all evil. He will keep your life the Lord will keep you're going in and you're coming out from this time forth and forevermore. Father, I pray that you keep us from all evil, be our protection and our heads around us. And give us your mind that we can discern your will for us and our lives and our family. Whatever the nagging question is on our heart, whatever the stressor at work is, whatever our family struggle is, whatever our health concerns are on our hearts and our minds. Lord, do you keep it all? You hold us all within your hand? Father, watch over us and love us as only you can shelter us in your shadow, now and forevermore. In Jesus name, amen.
Bennett Holloway 39:57
One of the things that Donald Whitney he sets up his book as he gives us this outline that really has a plethora of psalms that we can really pray through, just like what you just did. And there are opportunities for the Lord just to really frame us and our disposition, and our heart as we work through it. So we've got some testimonies of people that have been participating in praying through the Psalms. Because in the book of Psalms, we see every human expression of feeling and emotion that's possible. And we see that dealt with before the Lord. And so as we work through this prayer guide, as we work through praying the word, what it ends up doing is it ends up really changing our perspective and developing our prayer life. And so if that's something that you feel like maybe that's a flame in your life, that is that has grown to embers, or that fire has gone out like this question how the person that listens to this asked, then I would just strongly encourage you to use the word as your guide, and really have some trust in the Holy Spirit, opening your eyes to a prayer life. That is, you know, it's going to be powerful for you. And I think it's going to inevitably impact the way that you see things. Because in the end, I think all of us do a little bit better with a guide. Right? We do, we just do, we do a little bit better with a guide. And ultimately, as we sit in, and we really work on as a church, even praying and fasting, and in this next month, that's an emphasis that we're going to have starting November 1, is we're going to do a season of prayer and fasting towards Thanksgiving, as we go through 15 days of prayer and fasting, inevitably, landing on the 15th with a foot with a feast that we get to participate in on Wednesday night. And and the sermons that are going to be taught throughout the month of November are going to be specifically targeting what it looks like and how we deal with the emotions of things that we're working through. And so I just strongly encourage you to continue to pray through this desire and burden that the Lord has put on you for those that you are yet to know the good news of Jesus Christ, that He opens your eyes, that he that he softens your heart, as he reveals through His Word, as we look for opportunities to invite people into the very thing that we value, and that we know God gives life through in this community. And that's his church. And that's living by the Bible as we seek first his kingdom.
Tuck Choate 42:43
Well, then, as we wrap up, and we are looking towards next week, just a reminder, we are we are headed towards next Sunday, the communion, the baptisms, kind of a celebration Sunday, throughout this week, what do you have, that we should be thinking through,
Bennett Holloway 43:02
I would strongly push and drive us towards one preparation of our of our own hearts, Lord, search my heart, that we can approach his table with confidence, one that we are saved, that he that he reminds us of our salvation, but also the price that he chose to pay for us than that we've received his gift of love, and the righteousness of his blood, that's this block that many of us have, that we have a difficult time accepting that he loves us and receiving that love that he displayed on the cross. So that aspect of it or communion, I think is a beautiful, important thing that we must take seriously. But then the other side of it is if you haven't participated in believers, baptism, it's going to be a party, and we're gonna have a really good time worshiping Jesus through this act of obedience, as commanded in Scripture. And so if you haven't done that, I want you to do it. And if you've got a friend that you've been desiring to share the gospel with, but you just feel like you haven't had the words to articulate the very thing that God's done in you bring them to church, so they can see through a symbol through a display through an act of obedience, the testimony of God. Like that's, that's, if there's someone that you're wanting to come to know, the Lord Jesus Christ, this Sunday, is a pathway because they are going to see and hear the testimony that God saves. And so he will be glorified. And it's going to be a lot of fun on Sunday morning. So that's what I would encourage us towards as we continue to process and walk through the Lord, restoring our temple.
Tuck Choate 44:36
Wonderful. Well, we thank everyone for joining us again for another episode of Talk. We love you, God loves you. Thank you for joining us for another episode of Temple talk. We hope that Digging into God's Word together has enriched your perspective and broad encouragement. If you have any questions or topics you'd like to hear discussed on the podcast, feel free to email them at Simple talk at Temple Buck church. You can also visit our website at Temple dot church for more resources. We pray God will continue to bless you and your loved ones as you seek Him in Scripture. We'll see you next time on Temple Talk.