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Beyond The Message is a weekly podcast that dives deeper into the weekend’s teaching. Released after each Sunday service, it offers thoughtful conversation, added insight, and practical reflection to help our community process and apply what they heard. Whether you're revisiting the message or catching up, this podcast is designed to help you go deeper throughout the week.
Welcome to Beyond the Message, the podcast where we take the weekly teaching at Christ Community Chapel and bring it into your week. Each week, I sit down with friends and with ministry leaders at CCC to laugh a little bit, to reflect, and to figure out how to live out what we are learning. If you didn't catch the sermon from this week, that's okay. Just drop down to the description below and check out the link to the sermon there, and then come back over and join in on this conversation. I'm joined today by Brooks Montgomery, by Sarah Koons, and by Jamie Hewitt.
And they're going to I know. It's good to be together, guys. It is good to be together. And to start things off, little bit of an icebreaker, little bit of a get our loosen us up a little bit. So I wanna ask you guys the question.
What, in thirty seconds, share Sarah loves these. Just to build up his stuff. In thirty seconds, share something that you can do better than anyone else that is sitting here right now. Come on. Something you can do better.
Right. I can do x better than all of you. Wow. Right? This is gonna get tedious.
We're gonna get cheated between all of the Well, that's a bit dangerous. I like it. Respectfully. My my name's Brooks. I think I could plan a better trip than anyone here.
So in terms of, like Oh. Booking flights, hotels, the route of, like, hey. We wanna do these 10 attractions. What's the most efficient way? Public transit, the cheapest way.
You could do it for your neighbors. Yeah. Really? If anyone if anyone hasn't planned their summer vacation, meet me in the next steps area. I like, planning a trip is as fun as the trip.
I love it. I absolutely love, like, the fastest, the most efficient, the cheapest researching it all, food. Love that. So I will I bet you do that a lot better than I do. Yeah.
So I would I would also agree with that. I know you do that for me. I know. Mine feels much less significant and much less adult. Much less adult.
I think I have Not surprising, Jamie. I happen to have two skateboards in my car. I don't I don't know many 38 year olds who do. So I would bet that I could skateboard better than do you use both at the same time? No.
It's a fair question given what I said, but, no. I don't even know. Skateboarding. One of my favorite things is looking out the window and seeing Jamie Hewitt on call skateboarding.com. Skateboarding.com.
Okay. It's a joy. That's good. Real thing. I like it.
I listen. This question is something. I I can my voice is loud, and you can I can really project like no one's business? Okay. I mean, there are people in the building who have said that they can hear me upstairs, and I am downstairs.
It's it's a gift. It is a gift. Yeah. We can call it that. I'm sure.
God. Okay. Mine is that I can sing opera better than any of you. And to prove it to prove it, I'm not gonna do it. Yes.
I saw it. But I brought and this this is I brought a VHS tape from 1999. Anything I wanna actually hear it. Could be on that VHS. I think we need right here, Stacey's voice is vital.
And the people need the entire I want evidence. It was on a cassette tape, but I don't have it now. Do it now. No. I can't.
I mean, I'm kinda the point is, twenty six years ago, I could sing better than you. I don't know about today. I think today. I think also today. Okay.
Well, thanks for sharing that. I agree with all of you. I think we all can do the thing we said better than the rest of us. But let's jump in and and talk about, what we learned, from pastor Joe. So I'm gonna recap things a little bit.
Pastor Joe was week five of promises made, promises kept, and we're in Genesis 17 starting in verse 15 where God comes back to Abraham. Now, it's been twenty four years since he first made that promise that Abraham was gonna have a son. He would have all these descendants. Nations would come from him. And now twenty four years later, he is coming back to him and reestablishing and saying, yes.
This is my covenant with you. Your wife, Sarah, is gonna have a child. His name's gonna be Isaac. Abraham falls on the floor and laughs. And it's this picture of kind of, like, of shock and joy, laughter.
Like, god. How can this be possible? I'm a 100 years old. So pastor Joe's points out of that were, God's delay because, really, a lot of pointing out our issue with promises is the fact that there is this perceived delay. So God's delay, Abraham's laughter, and then God's response to that.
So to start things off, just wanna ask us, kinda like we do each week, what's a takeaway? What's something that stood out to you in the teaching? Justin, waiting and delay is always hard, But God is even more trustworthy than that hardness. And so there was a line that pastor Joe said where he's like, if the God of the universe makes a promise to you, then there is nothing that could possibly stand in the way of that being fulfilled. And so in the midst of our, kind of, doubt, waiting, and delay, like, we can we can rest on that regardless of the delay, regardless of, you know, whatever has happened in our life that seems to be standing between the fulfillment of promise, we can trust that.
Yeah. Sure. I think for me, it was I was grateful for the clarity he gave around that the promises that God makes aren't necessarily the promises we think Mhmm. He has promised us in his word. I think we get that really confused.
And, I think when he, outlined the verse in John 16, just about, like, what God has actually promised is that he'd be with us. Not that we would experience blessings and all of these things, which, of course, we can, but that's not the promise. And that he will overcome it, but there is a waiting. There's a where and a waiting. It's not a right now.
Time. Yeah. And I I think one of the it's interesting. The world that we live in is so fast paced. Mhmm.
Like, we are obsessed with efficiency, with automation Hey. Just planning your trips. That's right. That's right. Efficiency.
No patience. No waiting in in, in my trips. No. But the reality is is that one of the primary ways that I think we can experience God, look more like Jesus in a countercultural way as we're kind of living in exile, is to cultivate patience. Patience is not something that is very attractive.
Like, if I was to say to you, you're a very patient person, I think you would almost think, like, is that a compliment? Like, you know, should I be more efficient? Should I be but I think a primary way of living as exiles, ambassadors of God's kingdom, is is being people who wait, being faithful, who who are patient. Well, what does that even look like to cultivate that? Yeah.
You know, I mean and and we don't have to unpack that now, but that's a question to ask. Like, oh, what does it even we say practically speaking to cultivate patience. Yeah. Yeah. I put my phone somewhere completely.
Shh. Not with me. You know? I don't I don't know. Yeah.
Yeah. And and even just the the reality of, you know, the I think the reason we can wait and the reason that we ought to is because we wait with hope. Like, all of a sudden you you move hope away from the equation of waiting for God's promises. Waiting is unbearable. Exactly.
Yeah. Yeah. And so just even the the the ability to draw near to Christ as you wait with the living hope that he is. Yeah. It's a very countercultural way to live.
Yeah. Well, I wanna watch just a short segment from pastor Joe and then we can talk about that. This would be kinda what my takeaway was. So let's watch that. It's wild that God would come after me of all people.
Listen, I have news for you. If you know Jesus, you're not part of the 99, you're the one. You no one comes to Jesus because of them. You come to Jesus because Jesus chased you down. Jesus went after you.
Jesus left the 99, came after you, and he came after me. And every once in a while that grace do not lose track of the wonder of grace. Let it sink in enough to make you laugh sometimes. So I I mean, I kinda start tearing up even just letting that sink in, the reality that if I am a Christian, as a Christian, that Jesus chased after me Mhmm. He left the 99, and that's just too good to be true.
And so I think the wonder of that, the awe of that that the god of the universe pursues us like that, comes after after us like that, and that god's grace is really too good to be true. And that's what again, in that, we're saying Abraham was kind of experiencing this, like, this is too good to be true. How could this I mean, I thought, like, when he said that, I was like, when's the last time I laughed in the way of Yeah. Awe sense of, like, experience. Yeah.
And and then when he just talks about, like, hey. You're the one. He left the I just I did. I I felt really emotional around it because I'm like, I don't sit in that No. Thing.
No. And I don't think of it. I don't let it wash over me. That's right. Yeah.
And I think I need to because that is I should laugh. Wonder. Yeah. Like, the wonder of it. And I'm like, man, I miss out on that a lot.
Yeah. You know? Yeah. Well, let's jump into talking about a couple other things. This first question that I have, I I wanna unpack, the passage's first point a little bit so that it makes the most sense.
And in that, that was that he, said the delay. And he talked about three different reasons that he can kinda see that delays happen or that perceived delays happen. The first was the flight is delayed and the delayed flight. And that was the reason of basically, okay, you're sitting on the tarmac, and you're going, why in the world are we not going anywhere? And then, obviously, there ends up being a really good reason.
There's other circumstances at play that we just don't know about. The second reason was the fullness of time, and he used a passage from Galatians where this is said because when Jesus came, all of these things had been lined up perfectly to make that the right time. And I think there's times delays happen in our lives where maybe we can point back and look and go, oh, that was the perfect timing for that to happen. Now I understand. And then the last is the camp that Abraham finds himself in, and that is the Lazarus reason.
Whereas if Jesus had gone and in the story of Lazarus, he raises him from the dead. If he had gone days earlier when Lazarus was just sick and healed him, we could have said, well, maybe his immune system kicked in and it really wasn't that bad, but really when, you know, he was dead. And there was no other reason but God. So God really reveals himself and his glory in that reason. So if you think about that and the way that we can sometimes get promises wrong or have trouble with promises made, can you think back to one or think back to a time or a situation and say, oh, wait.
This is kind of the reason that I can see or that I can point to in that time. Don't jump in all at once, guys. Oh, you got it. I think for me, like, the delayed flight or flight delayed flight, whatever Yeah. Feels common in our lives.
Right? It because it usually is around it feels inconvenient. Right? This idea of, wait. This doesn't feel like the right timing.
It did remind me a lot of the first, sermon we heard in this, sermon series about outcome engineering, that how often I am doing that, and I think I do that a lot in this scenario. Okay. One of the things I have learned through life experience, but mostly by being a parent of adult children, is I have been able to be more of an observer in that and see how God is even delaying things in a way that is actually saving them from something they can't even see. And, oftentimes, it's good to be able to go back and and point that out to them. But I think that to yeah.
Usually, I'm I'm kinda one I want a plan b. Okay. Alright. Let me, like, I'll figure it out and figure out a way for this to work instead of being patient Mhmm. Yeah.
And waiting on God to show me his timing and that. I think that's true in all of those scenarios. But in especially in the first one, I feel like I I see that pretty often in my day to day life, right, just in the circumstances that are happening, because I don't think it's the best plan or something. Yeah. I know.
I was trying to think of an example on this. In my life, I went through about a period of seven years with my oldest daughter where she had just a chronic illness and was really, really ill, and it it was debilitating for her. We'd gone to all the doctors. And, of course, in that, we were just praying and asking God to heal her over and over and over and over again. And, you know, seven years later, basically, we're on the other side of it seeming she grew out of it.
You know? And so, again, if I think about those delays or those reasons, which, again, first of all, I I recognize I don't understand God's plan, but I do know I have seen, and and she has said this. She said it when she was in it, that there were things that God was teaching her or giving her ideas about that she wouldn't have thought of had she not been in the middle of what she was in the middle of. And so, yeah, I don't I don't I don't know the fullness of time or, again, the flight delayed and all the things that I we don't know, and we might someday. Right.
But, again, yeah, trusting in God's plan. But it's hard in the waiting. You know, it's hard in the waiting, especially when there's hurt and pain involved. But Yeah. And I I think I mean, this is probably true of any of the three categories you find yourself in waiting.
It's most of us would probably look back on our stories and picture those moments Yeah. Of parenting your kid when something, you know, is happening. You can't find an answer. You can't solve it. But even just, you know, merrily, personally, like the difficult seasons, the difficult times where you're forced to enter into a waiting and a painful experience.
It's like, those are the moments where oftentimes we can look back and say, man, God's peace, God's nearness, when it didn't even make sense, almost in a comical laughing sense. Yeah. Like, that's where growth happens. Yeah. And sometimes it's not the waiting of you get the plane de iced and ten minutes later, you get to see and look back and go, oh, it all makes sense.
Right. Right? That's that's the difficulty. Sometimes you come out of hard seasons, and you have no understanding why what what is God doing. Yeah.
And that's why it's, you know, the faith paired with patience Yeah. Even when you don't see it. So one way that we can get in trouble with God's promises is that we can assume a promise, that is not an actual promise in God's word. And, I mean, pastor Joe talked about this a little bit when he was saying, you know, I was when his brother died, I was assuming that God was gonna take care of my family and keep them healthy and and then this happened. And that's that's not a promise from God's word.
I can start us off. I I I realized when I was thinking about that that I believe I assumed a promise connected to my marriage and that marriage would not be hard. I did talk to my husband about talking about this, but, and I can say this too that, you know, we're in a really great spot right now, but I think we've gone through seasons that have been enormously difficult, really hard, all sorts of factors in there leading up to that that, you know, just and I would say, god, why is this so hard? You obviously brought us together. I believe that.
Why can't this just be an easier thing? And, but yeah. I mean, that's not what God uses our marriages to refine us, to sanctify us, to grow us in him, to honestly be a demonstration of, God's goodness and of, the gospel in many ways. But yeah. So that I mean, that's one way that if I really am honest, I'm going poof.
Yeah. I I did expect that of God and think that and believe that that was something he would promise me, but it's not. Yeah. I think I I I find, this to be very true in my life when I have taken a step of obedience into what I believe God has called me to do, and then it doesn't work out the way I thought. And so we have two adopted children, and that was definitely something we felt like God was calling us to and wanted for that's how he wanted us to grow our family and all of those wonderful things.
I don't think we went into it in a way of, like, having this idea of unicorn rainbows around it, But I also don't think I really truly realized the the hard parts of what that means when you bring a child into your home that is adopted and different traumas that happen from that. And so I think I often confuse, like, dad, this is you have asked us to walk in obedience and take this step of adoption and faith, and we did that. So why are we experienced like, why is this so hard sometimes? Aren't we doing what you wanted us to do? And this is not something like, my my children who are adopted are 15 and 20.
Right. So this isn't something that Just happened. Five years old. They everything was good. These are things we're continuing to experience, and that is not anything to do with them.
It's just because of the brokenness of our world and the different things. But I'm like, when am I gonna see the good parts of, you know, of that? And I go, oh, Sarah. That's your, like, totally incorrect thinking about what you believe God was promising you through this step of faith and obedience. So much it is connected to what we are praying for.
We want things to be right in our life. We want things to be Yes. Easy and not hurt hurting. And and it is those things that then we can just assume God would want for us too, and we don't know all the reasons why. But that is is not what God promises us.
Sometimes it's one, like, big area Yeah. Like you were talking about, and sometimes it just feels like the the thousandth paper cut. Mhmm. And but it's you said the line, why is this so hard? Mhmm.
And that resonates. I felt that so much in my life that I have bought into the misperception that my obedience should lead to ease, to comfort, and things Right. Not being so hard. Yeah. And so, you know, whatever it is, you get to a point you're like, alright.
Yeah. Why? Yeah. And I feel like in those moments, I go to two extremes in my mind. Mhmm.
My soul, I think either what did I do wrong to cause this? Like, oh, man. There was a sin, a mistake that I must have done that caused this. Or I think to myself that pain just means God's absent. Right?
And then blame God. I think that and that's what a lot of people do is they will blame God and that I Yeah. That was the last weeks. Right? We were talking about, like, hey, where do we tend to look?
Because this is God's or is this me? So Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's look at even at what God does promise. So, Philippians one six is a passage that, pastor Joe read, and that just says he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion in the day of Jesus Christ.
And the reality that what God does promise us is the fact that he wants to do something so marvelous in our life, so glorious, that he is seen, that we are made to be more like Jesus over the course of us trusting in him and really letting go of all of those maybe assumptions that are not, real. So I I know that just struck me. And, honestly, even if I go back to thinking about my my marriage example of being an assumption of a promise, I'm going, okay. Wait a minute. No.
What I can see, though, is that over the course of time and experiences and circumstances that are usually maybe hard, where I am also desiring to be more like Jesus, God does a work in my marriage, and he does bring it to a more fuller, and better place. And and, again, that's not saying that God's you know, he's gonna fix something like that, but the reality of this promise is that what he's doing in each one of us is something that will bring, make us more like Jesus and that that's better than anything. So I don't know if you have any other thoughts on that. And if that's I mean and I think you you we all kind of have been, you know, talking about that's the end goal. Right?
Like, the end goal is for us to be made more like Jesus. I love Joe's image of risk and kind of the board game, domination. Right? Like that. Second Peter, three eight through nine was thinking this came to mind.
We're talking about the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise. But interestingly, he's patient to you and I. Yeah. Why? So that all could have the chance of repentance.
So it's even the sense of, man, how often in moments where I feel like I'm waiting, moments where I feel like I'm frustrated that something's not working on my own time frame. Yeah. Perhaps that's a reason and an opportunity for me to proclaim the goodness of God even in that. And that through that, right, someone would be able to see and experience the love of Jesus. It's very, very rarely do I see that as an opportunity.
Patience as an opportunity. Yeah. To show. Right? One of the reasons is because we want all people to be able to claim the repentance that Jesus offers.
So even even that, just understanding, man, as much as I am having to be patient in moments, God himself is showing patience to us, which is interesting. I I really liked when Joe talked about, you know, Abraham kinda goes back to God and is like, hey. I got my plan b. I got my plan b. We got Ishmael.
You know, I figured this out. He's like I mean, I I this is Joe's interpretation of this, but he it's not like he he rails the He did get mad. He does get mad. I see that. I see that, but that is not the promise I made for you.
And that is when he says, you are going to have a son, and his name is Isaac. That's right. Like, I don't think he ever named that before. Mhmm. You know?
And so before this, and so I just thought, man, I feel like I see that all the time in my life where God's like, Sarah, I got you. Yeah. Like, I am sovereign over all of this, all of your life, your kids' life, your marriage, your work. Why are you trying so hard Mhmm. To outcome engineer this?
Like, that is the when you talk about the cultivating of the patients, I think that's where it lies, where you're going, okay, God. I trust you even though I can't see how you're gonna fulfill this. And the question is, is that why God lets this roll out for twenty four years? Yeah. Is so that Abraham would come to the end of himself and finally be able to see that this is God.
Yeah. That's right. Well, he did. He was finally was going there. Yeah.
There's no way this could be made. Right? I give up. I'm gonna trust you. Yeah.
So Yeah. Well, as, as we wrap up, what about any challenges, that you think about for applying for yourself, applying for people that are listening today? Any takeaways? I'll start with mine. I've got, I mean, really, that clip that we watched of pastor Joe, it it does just bring me to go, man, when do I think about and realize God's pursuit of me and how truly good his grace is.
And so if you just if you don't feel you just go through your day to day Christian life not realizing the wonder and the awe and the joy of what God has done, in your life because of Jesus, just to sit in that, just to ask God to reveal himself to you. Write down, maybe journal a little bit, but just to ask God specifically. Say, hey. Reveal to me your wonder. Show me the goodness of your grace.
Let me sit in that and experience that because I think it does so much good for us as Christians to just sit back and just be in awe of of what he's done and how good his grace is. Yeah. And I think that's I keep thinking about, man, I I am just so dishonest with God in my waiting. Like, I sometimes, even in my prayer life, I can pray to him all all reverent and trying to sound great. In the back of my mind, I'm incredibly stressed about a situation, and I'll come engineering it and figure out plan b.
So just the sense of God is so patient. God's so gracious. Even look at his response to Abraham Abraham here Yeah. In Genesis. Right?
So be honest with God. I think in in in your waiting, in your frustration, in your anger, experience even his patience towards you, and what he can form in your honesty to him. Any other You got a good one, Jamie? I don't know. My I I think that, for me, the the challenge that comes to mind is I wonder if there's a group of people who might be listening to this and they're like, you know, actually, life feels kinda good.
I don't know if I feel this, like, tension, this waiting. And so maybe my challenge, if you are there, would be that maybe you're so deep in all your plan b's that you you've eliminated the tension of delay and waiting from your life, and you've just taken the reins. And you're coming up with your own plans and things. And so I don't know. For some people, I think they're gonna really resonate.
And they're like, I I feel like I'm waiting. I feel like I'm in this in between, and it's painful, and it's hard. And I you know, this is this sermon is gonna help them see God's presence in the midst of that. Yeah. For some people, maybe life just feels like it's going Yeah.
Great. And maybe the question is, you or you have found a way to seemingly meet all your needs to remove that delay, but I'm like, I'm gonna need to take some time to think about that one, Jamie. That's good. Yeah. That's really good.
That's really good one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I'm with you guys.
I resonate with all of that. I think that, I think it's, something I told Stacy outside of this time was, like, you know, I've been a Christian for a pretty long time. Probably, like, forty years or something like that. I think I just I'm I just often forget. Yeah.
And so I think this sermon really helped me to remember who God is, what a miracle of grace it is Yeah. That I can be called his daughter, and just to to rest in that and not try to figure it out. Yeah. And so I think for all of us, we all we just we need to remember. And we we need to remember who God is and what he's done for in each of our lives.
Yeah. Yeah. No. Thanks so much for this conversation. It's been great.
And also can't wait till next week. It'll be great Yep. Again. Yeah. Woo hoo.
Yeah. Well, thanks so much for tuning in to Beyond the Message. Before you leave, make sure you subscribe so that you don't miss out on next week's episode or the weeks after that. And all week long, we wanna provide you with content to help you grow right where you are. So check out our CCC app or YouTube channel or our website for content that can help you all week long.
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