Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
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.
Hey. Welcome to Beyond the Message, the podcast where we take the weekly teaching at Christ Community Chapel, and we bring it into the rest of your week. Each week, we sit down with friends and ministry leaders from CCC to laugh a little bit, to reflect, and to figure out how to live out what we are learning. If you didn't see the sermon or get to hear it yet, no problem. In the description for this episode, you can find a link to that or check it out on the CCC app.
I'm Stacey DiNardo, and I'm joined here by my cohost, Jimmy, Sara, and Jamie. They're gonna introduce themselves in just a minute, but I'm gonna give them a random question to answer as well as their introduction. So that random question, if you, had to live off of one food for the rest of your life, what food would that be? And let's get to know you a little bit. K.
K. Jimmy? Well, I'm Jimmy. I'm the Director of Operations here at CCC. My food is eggs.
I feel like You just said that so bluntly. My food is eggs. Well, it is. It is. They are versatile.
They you can prepare them multiple. If I have to eat one thing for the rest of my life, then I want something that I can change a little bit. You saying eggs too because you could, like, put something with it, like Not allowed. I feel like that. I'm not in the spirit of the question.
Okay. So just eggs but prepared for the choose something like pizza because it's so totally changeable. Okay. Eggs, it is. Okay.
I'm Sara. I'm the Kids and Students Director. I don't really like this question, but the first thing that came to mind was bananas. I could see why you don't like this one. I know.
I just maybe I could I mean, in in light of what you were saying, maybe we could, like, fry them. Oh, or mash them. Does? Are you a baby? Are you I don't know.
Are you a little baby that you eat mashed bananas? I don't again, I don't like this question. Jamie? Do you like bananas that much, though? I really do like bananas.
And then it's good. I think they're a good answer. They have a lot of potassium. They're a good recovery fruit because I'll just be working out a lot. That's true.
Me and my best. Superior fruit. Okay. We'll move on to Jamie. We appreciate that answer, Gary.
I guess I am the sort of man who would choose pizza that I don't know what that says about me, but I feel super versatile. Now here's I've heard this question before. I think a lot of people will try to choose pizza, and they're like, because I can do all these different sorts of pizzas. I will honor the integrity of the question and I will commit to Way to go. Pepperoni pizza.
I feel like or no? I would always hot honey corona. Yes. Hot honey pepperoni is my favorite pizza. Tomatoes?
Yep. It's the best. And I think you can eat it cold, you can eat it hot, take it on the go. It's it's very versatile. Very practical.
Stacy seems to have a problem with Donatos. I just didn't think that would be someone's favorite. I think Donatos, but so I don't wanna Elvato? Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. And I've already introduced myself, but let me just share my food since I feel like, you know, I should do that. I would do peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And, again, my most people that do know me pretty well know that food is, like, functional. So I feel like it's a very functional.
It'll fill me up, give me sustenance. It has some different food groups. I do a nice Like a wheat bread? Wheat bread. With some seeds in it.
Probably some seeds in it. Crunchy oats, perhaps. And some A smoother crunchy peanut butter? I I oh. That's a that's I feel like that's a whole different conversation.
My follow-up is what flavor of jelly? Okay. So I would do I was picturing smooth, so I'll just have to stick with that smooth peanut butter, and then I would do strawberry jelly. Yeah. Okay.
That was the right answer. Well, that's great. Well, promises made promises kept. We're gonna jump in to talk about week one of that series to remind us and to remind any listeners about, kind of what the teaching was to recap that. Pastor Joe spoke and it was out of, Genesis 11 and Genesis 12.
And it was the call of Abram, the promise made to Abraham. It started though with the rebellion and that is the story of the Tower Of Babel, where we see humankind basically believing that they will flourish most when they are in control of everything. And then God, of course, kind of said, no. This is not how you are gonna flourish. You're gonna flourish when you trust me.
And he, broke up, you know, and sent everybody then gave them different languages to speak. But then we move into the call, the call of Abraham that, again, where we really learned and saw that God is the one that initiates. It's we do have to hear, we have to respond, and then surrender is connected to that. And then, ultimately, the hope because of the promise that we have, that God makes and extends to each and every one of us. So loved it.
It was a a great teaching. I think there's a lot in there that we can talk about. And to start off, just really want to ask each one of us to share just one takeaway, at a pretty high level of just that stood out to you from the teaching. So who wants to start? I'll go.
Okay. I thought, you know, Joe talked in the beginning of the message about the law of entropy. And I think, you know, from my perspective, one of the things that stuck out was to connect the law of entropy to God's calling in my life. And, you know, one of the things that I've noticed about myself is that, when I am not pursuing God in the day to day habits whether it's spending time with Jesus regularly, praying regularly, that kind of thing, I can see the begin to see the the effects of the law of entropy taking place in my life. Whether it's in my relationship with my wife, my relationship with my kids, the way I approach my work, my day to day, you can kinda see it happen.
But but part of what it means to step into what God is calling you to is to be aware of the the effect of the law of entropy and to actively fight against entropy taking place spiritually. Yeah. I think for my it's very similar. I, pastor Joe referenced a movie at the very beginning, a Tom Cruise movie. And it was this idea of, like, hey.
You're either with me or without me. Like, you're gonna be safer with me than you are without me. And I just immediately thought, like, with God or without God? Yeah. Like, where is my life better?
And it's always with God, obviously. But I think that was just something that he continued to talk about and how we can do that well. Yeah. I feel like my takeaway kinda connects in and jumps off of that decently well. But, like, the whole a lot of the sermon was setting the stage for the reality that we have a choice.
Like, there's there's a choice to be made. The world is broken because of what we have done. God has initiated this call. And then you and I have a choice. How do we respond to that?
Do we choose to say yes to that, to respond to that, and say, we want this life with God or not? And I think that that's the choice for Abraham, and that's the choice for all of us in many ways in the many day to days of our lives. Yeah. No. Those are all great.
I again, even somewhat along the same lines, I just was really impacted in remembering and realizing how amazing it is that God is the one that is always pursuing us. God is the one that initiates things, and he is the one that qualifies us. And I wanted to just take a second and watch actually a segment, of pastor Joe talking about that that I thought was really meaningful. And if you're here, then you are here and interested in God only because he is calling you. He initiates that.
It's not because of you, it's because of him. The call of God is much more like when you know, when I was a kid, we went out for recess, we went out to the playground, and we wanted to play football or kickball or anything. The two best athletes were always captains. And then they took turns picking the next best person that was available, and there were always a couple of kids that never got picked. They just weren't good enough.
The call of God is like God being one of those captains and picking a kid that would never get picked because he's saying, I'll carry this team. I don't need you. I want you. That's God's call. God initiates the call.
It's all grace when God initiates the call to you. He has just said, I want you. I want you. I love that. I mean, just the fact that again, for each one of us that God has pursued us, God has called us.
It's up to us to hear, to respond, and take action in that, but how humbling it is and how amazing it is. I don't know if you had other thoughts on that or if that segment hit you, but I know I I really resonated with that because I feel like I was usually one of the kids that got picked last. Oh, okay. A little bit. Different way to yeah.
Yeah. No. But I think it just was it was almost a reminder of God doesn't need me Yep. To be part, but he chooses to use me. Yeah.
And I don't need to bring anything to the table for that to happen. And that is one of the, yeah, coolest things. Yeah. I think it's good. What God does in our life.
Yeah. It's cool to think about, you know, that idea that, you know, both in the, the the sense of becoming one of God's children. So to actually salvation, God calls and initiates, but then also that he allows us to participate in work that he doesn't need us to do. And that's pretty amazing to think about. Yeah.
Well, that's great. I have another question as we just continue talking about things. Wanna hopefully encourage us even to be a little bit vulnerable. Another thing that really stood out to me from pastor Joe was he talked about that continuum and the reality that that with God and without God continuum. But the that the more I surrender, the more God will make the best version of me, and, ultimately, the world will be better for it.
And so just wanted to ask each one of us to say, hey. Where, practically speaking, are there areas of our life that we still can see, man, I need to surrender that to God and surrender more of that and trust him with it? Everybody looked at me. You won't. I, I change me.
Not so I'm on this spot, Shane. That. No. I mean, I I had a moment this past week that as I was hearing the sermon kinda came back to me. And I mean, if we're willing to be real.
So I was working on my car, had a big project, and I was choosing to do the work on my car in order to save a chunk of money, versus bringing it into the shop and had a home project that I'm doing myself again for some of the same reason. Neither one of those two projects was going anywhere near, the way that I had hoped. I needed to order more parts. My car ended up on blocks for a couple of days. Things were just not playing out.
And there was a moment in my frustration this past week where I said the phrase in my driveway. I was like, I hate guys. I'm tired of being poor, which is I will you know, I'm a little bit ashamed that that was my thought. But in honesty, I'm like, two things were revealed. One, I am wildly unaware of how blessed I am in so many ways.
And then the second thing, as I reflected back on it, was I am finding my hope and my comfort and my ease that, you know, I'm expecting things to go be better and be easier. And for me, money is the thing that I saw in that moment was gonna lead to that. And so, you know, I just was thinking that is, you know, a moment where I had missed it. I was chasing after something else. And No.
Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. I mean, Yeah. I I know for me, I see it. I feel like it gets in front of my face almost every day in parenting Yeah.
With your kids. I think there's so many things that we wanna try to control with our kids, and it's really hard to surrender fully your kids to the Lord because you might not think that that's what's best for them. God knows what's best for them. And I think I have an older son who's going through a process of trying to find a job, and I can find I find myself even trying to control the situation or, like, have you talked to this this and I'm going, Sarah, what are you what are you doing? Yeah.
Like, why are you trying to control a situation that God is sovereign? He's got this? He's got Noah in his hands? You need to release that because it's not even helping him learn Right. What it looks like to trust the Lord.
Well, and everything that we believe we actually are in control of, we're not. And no. I I mean and I'm saying that because I'm reminding myself because I'm going control spans, yeah, so so so much. But yeah. I don't know.
Do you have anything to share with you? I'm not forcing you to. No. Well, it seems like you are. So, I think for me, it's more like I this would hit me this week just in my work.
I think, I like to be responsible for my own outcome. And so, that leads to a tendency in me to feel like I need to control the process from end to end in whatever project that I'm working on. So I'm not good at letting other people step in and, be involved. And so I can be a little bit of an isolationist in that regard. And I think, you know, on the surface, that is you know, can be problematic at work, but also just it it speaks to a lack of surrender in the sense that I am attaching my, you know, worth and identity as a person to the outcome and success of project or something that's happening at work.
And, that's obviously anti gospel. So yeah. Comes back to the Babylon, like, that they sought to make their name great. Yeah. And I think that was one of the tensions that came up in the sermon.
And so whatever it is that we think will make our name great, that we're chasing after in our life, that we're putting our trust and our hope into, other than God. Yeah. Like, that's keeping us from surrendering to them. Yeah. Well, I feel like I need to share something since I put you guys on the spot.
I made, like, a list, started going through it, but I feel like routine, my comfort. I've I was really convicted even this week of how critical I am, you know, and and that's just really probably connected to my pride. And then even Jamie, similar to you, I I realized there's so much with finances that I don't surrender to God. I mean, goodness, I know we are yeah. We are very, very fortunate.
I think most of us in Northeast Ohio, you know, in are fortunate to have what we have even, and just to be able to go like, man, it is all God's, and I really need to make sure I'm entrusting him and using it how he wants me to use it. So We we chase after it because it gives us a semblance of control. That's right. And they're all connected. Right?
Yeah. They're all connected. No. That's good. If anyone wants to jump in and share just other ways that they feel like the message has hit them, they wanna apply it.
One thing that I was thinking about a lot this morning, was just maybe something that I would encourage us to consider as we go through this whole series looking at Abram soon to be Abraham's life, is that, you know, I think sometimes when we look at characters in the Bible, we have a tendency to wanna categorize them as, like, good guy, bad guy, hero, villain. And I think, you know, for example, with Abraham, we have the benefit of posterity. We know how the whole story goes. And so sometimes we'll be in the thick of a story with Abraham, and we'll be like, man, why are you acting this way? And what I would challenge us to do is to rather than taking an outside perspective on Abraham to try to identify with Abraham, because I think, the the writer of scripture in this case, I I think that's gonna be the most helpful for us when it comes to how we actually grow and learn in our relationship with God is to put ourselves this this also occurred to me.
You know, Jamie and I are preaching next week on, another story that's gonna have some similar themes to the one from this week. But one of the things that I've been struck by again and again and again is that it's easy to, in posterity, look back at Abraham and say, I can't believe you acted the way that you acted because I wanna categorize him as hero to aspire to or, you know, foolish person to avoid acting like. But in reality, he is just inherently human as am I interacting with God. And so my focus should be on that rather than should I try to emulate Abraham's behavior or not. That's right.
And I think as as we identify in with him, we see what pastor Joe talked about. He had done nothing to deserve being called by God, and yet he was. I think all of us, hopefully, in the gospel can identify with the reality that we did nothing to deserve Jesus' offer and gift to us Yeah. Of life. And that's, like, even with Abraham's story to think about.
Like, this is a guy who, like Joe said last night, he worships the moon. Yeah. That's what he does. Idol worship. So I envision I've learned that.
Yeah. But I'm I mean, I envision him, you know, he's sitting around a fire worshiping a moon, and then all of a sudden, God shows up and just starts says start walking. Yeah. And I I'm just like, okay. On one hand, again, we have the benefit of looking back and back.
This is God speaking to him. We see how the story is gonna end. We see Jesus. We see all these things happening. Abraham doesn't know that.
He just knows, I heard a voice tell me to start walking, and he starts walking. Like, that's that's obedience. That's response. That's Yeah. Yeah.
It's pretty amazing. No. That's really good. That's a good perspective, I as to your point just as we think about things week to week. And can't wait to talk about your sermon next week, Jimmy and Jamie.
Look at that. No. I was struck too. Jimmy, you mentioned the law of entropy and just the and just to remind everybody what that is. It's basically a a scientific law in physics, I believe, where that if you don't do anything, the default is is that there will be deterioration.
There will be a breakdown. And the application of saying, spiritually speaking, emotionally speaking, and and and relationally, like, that same law seems to apply. And so I just kinda wanted to ask the question, like, on the other side of that, as Christians, when we are with God and when we are pursuing that fully, what are things that we see that God does in our marriages, in our lives, in our workplace because we are with God versus allowing that deterioration and that default to happen? I don't know. You guys know anything.
I mean, I know for me, times in my life where, I I think often in pain and hard things, we feel like we really don't have any other choice but to surrender. Right? Because I think about, like, my younger sister a couple years ago was diagnosed with cancer and was a pretty aggressive form of cancer. And she was someone who lived a life of, like, she was really healthy. She exercised.
She did all the right things. And I think you're forced into, well, there's nothing I can do in this moment. And when you're able to surrender in a way, maybe out of even desperation, I think that Well, in some situations, you don't have a choice. Well, right. And that's what that was.
Right? But there was an intimacy that came with that that where you're seeing God move in ways that you wouldn't have even anticipated, whether that was through a relationship with a doctor or a nurse or even, you know, with her kids or in our family. I don't think it always has to happen that way. I don't think it has to be on times of, pain or hurt or, you know, cancer. But I think it is a good reminder of when we're able to fully lay things down at the feet of Jesus, the way that he meets us in that, and that's how he can lead us in it because God always wants the best for us.
He wants us to flourish, but that doesn't always look the way we want it to look. And I think that Abraham's story is a great example of that. So, yeah, that's just something that really stood out stood out to me. Yeah. I think with entropy if if entropy is moving from, you know, order to disorder, the opposite of that, I think, could be described as almost blessing, which is the word that's used over and over again in this passage.
So blessing is flourishing, things being able to be fully what they were. Yeah. And so fruitfulness, multiplication, all of those things are wrapped up into it. For me, a place in my life where I feel like I've experienced both of those and the contrast between the most clearly is relationships. I think of relationships that I've had and that I can remember before I knew Jesus And what happened in the midst of them because they were centered on me, as I was trying to control and and get the most out of those, they did not flourish.
Surprise, surprise. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When they were centered on that.
But as I began to follow Jesus and began to trust him and his design, and I was thinking about other people, I think that my relationships with others had the opportunity to flourish. That's really good. So Yeah. We're gonna wrap things up in just a minute. But to close out, wanna take a minute to just think about a challenge that we would want to give to anyone listening, out of this week's sermon in a way that they can live it out this week.
I'll go ahead and start. It it really, I was thinking a lot about when pastor Joe was talking about how people need to personally respond to the call that God is extending to them as he is initiating with them, and how he mentioned that there are a lot of folks, and I've encountered this as well, that that just are coming to church or are from a Christian family and kind of connect that they're a Christian because they come to church and their church attendance or being a part of a Christian family. And I just wanna challenge that if that's you and you were able to acknowledge and go like, yeah. That that's me. To take the step and to answer the call and to trust God and put him on the throne in your life.
So that's my challenge. Yeah. I was interesting. One of the things Joe said in the sermon that, was really interesting to me was he talked about at one point how, God has already spoken in his word. And, you know, so if you're looking to find what God has said, you can you can look through.
And I think that's the challenge that I would would offer. I think, for me at least, I've at times had the thought of, like, man, life would be so much simpler if God would just speak audibly like he does to Abraham in my own life. That would make things a lot less complicated. But the reality is through his word, he has spoken, finally and fully, and everything we need to relate with him and to he he said he's given us all things for life and godliness and that's in his word. And so I just encourage, challenge the listener to spend time if you wanna hear from God, spend time in his word.
Yeah. I think for me, the biggest challenge even in my own life is to identify that area that I haven't fully surrendered to the Lord or I keep trying to kinda take back. Back. Yeah. And so I think that can be in our parenting, in our marriage, maybe even in our finances.
So I think one of those things is to identify it and then just Can I just push on that? I think, one of the things I wanna was curious about when you say, like, surrender, I think if I'm listening to this, I can think, okay, in an abstract sense to surrender to God, that makes sense. But, like, for example, with finances, if you said surrender your finances to God Right. What could I do? What does that actually look like Yeah.
Today? Yeah. No. That's a really good question. I think I've heard it's been said that if you look at your checkbook, which I don't even know You have a checkbook?
Anyone uses a checkbook anymore. I did back in the day. Writing your purse on the back of your original. Yeah. Right.
But if you look at where you're spending your money, you often can see what you value most, like, what you treasure. And so I think it could be about that. Yeah. I think there is. I think it'd be pretty obvious where, you are spending time and resources.
And so maybe just reevaluate that and say, oh, can I can I be more generous? Maybe even step one is just to look. Just to peel back the curtain and say, okay. What actually am I doing? Yeah.
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So that would be my challenge. K.
Yeah. Jamie? I think my challenge maybe even tying some of those together is, like, identifying the area. I think what Jimmy said is looking to see what God has said about it. But I was thinking about the call to Abraham begins with God saying leave.
Leave where you are. Pastor Joe last talked about how we should expect that when God calls us, it should change us. Yeah. And so I think you should expect to have to change something. So even as you identify and then you look at what God says in his word about that aspect of your life, we should say what needs to and should change in my life in order to trust God more and trust myself less.
Yeah. That's right. Well, thank you guys for joining me, and thanks so much for tuning in to Beyond the Message. Take a minute when this is done to just subscribe so that you don't miss out next week on an episode. And if you haven't, check out our CCC app, YouTube channel, website for more resources to support you or anyone listening throughout the week.
Again, thanks so much for tuning in, and we'll see you next time.