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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, uh, Christ Community Chapel and we bring it into your week. Each week, we sit down together as friends, and we reflect a little bit, and we think about how to live out what it is that we're learning. If you didn't get to hear the sermon yet, just drop down to the description. You'll find a link for it there, watch it, listen to it, and then come back and join in on the conversation that we are about to have. My name's Stacey, and I'm joined today by Jamie Hewitt, Mike Holwerda, and Jimmy Kozy. Welcome, guys. Good morning to be here. Stacey. Good morning. Good to be here. Good to be here with. With you. Um, we're going to get things started. This is a great week. Really great message. I know I had a. A lot that impacted me as I listened to it. Um, but to start things off, this kind of ties in with a little illustration that Zach had at the end of the message. Thought I would put us all on here. Having to be a little vulnerable. What is a way that you let your phone distract you? Not like, 50 ways. What is the. Like, the vice game that you play, the app you use? That is like, I'm embarrassed about this. I don't want people to know. Come on, dig deep, guys. Okay. Jimmy made a face like, he's not. I'm not embarrassed. But I would say my number one digital distractor is YouTube shorts. Like, if I'm gonna go down the rabbit hole, like, is there a certain vein of shorts that you go. Whatever. The algorithm. Okay, come on, come on. I'll tell you, my algorithm is crazy because it's like, cooking videos. Okay? Uh, investing things, uh, so finance. And then one of my favorites that's started popping up recently, YouTube. I think they know me because they know I would find this funny. There's a. It's, uh, shorts by this group of guys. They're super good basketball players. Like, they played in college or something. And so they will go to pick up basketball gyms dressed as, like, five Mario Brothers characters, and then they'll just lay waste to everybody in sight. But they're dressed as Mario Luigi Wario. That is a very niche, hilarious thing that the algorithm would pick up on for you, Jimmy. I don't know. I don't. It's just like. Do you watch, like, basketball clips? Oh, yeah, all the time. So then it probably. So then it's like. Well, I bet you think it's funny when people mock other people by Doing something they love and making sure that they know that they're mocking them while they do it. Okay, so YouTube shorts. It's my heart. The closest thing that comes to mind when I think of embarrassedby is the sheer number of times that, uh, ESPN is logged over the course of a day. That is just my go to if there's, uh. Just check it. Yeah, just I check it. What are you looking for when you. Yeah. Anything new. And often I'm disappointed because I had checked it 15 minutes earlier. I actually didn't update the website. Not nothing happened, so just, uh, the volume with which I. I didn't really realize you were that much of like a sports guy. Yeah, I feel like there was, there was some animus behind that statement. That was. Thanks. I thought this was a safe space, but you invited vulnerable. More of a fancy man. Jamie, I didn't realize you were a sportsman. No, I, I, it's just, I didn't know. I haven't heard you talk about sports a lot. I can't. That I can recall. There's other things that we could bring up. Just keep going. Keep going. Yeah. Keep digging. Okay. Yeah. Uh, I mean, fantasy football for me is like. Yeah, all of you guys, just the sports. If my wife were here, Christina, she would say you are not allowed to play fantasy football. Really? I will lose. But that's just one season, so that's like two months. The rest of your break. Look, there's no such thing as tamper through. January is like he's got data analysis going on. It's okay. I had to drop that. What's your, um, fantasy football team name? Do you always have a name as a go to? It depends on the. On the year. On the year. But how'd you do this year? Oh, did you win, Jimmy? In like, the work? I beat Mike in the finals. Yeah, that was rude. No, that was way more rude. It was crushing the warranted. That was warranted? Yeah. Just trying to motivate him. Well, I feel embarrassed by mine if I am going to waste time. I play like Block Blast or something. I like Rotate. I had Candy Crush for a while. How much time are we talking about here on Block Blast? Um, I mean, really just like at night, maybe 30 minutes, 40 minutes, something like that. But something else is happening. TV's on. Have you ever used your own money to upgrade? No. In a phone game. Okay. Just me. No, not yet. Not yet. I'm not shaming anyone. No, you would never shame anybody. Yeah. Okay. We should move on from that. Uh, let's What a surprise. Yeah. Uh, this week Pastor Zach taught and he was in John 15, a passage that is probably very familiar to many out there, but John 15, 1:5. I'm going to read verse five to kind of connect us into it, uh, where it ends with Jesus saying, I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me, you can do nothing. So to continue on, Pastor Zach, he had three points that kind of led through, uh, all that he talked about. The first was that healthy things grow. This was just an interesting connection that I'd love to talk more about. That was really that to be a Christian. What this passage is saying is to be a Christian is to grow like hard. Stop. So there's that whole component. Um, but then secondly, growth is not your job. Um, and then third, this is your verb. And that verb being abide, which is in the Greek, the word minnow. Um, and he unpacked that as talking about really meaning even just to stay. Um, so we're going to talk about a lot more of that. But the first illustration that Zach talked about was he did allude to his golf swing and how the harder he tries to. To make his golf swing better, the worse it gets. And that we can often treat our growth that same way. And that we wanna just try harder, do more, and we will get better. And grip that club tight. So I wanted to ask you guys. Sorry, I need a glass of. A little sip of water. Um, how. Where do you grip the club tight in the hope to grow? Can I just. I know I'm gonna embarrass Mike, but I also gotta say in that illustration, he talked about those couple staff members he plays golf with that have a beautiful stroke. Mike is one of them. Mike is one of them. Mike. Hard to say. Uh, well done, Mike. Very hard to say. No, not hard to say. I think that's. He makes that very clear. So anyways, where do you grip the tight. Grip the club tight and try and work hard to make something grow in your life? I mean, I think I, I resonated with. With what he was saying about just like, I. I think similarly that if I need. If something needs to get done, I just need to, like, buckle down. I really do it and I work hard and I do it and, uh, it'll happen. And I think it's hard personal growth areas it for me to understand. Because you think that. Because that's true in a lot of, like, outside of spirituality, you know, Whether it's fitness or nutrition. Right. Like, those kinds of things actually are areas where you have to be disciplined and work, uh, hard and push and whatever. And so I think the idea that I can't just, uh, through sheer force of will, grow spiritually is. Is difficult for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would say I actually use spiritual activity to avoid spiritual abiding. Like, someone used the phrase, you can use God to run from God, meaning you can get so busy in church stuff, the work, pastoral stuff and work stuff to say, that's all right, I'm growing because I'm doing all these things. But actually I'm using that to actually avoid, like, actually, like, abiding in what God wants to do in me. And so I think activity is easier, uh, and maybe masks as growth, but it actually isn't for me. I think it's, like, maybe something to point out that it's not just for people that work at a church, which we have the work of church in our life because staff members doing what we do. But it's sometimes it's the correlation of, I'm going to church, I'm reading my Bible, I'm doing those things, checking the boxes. Uh, that is also substituting the reality of what we really need in abiding. And even as you were talking about it, I was just thinking about Zach's analogy of going to dinner with his wife and being on the phone. It's like, you can do that and feel like you're checking the boxes. And I'm like, okay, I'm doing this. And it's a way that you're avoiding the intimacy I was thinking about. So, uh, there's so many ways that we're just. If I do this, if I have the quiet time, if I read this, if I show up at this Bible study, and you're like, okay, that's great. Now I'm good. So, yeah, I think it shows up for me, too, in not just the fact that those things exist, but also the way that I do them. So, uh, you know, I'll notice that at times my prayer time will be much quicker because I'm just getting it done. I don't want to not do it, because to not have a daily prayer time as a Christian, a father, a pastor, and so on and so forth would be unconscionable in my mind. But, uh, at the same time, it's perfunctory because I'm not taking the time to. I don't know if I'm good at abiding. I Don't know how to. I'm not quite sure how to do that. Well, we're gonna talk about it. Well, let's figure it out. Let's figure it out for Jimmy. Thank you for this. Thanks for this therapy session. No, well, I just was remembering some conversations I've had lately, um, connected to that, that there was someone that I was so surprised was talking about, um, how spiritual and how close to walk with Jesus their spouse had, and yet they did not have a daily discipline of reading their Bible. And they were speaking about, like. But their walk with Jesus is so close. And I, I, you think about, like. I mean, I'm not suggesting we shouldn't read our Bibles. It is God's word. It's. It's what he has said to us. There's beautiful, wonderful things, and God will teach you in that, but just that, that reality, that there can be a level of abiding and closeness to God that doesn't always result in having this, like, I have to do this daily habit. Because sometimes, again, it can just be. I'm checking the box, you know, so, um. Okay, in. I was struck in the passage when I went back to reread it, how at the very beginning in John 15:1, Jesus says, I am the true vine. And, uh, it just made me think, like, wait, is there even an inference there that, like, there, there's. There are false vines out there, there's things that we connect or believe are our source that are. Are not actually the true thing? I think, obviously I feel like the answer is yes, but I don't know. What does that look like? Or how do you think we can get that wrong or believe we're tapping into the right thing when we're tapping into something altogether wrong? Yeah. I think if he's saying that he is the source of life, I think that there are lots of places that we can turn to. And I think, like, performance, success, appearance, relationships. For, um, some people, relationships, reputation are some of the big ones, probably. I don't know if you guys. If others come to mind, but yeah, absolutely. I mean, we all tend to turn to those places. I mean, even as followers of Jesus for a long time, I'm like, sanctification for me, looks like looking at my life and reflecting on where I have done that, where I've turned to and, um, planted myself into other sources of life. Relying on other people to be our people in relationships, I think, for me is probably one of the biggest ones to be my source of happiness or joy or completion or those Types of things is a. Is I think, a big one for me, but. Yeah. I don't know. Any other thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean, I think it's maybe obvious, but ourselves. Right. Like, for me, it's like, I just. I just put my head down and just go, I can do it. I can do it. You know, so to your point earlier, about, like, the length of time actually praying through what's happening, and how much do I trust God to actually do the work in what I'm asking or what I'm doing versus me just thinking I can just, all right, organize, think, structure, go, like, make a plan, figure it out, get it done. Ah, so it's me. Yeah. I think if you ask yourself, like, hey, what is it that you most want in life? If it's whatever that is, is probably the place that you're trying to find life from. So if it's like, to be important, to be respect, those are some of the things innately come to mind. I think we are wired. And what Jesus is saying is that he should be the thing that should come to mind when we're like, what is the thing that we most want? I was actually struck this, uh, last night. My youngest child, uh, my daughter came down and she was crying, uh, well, after her bedtime. And so I had very mixed emotions as a parent. I'm like, part of me is just like, go to bed. But she was crying because she was. She'd been thinking about heaven. And she's like, you know, we talk about, like, you get to be with God in heaven if you believe. And she's like, I just don't know if I believe enough. And so, you know, I was like, well, like, first, like, like, why do. You know, let's talk about why you want to be in heaven. And so, you know, she said, I want to, you know, I want to be this place, like, where there's no pain, there's no and, like, it sounds like such a wonderful place, and Jesus is there. And I was like, yeah, that's. That's the reason that you. That we want to be there. So, you know, offered some comfort. But there was an internal part of me that's like, I don't have many nights where I'm, like, longing. I don't know if I long for Jesus the way that in that moment she was. And I was fairly convicted by that. And probably that's, you know, some of what Jesus means when he says, hey, unless you believe like a child, you know, so there's just this thing of like, we should want and long for him. And that's maybe what it means to abide and to have him be the source. And so my 7 year old probably gets it better than I do a lot of days. Let's bring her on. Let's bring her on the podcast. That would be a fun podcast. Yeah. It's almost like that, uh, that will show up for me in the way that I pray. Because if I look at what I'm praying about, and the vast majority is me asking for Jesus to do things or to change things or to. And how much of it is actually just me wanting to sit, be in that moment and be with Him. There's a big difference between those two things. Yeah. Okay. Um, there's a section of Zach's sermon where he made the point to talk about how the full Trinity, uh, the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, are really all involved in our growth. They are the ones doing the work. Um, I love. Because Zach went on to talk about going, okay, when were the three of them all involved in something? The creation of the universe. Did anyone else have to do anything for that? No. Pretty epic. Pretty amazing. Pretty complete. Right. So, um, in this, you know, the Father God being the vine dresser, the one that's pruning, the one that's, I think, if I'm reading the passage right, determining what's good, what's, what's bad, what's bearing fruit, what's not, Jesus being the source in the vine, and then, um, moving and looking Even at Galatians 5, where you see the fruit of the Spirit and that's the fruit of the Holy Spirit, where we're saying, all of those are again, kind, what is produced. And out of that, love, joy, peace, patience. I'm going to miss some of them. Gentleness, kindness, goodness, and so on and so forth, so on, so forth, all that. So I don't know, did that strike you guys? Was there things that kind of helped you? Um, have you thought about that before? How did that hit you? Did that help you learn or have insights into even the fullness of what growth looks like for us and. Yeah, our lack of really being involved in it in that way. Yeah, I think that was a really great point. And like, for me, just confidence. Right. Like, because then the passage goes on to say that our growth is for the Father's glory. So he kind of stakes his glory on some level on our fruit, bearing on our. On our growth. Right. So he is deeply concerned. He's deeply vested. Yeah. And the three of them together, I Thought that was a great point of like, when were they. I mean, of course they're always together, always working. So that was pretty powerful. And confidence. Yeah. Uh, I think the image of God as cultivating a plant is really powerful to me. Um, um. My wife is a really good gardener. I'm not a good gardener. I get in trouble often because when the only tool you have is a weed whacker, everything looks like a weed. And so just chop it down. Chop down some things I probably shouldn't have chopped down. Uh, but when my wife particularly likes to grow dalios and you know, the, the level of care and intention and intentionality and. But then also patience and you know, gentleness and that it. I just think it makes me think of. Of God, you know, this. The analogy of using of God being a vine dresser makes me think of his. His care and his cultivation of us and his. His patience toward us. Because growing, uh, plants is not like, ah, an easy thing to do. It doesn't just happen. It requires a lot of. And I think I don't often think of God as having that level of care and intention toward me specifically. But this passage makes it really clear that he is consistently and constantly doing everything he can to create an environment that is for my growth and for my sanctification, even when the pruning is happening, which would be unpleasant for a plant. But that's what's going to make it necessary. Necessary for further growth, I think. Yeah, it's a little bit of mixing the symbolism and metaphor of different passages. But in Mark 4 there's a parable about a farmer and planting seed. And it says day and night he tends a seed. And so there is, uh, an intentionality. And it's very active. Like God is active in our lives to form us into the kinds of people that he created us to be in his image. And yeah, that should like, help us understand how valuable we are to God. That Father, Son and Spirit would all be involved in that little old me would gain the attention of Father, Son and Spirit. And the Father cares about us being connected to his son. Right. That matters a lot to him that we're doing that. But yeah, no, that's. I think that is a beautiful picture that you think that God actually has. I mean, truly the patience that he does with us and to give the care needed to prune, to bear fruit, to uh, like maybe to push a little further down that road with that analogy. When you see a beautiful garden, the garden itself is beautiful. But it also makes you think, wow, somebody really had to give great care to this to make this happen. And in the same way as we grow, that ultimately gives glory to God for what he's done. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Well, let's take a look at a clip as we enter into talking a little bit more about what that abiding looks like. Um, I thought this was pretty powerful. So let's check this out. That word abide in the Greek is the Greek verb minnow. It's an incredible verb because, you know, verbs are action words, right? They imply doing something. Jump is a verb, run is a verb. Swing, God help me, is a verb. Right, okay. But minnow is an interesting verb because it does involve doing something. It's an action word. But you know what it means in the English? Stay. Stay. You know what Jesus is saying? Here's your job in growing. He's saying, sit with me. That's it. Sit with me. You see, the Christian life is not one of effort, it's one of relationship. Sit with me. Jesus says, just sit with me and I will cause you to grow. Sit with me and I will change who you are. Sit with me and I will get you where you need to go. Okay, so, yeah, I found that to be pretty powerful and just and humbling. I think that's what struck me, even just now is realizing, man, my part to play is just pretty minimal. Right? It's stay, it's abide. Hold still, hold still. Right. Um, so, and then I do want to mention again, so as we talk about it, that that illustration about those two couples in a restaurant that, you know, we can be doing that and doing the same activity of sitting, um, maybe with our Bible, maybe just thinking and meditating and being distracted and on our phones and. Or fully present like that second couple that is actually engaging and having conversation. So maybe let's just talk personally, like, where do we get this right? Where do we get this wrong? How can we help think about this for ourselves and as we think about it for other people, what abiding actually looks like and means? Yeah, I think the passage continues and it says that Jesus abides in the Father and so he abides in love. And so I think ideas that I have been working personally and internally on for a long time was what does it mean to actually believe that God deeply loves you when you do nothing and when you are quiet and when you are still, like, it's easy to have, uh, a sense of maybe God is proud or he loves after something goes. Well, after a good season, after the disciplines are checked off after all the things. Right. So there is an internal sense of love follows performance. And I think for me to think about moments when we know that Jesus was abiding in the Father's love was his baptism and his transfiguration. And at both times the voice just booms from heaven. This is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased and being able to sit and listen. And so I think there's a huge difference for me when I am, uh, in my Bible, in prayer, and I'm just doing it to get my day started before the kids run into the room versus, uh, you know, it says in Second Thessalonians, uh, three, direct your hearts to the love of God. And to have my heart actually directed inward in prayer, in journaling, like, there's just something different where I'm realizing love comes before performance, love comes before I achieve, love comes before. And I think that's my abiding is trying to find. All right, how did Jesus have this figured out? Um, I think maybe I'm struck by how humbling it is, and maybe that is because it means complete and total dependence on something other than myself. Right. So, yeah, I think that abiding is just, yeah. Completely dependent as well. I mean, what that fleshes out to look like is a, uh, laying down of self and is a surrendering of and looking to Jesus. Not that we don't have take any action ever. It's not that. But this real reality that I can't do this. I am trusting in you. I'm giving this to you. Yeah. The first step to growing is sit and wait. Yeah, that's, uh. But, you know, it's interesting. The. I think we did the passage with Mary, uh, and Martha and their brother Lazarus a few weeks back. But then also there's other. Other passages in scripture with Mary and Martha where, you know, Martha's all about activity, flurrying about. And Mary just sits at the feet of Jesus and she's the one who's looked more favorably on. And I think that is a good analogy for. For at least for me, of just like I. I would prefer to be a flurry of activity because it feels like something's getting done. Abiding is hard because I can't see the immediate tangible result. And, um, that's something I'm trying to figure out is what. What does it actually look like to abide to not just do, uh, a devotional time, spend time in the word pray or whatever just so that I can say that I did it because I know that I should. But to actually have that time be fruitful and meaningful, uh, even if it's not as, quote, unquote, productive as I want it to be or whatever. Yeah, I think that there can be an activeness, uh, to dependency. So even when you say, you know, the first act is to just sit and do nothing, it's not really doing nothing. It's an active dependency. In, uh, John 6, Jesus will say he's having a conversation with a crowd of people after feeding the 5,000. And, uh, they'll ask, you know, what do we need to be doing to be doing the work of God? And he says, the work of God is to believe in the One Whom he sent. And so there's an. What does it look like for us to believe? It's to trust, uh, it's to abide in and rest in. But that's an active thing. And not saying that this m is easy, but it's not nothing. It is an active dependence. It is saying my worth is not anything that I bring to the table. It's not because I had my quiet time. My worth is because Jesus has said I have worth and has given himself in my place and has given me that ahead of time. I'm not earning anything. And what does it look like to believe that, to trust that. And so actually I think, you know, what Mike said is really trying to reframe that. So when I sit down and I do read my Bible, when I pray, when I show up at Bible study, re centering like Jesus did not love me more because of these things, and then as I do them, I'm really just trying to be with him and sit with him more easier said than done. Uh, I feel like when I read Psalms, not necessarily all of them, but that is a place that I can. In the. With what the Psalms are. I think they lead me well in many regards to just looking and my heart being captivated at who Jesus is. So I don't know. I mean, there's not. I think that, you know, if I look back at moments where I feel like, man, I feel like I was doing this and I was abiding, it's because I looked at Jesus and it was joy. Like there was joy in Jesus period. And I don't know. The Psalms, I think help me to do that because of the way they also kind of can guide. So I don't. That's, uh, maybe a practical piece there. But yeah, it is that delighting. I think that was another word used delighting in God himself. So, yeah, I think what I need to remind myself of, too, is bearing fruit can be seasonal, right? So Psalm 1 talks about, like, the tree planted will bear fruit in its season, and not every season it bears fruit. Right. There could be a pruning season. There could be other kinds of seasons. So it's like almost playing the long game of like, all right, I'm sitting. Love that. Yeah. Sitting. Nothing's happening. I'm sitting. Nothing's happening. And it's like, well, there's. There's like a cycle. There is like. It's not a direct correlation. Direct for 30 minutes. And now you get like, yeah, 30 minutes of fruit. 30 minutes. Yeah. That's the way I would want to think about it. That m seems fair. Yeah, that seems fair. Yeah. No, this is great. I think, you know, as we think about heading into this week, you know, what does it look like to. Maybe we don't need to answer this now, but even just for those listening, what does it look like to. To try something different, to abide, to sit, to rest, to take longer in his presence, to go to him in that conversational way and not feel like you're just checking a box and to lean into that more. But thanks so much for joining me this week. Yeah, Great conversation. Yeah, thanks. Hey, for next week, it is actually, uh, our last week in this series, and. And we are going to be doing another live beyond the Message. So after the 7:30 service on Thursday is Pastor Joe is speaking, and we are going to be joining in with him to hear some questions, to dialogue, and have some great conversation for our last beyond the Message for this series. And then we'll be back.