Beyond the Message | Beyond the Message Podcast — Episode 2

This week we dig deeper into Genesis 13 and the ongoing Promises Made, Promises Kept series, where Abram faces the gap between God’s promises and their fulfillment. We unpack the challenge of trusting God when the path looks rocky—and everyone else seems to have it better. With stories of surrender, uncertainty, and God's presence in hard places, this conversation gets honest about outcome engineering, FOMO, and what it really means to trust when it costs you something.

Missed the message? Click here to watch it!

What is Beyond the Message ?

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 the rest of our week. Each week, we sit down with my friends and ministry leaders at Christ Community Chapel, to laugh a little bit, to reflect, and to figure out how we can live out what we are learning. If you missed the sermon, no big deal. Check out the description of this episode for a link to it to that sermon. But thanks so much for tuning in, and I'm joined today by Brooks, Sara, and Jamie.

They're gonna introduce themselves. And then when they do, I want them to answer my random question. K. Are we ready? Okay.

I'm really excited. I know you did not like this last week. I did not. You did not, but You did great. I believe in you.

I believe in you. You got this. This is fine. Okay. So you are going to the Olympics.

Congratulations, for an event or sport of your choice This is hypothetical. It is? Hypothetical. Well, is it as we currently are? It's It's you are obviously gonna you're good enough to go to the Olympics.

Okay. That's I feel like I like this question more already. Okay. To do it. What's We are Olympians.

Event. We are Olympians, all of us right now. Sorry. Every time. What event are you doing for it?

Would you choose? So introduce yourself and share that. Okay. I'm excited. I like this question.

So I'm Sara Koons. I had kids and students director. I would be a swimmer, but specifically the butterfly stroking. That's the hard one.

I know. Feels great. Think makes it more exciting. Do you have a skill? Like, do you have you swam that?

I have swam before, and I used to have to swim when I was little because I was I was not good at it. I was the only one who could actually got to do it. Plus, I think swimming is a great exercise. You know? Yep.

I'm I'm getting much older, so I need to be pretty quick on my joints. And butterfly in particular has the most epic and iconic photos. Yeah. That's cool. And I had Michael Phelps, like, coming out looking like it's water dragon.

You guys. So much glory. I love it. Okay. Okay.

I can hear the music playing behind you now. The flag's rising. My name is Brooks Montgomery. I'm the men's ministry director. I might just be because I've seen this so much in the news lately, but flag football is gonna be in the next Olympics.

Wait. You're real? Yeah. And I feel like removing any obstacle of me getting potentially killed and tackle football, being able to play flag football would be pretty electric, I think. So I think that'd be my my choice right now.

That's cool. I I I've been back and forth. I'm a little bit on the fence. I'm only 90% sure that this is actually a little big sport, but, Cornhole? No.

I feel like No. That not is. I remember watching no. I remember watching it. Yes.

I'm thinking why it's been a Olympics. What do we come to? I think that answers itself. I I remember seeing Team USA, beautiful stars and stripes, guy with a glorious mustache standing by a corner of the wall. And in that moment, I remember saying, man, I want to be him.

And you gave me the chance, Stacy. Wow. Thank you. You're off to me. Thank you.

You're so excited. Dream come true for me. And I've introduced myself. I'm Stacy. But I would choose tennis, and only because I recently listened to an autobiography of and was on Andre Agassi's, and it was, like, wow.

That is hard, but epic and pretty amazing. So Yeah. Tennis is cool. French opens right now, you know, so tune in. It could be open.

Yeah. You're you're into tennis. And just in case, I think I may have forgotten to introduce myself possibly when you asked because I was so excited about Cornhole. To ask. Yeah.

For my friends here, I'm Jamie, the young adults director here. I see. Future Cornhole. Better late than never. Yeah.

Well, thanks. Thanks so much for sharing, guys. Let's jump in and talk about the sermon a little bit. This week is week two of promises made promises kept. And, again, that is this whole ten week series is about the story of Abraham and, again, the promise that God has made to him.

And this week, we actually hear from both Pastor Jimmy and Pastor Jamie. Pastor Jimmy is in the sanctuary, and then, Jamie is over in East. We filmed this on Friday mornings, though, so we have all listened to Jimmy's sermon. And so I look forward, though, to anything that Jamie, of course, will add, connected to what he will be teaching if he would like to do that. But just to recap, pastor Jimmy talked about, we're in Genesis 13 where Abram and Lot separate.

Lot is Abram's brother's son, and basically because of all that they have from all of the cattle that they have, the people that they have, it's just not sustainable for them to live in one place, so they need to go in different directions. One thing I loved about what pastor Jimmy, shared that his points are based in is that the space between a promise made and a promise kept, there's a gap. And in that gap is where Abraham finds himself in this, in Genesis 13. So what we focused on was the fact that there's a need for trust because Abraham's going, wait a minute. This is looking different than I thought it would look.

I know God made this promise to me, and there's a need for trust. There's a challenge of trust, and then the assurance of trust. I could go into that more, but I don't want to because I want you guys to kind of talk about things that stood out to you. So why don't we start just with kind of that high level takeaway, from pastor Jimmy's teaching? Yeah.

I think big picture takeaway this week was the sense that trust and particularly trusting God is easier said than done a lot of times. Yeah. And then you hold that intention with the reality that our best life, the life that we were made for, can only be found through trusting God. And that's where God meets us with a relentless commitment to proving his trustworthiness to us. He does that to Abraham.

He does that through Jesus. So that was the the big high level takeaway. And that's so much. I I the the at least at through these two weeks, the the two things that have been on display immensely are God's grace and our response to that. And this idea that our trust, our our, you know, actions to choose to trust in God really follows his grace to call Abraham out.

It's for all of us to even be in a position to put our trust in a God that's holy when we are sinful. It's it's a constant recognition of God's grace, the resume, but also our response, to cling closely, to Jesus and trust in a person, has been at least constantly time in my mind out of the sermon. Yeah. I think mine's very much connected to each of yours, but I think I just something that felt very actually convicting to me is that at my core, well, probably for all of us, we're outcome engineers. And we so desperately want to control, but it is an illusion.

But it is this tension I feel in my life of going, okay. Where is it where I work hard, I achieve things? You know, even this idea of, like, pursuing excellence because that is what God wants for me. But where's the line where I maybe have I've crossed the line to not trusting and trying to outcome engineer my own life? Yeah.

It's like as humans are default setting. Is that Oh, totally. True. Yeah. I think I have a feeling we'll be talking more about that.

Yeah. My takeaway, we're gonna actually watch a clip of pastor Jimmy teaching about this, but it's around the reality that the ultimate and very very best parts of of any promise that God makes to us is the reality that his personal presence is with us. So let's just watch this real quick. And so, just like at the beginning of all of this, when the promise was first given, God shows up and he says, Abram walk with me, let me show you what I'm gonna do. And what we see take place here is that God's assurance is not material but personal and here's what I mean by that.

Ultimately, what God is promising to Abraham, the blessing that God is promising is not about land, it's not about offspring, it's ultimately about God's very presence in Abrams life. He's saying that I am going to be relationally and personally present. Walk with me and see the land, see what I'm gonna do. Yeah. For I mean, for me, that just struck me because there's there's so much in this about trusting God and and but I know personally in my life, if I think about really difficult times, the fact that God is personally with me and and I felt his presence in those moments and that he cares enough and that that is that is the best thing.

That is the best we can hope for, in the past, present, and in the future. But I don't know. But I think a really important distinction to make in that is that God's promises are not material. Yep. They are personal.

And I think we get that confused very often. I tend to think, well, his promises are going to, materialize themselves very quick into, blessings in whether that's, you know, finances or in my kids' lives or in my own marriage or in my own Yeah. Work. And that's that isn't one. That's not biblical.

That's not he promises us. Now we we often see that played out. See that. Yeah. And we see that in Abraham's life and, you know, throughout scripture.

But I think that was a really important point that he made when he said that. Yeah. And that's I I you know, the idea that at times, pastor Jimmy said, you know, trusting in God can almost sort of feel like a death in and of itself of even the the idea of FOMO, looking out and saying, man, the grass has to be greener somewhere else. What am I missing out on? What am I all these questions.

And I I think that's that is at the core of what the Christian life is. Right? It's not that God enhances what we already were, but it's that God takes us into a death. Right? And that out of a death of ourselves, out of a death of relying and trusting on ourselves to outcome engineer every situation, we find life and fullness in trusting him.

So that that is the art of the Christian life, but it's incredibly painful. The death you have to die. Which and doesn't sound very like doesn't sound great. No. Like, I am like, oh, I really wanna run after that.

And I yeah. So I think that's where the tension with the trust needs to come in. Yeah. Well, let me ask you guys a question, to just continue this conversation. Jimmy's second point was he kind of highlighted the FOMO thing, the fear of missing out.

But is that the point when Abram ended up entering into the rocky ground, and he saw Lot move into the well watered, green, what looked to be a much, much better outcome. And here's Abram existing in the rocky ground. And what do you do, I would say, when you find yourself in the place where you're saying, I'm trusting God, I'm obeying God, but, man, it looks a lot better over there, or, oh, they have it better, or what if I didn't do this, life would be so much easier. What do you do when you're in that position? I'll I'll kick things off just by sharing, you know, practically, if I reflected back on things, I see a couple spaces in my life where I know this has happened, but parenting is one of them.

And I remember going through a season with one of my kiddos when, you know, they were in their teenage years where I just knew I needed to step back and trust God with what they were doing with their, you know, choices they were making, where they were at in, their life. And it would've been so easy to the outcome engineering point to step in and go, wait. If I do this, it won't be as painful, or I don't wanna see her hurt. But, no, it was let go and really trust God. And I I know God was guiding me in that time, and I know that that was hard.

And yet, at the same time, it's still practically speaking leaning into him, and and to others around me and and letting go is was important. But what about you guys? So the question is, what do we do? What do you do when you find yourself on the rocky ground trusting God, but it would look a lot better over in that direction. Yeah.

I think there's an aspirational answer to this. I could say, like, what I what I would like to think I would do. But I mean, the reality is a lot of times, probably, I do exactly what Abraham did. Yeah. Where, you know, I just, like, I will delay or you know, he kinda throws this question out a lot, like, hoping that maybe the answer is gonna change or maybe somehow the circumstances, and he can have the thing that he really wants even though he knows that Kath's not said that.

So I just acknowledging that reality. I think a lot of times, I do exactly what Abraham did. I messed it up. Yeah. I think maybe a little bit more aspirationally in in this passage is it's remembering what God has said.

So God has said, hey, Abraham. This is the land I'm gonna give you. I'm gonna give you the land of Canaan. And it's you know, the more that he holds on to that, the easier it is for him to choose and be obedient to trust and to follow into that space, and maybe stop glancing over. Because I think a lot of times it's you know, when you look into the land and the way that it's described where Lot goes is, like, it says that it's well watered.

It's green. It's it really almost says that it's like Eden. You know? You you and I should look at it and be like, yeah. We do wanna live there, but God hasn't said to live there.

And so in some sense, it's how do you listen to what God is saying and maybe stop side eyeing over to this other thing so often? Because it's hard to not long for that when you keep looking at it. Well, practically speaking, when I I was thinking about this section this morning, I think this can be really difficult too when you're just you're just trying to be obedient to something that you are convicted. Right? So it could be a, you know, a temptation that you're facing, whether, it could be that you're indulging too much in certain areas of your life.

And you're going, man, I wanna go back to that. But, no. I know God calls me to this obedience, and and I need to keep and and stay. And that's why You never have any clue. I mean, how many times that any of us have looked at someone's situation and thought almost in this, like, victim sense of, man, why why can't that be something?

I'm doing all the right things. And yet you have no idea how God could be protecting you in your obedience, in taking you to the rocky soil, away from situations that on the surface appear like flourishing, but people are going down a road or decisions are taking them down to their destruction. Even just considering, I mean, the cross itself of Peter is a massive tragedy. But that was the most blessed moment of God providing for us. And so even in trusting God, what feels like rocky soil could be his grace for us to avoid that in a way we would never understand.

Yeah. And that tension is foreshadowed in the Genesis 13 passage where he's like, hey, this looks really well watered and it's green and it's like the garden of the Lord, but it's a place that God's gonna destroy. Like he, you know, there's a a parenthetical where where where where this leads, isn't as good as it looks right now. Yeah. And I think it's our in our nature.

Like, ironically, like, we want to, I think, probably out of comfort or whatever, you know, get out of it. And I I and I I remember very distinctly, there was a time in my life I was, in my work, and it was really, really difficult. And I remember asking God permission to leave. Yeah. Like, can you release me from this?

Because it was so difficult, and it was so hard. And I just remember having this sense he would he would say, no. I have you here. I have you here. And this was not, like, something that got resolved in three months or six months.

It felt like years before I was able to see what God had for me in it. And, I think it's important for us to have this sense that this is not like, this world where we live is not the end of our stories. And so sometimes we won't even see Yeah. The resolution to being in the rocky soil until the other side of heaven. And so that is a challenge for each of us to be obedient in a very, with endurance.

Yeah. And the thing I love about your story is, I mean, it's again, you you're trusting in a person. Yes. You're drawing near to God in prayer and sort of just asking him, hey. I need help in this situation.

You're not just kind of white knuckling your fist and, you know, crunching down and trying on your own strength. It's it's, again, what pastor Jimmy said, it's presence. It's trusting inside God that is with you, and he's equipping you. Yeah. I had a random thought this week as again, I've been hearing Jimmy talk about trust.

And And it just dawned on me that I was like, is trust even trust when it doesn't cost you something? In the word trust, it just implies and infers that there is some level of conflict or trust. So Mhmm. Following God when things are great and easy is is a reality, but, like, trust just felt like it implies it's gonna cost. And I don't know.

That just dawned on me and impacted how I think about that in my life. Yeah. One of the things that we'll talk about in East is that is the challenge of trust. There's a lot of times, like, trust shows up when you are confronted with a way that you don't do it. Yeah.

And so Yeah. No. Absolutely. Well, there was too so much talk about, like, the illusion of control. Sarah, you hit on it a little bit, but, I don't know.

I if it makes sense to even unpack. I know for me, I outcome engineer a lot in my life. And I think but I it strikes me so often that everything I think I have control of, I do not have control of, you know, from my health to just steering how I want relationships to go or and so that it just if nothing else, that's just a big takeaway to remember. Just let go. Try and re relinquish what we think we're controlling because we're we're not Yeah.

In the first place. And even and and in doing that, I think the invitation again, like, imagine when Abraham and Lot are having this conversation, Abraham kind of falters to say, I'll go that way, you go that way. Imagine if he said, man, this is where God is calling me. I'm gonna trust him. It doesn't make sense, but I'm placing my faith in him.

When Abraham's in Egypt, and he's imagine he tells his wife, hey. This is gonna be a dangerous situation, but we're gonna trust in God. I'm not gonna tell Pharaoh that you're my sister. Like, those moments of when we trust in God, and then when we and, you know, people see us in situations where life is confusing, job loss. People see us where, there's difficulty of health.

When you place your faith in God and trust in him, I think it's one of the greatest apologetics Yeah. To for people around us. It doesn't make sense, right, why you would put your trust. Which is true. But I also think it's okay to be super vulnerable in those moments and to say, like, this does not make sense.

I don't understand why this is happening. I'm gonna choose to trust God in this moment, but it's not easy. It's hard. Yeah. I don't understand it.

Like, I do see God can handle your emotion and the way it's also all energetic you're talking about. I think that is also a great witness to other people for them to go, wow. Sarah's really struggling in this, and she's still choosing to trust. Yeah. Wow.

I'm I'm curious as how this is all gonna Yeah. Like, work out. Those are some of the most impactful moments of seeing when people decide to trust God when it doesn't make sense, when they don't have the answers. Yeah. Seeing their faith.

Yeah. That was one of the greatest encouragements Yeah. In my story for sure. So, as pastor Jimmy wrapped up, his last point was kinda on the challenge or was on the assurance of trust and, you know, really pointing out the fact that God met Abraham in that rocky place, and he was personal. He was present.

And then that promise of that, we can look to the cross. He did that in the past. We can look to what the holy spirit living inside of us as Christians is here in the present, and we can look to our hope for the future. And I just you know, again, I I mentioned that in my takeaways. Just that is just struck me.

It's been real to me. I can just share real quickly when thinking about that hope for the future a couple months ago when my dad passed away. One of the things that was most profound and impacted me spiritually, personally, in all sorts of ways was the fact that the closer my dad, who was a follower of Christ, got to death, the more real and the more his hope for heaven, the more hope for eternity. It was just so so, like, physically present in that space. And it and, you know, it is real.

And I think it is a hope we hold on to, but let's not forget what we have in Christ today because of the gift of the Holy Spirit too and and holding on to that assurance that is personal and is for us. But yeah. Yeah. Well, why don't we wrap up here in a minute? But first, we want to think about everybody listening and and ourselves too, and think about just a challenge for this week that we want to extend and hold out.

So anybody got a challenge? I I have one. I think this is something I really there was there was a lot. There is. In this restaurant that was really, really good.

I a challenge I would put out there is if you don't journal already, that would that's a really good spiritual discipline. And part of that is being able to journal what God is doing, has done in your life and what he is doing in your life. So you can go back when you have these times of rocky grounds and go back and see, okay. God met me in this, and look what he did in it. And especially in the times where, like, oh, that I would have never seen that coming.

And I think that's when you when you go into these situations, you can lean into it with confidence going, oh, yeah. He's not gonna fail me in this because he didn't fail me then. Specifically journaling Yes. About what where you see God in your life and what you are going through. Yeah.

That's great. Good for me. Yeah. I think, I mean, thinking about men specifically, the men of our church Yeah. I think all of us have a desire to be spiritual leaders, but sometimes we have a difficulty of understanding the first step in doing that.

I think just out of this sermon, taking a step towards spiritual leadership would be asking this question in your life. There's two options with trusting. You're either trusting in God or you're trusting apart from God. And in every sense, with your kids, your finances, wherever it may be, can you start to model that as a man who is deciding I'm trusting in God in each of these areas? Take an inventory of that.

What does that look like? And encourage your family, your wife to potentially have that inventory, as well. Yeah. I got one. It it struck me that Jimmy said that at that crossroad of Abraham and Lot going their separate ways, Abraham already knew.

He knew exactly the way he was supposed to go. Right? And yet he was extending this. Still. Yeah.

Right? Yep. And so I just was struck and was challenged and wanna ask everybody to say, hey. Is there something that God has already shown you that you need to be obedient in, that you need to trust in, and you know you have not taken that step. You have not followed that call.

And so, what is that? Because God has oftentimes made things clear for us, and we're just not willing to take that step. So take that step this week. What do you do when you're on a podcast and your friend steals your challenge? Yeah.

Right? You know what? That's why I went first. The, because I'm like, I'm not the the way that I was thinking about it was, in this moment when Abram is putting the decision into Latin, it's like he's dragging his feet on what he knows. Like, that was the line that came into my head.

And so as I was just thinking about my life, I was like, where do I know what God wants for me, but I'm just dragging my feet? There was one step that I can take to stop and actually begin to move. Because I just think there's, like, a law of of inertia. You start moving, and it's easier to then take that next step. So stop dragging your feet.

But because I'm going last, I'm also gonna do a second one. There you go. That that came up in the in the pocket. Like, as we're talking about this, I feel like I would wanna challenge people listening to the sermon and reflecting on it, to think about their prayer life. So, even while Sarah talked about journaling, the the idea of how important it is to have this personal connection with God.

I was talking with a young adult last night, and he was asking, like, how how do I pray? We just went through the Lord's prayer, kinda section by section and what it means. And we got to the the second part, and it says, your your kingdom come, your will be done. And so first, we have to listen for God's voice to know that. And then ask him to show that to us so that we can be obedient and move in that direction.

So I think if you and I want to apply this, we have to be building and developing a conversational personal prayer to life with God. Thanks so much for tuning in to Beyond the Message. Take a minute to subscribe now so you don't miss out on next week's episode. Also, for additional content, look at our CCC app or YouTube channel or website so that you could be supported all week long for you or anyone listening. Again, thanks so much for tuning in.

We'll see you next time.