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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 weekly podcast where we take the teaching from Christ Community Chapel and bring it into your week. Each week, I sit down with friends and 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 missed this week's teaching, no big deal. Go ahead to the description of this episode, and you can find a link to it. And then jump back in and tune in and and hear this conversation.
My name is Stacey DiNardo, and I'm joined today by Jimmy Kozy, Ken Prabucki, and Jamie Hewitt, who, even though I just introduced them, they're gonna introduce themselves and share something, though, that I want to tee up here. And that is, pastor Zach had three points this week, and the last one was the proposal. So I thought, how fitting. Why don't we share, just how long you've been married, what you do here, what you do here maybe how long you've been married, and just a snapshot of what your proposal looks like. I'm Jimmy Kozy.
I'm the director of operations here. Been married to my wife, Emily, for fifteen years almost. My proposal story, I shared this in a sermon a couple weeks ago, but the Cliff Notes version is, snuck into her parents house while she was at while the parents were out of town, and got her out of the house, cooked dinner, proposed afterward. One interesting fact is that her parents were out of town for a few days so I snuck in earlier in the week to steal the house key but I left the door open. And so because of that Emily almost called the police so I could have been in a situation where I was cooking a nice proposal dinner and was arrested because that was not my house.
So that would not have been able to explain why I was there. A proposal and three misdemeanors. I think that's right. I'll take it. That's right.
It's getting married daily. Getting married daily. My name's Ken. I'm the director of ministries here at CCC. I've been married to my wife, Jamie, for almost seventeen years.
My proposal story stinks. I'm gonna be honest. It's barely a proposal. My wife was working in South Texas, and I went to visit her. I had all these grand plans for how I was going to propose.
I did none of those things. And so she was driving me back from dinner. We just had dinner together. I was staying at a hotel, and we're in the car. I'm about to get out.
And under the light of the Holiday Inn Express, I turned to her So romantic. Super romantic. Dear your family. I turn I turn to her, and I kinda pull out the ring, and I simply say to her, I think we should get married. She didn't see the ring, so she thinks we're just Having a conversation.
She says, yeah. Okay. I said, no. No. No.
And then I kinda shake the ring a little. I think we should get married. Still didn't see it. Try again, this time really rattling the thing. She finally sees it, looks down, looks at me, and says, oh, okay.
And then we just kinda stared at each other for a couple of seconds. So Wow. I actually owe my wife, both of them. Maybe on the renewals. We'll we'll see.
We'll see. Hold you to that. Yeah. I am a different Jamie than is married to Ken. I work with Good.
Good. Thanks for clarifying, Jamie. Clarifying. I work with young adults here at CCC. My proposal in and out How long have you been married?
Oh, thanks. For for my fifteen years even a month. Nice. So coming up on anniversary. We I I wanted the question to be sincere and not already know the answer, so I we had not talked about marriage at all prior to me proposing.
Crazy to me. That's a bold you're a lunatic. Wow. Potentially. So the proposal was in January for Christmas that year.
I had carved our initials into a tree on a trail we used to hike, and I gave her the picture, but I didn't tell her where it was. So in January, where we went out, brought her out to that spot, asked her if she would marry me, and all the surprises and the fun stuff was after. The short of it is, I'm just gonna say, horse drawn carriage. Wow. It takes a lot while Stolen car, horse drawn carriage.
Jamie's really And if you wanna know more, you can ask her. Surrounded by criminals. Surrounded by criminals. Confident she'd say yes when they've never talked about. Confidence is the food of the wise men and the liquor of the fool.
Okay. I'll wrap things up to share my story briefly. of all, you're all, like, little babies compared to how long I've been married. So I'm Watch your babies. Married almost twenty six years happy one.
To Gene to Gene, my amazing husband. And, par for the course in our marriage, I tend to ruin surprises, and I did that also with our engagement. And that he had something planned and grand to go out, I still think what he did was perfect. Earlier in the day, though, he was at work, and a relative had called me to see if we could get dinner with them. And I was like, well, of course, we can.
So his plans went aside. We had dinner, but we still took a lovely walk that evening in a local park in his neighborhood. And in a baseball diamond, he got on a knee and proposed. And it was perfect. It was great.
Yeah. That's all it needs to be, but very impressive, Jamie. You were all very impressed, Jamie. We'll jump into just a reminder of what the teaching was about. It's from Genesis 16.
Pastor Zach taught, and really, it's a hard story. It's a story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, and Hagar is Sarah's servant. And the point, really that Zach made at the beginning was just the fact that there is so much hurt and brokenness that is taking place between these three people. There's, the struggle of just infertility. God's made this amazing promise to Abraham about the descendants that he will have.
He'll be the father of nations, and then Sarah is not getting pregnant. She's not having a baby. So in that middle of that brokenness, she then says, well, how about my servant? How about you, you know, have a child with her? And then because she's my servant, that will be our child.
Then there's hurt. There's contempt. Sarah deals harshly with her servant. So, again, this just layers upon layers of hurt and brokenness, and the reality that, you know, that is something that hopefully we can locate ourselves in and see what God does in that. So pastor Zach had three points, and it was the velvet, the diamond, and the proposal.
And this illustration of kind of a jewelry store and then the pursuit and a proposal is us seeing that, diamond is God's promise and what he has extended to us and what he has done in that promise and completed. And then the proposal being the pursuit that we see, him as he pursues Hagar, and again, of course, is fulfills the promises that he's made and promises made, promises kept. So that's there's a lot more in there that we can talk about hopefully over the next few minutes. But why don't we start by just what hit you, what stood out, what's one thing that we wanna start off just saying, man, this stood out to me about this week? I think, for me, the biggest takeaway simply was it's not about us.
Yeah. You know, for better in some like, in many ways, in the best possible way. And then sometimes to us, it feels maybe for worse, like, because we want it to be about us. But it's not about us. I think, one thing that was super powerful to me was Zach pointed out that, Hagar is the person in the bible to give a name to God.
Yeah. And and she calls him the God who sees. And it's like, hey, Gar, you think about who she is? She's a pretty marginalized Yeah. Insignificant person in society.
And and yet she experienced God's grace in such a compelling way that she named him. Yeah. She she in some ways, she might be saying, this is the God who has seen me. You know? And it's just really I felt like that was super powerful.
I think, more than anything, just the the point that Zach made reinforcing that, when it comes to these these story they're not just stories. They're real stories. More than that, they're stories that reflect the world in which we live. Yeah. These are real people in a in a really broken and ugly world.
And so in some ways, I think the other side of the coin to what you said, Jamie, that it's not about us in the best possible way. It is about us in some ways in the worst possible way. That, you know, you can't distance yourself from this because if we're honest, and we'll probably talk about this a bit, there's a little bit of that black velvet, all around us, in us. And so I think just being reminded that we are connected to this story. Maybe not in the way that we want to be Yeah.
At least at the outset. Yeah. But there is a connection. And I think that's, it's interesting. You know, I've said this a couple times I think on this podcast, but sometimes we read these stories and we try to locate ourselves in the characters.
And and in this case, all three characters are different kinds but all the velvet. You know, you've got, just all it. Yeah. So I think what that brings forward is, you know, the whole point of the message which Zach made is that it it holds out and brightens the diamond of God's promise and his goodness and his grace as expressed in this this story. Yeah.
Yeah. So, I'm we're gonna watch a clip in just a because I think for me, there are a lot of things that stood out. But one, connected to what Jimmy was saying, was really God's pursuit of Hagar. So before I give more away about that, let's just watch this clip. And she names him the God who sees me.
Friends, do you do you understand what that means for you and for me? God doesn't just make generic promises about nations and peoples and history. God pursues individual people like Hagar, thrown away people, ugly people, hurting people who have hurt people. And he be brings promises to them because he hears them and he sees them and he loves them. God doesn't just have a diamond against velvet for someone.
God is holding out that diamond to Hagar and he's holding it out to you. Yeah. So, I mean, when I hear that, I think a couple of things. I resonate with the fact that even Zach has said in this that she is what would be the least important, right, character in this. And yet that is who God pursued.
That's the only person God interacts with in the story of these three people that are all hurting each other and experiencing hurt themselves. So I don't know if there's more you wanna unpack in that, but, yeah. It's also convicting to me, I think, to realize that I probably would have just read on in that story if, god didn't pursue her and just be like, oh, hey. Hagar was sent away, and she was dealt harshly with, and what's done is done. She should have been.
She yeah. Yeah. And then and then gone and not given it another thought. And how many times do I maybe do that with people? Or there are situations in my life where I'm not thinking about what God would actually see, you know.
And and so, yeah, that really hit me. Yeah. The juxtaposition of of the way that God deals with Hagar in comparison to the way that Sarah deals with Hagar. And Mhmm. When in reality, I wanna be like, Sarah, you created this situation in the place.
You told her to sleep with your husband because you didn't trust God. That's right. And now you are gonna say, but Yeah. You know, this just it's amazing to see the way God Yeah. Is so tender with her.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm curious too. The the concept of the velvet was, again, it's been mentioned. But the idea of the fact that we ourselves have brokenness, and we have hurt the sin that's been done to us, sin that we have caused to others.
And he made a point to say that people can get stuck in the velvet and are sometimes adjacent even to church. They're coming to church. They think God's a good God, but they don't actually locate themselves and believe that what God is saying about his promises to a person are true and real. And so I guess, let's just talk about that concept of saying, man, where have you seen, yourself or someone else get stuck in the velvet? Or, again, yeah, what does that look like to you when the brokenness just becomes too much?
Yeah. I you know, we are just as this, episode is released, we've just passed Father's Day. Mhmm. And so, some, you know, some of you watching, you hear know a bit of my story. Thirty years ago, my dad walked out of our lives and really never looked back.
It's like a bomb that went off, and in many ways, we're still sorting through the rubble. And so as I was, thinking on that, you know, in the sermon and and since the sermon, Just realizing that I do put limits on God, that there are things that I I might not say consciously, but I have to reckon with it. I I put lines on what God can do. One of those things is the brokenness of my family, particularly reconciliation with my father. Zach mentioned the staggering percentage of people that are estranged from at least one family member.
As I sit here, I'm just gonna be honest, I I I don't know that I believe that God can actually restore a relationship with my dad. Yeah. You know? And I and I know that's wrong. I know it's ugly to say, but I'm just gonna say it.
I gotta own that, but that is just just one way. That you get stuck? That I get stuck. Yeah. And it's, you know, and and, again, it doesn't whether God will or will not is a different question.
Whether he can or can't is that that is a question, and I I think in some ways, I'm I'm saying I I don't I don't know that you can Yeah. God. Yeah. No. I know almost every probably every other month, I would say I could tell a story of someone I encounter that just says, oh, I I'm too messed up.
I'm beyond repair. I can't go to church. That place wouldn't you know? And and that sentiment I is I've realized lives within people and is so untrue because of even what we see in this story and so many others of God's pursuit of people despite, what they've done and despite their brokenness. So I know that that hit me remembering and thinking about the fact that I've interacted with people that, just believe that about themselves, and it's not true.
So What do you think do you think we do anything as, like, followers of Jesus that contributes to that sentiment in people? Like, as the church or as Christians? Yeah. I think because that's really interesting. I think the I mean, big c church, right, I I think has there can be a reputation or, assumptions made for sure about, I mean, well, just people being hypocrites.
Right? People not living out what they believe or sometimes seeing the end Christians the worst, you know, but and not realizing that again, yeah, Christians can sin and they have their own brokenness and our God is a God of grace and it's about him. It's not about any one person. So there's a lot in there. Yeah.
I I don't know individually. I think I hope that we're extending Yeah. The gospel in a way that is compelling and is true. But Yeah. I think when I it was interesting when I thought about the question you asked about the velvet initially.
You know, personally I've never struggled with the I'm not good enough for God to extend His promise. But I have no problem thinking that other people are not good enough. You know, I just when I was hearing the sermon, that's what came to mind for me. And then, you know, just thinking about I'm much less likely to view myself negatively as I am others. And maybe not I wouldn't never say I would never say to somebody's face, I don't think you're redeemable.
But I definitely will act like it and Well, and what about the Christian that couldn't really make sense of the velvet because they don't think they really Yeah. Have any have sinned, have brokenness. My velvet's like gray. Well, I think, that's the other ditch, you know, to your question. You know, we could fall into the ditch of hypocrisy.
People could see that and say they're just like us. The other ditch you could fall into is not, really just being honest with yourself and then honest with others. The church is not a place of cleaned up, pretty people. It is a gathering of broken people. The only difference is we've placed our trust in Jesus.
That's the only difference. And so to the extent that we we either believe that we are clean, pretty people, or we hold that out, especially to non Christians Mhmm. Then they're gonna believe that they need to jump a gap just to walk in the door. Yeah. And nothing could be further from the truth.
Right. Right. Right. Yeah. I was thinking to Jimmy's question.
How do we maybe contribute to that? I think by trying to curate a picture of ourselves that being a Christian means Yeah. You have it all together. Mhmm. Yeah.
That's such a good idea. The expectation that somebody might say, well, I'm not that, so, therefore, I guess, I can't follow this Jesus path. To get there. And then Right. I can't And then maybe a levity.
Fix myself and clean up. Yeah. Those are all good things. I mean, to think about and to kind of kind of just look inside and identify, man, where am I contributing to that? Or how can I do a better job with the people that I live out, life around me?
Yeah. I'm curious too. This, you know, this week really ultimately was about our own unfaithfulness to God, which is hard. I think that's hard to think about going like, wait a minute. Am I you know, we've been talking about our own brokenness.
But what does that look like for you? Where do you see this play out in your life? You know, I I was trying to think through this myself. A couple weeks ago, we talked a lot about outcome engineering and connected to the story about how much we will try and manipulate things out of kind of a disbelief that god is trustworthy. I think that's one way, for me that I I could so that's one.
I could go on and share others, but maybe let me just put that out to you. What do you think when you think of your own unfaithfulness to God? Where do you see that play out or lived out? Yeah. I think one of the patterns I've identified in my own life is that, my pursuit of God is directly proportional to how pleased I am with the results he's giving me in my life.
And so, as if I have, you know, I've just found that like my this is my journal will try it's a digital journal that I type in so I can see when I've had entries and when I've had nots and not not had had entries. And I can see that during times where I'm displeased with my life circumstances, I've got less journal entries. I'm like, well, if you're not gonna help me then I'm not gonna talk you. And I can imagine God's just like, yeah, okay. That Yeah.
That's dumb. Well, I a little bit similar to this, I think the other thing that really stood out to me was that I termed it as complacency. Mhmm. So I know, you know, Jimmy, we were just talking about working out and things like that. There are areas of my life that I know I'm I'm not complacent because I'm I'm passionate about I'm never gonna be complacent with work.
I I enjoy it. I like it. I'm always wanting to grow in that area. There's other areas like that. When it comes to my my pursuit of my relationship with god who has gone so far, such amazing lengths to do what he has done for me, and yet there's times that, again, I whether I'm just not spending time with him, I'm not prioritizing that and going, oh, man.
How do I stay consistent in other areas of my life and yet could fall short there? And so yeah. That's it. My mind unfaithfulness is much more similar to Sarah's unfaithfulness where it's like, you're not gonna give me what I think you should give me. I'm gonna take matters into my own hand.
I don't need you. That's how mine shows up. Yeah. I think, there's a big picture level in my life kind of looking back and then maybe, I'm more present. So, big picture.
I remember and resonated with this during the sermon, as a new follower of Jesus, so who started following Jesus as a 16 year old, not raised in a home where we went to church. I was in a relationship with a girl sleeping with my girlfriend when that happened. There were a lot of things that as I began to follow Jesus came into place pretty quickly. Yeah. That aspect of my life was not one of those.
And so the couple years of my relationship with Jesus was marked by failure, you know, trying to do this and then falling short and then trying again. And then and I remember late a few years into my relationship with Jesus talking with a girl I just started dating and talking to her about this. I remember sitting on a dock, just I can remember being there. And I was just saying, I just feel like my hands are dirty, and I just can't this is the thing that I can't get off. Like, this is like a scene.
And I think in that moment, I was really wrestling with this idea of, okay. This is this is blackness, darkness, all of it, like, that I can't get rid of. Like, god and god wouldn't wouldn't want me. You can't shake this. Yeah.
And so but it was a sense that I need to fix that in order for god to want me instead of that being the backdrop in which the gospel is actually most clearly on display. So that was kind of this past unfaithfulness and failure that prevented me. I was thinking in a small way as in my life now. This morning, my son asked me if I wanted to play a game with him and before we were coming to the podcast, and there was, like, a, I I don't know if I have time for for that. I don't know if I really want to.
And so I just think that there are a lot of really small moments where still, like, my selfishness Yeah. Like, I know that God has called me to love my family, to give my time away, to not prioritize my preferences and what I want. And I was like, you know, maybe this morning I got it right and I played, you know, a round of whatever this game was with him. But so many times, I've just chosen myself and Sure. You know, failed in that moment and been unfaithful to that.
So, you know, it's in really big ways, but sometimes in really small ways. Like, I have been unfaithful, and I am continuing in that. But I think those are the places where I think, you know, like Zach said, God shows his love for us in this, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, which is Romans five eight. And that's those moments where I stop and I say, man, you love me even when I'm a selfish father, even when fill in the blank. So Yeah.
I think there are any number of moments where, I will just chase something that's not that's not God and just say you're not enough. It's, I think questioning his sufficiency, right, in the way that I define it. So give me the things that that I want on my terms, and then I'll know that you're good and that you're capable and that you care and all those things. I think the specific example for me, is when, when Jamie and I, we we, struggled with infertility. Yeah.
So, you know, we've built our family through adoption. That was a journey. Excuse me. That was a journey. It took years for for us, really, for me to reckon with.
But I remember the the moment, that that God really just hit me right between the eyes with my unfaithfulness. I was in the living room of the house we were renting at the time. I just had another fight with Jamie, which really consisted of me weirdly blaming her for us not having kids and blaming everybody else. And even in some ways, even blaming myself. If my dad was broken, maybe I'm broken.
We'll never have kids. And, I just had this mental image of me in the in the throne room of God throwing a temper tantrum, which is a lot. That is me in a nutshell. A little kid throwing a temper tantrum, and And I'm saying, I want this. I want this.
I want family. I I want this kind of family this way now. And what are you doing, God? And God was just saying, I've given you Jesus. And in that moment, really, what I was saying was and this is what what really struck me in that moment.
I was saying, I don't care, actually. Yeah. Thank you very much. Now step aside. Enough.
Yeah. Give me my family. And he's saying, I've given you Jesus. He's enough. And there are these almost these just, like, not mental reps.
It was almost just, like, spiritual reps in that moment, and I'll never forget it because it was one of the most poignant moments in my life where I could just feel God saying, I I am enough. Yeah. And that really marked the beginning, yes, of our adoption journey, but just such an incredible moment of of spiritual growth. Just say, hey. Do do you trust me?
I I'm enough. I'm enough. So that yeah. That's great. Well, and I think I'm just reminded in all of these stories of what we're sharing that it is about God.
I mean, you start by saying it's not about us and the work he has done Mhmm. And is completed in him. So Yeah. No. Thanks for that.
Real quickly, if there are a couple of challenges that we would wanna extend to people listening this week out of the sermon to say, okay. Practically, how can I live out this week and what I've heard? We don't all have to share them, but, anything that stood out that is a way we can challenge each other, ourselves, and the listeners. Yeah. Connecting back to the main takeaway as I was hearing it's not about us, I just had a mental picture of, like, how I would challenge, Good Will Hunting and a really iconic scene in that where Matt Damon's character and Robin Williams' character are back and and Robin Williams' character will say, it's not your fault.
And then Matt Damon's character says, I know. And he's like and he looks him deeper in the eyes, and he's like, it's not your fault. And he says, I know. And they go through the cycle, like, ten, fifteen times before you see it sink in. Yeah.
And I met Damon. And I I was just thinking about that with the message of it's not about us. Yeah. And, you know, there's a lot of us, our instinct is to be like, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I know it's not. It's about Jesus and what he's done. It's not about us. It's like, and just hear like, hearing that.
And so I think the challenge and the takeaway would be, reminding yourself with intentionality and consistency and repetition that it's not about you. It's about Jesus. However broken you've been, it's not about you. Like, however good you think you are. It's not about you.
It's not about you. It's great. So No. I think I would just say that if you're listening to this and there is, just any part of you that doubts that God is bigger than your brokenness or the brokenness that you live in or that you've experienced, that's not true. That is a lie.
It is a lie. And just to encourage you in the truth of who Jesus is and in his life and his death and his resurrection, the promise that he has made and kept is bigger than anything, Anything. There is no exception, there is no too much, there is no too dirty, there is no too ugly. And that's what I would hope people would really hold on to. Yeah, I would I would add to that.
If you are somebody who maybe views yourself in a relationship with God similar to how I described earlier for myself and thinking maybe I'm not that bad, maybe my velvet isn't as dark as the other velvet, just to, find ways to cultivate a sense of your own brokenness, but never separate that from the grace that God has extended. But but you need to do that. You need to find ways to cultivate a sense of your own brokenness Good. And let that point you back to Jesus. That's good.
Well, thank you guys. I know this is a conversation that helped me a lot. So Thank you, Stacey. Thank you, Jamie. Thanks guys for sitting down and taking the time to talk about it.
Thanks so much for tuning in this week to Beyond the Message. Before you leave, don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss out on next week's episode. And all week long, we have content for you. So from our CCC app to our YouTube channel, to our website, check it out to find more content to help you grow where you are. Until next time.
We'll see you then.