Speaker 1: 0:01

Hello and welcome to the InRest podcast with Noah James Wiebe. I'm your host, noah, and today we are going to be talking about regret and the adverse, which is fulfillment. So let's talk about that. So I'm really glad you're joining me today, because this is actually a super important topic. Today I'm in my church, or in one of my churches that's a weird thing to say. Anyway, I'm in a church where I work as a kids, youth and family pastor. We're just in the sanctuary. We just finished a vacation Bible school program and it's pretty awesome.

Speaker 1: 0:38

One of the things I love about vacation Bible school is the opportunity to see not just yourself but other people shine in their gifts and to do exactly what they feel is the best thing for them to do, according to their spiritual gifts, their aptitudes, their passions the thing that gives them the most zeal. The thing that I find challenging about Vacation Bible School is when it's over and everyone's exhausted and when you look back on some of the stuff you had missed opportunities for, you know. So I debriefed with my co-director and we kind of talked about some of the different ideas we could have done, not just for the Vacation Bible School but also for the other summer ministries that we did and one of the problems with looking back too much on stuff. Although debrief is super helpful, kind of like the practice of examine, which we've talked about before, if you haven't listened to the podcast episode in which we talked about examine, go back and listen to that one. It's a really good episode, for sure.

Speaker 1: 1:37

However, the problem with debriefing, or constantly ruminating, maybe on missed opportunities, missed options, missed roads that you could have taken, is that regret begins to pile up as you ruminate. Regret piles up as you ruminate, ruminate or rumination is when you constantly mull over the same problem over and over and over again. Rumination usually is referred to in the context of something negative, so in depression. If you know someone who has obsessive-compulsive disorder, the word rumination is going to come up. If you've ever listened to NF, the Christian guy who happens to be a rapper, you would hear in his music his meditations on ruminations. And the problem with rumination is that it appears reasonable on the outset, but the more that you engage and really indulge yourself in rumination, you begin to experience regret with compounding degrees of severity as a result of just constantly investing your thought life into that.

Speaker 1: 2:59

We're actually going to look at something from the book of Colossians. It's in Colossians, chapter 4. Paul has written a letter to some pretty intelligent people who they've got some issues and you know they've got conflicts between different people. You know the Bible doesn't spill the tea completely on what is specifically going on, but we do get the impression that there is something that Paul has addressed with some of his friends. In addition, there's someone that really does his ministry well in that particular community that Paul acknowledges, and then another guy who he speaks to and it kind of seems like maybe he's challenging him or maybe just encouraging him, and it's kind of open-ended. We don't really know what is really being said specifically to this guy. We don't know fully the situation. We just know that Paul starts talking to this dude and says, hey, do your job. And we don't know fully what he means. But we do know is that this is actually a helpful passage for helping us understand this tension between regret and, you know, fulfillment, this tension between living in our best, living in our gifts, living in those things that we're truly passionate about, and living in such a way in which we experience regret down the road. So let's look at it.

Speaker 1: 4:19

So, colossians, chapter 4, paul has just written one of the most fire letters that he's ever written. It's thick with theological nuance. It addresses some apologetical concerns where Paul starts talking about you know, hey, don't get lost in really weird stuff that has nothing to do with Jesus and specifically, don't listen to people who try to deceive you about Jesus and twist your knowledge of him. You know, continue to live your lives in Jesus, rooted and built up in faith, yada, yada. He says some pretty amazing things about Jesus. Specifically that in chapter one sort of sets the tone for the rest of the book and it's a really good read. I'd encourage you to go from chapter one to four and just listen to the whole thing in one sitting to get a more, you know, get a more clear picture of what Paul is trying to get across in this letter to his friends in Colossae.

Speaker 1: 5:16

But in chapter four he's tying up loose ends. He's finishing up his letter to his homies, and this is what he says. He says up loose ends. He's finishing up his letter to his homies, and this is what he says. He says devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it, with an attitude of thanksgiving, praying at the same time for us as well, that God will open up to us a door for the word, so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ, for which I have also been imprisoned, that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak. Conduct yourselves with wisdom towards outsiders, making the most of the opportunity. Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person. So just to pause there and say Paul is talking about some really important applications to what he's already written, and one of those applications is prayer, an attitude of thanksgiving and godly conduct in the context of gospel proclamation and day-to-day conversation day-to-day conversation.

Speaker 1: 6:29

With that, he gets into some specific stuff to the people there. So let's dial in. As to all my affairs, tychicus, our beloved brother and faithful servant and fellow bond servant in the Lord, will bring you information, for I have sent him to you for this very purpose that you may know about our circumstances and that he may encourage your hearts, and with him, onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of your number. They will inform you about the whole situation here. Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, sends you his greetings, and also Barnabas's cousin, mark, about whom you received instructions. If he comes to you, welcome him, and also Jesus, who is called Justice. These are the only fellow workers for the kingdom of God who are from the circumcision, and they proved an encouragement to me.

Speaker 1: 7:14

Epaphras, who is one of your number, a bond slave of Jesus Christ, sends you his greetings, always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers that you may stand perfect and fully assured in the will of God, for I testify for him that he has a deep concern for you and those who are in. So he had already mentioned like conduct yourselves with wisdom, make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be seasoned with salt. And then he starts jumping into all these people that we have no context for. And then he starts jumping into all these people that we have no context for other than Paul's work in ministry and his personal relationships with them as it pertains to this particular group here in Colossae. So Paul starts talking about Tychicus, who is this awesome man, who's a faithful servant and fellow bondservant in the Lord, meaning like he is an amazing guy. We love this guy, tychicus. Okay, and he's. I just wanted to let you guys know he's on his way with a message, just to give you a whole rundown as to what we're going through. So maybe Tychicus was actually taking this letter with him or he had been told afterward to come and by then this letter had already been sent. We're not sure. What we do know is that Tychicus is pretty cool. We also know that Onesimus is also pretty cool, who has gone along with Tychicus, kind of to be his you know, his travel buddy as he gets to where he's going.

Speaker 1: 8:39

Aristarchus, barnabas, or Barnabas's cousin, rather named Mark Barnabas, or Barnabas's cousin, rather named Mark Jesus, who's called Justice, and Epaphras Bunch of guys that he lists. Basically just saying, these dudes are super huge encouragements to me and I'm very, very grateful for them. I'm very grateful for what they're doing. I'm very grateful for how they've impacted me and encouraged me and been a helper to me in the work of the gospel and the work of spreading the kingdom of God, which is awesome. So these dudes, they all did a really, really great job.

Speaker 1: 9:08

But the guy we want to zero in on here right now is Epaphras, who is one of their number, okay, so a guy who has come up out of this community. He's been launched out into ministry somewhere else and now he's coming back and he says that he's sending you greetings from where they're at and that he's always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers that you may stand perfect and fully assured in the will of God. So take a look at that, okay. So there's these guys who are doing an amazing job, who are just working really hard for the ministry, that are obeying God's call in their life, they're saying yes to Jesus. That are just amazing, you know. They're just doing an amazing job and they're not giving up and they're sticking out, sticking it out with Paul, even though it's difficult, and they're traveling with him and all this stuff, and they're just providing for him.

Speaker 1: 9:50

Right now Paul is in prison. I'm understanding, and so in this moment, okay, we see all these dudes who are just fulfilling what God's laid on their heart to do. They're fulfilling their purpose, they're acting in a way that's consistent with godly character. They're doing the things that God needs them to do to support Paul in his ministry, as well as honor God's call in their own life. So pay attention to that as he moves into this prayer, because he says this guy, epaphras, who you know, he is praying for you all the time, literally laboring earnestly for you in prayer.

Speaker 1: 10:23

So I have no idea what this guy is doing specifically to labor earnestly, other than just spending extra time praying for these people in Colossae, which is something to say. Maybe we should pray more often and labor more earnestly for each other. But why is he doing that? Well, the why is that he's doing it so that you, the Colossians, may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God. Stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God.

Speaker 1: 10:49

So what is he praying for? He's praying for them not to be perfect from the flawless perspective, because that's not attainable, and the Bible never calls you to be flawless. Okay, but what the Bible does call us to do, what Jesus is leading us to do, is actually to be fully mature and to be well-rounded in the way that we approach love and to be fully surrendered to God as well. And that's how we attain to what we would actually call Christian perfection, which is not actually flawlessness, it's perfection in the sense of just a whole, complete surrendering right and living accordingly. And so Paul goes on and, as he continues, he says I have testified for him that he has a deep concern for accordingly.

Speaker 1: 11:25

And so Paul goes on and, as he continues. He says I have testified for him that he has a deep concern for you, and so there's a sense of a way that God loves him and he loves, and this man now loves these people and, as a result of this love, this whole cycle of love is being complete by him praying that they be complete in their love, and so on and so forth. And so this cycle of love that God wants to bring about is only possible or I shouldn't say only possible, but I should say it's attainable through our obedience to him in fulfilling what God's called us to do, because there's a real urgency for us to do that. And God does not force us to do the right thing, but he does call us and plead with us to say and do and live in accordance with his word, just to say what is right and do what is what he's called us to do, all that stuff. So he goes on Luke, the beloved physician, and also Demas, or Demas. He goes on to say Nympha and the church that is in her house, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1: 12:26

And then he says this last thing at the end, and he says this say to Archippus, take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord that you may fulfill it. Take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord that you may fulfill it. This is a really short episode and this is why that you may fulfill it. This is a really short episode and this is why God's call on your life is not going to be fulfilled without your cooperation. God's call on your life is not going to be fulfilled without your cooperation, and is God going to do a lot of amazing things through you. Is he going to bless people without you even realizing it? Is he going to fulfill his purpose in and through your life? Is he going to superintend the circumstances and the minuscule details of you and your circumstances and your choices to work out for his, for your ultimate good and his ultimate well, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 1: 13:13

But God's call on your life is not going to be fulfilled outside of your cooperation. He's not going to force you to obey his word. He's not going to force you to pray. He's not going to force you to, as Epaphras did, labor earnestly in the Lord for others. He's not going to force you to have conversations that are, as Paul said, salted with grace, right Meaning like they're constantly full of favor and kindness and goodness and like just love, really Like. But God's not going to force you to do that. God's not going to force you to conduct yourself in a way that's consistent with his word and with the kingdom of God. So how are you going to cooperate with God's call in your life? Because Paul's very urgent thing, in contrast to all of these very faithful people and not there's nothing with a, there's no scolding here.

Speaker 1: 14:10

I don't feel that I don't get a sense of that in the tone of what Paul is writing, but what I do get is that, hey, just mention to Archippus okay, take heed to the ministry which you've received in the Lord, that you may fulfill it. So what do you mean? Take heed, pay attention, you know, listen to the call. Well, he might be thinking about the Hebrew word shema, which is to hear, but it's also to listen in action, right? So if you were to speak to a child and say, hey, excuse me, could you please pass me your bowl of cereal so that I can, you know, give you a refill, or something like that, if that child is listening to you, it's not just that he's hearing what you're saying or she's hearing what you're saying. It's that that child is like, oh yeah, sure, here's my bowl of cereal and then I'll follow through. Same thing with God, with us. You know, if God's calling you to do something and you're like, hey, no problem, let's do it, that means you're listening, because that would be the action that you're taking as a result of him speaking to you. That would be the Hebrew word shema.

Speaker 1: 15:04

I have kids I've got four kids and they don't all listen well and they don't all listen well all the time. Even the ones that do listen well don't always listen well, and that can be very frustrating for me as a dad, because sometimes I need something done a certain way, but other times it's just because I actually need them to cooperate so that I can bless them, so that I can give them a really special treat, or maybe I need to keep them safe from something. And so sometimes we think about us fulfilling God's call in our life and we get into the ruminations of all the times where we weren't listening. And I do this all the time. I was doing it.

Speaker 1: 15:37

Today, I'm thinking about you know the way that I spent my time a few months ago. I'm thinking about the mistakes that I made three years ago in a different job. I'm thinking about some of the things that I've said to people that I wish I didn't, and some of the things I did in situations in which something else was needed, and I would totally go back and undo them if I could. And I've literally said out loud God, I wish I could go back, I wish I could go back, I wish I could go back, I wish I could go back, but you can't. Regardless of the fact that you can't, you think that that's reasonable to keep thinking that, but it's not. And the reason why it's not reasonable is because it's not attainable.

Speaker 1: 16:18

Right Like God doesn't call you to be perfect, meaning flawless. What he's calling you to is full maturity, flawless. What he's calling you to is full maturity. Grow up, live into the form in which God has made you you know, live into who he's called you to be and listen to him in that right.

Speaker 1: 16:30

And so I ruminate. And what happens? Well, the more that I ruminate on this or that problem, this or that mistake, this or that issue that I should have done better, should have done different, should have said, should have not said, I begin to pile up regrets in my mind and I begin to think that really, god's looking to condemn me. What God is actually doing is he's not punishing you for making the wrong decision. God is not punishing you for making the wrong decision, even if it was like blatantly horrible and, a lot of times, god's punishment in our life.

Speaker 1: 17:05

We misunderstand that God's punishment has been laid on Jesus' cross, like Jesus died for us so that the punishment that we should have endured as a result of our sin would be laid on him instead. That's why God sent Jesus, part of the reason that he sent Jesus and because of Jesus' resurrection, we get to live in a way that Jesus does and we get to live in God's love, his perfect love. And, by the way, that word perfect, for God's perfect love, does not even mean flawless, although God's perfect love is flawless, it's full, it's well-rounded and it wants to be fully fulfilled in your life. God's love, and it wants to be fully fulfilled in your life, god's love being fulfilled in your life does not look like you trying to measure up to a godly standard as a result of oh well, god's punishing me, right as a result of condemnation, as a result of feeling guilty or ashamed. God doesn't want you to build your life on shame. God wants you to build your life on his love. God doesn't want you to build your life on guilt. God already paid the price for your guilt. God doesn't want you to build your life on fear. God already put Jesus on the cross and condemned your fear and has given you the power by his Holy Spirit to put to death those bad choices that you make, so that, as it says in Romans 8, you will live, really live, live well, live fully in the Spirit and live in accordance with your identity as a son or daughter of God through Jesus. God's intent is not to make you suffer as punishment for your wrong choices, but our wrong choices often lead us into circumstances that otherwise could have been prevented if we had obeyed. But God doesn't want us to ruminate on that. God doesn't want us to get stuck on those circumstances. God doesn't want us to get stuck on those things.

Speaker 1: 18:54

There's a guy named Oswald Chambers. I quote him a lot. Sorry, not sorry. Oswald wrote in my most for his highest our circumstances are not our responsibility. Our responsibility is what we're going to do in our circumstances. I'm paraphrasing there in the second half, because what Oswald is trying to get across. What Chambers is trying to say is that we can't control even look, we can't control how our choices impact us. We can't control that. You know. Sometimes you might make a bad choice and the consequences are minimal. And sometimes you might make a greater or lesser bad choice and the consequences are greater or lesser. You're not able, you're not able to control your circumstances that you're presently in, in this moment. You can't. Two weeks ago, you could have made choices that would have resulted in different circumstances, but even those choices, you wouldn't have known what kind of circumstances you would be in today had you made them, had you made those good choices. Consequently, the choices that you think you're going to make tomorrow are not going to impact you right now. That's tomorrow. So the only thing that you have to do is focus on what you need to do today, what you need to do now. Okay, yes, that happened. I made that choice. Here's the circumstances that I'm in. What am I going to do? What am I going to do?

Speaker 1: 20:11

And us listening to God is not about us avoiding punishment as much as it is living in his perfect will, which is what Epaphras is preaching and praying. I shouldn't say preaching but praying, when he says, when Paul says, epaphras sends you his greetings, always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers that you may stand perfect and fully assured in the will of God. So, fully fulfilled, essentially right and fully assured, have confidence that you're in God's will, right and you're like well. How can anybody have confidence that we're in his will? Obviously, that's a much bigger question and we can address it in another episode. But what I want to land on today is that for you to get out of this cycle of rumination and regret, you need to step out of that and step into action. Step into. Okay, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? Yes, that's true, that's the truth. What am I going to do?

Speaker 1: 21:02

My mother-in-law recently said to me there's two truths. Okay, there can be two truths. You know, maybe you're evaluating your background and you're evaluating, you know, the choice of car you drove, or the person you married, or the career you ended up following that career path and you can say that career path was good or it was bad. Maybe you can say that career path or that car was a bad choice, but it also met my needs right. So you got a job and it paid your wages and you paid your bills to provide for your family or yourself, and that worked out great. That's a truth. But it also was a bad job and you probably shouldn't have done it, because it impacted you and your mental health in a way that probably wasn't good. You made a choice on a car that was way too expensive and impacted your finances later, but it was more reliable and got you to where you needed to go, right. So two truths at the same time. It was a bad choice and it had good consequences, right, or had you know? There's good and bad about it, right? So, okay, that's great. So there's two truths.

Speaker 1: 22:00

Okay, yeah, so you made a mistake. There's your rumination. There's your temptation to get stuck in the indulgence of misery. Okay, indulging in misery is very easy to do. It's easy to get stuck, going back to rumination. So here you go. That's a wrong choice. What are you going to do about it? Well, okay, I can make a different choice today. This choice doesn't define who I am, because if you're a child of God, like if you've put your faith in Jesus, you're a different person now. So you're dead to your trespasses and sins. You're dead to them. So, yeah, you made a choice that was bad, but that was a dead choice. That happened and I don't have to go backwards. I don't have to get stuck in that choice.

Speaker 1: 22:38

What the enemy does with regret is keep us stuck. What the enemy does with regret is keep us rooted in the situation that we had before. Keep us rooted in the same habits, problems, thought processes, paradigms, if you will, and rutted so the enemy wants to use your rumination and regret to keep you rooted and rutted. Rutted isn't. I don't even know if rutted so the enemy wants to use your rumination and regret to keep you rooted and rutted. Rutted isn't. I don't even know if rutted is actually a word, but I know a rut right is like when you drive over something or walk over something many times, over and over and over again, and you get stuck in that pattern because it's so easy to be there and you know wheel carts. Back in the day, you know when you would have a horse and buggy, the wheel of your cart would get stuck in those ruts and it could actually break the wheel, depending on how you know how deep it was or whether or not your horse decided to go a different direction or whatever.

Speaker 1: 23:33

We have this problem more expressed in like potholes, right? So there's driving on the same stretch of road over and over and over again a pothole develops. Next thing you know your car, just kind of you know, maybe it's in a rainstorm, maybe it's just you know, maybe in the middle of the night or whatever, you're driving along a road that's like deeply rutted, even in the asphalt it's like deeply rutted. Next thing you know you've hit a pothole and you didn't even know where it came from. It's just there, right? So we get stuck in a rut and we get broken as a result.

Speaker 1: 24:03

And so Satan's results out of you being rooted and rutted in your problems and mistakes, your habits, your bad, sinful actions, through the rumination and regret that you keep going back to the result that he wants from that is your brokenness. Let me say that again because I said a lot of R words, okay. So the result that Satan wants to get out of you being rooted and rutted in your regrets through rumination and reflection on negative things, is your brokenness. He wants to break you and if you're already broken, he wants to keep breaking you even more. He wants to break you and if you're already broken, he wants to keep breaking you even more.

Speaker 1: 24:43

He wants to create anxiety in you, which the Bible says you know cast all your anxieties on the Lord, because he cares for you. But the word anxiety literally means pieces, so he wants to keep you broken. He wants to keep you crushed or depressed and he wants to keep your mind in pieces. He wants to keep your life in pieces. He wants to make your life anxiety instead of peace.

Speaker 1: 25:06

Jesus' intent is to get you out of all that and into rest and restoration, and he's going to do that by letting you rest on the promises of God in the cross, the promises of God in the three words that Jesus said on the cross, which is it is finished. The work that Jesus came to do, that he lived his whole life to do, it is finished. He didn't come to the cross so that you could go backwards. He came to the cross so that you could walk with God. So what does this have to do with calling? What does any of this have to do with fulfilling our call?

Speaker 1: 25:37

Well, it's impossible to fulfill your call, which is forward moving. You know, like God is never going to tell you hey, let's go back to the past and pretend that you're the person that you were two years ago. Like God's not going to do that. Like, sometimes, like God will put us into situations that are from our past in order to teach us something, to return us to something, in order to maybe communicate something about that space, that place or that past experience, in order for us to move forward and grow. But the intent is always to move forward and grow. Like God doesn't have any intention of this world in which we live ever going backwards in time, and even the Garden of Eden. Like, yes, god does want us to go back, in a manner of speaking.

Speaker 1: 26:19

But like, every time you look at the Bible and it looks at, you know, the renewal of all things, what it's talking about is a Greek word, which is perigenesis, which is literally genesis again, genesis again. But like he's not going backwards in time, he's going forwards and making the beginning again. He's making a new beginning and the glimpse that we have of that in our lived experience is this new beginning that we have when we're born again as followers of Jesus. We put our faith in Christ and the Holy Spirit washes us of all our sin, washes us of whoever we were before, claims us and names us with a new name, a new identity, and then launches us, and it's always forward, moving, always forward, moving. When God finishes this part of the story and we get to the point where Jesus has returned, there's never going to be a time again where Jesus goes back to heaven somewhere and then leaves us alone and he's never left us alone. He sent the Holy Spirit to be with us, right? But there's never going to be a situation again, after Jesus returns, where we're going to have to go back to living the way we are now. That's the overall narrative of history. Now in your life, this expresses, or this is expressed and this is lived out in you moving forward based on the promises of God, based on what he's done, based on the it is finished work of Jesus.

Speaker 1: 27:43

There's a work, or there's a Greek word, another Greek word that Jesus uses when he's on the cross. Okay, that is the Greek word that we're talking about. Like the three words that Jesus said on the cross is actually one word, and it's tetelestai, tetelestai, which sounds like you know that thing you get in your eyeball when it's just like it's really uncomfortable and you just want to keep rubbing it because you think there's something in your eye but it's not. There's something in your eyelid and it's like pressing on your eyeball, that thing. You know. It kind of sounds like the word stye, like it's like a super stye, like it's like an infected stye or something that's like all big and bulged out or something like that, or like you know, I don't know. But that's not what it is. Tetelestai, okay, tetelestai, okay. Tetelestai is when the debt is paid, the thing is done, this debt is covered. That's what it means, tetelestai. It means it is finished, it's over, okay.

Speaker 1: 28:32

So in John, chapter 19, jesus dies on the cross. He says it is finished, tetelestai, and passes away, releases his spirit and then is later laid in a tomb. So why is that relevant to the pursuing of our call? Well, it's like hello Jesus' work is done, which means that the only thing left for you to do is to continue living in the truth of what he's accomplished for you on the cross, making your whole life about him and moving forward in the call to which he has given you, the call to which he has given you, the call to which he has given you. That's what you do now. Okay, because that other stuff is done Like you're like.

Speaker 1: 29:07

Oh my gosh, lord, look at all these sins from my past. I wish I did something different when I was, you know, seven years old. I wish I made a different choice when I was 18. I wish I went to a different college when I was 22. Blah, blah't, uh, marry this other guy. I wish I didn't. Um, I wish I didn't choose this career. I wish I didn't. I wish I didn't neglect to visit my family member when they were passing away in the hospital and I thought I had more time. I wish I had. I wish I didn't. I wish this would not have happened.

Speaker 1: 29:49

My friend, with regards to your sin, it is finished. And with regards to your sorrow and suffering, you have a bright hope and a future. God works all things out for the good in the present moment. Ultimately, all things will work out for you. If you continue to put your heart and set your heart on the Lord. All the other stuff that you're worried about is going to come to pass or it's going to come to a favorable result in your life. That doesn't mean that some of the things that we, that we deeply hope for, are all going to be accomplished. What we do know is that the core hope that we have as followers of Jesus is going to be fulfilled.

Speaker 1: 30:33

A hope deferred makes the heart sick. So you might be going through some heart sickness right now because you hoped that you would have made a different choice and it didn't happen. Now your hope has been deferred and your heart is sick. Well, god wants to meet you in that sickness and he wants to bring you back to moving forward in your call. He wants to get you out of being rutted and rooted in rumination and regret, so that the enemy cannot get you into the result of brokenness again or keeping you in brokenness. God has a plan to help you repent and return and be restored, and ultimately, those of us who follow Jesus will all be restored. Nothing will be wasted and everything will be made right, and for most of our mistakes they're redeemable. Most of our mistakes they're redeemable. Most of our mistakes are redeemable. So God is not outside of the realm of possibility here when he's saying hey, take heed, pay attention, listen to the call that I have for you. So I started off on part of that, because I was talking about the fact that God doesn't intend to punish you for all your mistakes. The consequences that you're living in today, whether or not he removes you from them, is not the point. The point is what you're going to do right now.

Speaker 1: 31:57

I love a quote in the Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship of the Ring. I'm not sure if it actually makes it in the book, but in the film Frodo is played by Elijah Wood and Frodo looks to Gandalf and he is, you know, talking about another character, and the phrase that he uses is I wish this other character had been put out of his misery. It's a pity that he had not been killed Now. This character was evil and chaotic and caused problems and was a creepy little thing called Gollum. And then Gandalf, this wise other character, speaks to Frodo and says pity, that is what stayed Bilbo's hand, the man who had the chance to kill him. And then he goes on to say hey, don't be so quick to dole out death and judgment.

Speaker 1: 32:53

Many people who live deserve death. Many people who die deserve life. Will you give it to them, frodo? And then they go on in their conversation and they're sort of reflecting on the evil times, and Frodo responds to Gandalf and he says to him I wish I had never been born in this time. I wish I never had to see this happen. And then Gandalf says well, so do all who live to see such times. But that is not the choice for them to make. The only thing they can do any person could do is decide what to do with the time that's been given to them. So I botched a lot of that. Okay, let's paraphrase. But the reason why I mention it is because so many of us think that we have to live in negativity and sadness and sorrow and misery because of our past and because of the circumstances we are in as a result of the past, whether they were in our control or not. But what God wants us to do is A listen to him, listen to his call. B he wants us to be acknowledged for honoring his call.

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You notice that most of the names here are people who have honored God's call in their life, and they were acknowledged by name in a letter in which most of the people that would later go on to read it would have no idea who these people are Like, even Luke. I mean, we know that Luke wrote the Gospel of Luke, or have confidence that Luke wrote the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts and traveled with Paul and did a number of things. We don't know much about Luke's background, what happened to him. We don't know much about Demas. We don't know about Tychicus, we have no idea. These guys are unknown to us, but they're known to God and it mattered to him for the Holy Spirit to lead Paul to write them in. It's not a coincidence and it's not an accident that those guys' names got in there, because Paul has one of his core values, I think, is public acknowledgement for hard work.

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Acknowledgement because there will come a day when all of us will be acknowledged for all the good things that we do, and so it's only fitting that God's people today would rightly acknowledge those among us who work really hard. So, a. God wants you to listen and take heed to his call on your life. B. He wants you to be acknowledged for honoring his call on your life. B. He wants you to be acknowledged for honoring his call. There are days when we are alone in the call of the gospel, but there are days when we are alone in honoring Jesus. But God wants you to be acknowledged and honored for doing what's right, and you will be, even if there's going to be a long time. Maybe there is somebody that should have acknowledged you and they didn't. But God's intent in love for you is that his intent for you, out of his love for you, is that you be acknowledged for honoring his call. And finally, god wants you to earnestly pray for, advocate for and participate in others heeding their call.

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You notice that Epaphras, in almost like a crazy full circle sort of way, epaphras is acknowledged for honoring God's call in his life by prayerfully working on behalf of others so that they will fulfill their call on their life. Get that, say that 10 times fast. Epaphras is acknowledged for just praying for people to get their call fulfilled. You know what I mean. Like, epaphras is honored in this letter and by God because he's earnestly, out of concern, praying for others to be fully mature and fully assured and confident in God. That's pretty awesome.

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Finally, god wants you to be assured. God wants you to be assured that you're in his will. You know, too often we forget that God does have a will for us, like he does have an intent for us. And there's like all this talk about God's permissive will and his perfect will and yada, yada. That is sometimes helpful and sometimes it's not, but what I want to land on with this is this that is sometimes helpful and sometimes it's not, but what I want to land on with this is this God wants you to have confidence that you are in his will and that you're on the right track. God wants you to know when you are on the right track, and sometimes we ask questions and we're like God, I don't understand, I don't know, and sometimes what we need to do and we don't know and we're confused and we're concerned and we need to be assured and we're like Lord, help me, is wait and rest, you know. So for those of us who haven't honored God's call in our life, so A God wants you to answer the call, god wants you to listen, god wants you to hear it because he wants to bless you, he wants to keep you safe, he wants to provide for you, he wants you to say yes and move forward. For those of us who have not honored God's call in our life, we need to hear this as a call to repentance and reception.

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And repentance meaning not out of guilt and shame, only Like we should sometimes feel a little ashamed for doing wrong things. That's okay. It's okay to feel bad, like the Bible tells us that the Lord is close to the contrite in heart. So there's nothing wrong with feeling bad for doing something wrong. It's okay. But God doesn't want you to stay there. That's the idea. And so when we repent and we turn to the Lord, we do that sometimes quite emotionally, and that's totally appropriate. That's totally appropriate.

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So, regardless of why you're choosing to repent, even if you feel nothing, even if you're just acknowledging, like in your own mind, oh my gosh, I have not lived the way that God's called me to live, I'm going to do that now. You know, even if you are not particularly an emotional person, that doesn't mean that you're not going to repent. It doesn't mean you don't have to, and it doesn't mean that when you repent it doesn't count or that it's not valid. You know so. Not everybody is, you know, a particularly emotionally sensitive person. But if it's really not, if it's deeply like not affecting your heart at all, and you're feeling apathy there, pray to the Lord and ask him to help you feel the way you should feel about certain things. Lord, help me me interpret this for me. What is your word on this subject? Help me to feel the way that I'm supposed to feel about this and help me to be affected by the fact that I'm sinning. If that's what you're at, if that's what you're doing, you need to repent. So you know, repent, turn. It's not a complicated thing, it's just. It's a complex thing sometimes depending on what you're repenting of, but generally God just wants you to turn to him. You know he can sometimes take over from there or he can guide you in the next steps of what you need to do to get out of that situation, to get out of that sin even, and get out of that habitual sin.

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I want to share a story about my mom. My mom was an amazing woman, is an amazing woman and she has followed Jesus faithfully for many years. But there was a season in her life in which she did not, and God gave her a dream in which she saw something and it was this face and it vomited blood in the dream I know we're getting kind of grotesque here, but bear with me. She wakes up from the dream and in her heart she knows exactly what the dream is about. It's that she, even though she had accepted Christ, is now living as if God is not even real, and she felt mortified, just awful and terrible, that she had insulted the Lord and lived in a way that was totally counter to how he wanted her to live. That wasn't her fearing, just punishment, you know there was. There's, obviously, justice and judgment that comes to us when we continually choose not to do God's will on purpose. But that wasn't what she was going through.

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She was experiencing shame from a from an ashamed kind of perspective, and what she needed was just to turn to the Lord, and so what she did was she prayed, and at the time her boyfriend, who she was living with, was sick and she prayed for him and she said God, if you heal my boyfriend of what he's going through, I'll take that as confirmation that you're intending to call me out of this situation and I will leave him and I will go on and live the life you've called me to live. Well, what do you know? He got better, completely, cancer healed, restored, boom miracle. And my mom goes to him and she says I'm so happy that you're well, but I got to go because God has laid it on my heart that I have been living in sin and I need to repent. And I know you're going to think that I'm crazy. And that's what he said he's like you're crazy. And she said I know you think that I'm crazy, but I got to do it. So she moved on and that's how she eventually met my dad and I was born. So thank you, jesus, for healing that other guy long ago. Now here's the deal. What does that have to do with anything? That other guy long ago. Now, here's the deal. What does that have to do with anything?

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Listen to the call Repent, okay, and receive it. Sometimes it's just about receiving. It's not about necessarily repenting because you've been doing something really bad. Sometimes it's about, in the middle of your feelings of reflection and regret. Turn to the Lord and then receive from him. The Bible tells us, in returning and in rest, you shall be rescued. And then receive from him. Bible tells us, in returning and in rest, you shall be rescued and in quietness and confidence will be your strength. So, okay, cool, that means you repent. Cool, that's awesome. And then you receive. You just let God pour his love into your life. Let him do it. Let God love you the way that he wants to love you. Let him do it. Say yes, jesus, I'll do it, I'll let you love me and just let him do it. The reception also, you know. Part two is to let God acknowledge you, trust him with the timing and let him acknowledge you.

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Don't force yourself to be acknowledged, don't even try to vindicate yourself. Oswald Chambers says one of the biggest weaknesses we have in the Christian, as Christians, in the Christian life, is that we always feel the need to vindicate ourselves. To be vindicated just means to get what you finally have deserved out of all of the misunderstanding and the wrongs done to you, and to be restored from those wrongs and to have them paid back in a good way and to have justice be done to you in a good way. Sometimes we demand justice for our own account, but we miss out if we try to get revenge or try to get ourselves acknowledged for good work. So God doesn't want us to do that. God doesn't want us, in our regrets, to give in to retaliation and vindication.

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Let the Lord remove you from sinful ruminations, evil stuff, even bad choices that you made in the past or bad choices that were done to you, and put yourself in a position of reception and say, jesus, I let go of the steering wheel and I release and I want to receive, I release it, I release control and I want to receive. And also, for those of you who don't typically like to be acknowledged, you know God wants to acknowledge you because he loves you so, so much. So if you're going to let him love you, just allow him to love you. Allow him to love you in a way that's appropriate because he's going to do the best thing for you. No matter what he's going to do the best thing for you, let him love you the way that he knows you need to be acknowledged because he wants to do it, because it's a value, because you've you are valued by God, and so let them do that.

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Number three is you know, reach out, reach out in prayer to the Lord so that others can receive their fullness. Just pray God. I pray for blank, blank, blank that they would, that they would have what, that they would have full maturity in you and have full confidence that they're in your will. And let God give you that too. Pray that and ask for that right, as we say okay. Number four right, be assured. God wants you to have confidence and assurance that you're in his will. So say God, I repent, I receive, I'm reaching out to you on behalf of others and I pray that you would help me to have confidence, help me to rest in confidence, knowing that I'm in your will, in repentance and rest, right, quietness and confidence. So let him move that into you.

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That's from Isaiah, chapter 30, verse 15. I'd encourage you to read more of that, but that passage unfortunately lands, of course, because it's in the context of the people of Israel resisting the Lord. And Isaiah, chapter 30 says or chapter 30, verse 15 says those words in repenting and rest, you shall be saved or rescued, and in quietness and confidence you shall have your strength. But you would have none of it, but you would not have it. So are you going to resist God's call in your life? Are you going to hear it and not listen to it? Are you going to defy him? Or are you going to do what Paul said to Archippus, which is take heed, listen, pay attention to how God has called you and fully live it out. Fully, do what God has called you to do, fully, obey him in every way.

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That's what I want to do, and I don't want to just be a wannabe kind of guy who just wants to be this and do that I don't want to live in intentions only. I really want to be intentional, and that's what I've been challenged by lately, and I'm struggling with it because of regrets, and I'm struggling with it because of regrets and I'm struggling with it because of ruminations. You know God doesn't want me to get stuck. He doesn't want you to get stuck. So listen homie, release, release it all. Let God take control, let God take the steering wheel. He's got you and he loves you so much. Be assured and be encouraged, because God is with you in this whole journey. And I want to be an encouragement to you too.

Speaker 1: 47:00

If you follow inrestinsta on Instagram, you can see some Bible encouragements, different verses, every once in a while. I might go live, if I have the ability to do that. You can follow this Facebook or YouTube channel, depending on what you're looking at YouTube. It's a great way to connect because you can leave comments and ask questions and stuff like that, and also leave prayer requests in there too. And if you're listening to this on Spotify, thank you so much for being a listener I'd encourage you to be a listener and a viewer too. Follow the socials, get subscribed on YouTube so you don't miss a video, so you don't miss the encouragement. And finally, please, if you feel inclined, leave a like on this video, share it with somebody you think would be helpful for and if you're listening to this on Spotify or some other platform that you're getting your audio, would you please leave a five-star review, because I want people to hear what it means to be a follower of Jesus and that's what we explore on this podcast.

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I'm gonna have some amazing guests this this year and I'm really encouraged and really excited about it.

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I got pastors, I've got change managers, I've I've got coaches, I've got business leaders, you know I've got I've got non-profit CEOs that are coming up on this podcast to share and just, you know people, just ordinary people living their life. You know single moms and so on and so forth that I'm really looking forward to having on this podcast, because I want to hear their heart and I want you to hear their heart as to what it means to be a follower of Jesus in a crazy world like this one. So I hope that you can rest in Jesus' finished work for you and live well as you continue to turn to him and receive from him all that he has for you. So I say to you, just as Paul said to Archippus take heed, pay attention, listen to the call that God is giving you that you may fully fulfill it, so that you may be fully fulfilled and fully assured in the confidence that God gives you as you're in his will. I love you, jesus loves you, and I hope you have a great, great day. Peace.