Speaker 1: 0:09

Welcome and thanks for joining us on this episode of the Midweek Podcast brought to you by A Fresh Wind Church. Each week, our team brings you new content to help you take steps towards Jesus and discover more in Christ. No-transcript.

Speaker 2: 10:58

Pastor Ryan joined again with Pastor Tim and we are almost done with our joyfulful Series, week 10 out of hopefully 11. I think we're supposed to wrap this thing up next week but man, it's been just been a great series. And, tim, I thought Sunday your kind of approach, you know we've been talking a lot about joy and one of the things you said as we started the sermon on Sunday was we don't want to get through this whole series on joy and not give you kind of the roadmap, the way to actually experience joy in your life. And so you kind of tackled that on Sunday. But you also kind of made the joke like there's probably at least six other sermons I could be preaching.

Speaker 3: 11:42

Yeah, it's one of those books. It's probably for pastors, one of the most quoted sections of scripture, philippians, chapter 4, verses 3 through 8 and 9. I mean, there's so many little I mean doctrinal and practical living truths that Paul is laying out there that we don't. Well, if you read your Bible or look at sermons, you'll see people preach out of there all the time and it's practical.

Speaker 2: 12:20

It's like the greatest hits.

Speaker 3: 12:22

Right, right, philippians, the whole book is that way you know, um live life worthy of the gospel, just that saying. There's a sermon there, you know, um, work out your own salvation.

Speaker 3: 12:37

Oh, there's a sermon there. And uh, did just you know? Uh, god is at work in you. There's a sermon, I mean just in those little phrases, and we tend to look for the logos and the saying. That will kind of give us the whole thing in one shot. And I think when pastors read through Philippians, they don't get very far until they're like I'm preaching on this, I'm preaching on that, I'm preaching on this. But Philippians, chapter four, is one where I was just looking at it and I was like I see six.

Speaker 2: 13:19

I see six, and that was just in the first. What did you get to Nine?

Speaker 3: 13:23

Nine verses, I think, or ten, no less than nine, because I started in three.

Speaker 2: 13:27

Oh yeah, because I took one of your verses last week.

Speaker 3: 13:30

Yeah, and I didn't even dig into it, I was just reading along. But it's important. Sometimes, I think we how can I say this? We look at things in a way that leads us to do the worst thing you can do in the Bible is take it out of context. You know you're looking for that phrase, that thing that you want to talk about, and you find that phrase and that thing and you're like okay, that's what this verse is all about.

Speaker 3: 14:12

But when you add that verse to the verses around it, then you're like, okay, I got to slow down here and take a good look at what this means. And I think a lot of times when you're in Philippians it's easy just to grab it. I guarantee you, you open your computer and go to Philippians, chapter 4 and give me sermons in Philippians chapter 4. I don't know how many you'll get, and not just from standard Joe pastor out here, but from the guys we all admire. You know, all the way back into the 1700s. I mean, philippians was just, it's just an amazing book.

Speaker 2: 14:56

Yeah, one of the things that I think I did it in a sermon, you did it in a sermon, we've done it on the podcast, kind of throughout. This is that idea of man. We've got to really keep these things in context and it's great to kind of dive deep into some of those ideas. Like you said, live worthy of the gospel A couple weeks ago, paul, imitate me, join in, imitating me in that whole idea of living life worthy of imitation. So there's all those, yeah, those little phrases, those little words that you're like, oh, let's just sit here and talk, talk about it. But this week you know this, one of the very first. You know Philippians 4.4,. It's one of those verses everybody loves it Rejoice in the Lord always. I say it again rejoice. And you're like that's there for a reason and we put it on motivational posters and we'll. You know, we got a picture of an Eagle soaring over a mountain. We'll share it on Facebook rejoicing the Lord always. But what is it the context of that? Well, there's these two women in the church having an argument and we're like well, that's relatable and I love that.

Speaker 2: 16:04

Paul, he's addressing that. He takes time out of this letter here. It's been full of joy. There's been some hard stuff that he's brought up along the way. But then you get to chapter four and he's like hey, we need to talk about this because this thing right here is going to rob the joy that I've been hammering home. He said it's no trouble for me to talk about this again, but if we don't get this situation straightened out, it's going to rob you guys of the joy that I want you to experience. And, man, I think it's a great reminder in the church, because the church is full of people. You know, and people are hard sometimes and you think, and and people are are hard sometimes and you think, well, I don't like how that church treated me and I'm going to go to another church.

Speaker 2: 16:50

You know what's at that other church people there's more people and, and there's always going to be those, those situations, those people um that are just hard to deal with or rub you the wrong way, whatever it is, and Paul looks at these ladies and maybe whoever, we don't exactly know, you know you call them his golfing buddy. He says I want you to go back and tell these ladies guys, just get over it, Lay that thing down, Stop letting that thing come between us, rejoice, rejoice.

Speaker 3: 17:32

Yeah, I think this is the mature way of handling that.

Speaker 3: 17:35

We've said this all along the Philippians Paul sees them on par with him as brothers and sisters in Christ, brothers and sisters in the mission, brothers and sisters in support for each other, um, he sees them at a level to where he don't have to go back to, uh, matthew chapter 18 and what Jesus said you know, go to your brother and if he won't, um, give in. You know, then take two or three witnesses and then tell the church and all that kind of stuff. That is like the lowest common denominator of this is how we deal with this thing. Jesus has laid out the law for us as Christians. This is the law for you. You've got to do it like this. Paul says I don't have to do it like this with you guys. All I got to do is remind you that that's coming, you know. I just, hey, guys, knock it off or we're going to have to do this whole thing.

Speaker 3: 18:37

you know, and they're going to go, yeah and it's. And they're not going to give in because they don't want to go through the whole thing. They're going to give in because they know that their relationship is messing up the unity of the church and they need to forgive and lay those things down. Be unified you don't have to agree, but be unified. And so it's like the mature way. I love the way Paul does it. So it's like the mature way. I love the way Paul does it. He just simply said hey, you guys knock it off and I'm not going to leave it up to you. Aphroditus is going to come and make sure everything's okay. In other words, you're going to have to deal with this. You can't put it off any longer. And I like that because there's people in your church that you don't have to go. Okay, if we can't get this right, then I'm going to have to get two or three witnesses. There's people who are like I know, I know, I'm just mad, I'm going to be okay and you're like okay.

Speaker 2: 19:40

Yeah, man, I would say, is no one wants to deal with conflict, right, but when you have, well, I can't say that there's some people probably love conflict.

Speaker 3: 19:51

They just that's true.

Speaker 2: 19:53

But as a pastor, I don't love it. But when those times when you talk with people and they're like I know I'm working to, I'm going to be all right, man, that's refreshing, cause sometimes it's like no, we're going to sit here and we're going to drag this thing out and we're going to duke it out and we're going to make it as miserable for as many people as possible. When you get those people that are like I know, that was silly, okay, yeah, we're going to lay that down and move on. It is, it's refreshing. And that seems to these ladies he's like guys, hey, you know better than this, let's get over that thing.

Speaker 2: 20:29

And I think what you're saying is is important because they, they understand the mission, right, and and they're saying, man, this thing, whatever it is, and it might be important to each of them individually I mean, it was important enough that they had an argument about it, yeah, um, but they in, in spite of the mission, they said this is less important of the mission. They said this is less important than the mission. Right, We'll lay those things down.

Speaker 1: 20:50

And.

Speaker 2: 20:50

I think that's a great encouragement and reminder to us in the church to not let things get between us and the mission. God has called us to a purpose here to help people discover more in Christ. And sometimes our methods and our means might differ on how we approach that thing and you might want to do it a different way than so-and-so wants to do it. But to just say, man, you know what the mission is more important and if we're helping people discover more in Christ, I'm all in on that.

Speaker 3: 21:22

I think one of the mature way of looking at this. Paul goes on um later on in this chapter and he talks about thinking about pure things and honorable things, and that actually applies to this situation. Um, we get hurt so easy and it's so deep over silly things. I don't know why. You know, my daughter-in-law or my son-in-law wouldn't eat my cake. You know, I offered it to him three times but he wouldn't eat any of it, you know, and it's like he don't like my cake, he don't like my cooking, he don't like me. You know, and that's that's where we go and and we let those things hurt us. Um, and it's important in in the body of Christ that that you think, well, he's probably on a diet. That you think, well, he's probably on a diet. I'll take that first until I find out that he don't like my cooking. But the first thing I'm going to think is he didn't want cake, he's on a diet or he's off sugar or whatever.

Speaker 3: 22:43

So we have to be people that are looking for the honorable, looking for, um, the pure in people. That's number one we got. We got to be right away, or we're going to get hurt all the time. We're just going to get hurt all the time. That's just the way life is. So, uh, when you grow up with your sister and you've been together, you lived in the same community, you went to the same church, you're just sisters and they say something and you get mad and uh, but the next day, you know, someone comes oh, I heard you and your sister at church really going at it, and you know, are you guys okay? And you look at them like what, oh no, that's every day, that's just every day, every day. You, we just don't do it at church, we just do it every day. And uh, and that's good and that's how.

Speaker 3: 23:34

But some people, some people in the body of christ, will get hurt by that because they didn't grow up that way. And uh, they'll see it and they'll think, oh no, we got this big thing going on and uh, it's not a big thing. So we have to be careful that uh. Number one, that people don't get offended for us. And number two, uh, when we see that situation, not not to get offended for either one or pick a side or whatever. Just Just say you guys all right, just like Paul is saying here oh yeah, oh yeah, we're all right. I'm going to punch her when we get out of here. But we're good Because it's a family thing and it's really none of the church's business. But we like to get involved in everything.

Speaker 2: 24:22

But we we want to look at that situation and say um, and give everybody the benefit of the doubt yeah, it's one of the things I, when I'm doing premarital counseling with people, I walk them through a lot of paul's teaching on what it means to to be a husband and wife and in relationship and um, one of the things.

Speaker 2: 24:43

I tell them is love looks to give the other person the most like, to look for the most generous explanation for the other person's behavior. That when there's a gap in any relationship between what I expect and what I experience, love puts trust in the gap Right. A lot of us we go right to suspicion. You know your cake illustration, the perfect one. He doesn't like something about me, so he hates me.

Speaker 2: 25:11

No love says I'm going to put trust in the gap because the truth is I choose what I put in that gap. And love puts trust first. It looks for the most generous explanation for the other person's behavior. It's not looking to catch someone doing the wrong thing. Paul said it's looking's not looking to catch someone doing the wrong thing. Paul said it's looking for every opportunity to catch someone doing the right thing?

Speaker 3: 25:29

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2: 25:31

And I think if we would do that, it would and this was kind of, I think, your first point in the sermon Sunday talking about unity it would protect the unity of our relationships and of our church. And it is one of the things and again you said it Sunday if the devil, you know, thankfully the Lord is doing a lot of great things here, church is growing and a lot of exciting things happening. If the devil's going to get in here and try to screw this all up, he's going to try to make us disunified and, man, it only takes one person saying one thing. I heard you know that you're again that illustration you just brought up what's going on there?

Speaker 3: 26:09

And.

Speaker 2: 26:10

I should probably go talk to somebody about that and see if they're okay. You know and I'm not going to that person to ask cause I don't want to start another. So I'm going to go talk to this person and all of a sudden you have just started a wildfire and maybe you didn't even mean to do it. But, man, we just launched our partnership classes online. So if you haven't yet, I encourage you to sign up for the Fresh Wind Partnership course online.

Speaker 2: 26:31

One of the things I talk about in there is, as partners, we protect the unity of our church at all costs. We won't be those people who stand and put up with talking about one another. If you have something, go to that person and talk to them about it. You know, let's be the people who protect the unity of the church, because I hate to keep quoting your sermon on Sunday, but this is what Jesus said by this, the world will know that you are my disciples, you know, and so we've got to be those people.

Speaker 2: 27:00

Let's choose to believe the best, to look for the most generous explanation, to not immediately jump to suspicion when things go wrong, or when he didn't call, or when she didn't show up when she said she'd be here when they dropped the ball. Let's look for the most generous explanation. Let's protect the unity of our churches. Let's look for those things that Paul lays out that are true and admirable and right and lovely. Let's think about those things and I think, as we do, that the unity of our church, the intimacy of our fellowship, strengthens and grows, and in that I think the watching world looks and says man God is doing something over there?

Speaker 3: 27:45

Absolutely Not just to warn against gossip and all that stuff that causes division, because nobody wants to talk to the actors, they just want to talk around the actors. I think Pat and I were in a position one time he's my best friend we were arguing about something and we were arguing at church about something, and then, of course, we're going to dinner together the next night joking and whatever, and you know this whole swell thing is happening in the church, that you know who's side you're on.

Speaker 3: 28:20

You know blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I think Pat's probably right we should make da-da. Stuff is going on and pat and I didn't even know and it's like so, talking to the pat and tim's out there, the best friends who go to church together or the brothers and sisters that go to church together, watch how you treat each other in church so you don't misguide people around you. Now, I would never treat anybody the way I treat Pat. I just wouldn't. I wouldn't, he wouldn't treat anybody the way he treats me. You know we're just conscious of other people and we're going to love on him and be good to them and stuff like that. But we treat each other like trash and we probably shouldn't because it gives a bad idea of what a relationship is like.

Speaker 3: 29:14

So when you're with the church guys, you know and you want to pound on your brother because you know he's doing something that you disagree with. I'm not going to say dumb, you know he's doing something that you disagree with, I'm not gonna say dumb, but that you disagree with. Um. Take him aside like you would someone you don't know, don't throw a chair at him. That's, that's what we got to be. We got it. We got to think through that, and if your best friend is doing something that you specifically told him not to do, don't yell at them, Just say hey didn't we talk about this?

Speaker 3: 29:49

Yeah and um and they'll go. Oh, you're right.

Speaker 2: 29:52

Sorry, I've shared the story a few times.

Speaker 2: 29:54

that one of the earliest things that you had told me in ministry when we first started working together was man, whatever you say, out in front of our people, I got your back and again I was 19, 20 year old kid. Back then you know the one, just someone believing in you. You know, and having your back meant, meant the world to me. But you said now, behind closed doors, I might tell you that was the stupidest thing you could have done. Yeah, but out there in front of our people, I got you and man those things. Yeah, even when it's your buddy, and this is how you guys talk and this is how you communicate. If it's your spouse, if it's a, you know you got family in the church, a lot of us.

Speaker 3: 30:44

I was looking at the whole Persinger-Chafin clan on Sunday and I'm like my gosh, they take up like two or three rows now you know, all the coffee spills are in the two or three rows too.

Speaker 2: 30:51

Not to gossip. No, we're going to do it right out here in the open, on the podcast.

Speaker 3: 30:56

I was teasing Del about that a few months ago.

Speaker 2: 31:00

You know we got a lot of families who, and just because you know Amy and Del started attending here and now I'm thinking they're filling up the church by themselves. Just family and we do.

Speaker 2: 31:11

We treat our family, we treat our best friends, different than we treat anybody else for better or worse right, but we need to be careful about when we do that in front of the church so that we protect the unity of our body. People don't understand your relationship. People don't understand that. No, yeah, you guys are going to dinner tomorrow. You're going to have a great time. He's coming over to watch the ball game this afternoon. They don't know those things. They just saw you guys getting a heated argument about something. It's no, this is part of the reason we do partnership the way that we do and we don't vote on a lot of things. I tell people in the partnership class if you're mad about the color of the carpet, there's only one person to be mad at me. I picked it out. If you don't like it, it's my fault. We're just not going to vote on it because we have found it creates opportunity for disunity For Satan to scheme.

Speaker 2: 32:02

Yep, and so we want to protect at all cost against those things. And then you know, as you were diving into this sermon, there were so many other mini sermons in here.

Speaker 3: 32:16

I know it was crazy, it's crazy.

Speaker 2: 32:18

You get to, and you said six, but I almost think you could verse eight. You could probably do six or eight sermons just on each one of those. Right, because he begins to lay out and I think this is the key if we're going to protect the unity of our church, if we're going to be the kind of people who choose and pursue joy, because you talked about it how it's a decision, it's not just something we stumble into. I have to decide joy. Well, this is how we do it.

Speaker 2: 32:48

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any moral excellence and if there's anything praiseworthy, paul says dwell on these things. And so here's where I think we could probably have another eight weeks of sermons is defining. What is that, and you and I were joking before we got on the podcast. Today, a lot of pastors will talk about this, but we don't take time to kind of break down what each one of those are, and so I want to jump into your scratch sheet here a little bit and say so let me, let me.

Speaker 3: 33:31

What does this look like? Let me translate what Ryan just said You're going to be here for a minute, yeah.

Speaker 2: 33:40

I hope you this. Maybe mow the grass twice, yeah.

Speaker 3: 33:47

I think this, um, and we have I don't want to say secular, but a general idea of what the Bible is talking about when he says whatever is true. Oh yeah, we get that the Bible is true and what Jesus says is true. And two plus two is four and that's true.

Speaker 1: 34:17

I get it, I get it.

Speaker 3: 34:19

But what we're talking about here is a little bit bigger than that. When we're talking about the church, he's talking about conforming to the reality of the situation, and sometimes that's pretty difficult for us to say I don't know, I don't know, and that's the reality. Which way should we go? Should we let Ryan pick the carpet? We don't know. Should we let him? Now we know. No, he shouldn't pick the carpet, but we didn't know. Then we didn't know. Then we let him? Now we know no, he shouldn't pick the carpet, but we didn't know, then we didn't know, then and that was the reality.

Speaker 3: 34:59

And sometimes you've got to conform to the fact that you don't know. In this situation, what is the fact. What is true? Now, two plus two is four. That is true. We can lean back on that. The Bible is true. We can lean back on that. The Bible is true. We can lean back on that. What it teaches is true. What it promises is true. So we can lean back on what is true. But Paul is saying, look, you got to find out what's true and then focus on things that are true, not things that you don't know. The answer to Right. We were talking about two people taking an offense for two guys in a conflict, and they might pick one or the other.

Speaker 3: 35:46

But do you know the truth? Right when Jesus said, okay, you got to go, you can't figure it out, you got to get two witnesses that know the truth and you come back and you say, look, these guys know what happened.

Speaker 3: 36:06

Are you going to give in? Are we going to get this settled? And then it's no? No, I'm not. So then you got to get the church involved. So Paul is not changing anything. Matter of fact, he's leaning back on what Jesus said you need to focus on true things. When you're focused on things that you don't know are true, you're going to get in trouble. You're going to fall in a hole, you're going to get in a ditch and you're going to have to get someone to pull you out. You can't defend something that you don't know for sure it's true.

Speaker 2: 36:41

Well, speculation's sexy right.

Speaker 3: 36:43

Yeah, absolutely, that's YouTube right there, buddy.

Speaker 2: 36:47

We want to lean in. It's spicy. Over there we can talk about that.

Speaker 3: 36:52

The Browns are not giving Shadur a chance.

Speaker 2: 36:53

They're not giving him a chance. Man, we can talk about that. The browns are not giving shador a chance.

Speaker 3: 36:55

Right, they're not giving them a chance?

Speaker 2: 36:57

man, we talked about this on the I think it was on the podcast. Maybe it's just our conversation, but you know he was talking. No, the other guy was saying you know, some of us are entertainers, some of us are competitors. He was talking about the media, right? Do you know how many people are still, weeks later, applying that comment to shador? Right, trying to.

Speaker 3: 37:14

It's, it's spicy, we love that kind of stuff and politics is that stuff times 10 times 10 paulson, we need to focus on what's true.

Speaker 2: 37:24

I remember one time this again early on, when I had started here um before you say that you need to drink bleach.

Speaker 2: 37:37

Speculation folks, please consult a doctor. I don't remember what was going on, but I was like man, I need to study some of this other stuff. And you said be careful how much time you spend with untruth. And I think I was wanting to look in some different philosophies and religions and probably from an apologetic standpoint I can't remember the circumstances why I wanted to take a deep dive into some of those things. I wasn't looking to leave the faith or nothing, but you had said be careful how much time you spend with untruth. And man, that was one of those things. It shaped me and I'm like, yeah, it's good to have a knowledge and understanding of some of those things out there, but you deep dive into untruth and you'll lose your way there's in any conflict. You know, you and I we've talked about this a lot over the years there's three sides to every story his side, her side and the truth. And we want to jump in to the speculation game and we want to know what's. You know, I wonder what they're thinking, what they're doing, pursue truth.

Speaker 3: 38:50

Pursue the truth. What's interesting is, before the digital age, that was half my life the way they taught you to recognize at a bank, to recognize a counterfeit bill. You would think they would say, well, here's one and it's the feel and it's this it's that they would never show you, they wouldn't let you see a counterfeit, would never show you, they wouldn't let you see a counterfeit. We want you to see the truth every day so you can spot untruth as soon as you touch it, feel it see it.

Speaker 2: 39:24

My guy who worked in the bank I can testify to that. Yeah, you know the real thing. And when the fake stuff showed up I knew right away yeah, and that's that's.

Speaker 3: 39:32

Uh, that's the way we gotta be. We gotta be so enamored with the truth. And we're not. We don't want the truth, because as soon as you get the truth, it all falls down. You know, um, I can't remember um, something that, uh, something that one of the politicians said that was counted as true, and we went for a couple of months and everybody's like, well, if that's true, what's going on? And then when you found out that that thing that everybody was saying, now that person never said it was true but finally said no, that's false. I didn't say that. Here's the clip. That's not true. Everybody's like, wow, but you get emotionally involved, especially in politics. You get emotionally involved in that and you want it to be true, even though you find out it was false. You want it to be true so bad. You just can't hardly. Oh my gosh, I just remembered when your mortgage got paid off.

Speaker 2: 40:45

Oh man wanted that to be true, wanted that to be true.

Speaker 3: 40:50

He was calling everybody. Does this ever happen? Somebody just come in.

Speaker 2: 40:55

Oh, I only called like you because I think you maybe my dad. I was like I don't know what's going on here, but I can't make my mortgage payment. It says the balance is zero. What is going on? And I didn't want the bank to catch up. There's been an accounting error. What happening here?

Speaker 3: 41:13

And you wanted it to be true. So bad. And what had happened is his bank had sold his mortgage to someone else and paid it off.

Speaker 2: 41:21

And the new bank was they were yeah, they were sending the bill.

Speaker 3: 41:26

So I just I just remembered that as an example, where we want what's false to be true and we we fight against it. So whatever is true, focus on those things. Don't get caught in wanting truth to be false and false things to be true.

Speaker 2: 41:47

Then he says whatever is honorable. This is another one of those tough things, because we live in a society that wants to tear people down. It's hard for us to rejoice when someone else gets the promotion, when someone else gets the job or the opportunity, when they get the car, the house, the girl, whatever it is. It is hard for us to rejoice in those things. But he says, man, these things that are honorable we need to. When something's worthy of respect, when there's those, we need to spend time thinking and dwell in praising those things.

Speaker 3: 42:29

Absolutely. I think that's one of the worst parts of Western culture and I know there's jealousy, don't get me wrong in Eastern culture, but when somebody does something and does it well, there's respect. There's respect, and the people who do it well, like the CEO of Toyota or something, they demand respect for it. It no, you need to honor me for what I've done and and it's almost forced in their culture and our culture as soon as you succeed, it's how can I kick your legs out from?

Speaker 3: 43:07

right right, and youtube is a great example of that.

Speaker 1: 43:13

They just they spend all their time.

Speaker 3: 43:15

And you know why they do it. It's not because that's how they are, it's because that's how you are. We love to consume it. We love to consume it. If it was the other way around, they would make different videos.

Speaker 2: 43:30

Yep, because what do they get? Paid for Views? Right, the more views you get, that's when YouTube starts setting checks. So it is our consumption. We love to watch people fall. We love it.

Speaker 1: 43:43

There's just something in us that says oh yeah, yeah you know, I knew it.

Speaker 2: 43:49

Paul says man, let's think about those things that are honorable. Paul says man, let's think about those things that are honorable. You know, when justice wins out, when someone lives with integrity and humility. You know, paul, he said join in imitating me when someone lives that life, man, we should celebrate those things.

Speaker 3: 44:11

And rejoice in them, rejoice Absolutely. And I know we're always afraid we're going to get burned. You know, every time we go to vote, oh, I hope this guy does what he says. You know, you know we're going to get burned. You just we're going to get burned. You're going to put your faith in somebody. They're not going to show up, or they're you know not gonna. They're not going to show up, or they're you know not going to uh, or they're going to fail in some way. That embarrasses you.

Speaker 3: 44:38

But while you don't have any um evidence that they're failing, why not honor them? You know, I like um these firefighters. I I honor them because they do a dangerous job. They go into buildings and pull people out, and then I hear people well, you know, they get three days off and they go in there and they just wash their truck all week. And it's like what are you talking about? If they come to your house and you're in trouble, they're going to come through your window and try to save you.

Speaker 3: 45:18

Shut up, correct? It's the most honorable job on the planet. What are you talking about? They're washing their truck and petting the dog. What? And it's only the Holy Spirit that teaches us that that's honorable. It's greedy jealousy, the evil side, sin incarnate, that says we pay those guys too much. How much can you pay them? Same thing with teachers. Well, they get the whole summer off. What are you saying? Do you want to deal with those kids? Do you want to try to hold those guys down for 10 minutes and teach them how to spell? No, you don't. That's why you send them to school and you don't do it at home. Now, if you're a homeschooler and you say I don't like the way the teachers are, I don't have any problem with that.

Speaker 1: 46:16

But if you're not a homeschooler?

Speaker 3: 46:17

then you need to say thank you.

Speaker 2: 46:21

Yeah Well, and you know another, we actually use this just for an entire category of jobs. I guess you know the honorable judge. You know what, absolutely what they're looking for, the truth they're looking for. You know even the next're looking for. The truth they're looking for, you know even the next one is is whatever is just they're looking for justice, those things, um, and we say what they do is honorable, is honorable, and paul's encouraging us. Look for those things, think about those things and then, like I said, the said the next one, whatever is just Just kind of dive into the Greek. It's talking about whatever's righteous or upright there, whatever's in accord with divine or moral law. So you look at that judge who looks for the truth in a situation, the leader who treats his people fairly, the business that pays a fair wage for the job.

Speaker 2: 47:19

It reminds me of that one guy. I think he took a pay cut. Some CEO of some big company took a giant pay cut so that he could give everybody in his company a raise, and I mean he took everybody up to. I think they were making a minimum of I don't know if it's $75,000 or $100,000 a year. Everybody in this company and cross-board made at least that much money. When do we see companies doing that kind of stuff? He says we need to find what is just what is right. We're used to the CEOo, you know, ripping off their employees, paying them a minimum wage and then they own 75 condos all across the world, you know. And if I guess, if you can own 75 condos all across the world, that's great. But pay your employees well, you know what they deserve, what is just and that's.

Speaker 3: 48:12

That's a tough, tough read on a lot of things, because a lot of, unfortunately, a lot of social justice is not just right, and so I don't like to put any type of verbiage before the word. Just, just, just Truth, fairness and what is just.

Speaker 3: 48:39

And I think when we use the biblical definition and we use the word righteous, righteous has changed its coding in our modern vernacular. Its coding in our modern vernacular, righteous now means doing church things. And so actually, translators, if they're translating a Bible today, they won't translate unrighteousness as unrighteousness, they'll translate it as wickedness, because people think unrighteousness is not doing church things. So but the word righteous here that Ryan used is that means it is right. It is just he broke the law, he didn't break the law. What is just Now?

Speaker 3: 49:33

Morally, that might not be correct. He, he didn't break any law, right, so there's a moral justice and and then there's a justice according to the law and our laws are all screwed up. I know that I don't need any emails, okay, and it's not just. A lot of the laws are not just and they need to be fixed. But for our example, here we're not talking about doing church things, we're just talking about what is right and it's it's hard to well, we won't go into all that because we got how many? We got more, we got about seven more, so'll go on. But for the, for this definition, we need to think about things and celebrate things that are just and and I would say this we know what is just by going back to scripture, right?

Speaker 2: 50:26

you know, when the disciples got brought before the religious leaders and they said we want you to stop preaching in the name of Jesus, you guys need to knock it off. They looked at him and said well, whether it's right for us to obey God, we'll let you decide. But we can't help. But speaking about what we have seen, heard and what has happened.

Speaker 2: 50:47

And they went out and continued to preach in his name. So there are things that even from a cultural, societal standpoint, people would tell you this is okay to do or this is not okay. You know my mortgage. If there was an accounting error and I you know, they just said, hey, you don't have to pay anymore. Culturally it would be hey, you just got off scot-free, right. Culturally it would be hey, you just got off scot-free, right. But my God says you need to get this figured out because someone's still on the hook for that you need to make that right, and so, culturally, we would allow those things to maybe slide.

Speaker 2: 51:26

or there's other things that culturally we would say, hey, you shouldn't be doing those things, but it's the very things that God has called us to. And so, when it comes to what is just, what is true, jesus said your word is true. How do I know what's true? Keep going back to his word. How do I know what's just? Keep going back to God's word. And I think, as we do, that the Holy Spirit reveals to us the deep things of God and he'll show us what is true and what is just in each of those situations.

Speaker 3: 51:55

And then celebrate those things, even if it doesn't go your way, even if you have to keep making the mortgage payment. Right, exactly. The next one is pure. What is your definition of pure Ryan?

Speaker 2: 52:09

Well, when you dive again into the original languages here, pure means to be morally clean, undefiled innocent. It actually carries with it this idea of being free from sin or corruption. It makes me almost think a little bit of you know. You were talking on Sunday during your sermon about the power of prayer and you shared that story of Will coming up and praying for your knee of prayer, and you shared that story of will coming up and praying for your knee. Um, that sincere prayer. Right, there's this, this innocence, almost that's there. And you said he believed something was going to happen. And I think sometimes life has a way of, as adults, making us jaded. You know we're like, yeah, we're praying, but just in case, you know there's no, just in case.

Speaker 3: 53:00

I went to rehab. I went to rehab today, right before this actually.

Speaker 2: 53:06

Now don't walk away saying we think that you just need blind faith. You know, one of my favorite jokes came from that movie, pursuit of Happiness, and Will Smith I don't remember his name in the movie, but his son, I think, who is his real son plays. The son in the movie talks about that joke. Man's drowning in the ocean and he cries out God, save me. And a big boat comes by and says hey, do you need help? He says no, thank you, god will save me. And another big boat comes by and says hey, do you need help? He says no, thank you, god will save me. And another big boat comes by no, thank you, god will save me. Finally, he dies, goes to heaven. He says God, why didn't you save me? God says I sent you three big boats. You dummy. There is, the power of medicine can be miraculous.

Speaker 3: 53:50

And that is a gift from God, correct?

Speaker 2: 53:54

Don't let anybody tell you any different. So we're yeah, we don't want you walking away from this thinking, well, just tough it out, don't go to the doctor. God has given us some amazing people with some amazing minds and talents to to provide I mean miraculous healing. Um, what they did to my eyes through lasik I closest thing to a miracle I've ever personally experienced. I went from having to put glass on because I couldn't see when I got up. I have 1520 vision. That is miraculous to me, and so we're not saying that, I guess. So there's my medical disclaimer again about drinking bleach and seeing the doctor. But there is this innocence that when a child prays and man, if we could recover that, I mean Jesus talked about having the faith of a child.

Speaker 2: 54:44

You know, Reese, when we had that prayer meeting, we prayed for a guy. Don thought he had cancerese, prayed for him. Next week went to the doctor. We can't find any cancer, right? What is it about? I think there's this purity, this undefined man. I haven't been corrupted by the way the world thinks about healing and miracles and sin, you know yeah and I think there's something there.

Speaker 3: 55:17

But I think us Christians are like I just don't want any pressure to be on me because he was really pure and I'm not. So, you know, just leave me alone. No, I think you're right, and kids are precious, they're pure. We've got a whole cultural society that wants to make them impure, to just spoil them, and I hate that. Purity should be something that we embrace being innocent, without corruption, morally clean, without contamination. Morally clean, uh, without contamination.

Speaker 3: 56:02

Um, I was watching my, uh, I got a video from will, will again and, um, he pulled his shirt down over his knees, down to his ankles, and he squatted down and he was walking around and he just thought that was the funniest thing and he was just laughing, just cackling. I mean just, you know, mommy, look at this, isn't this funny? And he was laughing and we were all laughing about him laughing about something so silly. But that kind of innocence should be celebrated, that purity, celebrated that purity, yeah, and uh, I think, um, the other thing, if you're looking for something to be to focus on things that pure, look at people who do things for people, um, not looking for anything out of it. You know, amy, and um eric.

Speaker 3: 56:53

I won't give their last names, but they go to our church and they do a lot of things that we see them do.

Speaker 3: 57:00

They're working with the school that we're partnered with over in Lorain. I can't talk today. Eric's out in the parking lot every week, you know. They're just doing things constantly. But they also have a mission at home. They're doing things that they just do, not for the church, just for their Lord. They do Meals on Wheels all the time and it's just part of who they are. They don't get paid, they don't get recognized. Nobody here at the church knows they're doing it. They just do it.

Speaker 2: 57:38

Yeah, I mean, the whole reason Amy's in the position she is here is because all of this was a part of Amy's life well before she was our community connections director, right, you know it is who she is and those sorts of things need to be celebrated, man.

Speaker 2: 57:56

And you know there is another purity, just about the things that we allow our minds and ears to see and hear that we need to be careful of too.

Speaker 2: 58:10

I think it was the comedian Michael Jr was talking about how I mean, he's a Christian guy but he does comedy and that's a world that's pretty full of some pretty defiled things. If you've ever seen a comedian, a lot of times they go to the most defiled things to talk about, right, and he doesn't want to do that, and so he says says it doesn't start for me by trying to watch what I say on stage. It starts with what I allow my mind to consume and if I'll put the right inputs in, the output takes care of itself. Right, and I would say we need to. We need to guard ourselves and what you, what you choose to binge watch, the kind of music you choose to listen to or allow your kids to hear we need to be very careful about what we allow to shape us, those that kind of undefiled thing. Let's guard our hearts and minds and if we'll again get the right inputs in, the output comes naturally.

Speaker 3: 59:16

And that purity is important, so focus on what is pure. We've got four more. How are we going to do this? I don't know if we can get through them all. All right, what's your definition for lovely?

Speaker 2: 59:32

Lovely, pleasing, agreeable, admirable that which calls forth love and affection.

Speaker 3: 59:37

Oh, things that inspire love. Yeah, it's you know when.

Speaker 2: 59:43

I look at my wife.

Speaker 3: 59:44

She is lovely. It doesn't have to be sexual or friendship type of love. It can be watching a guy pull a big fish in. That can inspire your love for fishing, yeah, and those, uh, those type of things. Uh, watching a and I'm gonna say it, go watch a basketball game, go watch the calves play. Oh my gosh, when I saw a guy who's not he's probably an inch taller than me jump over my head, it was inspiring. And you know, every time I get a chance to go see the calves cheaply because I can't afford regular tickets, uh, I love to go, um, not just because my wife loves it, but I love to. It inspires me to watch these guys who worked all their lives, uh, to play ball and do things that I can never do. Now I get it. They make a lot of money and they shouldn't make more money than firefighters and teachers. And I, I'm there, I'm there with you, okay, but the point I'm making is that, hey, that inspires me. That inspires me.

Speaker 2: 1:00:55

You know my daughter. So far she might be the only one of my kids to have captured my love for the night sky. I've told you for the longest time my favorite thing, one of my favorite things to do, is to go sit in your backyard and just look at the stars.

Speaker 3: 1:01:10

It's getting that time of year. Pretty soon it's going to get dark Earlier.

Speaker 2: 1:01:16

Earlier so we can actually do it. And we finally got a yard where I can. I don't know if the stars at my house are quite as good as they are at your house maybe a little bit more light pollution but they're decent. And Ellie asked, joy and I the other night. She said, guys, come outside. And we went and laid on the loungers by the pool and just stared up at the stars and I'm like at least one out of my four kids has captured this thing.

Speaker 2: 1:01:45

But it man, it's, it's lovely it's those things that inspire you, that take your breath away.

Speaker 3: 1:01:47

A mountain, um, and then the guy who climbed it. You know there's some things that are inspiring, and something to be lovely is something that inspires your love for things. There is nothing wrong with that. I love to sail. I know it costs a lot of money and it's not worth anything. I can't take anything anywhere and make money. All I do is spend money to sail, but it inspires me and those things are lovely. So you know, the Lord right here is telling Paul hey, you're putting them in a box. Let's open this door a little bit. Think about things that inspire your love for other things.

Speaker 2: 1:02:26

And I mean think about when you see someone do something that's just selfless. I mean there's no way they can get paid back.

Speaker 2: 1:02:33

You know, it's that kind of you're getting on commendable but it's lovely you look at, it's inspiring to say, man, if I could live the way that they live. You know those things it's lovely to see, but it does go right into the next one commendable right you know to be something that's worthy of praise or approval, it's something that is well spoken of. You know these things, that there's this, it's reputable, um, that that thing is commendable, um. A little bit of the opposite of that might be cracker barrel's new redesign that has not been well spoken of online.

Speaker 3: 1:03:18

No, we need to. This goes back to what you were saying earlier, about an hour and a half ago, where you said when something happens to somebody, you need to be celebrating with them, not jealous or whatever, even if it's your enemy. If he does something great, he needs to be recognized for it. That's the way the kingdom of God works when you give yourself to the Lord, you are praised. You are praised and you're going to be given a crown for that thing. Now we got to get used. I know the West is. I'm going to be humble, you know, and oh, they're not very humble.

Speaker 3: 1:04:04

Yeah, but they're great. Tell me they're not great. Well, it's not about that. It's about being humble. Well, I bet, if you knew them, just look what they did and be commendable. That's worthy of praise. Okay, not their whole life and all this kind of stuff, but this one thing is worthy of praise.

Speaker 2: 1:04:25

One of the things that we started with our volunteer huddles here is we want to have a volunteer of the week, someone that we look at and say, man, this is what we want volunteers to do around here. Because it's easy and this applies to any organization you can put all kinds of punishments and restrictions in place and don't do this. You better not do that. One of the best ways to get high performance out of your team is to celebrate what you want duplicated Right. If you want someone to replicate an activity or behavior, celebrate it. If it's commendable, celebrate it when we see volunteers go the extra mile. We celebrate it when Joe shows up and it's 12 degrees outside and he's running the snowblower.

Speaker 3: 1:05:08

Or he showed up this Sunday.

Speaker 2: 1:05:09

we made him move a refrigerator, Move a fridge and jack up a set of cabinets to fit it underneath the fridge. It's commendable. Yes, you know, we need to celebrate those things.

Speaker 3: 1:05:20

And let's not make that a church thing either. We've always said here at a fresh win. There are a lot of missions and charities that are going on around here and they need you, they need you, commit to them and you're like, well, it's kind of a secular thing. It's not secular when you walk in the door because the Holy Spirit has just showed up. So Second Harvest does a great work. They do a great work. Get involved in passing out that food Charles has been helping with good nights, delivering and building beds.

Speaker 2: 1:05:57

That's a great work, and show up. What they do is commendable, right, and you should be a part of that and celebrate it. Number seven moral excellence, virtuous, excellent character. This is something that, again, culturally, we don't always pursue. I'll do whatever it takes to get to the top of the corporate ladder and I'll climb over whoever I have to do it. I'll take out anybody's legs to get there and be on top, and we're always looking for a shortcut, right. This is the exact opposite of what Paul says when he says join in imitating me. This is that moral excellence that I'm not going to do this the wrong way.

Speaker 2: 1:06:42

I don't want it if I have to do it that way. I remember I worked a job one time and my boss had asked me to say something to one of our customers, and so I made this promise to him, and then, a few minutes later, he wanted me to call back and raise the price. And I said whoa, that's not what we had agreed to, that we weren't going to tack on anything extra. And he says he doesn't know what we're making on this deal.

Speaker 2: 1:07:12

I want you to call and give him this number and I was like, if I have to do this, I can't work here. And I had to put in my two week notice because I'm like I'm, this is not how I'm going to operate. I won't. I won't do things that way just to make a couple extra bucks. And I told a different boss at a different company. You know my. What matters to me more is the person standing across the counter from me, not this business or organization's bottom line. That kind of more and I'm not trying to prop myself up here again, you know kind of more. Like Paul, these are the things that you don't have to be humble about doing something the right, the right way.

Speaker 3: 1:07:55

So I that's commendable. Moral excellence is very important in our lives and I and I think we need to stand and prove to people that there are still people who believe that. You know, I'm not. I'm talking to all the you know replacement window salesmen and all the insurance companies, and you know you don't have to lie to be a success, you know, and so don't just don't do it. I like the word excellence, though it's one of the words we bandy about here at A Fresh Wind all the time. We want to do everything as excellent as we can and I think that should be part of our life, not just morally excellent, just excellent. Take care of your house in an excellent way, take care of your church in an excellent way.

Speaker 3: 1:08:46

Whatever you do at church, do it as good as you can.

Speaker 2: 1:08:50

Scripture teaches that right. Whatever you do do unto the Lord.

Speaker 3: 1:08:53

Right.

Speaker 2: 1:08:53

Oh, who was it? That was CS Lewis, one of those guys talks about. If you're going to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel. That's the kind of people we need to be. And you've heard us say on the podcast, before you know, I'm not telling you to just don't do something just because you can't do it. Well, like, there's some things, if it doesn't really matter and you just enjoy it, you don't have to be the greatest guitar player to pick up a guitar, right, but those things that matter your family, your church, your job and the kind of employee or boss you are do with excellence. And then finally, number eight, so we can wrap this thing up close to the hour mark whoo, um, he says whatever is worthy of praise, um, if those things are, are admirable. If they're, um, we need to be, we need to be celebrating and thinking about those things now now paul is saying I'm going to interrupt you here because this is important.

Speaker 3: 1:09:53

Paul is saying think on these things. He's talked about commendable, lovely. He's saying fill your mind with those things, recognize them in your heart. Now, here at the end, he's saying now you need to praise it out loud, right? He's saying no, you don't need to talk to me about it. I'm God, I wrote this. Now it's time for you to say something about that.

Speaker 3: 1:10:19

And that's one thing we lack a little bit here in our church is um, the sound went bad. Something happened in the middle of the service on Sunday and more people talked about the sound to me than any time that it's been really good. You know, nobody says anything when the sound is good. Uh, they just say when the sound is bad, and I get it. That's the way where everybody wants it fixed. So it gets, get it fixed. And that's part of our excellence thing. Hey, wait, I'm bringing people to this church. You know it's always been good. It needs to be good. What's wrong, let's get it fixed, let's go, and I get all that. But when something is great, you need to praise the person who did it.

Speaker 3: 1:10:59

You just need to say great job, that was great, and it's one of those things that we lack in our culture. You know, we used to get watches when we retired. I mean the company would say thanks for your loyalty. You know a 10-year pin or whatever it is.

Speaker 2: 1:11:22

I know, amy, she just got a Yeti cooler for I don't know if it's 20 or 25 years at Metro and Sue said, yeah, they gave Troy a double clock. Yeah, you know, coming up, I think this is year 16. So 20 years? Yeah, tim. What's on the docket?

Speaker 3: 1:11:47

Well.

Speaker 1: 1:11:48

I don't know.

Speaker 3: 1:11:54

I'll probably retire before you, so I don't have to make that decision. No, we need to be. When things are praiseworthy, they need to be praised when your kids do great, then praise them.

Speaker 3: 1:12:03

If they get, um, all a's and a d, praise them for the a's. You can still hit them for the d. You can't say, hey, look, I, I, you got all a's, but what about this d? But, but, but you, you gotta say, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna help you fix that, but this was great, this was great and and that's kind of tender to my heart, because my dad would praise my one a and and then we would talk about all my other D's, but I would get praised for that. And when you do something, someone does something. Well, they need to be praised. They just need to be praised, not because and we don't want to give praise, because we don't want them to be needy oh, he just wants praise and okay, if he does something praiseworthy, he deserves praise, whether he wants it or not and there's an entire world bent on tearing especially our kids down, absolutely tearing your spouse down when when he or she goes to work.

Speaker 2: 1:13:10

Be the kind of person who inserts praise into their life. You teach, you know encouragement is to instill courage into someone. You can't praise your kids and spouse enough. You need to be hyping them up, talking about letting them know you believe in them. Yes, when they get it wrong, it's okay to talk about those things. One of my kids watched him play a soccer game the other day and they're usually on fire. I was like hey, are you not feeling it what?

Speaker 1: 1:13:44

is going on here.

Speaker 2: 1:13:46

That's not who you are. I said if you're tired, you need to understand you're not just letting yourself down, you're letting the whole team down. They're relying on you to play your game. It's okay to have those tough conversations, but when they do well, you need to celebrate it and those things. I'm with you. We don't do enough of this in our culture and I want us here at AFreshWin, I want us to excel here's that word again at being the kind of people who give praise regularly.

Speaker 3: 1:14:20

When it's worthy of praise. We're not blowing smoke here. I'm going to make it up If someone does something great here at this church. We don't want to give a what do they call it?

Speaker 3: 1:14:35

not an achievement, a participation award. We're not going to do that. We're not blowing smoke around here. But if you do something great, we're going to tell you you did something great. That's right and we want to be that kind of person and you've got to take that out of the church and put it in. It will change where you work, it'll change everything. I know I got a big mouth and I think I'm funny when I'm probably not very funny and but that's still, that's, that's still out.

Speaker 3: 1:15:04

You know nobody's really out on that Nobody's really made a decision on that. If you think differently about this, god will teach you. Yeah, yeah, I love that verse anyways. Um, when I was at work, I um I got on some people's nerves and I had some people that were, um, didn't like me too much and I rubbed them the wrong way and I liked it.

Speaker 3: 1:15:32

I liked rubbing them the wrong way, but you know, so they were against me, anything I would do or whatever. And I was working as the assistant to this one guy one day and of course he was looking for things that I was doing wrong. And he just didn't like me very much. But when we got at the end.

Speaker 3: 1:15:57

I said that was awesome. That was awesome. You did awesome. You should get a reward for that. That was all those airplanes. You didn't miss a beat. Yeah, it was awesome, great job. And he looked at me like, are you making fun of me? Are you? Are you, what are you? What are you doing? And I just patted him on the back and walked away and he was just beside himself all day. He did not know what to do. You know I hate this guy told me I was great what do?

Speaker 3: 1:16:32

I do? What do I do? It changed our relationship and it changed the way we work, because he was the leader of let's hate tim holt. And then he said let's not hate tim holt. And it changed everything. So we, you, you can whatever's praiseworthy, give it praise Right and it'll change your life. It'll change your life.

Speaker 2: 1:16:56

Even if you feel like that person isn't praiseworthy.

Speaker 3: 1:16:59

I had to work really hard to make those people not like me. It was tough. It was tough.

Speaker 2: 1:17:06

We're not saying everything they do is worthy of praise or commendable or morally excellent, but you start to look for those things that they do in that situation, in that moment, and you celebrate those things and watch as your kids, your spouse, the people you work with people you go to church with start to do more of the things that are praiseworthy with people you go to church with start to do more of the things that are praiseworthy. Being praised feels good.

Speaker 3: 1:17:33

It does.

Speaker 2: 1:17:33

And when you start to look at people and say man that was awesome. You'll find that they start doing more of those things that were awesome, absolutely. That's why this is so important, what Paul is saying here, and I think if we could grab a hold of this one verse and man, we just we surpassed an hour talking about one verse.

Speaker 3: 1:17:57

An hour that's two sermons.

Speaker 2: 1:17:57

We did two sermons on that one verse, one verse plus, you talked a little bit about it on Sunday, so we're up to three on one verse here. But, man, if we could grab a hold of it, I think it would. It would change our families, it would change our church, um, the place you work, place your kids go to school. If we would take these eight things and say, man, I'm going to make it a habit, a discipline in my life to focus on those things, um, and so, and if you focus on those things, you live in those things, that's right.

Speaker 3: 1:18:27

If you focus on negativity and all the things that are going wrong, then you live in that Absolutely. Tim, will you pray for us? Father, I want to thank you for this passage of scripture. What a great insight to how a Christian is supposed to live. These few verses from 3 to 9 in Philippians, chapter four, are life changing and, lord, I pray that our people will begin to look at purity justice, things that are lovely, things that are not only worthy of praise, but that will give them praise.

Speaker 3: 1:19:09

And Father, let it change them and then change their lives and the lives of those around them. In Jesus' name amen.

Speaker 1: 1:19:17

Amen. Thanks again for joining us for this episode of the Midweek Podcast. We'd love to hear from you. Let us know how God is using this resource in your life, or send any podcast questions or topic ideas to podcast at afreshwindorg. If you would like to support this ministry financially and help us continue offering new resources that equip you to discover more in Christ, simply text any amount to the number 84321. We're so grateful for your support. Make sure to tune in next week for a brand new episode of the Midweek Podcast. Be blessed and have a great week.