No Sanity Required
No Sanity Required is a weekly podcast hosted by Brody Holloway and Snowbird Outfitters. Each week, we engage culture and personal stories with a Gospel-driven perspective. Our mission is to equip the Church to pierce the darkness with the light of Christ by sharing the vision, ideas, and passions God has used to carry us through 26 years of student ministry. Find more content at swoutfitters.com.
No Sanity Required
The Impact of Simple Faithfulness
In this episode, Brody shares an encouraging message about the power of simple faithfulness in our daily lives and how staying true to the Lord can create lasting impacts.
He shares a few inspiring personal stories that highlight how small acts of faithfulness and obedience can make a significant difference for the Kingdom of God. Drawing from Acts 17, Brody uses Paul’s story to remind us to be consistent and to make the most of the opportunities—big or small—that the Lord has given us. Moment by moment, we are called to be a faithful light and keep our hands on the plow.
Acts 17
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Today I want to talk about the fact that you never know how the Lord might use you and somebody else's life, and then what the effect of that might be. We constantly try to remind one another here at SWO to just be faithful. Be faithful to the Lord, be faithful to your calling to the gospel, to one another as husbands and wives, be faithful to one another, be faithful as parents and in whatever job you work in to do that to the best of your ability. Use your gifts, your talents, your time, your resources all of that for the glory of the Lord. And you never know how God might use it.
Speaker 1:And I hope that this week you'll be encouraged as we talk about the impact that your simple faithfulness might have in a moment, in just a split second of a moment. An opportunity could be in front of you today where, if you're faithful, god could use that to change the course of generations, to change the course of history, or to reshape society and culture, or to simply impact a single other person's life with the gospel of Jesus. And then, even if none of that happens and you're faithful today and you don't see any results, it's worth it to be faithful to the Lord, because in that he is pleased and he is glory, glorified and he's honored. And so today my prayer is that this episode will be an encouragement to you to be faithful with the big things, to be faithful with the small things, whatever opportunities God gives you, and to look at some amazing stories of how God used faithfulness in people's lives. Welcome to no Sanity Required.
Speaker 2:Welcome to no Sanity Required from the Ministry of Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters a podcast about the Bible culture and stories from around the globe.
Speaker 1:I don't know about most of y'all, but one of the struggles that I have sometimes and I think probably most Christians have is we wrestle with the significance of our lives as far as the impact we're having. You know, you look at somebody that maybe God uses to reach a whole lot of people and then you compare yourself against that, and that's never a good thing to do. We could take inspiration from someone else's life and see other people as role models or mentors or those we might want to emulate. Paul would even say to some of the folks that he instructed and mentored imitate me, as I imitate Christ. But at the same time, comparison can be a really destructive thing in a person's life. It can make you try to be somebody that you're not, try to be something God didn't intend for you to be. We already are on a path, a journey where God's called us not to remain as we are but to be growing and changing into his image, to become more like Jesus, and we need to strive to do that. But with that we need to also understand God made us and he has a purpose for our lives, and we considered some of that purpose last week. This is the will of God for you that you pray constantly and consistently, that you rejoice, that in everything you give thanks. This is the will of God for you. We know those things are the will of God. But then what about the particular, specific will of God for our lives? Each of us has maybe a different calling on our lives.
Speaker 1:There's an NSR listener, a good friend of mine, that I've gotten to know just over the last few years as we've interacted in ministries. His name's Adam, and Adam is a blue-collar dude, I think, at his core. He's been successful in business works in the construction industry, been successful in business um works in the construction industry. Um has a, has a a good business, a very um productive business and a productive industry. But just trying to be faithful with his time, talent and treasure. And the Lord has opened doors initially for him to work with youth in his church and eventually to become the bi-vocational co-pastor of the church that he's a part of.
Speaker 1:And just trying to be faithful, to preach the word each week, minister to people in that community and to take the opportunities and situations that the Lord puts in front of us and to say how can I further the kingdom, how can I better serve the gospel? That's what I want to do every day, and I don't do that well most days, but I want to get up each day and my feet hit the floor and think how can I impact the kingdom today? What can I do to be faithful in small things as well as in the greater things and opportunities? And so when we compare ourselves to someone who maybe has a huge ministry or maybe they're doing something just, I remember years ago reading a book about a missionary who was reaching so many people in these villages and and thinking, man, how's my life compared to a person like that? And that's, that's not the the right way maybe to ask that question. Maybe it should be something like am I being faithful with the opportunities that God's given me? Am I using his gifts, that he's given me to impact the kingdom and to reach people? Because the story I told of my friend Adam. It's something as simple as starting off by just saying how do I give my business to the Lord and my family to the Lord and surrender those things to the Lord? He didn't start off saying, hey, I want to figure out how to become the pastor of my church. He was the pastor there. He's faithfully serving and then the Lord opened those doors of opportunity. I also, you know, I think of other people that don't do anything like that. They don't become a pastor, a bivocational pastor, they just faithfully serve in the local church.
Speaker 1:There's a couple at Red Oak Church. Their names are Jim and Bernie. They are the Mockleys, jim and Bernie Mockley. I hope it's okay. I didn't ask them if I could say their names, but they're a retired couple. They they're dad gum Yankees. They come down here from New Jersey. No ain't, nobody got time for that, but I'm giving them a hard time. I love them so much and um and I've I've grown to appreciate them so much because they moved down South in retirement and they didn't retire wealthy.
Speaker 1:You know they were good stewards of what God gave them in their life. They worked hard, they saved and they were able to retire to a more rural, warmer climate. And they've come from. I think they were from New Jersey originally. Maybe they had moved and were serving somewhere else or were working and spent the bulk of their adult lives in a different place up in New England somewhere. But at any rate they moved down here and they retired of the area and they attended Red Oak Church, where I attend and where I'm one of the lay elders. And the Lord um allowed us to cross paths.
Speaker 1:That first night they came and so, uh, our senior pastor, our lead pastor, joseph Tucker, and I, uh, grabbed coffee with Jim that week, met him over. He lives, he lives about 40. They live, jim and Bernie live about 45 minutes away. So we met them up, got coffee and talked about life and ministry and church. It became real evident that this was a couple that, hey, they're not looking to find a church to just attend on Sundays, they're looking to leverage their retirement years for kingdom work. Jim said right out of the gate. He said, hey, put me to work, what can I do? And then, pretty quick, they were both just plugged in.
Speaker 1:Bernie is very involved in the pinwheel tutoring program that that we're a part of here in Andrews, that my wife, little, and, and many of you that have attended SWO events, you know moose Amy Rasmussen everybody calls her moose, little, and moose started this pinwheel tutoring program. That really was. Was was born out of necessity. You know, necessity is the mother of all invention, and not that the pinwheel tutoring program is an invention.
Speaker 1:But, um, when we came back, uh, when we put our two youngest kids in school and realized in the kindergarten and first grade just how much homework was needed and how much attention was needed for them to do well in school, and the question started being asked what do you do with um, what? What do you do with a? With a kid that goes home in the evening and comes back the next morning, and they clearly don't live in a healthy environment. Maybe they're wearing the same clothes, maybe they smell bad, they don't have any other schoolwork done, they're not getting paperwork signed by parents, and you just know, right, right, quick, that they're disconnected from it's just not a healthy environment. And the teachers and principals that we talked to said yeah, we have a lot of that, we just do the best we can with it.
Speaker 1:And so out of that was born the pinwheel tutoring program, which is a gospel centered tutoring program that every day meets after school uh, not every day, every day they meet, it's right after school. They meet two days a week, tuesdays and Thursdays. And it's grown into multiple locations in multiple towns. It's grown, in Andrews, into not only an elementary school program, but now a middle school program called Firefly, where kids that need it so badly get to come and take part in a gospel-saturated educational opportunity, where after school they go straight from school into the tutoring program where they hear the stories of Jesus and and they learn lessons from scripture and how they apply to life and and it and it's an incredible program that we've received favor from the town of Andrews because the mayor here, a friend named James Reed, has been so gracious to work with the town alderman and they've they've allowed us to move that program into a building that we rent for. Uh, I don't want to say what, but it just let's just say the town has given us much favor, um, so that that is an old building that wasn't being used, but it's close to the school and so we're able to use that to teach kids their math, their English, their reading, the things that they're struggling with in school.
Speaker 1:And the teachers have seen an incredible turnaround. The kids that are in the pinwheel and firefly programs. They are doing better in school year in and year out. We're seven years into this thing now, and so back to which we could say there you've got people like the mayor, people like little and moose um and so many others that volunteer in that program who are using the opportunities put in front of them and I'm so grateful for that because that has opened doors for families in our ministry at Snowbird and our church at Red Oak and now other churches in the community to get into homes that otherwise they might not ever be in trailer parks, housing projects to impact and connect with families. We've seen people come to faith in Jesus and be baptized and Jesus would say suffer, not the little children to come unto me for such as the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, and that those programs have opened incredible doors of ministry opportunity but at the same time served families in these mountain communities and helped kids make better grades. And it's an incredible program. And now there are many people that volunteer in the program, all of the Snowbird Leadership Institute students. They make up the largest force of the tutors. So people that serve at Snowbird that are in the Leadership Institute, they're all tutors in that program so they would be assigned a student and a family.
Speaker 1:And ministry is in the moment, right here and now, every Tuesday and Thursday, just in the day-to-day. It's ministry that's not going to be seen on social media or by the masses. Nobody's going to celebrate it. You're not going to get likes and follows. Pews aren't filling up or padded chairs aren't filling up on Sundays because of it. It's just ministry to the least of these.
Speaker 1:And so Jim and Bernie Mockley say, hey, that's an area we want to help. And then Jim is greeting folks and working in the sound and audio and and the uh, what do you call that? At church? You know the, the tech team, and they just have jumped in and tell that whole little bit of stories right there to say a lot of people all just being faithful to do what's in front of them can impact the kingdom in so many incredible ways. We have several families that are now fostering and or have adopted, because their kids were in pinwheel and one thing led to another and a crisis situation turned into the Department of Social Services taking a child and then turning around and placing that child with a family that was tutoring. You know, because there's a connection there, and so we're working alongside of families and local leaders and the Lord's done incredible things. There's incredible stories and a guy like Jim and a gal like Bernie who are leveraging their retirement, that their age and place in life. They can't foster or adopt a kid and they can't maybe do something in full-time ministry. But, man, they are using their time, their resources, their talents, their gifts, their heart for the Lord and others and their impact in the kingdom.
Speaker 1:I've seen it happen, um, over the last few weeks with flood relief where I think I mentioned and I'm not trying to be judgmental or condescending but so many people wanted to help but they wanted to run chainsaws and drive four wheelers and go help dig people out and and and do the adventure side of flood relief, which is awesome. Those things needed to be done. But the first 72 hours after the flood water subsided, I think 90% of the trees had been cut out of the roads because every redneck and hillbilly with a four-wheeler and a steel or a husk bar and a chainsaw was running up and down those roads which. Praise the Lord for it. I love it.
Speaker 1:I got a friend named Dwayne, a couple named Dwayne and Kimberly that just this past weekend attended the SWO marriage conference the second marriage conference and I heard stories about Dwayne. Dwayne's a good old boy and could do anything. Smart dude can fix anything, run anything, build anything and the storm hit. They're from middle Georgia and where the storm hit them there were so many trees in the road and, and Dwayne has a brother-in-law that's uh, that's that's married into my wife's family. So we're connected through in-law connections and, and my brother, my uh, my wife's uh, cousin, her husband, said that, um, when, when Dwayne, when the storm stopped, that Dwayne got on his tractor and cut his way. Four hours it took him to get over to their house to help them cut their trees up, using his gifts, using his energy, his resources to serve. It's awesome to see.
Speaker 1:And then I'm appreciative for people who, in our area, have said, hey, I'd love to run a chainsaw and I'd love to get on a four-wheeler and I'd love to take my truck and go help people. But you know what? There's a lot of that going on. But here's some trailers and houses that and I talked about this a couple weeks ago that just need to be gutted and there's mold and mildew and it's dirty work and it's nasty and it's slimy. There's a family called the Queens um that we know in in Andrews that spent their Saturday mom, dad and the kids just doing grunt work, uh, at a home that needed some help and people using the opportunities God gives them to just impact.
Speaker 1:Watch this and listen to the. Here's the thought to impact the moment. You're not trying to impact eternity. Everything's not a grand slam. We're not always swinging for the fences to hit it out of the park, it's. It's it's baseball, pro baseball major league playoff time, you know? So how about a baseball analogy?
Speaker 1:It's like I remember when I was a kid going and watching Dale Murphy play at Turner Field. I believe it was Turner Field, whatever, it was, the Atlanta Braves Park and whatever that was called back then. I might be way off, I'm sure I get corrected by our baseball fans. I might have said some sacrilege right there, but anyway, going down there and watching him and I was so stoked to go watch Dale Murphy, I got to see two superstar athletes when I was growing up. I got to see two superstar athletes when I was growing up, I got to see Dale Murphy play and I got to see Michael Jordan play and I remember we're at the game and the Braves are down. Uh, they are down, like, uh, like four to two, uh, four to three, something like that. I think it's four to three.
Speaker 1:Dale Murphy's up to bat. It's a bottom of the ninth, two outs and there's a dude on base, there's a man who gets on first and Murph comes up and everybody's going crazy because if Dale Murphy hits it out of the park or hits it over the fence and hits home run and the Braves are going to win, a lot of y'all ain't going to know about this, but back then the Braves were struggling. A lot of y'all ain't going to know about this, but back then the Braves were struggling. They were cellar dwellers, they were not competing for pennants in World Series championships. And I remember Murph goes to full count. I mean it's three and two and he cranked one and I mean it almost hit the skylights, you know it pulled it down the left field fence. I mean I thought it was leaving the, it was going in out of the stratosphere and the place goes crazy and then realize oh, it was just foul, it was a foul ball, it had gone, just foul, run it back. So it's still full count and he, he steps back into the batter box and gets struck out and the game's over and the Braves lose.
Speaker 1:Uh and so, um, I it's one of my best sports memories ever and and I'm not a baseball guy, didn't play baseball, don't really follow it, but I can remember that so good and I feel like a lot of times we have this mindset that in ministry, man, I got to knock it out of the park. I got to I'm, I got to hit a home run. And that's especially true for those of us that are in full-time ministry or vocational ministry, where this is what we do. You know what I mean. It's our job, it's what we do for a living. But even for, I think, a lot of lay workers when I say lay workers I mean people that just you just live day to day, week to week, go to work, pay your bills, love your family the best you can Then it can be easy to think what am I doing that's making any kind of real, significant impact?
Speaker 1:You know, for the stay at home mom, the homeschool mom, for the dad that works by self driving a truck, or or, or, or. You know, in front of a computer sitting for hours on end, um, for, for someone who works in a secular environment but where people are cold to the gospel, or where you take ridicule and the opportunity to be faithful comes in the most subtle ways and you're not always going to hit home runs. Don't swing for the fences every time. Just be faithful and with that be consistent. Bernie and Jim Mockley are consistently serving the Lord and serving others and they're leveraging their retirement years and I could say that of all the older folks at our church at Red Oak, I'm so thankful for and blessed by the senior community, the senior adult group that's at SWO. I could name others Ed and Connie, hammond, john and spicy riding hour that we we've mentioned on here before. That just, they care about others and they want to use the, the, the opportunities God gives them.
Speaker 1:So I want you to have that same mindset and I want to share um with the with the second part of our episode here. I want to share a few stories where where subtle, simple obedience and faithfulness turned into life-changing impact and I would encourage you to go read um and not only life-changing impact for the person that was being faithful but for, I would say, kingdom shifting impact, like where people were faithful in a given moment and that turned into an incredible impact for the kingdom. That that spanned maybe not even just that lifetime, but it's still continuing today. So I would encourage you to go read the stories of Charles Spurgeon's conversion. Charles Spurgeon's conversion it's incredible story. Many of you might be familiar with that. Go read the story of um George Mueller's faithfulness. You might read George Mueller's biography I think it's an auto, the autobiography of George Mueller. I believe it was just so faithful to trust the Lord and do the work of ministering to orphans day to day. Read the conversion story and impact of that in Billy Graham's life, how he came to faith in Jesus, how the faithfulness and simplicity of one man led to the conversion of Billy Graham, same with, I believe, dl Moody. Both those conversion stories are pretty awesome and paralleled. And then the number of people that heard the gospel through Billy Graham's preaching ministry Pretty awesome to see how one act of faithfulness by someone who's a simple labor day laborer who shares the gospel with a young man and it turns into, you know, a world changing event.
Speaker 1:I wanted to tell one personal story that I've told on on NSR before Um, but it's the story of a young man named Riley and I was uh early snowbird days and we're working down there in the gorge the Nantahala gorge and the Ocoee gorge and we're running river trips on the Nantahala river and the Ocoee river and I can remember we started running trips on the pigeon river and, um, that's always fun when you first get into this line of work. We've got some young guys here now at SWO that they they really spend a lot of their free time um, on on the water and guiding and paddling, and it's a. It's a huge community. So there was a. There was a guide with one of the companies that we were working with and his name was Riley and he was uh, he was uh. I mean I told this story y'all not not long ago, within the last year. I think it might've been last season, but I'm going to be quick and just tell it again and I'll give you the abbreviated version.
Speaker 1:But Riley was, he was, he was put together, he was a leader, he was just a dude of dudes. You know like he was a lot of those guys at work in the river industry. They come across as just kind of loafing through life. You know like, when are you going to get a real job? When are you going to get serious about life? When are you going to do something that you know that grownups do? And and you got some of these guys that they'll, you know, stay down there and work on the river for their adult life, and that's okay if that's what they want to do, you know. But this guy didn't come across as like a river bum, ski bum kind of guy Um, that that community tends to have that reputation as ski bums or, you know, surfer guys or river folks and this dude, this seemed to be something that he was doing for a season while they figured out what was going to happen next. And he left here and went and worked on a bigger river out West I think the Arkansas river and uh, right before he left, the, the wife of a student, uh, of a student pastor at the time. He's gone on to become a pastor and a church planter.
Speaker 1:Friend of mine I've talked about on here before, named John G Tate, and John G is a pastor and a church planter, uh in Virginia, and his wife Linnae was. They were here and we ran a river trip and and she came to me this was in the late 90s, one of the first years that SWO was operating, and she said hey, I talked to this guy, riley, who's a guide for the company we were working with, and Riley wouldn't have been on our trip because we guide our own trips, but sometimes you're alongside of other trips and you're catching bus rides with people from other trips. And so Lene had gotten in a conversation with Riley and it and it pressed on him a little bit to try to hear, uh, where he was with the Lord. And it was just a real short conversation, not a lot of time. But the Lord put a burden in her heart and she looked me in the eyes and and I believe that the Tate's listened to NSR um, pretty regular I know they do some because I get encouragement from them. So I would say to them I appreciate the push, because she came to me and said hey, there's a guy named Riley, we're leaving tomorrow, but you need to go share the gospel with him. She put me on the spot and I said, yes, ma'am, and I'll do it. And so she said he's leaving. Now. This is like the last week of camp. She said he's leaving to go work a river out West. He leaves Monday or Friday or whatever it was, you know and I said, okay, I'll promise I'll go do it.
Speaker 1:And so, um, it was like five or six days till he was going to be leaving, and so that next to last day I was like, man, I've got, I'm a procrastinator. I got to go talk to Riley, so I go down there, and Riley's just coming off the water and, uh, he was getting back to the outpost and I said, riley, can I talk to you for a minute? And I think me and Riley had some mutual respect for each other and we're close in age at the time and he said, yeah, man, he stepped over the side and I said, man, I don't, I don't, I don't have a lot of time. I know, because you're leaving and you got to, you got to wrap things up here and you're, you're pulling out of here tomorrow morning. But I just wanted to take a minute and share with you what I believe is the most important thing in life. And I shared the gospel with him. You know it was a three to five minute presentation of the gospel and he, he was not interested in having a conversation about it. He just kind of, you know, he I don't even know if he thanked me, I think he just kind of was was uh, contemplative, and anyway, that was it, you know. And I said, man, if I could ever do anything for you, you know where I'm at.
Speaker 1:And so Riley went on, he moved on and I didn't know it, but Riley. Then he spent a year uh kind of he. He spent that next season um a year uh kind of he. He spent that next season, um, on the river, uh, arkansas river, whatever it was. And then that next year was when 9-11 happened. And so I think ryle I don't know what riley was doing at that time, but this story happened in 1999, I think, maybe 2000, no, 2000, 99, 2000, I think it was 2000 so that next year when, when 9-11 hit, riley joined the United States Army and he ended up in the 10th Mountain Division and from there he ended up in Special Forces I think he was with Fifth Group and I didn't know any of this.
Speaker 1:But many years later, and Riley deployed multiple times, and many years later, and Riley deployed multiple times, and, and, and many years later, um, riley came to faith in Jesus through the ministry impact or the, the personal gospel impact of uh, a fellow operator, a guy that he was serving alongside of, and Riley wrote me and he said hey, man, you're not going to probably know me or remember me, but about 10 years ago, um, eight years ago, whatever it was then I think this was maybe 2008. So eight years ago, uh, I I worked a summer and uh, in the Nantahala gorge and uh, and then I moved on. But we had a conversation where you shared the gospel with me and uh, and he said I I never got that out of my head. He said it just would kind of come back into my mind often and years later. Um, when I joined the United States army and I went to war, and the Lord used that conversation to when I began to see the atrocities of war and have to deal with the reality of evil and the brokenness of the world, the Lord used the conversation you and I had had and the friendship of a fellow soldier operator and I trusted Christ. And then the Lord gave me an incredible relationship with a chaplain who mentored and discipled me. He said I've been walking with the Lord now for about three years. I think this was now, like I said, eight years, so maybe it had been like five years from when we had talked, or six, something like that, but he had been walking the Lord for two or three years. And he said I just I think about you often and I don't know why I've never done it, but I just wanted to write you. So he had. He had emailed me and I just.
Speaker 1:This is one of my favorite stories in my life because the simplicity of Lene Tate being on that bus coming from the takeout on the Nantahala River to the outpost and having a brief conversation with a dude where she's sensitive, I don't remember but I would imagine the Lord had probably convicted me about sharing the gospel with Riley and I'd not been faithful to do it. It took a cattle prod to my conscience. I'm thankful for a sister in Christ that would push me like that. And then I you know I'm if I tell you I'm gonna do something, I gotta go do it. So I said, yeah, I'll do it and I wasn't gonna say no to her. You know, and so share, and you know I'll like just fumble through a three minute presentation and you just don't know. So, like in the moment, you never know what God's going to do. Um and be so, be faithful in the moment. And I love that story. The Lord brings it up and reminds me.
Speaker 1:I can tell a lot of SWO testimony stories. You know of people that whose lives were impacted by a staff member here at SWO were impacted by a staff member here at SWO. Recently we had someone attending SWO as a youth pastor. His name's Jake, and one of our, a guy in leadership, one of our director-level guys here at SWO is a guy named Adam Garner, and Adam came up to me and he said, hey, that guy, jake, when I was a kid and Adam's been on staff full-time here now for going on 10 years, I think, eight years maybe. But he said when I was a camper, a student coming to camp here, I think 14-year-old dude Jake was my counselor and he impacted and changed my life counselor and he impacted and changed my life, and so it's cool to watch those two brothers reconnect and put the pieces together, connect the dots, and just one dude's faithfulness led to another dude's life being changed and now that dude's serving faithfully in ministry and has impacted other people in the same way.
Speaker 1:Be faithful with the opportunities God gives you today and I want to warn right here, as we prepare for an election that's coming up in a little over a week don't get wrapped completely up in the political scene or social movements or cultural moments. Get wrapped up in Jesus man. Get wrapped up in being a light. The light shines brightest in the darkest room, the darkest cave, the darkest space. If you've ever been in a deep, deep, deep underground cave, it's amazing what pure, pitch dark looks like. You flip off all the lights in your house and there's a good chance some ambient light's going to come in from somewhere. You go in the middle of the deepest, darkest cave and I've been in some deep underground caves. Everybody turns their lamps off and you can't see your hand an inch in front of your eyeball. You take something as simple as a cigarette lighter and pop that little you know striker, and that teeny little glow will literally illuminate that darkness to where far across the room you can see. You can see a person. The darker it is, the the the more impact the smallest light has. And so I'm man, I'm hoping that. I'm hoping the pro-life guy wins, the guy that's going to fight for unborn children, or the guy or the gal, depending on what race we're talking about.
Speaker 1:I voted already and I did early voting. There's a lady that I voted for for one of the North Carolina positions. Her stance is that she believes life begins at conception, so I voted for her. That matters to me. It's holocaustic what's happening in our society and has happened, and so that matters to me. But you know what the Lord is in control and I'm going to stay wrapped up in Jesus and what I can do is not spend all of my energy posting political things on a social media thing. You know, the Twitter gram or the face place or whatever.
Speaker 1:Your favorite avenue of connecting with the virtual world is Talk, talk, tick talk, hickory dickory, tick talk. That's just. I'm kind of fed up with all of it, you know. So tick talk and X and Facebook and Instagram and whatever, man you do, what you got to do. But I'm just saying, man, be a light in a dark place, and I don't mean post a a pro America, israel thing, or I'm'm talking about. Tell somebody today about Jesus. Share the gospel with a coworker, a family member, just simply share the gospel.
Speaker 1:I want to finish this thing by sharing with you a story from Scripture about a guy whose name is Dionysius. You'll find his name in Acts, chapter 17. It says but some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them. Now this story comes in Acts 17, at the end of the scene where Paul, the apostle Paul has been given the opportunity to share the gospel at a place called Mars Hill. Now, mars Hill was in the city of Athens and it's at Mars Hill that a place called the Areopagus existed. And the Areopagus I'll let you go do your own research. You can go research and study the Areopagus.
Speaker 1:But the Areopagus was a place where people would go to debate. There would be great oration, people would give speeches. They would, you know, think of somebody, uh, given a spoken word type thing or philosophical speech, um, think of, uh, you know, a venue like and, and a lot of times legal, what would be the equivalent of constitutional issues would be debated. So the Areopagus at Mars Hill was something like and it's in the city of Athens something like the Supreme Court, an open forum at Harvard university, all being put on display in the public arena, you know. So a person might argue or debate there, a person might give a great speech there, and, and what people said there was really paid attention to. Um, so Athens was a city like Boston. In Boston You've got Harvard, you've got Boston college, you've got Boston university and then a few other smaller schools, all very elite academically. Athens was.
Speaker 1:We know that the Greeks gave the world modern philosophy, socrates and Plato and the. The teachings of Greek philosophers influenced and impacted the world and still do to this day. So you've got in the Greek, in the Greek world. That's sort of the hub of, of philosophy. You know there's, there's places that where you got the hub, you know like like art, the arts and uh, and then you've got philosophy, and then you've got technology, places that are known Silicon Valley in our day is known the arts, and then you've got philosophy and then you've got technology, places that are known. Silicon Valley in our day is known for what it's known for tech and big tech industry In that part of California. You've got New York is known for Broadway and Times Square and big sporting events, and Las Vegas is Sin City and you know there's just there's just different personalities that kind of go with cities.
Speaker 1:Well, athens was a city that wasn't that big. I mean it was, it was a good size for that day, but it's 10,000 people. It didn't compare to Corinth, which was somewhere between a hundred and 200,000 people. Um, didn't compare to Rome, didn't compare to some of the bigger cities of the day, and it was known for philosophy. Okay, and so out of Athens came much uh, lecturing, and, and, uh, and, and.
Speaker 1:So Paul goes there and these lectures and these debates are happening and it just. I won't go into the, I won't drill into the details of the backdrop, but Paul has come there from a place called Berea. Prior to him being at Berea, he was in a place called Thessalonica. Okay, so, listen, get this. I'm getting ready to land this plane. Okay, um, the last few minutes here. I hope this is really encouraging and I hope it's kind of a oh, wow, aha, kind of moment for you.
Speaker 1:But Paul is in Thessalonica and he's preaching the gospel and he gets run out of there. He gets they assault him and attack him, and this would happen a lot in Thessalonica. He's in the middle of sermon. He says, uh, it says that he explained and proved that it was necessary for Christ to suffer and rise from the dead and he preached this Jesus, whom I proclaim to you is the Christ. Some of them got saved, they were persuaded.
Speaker 1:A lot of Greeks, a lot of Jews, men and women, um, but the, the, the leaders of the Jews, got really jealous and they, they formed a mob and they attacked him. And it was a bad deal, man. It was such a bad deal and they ended up um taking one of the local believers, a man named Jason Um, and he was, he was persecuted. And so anyway, paul ends up leaving um and gets out of the town and goes down to another town called Berea Um, and then he's there with a guy named Silas and they get down there, they start preaching and then those folks are responding to the gospel, a whole bunch of them coming to faith in Jesus. But the people from that previous town called Thessalonica, they hear about it and they go down there and they they start persecuting Paul again and Paul hits this place in ministry where he's just worn out and he's frustrated, I think a little bit, and he's dealing with some anxiousness and depression and and uh, and I'll tell you how we know that in a minute, how we know he was struggling with some anxiousness, anxiety and depression so Paul leaves and he goes to Athens and he gets sent to Athens to take kind of a little sabbatical.
Speaker 1:I don't know exactly the reason or how they worded it, but basically it says those who conducted Paul brought him to Athens and, after receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as possible. They departed. So they take Paul and they send him to to Athens and they say you wait here, just take some time off and we'll, we'll, we'll come back through and we'll continue the work. And so he's, he's in Athens, just going to coffee shops, and you know it's a, it's a peaceful city, it's a place of philosophy, it'd be a good place to go, just get some reading done and just take a break. But while he's there, he gets really spun out over this.
Speaker 1:There's, you know, think of the tomb the unknown soldier. No one knows who's in that tomb. Well, there, this city is so full of idols, and there's an idol that says to the unknown God um is what it says. So it's like they've got idols to all these gods. The way these pagans would worship is they'd take a god from the Greek pantheon of gods. They'd take a god and they'd create an idol, a statue or a symbol of that god, and they would worship that god. And so they made one. They're like what if there's a god we've missed? Well, let's just make an idol to him. So, to the unknown God.
Speaker 1:And then so Paul comes in, he sees that and he ends up going on to this massive stage because he's been so good at giving speeches and preaching. He's a street preacher, you know, and he's going to the synagogue and so he's created a buzz, a stir around Athens and because of that, everybody's like man, we need to hear from this guy. And so he ends up getting up and delivering this incredible gospel message to Mars Hill, to the Areopagus You're talking about. This would be like I mean almost like on the same level of getting to preach the gospel to the House of Representatives or the United States Senate. This would have been like if he had gone to Rome and preached to the Senate. I mean, it's that kind of thing, you know, like that level. And so he preaches and it's interesting because it says, and he has this interaction with them.
Speaker 1:It said, now, when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, but others said we'll hear you again about this. So Paul went out from their midst, but some men joined him and believed. So it seems like there's not a whole lot of people that came to faith, but there was some that did, among whom also wereysius, the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris and others with him. And why do I bring that up? Um, well, because it it a lot of times. When Paul would go somewhere, whole cities would be changed. Um, a lot of people would come to faith in Jesus. People would would respond in such a powerful way to his message, his preaching. But when he gets to Athens, people receive him more as, I think, he gets up there, and they don't take him as a preacher of a sermon, a holy man, a religious authority. They take him as oh, this is another person giving a speech on something that we will all hear and then we'll all make our own conclusions, and so they were more analytical in the way they listened to it. But it just it. I love that.
Speaker 1:It says there were, there were some people who actually believed and they joined Paul. One of them was this guy, dionysius, and he's an Areopagite, which means he was in leadership. He, he held a seat on this thing called the Areopagus, this council of philosophers, this council of philosophy. I want to read to you about this guy, dionysius the Areopagite. This is from an article at Bible Gateway.
Speaker 1:Dionysius the Areopagite, by his title, was a member of the council of the Areopagus, and Acts 17, 34 tells us he was a convert of Paul at Athens. He's one of a number of prominent men who are mentioned by Luke as converts Acts 13, 12, acts 19, 31, acts 26, 32, acts 28, 7. Little else is known about him except by tradition. Accordingly, he was born at Athens and he studied there and he studied in Egypt. While he was in Egypt, at the time of Christ's crucifixion, he observed the eclipse that took place and he theorized that God must be suffering. He then returned to Athens and became a person of influence. So what an incredible journey this guy was on. When Jesus hung on the cross and the sky went dark during the eclipse, this guy was down in Egypt and in his mind he thought God is suffering. That's why this has happened. And so he goes to Athens to start to really research and study philosophy and religion.
Speaker 1:Eusebius, quoting Dionysius of Corinth, states that he was the first bishop of Athens. So this guy becomes the first bishop of the church of Athens. So guy goes from serving on the Areopagus to being the lead pastor of the first church plant in the city of Athens and eventually became a saint in the early Christian church. Early church tradition has it that this guy was an impactful person who became a leader in the church, who trained and discipled and planted churches. And it's all because Paul Paul on the run for his life gets put in Athens to just hey, chill out, take a break, rest a little bit, and he ends up sharing the gospel. And this crazy opportunity presents itself and boom, paul does it. A guy named Dionysius accepts the Lord and then goes on to influence an entire city, in fact an entire region. So the church of Jesus grew because people were faithful in every situation and circumstances. Not only was Paul faithful at the Areopagus, but this guy, dionysius, who responded to the gospel, was then faithful and God used him to impact an entire society, part of a global dynasty or global empire, rather. So we, just we never know how the Lord might use us. And so what I want to say to you today and I love to compare Dionysius to Demas you remember, uh, earlier this, uh back earlier this year, I think it was maybe in May. Uh, I did. I did an episode, we did an episode where we looked at Demas.
Speaker 1:Demas was a person who was on Paul's team. He served alongside of Luke and a man named Aristarchus. He was a very faithful follower of Christ. He was serving on the team, at least so it seemed. But in Paul's last words to Timothy he says Demas has forsaken me for this, for a love of this present world, and he's gone back to Thessalonica. Paul's persecution ramped up in Thessalonica. It was there that Demas must have forged friendships with the world that he later went back to. That persecution that drove Paul out of Thessalonica led him to Dionysius, who had far greater impact than Demas ever would and stayed faithful to the end. One man came out of philosophy, secular pagan religion, on his own crazy journey from Egypt to the universities of the day, to the Areopagus. Another guy, demas, who served alongside of Paul, saw the inner workings of the greatest gospel team in the first century and turned away because he loved the world so much.
Speaker 1:You don't know how the Lord might use your faithfulness to impact a Dionysus. You don't know. And then you don't know when you might need to confront a Demas and say, hey, man, you're going the way of the world, the Lord's calling you back, but just be faithful, faithful, faithful with opportunities God gives you. And I want you to believe that if you'll put your hand on the plow, no man who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is worthy or fit for the kingdom of God. You put your hand on the plow and you plow straight rows. You plow on. You plow on today, you plow on this week. You plow on regardless of election results. You plow on regardless of your financial status. You plow on regardless of what happens around you. The darker it gets, the brighter your little light will shine. You keep your hand to the plow and be faithful in the moment-by-moment, day-to-day life that God puts in front of you.
Speaker 1:You may never impact in your lifetime, in a visible way, thousands of people or multitudes in an arena or a church building, and a lot of you would say, yeah, god hasn't called me to do that, that's for sure. But you know what God has called you to do. Put your hand to the plow and share the love of Jesus, the truth of his gospel, with every opportunity that you're given. And who knows, maybe you will be the person God uses to turn back a Demas and keep him from going back to Thessalonica. Or maybe you're the person God might use to impact and influence and lead to faith a Dionysius who then goes and does incredible things, a Billy Graham, a DL Moody, a Charles Spurgeon. You just don't know what God might do. You might never know in this life what the Lord uses your faithfulness to do and who he might use it to reach. Keep your hand on the plow and plow on Praying for you, praying with you and thankful for you. Hope the Lord blesses you this week. See you next time.
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