SPEAKER_00: 0:03

Welcome to the Church Renewal Podcast.

SPEAKER_04: 0:06

I'm Matt. I'm Jeremy.

SPEAKER_00: 0:08

Differentiation isn't just a psychological concept, it's a spiritual practice. In today's conversation, Matt and Jeremy explore how discernment and differentiation intersect, not as competing ideas, but as two sides of the same spiritual discipline. They'll talk about what it means for a church and for its leaders to be led by the Spirit while staying grounded in identity, humility, and relationship. Along the way, they'll draw from scripture, from Jesus' ministry to the book of Acts, to show how spiritual clarity and systemic wisdom belong together. This is part one of discernment and differentiation led by the spirit.

SPEAKER_04: 0:42

Hey man, we're back again today on Mike, and without giving away the whole store, today we're talking about discernment assay congregation. Yeah. I mean led by the spirit. Obviously, you've already talked about the fact that you're writing um, I believe what will be the authoritative single tome. Please do not build it up that way. Helpful. I aim to be helpful. There you go. That's good enough. We'll talk more about that in the future. But as a part of the process here for working with churches, your coaching includes not just coaching the leaders, right? But also coaching the leaders to work with the congregation. To have the leaders as individuals in the congregation as individuals seeking the Lord, but also to come together corporately to hear from the Lord, to lean in together, to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to this church. And very much that if Jesus were here talking to you, what would you say to your church?

SPEAKER_03: 1:38

Right. So I'll Revelation 2 and 3. Yep, absolutely. That's what we try and help churches with. And you found that to be very easy. Um no, not always. I think it depends on sort of the the way the congregation's been formed so far. Both of these topics of differentiation that we've been talking about in this podcast season, uh, and discernment, Lord willing, that we'll talk about in the next season. Both of these tend to be hard for churches. So it's probably helpful if we kind of you know define them separately and then talk about how they work together. Does that seem like a good idea? Sounds good. So how are we defining what do you want to define first? The discernment or the well, so let's just remind people differentiation is just a word that describes a way of being that issues forth in a way of doing. So we see Jesus doing, we have hints into his being by the way he prays and by what his priorities are, right, and by what he leads his disciples into. And so we see how his being works out in his doing, and a word we use to describe his doing is that he was differentiated from those around him. He was differentiated from his disciples. Seems pretty obvious at points. They thought he was going to usher in a turnover of Rome. They uh couldn't were flabbergasted that he was going to come to die because they hadn't been taught well that out of Isaiah and other places in the Old Testament. And so they Jesus was, I guess I'll put it this way, he was he was happy to disappoint them and what their aspirations were for him. He had a real sense of his calling from God and what he was there to do.

SPEAKER_04: 3:23

So we're back to identity and acceptance. He knew who he was, he knew who why he was here, yep, and that freed him to walk in it regardless of the fact that his parents, his mom, his brothers, his sisters you're a crazy man. You're crazy, yeah. Uh come home, sit down, shut up, right, go back to the workshop, back to the workshop.

SPEAKER_03: 3:45

And what he was called to do.

SPEAKER_04: 3:46

We see this even back in when he was entering adolescence. Yeah, don't didn't you know I had to be about my father's business?

SPEAKER_03: 3:55

Absolutely. And his mother, of course, should have known. She's one of our, you know, one of the saints we should look up to, you know, have it be to me, as you've said, right? That kind of submission to the Lord is hard for us at times. So differentiation is a word that we use to describe the way that Jesus lived. It was observable. We see it also in the Apostle Paul, right? And the way that Paul lived among the churches, among those that he discipled, among those who were saying horrendous things about him. He was able to understand who he was, whose he was, what his calling was, and that he did not respond to that outside pressure to be different than he was. And it and so he had the opportunity to lead and to plant churches and renew churches and form leaders. And so differentiation is a word that we use simply to describe that way of doing that issues forced from a certain from um a kind of being. So a quick question then.

SPEAKER_04: 4:57

Does differentiation mean that you're going in a different direction?

SPEAKER_03: 5:01

Not necessarily. Okay. Um, I think that differentiation means that you have a sense of your uh, you know, this is Shaitama and Bowen and Friedman, you have your own sense of values um and goals, and you're willing to hold on to those in the face of surrounding togetherness pressure. So, for example, Jesus, the disciples are like, No, you can't go to Jerusalem and die. That's not that's not for you. That's you're supposed to lead a revolution. And Jesus is like, Nope. The teachers come along and they question after question after question to question. You see at the end, you know, in Matthew 23, right? And Jesus said, you know, then they finally go away because they're not going to dissuade him to do something different, right? So he had had his own goals and values, and a sense of who he was, whose he was, and what his calling was. And as he was led by the Spirit, um, not just out into the wilderness to be tempted, but his whole life through, as he depended upon his father, he kept to what God called him to.

SPEAKER_04: 5:55

So this is I I I knew someone who said he had the gift of differentiation. All I could see him doing was whacking hornet's nests.

SPEAKER_03: 6:01

Right. It's not that, it's not it's not your contrary on. Absolutely, it's not. It's a way of living in the face of that surrounding togetherness pressure that's always there. People are always going to try and make you into their own mold. That's why Paul's admission to the Romans, the message says, you know, don't let the world push you into its own mold. Because as the world is not following the spirit, it wants to push you into its own mold. And even good, you know, well-meaning people around you will try and push you into their own mold. And, you know, remember from our early definitions, they'll step over the line into your space and and want you to adopt their goals and values for you. They'll want you to be someone for them. And it's just not, it's not Jesus' calling. It's not his expectation of you.

SPEAKER_04: 6:47

And that's one of the things that Friedman talks about is the person who is trying to define you. Yes. Someone who is not you trying to define you, yep, is doing that. They're trying to keep you, they're trying to mold you into something. Right. For their sake, whether good or bad, doesn't matter. But if I'm saying, hey Matt, you did that because you hate the color red, and I'm wearing the color red, you're free as a differentiated person to say, actually, I love the color red, and that's not the reason I did whatever I did. That says something about you, Jared, potentially, about how you see others' actions, and and may even be a good mirror for you to consider how you respond to people when they wear colors you don't like. Neither of us are wearing red today, but um is that object lesson? But as we, you know, as I look at I'm listening to this and I'm I'm thinking about two things. You talked about the um the teachers of the law who came to Jesus. There was clear conforming pressure that they brought Jesus' healing on the Sabbath. And they're like, hey, don't you want to be a good Jew?

unknown: 7:48

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 7:49

Don't heal on the Sabbath. Why don't your disciples wash their hands, right? Yeah, all kinds of things. And then you and then you see the same thing with uh the the blind dude's parents. Right. They're like, hey, uh, and and I think it's I think it's uh is that in Matthew? It's either in Matthew or I think it's in Matthew. Anyway, where whichever book it is, Jesus heals a blind guy. He goes and and the synagogue leaders say to him, Hey, you know, how did this happen? And he says, Well, a guy did this and it's been some mud, and now I can see. And they call his parents, like, hey, um, we don't really think this guy was blind. Was he really blind? They're like, Yeah, he was really blind. We can, you know, hand to God, he was blind. And they then say, Well, who did this? And he and they're they just kind of put out. They're like, he's he's an adult, which you know that could be good separation, actually. I could absolutely absolutely it is that could be good difference. It was why he's an adult. Ask ask him. Right, exactly. But it also says they did that because they were afraid. Yeah. They were afraid that they would be put out of the synagogue, they were afraid of the water. Which their son eventually was, right? Yeah. Which he was. Yeah. So there's we we have examples all over of good differentiation, poor differentiation, non-differentiation, under functioning, over functioning, and that's a that's a part of what I hope uh as as our listeners are walking with us, they begin to be able to identify these things and see them in the story, be able to identify and say, Oh, that's that's what we're talking about here. I can see this now. So that's differentiation, but that's not discernment.

SPEAKER_03: 9:15

Not discernment. Let me say one more thing on differentiation because I think it's important. Or a lot of our listeners would have heard that good communication when you're particularly in conflict with somebody that you're close to, maybe a spouse or child or a loved one. The people who try and help us do this better, counselors, say don't use you words, right? It's use I words. You made me so mad. Exactly. Okay, so that is an attempt to help you differentiate to for you to express your own goals and values, not to try and define somebody else. But this happens a lot um with people because you know Friedman said maybe we're differentiated uh hopefully boner Friedman 50% of the time. Yeah, right. And so we fall into this all of the time, which is why we need to reflect and try and continue to grow in it.

SPEAKER_04: 10:01

So how are you then defining discernment? How is discernment different than differentiation? What is it and how do I go about doing it? Sure. And how do I, in the context of my congregation, where either I'm a member or a leader?

SPEAKER_03: 10:15

Sure.

SPEAKER_04: 10:16

What does that how do you how do you help me catch a vision for that?

SPEAKER_03: 10:20

Yeah, so I think there's a relationship between the two. Okay, and here's the way I would talk about the relationship. So so what's discernment? So most of us are familiar with uh discernment as it would apply to an individual, right? So when I met my wife in church, I stood up to greet my neighbor in a church that I did not normally attend. I was visiting a friend for the weekend, and I stood up in church and turned around and greeted my neighbor, and it happened to be other woman who eventually became my wife. I had no idea going to church that morning that I was going to meet my wife. My wife also had no idea that she was gonna meet her husband, right? But from the moment that we spent a lot of time together that first day, that evening, we stayed up into the wee hours of the morning the next day, and it was clear that the Lord had done something. And we both started praying. Lord, is neither one of us had been looking for a relationship at that point. We were both in transition to places, it was a lousy time to begin a relationship, and we both knew it. So we were looking for it, but the Lord was looking for us uh and was looking to put us together even though we weren't looking for it. And so we both started to pray from that very first day. Lord, is is this the person that you would have for me to marry? So is discernment a decision-making paradigm? Um I I hesitate to call it that. I think what you're trying to do in discernment is you're trying to understand what I would call the spirit's leading, uh, which is a fraught topic. Um, but it's an important topic. Yeah. Because it's appropriate to say, not just is it moral for me to marry my wife, for example. So let's take it from individual to corporate. So it so think about individual. It's not just a question when you meet somebody, or most Christians, is it moral for me to marry this person? Oh, she's a Christian, I can marry her. Sure. You can if you're both Christians, you can marry her, but is it wise? Okay. Is it wise? And in our particular cases, we pursued that individual discernment about whether it was wise. We consulted our friends, some of whom knew both of us. Actually, the friends I'd stayed with knew both of us. Uh, we consult consulted our spiritual mentors, our our church friends, our families. We consulted other people. We tried to use wisdom in many counselors, right? Okay, so for if this is is this wise, we sought to be discerning about that personal decision. And ultimately, all of that came together two and a half years after we met and we got married. And we said, Yeah, this is who God has for us. And um, that has proven to be rather true and wonderful. Hopefully, some of you will get to meet the wonderful Julianne at some point.

SPEAKER_04: 13:04

Is it it's not just a decision-making process, it's not what should I do here? It's more than that. How is it not simply a way for you to slide in your desire, your preference?

SPEAKER_03: 13:18

Yeah, so I think that now we got to go over to James. And let me just uh maybe I mentioned this a little bit earlier, but uh the the concept I think in James is just to sketch it for the listeners again. Uh in James 1, uh the readers addressed with if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask, because God's not stingy about this, he's generous. Um, so who's the person who asks? Well, it's the person who's humble, who admits that they don't yet know. Okay. So this is this is part of how you don't end up using this paradigm, whether an individual or in a corporate setting, where in a community setting, to just get your way. Because everybody who's being, if they're being honest, it's important, if they're being honest, everyone is honestly saying, we actually don't know. And we're open that if the Lord would lead us that this was wise or it wasn't wise, that we'll go with the Lord because that's what we want is from the Lord. Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 14:26

So if I flip this over into a corporate discussion, there's a way to come in as a business partner where I'm looking to dominate you. I'm gonna do a merger and acquisition, I'm gonna hostile takeover, and you can go the direction I want because I've got the power. Yep. There's a way to come in and say, hey, we're just gonna be, you know, sometimes competitors, sometimes um partners and clients. We're gonna work together, it'll be mutually beneficial, but there's not much relationship other than the transactionalism. You can go beyond that to say, hey, let's make a strategic alliance here. Right. You've got widgets, I've got digits, and we can sell them better together. We can sell them better together. And in order for us to to the literature that I've read says that you really don't want to go for a win-win because a win-win is not actually a win-win. It means a loss. Right. What we want to go for is collaboration. What what is your goal? I think it's an amplifier. Yeah. What is my goal? How do we reach both of our goals successfully? How do we accomplish this? And what do we need to change so that we can accomplish these different but now shared goals? How can I share your goal with you? Right. And so this is not just this is more collaborate, uh, more collaborative. Yes. But then you bring in there's another partner here, and there's another part we talked about in the counseling course I went through is we were talking we didn't talk in dialogues. Right. We talked in trialogues.

SPEAKER_03: 15:48

Okay, explain what the trilogue is.

SPEAKER_04: 15:50

The trialogue is it's you as one person, me as a second person, the Holy Spirit is a third. Now, with before before someone labels me a heretic, let me just say the Holy Spirit was not sitting here in a chair. I could not see him. He didn't give me like a tract or something and say, hey, go do this. What I was doing was I was entering into this conversation with you in an attitude of prayer, intentionally saying, Lord, I I'm asking you, because you promise to be where two or three are gathered together. And I know that you love us, and I know that you're faithful to your word. So I'm asking you to join us here. I'm asking you to enter into this conversation with us and let us be sensitive to hear what you're saying to each of us individually and together. And we were I stayed present, I I stayed aware throughout the conversation that I was not the one leading it. I was simply the one who was trying to hear two different voices in this conversation at the same time your voice and the Holy Spirit. And sometimes the Holy Spirit said to me something like, Hey Jeremy, shut up. It's not time for you to talk. He talks to you that way too. Two guys who talk too much, yes. We both hear that. So we're we're we're now talking about bringing in a spirit that we can neither touch nor taste nor see. And yet lives within both of us.

SPEAKER_03: 17:15

And yet lives within both of them. So this is something in community, right? So this is community spiritual capital S discernment. That's the title of the book, right? So there's a third party. So think of this just a couple of scriptural illustrations from the book of Acts. Yeah, right. So think about um, we've talked about Acts 15 before. Let's go on to the next one um from there. Oh, actually, go back just a little bit. Acts 13. There, the gospel is going forward, church and Antioch get together. And the best that we can tell that what was about this prayer meeting was, Lord, what's the next thing that you want us to pursue in terms of the expanse of the gospel? And they very clearly, I don't think anybody went into that prayer meeting thinking, you know, Joe, the answer here is let's send out Paul and Barnabas, our two favorite teachers.

SPEAKER_04: 18:05

Right? I agree, but let's have the church come together and let's hold a prayer meeting. And after we're done, we'll see. We can share that with them.

SPEAKER_03: 18:15

But that was an utterly surprising response. And there's four of those, these are in the book, but there's four of those in the book of Acts where they go in with a problem, they go in in James 1. We lack wisdom. Lord, we're appealing to you. We need the wisdom that comes from above. We are conscious of the things, you know, James 4, 1, right? We're conscious of the things that were among us, which is why we're submitting ourselves to you in humility and submitting our hearts to you because my idea may be wrong. The humble person says, My idea may well be wrong. So we all need to submit ourselves. And when you see these incidents of community spiritual discernment in the book of Acts, it was obvious to them that the Lord had worked something among them. I think that that's what we're looking for is that we walk away either from a from it, particularly in church leadership meetings, which is where we where we apply this, right? We a session trying to figure out, or an elder board trying to figure out, you know, if Jesus were here, Allah Revelation 2 and 3, what would he say to us? That is a community spiritual discernment project. Nobody there has all that's needed to answer that question. That is that is by the spirit in order to get something that comes from above, right?

SPEAKER_04: 19:34

You talked about humility, and I think that's we need to drive a big flag into that one. Why? Well, let me go to my illustration first and then come back to why, because I'm gonna relate this back to the corporate world because I think that plenty of our listeners are gonna be familiar with these concepts when we're talking about partnering partnerships within between organizations corporations. You have to enter that in a good faith effort. You have to come into that genuine, yeah, genuine with integrity, good faith attempt. I'm honestly here to do good by you. I'm not holding back information to be able to protect myself or to do a gotcha or to do an end run. I'm coming here in good faith to be a partner. Not to manipulate you, but to be a partner, which is where that joke that I gave a few minutes ago comes in. Because I mean, we've all probably seen the person who says, Hey, I was praying for you, and I feel like the Lord said this to me for you, and I can look behind the screen and be like, no, no, you sure about that.

SPEAKER_03: 20:38

You are saying that to me. Right, right. And putting some spiritual veneer on it, which is not what we're talking about. Yes at all. So I'm not trying to put a spiritual veneer on something, and I'm not trying to be, as I've heard another speaker say, I don't think that this is woo-woo. Right. So I think that some of our people who would, some of our listeners who would be unfamiliar with this, unfamiliar with this in practice, like they've never participated in it before or experienced it, and you know, might find it challenging to lead in this way, completely done with it. I had a more diverse background before I came into being a PCA minister, and that background actually helped me with this. And I've had others along the way that I think have been very, very helpful to really push me to think about the role of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit works among people gathered for his glory.

SPEAKER_04: 21:29

Well, let's let's push into that a little bit because the at the end of the day, the question that I hope our listeners are going to ask is Is what Matt's saying, is what Jar's talking about biblical? Right.

unknown: 21:42

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 21:42

At the end of the day, I don't care if you agree with me or not. The question is, have I said something that is not taken from Scripture? I can even look back and we can look at Acts 3. We're missing an apostle. Judas is off to himself. What do we do? Right, right, right. We're gonna grab the appeal to the spirit. We're gonna grab some dice. Yeah, we're gonna pray together, and then we're gonna grab some dice. Then we're gonna say, Lord, show us what you want us to do. Yeah, yeah. And and then we're gonna find out a few chapters later that actually there's a murderer out there that God wants to bring in to fill in this place. Did did community discernment fail right in early acts, or was God was God still at work? And this is one of the things I look at and it's like there have been fine times in my life when I have sought the wisdom of the Lord. I've tried to discern through prayer, through talking to godly counsel, go and you know, I'm not gonna lay a fleece out because I don't think that the things in judges are there to be normative. I think it's descriptive. So I'm not looking and saying, hey, who's bowing down and drinking water from their hand? That's that's not my way of doing it. I go around and say, hey, this is what I'm thinking about, this is what I'm seeing. I'm praying about it. Would you also pray about this for me? And could we talk in another week or two? And let's let's just pray and walk together as I'm trying to make this decision. And I've I've done that, I've made a decision that I believed was in line with the Lord's will for my life, and it's blown up in my face more than once. And I've had people come back to me and say, Well, clearly you didn't hear the Lord. To which I have to say, number one, you're trying to define me. Right. Number two, I did. I can't tell you why he chose to do what he did from that moment to now. What I can tell you is that he spoke clearly to me through a number of witnesses who were all earnestly seeking the Lord's will. Earnestly seeking to be in his will and to help me discern his will. And it turned out differently than I thought it would, and certainly differently than I hoped, and it was painful. But who am I to stand here and say, Well, you know, Job, if you hadn't had so many kids, if you hadn't married that woman, if you hadn't had so many camels, you clearly weren't here until God because friends, because at the end of the day, most of us can easily slip into that prosperity gospel that I keep on pointing to. Yeah. If I do, then God will respond and I'll have a happy, carefree life.

SPEAKER_03: 24:26

So remember that the Apostle Paul was in the discerned will of the Lord, Acts 21. Um he goes off bound to Jerusalem and eventually into a jail, and you know, best we can tell he got killed, right? So the fact that somebody is following the Lord, being led by the Spirit, not just in terms of of their morality, but also they have sought the wisdom that comes from above. And they sense that the Lord has given it. And so I think that it the fact that somebody's received the wisdom of the Lord, certainly Jesus walked in wisdom and he ended up dead. Paul walked in wisdom and he ended up dead. It's all over the scriptures that that somebody walking in the wisdom of the Lord being led by the Spirit does not mean that they end up with a happy, prosperous, pain-free life. Uh including both Jared minds. Right? And so we've both experienced um church tragedy um in different ways, but we have. And um so I think that it that uh walking in uh it's a mistake and it is a distortion to think that if things didn't go well, that must not have been the will of the Lord.

SPEAKER_04: 25:37

And you will miss God's heart if you buy into that lie.

SPEAKER_03: 25:41

Right. Because uh Jared and I would also both say, as we've both experienced church tragedy, that there are there is no way that there are aspects of us that needed to be conformed to Christ, which remember that is Christ's big goal for you, is that you be conformed to his image, that's the work of the Spirit, to conform you to the image of Christ. That there's no way that that would have happened without those really difficult things going on in our lives. And so we have to remember that that just because something's difficult doesn't mean that we you know, the old distortion was that we weren't in the center of the will of God because that would have been, you know, everything. Cheese and sprinkles, right? Would have been perfect. So that's what it is. That's that's yeah, that's when we talk about discernment, especially community discernment, we're thinking about those examples in the book of Acts. We're talking about being in the middle of James and admitting we don't have wisdom, we lack it. We're aware of these things that were among us, so we're submitting ourselves to God, we're humbling ourselves, and we're saying we need the wisdom that comes from above. And the saints gathered in the book of Acts received it, and that wasn't revelatory, it wasn't um so that they could write scripture down. It seemed to be the working of the spirit among them. And we get little hints of this walk by the spirit, be led by the spirit, right? And those are certainly moral things, and I think that's important. We'll get back to differentiation and and how we can see that somebody is lacking in it by the way that they live out uh their life by the spirit, but we'll we'll back into that later. How does it relate to differentiation? Is that what we want to go back to? Um or you want to go someplace else.

SPEAKER_04: 27:19

I wanted to go to well, I excuse you, there's two way two places I want to go. I want to talk about the the fact that God does this because at the foundation of what he's doing in us is not just sanctifying us, but bringing us into relationship with him.

SPEAKER_03: 27:38

Yeah. That's that's the bringing us closer, drawing us in closer. He wants relationship with us. Yes.

SPEAKER_04: 27:45

God has no desire to toss a user's manual at us and say, Hey, here's everything you need to know. If you have a problem, I'll be over here. His desire is to walk with us and ask our good father. Yes. And he keeps us close to himself so that I've got a precious nine-year-old daughter. And my precious nine-year-old daughter comes to me and she says, Hey Papa, I she just this morning, she was having some issues. She said, I need your help. I'm feeling some kind of way. Would you just hold me? Of course I'll hold you. You're my baby girl. That's great. I'm here to help you. That's nothing makes me happier in my life than to know that I am helping you. You know this and I know this. Um and I think that most of our hearers will probably know this as well. But the difference between knowing mentally and understanding at that visceral level that God is a good father who pursues his children because he wishes to have them come into his presence so that they can have a tickle fight.

SPEAKER_03: 28:54

I was uh preach I was privileged to preach today out of Mark V and talking about the women with the issue of blood. And what Jerry's saying is super important because Jesus could have healed that woman and that woman known that she was healed and just gone on. Yep. There was no there was no reason. If only Jesus is interested in giving us certain goods apart from relationship, he doesn't stop. But the woman wanted only goods. Jesus wanted to give her the goods, he wanted to give her alone peace, healing in her body and relationship with He wanted her to know that this wasn't just about her getting healed, it was that and that Jesus wanted um that one to one relationship with. And um he's always after that.

SPEAKER_04: 29:46

Non transactional, God is not a transactional God, right? God is a living was about to say breathing, is a living being who wants to have ongoing in our time growing. relationship with us which is which we we should all I think stop and sit and ponder that the god of the universe who is eternally outside of time eternally outside of everything that we can know he said actually I'd I'd really love to get a cup of coffee with you. I'd really love to sit down and share a beer with you and I'd really love to show you some of the things I've painted and see some of the things that you've been working on and talk about them.

SPEAKER_03: 30:33

Think about all the relational time Jesus spent with the disciples that wasn't just to waste three years to get to the cross. It didn't even like fellas let's go back together right um it was real relationship it it becomes important because it matters uh when you come asking for wisdom and certainly to me wisdom that's in conformity with the Bible right God's not going to give you wisdom you you foolishly hear some young people say well we we talk to God and and um what we've discerned from God is that we should live together and have sex before we get married. I can guarantee you that they did not receive the wisdom that comes from above. Right. It doesn't fit those traits. Yeah. But the wisdom that comes from above is not simply only it's going to be always in conformity with the Bible but it's not only things in the Bible. So this is an oh this is a colloquial way of putting it so if you're if a listener wants to harass me they can. But just as we pray before after we read the scriptures and ask God to open them up through the mouth of a preacher right and then when we sense that God has spoken to us from his word that's him in relationship with us talking to us about things that we needed to hear about right that talking happens that relating with God happens more than just from Bible words. And I'll just give you an analogy so you understand this was it the will of God did we discern the will of God about my wife getting married well my name is in the Bible Matthew doesn't relate to me Julianne's name is not in the Bible. So that that wisdom from above that we needed was not available simply from Bible words. It was in conformity with Bible words right but it wasn't only Bible words to get that and that's all we're trying to say about discernment that happens in community is that it's that same kind of thing where the Father who is generous with wisdom when we humble ourselves and say we need it and we want it, we recognize that we're these people that have boring things inside of us that prevent us from getting to that wisdom. And so we we pray Holy Spirit that you'd work among us sometimes in intense conversation. Look at Acts 15. Acts 15 the words for the debate and and everything it was incredibly vigorous. It was it was a disagreement without being disagreeable right and and yet it was loud it was loud but it was altered but it was courteous right it was everybody wanting to try and figure out what was the wisdom that came from above and they believed as they appealed to the Lord that he would enable them to to discern that that they received it so much so that they said it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us that this is how the gospel should go out among the Gentiles that's what we're talking about something that's that biblically constrained. Well there are other biblical constraints that we can look at and say how do you work this out if if what we're saying is not true how do you work these things out you go back to Proverbs and you see a Proverbs like answer a fool according to his folly otherwise he'll be wise in his own eyes don't answer a fool according to his folly otherwise you'll be a fool and we say Lord it kind of seems like you're speaking out of both sides of your mouth and he says well I'm giving you not a direction I'm giving you wisdom to sort of help you understand how to apply this to the various experiences you're gonna walk through yeah so that's and that's to distinguish it from you know what's the what's the famous cone not not c o n e but I think it's K-O-A-N what's the sound of one hand clapping? It's not those proverbs are not meant to be that the scripture is not meant to be like that. Um they're meant to be helpful to us. Those seven letters in Revelation are illustrative when you if you were to take all of the issues that all of the churches in the New Testament faced there's probably some book that's done this but it would be depressing. But if you took all the issues that all the churches in the New Testament faced plus the uh including the ones in Revelation it's a staggering number of things that churches can fall into that they have to deal with and there's probably a myriad more than just them.

SPEAKER_04: 34:52

Well you can you can even take it a step further can't you though if the Holy Spirit isn't speaking to us then why am I reading a letter written to a church in Galatia 2000 years ago I'm not in Galatia and I'm not 2000 years old.

SPEAKER_03: 35:09

But we believe the spirit can open up that word to help us now in our church and in our own lives. Right this is what we're doing every Sunday morning as well. Yeah we are yeah when we ask for the spirit's illumination it's not just help me understand the words on the page and what they meant to the original audience in their grammatic historical context. Yes we are but also how would this apply to me loving my neighbor right now in 2025 um in the midst of of all of this which is again is not the words that are on the page but it is what the spirit can open up to our hearts as an application of what's on the page.

SPEAKER_04: 35:51

Brad Paisley has a song called Me and Jesus and you read this in my notes and you're like I don't know the song well the basic premise of the song is a guy singing basically me and Jesus were fine. Ah okay and I I listen to the song and I'm thinking to myself this is this could be the anthem for a lot of Christians I know. Interesting.

SPEAKER_03: 36:09

Yeah I've got a you know I've got a a hotline to God I talk to him he tells me whatever it is that I'm gonna tell you he told me and that's it we're good we're good yeah he said it's cool it's cool which which is um you know misses a couple of things one is it misses that wisdom in a multitude of counselors right and I think it misses that boy I still even with the spirit inside of me because I still need sanctification and I'm still radically imperfect man I can be very very mistaken. I can just be subject to my own immaturity which is ongoing. Absolutely which is a great danger uh for people who accept themselves from church they're kind of like well I don't really need that weekly preaching from someone who's trained and qualified and gifted to open up the word for me I I know what I need I already know what I need uh to know. Golly it's just marvelous I I have so many memories ongoing memories even I sit under preaching probably about 50% of the time I preach about 50% I sit under preaching. And the Lord continues to grow me because I need to grow and I'm a 50 something pastor I've been in ministry for 35 years and it it's I'm sorry over 30 years and it's staggering how much I still don't know and don't understand and am mistaken about we all need that ongoing growth.

SPEAKER_04: 37:31

Well this goes all the way back to episode two as well because when I when I separate myself out and and take on this demonic theology that me and Jesus can just have our own thing on direct pipeline. Right. What I'm saying fundamentally is the whole family motif that is born out of not just the image of God and the relationship but also carries with it the authority structure that is born out of God's person that He has intentionally placed over all of life and put all of life inside of I'm saying Lord I don't need that. Yeah your authority structure is crap. Right right I can I can make it on my own someone somewhere got it wrong ahead of me and I don't trust them and I don't really think this is of you because you speak directly to me or you don't but at least you're the only one who's gonna judge me because you've already said Christians can't be judgers.

unknown: 38:28

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 38:29

And you're certainly not going to judge is not like a uh this big throne that you're gonna sit on someday that I don't read about intentionally.

SPEAKER_03: 38:37

Yeah and it's it's to cut ourselves off from part of the goodness that God wants to give you what you're saying authority is a good thing? Yeah well what I'm saying is in the New Testament there are 24 one another commands and if you cut yourself off from the body of Christ you can neither obey them for the sake of others nor receive from others as they obey them and that is a great detriment to you and to other people to not have you be there to minister to them. Wow much less you be there so other people can minister to you.

SPEAKER_04: 39:09

So it's more than my rejection of God's ordained authority. Yeah it's also me separating myself out and saying hey I'm gonna take my I'm gonna take my marbles and I'm gonna go play by myself. I'm gonna play yep over here you're not gonna get the benefit and you know nice knowing you God be with you patch on the bottom and then see what happened maybe. Right.

SPEAKER_00: 39:33

In part two of this conversation Matt and Jeremy turn the corner from theology to practice exploring how discernment takes shape in real leadership settings where anxiety, courage and community all come into play. Join us next week as they continue discernment and differentiation led by the Spirit. Thanks for listening to the Church Renewal podcast from Flourish Coaching. Flourish exists to set ministry leaders free to be effective wherever God has called them. We believe that there's only one fully sufficient reason that this day dawned Jesus is still gathering his people and he's using his church to do it. When pastors or churches feel stuck our team of coaches refresh their hope in the gospel and help them clarify their strategy. If you have questions or a need, we'd love to hear from you. For more information go to our website flourishedcoaching.org or send an email to info at flourishedcoaching.org. You can also connect with us on Facebook, X and YouTube. We appreciate when you like subscribe rate or review our show whenever you're listening. It can be hard for churches to ask for help so when our clients tell us who referred them we'll send a small gift to say thanks. A huge thank you to all our guests for making the time to share their stories with us. We are really blessed to have all these friends and partners all music for this show has been licensed and was composed and created by artists. The Church Renewal podcast was directed and produced by Jeremy Separati in association with flourish coaching with the goal of equipping and encouraging your church to flourish wherever God has called it. Bye for now