Why Discernment Depends On Character

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Church Renewal Podcast. I'm Jeremy. Community spiritual discernment is not merely a process that can be imposed on any group of people. The spiritual character of the people in the room profoundly shapes what the community can hear, how they hear it, and whether they can respond faithfully. In this episode, we begin with the gospel humility and ask what changes when a person no longer needs to prove their worth or make their idea win the day.

The Love And Truth Matrix

SPEAKER_03 0:26

Okay, Matt. In jumping off here today, I'm gonna present you something. I use something called the love and truth paradigm. Okay. If you put love on the x-axis and truth on the y-axis, you get a four-box matrix. And in the first quadrant, you've got high love, high truth, and that's where you have Jesus, and that's where we all aspire to be. Yep. If you go to the second quadrant, you've got low love, high truth, and that's where unfortunately, oftentimes those who are reformed may tend to be. Very doctrinally sound. They don't feel very loving. Sometimes it doesn't feel as loving. Yeah. When you go to the quad the fourth quadrant, you have low truth, high love, and we have the liberal church existing there. Right, right, by and large. And then when you go down to the third quadrant, which is low love, low truth, you have the entire Christian industrial complex, Christian music, Christian book. But I would say, in honestly, um, I think a lot of the church, a lot of our congregations actually exist there in low truth, low love. Right. It's not really important to me, truthfully, what Jesus says about me or what I should do. And it's not really that important to me what's going on with you and your eternal salvation, so long as my life is happy and comfortable, which is the whole idolatry of comfort. Yep, I think exists there in that third quadrant.

SPEAKER_04 1:49

Christianity is a tack on to my life, not not at the center of it, but it's fine. It's a nice thing, nice thing that I'd like to have. Yes.

Five Traits For Discernment

SPEAKER_04 1:56

Thanks.

SPEAKER_03 1:56

So we're talking today about the the traits required to have in order to enter into community spiritual discernment. Would you tell us more about traits today?

SPEAKER_04 2:07

Right.

SPEAKER_03 2:08

And there are five traits that we'll discuss. Uh, you know, I'll just list them up real quick. We have gospel humility, right, self-awareness, other awareness, gentleness, and actively pursuing to uh obey the will of God. Uh I think that's I think that's the last one I said that mostly correctly. Mostly correctly close enough for right now. Get us into this.

SPEAKER_04 2:32

Sure. In order for a group to do this biblical teamwork well, they as individuals have to have had the gospel come home for them, for them to be going deeper into the gospel and applying it more broadly. And in particular, in in a group dynamic setting, there are some of those traits that are the most important that, if they're underdeveloped, make community spiritual discernment incredibly difficult, if not impossible. In a leadership setting, in a conversation setting, there are certain ones that are the most destructive if they're underdeveloped. That's the ones that we're trying to focus on here on

Why Humility Must Come First

SPEAKER_04 3:12

the book. Uh, so the first of these traits that is the most helpful to have is gospel humility. The reason that humility leads the list is because if everyone in the group has it, it holds out the possibility that the group can really, really work well together. If any single individual in the group is living in learn terms of pride instead of humility, it will make the group very, very difficult because people will be trafficking in different things. Hopefully it's fairly obvious why humility would be the most important

What Blocks Gospel Humility

SPEAKER_04 3:50

things.

SPEAKER_03 3:50

Let me just punch pause for a second there. So um I don't know many pastors who don't earnestly want that. I'm guessing you don't either. So what is the what's the underlying issue here that leads to with this particular because this you're setting this up really as the crux of the issue. What is it that gets in our way from being gospally humble?

SPEAKER_01 4:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:16

Wow, that's like a whole complex conversation about what gets in the way of us being gospel humble. Um, yeah, so I think um if I have understood the gospel and if I'm seek to seeking to increasingly understand and apply the gospel to myself, then what happens is that I'm comfortable in my own skin. And if I'm comfortable in my own skin, I don't need a conversation to go a certain way for me to be okay.

SPEAKER_03 4:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 4:49

If I am not comfortable in my own skin, if I'm not understanding and applying the gospel to myself, then I go into the conversation, uh, as my dad used to put it, um, loaded for bear. Right. And I go in needing the conversation to go a certain way. So this is why it's so critical. If I'm humble and I think that I don't yet know, right? So James 1.5, if y'all lack wisdom, so if I say I lack wisdom, and we as a group say we lack wisdom, now we're in the place where God can work because we have been accurate and truthful. Jesus says, John 15, 5, apart from me, you can do nothing. Lord, apart from you, we will screw this up. That's appropriate gospel humility. That's an appropriate sense that I understand that I am a tiny frail little creature who knows very little and I'm sinful.

SPEAKER_03 5:44

And unfortunately, it takes decades of walking with the Lord to get there.

SPEAKER_04 5:47

Yeah, unfortunately. I was blessed to have people in my early Christian life who alerted me of my need to grow in this. And it has um shined. It has been it has borne great fruit. Yeah. Yeah. I had people that they were acutely aware of this, they were humble themselves, and they had the courage to tell me that this was an area where I really needed to grow. And it's borne great fruit. That the Lord used those folks in my life, and this has always been uh a feature of something to be working on. Uh one of the perils of being competent and smart, and it is a peril to actually believe that apart from me you can do nothing. Because there's lots of things in the world that people like me can do. But once you hop in the spiritual realm, you're incapable. That's what Jesus tells you. And if everyone around the table has that view of themselves, then they don't elevate themselves. They value the spirit in another person and they doubt their own wisdom. And that's the recipe for a good conversation. That's why gospel humility's got to lead in this. Um, if you've never read or listen to uh Keller's little sermon, The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness, um, which I return to a time or two a year, every year, I to me it gives you the path to walk this out of how to go about this and to learn how to get more and more get more comfortable in your skin.

SPEAKER_03 7:14

And it and it also indicates to us why gospel humility, even in evangelical gospel faithful churches, is at times the exception, and even at times the rare exception. In our leaders and in our within our congregation.

Pride Is Sneaky And Pervasive

SPEAKER_04 7:34

Um in the church that I pastored in West Seattle, we we went through a difficult spell uh where we had a leader actually leave and he left despite our the rest of us as leaders welcoming him to stay and to repent and and to walk help him walk out his repentance, but he had discovered himself as a very proud person and recognized it thankfully. And although he didn't listen to our welcoming him to stay and to work on his pride there, it was great that the Lord had worked enough that he didn't make a stink on the way out, which was great. Yeah. Um for which I'm grateful. Sure. But pride is sneaky, sneaky, sneaky. Remember, no matter how long you think the earth has been around, Satan said at least 6,000 years to Hone's craft. There are so many ways in which pride sneaks in. So we there's a resource that we'll that we'll link to from this episode, just talking about something that we developed in that church's ministry called addressing pride in your life. And uh it's a composite of resources, but trust that it might be helpful to you. It's certainly been helpful to me. And it's a tool that I use with teams before I go in. Um I send them a this as a pre-read and say, Hey, this is the starting point. I had a recent experience within the calendar year in which we're recording, uh, where I walked in after having send that sent this to a group, a leader looked at me and said, Did you think this was a problem for us? And it's interesting. Now I know it. Now I know it is. Um, but in that packet, there's you know, 50 manifestations of pride as part of what's in that packet. And the last one of the 50 is you really think that somebody else needs this list, not you. And that's the insidiousness of pride.

Humble Or Just Crushed

SPEAKER_03 9:23

Uh, Matt, defining moment. What do you mean by a gospel humbled person? And what's the difference between that and a person whose pride has merely been crushed?

SPEAKER_04 9:32

Yeah.

unknown 9:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:33

So a gospel humbled person, someone who's comfortable in their own skin, they know themselves to be a very great sinner. In fact, the worst sinner that they know, but also marvelously received by the Father because of the work of the Son. And so they're amazed and grateful and thankful. And as a result, they're a gracious person. That's the gospel humbled person. The person who's just had their pride crushed shows up in two forms. Uh, one is uh the very proud, superior person whose pride's been crushed as they're trying to work it back and fake it till they make it. The inferior person where their pride has been crushed is they don't think themselves that they could be useful ever. They're very aware of how sinful they are, uh, but they are not convinced that the that the grace of God is greater than their sin. And they're both dangerous people. We see other people as having logs in their eyes, right, and us merely having a speck. With Jesus trying to convince us, dude, two big cedars coming out of your eyes, and your guy over here, you know, he's got himself a speck of silt in his eye, and you're supposed to laugh and reflect. Yeah, and we don't. And so if we're bringing pride to the table instead of gospel humility, then we're gonna mess up the conversation because we're engaging it wrongly. Yeah, so the humility is the most essential trait.

Ephesians 4 For Team Unity

SPEAKER_03 11:01

Yeah, and when you're working with churches, you will use the framework, I believe, of Ephesians 4, 1 to 3, right, to help unpack this. So would you unpack that passage for us in this context?

SPEAKER_04 11:13

Yeah, sure. So this is a passage that we commonly commend to pastor search committees to use as sort of the theme passage for their work. It's Ephesians 4. So, in I think it's all of Paul's letters, but the general pattern that Paul gives is he uh gets a report of the things that a church is challenged by, the ways that they've gotten off the path, and he thinks carefully about how does this church need me to repreach the gospel to them so that they'll understand the gospel clearly and that I can apply that gospel to them so that whatever way they've gotten off the path, they'll get back on the path. In Ephesians 1 through 3, you have the repreaching of the gospel and the application of it. So when Paul repreaches the gospel, he talks about people being dead in their sin and them having no hope except for God saving them. And it's the hallmark passage for that emphasis. So when you get over to Ephesians 4, the way Paul applies that gospel is he says, I therefore a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called, to this gospel calling with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. Paul's saying that a direct application of people who get this is all of grace, that I am getting better than what I deserve. Yeah, that person can operate in the body and thus in a leadership team with all humility. They can be gentle because they know the Lord's being gentle with them. Um, they can have patience because they know the Lord is being patient with them. Uh, they can bear with one another in love because they know themselves better than they know anybody else, and they know that the Lord is bearing with them in love as they grow in sanctification. And so, for all of this, they believe the Lord has a purpose for the church, and so they're eager to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace, not just purity, but purity and peace in the church, and so they pursue that because that's what Christ died for to have a unified body. So this passage is one of the many places, but it's a it's a quintessential place where Paul applies the gospel and say, Gospel people, this is the way they act. Right. So if you were on a team, wouldn't you love it that your team meetings were marked by humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another, love that everybody was eager to maintain in the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. Wouldn't that be a great team to be on? Wouldn't that be a great meeting to be in? And Paul says that's the possibility for us if we genuinely understand and apply the gospel, right, that we can be people like that.

SPEAKER_03 14:05

So unpack for us Paul's testimony, his own personal testimony. Yeah,

Paul’s Story And Leadership Competence

SPEAKER_03 14:10

it's crazy. Because that goes to, and and I want this, I guess, two parts of this question. Unpack his testimony first, but help us understand how Paul goes from saying, I'm the chief of sinners, to boasting only in Christ's death and resurrection. How does that happen? Yeah. Paul's testimony as an example for us.

SPEAKER_04 14:26

Yeah, so Paul was a the equivalent of a double PhD in our world in ancient Judaism, had been taught by the best, and he was out getting warrants from the Jewish court to go arrest Christians. He was there, he held the coats when Stephen was stoned. He was an accessory to murder. Paul is this very aggressive Jewish persecutor of the church, and the Lord arrests him on the roads of Damascus, opens his heart, changes his heart, and then sends him to the desert, puts him in school for a good period of time so that he might be shaped entirely differently. And when he comes back from being in the desert, he comes back not as a persecutor of the church, but as the chief church planter and developer of leaders, and yeah, it's all of it. And you get these missionary journeys, and he plants these churches and revitalized churches and creates revitalization leaders and gives us a whole chunk of the New Testament, right? So that's that's Paul's testimony as he goes from being this persecutor of Jesus to recognizing that everything that he had, everything that he tried to lay hold of, every place that he tried to find an identity, he actively shed all of that and said, It's just about Christ for me, not being identified with Christ.

SPEAKER_03 15:51

And as he said to the Corinthians church, all these things which I did, that double PhD equivalency, nothing. Nothing.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:02

Then I could boast in all of this. I could boast in my lineage and my heritage and my study in my CV and my resume.

SPEAKER_04 16:11

But I'm not going to. And so why Jeremy's going here is the reason it's applicable is we tend to put in America very capable people on elder boards. And they come in many times leaning on their PhDs, their work experience, their competence, and thinking that that's what's needed in spiritual leadership when like the the opposite of that is needed. Um, not that they're unwise people, not that they don't have things to bring to the table, not that God didn't give them their brains and their experiences and their gifts and abilities. We want all of that, but we want all of that in a particular kind of person, a gospel humbled person, a person who realizes I have a hundred pieces of the puzzle, but I only have a hundred pieces of the puzzle. And that and that kind of humility, that that sober evaluation of myself leads to self-awareness that we'll talk about. Right. Leads to self-awareness, leads to other awareness. You know, so it so I don't end up bigger than I should be in this. I'm content to only play my little role.

SPEAKER_03 17:27

There's two two sides you can fall off here that Paul could have, and he addresses both of them. On the one hand, he was the persecutor of Christ, right? He was arresting and killing Christians, and on the other hand, he had the entire portfolio of what it meant to be the accomplished, studied, completed, matured Jewish man of religion. Yep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:50

So you can follow off this on the inferior side of the superior side, right? On the inferior side, you kind of you see how much you haven't met the standard. That person hesitates to put their pieces on the table. The superior side person thinks that they've they've performed, they've done it. They kind of slam down their pieces on the table and say, here's the whole picture. And both of those are unhelpful when you're trying to discern, because you need the pieces in the pocket of the guy who feels inferior, and you need the pieces of the guy who's superior, but you only need them in proportion to their size, which is a tenth of the picture.

Romans 5 And The Expanding Cross

SPEAKER_03 18:30

So I wonder if you can synthesize this for us. And I know I'm throwing this at you, so take whatever time you need or skip it if you want. Can you help us understand how Romans 5 deepens our understanding of what the gospel humility we have accessible to walk in is because of what we received? Keep going. You you you got an idea, run with it. So Romans 5, 20, and 21, Paul says, where sin increased, grace increased all the more. And when we're talking about the the two sides here of gospel humility, right? There is the one hand where I know I've failed and I'm not worthy. Yep. There's the other hand where I lie to myself and think I've done all the things and am worthy. And the gospel comes to both of those and rights-sizes my view of myself in light of what I've actually done and what I've actually received to afford me to be able to walk in gospel humility as both a leader and as a congregant.

SPEAKER_04 19:30

Right, right. Yeah. So if the organization is now called Surge, um, and we can maybe we can link to this diagram. Um they have a diagram that they call shrinking the cross, whereas I become more aware of God's holiness and I become more aware of my sinfulness, that the possibility is that instead of the cross growing in my perception of it, instead of me sensing that the grace of God is abounding, um, I can instead shrink the cross where I feel like I've got to perform or pretend. Ideally, as I go through the Christian life, what Paul's talking about here in Romans 5 is ideally as I go through the Christian life and I become more acquainted with myself. And one of the things I find out is I'm more sinful than I thought I was. So when I when I become aware that I'm more sinful than I thought I was, at least two things can happen. One of them is that I'm just like, wow, the grace of God is bigger than I thought it was. Right. Or I could just go, oh man, there's probably only a limited amount of grace that's available, and now I've exceeded it. Now what do I do? Uh either perform or I pretend. I perform to try and get back into God's good graces, or I pretend like I'm not as bad as I think I as I actually am. Because the cross isn't getting bigger to my perception of it.

SPEAKER_03 20:51

Either way, fig leaves.

SPEAKER_04 20:52

Yeah, absolutely. Yep, exactly right. Cover up. Uh instead of fess up. Right? And so I think that if you're a person who has either sinned in really significant public ways or you deeply feel your perversity inside, even if it's not been publicly made known to other people. I want you to imagine what it must have been like to be inside of the head and heart of the Apostle Paul and to know the kind of regret and shame that he must have felt about what he did to Jesus Church. And it's the grace of God can abound to the Apostle Paul. The grace of God can abound to you. No matter what you've done, if you're walking in repentance and faith, the grace of God is greater than your sin. Um and this is where sometimes inferior people are are not humbled, they're humiliated. Um actually many times proud people are very insecure, and it's because they're also humiliated, but not humbled. They're actually very aware of their weakness, but they're trying to cover it up. I i i if you run it either pole here, the inferior or the superior, instead of genuine gospel humility, you jack up the group and you make discernment very difficult.

SPEAKER_03 22:13

Yes.

Practices To Grow In Humility

SPEAKER_03 22:14

So practically, what steps do you take uh to grow in gospel humility?

SPEAKER_04 22:21

Yeah. Um so I think that uh one of the again trying to follow the apostle Paul, he uh first Timothy one five, right, considered himself to be the the worst of sinners. Um not not I was, but I am the chief of sinners. Paul's posture, despite his development in Christ, despite his identity in Christ, despite all of the way that the Lord had used him, the way that he considered himself was that he was the worst sinner that he knew. And yet the grace of God was bigger than his sin. For me, I'm seeking in my own humility to really own I'm the worst sinner that I know. And so if I own that I'm the worst sinner that I know, that changes interaction with unbelievers. Because I don't have to come off to them like I have it together or that I'm better than them because I know actually actually I know that I'm not. Right, which changes uh my posture when I talk with people that don't know Jesus. Changes my posture in marriage. Um my wife and I, my wife's been very patient. She's uh put up with me. We just clicked over 30 years of marriage together, which is amazing. One of the reasons that our marriage has worked by God's grace is that both of us are convinced that we're the worst sinner in the marriage, and that the other person is not a worse sinner than me. And our marriage works because it runs on grace. So for me, it is fighting to remember that I am the worst sinner I know and that God's grace is greater than my sin. Which means that there's a possibility as I get acquainted with myself better and I find out how sinful I am, there's the possibility that I actually can have more gratitude and thankfulness. Because grace is now bigger than me and it's more meaningful than me. And it staggers me more that Jesus would be gracious to me and that you want to meet his family. It's just, it's, it holds out the possibility that I'm just completely humbled. Um if if that's the way that I traffic with the gospel in my own heart. And if you have a table full of people that that's the way that they traffic in their own heart, then you have the possibility of a big thing.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

A

Next Steps And How To Connect

SPEAKER_00 24:31

discerning church needs more than accurate theology. It needs people whose character is increasingly shaped by the gospel. In the next episode, we'll continue that picture by examining graciousness, self-awareness, and the Christ-like character that allows people to hear one another faithfully. 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 there's only one fully sufficient reason that this day dawn, 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 in need, we'd love to hear from you. For more information, go to our website, flourishcoaching.org, or send an email to info at flourishcoaching.org. You can also connect with us on Facebook, X, and YouTube. We appreciate when you like, subscribe, rate, or review our show wherever 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. Thank you to Redeemer Anglican Church in Annapolis, Maryland for the use of their facilities to record this episode. We are humbled and grateful for your partnership. And special thanks to each of the guests who joined us this season. Flourish Coaching is proud to partner with and learn from all our colleagues where the spirit is being sought and followed. We are privileged to receive the gift of their time, experience, and expertise, and to share it to strengthen the body of Christ. 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 Sefferati in association with Flourish Coaching, with the goal of equipping and encouraging your church to flourish wherever God has called you. Bye for now.