Brenda (00:04.686)
Hi Alex.
Alex (00:05.833)
I don't know.
Brenda (00:08.175)
You know, I was just thinking today, I just wish we could be in the same location and we could just be drinking a cup of tea or coffee together as we do this, but we'll have to settle for a Zoom call. Yes. Wait, you were a little slow there, Alex, on affirming me.
Alex (00:20.745)
Yes.
Alex (00:27.05)
That's because you froze. So I have no idea what you said.
I think it was something really nice.
Brenda (00:35.343)
Well, that makes me feel... It was, and then there was just silence and I was like, she clearly doesn't have the same sentiment toward me that I do toward her.
Alex (00:42.762)
I heard nothing. I heard I was thinking today and then we'll settle for heaven and I was like, okay.
Brenda (00:51.451)
All right, all right. Well, okay, let's just move on. That's right.
Alex (00:55.21)
So I'm gonna have to listen to our own podcast to know what you said, which I never do.
Brenda (01:04.303)
All right. Well, I'm just gonna leave that there. Let's just move on Work ourselves out of this beginning of this podcast, but we are still in season 8 which we are calling this sacred struggle of sin responsibility and the journey to transformation and today is episode 5 and we're continuing our We're continuing our dance Alex. Maybe that's what I should have said. I wish we could be together to dance together I said, let's have a cup of coffee, but I don't know. I'm getting weirder by the moment. I just need to
Alex (01:07.721)
Hahaha!
Alex (01:26.857)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Brenda (01:34.209)
stop. But we're calling this the Good News for Sinners, the Gospel Waltz, and we're focusing on the area of believing or trusting. And this whole Gospel Waltz is what we might call a repentance plan or what it looks like or the components of what it really looks like to have the full measure of repentance in play. And, you know, repentance is that pathway that God provides to restore
Alex (01:45.418)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (02:04.066)
store broken fellowship with him first. And then we've said that it, you know, sin breaks other relationships. It breaks the relationship even within ourselves, how we view ourselves with other people and even with our environment. And on our last episode, we talked about confession as agreeing with God that we don't have to hide our true story about who we are and what we've done and what we haven't done that we should have done. And then on our next episode, we're going to talk about the love part of the dance, which will be
kind of the doing, the obeying, that faith working itself out towards love for God and our neighbor. But this episode we want to talk about specifically believe and we're going to be talking about what does it look like in our repentance process to trust God's character and promises and why is that even important to this process of repentance?
Alex (02:45.15)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (02:59.66)
You know, I was thinking last night that this is just a hard season for me. I just, it surprised me how much I don't like to talk about sin. I think maybe I feel like I filled my quota. I talked about it for so many years. I don't want to talk about it anymore.
And I was with a client yesterday who was really struggling and I got to just really encourage them right along the lines of what we're gonna talk about today of disbelieving and trusting. We were specifically talking about Jesus's perfection in this person's sin struggle. And I really had to sit last night and realize like...
Brenda (03:40.751)
Hmm.
Alex (03:41.324)
If we, what we said from the very beginning, like when we lose the destructiveness of sin, when we don't want to talk about sin, then we actually really lose what's really precious about Jesus and what he did for us. And so what we're going to try to do today is tease that out in how we talk about belief. Because when we're talking about belief, we're talking about how do we trust in God's character in the work of Jesus in the past.
Brenda (03:56.816)
That's right. Amen.
Alex (04:11.231)
of the Holy Spirit and we have to believe before we do like we want this obedience to come out of an overflow of a heart that's oriented to loving and trusting and who God is and so years ago I remember the first time my pastor said we needed to change the what would Jesus do bracelet and we did we didn't need to focus so much on what would Jesus do like Jesus just came to be an example for us to
follow. We needed to change the bracelet to WDJD, what did Jesus do that we needed to focus on the work of Christ and to recognize the beauty, the preciousness, the...
just be inspired really to all over what Christ did for us on our behalf and that that was really why Jesus came. He didn't come just to be an example to us. He came to rescue us. He came to do what we couldn't do. And so what we like to say is that when we miss this step of belief, we're not doing a waltz, we're doing a two -step and the two -step is a great dance, but it's not a good way to live our Christian life in repentance. We have to remember
that we do want to agree with God, but we can't just move from agreement to God to doing. We can't just move from put off to put on. We have to remember the middle step even in Ephesians says transforming our minds and that's that part where we've got to focus on believing and trusting in who Christ is because we forget that this is relational and not transactional and that two -step is very transactional and what God is calling us into is relationship.
with him.
Brenda (06:00.334)
Well, let's talk about what does it mean to believe when we sin. And there's some things that we have to trust God for and with. And kind of to your point, if we don't really come back to this idea of focusing on Christ and God and the Holy Spirit and this idea of trust, then we're just going to keep running away from God. We're going to keep running away from sin. We're not going to want to talk about it. But man, when I just think about it, it is my sin.
Alex (06:04.492)
Hmm.
Brenda (06:30.222)
Golly, it's my sin that continually highlights the gospel to me. Now, that's not an excuse, right, as Paul would say, to keep sinning so grace will abound, but it is true when we can look at our failures as the way by which God will draw us back to His heart and draw us back to beholding the cross and draw us back to understanding that we don't do this in our own power and for our own glory, then our sin, which Satan wants to use to destroy us, to destroy others, actually becomes a
Alex (06:33.581)
Hmm.
Alex (06:47.885)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (07:00.176)
catalyst for a greater worship in our lives and transformation. So we want to talk about trusting in three areas. We want to talk about trusting who God is.
Alex (07:03.053)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (07:12.11)
than what He has done for us in Christ and then what He will do for us through the power of the Holy Spirit. And so the first thing we want to look at is who He is, who God is, His character and promises. You know, we want to look at His works and His ways, like His promises and even His precepts always point back to His character. They always tell us something about who God is. And I love this verse in Exodus 34, 6 and 7.
This verse is actually referenced or re -quoted over 20 times in the Bible because this would be very, very important to the ancients. This is how they knew and understood God. This is where they would go to describe what God was like. And so I just want to read the verse. It says,
Alex (07:47.054)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (08:11.984)
And on one hand you read that and you go, Rutt Rowe, wait a second, I thought we were talking about God's love and mercy and forgiveness and then we got into punishment. There's a great Bible project video that we will post in the show notes that really expounds on this that I thought was just so great. But I remember Marty Solomon teaching this in Israel.
Alex (08:27.693)
Hehehehe.
Brenda (08:41.904)
when he was talking about this verse and just the Jewish emphasis on this view of God, you know, in times past and in present times. And just this idea that all of our sin and suffering, that, you know, that God's mercy far outweighs his judgments is what I'm trying to say, that his mercies are to a thousand generations and his judgments are only to the third, third or fourth generation. And so as we begin to think again about,
Alex (09:00.686)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (09:08.173)
Yeah.
Brenda (09:11.824)
Yes, you know, we are sinners, but the most true thing about us is we're forgiven sinners. We're children of God. He welcomes us in confession. He welcomes us to come home. He wants to enter it back into relationship with us, and we need to believe that. And really, every single time, Alex, because particularly if we're stuck in a sin, this is where we really begin to believe that maybe God is not the God I just...
Alex (09:27.757)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (09:37.998)
I just mentioned, you know, that he's tired of me, that he's going to be impatient with me and those things.
Alex (09:38.957)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I think it helps us not to be afraid of God because there are consequences to our sin. There is discipline that are part of the Father's love and not part of His displeasure towards us. And it can be hard then to realize that we're not being punished, that that punishment has already been visited on Christ and not on us. And so we want to think about how does this play out in real examples to make this as concrete as possible because particularly this step of belief can become really abstract.
and feel like it doesn't meet where the rubber meets the road. So one place we might want to think about it is when we envy. You know, we both, both you and I struggled with envy recently, even together. We corporately struggled with envy. And it's hard to realize how we go from one minute, like being so excited about what's good is in someone's life or their gifting or their success. And then to go so quickly to,
Brenda (10:29.006)
Hehehehehe
Alex (10:42.718)
wanting that for myself and not being able to give honor to that in them and so We went to a counseling conference and there again it came up for me of just like looking around and seeing what people are doing in ministry questioning whether I'm doing the right things because other people are having different ministry successes and so First I need to call and be what it is in my life. That's the confess part but I also need to remember that God in his
goodness has given me everything that I need and that he's not withholding anything from me. I can look at past acts, past times when God has given his people what they need and then I can look at my own life and the past of just my own life of where God has given me everything I need and his goodness and recognize he's not withholding anything from me and I can be content with what he has given me because what he has given me is good and as I meditate,
Brenda (11:38.254)
Mmm.
Alex (11:42.43)
on God's goodness in my own life and in other people's lives, it should leave my heart to soften and me be able to move out in love towards other people like look at what my father's done for you, look at what my father's done for me and be able to celebrate that with a lot of gladness and joy instead of responding in envy and so that's when I'm able to think and say and act in ways that are loving towards other people as I'm
Brenda (12:03.758)
Hmm. Hmm.
Alex (12:12.285)
meditate on the goodness of God to all of us.
Brenda (12:14.734)
I think that's so good. And I was just thinking about the podcast we did, I think it's season one on the three attributes of God from Jerry Bridges, like looking at his sovereignty, his wisdom and his love. And I think this is a great place because even in our sin,
Alex (12:24.299)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (12:31.95)
Like, I don't understand how our free will to sin is also part of God's sovereignty, and God's sovereign over that, but just even recognizing that He is sovereign and recognizing that He is wise in the direction He gives to us for our lives when we don't have what somebody else has, or He is wise in the way that discipline or correction comes to us, and that He's always loving in it. And so we don't have to fear Him. We can go to Him and we can look to who He is in our sin.
Alex (12:37.258)
Right?
Alex (12:54.506)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (13:01.904)
begin to find great comfort in that.
Alex (13:04.235)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Brenda (13:07.47)
So the second thing we want to look at is what he has done and specifically here we're talking about what he has done in the person and work of Jesus. So we know that Jesus upheld the law perfectly in order to take the penalty for our sin and of course he died on the cross to take the penalty for our sin and in that he cleanses us of guilt and he covers our shame. And so one of the things that we often do, you know, once we get past confession is a lot of times then we want to try to figure out like how can we
Alex (13:16.427)
Hmm.
Brenda (13:37.424)
we just be better or do better? Like we just want to clean up our act. If I can just put on more good than bad or if I can just figure out a way to make God happy with me by doing something good or just not doing bad anymore. And I think we just have to really focus on the fact that we don't have to try to cleanse ourselves through any kind of spiritual rituals or doing more or being better or numb ourselves from guilt. And we certainly don't have to hide in shame. Like when we really look at the cross and what Christ has done, then we can move.
Alex (13:38.827)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (13:52.331)
Hmm.
Alex (13:58.923)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Brenda (14:07.344)
toward him we get we're going to be more free and honest about our sin we're not going to be weighed down I think that's one of the things you know the sin does it weighs us down and then we get stuck there and what and what Jesus does is he comes he lightens that right because he takes the guilt he takes the shame he takes the penalty and so often that is the message we have to continually preach to our hearts I think again especially when sin gets to be really habitual or if we have done something that is really heinous like something
Alex (14:12.074)
Hmm.
Alex (14:16.938)
yeah.
Alex (14:23.05)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (14:37.163)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Brenda (14:37.264)
that we're having a hard time, we have a lot of regrets about. Maybe we're having to deal with a lot of the consequence and discipline. So we just want to always remember in His life, His death, and His resurrection, because we want to remember the full work of Christ, that He conquered our three greatest enemies. And those enemies are the world, our flesh, and the devil.
Alex (14:59.403)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (14:59.822)
And those are areas of temptation that come to us. The world, you know, the prince of the air is putting these temptations around us. We have sin that is original to us. And so there are temptations inside. And then there's spiritual warfare going on, Alex. And, you know, we don't want to see a demon behind every bush, but I think in American culture sometimes we can live very unaware that there's an unseen world and an unseen reality.
Alex (15:16.683)
Hmm.
Brenda (15:26.606)
But all of those are working against God and against what God wants. And if they can keep us under guilt and shame and condemnation, then we're not going to walk in the freedom to, if we don't have the freedom of forgiveness, we're not going to walk in that freedom as we move forward to obey.
Alex (15:45.482)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Yeah, and I like to keep bringing these back to the particular. So we not only believe that Jesus defeated sin on our behalf, but we also, when we're thinking about the fact that he was able to live the perfect life that we were not able to live. And that means that he, the Hebrew tells us he was tempted in every way that we are. So we believe those things for our salvation, but then we have to apply them, particularly
particularly to a particular ongoing sin battle. And I remember years ago reading Barbara D. Goode's book, Extravagant Grace, and she says that we have to look at Jesus in the particular. And she gives this great example. And I can't remember, it might not be in the book. It might be in a talk she did on IBCD. And I love the title, Still Sinning After All These Years.
Brenda (16:43.498)
Mm -hmm. That's why we're never going to stop talking about sin, Alex. Right? In our own lives and other people. Yeah.
Alex (16:47.146)
Who's right? Still here.
But the example is so poignant to me. She talks about that when we struggle with something like sexual sin, we need to go to looking at Christ in the particular, meaning that we have to meditate on the fact that Jesus was surrounded by women in his ministry. He interacted with women, I think, in teaching and in eating and just lived life with women all around him. Then we also see in the gospels these particular interactions with women where they're doing things.
that are very intimate, like bathing his feet with their tears and their expensive ointments. And we recognize that Jesus, he wasn't impervious to the fact that he was a man and she was a woman, but he chose in all of those moments, he chose to treat each of those women like a sister in Christ. He chose not to give in to lust temptations. And in those places where we fail, we can trust that
He in the very particular and I know that makes people uncomfortable sometimes it's like we don't want to think about Jesus maybe being a sexual creature but he was fully human and so we have to recognize that he had these excuse me same hormones same temptations that we have and yet he chose not to give in to sin because he loves us and he wanted to rescue us.
Brenda (18:01.418)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (18:14.925)
Hmm.
Yeah, I think that's so good. I really have always liked the way you teach this just really looking like in our sin struggle, can we go to the scriptures and see where Jesus fulfilled perfectly what we're not able to? But not just as an example, as you said, but actually to see that his perfection has covered our imperfection, you know, as well, that he's done for us what we can't do. But also as an example, as well, I think to say, so if I'm if I'm a sexual struggle or rather than looking at somebody as a
Alex (18:28.361)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (18:35.306)
Yeah.
Brenda (18:46.654)
in a sexual way looking at that person as a brother or a father and you know in the in the context of the image -bearing that God has given to them. So that's so good.
Alex (18:50.408)
Hmm.
Alex (18:58.185)
You know, one of the other ones I give, one of the other examples I give is I remember being with a teenager one time we were talking about her struggle with complaining. And so in our counseling session we got our calculator out and we calculated that if Jesus lived 33 years, then he lived, I can't remember how many, thousands of days and hours and minutes he lived on this earth and never complained against the Father, not one time.
Yeah, and it was so fun to do it. Like again, in the particular, like we can say Jesus never complained, he never grumbled, but to recognize that and break that down in how far I fall short of the mark and then to be inspired to all when we got this huge number on the calculator of how many hours and minutes he did not complain. And I can't go an hour. And so I do love the idea.
Brenda (19:30.507)
Heheheheh
Brenda (19:47.563)
Hehehehehe
Hmm. Mm -hmm.
Alex (19:57.98)
of seeing Jesus in a particular struggle against sin and to be moved to worship Him more deeply, to treasure Him and value Him more because we understand what He fought, the temptation He fought, and the fact that He did that without sin. So I love that teaching.
Brenda (20:05.132)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (20:18.216)
I did too and he fought that temptation for us.
Alex (20:22.218)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (20:23.116)
Right? He fought it for us. And I just think that's beautiful. And then knowing that we weren't going to fight it like him. And so he was still going to have to pay and die the penalty for our sin that we would give into. Yeah. And I think that just kind of leads us to our third point of looking at what he will do. Because that same resurrected power, that same power that Jesus had to overcome temptation is actually the reason why now we
Alex (20:33.545)
Mm.
Brenda (20:53.022)
can overcome temptation, that we have been given the resurrected power through the indwelling Holy Spirit. So the promises given by God and bought by Jesus are worked in us through the Spirit. And as we begin to think about moving toward doing, we have got to, got to, got to, got to, got to remember that we are dependent on the Holy Spirit for transformation. Like this is not going to come. And
Alex (20:59.944)
Hmm.
Alex (21:15.08)
Hmm.
Brenda (21:22.877)
And to your point, like going back to in the particular, like I'm in the moment. Am I drawing from the flesh or am I drawing from the Spirit? Am I relying on my own ability, my own wisdom, my own power and strength, or am I looking to the Holy Spirit? And so the Holy Spirit will help us overcome sin and live for God. It's His job and it's His joy to do so.
Alex (21:45.859)
Mm -hmm, yeah.
And so one of the things that I think the Holy Spirit particularly reminds us of and encourages us within these places where we struggle with sin is he helps us to trust in the promises of God. He helps us to see because the promises of God are really about imagining a different future, right? Than what we can imagine if we are going to take control of it. So he helps us to trust the promises of God. So we're able to walk forward in obedience and he helps us still
live out the bigger realities that Jesus has broken the power of sin over us. And so he encourages, he enables, and he gives us the power to make the choice to trust God and not to trust ourselves.
Brenda (22:38.539)
Right. And I think again, this is just where kind of that ongoing wrestle with the Lord goes because there is a battle going on. There's a battle between the flesh and the spirit. And it's never going to be natural for my thinking to line up with God's thinking or my wanting to line up with God's wanting or my choosing or doing to line up with God's will.
So, you know, believing, I think believing these things we're talking about really is supernatural work. And we're going to have to continue to go back to the Lord and ask the Holy Spirit to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. And that's change our hearts so that we move forward with a transformation that's visible on the outside. And for the right reasons, Alex, too, because I think that's really, I think that's important to say here, too. It's like,
Alex (23:17.384)
You know, right, yeah.
Brenda (23:23.627)
Even, you know, anything not done in faith is sin is what I'm thinking of. And so I just think about like the importance of the why we do something. So that idea that the Holy Spirit is transforming not just, again, you know, our behavior, but the motivation for that behavior. That I want to do this to please the Father. That I know God's love for me and I want to respond to Him out of that love.
Alex (23:30.6)
Hmm.
Alex (23:40.296)
Hmm.
Alex (23:47.369)
Hmm.
You know, we called this that we want to trust in what God says He will do and the Holy Spirit applies this to us. And one of the examples that, John Piper does a whole series called Battling Unbelief and he does one on contentment, I think is what it is. Or battling the unbelief of covetousness, I think is what it's called. But he talks about this promise that's linked to behavior that we don't tend to think about. It's in Hebrews and it says,
be content with such things that you have, I will never leave you or forsake you. And it links contentment and the presence of God with us. And it's been really interesting to meditate on that in places where I'm not content and recognizing that I have to claim the promise that God is with me and He is enough. What He supplies for me is enough. And that is the way I move forward in contentment.
contentment. It's when I'm scrolling through my phone and seeing all the sales and I want this and I want that and I want, you know, and I begin to get discontent or I want my house to look like this and I want my husband to act like this like and I become discontent. It's recognizing that God has not left me. He is here and He provides these things that I'm longing for going back to our talk on longings. And I love that promise and it's not
an application I would have thought of. Like I would have thought, well I need to be content because God is good. Not I need to be content because God is with me. But that's what Hebrews says, I need to be content because he's here, he's with me, and he's supplying what I need. I don't need to want more than him.
Brenda (25:30.602)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Yeah, and I think it even goes back to just remembering that His presence is the promise of protection and provision for what He wants. But I also think that, you know, when we hear this, like, God is enough, like, just know that God is enough, we can be like, okay, God is enough. I said it, but I still want the thing I want. And this is where I think the Holy Spirit really comes into play. It's like there's, it's, it's not, it's supernatural. It's supernatural to believe and to trust that God is enough.
Alex (25:51.37)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Alex (26:02.217)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (26:03.083)
And that's why we have to come back to just that work of really asking the Holy Spirit and being dependent on Him. And we do that just through prayer. And prayer is simply talking to God so we can do that anytime and all the time. And it also just shows a dependence. It shows faith when we turn to prayer in temptation. It shows faith when we turn to prayer in confession and we trust the Lord to empower us. And God loves faith.
Alex (26:15.37)
Yeah.
Alex (26:28.874)
Mm -hmm.
So what we thought we would do to make this feel a little bit more practical is to walk through a specific case study and hopefully that'll help this to become a little bit more clear. So I'm counseling a woman and I think I've heard this story repeated many times and so have you Brenda. So it's not a new one but I'm counseling a woman who's going through a difficult divorce because of her husband's repeated infidelity. And I thought it might be good for us to think about how to point her to
towards these three different things, how she can move forward in obedience. It's hard to think about going through the divorce process as a Jesus follower. It's really hard challenge because I think for a lot of people we want to push aside like, Jesus don't look right now because I have to go through this divorce and then on the other side of it we'll come back together. But I challenge people a lot that they're still Christ followers when they go through this process. So how do they engage in this in a way?
Brenda (27:09.226)
Hmm.
Brenda (27:19.882)
Hmm.
Alex (27:30.171)
that is showing who they are really trusting and who they're believing in. So...
my friend is really struggling with not wanting to retaliate for all the harm and not wanting to control events so that her husband is experiencing the same grief and sorrow that she's experiencing. And so when I point her back to who God is, I remind her that I don't know what God is going to do with her husband, but that she has to turn to him as the compassionate and gracious God who's working.
Brenda (27:41.61)
Mm.
Alex (28:06.49)
for her good and who is grieving with her even if her husband never shows that remorse or grief and that she doesn't need to say things and do things to try to bring her husband to that grief and remorse and ultimately repentance. That she can rely on God to do that, that he will meet her in her grief and that he will be the one to work on her husband's heart that she doesn't have to do that.
Brenda (28:32.305)
Yeah.
And I was thinking just how it might be, she might feel very ashamed to come to the Lord with these feelings of retaliation, Alex, because they don't, it's not very Christ -like, right, to retaliate, but it's real. And I think there's a sense in which the retaliation actually is her way of seeking the justice of God. Like justice is a good thing. It's something that God would want. Like God is angry at this. And so I think part of who God is for her is he's a welcoming God.
Alex (28:55.942)
Yes.
Brenda (29:03.851)
to meet her in her retaliation and even to show her like what part of this mirrors my heart and what part of this is sinful that will destroy you if you take this into your own hands.
Alex (29:08.359)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (29:12.295)
Yeah, and that ties right into what we remind her of about what God's done is that God is a God of justice and yet Jesus came and gave up his right to justice. He did not get justice. He got the opposite of justice in the sense that he didn't sin and yet he still paid the penalty for it and to recognize that what Jesus did was he relinquished his right for justice and entrusted himself to the Lord.
And so he could have brought justice down on the people who were putting him to death and he chose not to. And that she is going to have to really stand in awe of who Jesus is to want to worship him and to serve him in not retaliating against her husband.
Brenda (30:05.297)
Yep.
so good and you know the only thing I would just maybe pull out a little bit more from that is that his perfect record gets credited to her that he never retaliated and so you know God I mean it's covered it's covered for her and then just the other part of like you know just going back to it is also an example that and and she doesn't have to give into this like Christ has shown that it's possible to overcome he's overcome it and already forgiven any sins and desires for retaliation.
but kind of leading into the third thing is that he's also empowered her to not have to retaliate. Right?
Alex (30:43.335)
Yeah. Yeah.
And so the last thing is when we remind her of what God will do is like we see a wife who's been really deeply wronged and she's gonna have to remember that what God promises is that vengeance belongs to him. Like that's what he tells her will happen. And that can be really hard because we don't know how God's gonna do it, right? So every time she might be tempted to bad mouth her ex or to use a spiteful tone in just these little ways of repayment,
she has to remember that first of all if her ex -husband becomes a Christian then Jesus already paid the the the vengeance has already been visited on Jesus and if he doesn't become a Christian then the vengeance that he's going to experience is far greater than anything she could even imagine and she will not in the end want to add to that and so she can trust the Lord that he knows how to execute vengeance perfectly and she can move forward in in
walking in the fruit of the Spirit towards him.
Brenda (31:48.041)
Mm -hmm.
But no doubt that's going to take relying on the supernatural help of the Holy Spirit, Alex. Because that is an ongoing thing, right? Like it's going to be ongoing, the offenses and the hurt and the way this plays out and her losses as even the years go on that they're not a family for Christmas and they're not a family at weddings and the grandbabies come and old age comes and all the realities that come with the loss. And so there there's going to potentially be ongoing potential for her to want to pay him back for the wrong he's done to retaliate to get
Alex (31:53.51)
Mm -hmm, yes.
Alex (32:06.854)
Yeah.
Alex (32:17.509)
Yes.
Brenda (32:19.115)
And so I just think again this ongoing sense of relying on the Holy Spirit, depending on Him, that she will not not give into the flesh and that she will actually walk in the Spirit producing those good fruit that the Spirit will produce in her. Yeah.
Well, hopefully that is helpful. You know, you and I have talked about we could give a million examples and all of the examples would go a little different way and would sound a little differently. We don't want to hedge people in. I think even in these three categories, you and I came to this teaching having a little bit of a different view of maybe how we might even approach these three categories. And that's okay. This is just a framework to use and then to allow the Word of God and what you know about God to really just guide your believing about Him.
Alex (32:57.732)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (33:09.195)
And so we've put these three down. There's a lot more that somebody could add to these. And I think it's just really good to have some sort of framework when you're struggling with this and to think about, well, where can I go? What do I need to do to really deal with that affection part of my heart, that believing part of my heart, that part of my heart that is going to, yeah, the part of me that is gonna really deal with the functions of my heart and not just behavior.
Alex (33:38.327)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (33:39.337)
So talking just about motivations, you know, it is believing these things. It's believing who God is and what Jesus has done and what the Holy Spirit will do that are our greatest motivation for transformation. It's because all of these speak to one thing very loudly and that is the love of Christ, the love of Christ, the love that following Jesus is about love. And as we receive his love and we see his love, you know, all over,
Alex (33:45.284)
Hmm.
Brenda (34:09.291)
what we've just talked about. Like it is because of Christ's love. It's because of what God has done for us in Christ and our union with Christ. We respond then with gratitude and humility and a commitment to honor and love in return. And that love generates more love, right? Like the more we understand his love, the more that we respond in love. It's just like a love generating machine then. And I think again, this is like the Holy Spirit's work. Like the Holy Spirit is just continuing to just generate.
and generate and generate understanding his love for me now I want to love him understanding his love for me and I want to respond in love and then what as a result of that what will happen is that there will be more faithfulness and obedience like we will be moved in that direction.
Alex (34:52.9)
I was in church two days ago, two days ago, and we were doing a prayer of lament and confession. And one of the lines, because I'm thinking all about this, so it stuck out to me, let our love for you be so great that our obedience to you would be sweet. And I thought that just almost sums up this whole rhythm, this gospel waltz of confess, believe, and love.
Brenda (35:19.145)
Hmm. Well, I love that quote. I need to put that on my mirror this week. That's really tender.
Alex (35:23.651)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (35:26.121)
Well, I think just in wrapping up, I just want to say one final thing, and that is I have found that one of the struggles in teaching people this is that they say they already believe. I already believe. I already believe all this. So why do I have to continue to bring it up? Right? As if we're kind of like one and done, like we read a verse and it's done. But the Bible tells us that God's Word is living and active. And yes, He repeats Himself over and over and over again. These truths we're talking about, there are
Alex (35:35.556)
Right, yeah, that's a good point.
Alex (35:47.619)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (35:51.619)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Brenda (35:56.075)
every page of Scripture. Why? Because we need personal and daily reminders. You know, so, yeah.
Alex (36:01.476)
Hmm.
Alex (36:05.636)
Yeah, I think what you're talking about is like that head to heart connection. Like it's not enough just for us to give that intellectual assent to say that we know that is true cognitively. Like what we're looking for is for that truth to permeate our entire being. I love the word metabolize when it comes to that because when we metabolize our food, it's like that energy is getting in every single cell and we have not fully metabolized these truths.
And that's what we're talking about.
Brenda (36:35.721)
No. Well, I love, and I don't know if we said this before, I just heard this, but we eat our food, but it's God's job to digest and metabolize. And so I think what happens is if we don't see the whole of scripture speaking to us in our sin and suffering, if we're only looking for the sin verses, and we're only looking for the suffering verses, we kind of miss this incredible...
Alex (36:42.916)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Alex (36:53.732)
Right. Right.
Brenda (36:59.401)
ability to behold God's glory and what He's done for us in our sin and suffering in all the pages of Scripture. And so, I mean, it's so beautiful when you come to the Scriptures and you're being convicted of some sin or the Lord's bringing comfort to you and some sort of change or He wants you to believe something so you're not stuck in shame. And maybe you're not in a shame verse at all. You're in a story where shame is being shown or you're just in a story that really highlights, you know, some aspect of God's character who
He is that speaks to that shame. And so I would just say that, you know, to just think there's a few verses that you're going to have like five verses under, you know, the Father, five for Jesus, five for the Holy Spirit. Like you're missing the richness of the personal aspect of how Jesus wants to come talk to you, how the Father wants to reveal Himself and how the Holy Spirit does that through daily, regular time in the Word. And then asking the Lord to show you like, what do you want to show me, Lord?
Alex (37:31.523)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (37:48.164)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (37:59.275)
and how do you want to speak into the sin areas of my life or the suffering areas of my life? And then all of a sudden, it's not just something real rote or something like, yeah, I already know that. Like, it's fresh, it's new, it's alive, it's real, it's transformative. Because you know, Alex, you know at that moment that yes, the Bible was written to people of old, but it was also written for our benefit. And all of a sudden, you realize that right there was written for me today in this very moment.
Alex (38:09.733)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (38:25.764)
Mmm, that'll preach, right? So, just,
Brenda (38:27.593)
Yeah, it's good, it's good stuff.
Alex (38:34.084)
I feel like we could talk about this subject of belief for every podcast we ever do. I think it's so much our struggle here in this life. Like you said, to mind the scriptures, to apply them to our hearts, to see who God is and what he's done and what he promises to do. That is our really lifelong task as believers. And then to see that work out in how we are going to obey, how we are going to walk out our faith and love towards God.
God and others. And so next podcast we're going to talk about obedience and how confessing and believing lead to a life of love towards God and others.
Brenda (39:15.369)
Alex, that's all we got for now. For now. Until next time.
Alex (39:16.579)
Hmm. Sorry guys.