Stand Firm
What's up, my people? Welcome to Fellowship Bible Church's sermon spot spotlight, where we are coming at you each and every week with a fresh weekend to debrief in an effort to send biblical truth. And what better way to
Speaker 2:do that You almost come all the way there.
Speaker 3:I almost did it.
Speaker 1:It's really good. What better way to do that than by the power of conversation, which we all know I love. I'm Rose Locke, and I'm really excited to be the host today because I don't get to sit in the seat very often. On my right is Abby. How are you, Abby?
Speaker 1:Great. I think you're always if you sit here, you always say, how are you today?
Speaker 3:Yes. Abby? I'm doing good.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 3:Great. Nice to
Speaker 1:have you. I've never been on a podcast with Abby before, so this is a new experience for me and for her. Yeah. And then, of course, to my left is Caleb Pearson who not only spoke but dedicated a child this weekend.
Speaker 2:Busy weekend.
Speaker 1:Yeah, was. How are you?
Speaker 2:Good, good. Thanks for having me Rose, appreciate
Speaker 3:it.
Speaker 1:My pleasure. So Abby, we usually go that direction first. That's why I don't like sitting in that seat. So now you get to kind of tell us your thoughts and
Speaker 3:ask your questions. Yes. I get the task of opening it up. Yeah. So yeah, spiritual warfare on Mother's Day.
Speaker 3:That was fun. Yeah. I thought it was good and I liked the overview of Ephesians and how that laid that out. One question that I did have was so you you mentioned that, like, they each build into each other and you have to have the first chapter to lead into the second chapter. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:But why end with spiritual warfare? Like, is there a significance to that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. That's a good question. I I I think it's because it needs to be addressed as a practical reality to the Christian life. And so he wants to make sure that the church in Ephesus has a solid understanding of those other five things.
Speaker 2:And then even the language of the book as a whole, which we didn't have time to get into, it is almost an afterthought. He says, finally
Speaker 1:Can I get you to review those five things?
Speaker 3:Maybe somebody who's
Speaker 1:listening to the podcast doesn't remember them because you went through them fast
Speaker 2:and didn't hear this. And there was a little bit of attention in terms of preparation because I wanna do justice to each chapter in Ephesians, but as quickly as possible for sake of time. Ephesians one, this idea that redemption matters. Ephesians two, we are alive in Christ. Ephesians three and four, strengthened by the spirit, united in that spirit.
Speaker 2:And then Ephesians five, which is a very helpful lead into the spiritual warfare, talks about our relationships with each other. Many different examples of relationships and that we're to imitate Jesus to be Christ, basically to be Christ relationally. And so to your question, Abby, it's not just about ending with spiritual warfare, but it's also about talking about spiritual warfare immediately after being Christ relationally. Probably speaking to this idea that that's where a lot of spiritual warfare is gonna up when we're divided and we're misunderstanding some of those five things. So it's fascinating to see him say, finally, you all be strong in the Lord.
Speaker 2:He's encouraging them, exhorting them to that. And then the rest of Ephesians six, which we didn't cover is the classic Pauline, peace be with you. I'm gonna go do all this. You guys do that. And so it's cool that he does toss that final thing out there, but it's not the main thing and it's not neglected either.
Speaker 2:And so I think our pursuit of spiritual warfare and understanding it should include both of those things. Let's not neglect it, but let's not make it the main thing either.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But I think, I mean, I think for me, at least there's another thing that happens here is he lays out these five chapters of spiritual truth. This is one of my favorite books of the Bible when it comes to my Christian life because I think chapters one through three really kinda tell us who we are, and chapter five and six tell us how to live it out. Yes. Right?
Speaker 1:Yep. And so after he's gone through this this is who you are, this is how to live it out, and now stand
Speaker 3:firm. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:You know? I think that that's Yep. A secondary thing that's happening here. Just this reminder that, okay, these are some of these truths are hard and some of these things he's calling us to do as believers in chapter five are hard things to do. But if you recognize them and understand them and then can stand firm
Speaker 2:in them,
Speaker 1:and then the the what what would you call it? The I was looking for the Sunday school chart, by the way. You know what I mean? Like, where they have
Speaker 2:the hat on the
Speaker 1:soldier and all
Speaker 3:the Yes.
Speaker 2:The armor. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Sunday school. These these weapons or these defensive armors Yeah. Are sort of then the way that we go about staying in the firm, you Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's just the the huge strength of teaching expositionally as well is that it helps understand it easier because it is contextual. Our understanding of spiritual warfare will be contextual, and that's huge for us. And so I've heard Ephesians summarized as Ephesians one through three is the gospel. Ephesians four through six is the gospel expressed. I've heard of Ephesians one through three being described as who we are.
Speaker 2:Ephesians four through six as who we are as the church. It's a very practical book, but it does make sure that understanding is very firm. And so I wanted to just tease that or at least say, hey, as we're about to unpack all of this, if if we're missing one of those things or we have questions about spiritual warfare, they might end up tying back into those five things. And that is where we should spend time as well because that's where he spent time. You study spiritual warfare.
Speaker 2:It's like I wanted more than seven verses. But he's he gave us more than seven verses. And so it's cool to think when Paul tells them the word finally, they already know. Like they're like, oh, okay. So that's how that's why and how I pick up the shield of faith.
Speaker 2:It's things like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. There were so many great points like that you brought out throughout the sermon, Caleb. And just like any of them I felt like could be an hour conversation. And, like, even from the very beginning, like, you said you said that truth is like our underwear. Right?
Speaker 1:It's the basis of our whole outfit. Right? And without the truth underneath everything, then
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:We're naked. Right?
Speaker 2:You know? For reals. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But but what was cool is then you said, but the enemy's undergarment is lies. Mhmm. And, like, I just wanted to sit and process that thought for a minute, how the world lies to us and you brought it back around, of course, to your middle school story as well. But like, are there some examples maybe of those kinds of lies that you see, like, as you work with the youth and you as well, Abby, that, you know, that you see that the the lies that the world is telling us as opposed to the truth of God's word, you know?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. For sure. I mean I mean, lies young people believe. There are literally books called lies young women believe and young girls and all that. That's a huge, yeah, a huge hit in our youth group.
Speaker 2:But there's who I am in Christ, and then students believe there's a lot of ways I'm not in Christ. Or even worse, some of me belongs to Christ, but not all of me belongs to Christ. All these lies that the enemy feeds. And then once we start believing the lies, that's where they get traction. And so we have such a warped view of spiritual warfare.
Speaker 2:But it's interesting that it is actually a form of pride and self focus still to feel oppressed and still be focused on what you might be going through or the wrestle. And so again, the tension, it's Mother's Day. You were part of the worship service planning, Rose. You know how many things we had to accomplish. It's like how are we gonna get through all this?
Speaker 2:And then I'm bringing up the loins. Like I had the translation of the loins of truth. I was like, man, I should have just picked a different translation somebody who's gonna giggle or whatever. But Paul is using these words for a reason. And he's time on task.
Speaker 2:This is very important urgent stuff to him. There's a sense of spiritual urgency in the way he writes here. And so the outfit starts with truth. If we start with a mistruth or a lie, then we try to add on the rest of these things. Then we get really mad when they don't work.
Speaker 2:But it would probably look a lot like first Samuel 17 when David tries on Saul's armor. And I love that example of just like That was great. That it it didn't fit. And so you could you could read first Samuel 17 be like, okay, Lord, why is that in here? Who why include that in scripture?
Speaker 2:Okay. Saul wanted the bronze helmet and then it didn't fit so then he just went out there. But it's it's cool that it can even tie into spiritual warfare thousands of years later that, oh, yeah. There's somebody that literally tried the armor of man in in unspeakable odds against this Goliath, and then he ended up just walking out there with the armor of God.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I always picture, VeggieTales. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2:Who doesn't picture VeggieTales? You know what I mean?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yes. I pictured for
Speaker 2:that one.
Speaker 3:So I
Speaker 1:was like, yeah. Oh, yeah. And and I thought that was great. Like, I thought that picture of, like, Saul is relying here and here's how god, you know, the whole Saul David story anyway. This is how god kinda worked through those two men.
Speaker 1:You know, this idea that Saul was relying on his strength. Right? And from the beginning, Saul was tall and big and commanding and all those things. And over time, probably pridefully started to rely on Saul. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Whereas here's David, the shepherd boy who's, you know
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:You can't talk about my God that way. How can you allow this Philistine to say such bad things about God's people? And then he's gonna rely on his own.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, and I I do wanna go ahead and say huge credit to the preaching team because Isaiah 59 came to my mind, the first Thessalonians passage. It talks about the hope of the helmet of salvation. But as we were preparing for this sermon and as I was kind of pitching it to the team right off the bat, Mark Carey said, it reminds me a lot of that first Samuel encounter with David literally trying on the armor of man. And so I was able to take that and run with it.
Speaker 2:And it was just a cool example of that team coming together to help paint that picture of, yeah, many times do I try the armor of man?
Speaker 3:Well, and even your line about how Saul said, God be with you.
Speaker 2:Yep. That's still turned to
Speaker 3:the armor. Like, how many times do we do that? We're like, yes, I trust God. Let me put on some armor though. I'm scared.
Speaker 2:And it's my armor.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So there was pride in Saul's armor. Here's my helmet that's bronze. Here's my tunic instead of being like, well, yeah, what's the Lord's and all that.
Speaker 1:Well, and Abby, you mentioning I'm scared. It reminds me of there was a great quote, Caleb. And by the way, for the first time ever, I feel like your three sermons were slightly different. I Feel like there was
Speaker 3:Wait.
Speaker 2:What do mean?
Speaker 1:What do I mean?
Speaker 2:Whose three sermons were you talking about?
Speaker 3:Oh, oh, Like,
Speaker 2:f one, Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:First time I sent This is helpful
Speaker 2:because you get to see them all.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I do. Normally, Caleb, just for the rest of the world, in case you haven't heard these podcasts, Caleb is really scripted. Like he literally hands
Speaker 2:me A writer.
Speaker 1:And the production team. He hands word for word, including things that seem like jokes and off the cuff remarks there in his typed transcript of his sermon. But this is the first time that I had this sense, Caleb, that, yes, you followed your transcript and you knew what you wanted to say, but I had this sense that you were more aware of the people that you were talking to, that you had this, like, Lord, help me share with these people. Help me emphasize the things that need to be emphasized here. So there are things that don't ask me right now what they were, but there are things that I feel like I heard in F two that I didn't hear on Saturday or that I heard in F one that I didn't hear in F two.
Speaker 1:Because that is something that I've always found fascinating and that I enjoy about my role is getting to see. Not that I listen to all three sermons the whole way through every time.
Speaker 2:Right. It would drive you crazy.
Speaker 1:But sometimes I'm able to, and this is a weekend where I was in each service and heard the sermon three times. But one of the things that you said, I think all three times, that Abby just brought out was this you said it's not a shield of fear, but one of faith. Mhmm. And I just thought that was a really great line because you can say that we hold we hold the shield because we're afraid of the darts of the enemy. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Or you can say that we hold the shield because we have confidence in our faithful God. Yeah. So I thought that was a really cool line and I didn't know if you wanted to expand
Speaker 2:And not even a blind faith either, which is also something we can have in the Lord. Right? Faith the size of a mustard seed or, okay, I don't know all the things but I'm gonna hide behind God anyway. This passage is not that example. It is very clear what our taking up of that faith does.
Speaker 2:You will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. There are grounds in scripture for that to say, you'll be able to extinguish a ton of them, but the Lord's gonna maybe let through a couple of them. Sometimes it's gonna sting and it's gonna hurt, but it ultimately be used for his good. Instead, it's the language is so declarative. I can extinguish all.
Speaker 2:So so Satan's entire arsenal, that's again, how are you gonna what what's on the cutting room floor? We didn't talk about the Satan's armor. Mhmm. But you could go into the the weeds on how he operates and how he's the opposite of all these things. All his flaming arrows are extinguished by what?
Speaker 2:It's not by the sword of the spirit. It's by the shield of faith standing behind who God is and letting his faithfulness reign. So it's it's word pictures like that that kind of help us. That's the tension. What is the practicality here?
Speaker 2:Part two of a spiritual warfare series. Right? So Micah and then this. And it's like, okay, Lord, how can we leave with with a new approach on this? And so it was cool to hear from several people that felt like it was speaking to them based on scenarios that they were happening in their life.
Speaker 2:And again, you know, hopefully you get out of Lord's way, you do the text justice because there's a lot there.
Speaker 1:Well, I also like, like, I don't know. It's funny because I think people take this passage and they tear it apart and you talk about each individual piece of armor.
Speaker 2:You're right.
Speaker 1:But I thought it was really nice, to hear it in one sermon with a larger umbrella view of it. So one of the things that I really enjoyed that you did is you said you said, okay. Here it is. You said, truth, righteousness, gospel, peace, faith, salvation, and the word. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Right? And so I think what if we just took those six words. Right. This is in our own personal devotion time. I said, what if we just pulled those six words out out and said, what do those six words mean and what do those six words?
Speaker 1:And almost remove the picture of the armor. Because sometimes maybe we get distracted by, what does it mean that it's a hat? Right.
Speaker 2:Whereas it's
Speaker 1:much more important that it's the hope of salvation than it's a hat. Right? Because it's just a metaphor. We Right. I say just a metaphor.
Speaker 1:Obviously, it's God inspired like Paul was told to write this specific metaphor. So I don't mean to dismiss it in that way. I just mean that sometimes it's nice to look look at things from another perspective a little bit. And so I really appreciated you pulling those six words out individualistic. And I was wondering if you had any, like was that was there because you said something like, we have it all.
Speaker 1:Here it is. Here's the bottom line, folks. Mhmm. And then you said, now let's talk about the passage. And so you didn't really expand on those six things.
Speaker 1:And if you see something similar in them or how you see
Speaker 2:this as important. Yeah. And it's interesting because I think that's against the grain a little bit on traditional teaching where that's all that somebody will do is is break down the six things. Here's how they're different. Here's why Paul used that word imagery.
Speaker 2:But but remember, the the emphasis of the passage linguistically, and I would argue in terms of sound bible study, is the phrase stand firm three times. We could talk about the six pieces of armor because they're literally the shiny parts of the passage. They're not the meat of the passage. The meat of the passage is stand firm, and here are six ways you're gonna be able to do that. But we miss the stand firm part.
Speaker 2:We teach or live out the six pieces of armor, and then we take off in a direction trying to use them. Every single one of them is defensive, even the sword of the spirit. We didn't have time to get into the fact that that word probably means dagger, and especially in that culture, the dagger was a defensive weapon. The sword of the spirit is not to splice people open with your Bible knowledge and evangelize people by reciting Bible passages. No.
Speaker 2:This is spiritual warfare. It is standing behind the Word of God because it's sharper than anything else it comes up against. Even the sword of the spirit is a defensive weapon. So instead paint the whole picture. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Instead of getting into the weeds was the idea.
Speaker 1:It circles back to me. A lot of things circle back. Right? But it circles back to your first statement, which is that truth is our undergarment. The basis for what we do.
Speaker 1:And I just found really, that that was one of the first statements you made in the sermon. And I found that statement so compelling. And then to circle back, the last piece of of armor or weaponry, however you wanna define it, that he talks about is the sword of spirit, which is the word of God. Right? So here you have this, like, enclosing circle of truth as an undergarment that we've put on
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But then also as this sword that we take up. Mhmm. And so it it has this, like, the whole thing, the stand firm is stand firm in truth and on
Speaker 2:the word
Speaker 1:of God.
Speaker 2:Right? Yep. And it doesn't just circle back, but all of these things are personified and perfected in Jesus. Right? That Hebrews four passage that talks about the word of God being living and active sharper than any double edged sword.
Speaker 2:The subject of the passage changed to use the word he. And there's a lot of credence to Hebrews four being about Christ. He's living and active. He's sharper than any double edged sword. We also know the word became flesh and it was Jesus.
Speaker 2:So you see all this. He is the way, the truth, and the life. But I appreciate that as well of like, all six pieces of this armor aren't totally separate from each other either. So we don't need to get into the weeds on on, okay, so righteousness is a breastplate and not a shield. Does that mean I can never defend myself in righteousness?
Speaker 2:No. Does that mean I can never actually in my hands grip and metaphorically stand by? No. What is he trying to do? He is painting a very large picture, a head to toe soldier that's doing what?
Speaker 2:Standing firm. And they have all these things. And so it'll be so cool to get up there. We'll all be really busy in heaven for orientation, I would imagine. But eventually, it would be like, Paul, did you ever think people are gonna get so all the commentaries are only about fascinate, so fascinating that peace is shoes but not a sword.
Speaker 2:And then it's just endless words on that. Fun? Oh, cool. Oh, I never thought about that. I wonder if Paul's like, guys, that's all fine and great but don't don't lose sight of the forest for the trees.
Speaker 2:Did you were you guys able to stand firm? Hopefully, the answer is yes.
Speaker 3:Well, that reminds me too. I played soccer growing up and we did this drill one time with our coach. Our coach was older, like seventies. Mhmm. And he would stand there with the ball and we would go running out.
Speaker 3:He's like, take the ball from me. Mhmm. And all he had to do was stand still and none of us could get the ball from him because he was, like, rock solid and we're moving and we're too fast. We think we're stronger than him. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so, like, I was just imagining that when you're, like, stand firm. Like, it's more effective to stand firm than to run into the battle or to run to
Speaker 2:office. And none of none of Ephesians, none of the other pastors that talk about spiritual warfare ever tell a Christian to go enter into it. Go go start your go wage your spiritual work. No. We are we are defending ourselves against a war that's already going on and our credibility, our responsibility, our authority rests in Christ.
Speaker 2:So it's it's an awareness issue.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, so here's a positional question Yeah. For you based on what you just said. Mhmm. Is there really a war that's still going on or has the war already been
Speaker 3:won? Right.
Speaker 1:And we're just, part of the story as it continues to play out. But the truth Mhmm. That we can stand firm in Yep. Is that, you know, Christ's death on the cross and his resurrection crushed
Speaker 2:the
Speaker 1:heel of that snake. You know what I mean?
Speaker 2:Yeah. You ever watch Narnia or any of these war movies where the music changes, you can tell the the battle is over and won. But as the camera pans, there's still a few horses running around. There's still a few people clinging swords. But for the most part, you know the battle's over.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think this side of the cross, that is the perspective we have. Are there are there still things happening? Yeah. It's actually a lot of death and unfortunate things, and we're in the world and of the flesh, and that's something Mark's But but the battle has been won at the cross.
Speaker 2:One thing we didn't get into was spiritual warfare is gonna have a a Venn diagram of our understanding with sin, homarcheology, the study of sin. There's something about the penalty of sin already been dealt with on the cross. We have been saved. Talk about the helmet of salvation. We have been saved from the penalty of sin.
Speaker 2:We are being saved from the from the power of sin in our life. We're yielding to Christ. And we will be saved even from the presence of sin in the future, the hope of a future salvation. So when we understand those three things, we do start to arrive at an easier answer. It's not easy, but it's easier.
Speaker 2:Yeah. To what degree is sin still being handled? Because I thought it was all handled on the cross. Excellent question. The penalty of it was handled on the cross.
Speaker 2:But what in the world's going on here? Romans six, seven, and eight speaks to that. Ephesians six speaks to it.
Speaker 1:Well, but it goes back to you. And I thought, like, what you said about the helmet, I just thought was, to me, I guess, it was just eye opening to me to think of it in that way, be head strong in the hope of your salvation. Mhmm. You know mean? Because we all get we do get caught up in this while Right.
Speaker 1:Put on the helmet when I became a believer or whatever. And in one sense, you did. But if you think of that helmet as I'm going to be head strong in the hope that is to come, I understand that this world is not my home. I understand that, Mark Carey calls it dot and line thinking.
Speaker 2:I don't know how many people
Speaker 1:or if you guys remember that analogy he likes to use. But we're living in a dot and God can see the line.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And so, you know, be head strong in the line thinking
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And don't get caught all caught up in the dot thinking. At least that's what I heard when you
Speaker 2:said that comment. And because all the armor, it's it's spiritually charged language. So we can start to interpret based on our own eisegesis and putting meaning into the text. And so you think helmet of salvation. Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:Something to do with my head. Well, do I know if I'm a Christian or not? Yep. Check. Move on.
Speaker 2:But I didn't get into this at all. And if anything, my tension was Lord, I hope I'm not coming too firmly down on the helmet of salvation as not talking about salvation from hell. But I think the text speaks for itself. The helmet is listed with weaponry, not the clothing. So the three things we have and the three things we take.
Speaker 2:The helmet is not listed with the three things we have, the clothing. It's listed with the three things we take, the weaponry. So that salvation is probably not talking about our standing, our soul status in the eyes of God, which is an important thing, Ephesians one through five. Instead, it's that first Thessalonians five eight nine, where he literally says the same exact phrase, but he incorporates hope. It's the helmet of the hope of salvation.
Speaker 2:And then he's writing to believers saying, we can obtain future rescue in Christ. I grew up in this church. I would have told you all I ever learned was the past rescue of Christ. Thank you, Lord, that you died on the cross for me. As far as I'm concerned, your son went up there, and now I'm left to my own devices waiting around till I die and go to heaven.
Speaker 2:What a poorly painted picture I painted for myself because then we start to realize, wait a second, God is rescuing me from spiritual warfare. And in the future line thinking, even the presence of this stuff's gonna go away. And that's what we can be headstrong in. Not only do I know what Jesus did on the cross and that's my motivation, absolutely, that's my foundation, but I'm also aware of the destination and what that's gonna look like. He came once, saved us all.
Speaker 2:He's coming back to save us all, and it's gonna be pretty sweet when he does.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think, and of course, I'm suddenly gonna take I'm gonna change direction. Yeah. But you brought it up. And I'll just say that I think, like, what you're just what you're discussing about, hey, I grew up in this church and I learned this and I just had an understanding of salvation in the past.
Speaker 1:I think that's a spiritual maturity issue because try to explain that try to explain that to your kids.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. Know what
Speaker 1:I'm saying? It just goes to speak for the value that Kayla, both you and Abby have in continuing to speak into our youth and continuing to to transition them from the simplicity of explaining the salvation on the cross to a child Yep. To the mature believer who does need to have these we need to have this weaponry Right. At the ready even though we're we're kinda we're kinda playing down the metaphor a little bit here on this podcast. But we need this weaponry.
Speaker 1:And without, guys, without people like you and without our parents, back to the child dedication we had, without our parents and our church pouring into these young people as they transition from the childlike faith into the more mature faith, then we don't, we miss these ideas that are so valuable
Speaker 2:to Yeah. And again, I'm growing in this. I mean it came up in the preaching team. Mark was like, you know, I did Ephesians six several years ago. I think I spent eight weeks on it.
Speaker 2:I was like, all right, here we go. We're doing one week on Mother's Day. You know, so the tension of not just not quote getting to it all, but also trying to paint the picture that we're not meant to fully understand the spiritual realm. Instead, the call is to fully rely on a God who saves. Are you demonstrating full understanding of spiritual warfare to combat against it?
Speaker 2:Or are you fully relying on Christ? And that's gonna come down to what we know of him. Are we growing in his grace and knowledge? We are already growing in the sin of the world and the things of the enemy and he's gonna operate out of lies, let alone the other five pieces of armor of his we could have gotten to.
Speaker 3:But Yeah.
Speaker 2:All that for another day.
Speaker 1:I thought it was I I thought it was a great sermon. Enjoyed it very much. Abby, do you have any concluding thoughts?
Speaker 3:Or No. Thought I agree. I thought it was great. Yeah. It was great.
Speaker 1:So are there announcements or anything?
Speaker 2:Well, I was gonna ask you. First of all, great job hosting Rose. Excellent job. You get a raise.
Speaker 1:Even though I couldn't read the whole now
Speaker 2:I have to read the script for that. You get hundred percent pay bump. $0 an hour up to zero dollars an hour for this podcast. Great job.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 3:I don't
Speaker 2:know if you have anything that you know that's coming up.
Speaker 1:No. Just I was gonna just plug again Brian Weir and what a great job he's doing as Saturday. Think his title right now is director of Kids Ministry. Kids Ministry. Abby knows the titles better than I do.
Speaker 1:But I just think he's been doing a great job for us. I've just been seeing great stuff happening in that ministry, and I know that he's working really hard. We've gotten to co labor with them on some worship things, which has been really exciting. So I just wanna encourage people if they wanna come and really encourage Brian through this thing called Yeah. Coordination evaluation.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So also, like, I don't I don't know if I'm the best person to do this, but it's not just, oh, I'll show up at 9AM this Saturday if I want to evaluate whether or not Brian should be ordained. No, this is this will also be a time to celebrate. It'll be a time to get to know him and and see his family and and a special guest will be there and stuff too. So I don't know.
Speaker 2:Don't be intimidated by that meeting or or hear that announcement this past Sunday and be like, oh, well, I guess the big wigs will go to that. They'll let me know how it goes. The congregation's welcome and it should be should be fun.
Speaker 1:I'm super excited about it.
Speaker 2:I've Are you going?
Speaker 1:I I'm gonna try.
Speaker 2:Do you wanna do you wanna sit next to each other or something?
Speaker 1:Oh, I'd love to.
Speaker 2:I'm excited to go.
Speaker 1:I'm to go too. Here's why.
Speaker 2:We'll get a row.
Speaker 1:Because I've turned I've attended Fellowship Bible Church. Oh, Roger always remembers. I don't.
Speaker 2:Think Ninety ninety
Speaker 1:Nineteen ninety five. Yeah. Something like that. And I've never seen us do anything like this.
Speaker 2:We've we've never done it.
Speaker 1:So I just think I I I value our church body so highly. And when the leadership of our church is willing to do something brand new they've never done before, I wanna be there. I wanna see the process. I wanna understand the process.
Speaker 2:It's also it's funny because we'll see if Brian listens to this podcast. He's he's like so excited and a little anxious about it. He's hoping not many people show up. So I'm trying to invite as many people as I can.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's funny.
Speaker 2:Let's pack room.
Speaker 1:And that's what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 3:Like, come
Speaker 1:to be an encouragement to Brian.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:And just thank
Speaker 2:him for everything.
Speaker 1:Him for everything he's done for our kids. The man has done so much for our kids here at Fellowship Bible Church that he went to Bible Seminary.
Speaker 2:I saw his picture in his cap and gown from this past weekend. Was awesome.
Speaker 3:That's great.
Speaker 2:Love you, Brian.
Speaker 1:So that's one thing I know for sure that's going on. The other thing is I thought I I just thought Mike Lukens did such a great job of putting this announcement in the right spiritual context. We are called as a body to pass the deeds of the Lord onto the next generation so that our children can know Him. And Vacation Bible School's a really cool place and opportunity to do that. So Vacation Bible School, Abby's gonna know more because she's on the communications team.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Like, the sign ups are, like, tell us
Speaker 3:what's live on Sign are live. Yeah. You can register your kids. You can register to serve. You can make donations.
Speaker 3:There's always lots of donations needed for the crafts and the snacks. But, yeah, they can always use more hands too to make the crafts and make the snacks and guide the kids. But registration is open for that. Invite your neighbors, invite your friends. And the week of VBS is the June, the twenty third through the twenty seventh.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Exciting times. So those
Speaker 1:are the two big things that I know about.
Speaker 2:Love it.
Speaker 1:There are other things people are working on around here. I just happen to know we're working through Parent Summit details right now. That's coming in January. We're starting to work on the Global Church Week, which is coming in October. So we're actually working on, and people can pray about this, each ministry is required to do its own ministry plan every year.
Speaker 1:So the ministries are right now in the process of praying through and making decisions about what ministry around here at Fellowship Bible Bible Church is gonna look like for the next school year. So you guys can help us by praying about that so that the Lord can reveal to us what he would have for us. So that's all I've got. What do you think, guys? Did we
Speaker 3:cover everything?
Speaker 2:Thank you, Rose. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, you're welcome. Okay. For all of our listeners and viewers, remember that we love to hear from you. You can send over your thoughts, questions, or requests. Go to fbcva.orgpodcasts and write us your notes and comments.
Speaker 1:Also, be sure to check out the other two Fellowship Bible Church podcasts, Fellowship Family Global Church. Those are really good, by the way. I really enjoy listening to them because you can't possibly stay up with everything that's happening at Fellowship Bible Church. There's so much ministry going on, so many interesting people that attend here. Found out today there's a man who's 103 who's a World War II vet.
Speaker 2:That's gotta be a record. I'm around here. Love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So there so but you're only gonna learn about those things if you seek out things like those podcasts to listen to. The fact of the matter, everybody, is that sermons are not meant to take an hour, but to transform a lifetime. Until next week, much love, and god bless.