That love, God's beloved love for us and that's not within us, does a lot to help us deal with the isolation, disunity, loneliness, all the different things that are out there. There's any type of love that can help us cross those barriers, walk across those others that are between us now.
It's that love.
We live in a time of great isolation, loneliness and disunity. With all the struggles in our culture. Does the church have an answer today on building relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman, pastor and author of Germany. Pierre will help us see how God's love can transform individuals and communities.
Pastor Pierre's book is titled Dearly Beloved How God's love for His Church deepens our love for Each other. You can find out more at Building Relationships with Us. I think you're going to benefit from the conversation that straight ahead here on Moody Radio. Gary, you were a pastor at a church for 50 plus years, so you have
a lot of experience with this topic. Were there times when you marveled at people's love and care for each other, and times when you were a little disappointed at the conflict?
I think anytime you work with people, you're going to have times in which you're greatly encouraged by their behavior, and you're going to have times in which you're disappointed by their behavior. But yeah, I was encouraged just last week, a lady who just been coming to our church, she and her family, for just a few weeks now, and she said, you know, my husband said to me, I just like that church. It's just you feel like when you're there, you're part of a family. And I thought,
that's wonderful. That's what we want. That's what we hope it will be like, you know? So I'm excited about our conversation today because I think this is a topic that impacts all Christians. And so yeah, I'm just glad we're talking about it today.
And I think what you just described, everybody listening is saying, yeah, that's what I want. I want to have it at church. But you can't program that. You can't fit it into, you know, do these ten things and then you become there's something that has to go on on the inside. And that's where Pastor Vernon Pierre comes in. He is lead pastor at Roosevelt Community Church, which is a diverse
multifaith ethnic congregation in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. He has a B.A. from Princeton University and an MDiv from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He's the author of Gospel Shaped Living, as well as our featured resource. Today, you'll find it at Building Relationships Us, titled Dearly Beloved How God's Love for His Church Deepens Our Love for Each Other. Freeman and his wife, Danny, live in downtown Phoenix and they have five children. Find out more at Building Relationships with us.
Well, Pastor Pierre, welcome to Building Relationships.
Thank you. It's good to be here.
Tell us a little bit about yourself. You know, where you grew up, your hopes and dreams. When you were young, did you always think of being a pastor? What was life like for you growing up?
I've always said to people that, uh, being a pastor, I call it a sweet bird and a ministry in the sense that I can't imagine myself doing anything else. And I love it. I see how the Lord has equipped me for it, but I call it a burden in a sense of I did try to do other stuff and begin to realize, like, if I could do these other things and, um, I wouldn't be happy. And clearly the Lord was not calling me to those things. Um, I'm originally from the New York and New Jersey area.
I was born in Brooklyn to Haitian immigrants and then grew up in northern new Jersey, uh, and went to Princeton and New Jersey and then, uh, went to Trinity, uh, just north of Chicago and Princeton. And I was initially, um, thinking I was going to go to medical school and then thinking about being a lawyer and, uh, really just a lot of different ways in which the Lord began to press in my heart, and many people affirming in my life that I really need to consider pastoral ministry. Uh,
and I was I wasn't sure about it. I thought it was going to be tough. And, uh, maybe I'll just be an elder of a church or do something like that. Uh, so after Princeton, I worked for a year as a paralegal in a law firm. And praise God for Christian lawyers. Really appreciate them. But that year, I thought, yeah, I can't do this. This is this is definitely my calling. Uh, and, um, and just sort of one final confirmation for me of like, yeah, I could,
I could do these other things. I think I'd have been a good lawyer or many other things. But coming to seminary, I remember my first year I felt like, man, what what took me so long to get here? Um, I was thankful for the Lord's continued calling on my life, uh, within me. And also from affirmation from many people. Uh, I love seminary, and I was glad to finally be there. So that's a that's really how I ended up, uh, going to pastoral ministry, then moved to the Phoenix area.
And in 2002, initially I was going to only be here for two years, but then they asked me to stay to help plant a church in downtown Phoenix, which I did in 2005. And I'm still here.
That's wonderful. Wonderful. Talk a little bit about your marriage, because our listeners are always interested in in a person's marriage. Uh, how did you meet your wife? And here's a question we often get. How did you know that she was the one?
Yes. Um. Well, I the funny story here is that I did break a rule, which was I would never date someone in my church. Uh, but I did, and I only did it once, so I suppose it worked out. I when we started the church, 2005, actually, I was dating someone. I thought we were going to get married. And the engagement broke off about a month before we started the church. Um, and so, uh, I started the church as a single pastor, which I did not want
to do, uh, was trying to avoid at all cost. Um, but my wife, uh, did a I started coming to church the first couple of months of, uh, of us starting as part of our core group and helping it get going. And, uh, and since that was interested, I was interested in her. I said she was interested in me, but I sort of it took about a year or more before I thought, like, man, can I really do this?
I don't know if I want to do this. And yeah, it was a a professor, a friend of mine who basically joked that, hey, you know, obviously you can't you don't want to be dating lots of people in your church as a single pastor. Uh, do your best to do it once, but, you know, the people are going to show you a lot of grace towards you, and it's very likely the person you'd be interested would be
someone who comes to your church. And so, um, about a maybe a year and a half or so after she started coming, I remember I just took the risk and said, hey, you know, I'd like to take you out. And she said, yes. And really, that first month, um, it was really clear, like, yeah, this is this is something that's going to work. Just, uh, kind of conversations we had. I mean, in many ways, I had a long time to get to know her over the course
of that year, year and a half. And, uh, we didn't tell anyone in church for the first two months because, uh, as a single pastor of a young church, people were very interested in my love life. Um, but we waited for a little bit to before announcing that, yeah, we were dating, um, and about six months of dating, and we got engaged about six, seven months later, we got married.
All right. How about your church now? It's described as a diverse, multi-ethnic congregation. Tell us a little bit about your church.
That's something that's always been important to me. A little late into when we begin talking about the book. Um, I'm always interested in sort of what it is to bring people together, but particularly different types of people together. Uh, growing up in the East Coast, I'm just very comfortable
and used to diversity. And I think church at its best. Um, as much as we're able to reflect, really what what what the Lord is able to uniquely do, which brings able to bring different people together, Jew and Gentile together, you know, people from every child, language and nation will one day before be gathered around the throne. So that's something I've always been interested in. And so I'm starting there.
Church that became, um, some important in terms of the kind of culture that we had and the ways in which we wanted to approach church, that it was always sort of saying, hey, uh, how do we draw different peoples together? How do we help them form relationships that recognizes that there's a difference? We can't ignore those things, but those differences, rather than drive us from one another, the word can use to essentially make us almost puzzle pieces.
A mosaic, if you will, that reflects all who the Lord is. It's a lot of sort of the impetus behind, uh, uh, starting the church that we did and why we continue to, to live that out today.
Yeah. Well, that's great when you can see that in a church. That's not true in all churches, as you well know. Well, let's talk about your book, dearly beloved. What are you trying to address? And with this new book that you've just released?
Well, I'm saying something all of us have sensed, and I think everyone I've spoken to over the last few years has experienced, which is that we're in a time of a lot of polarization, division, uh, tensions, long standing relationships that are frayed or even separated. And now, as I was saying before, it is a calling card from my ministry. I'm always thinking about what brings people together, but especially what keeps people together. And, um, we begin.
I began to realize, uh, I've long realized that in some ways, you can find a lot of ways to bring people together. I can put up a good movie on the screen on Sunday morning. People will come. But that's not real community. Um, we need something that brings us and actually has this form, the kind of bonds that make us one in the ways of the world
calls us to. And so, uh, essentially what we're talking about is how can we help people love one another if there's sort of one quick way of thinking about this? We need to have ways that encourage us to love one another. And really, what led to the writing of the book is I felt we were really in a time where I want to find some of the best and strongest ways to describe how we might love one another.
And when we look at Scripture, I think one of the the best and strongest ways to describe love is the way God loves us. And he loves us in a lot of different ways. That loves us like a father loves his children. He loves us like a shepherd, uh, loves and cares for his sheep, and does bring out different aspects of love for sure. But one of the strongest, uh, most vibrant ways the Bible talks about love that we don't think a lot about. But the Bible says, and
this is where we're all headed toward. One day. It's God's beloved love for us that God loves us with the love of like a husband loves his wife. And the more I think we reflect on that imagery, um, that helps us sort of understand something really marvelous and amazing about the kind of god that we have in the Bible. But also I think it really directly connects towards how we might understand how we love one another, that we can love in and out of that love as well.
Yeah. So you're saying that the biblical model of marital love is what we need to capture in order to function well in the church?
Exactly. Um, but specifically, you know, when I say when we say the biblical model of marital love, I'm thinking of one marriage in particular. Uh, that the model for us isn't necessarily human marriage. Uh, human marriages only work, I think, or work at the best when they reflect the one spiritual marriage that will last all marriages, the marriage between Christ and the church. And so as that
particular model, um, a really powerful model. And of course, the marriage between Christ and church is not a it's not 100% equal to human marriage, but it's a very intentional metaphor, isn't it? It's it's the Bible is invites us to fully embrace it and to know that this is this is really what the whole universe hangs on, uh, Christ in relationship to his church. That will be like
the very best marriage. Like that model understanding what that is. Um, that relationship, uh, Christ and his church, uh, capturing that understanding that, uh, directly relates to how we relate to one another in the life of the church.
Well, Pastor Pierre, in today's world we see isolation and disunity and loneliness even in those who are in our churches. Uh, how do we fight against this and love one another with the same kind of love we see displayed in Christ's love for us?
Our instruction to people are, the way we're trying to do this is to sort of kind of generate within ourselves our own love. It's not going to work, um, that, you know, often I think we're talking about people loving one another. People are thinking is I just sort of got to find something within me to help me love those who are around me. And, um, and some of us will do better than others. Um, but it's, uh, if our own source of love is only our own
source within us, I think it falls apart. Um, what really helps us is if we're loving one another out of the love of God that's already within us. Um, because that love is pure. It's strong, it's vibrant, it's eternal. And I think that really helps us. Then when I look at the people around me, I'm looking at them through the eyes of Christ. I'm looking at them with
the eyes of the Lord. And so one of the things I've said to people is, if you can think about it this way, your soul has been filled now with the water of God's beloved love when you trust them, Lord, by the Holy Spirit, trust in Jesus. The Holy Spirit comes within you and fills you now with his love and includes his beloved love. And I draw now from
that well to love those around me. And that leads to all sorts of ways in which we might sort of open up new ways, imaginative ways, in some ways, uh, but powerful ways to love those around me and, uh, that love God's beloved love for us and that's not within us does a lot to help us deal with the isolation, disunity, loneliness, all the different things that are out there. There's any type of love that can help us, uh, cross those barriers, uh, walk across those deserts that are
between us. Now. It's that love. Yeah.
So talk about the relationship with Yahweh. You know, God, the God of the Bible. Uh, that relationship is very different from the pagan gods described in the scriptures, right?
Yes. Um, I mean, this is there's a lot of great things about Christianity. And here's one of them. I mean, that we believe that there's a God of the Bible who leans in towards us, uh, who legitimately cares about us, who who's passionate about us, who delights in us, who loves us with the kind of like a of a husband a good husband has towards his wife. And that's very different from the way the pagans, uh, thought of their gods, and different from how people continue to think
about life in general. While people don't think about life. I don't think many people do. They don't believe in the same pagan gods of ancient times. They still approach life in the same way those people did. So the pagan gods made them more manipulative. Uh, they were selfish. Uh, they're distant. And so the pagans, uh, were often in a constant struggle with the gods. Uh, you got to make sure you do the right thing, offer the right sacrifices. You got to wake the gods up, and hopefully they
pay attention to you. So life is sort of this constant, uh, negotiation. Um, it's a constant sort of sense of, hey, I need to make sure to do these things so I can get what I want. And certainly people do the same things today that they see life as, uh, some people live life thinking that I was actually going to drop. And so they're always sort of afraid of that and trying to make sure they stay ahead of things. Other people sort of approach life as if, uh, you know,
I should get what I want. Life is almost like a if there's a God, he should be like a genie or Santa Claus. And so if I do enough good things and I should get what I want. Um, so those are different ways people think of life. Yahweh, the God of the Bible, is a God who created all things, created us, and says, I choose to be in relationship with you. So much so that I actually want to live with you. I want it to feel
like we're married. That the best way to describe what it's going to be like to be in relationship with God is, is going to feel like being married to him. And when he when you get me to really consider that and what that means, it just makes all the difference, then for how you understand life or how you understand yourself, the value that you have, the work that you have, that, uh, when you consider God and consider relating to God, he's
not somewhere distant. Uh, he's already near to you. He's actually with you again, it makes a difference for your own sense of identity and your own sense of purpose in life.
Well, let me ask you a personal question. As you began to understand what it means to be deeply loved by God. How did it change you and your role as a husband? As a father, as a pastor?
Yeah. So that's really the most immediate application of this, isn't it, that when you understand that there's a guy like this who's loved you in this way, who loved you so much that he was willing to come and become one of us, that the the way in which God's beloved love really was shown and demonstrated became actualized, is that the Lord God came to us in the Son of God in Jesus Christ, and loved us in
this way. Um, that makes a difference, then, for how we understand who I am as a person that I value as a husband, as a father, and as a pastor, that the Lord sees me and loves me and considers me in this way and, and also empowers me then in those roles. Um, so this relates to really, um, the first two chapters of the book about saying, here's what it is to, to be beloved to God. And then because of that, here's how you can be beloved, how you can show a beloved love towards other people.
You know, I'm beloved to you. You're beloved to me because we're all beloved to God in Christ Jesus. So one of the more immediate ways in which that happens, of course, is in my own personal relationships. So as a husband, I want to love my wife in and out of the beloved love of God. You might imagine God's beloved love now flowing from God to me. And I was in my heart and soul. And this is
Romans five five, right? Uh, God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who's been given to us. And really, the premise of the book is saying that love is it's not like he was stingy in that love. He only gave us some of his love. He poured all of his love into our hearts and soul by the Holy Spirit. And and that love includes this beloved love that I'm talking about. And so now I can love my wife. From that beloved, I see where the eyes of Jesus and I love her with
that beloved love. I love my children in the same way. I want to pastor my, uh, people in my church that same way. But then more generally, for the average Christian, whatever relationships that you have with other believers, uh, you want to and can and should love in the same way that God has loved us in that or that in and out of that beloved love that's now in your heart, in your soul, by the Holy Spirit.
So with his love, God's love flowing through us, we can actually love our wives, even if they are unlovely.
That's right. Um, I mean, it's it's so much of this is I mean, isn't that what the Scripture says? Right? I mean, the Lord looked upon his people and we were unlovely, and yet God's beloved of such a such quality, uh, such power, um, his love, it actually transforms us and change us. Which again, I think empowers us to think of our marriages differently, doesn't it? If God's beloved love
is able to make us lovely, uh. And God is basically saying that beloved love is not in you, it can do the same in our own marriage relationships.
Yeah, I think that's helpful to a lot of people, because there are times in which we have negative feelings toward our wife because of things she's doing or not doing. And, and, and we feel like, well, I can't love her the way she is. Well, you know, if it's God's love flowing through you, you can. Because he loves her, right?
Yeah. Amen. Amen. You know, so much of two how we. I think when our spouses are acting this way, our motivation to change them. We we use other tools. We try to, you know, maybe shame them or say, well, don't you read the Bible? You're supposed to be this way. And yet, um, that's not what God does with us. He loves us to himself, and that transforms us. So does the same in our marriages.
Yeah.
So in your book, you explore the concept of love being expressed in words. So give us some examples of the importance of using words to communicate love.
See, now we're getting into specifics. Um, you know, God's love for us is a beloved love. That love is now, as we now, abide in the Lord. But this first John says, uh, for John chapter four, you know, God so loved us. It's not that we love God, but that God loved us now in some way, that God loved us. We ought to love one another so that we're now loving each other in and out of that
beloved love. And really, the the the rest of the book is multiple chapters of sort of drawing that out and thinking of it in this way brings in aspects of love that we might not think about, but particularly thinking of that sort of metaphor of marriage. So in a marriage, the words that you use are really important, as you've written about. Um, for some people it's really significant how you use words in your marriage relationship. And I think, uh, so, so much of this is let's
first begin with how God used words over us of love. Uh, really, God's first words towards us were words of love. Um, his first thoughts were just words of love. And we'll begin to see is how much God used his words to affirm us, to see us, to notice us, to bless us. That same ability and power and instinct is within us now by the spirit. And so some of the ways in which we should use our words are
to to see people and notice people around us. Uh, and I think that's especially important for those who might come into our community who have spent maybe most of the week not being seen, uh, people who live on the outskirts or marginalized, uh, to use our words to, to know people's names and to know their stories, um, to use our words to bless and affirm people. Um, so this is where we begin to to acknowledge, uh, to see the goodness of them that the word sees. Again.
It might be hard for us to see it. Uh, but if we're, uh, asking. Hey, Lord, help me to see what you see in people. That opens up new ways and powerful ways. The word will always answer that prayer and to use our words to bless and affirm others. And what I'm saying is, those are expressions of love that bless people. Draw them closer to you and love and draw us all closer to the Lord.
Yeah. As you were talking, I was thinking of Proverbs chapter 18 and verse 21 says, the the power of life and death is in the tongue, and we can give life to people, or we can we can kill people and we can kill relationships, uh, with the tongue. So if we're relying on our feelings, we might, uh, we might be killing people. But if we rely on his love through us, we're going to give them life, right?
Yeah.
Yeah. Amen.
To, uh, to express love to one another in a marriage or a community like the church. A person has to be present. So how do you address the idea of being present? And can you give us some examples of that?
Another aspect of how God shows a beloved love towards us. How we see God's relationship with us being like a marriage is that God says, I'm going to live with you when you get married, you live with your spouse. Uh, I remember when I got married and seeing my wife's clothes taking up half my closet, and I thought, okay, this is different. I before this was my entire closet, and now I have to have someone living with me. You can't be married to someone unless you're actually going
to live with them. That's one of the more practical ways which we live. We live that out, and God does that with us. And I think it's interesting to see again the kind of God that we have. Um, but here's the one God, the universe created everything. And he makes a point of saying, I want to be with my people. We see that throughout the Old Testament, of course, uh, he travels with his people, um, the tabernacle to the temple. Lord, being in our midst, um,
becoming very much realized with Jesus. It's interesting to think about the fact that Jesus came and lived among us with with his disciples. He's got. And so, you know, Jesus could easily just come and done a weekend training and said, here's what you need to do and left. Uh, it could have been more efficient and timely. Um, however, our time effective, that's not what he does. Uh, the Son of God decides to actually live with us and
live among us. And I think that's that's an important way in which he's sort of emphasizing the fact that the Lord's presence is to be with us. And of course, Jesus promises, uh, when he leaves us, I will never leave you or forsake you. And that, of course, happens by the spirit that God not directly lives within us by His Spirit. And so the Lord lives with us. And that same, uh, instinct, that same loving desire to be with us, is now within us and able to
be expressed among us. And so I think it's it's the importance of love in the life of the church has to happen by us being present with each other, um, to put a priority on being in the same places face to face at regular times with each other. Um, and I think when we don't have that and we've seen that in recent years when we cut that apart, I mean, sometimes we have to for various reasons. Uh,
but it's definitely less than ideal. It actually hurts our community, uh, that all the things we have technology wise to, to interface with each other are really sort of accents to really the primary way in which, uh, we should be interacting, which is with one another. And so one of the things I just mentioned is just the importance of shared experiences,
the importance of face to face, uh, worship. Uh, so the importance of just being in the same place is regularly how powerful it is that just say, hey, I'm going to be in the same place every, every week in this building with other people, and how the Lord uses that and builds bonds and other. Of shared meals. There's a lot to say to that in the scriptures. How much the emphasis on that of neither, of course, the biblical doctrine of hospitality. Those are the ways in
which you sort of live with one another. And there are ways, though, practical ways, in which we get to express love and live in that love.
Well, we hope you're enjoying the conversation between Doctor Gary Chapman and Pastor Vernon Pierre from Phoenix, Arizona. And we're talking about his book Dearly Beloved, which I only hear when there's a wedding. Right. You hear this, dearly beloved. But no, it's it's more than that. The book that we're featuring today is subtitled How God's Love for His Church Deepens our Love for each other. And boy, don't
we need a lot of that. If you're listening to this podcast because you went to building relationships with us, then you don't need me to say, go there. But I want to make sure that, you know, that's where you can find an awful lot of encouragement for your relationships, building relationships with us. Maybe send a friend or family member, somebody in your church. Maybe you get this book and you do it together in a small group. Just go to building relationships with us to find out a whole
lot more. And again, thanks for listening to the podcast that.
You're listening to. Building relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller The Five Love Languages. Find more ways to strengthen your relationships at our website. Building Relationships Us. We're talking with author and pastor Vernon Pierre today. He's the lead pastor at Roosevelt Community Church in Phoenix, Arizona. If you go to building relationships with us, you'll see our featured resource, his book, Dearly Beloved How
God's Love for His Church deepens our love for each other. Again, go to building relationships with us.
Pastor Pierre, just before the break, you were talking about how important it is to to be face to face and to dine together. You know, Jesus even says that in revelation, behold, I stand at the door and knock. And what's he going to do? Come in and sup, you know, and eat with you? But what did what did the pandemic do in your church? It did, you know, around the country, around the world? It, it did a number on congregations. What did it do to yours?
I think created conditions by which people and again, for various reasons, uh, this is, you know, people had to be separated for one another, um, during the pandemic. But I think the effect of it was began to almost build bad habits. And I can put it that way. And I'm talking about particularly the lingering effects of the pandemic by which people began to think, well, I can
do church remotely, um, distant from other people. And and as has been proven, I think multiple churches around the country, um, people have begun to sort of say, hey, then maybe it's not as much important for me to be present with other people. I can I could do church, uh, online. Um, I can sort of interact with people in those ways. And I'm not one to sort of suggest that, like, online is completely useless. I just would say it's it's ancillary.
It's it's, uh, it helps enhance it should be seen more of a support to really the primary which we interact with each other, which is face to face in person, um, that there's a way in which multiple studies have proven this, that you don't interact with people on screens in the same way as you do in person with someone. Uh, we should be surprised by that. Especially as Christians, if we believe that there's a soul. Right? We believe in
the Holy Spirit. There's something really vital, important about being in the same place. It's why, you know, for example, first Corinthians 11, Paul makes such a huge point about taking communion together, um, that some Christians were eating and having communion before others. And you can say, well, you know, that's just sort of time delayed. It's all the same thing.
But I was like, no. When he repeatedly says, when you come together, when you come together, um, you see that thread throughout Scripture, the significance of actually being face to face to each other. The second John at the end, the second John also talks about, hey, there's more things that could write to you. But for my joy to be complete, I have to see you face to face.
So John appreciates the value of the technology of pen and paper, but he says complete joy only happens if I can come to you and talk face to face. So there's something really important, um, supernatural, that happens when we're in with one another. And I think the pandemic sort of taught us bad habits or made us begin to think like these, these other things, other ways of
doing things are equivalent substitutes. They're not, um, they're lesser versions of really what the word calls us to, which is to be with one another regularly, to come together regularly, uh, to do life together.
I think anyone who has been involved in church and have seen what happened through the pandemic, or just saying amen to what you've just said because it's so different. You can communicate information as a pastor to people at home, you know, who are watching, but it's not. It's not like the togetherness that you have when you're actually with the people. So yeah. Well, let me ask this. Uh, God is the one who willingly initiates his love toward us. You know, the Bible said we love God because he
first loved us. Do we naturally initiate that same love toward one another in the church?
Well, we don't, um, I think our, our instincts are to. And I think this has been shown to initiate towards people who are more like us, uh, who we feel more comfortable with or prefer, um, and some degree that our current climate has reinforced that we're more and more we're more aware than ever of the differences among us. It's made us be more likely to want more to, to to sort of steer away from those kinds of differences, to not do the difficult work of thinking through how
we might still form relationships with people, even with difference. Uh, so we don't actually initiate, which is why we need the words initiating love within us that God first moved towards us. I mean, it's one of the strongest emphasis in the Bible is not that we love God, but that he loved us, that while we were still enemies of God, that he loved us and moved towards us, and significance of how God the world leaned towards us, I think helps us then begin to think of how
we lean in towards others. I think the power of that of initiative then, is it's not so much about, hey, how do I notice the things that will allow me to sort of respond to people? But it's there are people made in God's image. I see them the way the God that sees them, and in some respect we see the potential of what they could be if we could be in relationship with them, uh, through the Lord's love.
And that allows us to actually take that first move, to make that first text message or make to initiate that first conversation. Uh, and again, I think we're encouraged here. Encouraging thing here is that it's not actually the engine of my own heart won't rev up enough to be able to do this, but, uh, it's the Lord's love within me that's revving up the engine, that's giving me the ability to to initiate, uh, in the ways of the Lord is initiated towards me.
Well, in your book you touched upon the theme of loving through difficulty. Would you share some of the key points for navigating, you know, challenging times like that?
Yeah. I mean, we can't ignore difficulties in our time. We can't ignore, um, the type of, uh, conflicts that happen in relationships. Uh, and so, um, sometimes, I mean, there's a lot different strategies people have. So some people. Yeah. Will, uh, will ignore those things. Uh, other people will dismiss it. Uh, some people will use it as a reason to almost just go at war with others around them. The conflict
or through difficulty requires, um, a kind of perseverance. First of all, um, I think that perseverance allows us to see where we can be and will be and to continue on in spite of where we are right now. However, the difficult times manifest themselves in the case of when it's sort of a personal sort of issues between us, that ability to sort of begin to understand that, hey, where we are now isn't where we finally will be.
I think, again, it just gives us, uh, I'll say a little bit more about this in terms of just how I think. We think through, uh, conflict, um, sort of tools. I think that help us when it comes to conflict. But I think one of the more powerful things is to begin to say the word is essentially the word sees where we are now and sticks with us because he knows eventually what his love will do
among us. So I'm thinking of Ephesians five, where we see how God, basically Jesus, comes and gives up his life for us and is loving us to the point where we might be pure and spotless, right? Uh, wholly without spot or wrinkle. Any such thing might be holy and without blemish. The Lord is loving us in that direction. And so the difficult the difficulty of Jesus being relationship. Now God sticks with it because he knows our love
is and lead us in that same way. Um, I think as we engage in difficulty with, as we are in difficult times or in conflict or whatever it is, they got huge key point in this is saying, hey, I have a vision for where we're going, a clear, crystal clear vision of where we're going and knowing by continuing to persevere and be with one another, we will get there.
Yeah.
Have you had to navigate some difficult situations as a pastor?
Oh, I mean my goodness, yes. So many. And it's not easy. Well, I'm the first to admit I write about these things. And some of them I'm really good at doing, others of them. I have to reread the chapters pretty regularly to remind myself of what I wrote. Um, because I'm trying to to live out what I know. I. I know my head, but it's hard to realize in
my heart it's important. I mean, it's to some of these things I'm talking about, I have to rehearse them in my heart and mind and say, Holy Spirit, remind me that this this is within me and help me to to say and think and talk and move towards people, uh, out of your eyes, out of your actions, uh, out of your thoughts. I think that that's helped me a lot over the years.
I think every pastor can identify with that.
Yeah.
Talk about the biblical concept of covenant and how this relates to marriage, and then later how it relates to the church.
Well, covenant is really the word the Bible uses to describe this committed relationship God has with us. And we see that it's when God says, I'm going to have a people and be relationship with people. He doesn't do anything less than committed relationship. He doesn't casually date us and he's not okay with just being, hey, we'll just be roommates with one another. God's saying, I'm going to commit to you. I'm going to be uniquely commit to.
You're going to have a special relationship with you. So at Mount Sinai, we see that sense of covenant right there that God makes a physical chapter 16, verse eight, uh, I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord God, and you became mine. That language. Um, so your mind is, uh, it's ancient language. It's marriage. Language. Like we belong exclusively, uniquely to each other.
God's going to obligate himself to us, and we're going to obligate ourselves to him who makes promises to us, and we make promises to him. And so that there's a way in which we understand how our relationship with God is a covenant. Uh, and again, it's, it's language that's being picked up from, from marriage. Uh, the marriage relationship is also meant to be is a covenant reflects
the covenant that God has with us. And, you know, as we've been saying, that's the basis for us then to be in relationship with each other, isn't it the God's sort of, uh, commitment to us? Uh, there's a great, uh, word in the Bible. A Hebrew word said God's steadfast love. His sort of steady, committed love towards us is the same sort of sealing bond that we can use in our relationship with each other. It allows me to say, hey,
the people I'm with aren't just sort of people. I can kind of, you know, dip in and out of. I'm I'm committed to them. Um, I am bound to them. And that bond is the bond of God's love. And again, that does a lot for how then we think through what it is to be a members of the church, what it is for us to affirm the things that we believe in, the direction that we're going? Um, all those things, again, flow out of God's first commitment to us, which allows us to become into each other.
So covenant is different from contract, right? The contract is I'll do this if you do that. But covenant is different, right?
No, it's exactly right. I mean, a contract is, um. Yeah, it's, uh. Well, it's almost it's based on a sense of, hey, as long as you give me this, uh, and then I'll give you this, and then if that goes away, then we're done. Um, yeah. You know, marriages do involve promises and obligations, but, uh, within that, that it's a sense of to be married. It shouldn't be. You're not in
a relationship with someone. If the only thing you need to do to break apart that relationship is break a lease or something like that, or break a contract, a business contract, I mean, those are easy to break apart. Marriage is yeah, there's promises and obligations, but it's actually a knitting together. It's a union. And so to separate,
that's why divorce is so devastating. It's actually severing of yourself. Um, and so that that sense of covenant, that committed relationship is meant for the sake of intimate union with one another. And that's really where the power is.
Pastor Pierre, you also talk about three types of conflict in marriage. What are those?
The way I approached it was that if you think about a different kind of conflicts that can happen in a marriage relationship is what, uh, might call a hot kind of conflict. I call it hostility. So you're outright opposed to the other person. And so anything can incite this, it might be something really serious, like a betrayal, or it could be even something incidental. But it's just sort of this really hot war between you and your spouse.
And then there's another type of conflict is disconnection. So this is more of a slow burn kind of conflict. Uh, you're sort of isolated. You feel alone from each other, and you're just you're disconnected. You're you're you're just strangers to each other. Um, almost more. A little bit of a Cold War. You could say, um, you're you're together, but you're pulling apart from each other. The last one is rejection. So this is an outright hostility towards each other.
You might even still be in the same house, but you've clearly, definitively rejected each other. You want nothing to do with one another. And so each of these sort of are different ways in which conflict can happen in the marriage.
So how do how do these conflict areas relate to our relationships in the church?
So in the same way we see that in marriage, I think those are ways of understanding the kind of conflicts or categorizing the kind of conflicts that happen in the life of the church, that there's some people you're actually you're just you're you're in the same way with each other instantly becomes heated. Um, there's others. You're just you're just disconnected. Uh, you you had a relationship, but
it's you're kind of slowly drifting apart. So it's not you're not running away from each other, but you clearly don't have. He seems to have less and less in common. You have not fostered much in relationship with each other, uh, in the life of church. And there's others. You've completely rejected that, uh, as almost you have no emotion about
them anymore. You just they're out of your life entirely. And, um, you know, in describing this, I think it's pretty apparent what will happen in the life of the church if these type of things fester. Um, it leads to the anger to, to, to to lead to abuse. In some cases, uh, it leads to churches splitting, uh, leads to, um, you know, in the case of disconnection, longstanding relationships that kind of drift apart and not for any good reason, but because
there's not enough done to invest in that relationship. And so, uh, something that's that's lasted for years. I think the pandemic is a good example of this. People you've had longstanding relationships with begin to just drift apart. There's nothing to feel that. So this is incredibly destructive to the kind of relationships and community we now have in the life of the church.
Yeah, yeah.
So instead of, uh, spreading conflict, what happens when we extend grace to one another in the church context?
Yeah. So I think grace is how we answer the problems that I just listed. Uh, hostility, disconnection, rejection, um, and even some of the things we've been talking about before, the kind of reasons why that that crops up and the reasons why we don't move in love towards one another. Uh, I mean, grace is just a wonderful doctrine. Uh, there's a lot of things that are great about Christianity. And
here's here's a shining jewel. Uh, the grace gives us always the ability to keep the channels of communication open. Or another way to put it is grace always creates space for us to deal with our conflicts. Um, and this isn't to say, like, we should, um, you know, going back to our previous answer, we're going to ignore our difficulties or conflicts with one another. This is grace is a doormat type of thing. Uh, some conflicts require
way more time to deal with. But grace gives us the ability to create the room by which we might then deal with conflict. And one of the things I mentioned in the book is, I think the specific tools that God gives us then to help us then deal with our conflicts and to build relationships back together, to have reconciliation and unity and and love again in the most vibrant ways. So two of grace. One is sacrifice. Our ability to to sacrifice our pride to be willing
to enter into the room, uh, with others. Uh, forgiveness is another one, a willingness to to receive, forgive, to forgive others for what they've done. But forgiveness has to be matched by confession, right? Imagine for reconciliation to happen. There has to be legitimate confession from the other person. You might be willing to forgive, but the other person is unwilling to forgive well, unwilling to confess, and then also repent and maybe even do some type of repair
the relationship. Then the relationship can't be healed. But grace at least allows you to have the posture of saying, hey, this room! The room is always going to be open. Forgiveness for me is I always willing to enter into this room. And on one side, if we're willing to enter into the other side of the room through the door of confession and repentance, then we can begin to
build our relationship again. It's very powerful. It's how we can navigate the things that will naturally come up between us.
You know, I think most pastors have experienced this over and over again. And you've alluded to it is how in the church members get, you know, out of sorts with each other and sometimes are verbally critical, criticizing each other, uh, online and all that sort of thing. It breaks the heart, I think, not only of a pastor, but any Christian. When they see fellow Christians responding like that. How do you initiate helping helping the person who is who is doing that sort of thing?
You know, I think the tools we have to be online and to communicate are I mean, they're cool and they've opened up many things, but they're probably some of the most destructive things for community, particularly anyone who's interested in building diverse community. Um, our online tools are geared towards our own self-interest. Um, and they answer, uh, I might say an instinct that we have to lean in towards people who are more like us, for the Jews to be with the Jews and Gentiles, to be with
the Gentiles. But, uh, if that's what you want, then you got to pick a different religion. Um, when the church got started, uh, there was not a sort of a downtown Jerusalem church for only Gentile Christians and then an uptown Jerusalem church for only the Jewish Christians. Instantly God said to whatever the Jews were able to. And I guess, obviously, there's a lot of it's difficult to
do these things, but always have the desire to instinct. Uh, we're in places where we should be drawing as many different people together from all different social backgrounds and experiences and cultures. Um, and when we look at the things that we have online, we in many ways we've got to, uh, repudiate them and we we've got to rebuke them in the name of Jesus and not let them guide our interactions in our. And we need to use them in ways that actually go against maybe the ways the companies
want us to use them. But, uh, I think in powerful ways we can use them to build the kind of relationships and bonds that we need to. But I think we need to realize that these tools want to encourage me to to act this way or to sort of instantly react to people in ways that are not of Jesus, that don't bear the fruit of the spirit. Because I see you the way Jesus sees you. Uh, I want to use the tools that are around me
to move in towards you and lean towards you. Uh, the way that you would want me to.
Absolutely. Well, you know, I think this book and this topic is so important in today's world in which we we see so much, you know, animosity toward each other in many, many different places. Uh, I'm reminded of what Jesus said by this will all men know that you are my disciples by the way you love each other. So, you know, he's actually giving the non-Christian world the right to judge whether or not we're truly following him. Uh,
by the way, we love each other so well. So I think this book is going to help a lot of individuals, a lot of churches, a lot of Christians to draw upon the power that is ours in the Holy Spirit and with the model we have of God's love for us. So I just think this is a super important topic. So I want to thank you for your investment in putting this book together, and also being with us today and talking about this topic. So may
God bless you. Continue walking and loving where he's placed you. Okay.
Amen. I so appreciate that.
If you go to the website building Relationships with us, you'll see Vermont Pierre's book, Dearly Beloved How God's love for His Church deepens our love for each other. Again, just go to building relationships with us.
And coming up next week. How facing death with a loved one transforms our lives.
Don't miss Whitney Pipkin story in one week. Before we go, let me thank our production team, Steve Wick and Janice. Backing building relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman is production of Moody Radio in Chicago, in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening.