¶ Georgetown Baptist Church Podcast Reconnects
hey , georgetown , I'm maverick and I'm jake , and we are back . We took a long , long , long , long break back , and mediocre than ever , but we are so excited to be back to do this podcast with you . Jake , how was your holidays ?
what did you do ? And I'm so happy to be here to do this podcast with you . Jake , how was your holidays ? What did you do ? And I'm so happy to be here on the GBC Empower podcast . I'm so glad that all you Empowerites are out there listening .
Man , I had a great holiday , Spent some time with my kids , spent some time with my family and got away with my wife for eight nights , away from my kids , which you would think , like man , he really missed his kids . I did miss my kids , but I also loved missing my kids .
Um , because , uh , man , my wife and I we've been married almost 15 years and , uh , we have learned to really enjoy time away together to uh , reset , recharge . We know not everybody gets to do that , um , but we're very thankful that we did . And um , um , but thankful to get to be home too . We love our , we love being in Pottsboro and I like routine .
I'm a big routine guy . Um , it's not that I just like my kids being in school . I just like the process of the day of getting them to school , you know , going to work and coming home and do whatever my wife tells me to do .
No , that's how about you ? That's awesome . No , me and Mal , we went to the great state of Missouri , missouri , yeah , we went to Branson , saw the sight and sound , did all that stuff . It's an amazing time . It was , like I said , good to get away .
We really missed our dogs . Did you wear old man New Balance shoes the entire time you were there ? With khakis and a polo .
I thought about it , I didn't .
I did get a Hertz donut . Much food , did you ? Yeah , when I'm on vacation , I pick my vacations based on the food . So I stepped on the scale after my vacation and I didn't step on the scale after that for about a week , yeah .
Yeah , I have to be really active on my vacations to justify how much food I eat .
That's the problem is , is I'm active , but I I'm even more active in what I eat , so that's awesome .
Anyways , I always welcome empowerower Rangers . That's my favorite name for them the . Empower Rangers . Before we get started , this is episode number 68 . So , jake , do you have a famous 68 for us today ?
So , if you forget , our last podcast was out in November and we didn't do anything in December . And you know , something that made me feel good was I had some people ask me about it and that told me somebody listens . So , uh , chad Wetland , if you're listening , here's a shout out Uh , thank you so very much for listening , but um , yeah , um .
So what we do is , uh , each uh episode , we pick a , a famous um , uh number in sports based on the podcast , and um , it's 68 and um , I could not recognize any of the 68 in sports , um , so instead I found a famous 68 year old who played sports .
Okay , so , larry Bird , a long time um Indiana basketball player who went on to go play at the boss for the Boston Celtics Hall of Famer . You know , it's funny if you talk to old school basketball fans and people are like who's the best basketball player of all time ?
And people argue Michael Jordan , LeBron James , people who really love Larry Bird will say , oh well , larry Bird needs to be in that conversation .
I don't know if I go that far , but um , in terms of tenacity , um , the type of person who will get after it and play well , I mean , him and magic Johnson battled and um one of the greatest rivalries in sports .
You know , magic Johnson , larry bird they played against each other in the national championship in college and then later on played against each other a lot of times in the NBA finals . So Larry Bird is a 68-year-old , which is crazy .
So if you have any 68-year-old people or 68 numbers in sports that we missed , feel free to text us and we'll apologize next week .
Yeah , we'll give them a shout-out . But Larry Legend hot take with Larry Bird . I think he's underrated because he's one of the greatest of all time . I agree with you . He's not Michael Jordan . He's not Scottie Pippen no , I'm just kidding , he's not up there . But I don't think he's as low as people put him either . I think he's in the top ten .
Yeah , I do too , anyways , but that's not what we . That's not what we he was a very courageous basketball player .
Uh , jake , the , the , you've been uh , diving in to a series of a topic which we've done in the past , but usually you're kind of a a , a pick a Bible , and we'll kind of go through it chapter by chapter or really section by section , but starting in was it ? Did you start in December ?
Well , what I did was December 29th . I just kind of introduced the concept and you know it was funny . I said I'm going to preach a short sermon and I think it wound up being the same amount of time as all the other ones , but yeah , I just introduced it .
And then the last two Sundays we've been in the topic and we'll be in another two after this Sunday .
Perfect . So the topic that uh , jake has been going through a service series we've been going through is courage . And so , jake , I guess my question for you is kind of like um , I know you pray , at least I hope so .
No , I'm just kidding Uh , you pray about , like man , what does uh , you know , what does God want you know , to say to Georgetown Baptist Church ? And I feel like there might be I could be wrong but a little pressure of like , okay , what's the first topic that we're going to talk in 2025 ? Like what , what are we going to enter the year in ?
And God's led you to courage , so kind of just what led you to to preach that to Georgetown ?
Absolutely . You know , 2024 was such a monumental year in our church , with many transitions and people who did exhibit a lot of courage . We began a building campaign and even began building our brand new building that we talked about . People gave sacrificially to the let's Go campaign . People still are .
We'll talk about that more here in a couple months when we get to a year mark . In the let's go campaign , we made the transition from one to two services . We added um two Sunday school classes . We had um nativity live um . Our children youth college ministry took a lot of steps . We we did midweek Bible study .
I mean it was a full year , a lot of and that's not including all the other normal big things we do Um
¶ Living With Courage
and um . God just really took our church to a place where we really had to depend on him , which is good . I mean that's how we should live every single day . And as we entered into this year , um , and in my own prayer time and my own study time , the Lord has really opened my eyes to the fact that our world is , um is confused .
Our world is confused , our world is crying out for answers , um , and you know this is a really weird segue , but you know , we're looking for knowledge and love and and uh , and security and strength and courage in all the wrong places , and I think we live in a time where people need to be comfortable with taking a stance on whatever topic it may be , but
the church needs to be grounded in the Lord and grounded in the mission and grounded in what God's calling us all to do .
And as I prayed about that , the Lord laid it very heavily on my heart to just point to our church family the idea of living with courage and all that we do , and in explaining that courage looks different for every single person and it looks different through different types of seasons for every single person , um , and , and it looks different through different
types of seasons , and uh , I just really wanted to hit that concept home and also point to the fact that there are people in the Bible that had to have courage to take the steps , um , that that that we're called to take in life and Georgetown . We're taking steps and we're not going to get there unless we have courage .
Yeah , no , absolutely . So . Quick question what is courage If you were to define it , if you were to give just a quick example of it , what is courage ? Because I know it's one of those words that we hear all the time . You hear it in movies .
One of my favorite Christian movies and I believe—no , it's not the first Christian movie I ever watched was Passion of Christ , but I think the second Christian movie I ever watched was a movie called Courageous , and you rewatch it . It's a little cheesy but I actually still really enjoy the movie , enjoy the message , and it's all about courage .
So what is courage and what's an about courage ? But so what is courage and what's like a , an example of courage .
Sure , and mine's not going to be like the Webster's dictionary . This is Jake Edwards , and I bet you lots of you could give really good answers to this question . But courage is the fuel that disciples need to walk obediently . Courage is the fuel that we need to obey God .
In other words , we want to be obedient to God and carry out what God has called for us , but we have to have the inner strength to walk obediently . Obediently in the ability to . That's courage , because our world does not want us to be obedient to God and they don't really . Sometimes they don't even care if we are or or not .
But just because they don't care doesn't mean they don't need us to be . Um , and as a pastor , I have to have the courage to trust the Lord as I shepherd God's flock , just like you do in our church , and and Ryan and Brett and um and our leaders . But , uh , we all need courage .
Um , we need our moms and dads to have the inner uh quality that that fuels them to raise their families the way God would call them to .
Uh , you have to have courage as you reach , um , you know the age of life where , where life changes , and um , you have to have courage as a young person , um , a middle-aged person , uh , and , uh , a senior adult , um , we all need it in all the phases of life .
I mean , all my kids are in sports right now , and if they don't have courage , they can't take on their opponent . Um , they don't have courage , they can't take a test Uh , a fuel that we desperately need , and the Holy Spirit gives us courage .
Yeah , one thing I really enjoyed . I actually really enjoyed this last sermon , just when you talked about David and Goliath the story that if you've been in church long enough , you've heard multiple , multiple times . But one of the cool parts that I think you added was how courage sparks others .
You know so , like David , for 40 days , goliath is just cursing God and mocking God and mocking the people of Israel . And they know the promises and in fact a lot of them have been a part of the promises of defeating people that they probably shouldn't have defeated . Why ? Because God is on their side . God has never left them .
And then they see this nine foot nine giant or whatever , and they get scared . I wonder why ? But no , he's like cursing God and mocking God and they're just not doing anything . And you know , david shows courage and I think we know .
But the cool part of me that you tied it into the story is like , okay , he defeats Goliath , and then it sparked because the Philistines were still a huge army . It wasn't like , okay , they defeated Goliath and now we've got to go defeat three more people . No , it was still a massive , massive army .
And once they saw again how God is faithful and all that stuff and how David was dependent on God and showed courage through his dependency on God that they were able to just charge for and win , because now they , like their courage , got relit .
You know it was just awesome . I really liked that Well that's , I think , the goal of last Sunday and , honestly , all these messages and what we're doing is I'm just breaking down what courage looks like- yeah ,
¶ Living Courageously in Everyday Life
yeah . You know whether it be as when we talked about David and Goliath standing alone . But then this past Sunday , esther , she was willing to take a risk and I think if we look at society , we don't take a lot of risks anymore . We tend to to put ourselves in places where we know the outcomes . But um , you know , I always joke about risk .
Uh , you know , I remember what it was like getting on my landline telephone and having to call another home and talk to a father and ask to talk to his daughter , and then have to ask the girl would you like to go to the dance with me ? Yeah , Um , I mean , my heart is pumping now thinking about how scary . That was but the but .
But I had to be willing to take that risk if I wanted to be able to take this girl to the dance . Well , you know , parents , are we listening to this ? Are kids doing things like that now ? Are they ? Are they putting themselves in a position where things might not work out the way that they want them to ?
But if they don't take risks , they're never going to find out if it's going to get there . And , um , there's certain levels of courage that we all need on a daily basis that are not , um , you know these big , monumental acts of courage . You know men , we can name the movie , whether it's Tombstone or Gladiator or Braveheart .
We all want to exhibit the qualities . But , man , I'm not entering the Roman Coliseum fighting against you know other gladiators on a daily basis . But you know what I am doing . I'm waking up , I'm taking my kids to school , I'm going to practice , I'm going to church , I'm around people all the time .
And the way that I want to exhibit courage is I want , when people talk to me , that they , they sense that there's something about me that's different from society , and that thing that's different is my relationship with Jesus . It takes courage to be different .
It takes courage to love people differently than others , um , so , you know , that's that's the goal of this series , is not that you would see ? You know , joshua , you know , I talked about him on the 29th or David or Esther , or Jeremiah or Deborah or Josiah , and go , wow , these people in the old Testament were really courageous .
Brother , you're , you're capable of , of having courage , um , you can live differently and and as I said um a couple Sundays ago , what's one area of your life that is ? You know , do you struggle with speaking up ? You know , um , do you struggle with looking at people and and and helping them understand what , what's on your heart ? You know , um , do you do ?
Do you have the courage to look inside and see the parts of your life that you want to grow ? You know , I'm I'm trying to eat better , maverick , I'm trying to get in the gym , um , and I fall victim to comparison all the time . Do I have the courage to look inside and go , okay , jake , why am I like that ?
Yeah , you know , because maybe , if I build that courage , then there could be some big changes in my life .
That helped me , you know , um , so that's kind of where we're at . So we're doing , I am Maximus Decimus Meridius , but , um , no , I'm just kidding . Uh , no , I , I think that's exactly right and I've kind of drawn back . Uh , we're in staff meeting and you know , mike McDonald worked with us and he's , he says a lot of just wise things .
He , he , he might be one of the wisest people I know , in fact I know he is , um , but you know , we were talking about just a topic about , you know , being fathers and all that stuff and showing our kids you know how to be . You know just manly . You know , yes , yes , men of God , obviously , but really like manly , you know like biblical manhood .
And Mike , he said something along the lines he goes you know , a son doesn't learn how to be a man by what his father says . A son learns how to be a man for what his father does , and it's like our kids look at us . Okay , and let me bring this to a broader spec , because I don't have kids .
My dogs aren't learning how to be by watching me , but people are learning how to be Christ-like through watching you , like how you handle yourself at a basketball game , how you handle yourself like on the golf course , how you handle yourself at work , how you even handle yourself at church Like people are watching you .
I work in youth ministry and let me tell you something , especially for our older kids . There's someone always looking up to the students . There's someone always looking up to them . The 11th graders are looking up to the 12th graders , the 10th graders are looking up to the 11th graders , the 7th graders are looking up to everybody . But here's what's crazy .
What I learned is that Path 56 is looking up to everybody and , and . But here's what's crazy . What I learned is path 56 is looking up to the youth . The youth is looking up to the college . The college is looking like like . In your way , you might be thinking , oh man , I'm 45 or I'm 68 , or no one's looking up to me .
No , people are watching you and you are leading them and they're learning how to be Christ-like by you yes , by reading the Bible and all that stuff . But we all are visual learners to some extent . We all want to see examples in the real world of what does it look like ?
Yes , I can learn about the story of David and God can speak to my heart of how to be courageous . But One of the best ways for me to learn how to be courageous is how are other Christians being courageous ? How are they standing up ? You know , it was really cool . We get to participate in a ministry called Area 51 .
And let me tell you , we've had two different youth students , one of our own and one that goes to Hagerman , and they've just shared their testimony and let me tell you , I look up to that because it's so courageous that they're willing to just stand out kind of alone and be able to share their testimony in front of 80 to 100 students of how God has moved
in their life . Like man , that is courageous and pot's bro , it's not Goliath is standing right in front of them . It's like no , no , no , like people are looking at them . And isn't that kind of scary that to know people are looking at us but we can run , we can hide . So you know , last year we moved from two to one , or sorry one , to two services .
Um and uh hopefully I wasn't prophetic there Um , and you know that that early service is it . It's taking time for that service to gain traction .
You know we go from this extremely full room , full of energy , of people , and and you know Ed and Billy Peary I don't know if you've gotten to know these folks , but Ed and Billy have been married a very long time . They've got a wonderful family . Ed served in ministry for many years as a senior pastor and they're members of our church .
They made the courageous step to leave a Sunday school class that they were very comfortable in . That they still love . That's a wonderful Sunday school class that they were very comfortable in . That they still love . That's a wonderful Sunday school class .
Attend the nine o'clock service and then attend a brand new Sunday school class For this one reason they wanted to help our church become healthier . So they attended the lower service and they attended a Sunday school class that they didn't know how that class is going to work out . They didn't know what's going to be taught in .
You know they're in their eighties , so don't tell me that you can reach a certain age that you're not willing to try new things . I think that that's courage , you know , is it this big grand display that we all notice ? Probably not , but I noticed it and I know that God notices it . This is what we're talking about .
We're not , we're not trying to tell you you have to become just this , uh , unbelievable . You know , I'm trying to think a Billy Graham type of personality , to have courage .
It's little decisions we make on a daily basis that that God can use for his glory and for his kingdom , and that's really what we're talking about is , how can we situationally be people of courage ? Uh , how can we be willing to take risks ? How can we be obedient when other people are not obedient ?
How can we live a repentant life when culture doesn't want us to repent ? You know how , how can we rise above culture ? I mean , these are things that we face in a church family . We , we want to see you grow in that area . Uh , not because it makes our church stronger , because it , it , it teaches you to depend on God more and um , and God , and that's .
I kind of want to end with this one thing . You don't manifest courage . You know you don't just like create courage . It's not . It drives me nuts , like if I'm depressed and somebody says we'll just suck it up I don't just like create courage . It's not . It drives me nuts . Like if I'm depressed and somebody says , well , just suck it up .
Yeah , I don't have the ability within myself to just become not depressed because you told me that like good , whatever , like don't like . All I hear from that is you don't understand depression .
Yeah , it'd be like if someone's bleeding out and you'd be like , oh , just stop bleeding . Yeah .
Well , the same is true for courage . Like we're not telling you to man just if you're fearful , just be not fearful . It's courage . When I say courage is the fuel that helps disciples live obediently , well , what is the actual fuel ? It's accessing what we have due to our relationship with Jesus . So pray and ask the Lord to give you courage .
Be aware of what the word of God says about the Holy Spirit that when you are dependent upon God , he fills you with your spirit and gives you the ability to make these situational decisions . And that's where courage lies . So you don't have to create it or make it or decide it . You simply need to draw near to God .
He'll draw near to you and he'll fill you with the ability to live this way . So it's not on you , it's just on you to get with God . So that's what we're trying to ask people to do .
Yeah , absolutely , and we serve a God who is courageous . The more we are like him , the more courageous we'll be .
¶ Continuing to Be Courageous
We were made to be courageous , casting crowns , ah , ah .
Ah , okay .
That movie changed my life . It's actually a really good movie . It is a good movie . It's about being a good dad .
Yeah , it's a lot about being a dad and being a good police officer , anyways . But yeah , that is all about courage . That's why Jake picked it and I believe , even though , like , we'll get away from this sermon series and all this stuff , there's a reason we're learning about .
It is because once Jake gets off , a sermon series doesn't mean , hey , okay , we don't have to be courageous anymore . That was just season no . That means I assume you did it and you're doing it . Yeah , it means we've got to continue to do it . So let's help be courageous for the year 2025 , but really for the rest of our lives .
Anyways , thank you guys so much . Like I said , so happy to be back . See you later and power Rangers Alligator .