What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the podcast. This this episode two hundred and eight, and I've got a first time guest, longtime friend, first time guest, Marshall Canalis and he's also my pastor at a Mais Church in Georgetown, Texas. And the reason the reason I bring anybody on, I don't. I don't just like bring on celebrities or or friends
because I like them. I really don't. I really use this podcast and I I am very sensitive to it because these are my people that have asked questions sensitive questions sometimes sometimes this podcast, unfortunately, it's the only outlet that they have. And so I choose people for this that I would trust with my stuff. And that's you,
and that's Bernie, and that's Parker, and that's Chad. And that's why it's a small group because if I'm like, man, I'm going through something, let me and I've done this before with you if I have something going on, what would you do in my situation or how would you give me advice in this situation? And you're one of the wisest people I know in my life right now, you are the one of the wisest people with the best counsel. You are. You always have such a sound mind.
And I mean it's evident the Lord puts you in my life at the perfect time when I needed someone like you. And and so now I would love if you would do the same thing you do for me to so many on this podcast. So dude, I just appreciate you being here.
I appreciate that intro. Man, that's a lot to live up to.
No, you just have to be yourself. And and so everyone knows we don't have notes in front of us, we don't have like famous Sea Lewis quotes on this table, or we don't even have a Bible in front of us. We can pull out our phones and look stuff up, but we do that on purpose because we're not preparing
for these questions. Marshall doesn't know anything it's about to come at him, and that way, it creates an atmosphere like we're just sitting in the cab of a truck and you say, hey, man, can I run something bias something I've been going through And we'll say, yeah, let's hear it. And we don't have to tell you the exact right answer right now, but sometimes we could just point you in the direction of where that answer might be.
That's our goal, and to do that, you just email Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com and then we're going to get into this you ready, ready, all right? Randomly, I'm to pull out these questions. The first one says subject line podcast question. The email says, Hey Grandeer, my name is Chandler. I'm twenty one years old. I was saved when I was fifteen at church camp. I was on a high for God. But life happened and started working and dating, et cetera. I started working in dating,
et cetera. Is what he meant. I went through a rough patch with my faith and finally getting back into church where I could where I can work with my schedule. I think that's what he meant. Any advice on how to get closer to God and being a strong Christian young man, Thank you, Chandler. So here's this dude, Chandler, twenty one. He's been saved for six years at church camp. Which is the story that we hear a lot of some kind of church camp something like that, And then
you're on a high for God. That's totally normal, and then life happened and you settled back down a little bit you started trusting yourself a little bit more. You kind of forgot about that high that church camp brought you.
When it was when the band was playing and all your friends were there and the lights were on and you all got down on your knees and you asked Jesus into your heart with this prayer and then life and as you say, you went through a rough patch with your faith and finally getting back into church that works with your schedule. So his advice, Marshall, is any advice on getting closer to God and being a strong
Christian young man. And by the way, Chandler, it's a very normal story, like you're not you're not saying something that that we would be like, oh man, that's that's a problem. We're saying yep, I hear you, man. And you're asking the right question. The fact that you're emailing, you're thinking about this, you're you're in a church now, this is this is good. So what do you tell Chandler Marshall.
Yeah, I mean, just one encouraging that you have this desire to be closer to God and that you found a way to get back into church. Because one of the things I would tell you is to get closer to God. You got to get closer to His people. Not not just so that you would feel closer to Him, but you have all those people around you who can support you, and when you hit those trials of life, they can speak God's promises in your life, but also speak his warnings in your life when you're going kind
of against what His word is saying. And so you need the people of God around you to hold you accountable to God. And so it also will prevent you from trying to seek this constant high that you probably felt at youth camp. I mean I've been there. Yeah, you're just surrounding and I think that's actually a testament to being around God's people, right, Like you're around all these people who want to be on fire for God, and you kind of feed off of that a little bit.
And so.
Being around the people of God will constantly point you in the right direction when life's telling you to go in to a different direction when you know, I would they say dating and works kind of got in the way. When you're in church, that's gonna constantly confront you with this reality of your you're kind of distancing yourself from
the people of God. And if you're distancing yourself from the people of God, in some sense, you're distancing yourself from God himself because He's called us to be in community. And so when you're distancing yourself from that community, it should feel weird, it should feel awkward, it should probably get tough because you're trying to do something that you weren't designed to do, and that's live life on your own.
And so you surround yourself with people who are constantly pointing you to Jesus.
Yeah, that's so good. And to that same point of being closer to God's people than Chandler, we could also say, what are you listening to? What are you watching? Like, what movies are you watching? What what comedians are you going to see? What people are you hanging around at work that are telling those jokes that you're laughing at because you're kind of assimilating into that culture and away from God's culture. So if you want to be closer
to God, there's exactly the question you asked. You want to get closer to God, then Marshall's going to say, get closer to his people, And in that aspect, you're going to kind of start dislocating you know that joint of where you are with the world, which is in the music, of the culture and the movies, because you're gonna want to crave that less and crave his people and his things and things that he loves more. And that's how you get closer. This is not just God.
You want to say, how to get closer to this girl, Well, you're gonna start digging into the hobbies that she likes. You're gonna start hanging out with her dad. You're gonna start going to church with them on a Sunday morning. That's how you're gonna get closer to her. So it would be the same thing getting closer to God. It's no different. It's a relationship. It's what Christianity is. Yeah.
Something else that he said in there, I'm able to go to church that fits around my schedule. Yeah, just probably thinking through is what is in your schedule absolutely vital for your life. So if it's, well, I'm out really late on Saturday night, so it doesn't really work for my schedule to wake up in the morning and go or you know, i'd rather I know y'all talked about sports on the last episode. You know, I'd rather be doing sports on Sunday morning, and so that doesn't
work with my schedule. It's what's on your schedule that is absolutely vital to your life that would warrant you missing church regularly, and so just getting not necessarily finding a church that fits your schedule, but prioritizing gathering with the people of God on Sunday morning may mean that you need to reorient in your schedule. Yeah, and not find a church that fits your schedule.
Yeah, that's good, that's good. And know that when you try to do that, like we talked about with Bernie, when you tried to do that, it's going to be uncomfortable. Yeah. Yeah, you're going to the world's going to go you're crazy. You don't miss this baseball game, or you don't you don't miss this barbecue that me and the boys do every Sunday morning at eleven am. That's what we do. So we've always done Chandler, what are you talking about?
So it's not going to be easy, Yeah, but it's that's how you get closer to God and that's where your peace and your rest ultimately lie. So you're on the right track. Man. I want to encourage you for asking the right questions. Surprise, surprise, the next one says Bible question. The email says, Hey, this is Elvin. I'm twenty years old from Greenbrier County, West Virginia. What is the difference when the Bible says Jesus Christ verse Christ Jesus. I love your book and I bought it one for
my dad. I hope you're having a wonderful day. Okay, So more or less a translation question here. So Christ is Messiah, Savior. So that's the title. In fact, you said this in a sermon last Sunday. That's one of Jesus's titles, is the Christ, the Messiah, the Savior. And the Jews would really appreciate that title because they understood that through their prophecy. So what you're saying, you're asking us, how where do you put the title? And so it's
not that big a deal. And do you have any to say about that if there's any weight to that at all.
No, it doesn't matter the placement of it. It's just signaling to the people, especially who knew the Old Testament, that Jesus was the one that God had promised throughout the entire Old Testament. So you could put in there Jesus who is the Christ or the Christ who is Jesus. So if you could move those at those in there to kind of help with it, you're not changing who he is or what's being said about him.
Yeah, certainly you'll see it in different translations. You could see each one translated differently in the same passage as well. Jesus Christ and Christ Jesus. Some people, some churches will only say Jesus Christ. They will never say Christ Jesus. I don't necessarily know the difference why people do that. LDS Church is one. It's always Jesus Christ. They will never say just Jesus.
I'm not really sure why they would do that either.
But interesting call them it below if you know. The next question, subject says, when is it enough? Eight years? This is just going to start. This is how it starts. Eight years single, thirty two years old. It's hard to date in twenty twenty three. I don't want to waste my time dating as I have tried. I have spent a lot of money paying for dinners. I have not been the best in past relationships or talking ships. He says, as I shut down due to pass experiences, I fall
easily for women who actually give me attention. But I have been burned so many times. I tend to think more of the future. It's not worth talking to her because of etc. Etc. I want a family and kids. I want to keep the family name alive. I have a huge belief in marrying before children. I am getting older and my tolerance gets lower by the day. Is there a thing that is there a thing that there are more fish in the sea? Colon? Wait, this is how you wrote it, man, or do you think overthinking
is too much? I read that exactly how he wrote it. This guy's name is Taylor, and okay. Interesting. So thirty two, first of all, is not old, but you think it is. And eight years single it's not necessarily a long time either. So that's a perspective that we're gonna have to change with you here. Is that the culture maybe you're hearing from your world that thirty two is now you're getting really up there and you're late in your years and almost too late to ever find a wife, and your
family name is gonna go away. That's these are things that's happened that are happening in your head right now. But I hear a lot of cynicism. I hear a lot of frustration from you that I got a feeling is not just in this email. I got a feeling this frustration is coming out in a lot of the other aspects of your life. So when I hear stuff like that, and in terms of you wanting to find somebody, I always think you should try to be the person
that would attract the woman that you want. Because the woman that you want that has this family with you, and has your children and raises them as their mother, and keeps the family name alive, and becomes that best friend of yours, that first level of security of advice in this relationship at home, that woman, whoever she is, would she be attracted to this guy that you are right now? This cynical? I'm impatient. I shut down because of past relationships. I don't really like paying for dinners
a lot. That guy is the woman you want, the mother of your children. I know you have her in your head. Is she attracted to you the way you are right now? I don't think so. Man, What do you say to this guy Marshall?
Yeah, I mean part of it when when you were reading it, my word of caution to what he's saying there were a lot of good things he said in there, like he's a strong believer that you know, get married before you have kids. Yeah, amen, do that, But you want to make sure you're not looking at these women as a means to an end. So it's it's not I need to get married so I can pass on my name and have kids.
Like what if the Lord in his.
Providence decides y'all can't have kids, You're not going to have kids. The only thing that's going to get you through that, apart from God's grace, is the fact that you love the woman you're with and she wasn't just a means to get the children or to pass on the name.
And so.
While I think it's good to be thinking like can I see myself marrying this woman and being the mother of potential kids down the road, you don't want that to be the sole reason you're with this woman. Do you see yourself with her? Do you see yourself growing with her? Can you see yourself leading her towards Jesus? So just that would be the only word of caution on top of what you said, is just sure don't use her as as as a means to an end.
So what Marsha's saying is, imagine you're a dinner and you're on a date and you're telling this woman, You're saying, are you paying her me? Because I'm not really into pain, And I'm sorry, I got to admit that as I get older, my tolerance gets lower and I'm really what I'm wanting is a mother to some children to carry on my name. Like that sounds horrible, you wouldn't say that,
but that's that's what your thought is. And if that's what you're thinking, and that's what you want, And Marshall's saying, I'm going to caution against that because you could get none of that and that's not attracting anybody that's worth anything. And so yeah, to take all that digest a little bit and then ultimately remember too that you're thirty two minutes. You got a lot of time. Things could change like that. You could meet someone tomorrow, be engaged in two months
and married in four months. Yea, this is not that's not out of the ordinary for that to happen. Yeah, doing good man. Let's get another one. Oh man, this is one. See this subject life baptism of the Holy Spirit. Here we go Hey, grangeur great talk. A couple of weeks ago at Liberty. I attend Virginia Tech, but drove ninety miles to see you speak and I love the message. Thank you man. My question to you is about the
baptism of the Holy Spirit. I am part of a campus ministry at Virginia Tech and have encountered spiritual gifts such as prophecy, words of knowledge, and speaking in tongues. I want to hear if you believe in this too, because you have mentioned that you came from a Baptist background, which traditionally doesn't believe in these gifts. First scene and acts too on the day of Pentecost, explain a lot about the apostles being told by Jesus to wait until
he can send a helper, the Holy Spirit. Then on Pentecost, a sound like a rushing wind came and they all began speaking in o their tongues. Thanks for your time, brother, and super excited about your path. I will be praying for you. Carson Carson, thank you man. Thanks for driving ninety miles. That's amazing. And shout out to Virginia Tech. It's a really cool school. I've never visited, but every time I see him on TV. They kind of remind me of Texas A and M where I went. They're
kind of like minded in that way. So yeah, Baptism and the Holy Spirit. Here's what I know, don't I'm not a master on this at all, don't know a lot, but let me tell you what I do know. In the turn of the twentieth century in the United States, there was a there had been a rise for about
one hundred years or so of liberal Christianity. Right. It's where major doctrines, vital organ doctrines heard that today at lunch were being compromised, and there was a like any kind of rise of something like this liberalism, like in the government or anything, there's always a conservative backlash. And that's what happened in the twentieth century, the turn about nineteen hundred or so, that was the rise of fundamentalism.
It was the rise of the Orthodox Presbyterians, the Pentecostals, the Evangelicals in some of the way that we know them as to be today. And the rise of those usually had something in common. And all of those different sorts of denominations are cultures, they all together they had in common. Let's let's stick with doctrine, let's go with what the word says, you know. The fundamentalist it's like, let's do exactly what the Bible says, word for word.
That's what we need to do, exactly that, right, And so there's a good spirit about that, you know, And I think we could all agree that there is a there is a constructive spirit with that. But Pentecostalism, I think I think it's the West Coast thing. I think I think it grew in the West Coast and it was like reading the Book of Acts literally, and so this this rise comes and so kind of my point is it's a it's fairly new, as as a lot
of these different denominations are fairly new. And the danger of this, and in mind, this is just my opinion. This could mean nothing to you, Carson. I'm not discounting you. I'm not saying you don't speak in tongues. You're wrong. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that anyone can't speak tongues. Now, what I am saying is, I always think we should caution ourselves when we get too far
into a thing that's outside of the Gospel. I believe that with eschatology when we're talking about in times and we're talking about the rapture and people to get obsessed with the mark of the Beast and six six six and and and I feel the same way when we
start talking about baptism of the Holy Spirit. Because as I as I had my rebirth and kind of went out into the world, a lot of people came to me with their with their their their mentality of Christianity, like, okay, greater, now that you've done that, here's what you need to do. And I heard a lot a lot of people say, now that you've been reborn, your next goal is to seek wisdom and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And I remember when I first heard that. I first heard that,
I was like, yeah, I love John three. I love reading John three. Like Jesus says that the spirit's like the wind, no one knows where it comes from or where it's going. I love that. And everyone must be reborn by the spirit to enter the Kingdom of God. I love that. I love that whole conversation with Nicodemus. And then I come to find out, no, that's not at all what they're talking about, not talking about anything Jesus said about the Holy Spirit. So we do know
a little bit about tongues. We do know that it's made to edify the church. We could debate all day about whether whether you need to speak tongues to be a Christian or whether you need to have one of these gifts to actually be a Christian. We could discuss that, but I don't want to. I want to instead just caution and just say, let's worry about the gospel more than any of that other stuff. The gospel meaning what
who Jesus is and what he did. And if we lose sight of that, I think I think Jesus would be like, what are you talking about? What? Why are you worrying about this stuff? Why are you working worrying about the baptism of the Holy Spirit? When I told you what baptism is. What do you got for this, Marshal? And I want to You're a pastor, so I don't want to stick you out on a limb here.
But yeah, no, you're good. I mean, one thing that always comes to my mind when we actually talked about this in Bible study last week that in Ephesians, Paul talks about, you know, there's one Lord one Gospel, one baptism, So there's not these two different baptisms according to what Paul's saying there. And so, I mean, we believe that you get the Holy Spirit when you're when you become a Christian, when you're converted, like you have the Holy Spirit.
And so.
While we won't get into this stuff with the spiritual gifts like you were talking about, one thing I will say and you and you mentioned it briefly, is if if your church practice those things, those are things, according to Paul and First Corinthians, that were given to the church for the building up of the church. So these aren't things that are supposed to make you feel more like you're a Christian. They're supposed to actually encourage other believers.
And so even if your position is to lean more on spiritual gifts, it's not for your own encouragement or your own affirmation of your faith. It's meant to encourage other people in the church that you've covenanted with. And so if that is your position, don't stress so much on yourself when it comes to the spiritual gifts. But if they're being used for others in the congregation.
So yeah, that's good. Yeah, And Pentecostalism. Also one of the another reason it kind of rose to what it is today is because people looked at the churches that were too uptight and like doing congregational readings and standing and sitting down at the same time, and they thought, this is this is this is a bad interpretation of what a church is supposed to look like. So, hey, I have nothing, I have nothing against that. That's a
personality thing. I it's like, hey, we need to we need to have a more loose, a more loose service. We need to just flow with it. I don't have any problem with that. But when you start looking at other churches and saying you're not flowing with it. We're
flowing with it, but you're not. There's I heard a guy today at lunch say, you could you can't catch a bass with the same bait you use to catch a catfish, And we could, we could looks could look at the we could look a doctrine and and this say, you can look at the the major denominations in a similar way. You can't catch a bass with the catfish bait. So that's why they exist. But yeah, I hope that
I hope that answers the question. I think to sum up everything we said is just caution about that becoming the main thing, and then you lose track of what really is the main thing, the Gospel of Jesus. I'll take a break. Bear right back. A few weeks ago, we released the EEE Apparel Fall launch and that stuff is awesome. We have it up right now at eee dot com. It's some of the best stuff that we have we have put out so far with all of
our apparel at yee. We love it and I'm very very excited about it, and I hope you get to check it out and hopefully we have some of your sizes left. And then also, if you have a copy of Like a River and you've bought it on Amazon or another website like Barnesannoble dot com or Walmart dot com, you know what really helps me. I know a lot of y'all have read the book, that have listened to
this podcast. It really helps me. If you review it, if you give me five stars and review it, it actually helps kick up that algorithm and helps it get in front of other people that might not normally have seen Like a River. So do that for me. It costs nothing. To you, and it actually really really helps me. Finally, if you want to get a hold of me, if you want me to send you a message, I say this a lot. Cameo dot com slash Granger Smith. It's
a really good way to do it. Or you can download the cameo app and search for me Granger Smith. You ask for whatever you want me to record, and I pull out my phone and do a video message specifically to you or to your son, or your boyfriend or girlfriend, our daughter or whatever. It might be a word of encouragement, Happy birthday, happy anniversary, Merry Christmas. I could do it all, and I have done it all, and it's really easy. It's a great last minute gift
and something for someone that has everything. So Cameo dot com slash Granger Smith. Back to the podcast. Okay, sitting here with dear friend and also my pastor, Marshall Canalis and were Amber and I are members at this church we planted launched in October of last year, so not even as we do this podcast as we record, I'm not even a year old yet, Nope, which is pretty neat. I love this church and I'm so excited about it.
Love you and your family, and this church is different than a lot of churches in a few different ways. And one of the things, one of the many things, is we take membership very seriously. Why do we take membership seriously at the mayis.
Because it's biblical, and I mean there's multiple layers to it, right, So you could start with just the church leadership. So Hebrews thirteen, it says that your elders, the pastors have give oversight to your souls and are held accountable to God for your souls. And so as elders, we want to make sure we know who we're accountable for.
I want to make sure we.
Know who the Lord is saying, like, hey, you're responsible over these souls. So there's that. Then also just the reality that we need we mentioned this earlier. We need
the reality. We need other Christians in our lives who will hold us to the confession that we have of our faith, our profession that we have of faith in Jesus, to call us out in our sin, but also encourage us in our moments of weakness and constantly point us back to Jesus, whether that's reminding us of the promises of God in his word or reminding us of the warnings that we find in God's Word. We just need members who brothers and sisters in Christ who have decided
to covenant. We use that language of covenant with one another because we think that's what's happening there in church. Membership is the desire to be held accountable by other people and desire to hold other people accountable and basically signing up and saying I want you to speak into my life and I want to speak into your life, and we need to walk this Christian life together because we weren't made to walk this as individuals. It's not
just me and Jesus. We said in a sermon somewhat recently that when when Jesus saved you, it wasn't just you and him. He saved you into a family. He saved you. You get Jesus and his bride the church, so you can you can't say I want Jesus but reject his bride, like you can't be my friend. If you're gonna say I hate your wife, Yeah, it's not gonna work. And so we take membership seriously because it
is something that we see in scripture. Just assumed there's a lot going on in scripture where it's assumed that these people have covenanted with other believers in local congregations in their towns and are helping one another follow Jesus. I mean, you see it all over First Corinthians five. You have some wording of assuming there's some sort of accounting of who is part of the church when it
comes to church discipline. Case Hebrews three thirteen one another, so long as it's called today, so lest any of you be deceived by the deceitfulness of your own heart. And so there's the push of if I am left to just me and Jesus, I will not follow Jesus. I'm going to follow my own way, and so I need other people around me. And so the question is, well, who do I have around me? Well, the people who have asked to come around me by joining this local church.
And so not only do we see it as something that's assumed in scripture, just makes sense when it comes when you see how God has called us to live the Christian life, especially when it comes to the one Another passages. There's over sixty one another passages that you can't do on your own, and most of them you can't do unless somebody else has invited you in to do those things, and we see those things lived out in the local church.
And so what to the person that says, well, I am a member, meaning I show up every Sunday. I don't know the pastor personally, and I don't really talk to that many people, but I consider myself a member, meaning I should just show up most Sundays.
Yeah, I mean that's more of a consumeristic mindset, right, Like, I'm a member here because of the things I can receive from this. I like the preaching, so I receive that. I like the music, so I receive that. I like the size of this church, so I receive that. I like the fact that I can get in and out not have to really talk to anybody because I'm more introverted.
I like this.
So then that's everything you're receiving. Whereas what we see in scripture is the life of the Christian is what you can how you can care for other people. You know, ax who's a.
Good example of this.
They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to prayer and breaking of bread and being in one another's homes, and then they made sure that nobody had lack of anything again not meaning that they had to give up everything and everybody had to live poor, but there was a sense of they're making sure other people are cared for. And so the mentality is not what is this church
offering me? But it's as long as this church is offered me good gospel, solid teaching, where the scriptures are regularly opened and preached, then I just need to be here, and I need to pour into other people's lives and trusting that I will have my life. The other people will't pour into my life at this time same time. And so church is not about what you can get out of it, It's about Christ. And so if it's about Christ, then all I want to make sure is
is He being proclaimed? Is He being exalted? Is He being treasured? And is this church seeking to do that together and hold one another accountable in that? And you mentioned something about they don't know the pastors. I think that's absolutely vital to church. Being a church member is you have to know your pastors, and your pastors have to know you. If you're going to a church where you don't have access to your pastors, I think that's that's harmful to your soul. I mean, they're giving watch
over your soul, so they need to know you. You need to be known by those who have oversight over your soul. And so if you find yourself in a church like that, I'm not going to say your church is unbiblical or you should immediately leave. I think you should try to get to know your pastors. But if it is a situation where they are just impossible to get in touch with, there may be a chance the church may be too big. I know that sounds crazy in today's culture. What do you mean the church is
too big? Is that possible We can chase that later or something. But the church might be too big, or I hate to say it, maybe the brother's not cut out to be a pastor. I've heard it said a ton of times that people really don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And I think that's true. Your people need to know you as a pastor.
And let me jump in real quick for people listening, going easily said by a pastor. Yeah, but the way that our church is set up is that we have elders and Marshall Marshall is another one of the elders. Yeah, right, And so he's not saying I'm the guy. He's saying, I'm one of the guys that have been appointed as a shepherd for the sheep. And we see over and
over in scripture the analogy of sheep and shepherd. So can you imagine back to the conversation of not knowing your pastor can you a shepherd not knowing one of a sheep, and then the sheep either escapes or gets out of the fence, or like, we have a couple of goats here. I know these goats very well, and they know me very well. And if one day one of them I only have two, it's maybe a bad analogy.
But if I had many, I would know if one of them was gone, and it had its head stuck in the fence on the other side of the pasture, or it had gotten its foot stuck somewhere, I would know, and that sheep or goat would know that I'm coming for it. So can you imagine that analogy? Not now put that on top of this idea of not knowing or having a relationship with an elder or a pastor, however your church defines it, that would be strange and in many ways unhealthy to both you and the elder,
and so I think that's what Marshall's getting at. Marshall's not saying you have to be like me to be a pastor, a guy that really cares. It's really not that at all. This is it's a system. It's very much a system. And so yeah, we need to probably set up on this podcast. I know there are a lot of people listening, and a major question that comes in quite a bit is well, where do I find a
church like this? Yeah, So I just know that Marshall and I have had conversations offline about this that maybe will work in the future about setting some kind of some kind of resource up for people to be able to quickly go to. And I know we have listeners everywhere that you could look and then pastors, I know pastors listen to this. Then pastors could talk to us about being part of that network. So yeah, we're working on these kind of things. Yeah, so important.
Yeah, and the echo Granger, I'm not saying you need if you have five pastors at your church, you need to know all five equally the same. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying you should at least have access to the pastors now if you have one one guy of those five who's not accessible to anybody, and I think that's a problem. But because I think just the pick sure of shepherding in Scripture is this idea of
you don't shepherd from above, you shepherd from among. The shepherd needs to smell like the sheep, right, I mean Acts twenty Paul's talking to the Ephesian elders and he says, pay careful attention to all the flock that you're over, and so there's a sense of, Hey, these these elders in Ephesus have been charged to know all of their flock. So even if you don't know all of your elders, well, your elders should at least be able to know you
spiritually to some degree. And so there's that sense of I think we have to ask ourselves as church members because yes, I'm a pastor, but I'm still a church member too, So our other elders are other pastors, and we're using pastor elders. They're the same term in Scripture, and so they're pastoring me. It's not like I'm kind of the head honcho guy who just does everything and knows everything that they they'll correct me, they'll encourage me,
they'll they'll shepherd me. And so I'm not some just higher, I'm more spiritual than you are. It's just this is this is the place where God has me right now. That was affirmed by our congregation. So I am a pastor of our church. I'm not a pastor overall. I can't just go to another church and I'm automatically a pastor. That church would have to affirm me as a pastor. If that's what the Lord had.
So good and what we're talking about here is is just so important. And I don't think it's talked about a lot, but I get the I know it's important because I get the emails all the time of how do I get closer to God? How do I get how do I increase my faith? How do I know I'm saved? There's all kinds of questions like that that the answer typically is are you part of a church?
Are you Are you part of a church where you have access to the elders, where you're being You're you're walking with the other sheep, You're walking with God's people. It's it's it's crazy, especially in the Covid age, when we have kind of broken off into this idea that I can get fed online with online church or arise with the Amber or the Granger Smith podcast. I could.
I'm fine, Like my spiritual nourishment is great because I watch Billy Graham on YouTube and we're here saying that the Book of Hebrews is saying don't neglect the gathering, because there is something about us gathering in person around each other physically, not online, that is that is building you up spiritually, and if you're not, it's actually tearing you down spiritually, making you spiritually sick if you're not around God's people. And so a lot of these questions
I could just say, are you around God's people? Are you gathering weekly with them? And and and here, man, I'm getting this get a little long. I'm sorry. It's a fascinating topic and we should talk more about it. But what we're not saying to there's a lot of things we're not saying, And one of the things we're not saying is being involved. Like there's a this idea of how do I become more involved in my church?
This is such a common question, and what we're not saying is, well, that means you need to be part of the softball team, the men's softball team. That means you need to be part of the potluck breakfast on Thursdays. That needs to be you need to be part of this and this and this, and you need to be part of the It's like, that's not what we mean in being more involved. Like more involvement doesn't mean you're
a better Christian or higher spiritually on the hierarchy. In fact, means you might just be a little more burn out by Sunday morning. You might just be burnt out. And so that's that's not what we mean by become more involved.
I mean one of the things when we tell people when they join the church is one of the most common questions we get is great, where going I serve? Where's the most need for service at the church. And we always tell people, hey, you'll probably get asked to serve somewhere. We don't know where that is yet, But your main focus for the first three to six months should be just getting to know the congregation. So have people over to your house for dinner, get together with people for lunch.
Imagine, go have coffee with people.
Get to know these brothers and sisters that you're covenanting with in membership so that they can hold you accountable, so you can hold them accountable. Again, doesn't mean you have to know everybody to the same extent and depth, but there is a sense of I'm responsible as a church member for everybody in this church that I've covenanted with and desired to come alongside in this And so the best way you can serve the church is what we tell people, is just getting to know the church
and to love the church. And then in that we might ask you to serve on a team, or join the softball team, or go to the potluck on Thursday mornings, whatever it might be. But the first and most important thing you can do is get to know the church. Because if we had nothing else, if we didn't have the softball team, if we didn't have the breakfast, if we didn't have the Bible studies, and we just had Sunday morning, the most important thing you need to do
is that you would know the church. And so we need to prioritize that, and then the other stuff can come along and help with that and equip you to do that better. But that doesn't supplement or that doesn't that doesn't take away from you needing to do those things so good.
We haven't even brought up Lord Supper. We haven't even brought up singing, worshiping together. But let me say one more thing, and I'm so sorry this is getting along. We probably should have a conversation like this again because I'm sure I'll get emails about it. But here's another thing, and this is this is what's going on with the listeners right now. They're thinking a lot of people are thinking, well, that's great, Marshall Granger, that's cool. You're saying that that
we need to we need to know our pastors. But our church is awesome because what we do is we we have small groups and that accomplishes that that for you. So I don't know my pastor personally or the elders personally, that's okay because we have small groups and that's where we actually grow, that's where we get discipled. What do you say to that.
I would say, I need another episode for that. That's a long thing.
Give me the short answer, because I know that's a major thing going on. Yeah.
My pushback against that would be, you're essentially turning your small group into your church. Then you don't find small group anywhere in scripture. Now, that doesn't mean getting together in small groups is wrong and you shouldn't do it. We actually encourage people to get together in smaller groups
and stuff like that. But if the church is leaning on that, or you're leaning on that in order to be known and to live out the one in the other passages, you're kind of short changing what Jesus has commanded of you as a Christian because you're now saying, well, I really only have to do these things with these fifteen people. That's not what Jesus has called you to do as a member of a church. He's called you
to do that to the entire congregation. I mean, you don't want your pastor to say, well, you know, I really only pastor the fifteen people in my small group, and hopefully your small group's doing okay, and you're gonna make it like that's not what you want. You want your Again, we want to push for pastors to know their congregation. We want people to multiple people in their congregations. So, and this is not to say that our.
Church is perfect.
We know things like we have the most amazing church. We are constantly trying to improve on how we do things because we know we can be doing things better, and we're always thinking through stuff. But there is this sense of the reality we see in scripture is the church as a whole knows the church as a whole. There's not this smaller group becoming your sense of identity as a Christian. Again, we do need to be in smaller So like I'm closer with certain people in the
church the I am with other people. That doesn't mean I don't that I love them differently. You can't know everybody to the same depth and level. But there is this sense of we're hoping all of our members have the desire and heart to know more than just a dozen people. And so that's kind of what we're pushing.
And so if you are leaning solely on your small group for that, I would encourage you to go to a different small group or get out a small group and utilize Sometimes it's like, well, we have small group every Tuesday night, and then we got kids soccer on Monday night, and then we got Bible studying on Wins and I'm running out of nights. It maybe will get out a small group and use the Tuesday nights that you had for a small group to invite a new
family from the church over for dinner. So again, you're just gonna do a new family every week, and Tuesday nights are just church family night where you're gonna have a new family or two families over. That's one thing we've tried to do in our house is have multiple families over at once. So you're also helping other people connect. And it's not just because one thing we don't want
people I got invited the pastor's house for dinner. Like, we don't cook special food, we don't have special conversation. We just we're gonna love you as a church member. And so that would be my encouragement is don't lean on your small group for that.
Because it also opens up a night that you could evangelize to other neighbors.
That are And so yeah, again there's a lot more I get saying on that. We just we just talked to our entire church about this and spent multiple hours talking through it over multiple q and as and stuff, and so it's a much longer thing to talk through. But essentially, don't lean on your small group to be your church. That's not what scriptures called you to do.
I also want to say. This is not we're not advocating. We're not saying come to a Maist church in georgetowntown. What we're saying is there's probably somebody in your town, wherever you are, that thinks the same way. Oh yeah, there's a pretty good chance. Look at that. I mean, I just literally pulled up the next question. It says, Hello Grandeur, my name is Marina. I'm from Brazil, and I like to say always listen to your podcast and your music. I was born into a Catholic home and
a very loving home. My question is this, how do I get closer to God? That's his question. Sometimes it doesn't feel like he's listening to me. Greetings from Brazil, Marina. So there you go. I'm not even we don't have to answer that question because I believe we just did. And Marshall would say, get closer to God's people would be being closer to God himself. We don't have a lot of time. But here's another one. Here's a subjectline. It says scary Bible verses. That sounds fun. It's getting
kind of close to October. You know, Hey, Granger, thanks for taking my email. I've been a longtime follower of Jesus. But there are two verses in the Bible that contradict each other, and one honestly scares the crap out of me. Can you please help me understand them better? And the first one is this, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved Romans ten thirteen. And the second one is this, Not everyone who calls out to me, Lord Lord will enter the Kingdom of heaven.
Only those who actually do the will of My Father and Heaven will enter. Matthew seven twenty one. Thanks, I'll look forward to hearing your thoughts. Please come to Minnesota to preach soon. This comes from Carl. Thanks for the email. Carl, I appreciate you, brother, and I think it's a good question. And Matthew seven to twenty one is I agree with you what I think is probably the scariest verse in the entire Bible. I think there is a lot of
people that would agree. John MacArthur, the older pastor, started his career some sixty years ago in his church preaching that passage expositionally the very first time you ever preached. Because it's it's not only scary, but it's also very
important and not a lot of time. But let's start with the let's start with the first idea that you kind of brought Carl, which, by the way, appreciate you brother, thank you for the email, and thank you for really walking through some some stuff that I think it's worth talking about. But the first thing you said was two
verses that contradict each other. So so Marshall that that come That word contradict comes up a lot, and it's probably thrown out because it's it's a good it's a good defense of atheism to say, well, the Bible contradicts itself. I don't read it because it contradicts itself, and say things like well, it never contradicts itself. It's just a misunderstanding of it in context. And those two arguments just kind of rub the wrong way. But maybe it's more
important to understand what contradiction means. A contradiction would mean that, well, I'm talked about this. A contradiction would mean that two opposing ideas are so opposite of each other that there cannot be any way that they could ever agree. There's no scenario on any side of the of the two opposing forces. There's no possible scenario you could ever think where they could possibly work together that is in fact a true contradiction. It's very difficult to have a true contradiction.
And the same works with scripture and anything you think contradicts itself. We could sit together for five minutes and go, well, I could, I could could think of one way that it could be not a contradiction, and so I would. I would kind of, I would kind of counsel a way from using that word. And I think, what And you didn't mean it that way. You didn't mean it from like an atheistic perspective. What you meant to say was these two verses, they don't sound like they go together.
Can you help me with it? And I would to that, I would say absolutely, And it's it's perfectly fine for any of us, Marshall included to say, I don't really know, I don't really know how that works together. But this specific one we can, we can we can dig into what do you say this we got in like four minutes. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved great Amen versus not. Everyone who calls out to me Lord Lord will enter the kingom of Heaven. Amen to both of those.
Yeah, yeah, I mean that first text is talking about calling out on the name of the Lord for salvation. So it's all those who who call out to Jesus to save them from their sins, recognizing he is the only they can be saved from their sins. There's nothing they can do, there's no action they could do, there's no no church, nothing the church could tell them to do that would that would cause them to be saved or secure their salvation. It's all those who are calling
on the name of Jesus alone for their salvation. That that's that text. That's so that is absolutely true. And so there's a difference between calling on the name of the Lord for salvation and then calling out to the Lord and on the last Day and saying hey Lord, because if you keep reading that, it's Lord, Lord, didn't we do all these things like look at look at our track list, look at my resume? Didn't I do
all these things? And he's saying, yeah, but I don't know you because you didn't call out on the name of Jesus. You leaned on all this other stuff. You're basically telling me to look at you and and aren't you good enough to get in here, and he's saying, no, you could do everything, all these you could have hundreds thousands of good things you've done. But if that's what you're leaning on for me to accept you on the last day, then then then it's a fool's erin because
only the name of Jesus will save you. Yep, only you trusting in Jesus. So those things aren't contradictory, those things are They They actually work together really well by saying you can only be saved by calling out on the name of Jesus alone, nothing else, just just Jesus can save you. But at the same time, there will be people on the last Day when they're when they're facing God for judgment, and he's gonna he's gonna basically count them as unrighteous, and they're gonna say, but but Lord,
I never denied that you existed. I never denied that there was a God. I'm not an atheist. And look I did. I went to church, I served on the on the the hospitality team.
And I was even a greeter.
And yeah, I was there you know most Sundays. And and I haven't told people about Jesus. And and he's saying, but are you leaning on my son's name alone to make you right before me. And if you were, were you obeying him? So really, when we stand before the Lord, it's not look at all these things I've done. It's God, Please don't look at anything I've done. Yeah, only looked at what Christ has done. That's what's Calling on the name of the Lord looks like, yeah, is God. Pretend
that you don't see me, see Jesus. See Jesus and me.
That's so good.
That's both of those working together there, Carl.
You could put a gun to someone's head and say call on the name of the Lord and you'll be saved, and they'll be like, the Lord, Yeah, you know, it's so Obviously that's not what Paul means in Romans ten thirteen that anybody of any kind of person that just randomly says Lord, that's not what he means. Obviously, it doesn't take too much rational thought just to go of everyone. Those will be the people that are saved. If you're saved,
you will call. So that's what Marshall's saying. We're saying, don't look at me, don't look at my track record, look to Jesus. And I think that's a great way to end this episode. Yeah, comment blow if you want more in Marshall, I do for sure. I appreciate you so much man, No, thank you.
This is fun.
Man. I constantly y'all that hear you, hear me talking. I'm constantly learning from Marshall day by day and h And if you have a question maybe about your local church or where to find one, stay engaged, stay in touch with us, and we will Marshall with your Instagram.
Sorry Canalis Marshall so C A N A L E.
S and Marshall look for us. Stay engaged. But we'll have some kind of better idea of how to direct people to churches. But that's something we'll continue to talk about. And sorry, I didn't get to a whole lot of questions today, but but I appreciate all of y'all that did, and I love you. We'll see you next Monday. Thanks for joining me on the Grangersmith podcast. I appreciate all of you guys. You could help me out by rating
this podcast on iTunes. If you're on YouTube, subscribe to this channel, hit that little like button and notification spell so that you never miss anytime I upload a video. If you have a question for me that you would like me to answer. Email Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com.
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