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I really hope and trust that you're experiencing some healing from God today with whatever has pained you going through a moment of difficulty challenge. Maybe there's a health concern that you have. God just minister powerfully to this person right now who's just going through it. Let it begin today. You know, it's an interesting thing because the church has
shifted radically for about 1700 years. We went from home church where we needed each other, and everybody needed to bring their gifts to the table because, hey, we're a group of ten, 12, 20 people huddled up. Who's going to bring the word? Who's going to administrate stuff? Who's got that gift of mercy? Who's got that gift of healing? What? Who's got what gifts? And are they going to bring them to the table here? And in about 300 AD it went from small church in a home to main
stage consumers. And that was both good and it had some inherent challenges. And what it's created is we get some interesting stats here this morning that are quite shocking to me, I might add. Um, is a big gap between people who know their gifts versus those who don't. And I think probably a bigger gap between those who employ their gifts, even though they know them and don't. What do you say here, Ali? You're finding some good stuff.
Yeah. I'm looking at a Barna report. This is from 2022, and it looks at the breakdown of. How well do you know and understand your individual gifts by generation. Now, this may surprise you. The youngest among us are the most likely to know their own giftings extremely well. 27% of Gen Z say they know their own giftings abilities skills extremely well. 38% or 36% of millennials. When you get to Gen X, Gen X, and boomers, it drops down to about 20% who know their own giftings extremely well.
Does that surprise you?
Yes. But the more I cogitate on it, the more intrigued I am with this. I think boomers, we come out of an age in a stage where it was there were there was more of a dependence upon the master teacher, the guy up front on Sundays. And I do think that with these millennials and Gen Zs, I think there is a great growing understanding that, hey, we are the body of Christ. And I think there's a move away from the main stage into the home. Church movements are springing up everywhere, by the way.
Yeah, absolutely. Another thing, I'm just ideating here. I don't have numbers in front of me. But I wonder this too, in terms of work ethic between generations, there has always been a difference of some of the older generations have had more of the work ethic of I. I pick a job that maybe I don't necessarily love, but I do it to get by and support my family. And a lot of younger generations say no. I need to believe in the the mission of my job. I need to know what my job is doing and that I
can stand behind it in order to take it. And I wonder if maybe that mentality makes them ideate about what their spiritual gifting could be a little bit more?
Yeah, I mean, we've had stats here about Gen Z and that their work ethic is a lot higher than millennials. Millennials crack up over that one. I'm not sure they're all too fired up about that. But it's it's interesting because there's a shift I'm stunned by these numbers.
Well you know I think that I mean I'm a millennial and I, I feel like our generation grew up with a, a heightened sense of wanting to know kind of how we're wired. You know, I remember taking like those, like, 17 magazine quizzes when I was a kid like that. Like, what is your type of this or what career should you go into? So there was a lot of that that I grew up with, that you would take these simple little quizzes that promise to tell you a little
bit about yourself. And I mean, they were usually pretty generic and and broad, but I do sense a greater desire. And then like when I look at my kids and like even younger generation, they want to know there's it's a self-focus that can be good and bad. So, I mean, the bad side of it, obviously, if you're too focused on self, your eyes are taken off of God. But the good side of that is like, no, I want to know how I'm wired. How has God made me?
Yeah, I love that. Yeah. It's interesting. I'm just cogitating sitting here thinking, oh, now what's going on? Even on our two campuses here in Chicagoland, what's going on there? You know, it's interesting. I can honestly tell you we've got way more Gen Zers per capita jumping in to serve than we do Boomers. Boomers. Isn't that fascinating?
What do you make of that?
I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I think I think boomers were trained on the I go to church to get fed from the master teacher. And I think Gen Z and millennials have more of a that's not the only that's not the main reason I go there. I see this as a launching pad, not a landing pad, which is really healthy if the church can go that way.
Yeah. And I think, I mean, again, this there's, there's the good and the bad side of this, I think the younger generation, there's a higher questioning of authority, less of an assumed authority just because there's a position or a title.
So give me that ball. Right. Give me that.
Ball. And again, that can be problematic I get that.
Yeah.
That can be the good side of it. Is that maybe not just an assumption that that guy is the only one who's gifted?
Yeah, I love it, I love you. Yeah. This is a great discussion. Okay. Coming up here in a little bit, we're going to take this discussion a little bit further. Because no matter where you're at on this gifts discovery, getting you equipped is everything. Hang on.
She was trying to earn her way to God, but God showed her she didn't have to. Ali is in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
You know, when you get that mindset, it's like, My God, can I am a vessel. I'm going to lay down my life as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. Okay, we get that posture and then we begin to go, God, how do you want to use me? What are the spiritual gifts you've given me? And I'm. I'm so encouraged by these stats you found. Ali. This is one of
the best things going. I think you could look at it with a jaundiced eye like, ah, boy, those those Gen Zers, man, they they want to do it their way. I think the, uh, I, I firmly believe that there is a personal ownership of the church with this new generation that we have not seen in a while. And the numbers don't lie. Ali.
Yeah. I mean, the knowing and understanding individual giftings Gen Z and millennials are are ahead in terms of knowing the how, how they're wired, wanting to know how they're wired at a greater, higher degree than Gen X and boomers.
I love that. So the question is what do you do? And I want to I want you to hear me on this one right now. This is so important. There are not in a group of 3 to 500 disciples of Christ. There are not 1 or 2 teachers. There are far more. And there's some of you that feel like you've got a gift of teaching. Or you wonder, do I have a gift of teaching or leadership? And
some of you I don't. Whatever age and stage we might have more Gen Zers respond to this per capita than we have boomers, but I'm calling you every age and stage of life to consider. Has God given me some gifts that I need to cultivate. Coming up, we have got someone who's going to give us some low hanging fruit for what to do if you think you've got some certain gifts. Right, Ali?
Yes. Particularly if you feel called to teach the Word of God.
He's a sports fanatic with a stat for anything you can think of. Young Thunder is in the crew. It's Karl and crew on Moody Radio.
How in the world can they hear if someone doesn't tell them it's Karl and crew mornings. One of the key elements of the good news is Proclamation Ali. We sometimes sell short the preaching of God's Word. Today we're going to put a fork in that notion.
And Moody has something really exciting to help strengthen the proclamation of God's Word. I'm going to give you the name of it. It's a mouthful. It's the Moody Bible Institute, Moody Theological Seminary, center for compelling biblical old preaching. We've got Doctor Eric Redman, who is the executive director. Explain the name. The center for Compelling Biblical Preaching. What is that?
So the Lilly Foundation gave a grant called the Compelling Preaching Grant. They gave it to 140 institutions to help make preaching more engaging and more effective around the country. Most of the institutions picked up some element of that, but we added biblical to ours because that's who we are as the Moody Bible Institute. So our goal is to help Bible Expositors be the most compelling in explaining the scriptures, helping people apply them, and pointing people to Jesus.
I got to tell you, doc, here's the thing for me. There's a lot of people that are on the bench that God wants to call off the bench. In most churches, we think we got a preacher per thousand, a couple preachers per 2000. The way, the gifts of the body work. There's got to be way more people that have been gifted with communication of the gospel than we've identified. Number one, and that we've equipped. Number two, what do you say to that?
I think you're absolutely right. In an older generation, and maybe as far back as 70s, late 70s, early 80s, there would have been moments in our corporate worship services where we would have invited people who felt they had a calling to preach, to consider answering the call and getting training. Maybe even going to Bible school or to seminary. And that has kind of fallen off now. I think, like you, there are many more people sitting in our pews who in whom the Spirit of God is working.
They are gifted as teachers and God wants to use them to explain His Word to many, so we can reach the billions of people around the world who still need to hear about Jesus.
Now we know that the Word of God does not change. It hasn't changed. And that's what we stand firm on. What has changed about how it needs to be proclaimed? Why is this necessary?
So we have in our society people who are more cynical, who are more skeptical. Of course, there are questions about faith and whether or not religion is even true. With all the scandals all over the place. And we could go on for days talking about that. We need people to first understand, you know, the preacher has the character of someone who's following God. That's the most important part.
And then they need to hear the Word of God explain in a way that doesn't seem like a lecture, or go on and on for a long time because our listening abilities are lesser in there. And so we're trying to help preachers understand these changes that have come to society and say, how can we still take that word of God that has not changed and be most effective in communicating it to others?
I love that Eric Redman with us right now. It's called the center for Compelling Biblical Preaching, and we're going to give you a link in a moment here, because guess what? You ready for this, Katie? Bar the door. There is no charge. This thing has been underwritten. You need to show up with bells on, pencil in hand and ready to roll. And we're going to give you all the details coming up. Okay, Eric, I was mentored
by Haddon. Robinson put his arm around me and said, I'm going to we're going to go to another level here, young man. And he wrote the book. He's famous for biblical preaching. Big idea. I think what helped me with biblical preaching even before I met Haddon was we look at preaching as, oh my goodness! And we begin to break down in our mind all the obstacles to getting there. When you just take simple ideas of this is spirit driven, God's got the content. We don't make God relevant. We
reveal his relevance. All of a sudden, what seemed impossible Seems possible. That's what you want to tell people that are listening right now, right?
It is. This is what I tell preachers as I prepare them. God wants his people to know his word more than you want to preach it to them.
Oh that's good.
God is the one who wants people to know his word. We get up there and we're all nervous, but God is the one who wants people to respond to him, to have his joy, to follow him in obedience, to have his peace, etc. we make it harder by looking at all the style and the rhetoric and saying, we
need a certain amount of education. We need to make ourselves available to God, have a walk with God, and then ask the Spirit of God to use us and get some tools so that we can effectively communicate God's Word.
Some of the offerings for the center for Compelling Biblical Preaching are going to be certification courses, podcasts, social media interviews, lunch hour, ministry trainings, workshops, and more. You've got a pretty big goal for how many aspiring and current preachers you want to be able to train, give us that.
We're looking to train 6000 would be a reasonable goal for us to try to reach by 2030. That's just stateside. But we also know there are 2.2 million Christian leaders around the world who reside outside of the reach of formal Christian education. Well, as moody, we want to play our part. If we could reach 10,000 of those, that's the goal that we've set. If you can't get to seminary,
you're priced out. You're geographically distant. We want you to take advantage of what we're offering so you can still be the best proclaimer of God's Word possible wherever you are.
You know, it's interesting. I heard, um, I heard a guy who's pretty noted evangelist teacher, some views that maybe don't align with Moody Bible, but that's for another time. R.T. Kendall is his name, and he was asked by a seasoned guy. He said, hey, listen, what would you tell someone if you could do it all over again from your youth? Humble guy, by the way. You know what RT Kendall said, Eric? He said I would tell him
this quit worrying about seminary. It's not as big as you think it is, but what is big is looking at those early disciples who were recognizably exposed to Jesus because of the anointing that came from proximity to him. Read your Bible. Pray every day. And what's cool about this is whether you've got money for seminary or not, that gift that God's given you can be fanned to flame, and we want to help. Eric, I'm so pumped about this.
How sweet. What's your vision for what God could do even beyond 10,000?
So we make our offerings not just available for preachers, but a layperson can come and say, I'm interested in the topics you're talking about. Like this. Last fall, we had a session on preaching and sexual abuse, one of our most well attended ones in person and online, and many of the people in front of us We're not preachers. They were people who sit in the pew week to week and want to understand. How should preaching think of those being who have been sexually abused or who have
experienced that? What should it consider are the examples in the Bible where we can talk about this and help them see that God cares about this? Our vision is to reach more than just the preachers. We want churches, people inside of churches better equipped in the Word of God, which is what the goal of preaching is. And so, however many people we can reach to take advantage of these offerings, we make them available to you.
And we want to make them available to you. Just text the word center to 800 555 7898. It's the center for compelling biblical preaching. Text center to 855 five 7898.
Do you feel stuck or paralyzed? Are you ready to break free? Here are your questions answered. It's time for ask, Pastor Carl.
Okay. We stirred a good pot, and this is great. I'm going to give some backstory before I read this letter here. We've called for a fast at 180 Chicago at both of our campuses to skip a meal. One, uh, one meal a day for six days. And then Sunday is fast day. That means that you just go for it, man. Morning, noon and night. You can eat, but just skip a meal to begin to lean in to the spiritual discipline
of fasting. Now we're going to. This is such a big deal that we're going to tackle all aspects of the great rewards of fasting and why we fast. And some of you are going to be so inspired this week. You're going to go, oh my goodness, I can fast for that. Yeah, but we got to get down to the basics here first because I've got to hide some of the details here. But someone writes me and says, Pastor Carl, I feel like such a failure when I'm fasting. I am so consumed with thinking about food I can
barely pray at all. And then I find myself trying to assuage this need for food by popping a little something in my mouth or. And then I feel guilty, like I've blown it and it's just a mess. So I got more than one response about this, and I want to tackle this in the most practical way. It all relates to how God sees you kids. And let me be really clear. And I'm going to go full grandpa mode on you right now. My bride's been helping out. My daughter and son in law with little baby Kate
are Catherine Josephine Kloss and I love this little girl. Man. To hold her in my arms was one of the most precious things in the world. And I got sent a video of little baby Kate. What is she now? Six, 6 or 7 weeks old? Something like that. Maybe eight, I forget. Time flies when they're babies, and it was one of the most precious things. My bride has really bonded with little baby Kate, and it's beautiful because she got this little video out and my bride is talking. Kate,
how are you doing this morning? It's so good to see you. And Kate is now trying to form words desperately to talk back to grandma. And it's I'm going to try to do it here for you. So just hang on. I'm trying to go full baby Kate, but it's it's. And her mouth open and she's trying to move her tongue and get it, but it isn't in a way that something will come out. And it's one of the coolest struggles around. I love it, and she's fighting for all.
She can to talk to grandma, and she's trying to say, I love you to grandma, but she can't say nothing. Nothing's coming out. Boom!
I want to ask you a question. Is my bride ticked off or disappointed in baby Kate? Unable to form words? Nope. Ali?
Of course not.
No way.
Is she like, oh, come on. Come on. You can move. Move that tongue. Get the tongue up to the upper cleft of your mouth there. No.
She's overjoyed.
What? Grandpa, think when he saw that video. Oh.
Teared up.
Yeah, it sure wasn't me thinking. Yeah. Boy, she didn't quite have it yet.
No.
You see how absurd that sounds?
Yeah, absolutely.
I want you to know something when it comes to fasting. Very few people have a a spiritual discipline of fasting. And I am absolutely solid on this one. When you begin to take any spiritual discipline and wade into it, there is a learning curve. You don't go from no Bible reading to Bible exegesis for two hours, parsing Greek and Hebrew. In five weeks. You know what you do. You're getting your feet under you. Where is the Gospel
of John? I remember one guy told me, um, he came to Jesus Christ at a church where I was pastoring up in Alaska. He said, uh, where should I be in the word? And I said, well, go to the Gospel of John, and here's what I want you to do. And I gave him really clear instructions, and he called me up. And he's just a dude that was just wired for sound. He goes, hey, I got a problem. I got one, two and three. John. But
I don't have John. I don't have John 15. Should have I been ticked or was God ticked at him?
No way. Nope.
No way. I said, well, just thumb back a little bit left. I want you to hear me on this fasting thing right now. Our God is delighted with any attempt to position yourself more closely to hear his voice. And when you get hungry, when you're fasting and when you feel like. I thought I could do it, but I had to. I had to go get a burrito. Our God is not going, boy. They aren't seasoned pros at fasting. Look at this. Hey, angels, look at this knucklehead.
That's not our God. Our God is looking at you like I looked at baby Kate and go, oh, you precious, you're fighting for it. You're doing all you can to try to form a word. And one day it'll come. And just opening the mouth like little baby Kate does and goes by you and see and wrestle with getting that tongue. You know what I'm saying? Guys with their mouth wide open. She happens to have Grandpa Klaus and my dad's grin. So she's got this huge open mouth.
And so when she opens her mouth, you can see the tongue trying to get in a position where something will happen, and our God looks at you the same way and says, listen, don't you dare get down on yourself. I'm not. You're giving it a go, kid. Baby steps are awesome. And I don't care if a fast for you begins by nudging breakfast. 15 minutes later than normal and just sitting down with God, going, God, I'm hungry as all get out. I'm not used to this. Our
God is gone. No problem. Let's take these few minutes that we got together, and then you go get yourself a couple eggs over medium with some bacon on the side. My heart goes out to anyone in any pastor worth his weight. Joins me in this to say, way to go, kid. So I'm talking about fasting here, but I don't care if it's Bible reading. I don't care if it's prayer. I tell men that have ever prayed with their wives before. Dudes, you do not have to be eloquent. Just bow your
head and go, God, I'm not good at this. But I love this woman and I want us to. Grow up in you. And that that means me being a good man. And I just want to tell you I'm here. And I love this gal. In Jesus name, Amen. Oh. That's awesome. That's awesome. That's a great start. Satan wants to discourage you because you get hungry when you're fast. Satan wants to discourage you. And tell you your baby steps aren't enough. God is not saying that. That's a
lot of yakking about a very important topic. And if you've got more questions about this, I want you or any topic I want you to reach out to me.
And questions.
About spiritual growth, particularly if you feel like you've reached a plateau or you're stuck in some way. Just text the word pastor. If you'd like to submit a question for our Ask Pastor Carl segment. Text pastor to 805 55 7898. Pastor to (800) 555-7898.
We love you guys. God does too, and he's cheering for you. Little step at a time. You'll get your feet under you.
She's a choreographer extraordinaire and everything is Greek to her. Super die is in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio. He loves you so much.
We got to get rid of this old ogre. Lord it over looking, you know, like gods. You know, he's a hammer and everything looks like a nail. Kind of. God, you got to get out of that funk, man.
It's dangerous. It's so dangerous.
All right, I'm play. Fill in the blank here.
Okay.
Play. Fill in the blank.
Plays like. Ooh. Yes! Games.
Is blank. A proper motivation for fasting is blank. A proper motivation for fasting?
Am I supposed to fill it in?
Yeah.
Not yet. Oh, okay. Because I think you know the punchline.
Well, I'm.
No, I'm trying to think of possible answers.
Well, what are some possible answers?
I remember when I was a and I was a teenager, I.
Would have.
Filled it out with. Is losing weight a proper motivation?
Oh, exactly. There's the first one. That's good.
That's a.
That's hilarious.
Is hooking that dude a proper motivation for fasting?
Like, no, that's to impress my.
Youth group.
Leader. A proper motivation. Well, now I want.
To be careful with that. It's. And I'm not talking about fasting because I guess men don't do this a lot, but I guess women more so almost starve their bodies right, of nutrients to try to get things in.
Oh, boy.
That's that's horrible. Uh, but bringing some things in line is one thing, but that's not generally fast. And so the resolving resounding answer to you, Ali, is no, no.
No it's.
Not. But is blank a proper motivation?
How about religious performance?
Like law? Church law?
That one? Definitely no.
Well, but hold on.
See?
Religious performance.
There's a.
No no, not not.
Religious performance. What's the other thing you said? Uh, church law or church law or. I'm going to go with precept or teaching. Can we can turn into a young thunder thinks I've gone.
Wait a second.
I was like.
Whoa, wait, wait wait wait.
Didn't know we were doing a legalistic bit legalistic.
Wait, no. I mean.
Here's here's the problem. So God's laid down precepts galore.
Yes.
We can turn them into legalisms or something else.
Yes.
All right. So we debunked that one. If you're listening here, we are not into angry.
We're checking them off.
So we got to clarify okay. Is blank a proper motivation for fasting? We'll give you that answer straight ahead. It might surprise you. It's a binary choice. Hang on.
You can take them out of Alaska, but you can't take Alaska out of him. Carl is in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
All right, little fill in the blank action here, man. Those of you going back to school, fill in the blank. Oh, no. Do they have any options for me here?
Multiple choice.
Please give me those four that I can choose from. I can usually eliminate the knucklehead one. And then you really decide between like two and a half. It's like, oh, boy.
Show your work problems. We're the worst. Like, you know, on a math. On a math test, you'd be like, oh, good. There's some multiple choice here. And then he'd look right below it and it's like, well, check that box, but then show your work as to how you got that answer.
And I was like, oh.
You're looking for me to fail, aren't you, teacher?
Algebra. And me praying. Praying for the rapture before I was saved.
Exactly.
Oh, boy. Ally was algebra. Woman. I remember.
Things.
Yeah, you loved it.
Trigonometry? Not so much, but algebra I liked.
I'll take Trig and Geo any day over algebra.
Algebra.
Trigonometry.
One whole page of writing only to get.
Well, wrong.
Well, where'd that go wrong? I was out of here. I got to go to track and field practice. See ya. See ya. Prof. I'm gone. Okay. Fill in the blank. Is reward a proper motivation for fasting? You know what I think most people would say? No.
I would agree with that sentiment. Most people would say no.
Most followers of Christ would say no.
No, no.
You shouldn't fast to try to get rewarded. Get rewarded.
AU contraire Pierre, pure. Pop it off wrongly again. And when you fast, Jesus says in the sermon on the Mount, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. Whoa! So it's a shallow reward. You got people that could care less about you going, huh? He's fasting. But that's your reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and
wash your face. That your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your father who is in secret. And your father who sees in secret will reward you. Oh my goodness. How do we miss that in that passage? Right right there. How do we miss that, Ali?
Well, when we think about fasting, we think about the discipline that's required, the withholding of food or the abstaining from food. I mean, it's it's difficult. And I think the difficulty of it keeps us in this mindset of, okay, just got to get through this. I want to discipline myself to fast, but I think we miss the reward.
Why is the notion of God's reward being a proper motivation for fasting? Why do we resist that?
I think because when in this passage I think we, we, we take one part of it and we don't listen to the rest of it, which is.
Yeah.
I wonder if that's true.
Jesus talking about the Pharisees. And he goes, you know, they're looking to be seen. You know, they get their reward. You do this in secret. And so we kind of think about the humility it takes to do it in secret. And so and when we think about getting a reward, we think about it in the, in the human sinful terms of doing it with pride. But we're not fasting with pride. We're fasting in secret with our father, and
he rewards us, and it's a good reward. He tells us about the reward because he wants us to know about it and want to have it.
I mean, we got to take this at face value. It's a binary choice. That's what Jesus says. You can either get rewards from people that it really doesn't matter, because all you're going to get is a little bit of hand clapping, but they really don't care about you anyway. And they're kind of mocking you for doing it publicly. Yeah. Or you can get reward from your father who sees what's done in secret. But reward is there is reward a proper motivation for fasting. And the conclusive answer is yes.
Now what those rewards look like, Ali? We don't know.
We don't know. And you have to think it's not a gold star. It's not a trophy. It's likely the secret, hidden things of the father that are worth fasting for.
Like peace, joy, comfort, direction. Hearing his voice go after the reward.