The Pack Bible Podcast: Week 3

 Hey Church, welcome to the Pack Bible Podcast with Glenn Power, a weekly podcast that will help guide and encourage you as you read through the Bible this fall. So grab the Bible reading plan from the show notes, and let's jump in.



 I heard faith's gone out of fashion, Least according to my old friends. Guess I've never been wanting to keep up with the modern trends. (Music) A vibrant participant. Yeah, exactly.



 (Music) This is sad. My facial recognition doesn't work when I'm smiling. What does that tell you about myself?



 (Laughter) Does not compute. We do not know this man.



 That is sad, Glenn. Isn't it sad? What kind of commentary on my life? My phone doesn't recognize a smiling Glenn.



 Okay, let's pray.



 God, we do ask just for these next two podcasts that they'd be helpful and that we could be ourselves.



 And yeah, Holy Spirit, that you would direct it, that you would just lead it. The questions, the discussion, Eric's jokes, just all of it, God, that you would just lead



 it. We pray that you'd even lead who it gets into the hands of and you just bless this time. We love you. Help us to love you more at the end of it.



 Amen. Amen. Yeah. Is there a way for me to see you more?



 Yeah. Well, I'll do my chair. Your position doesn't feel conversational. I'll move. I can have a conversation with Glenn, but if we want this to be natural. How about your position doesn't feel conversational. Goodness. Do you know what I'm saying though?



 I felt what you were saying.



 I felt to the core. Now I can't hear that. Sorry. Now this feels right. You can see each other. It's just like we're having a regular old combo. Just my headset, you know. Okay, forest man. Sorry. He probably had to wade through 15 minutes. No, he laughed too often. Sure. Okay. You're welcome forest. Welcome. That's what I'm going to say. Let's start about now.



 Hey, this is the radiant pack Bible podcast. I always forget what we actually called this thing, but we are here and this is meant to help and encourage you as you're reading through your Bible reading plans and your packs or not in a pack. If you're just listening to this and what encouragement is you read through Mark and Exodus and Psalms, that would be awesome too.



 I'm Glenn. I'm the host. That feels really cool to say. And I'm here with Lori Riley, who is our guest today and Eric Schlick. What's up y'all. There you go.



 So we're going to talk about some of the passages that we read that we are going to read this week.



 But first before we get into that, Lori is our kids director. I wasn't questioning that you are that. It sounded like it had a question mark at the end. No, I actually do work here at the office with Lori every day and Eric, but that's the name, kids director. That's the name. Okay.



 Actually, this is good timing because Lori is also leading a parental conference soon. So this podcast will come out this Sunday.



 So a week from now, she's September 21st. There you go. We would love for you to join us. Yeah. Yeah. So if you want help parenting or if you want to be a future parent someday, I want to be a future parent. I'm signed up to go. Yeah. So that's awesome. It's going to be a great day. Yeah. So go, um, Lori, but just so we can get to know you more as a person, not just as a minister, as a person, what's something that most people don't know about you? Okay. I really had to pull this one out. Okay. Okay. So this is something very few people, but one person in this room does know about me is that. That's the Eric, as I don't know. As a child, I was an avid full house fan. Okay. Not fuller house for some of you young ones, but full house, the original. Okay. The OG like this is I recorded on VHS and rewatch them. I own books and posters like that level of commitment to full house. I wanted to be Stephanie Tanner. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.



 Um, I went to a beach boys concert and low and behold, John Stamos was there. Uncle Jesse, for those of you who don't know. And just to be clear, when I heard this story the first time, I did have to figure out who that was. Like I had to ask because I'm young. Yeah. I just wanted to point that out. Yeah.



 And he asked me to come up on stage and dance with him. No, but I got overcome by fear and rejected him. No. Yeah. So it is one of my greatest life's regrets as well. Um, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Tell me more about this moment. He pointed at you and you shook your head. Like come up on stage and dance with me in front of the whole crowd. Why you? I just had that, you know, quality about myself. That super fan look. I had that super fan look. I don't know. I probably reminded him of Stephanie Tanner, you know, I don't know. That's what I'm thinking. I can see that. So I said no. And I think my mom helped make this happen because of course, utter regret set in. But to this day I have not hanging on a wall or anything. I'm not that weird, but I have a signed picture from John Stamos that says to Lori and you owe me a dance. No. Yeah. That is amazing. That that's another fun fact. You don't know about me. My real name is actually Lori and so, but don't call me that. I think she actually has it hanging up in a room. I think she's my mom every once in a while, like just keeps delivering my old stuff from her house. Like she is cleaning out closets and you get like an old prom dress. Yeah. I don't know if your parents do that to you. Yeah. But that was one of the recent gifts of last year is that frame came back to my house.



 Okay. I bet you didn't know that. I didn't. And this is why I don't want to know these beforehand because that was the first time I ever heard that. Okay. So that's one even though I actually would like to ask more questions about that concert and full house.



 So Bible reading plan Lori, I want to start off by asking what was something that you read that was meaningful to you. You felt like God was speaking through or something that just felt relevant to your life. Yeah. I'm going to have to pick some of the section in Mark for this.



 There's kind of a collection of verses that were hitting me as a theme. And I think what that was getting at for me was like this living for eternity and not for temporal things and earthly things. So in Mark 10, we have the story of the rich young ruler, which I don't know. That's one of those stories that always is convicting to me, always jumps out at me. So I think the part that really stuck out to me in this time reading it, so the story,



 this guy comes to Jesus, is asking him questions and he's on the right track.



 Is this Mark 10? Yep. And then it says, "And Jesus looking at him, loved him and said to him, you lack one thing, go sell all that you have and give it to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and come and follow me. Disheartened by the same, he went away sorrowful for he had great possessions."



 And I think the part that stuck out to me this time in reading it was that little pause that says, "And Jesus looking at him, loved him." And that was the precursor to asking him what is a very hard command or invitation, if you will.



 So I think I can, in previous readings of that could be like, "Dang, that's such a hard thing Jesus is asking him to do." To leave everything. Yeah, like was he trying to, I don't know, get at him or I don't know. And so I think just that adding that little piece in to the passage changes everything. It's like Jesus looking on him, full of love in his heart and knowing what this guy needs to be fully alive.



 It's like Jesus didn't ask everyone to do that specific thing. And it's interesting, in all these various interactions with Jesus, he's telling people different things. He's commanding people different things. Some people he's like, "Go and leave your life of sin." He doesn't say, "Go and sell all your possessions." So it's not necessarily a universal commandment, but it's like Jesus knowing what's in the heart of every person, knowing what they need to fully live a life to God, asked him that one thing. And so I think it kind of reframed it to me in terms of this is totally out of God's love for this man. It's actually an invitation into life.



 I guess flipping it as not hearing just like this hard command, but it's actually he's giving in this, he's like saying, "Come and follow me."



 It's an incredible invitation he's putting before this guy. And I think it was an interesting contrast for me. The end of this week's reading was the story of the widow's offering. So that's like at the end part of this week's reading in Mark, we end with that story of him kind of looking at this woman and it says this poor widow has, she puts in all that she had to live on. And he, I don't know, like you have these two contrasts, I guess, of this woman out of her poverty that was willing to give everything. Yeah, I've never thought about contrasting these two. And this man who had everything but wasn't willing to give it. And I guess just this, I think what was sticking out to me and challenging me in this week's reading was just like, "Where is my treasure? What is the thing I'm treasuring the most?" Like they had a different concept of treasure, this widow and this man. Like what they saw as infinite value was different, which is why he walked away sad.



 And she seemed like no one forced her to do that, but she was willing to give even out of her poverty. Yeah, that's amazing. It also makes me think, you know, the rich young ruler where it says that Jesus looked at him and loved him. It also makes me think that when Jesus asks us to give up things, to surrender things, it's because of his love for us. And like you were saying, he knows, that was just such a good point. He knows exactly what will cause us to be the most free and the most alive. And that's why he's asking. He's not just trying to be hard on some people. That's so good.



 I love that.



 What about questions that you had as you're reading through these passages, like things that were confusing, difficult?



 Let's talk about some of those things.



 Yeah, in this Mark section as well, I think one of the biggest questions I came across is there's a couple phrases.



 A lot of these stories are Jesus healing people and doing miraculous things. One of them being in Mark 9, he heals a boy with a mute spirit that even the disciples couldn't like help.



 And there's a little line that he says, "All things are possible for the one who believes." And then later in Mark 11, we have that story where he...



 Let me find it.



 It's a goofy story where Jesus is hungry and then the fig tree doesn't have any figs and he curses it. Yeah, that's confusing. But that's not my confusing part. I'm like, "Well, that's kind of fun." I don't know. I get mad when I'm hungry. Why is he killing stuff? That's probably not really what happened, but I get angry.



 But he says, "Have faith in God. Usually I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, go throw yourself into the sea and does not doubt in their heart, but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours."



 So I think it's hard to read those passages and not think about unanswered prayer. Or because they're just such definitive statements Jesus is making. So I guess, yeah, something I wrestled with in those passages are like, "Okay, well, where is this just based on how much we believe?" Or is there something else at play? Yeah, because it's such an outrageous thing to say, like a mountain to jump into the sea. And I'm like, "God, what I'm asking, I don't think is that outrageous. And I believe you can do it, but it's not happening." Still not happening. Not even a mountain. Not even a mountain. Yeah. Yeah, no, it does feel like this Mark 11 section, it does feel like such a blank check just the way he says it. Just, "Hey, as long as you have faith, that's the one caveat he gives here. Just if you have faith, then anything you ask for will happen." And just take it on its own, it just feels untrue.



 Wait a second. I've tried that. I've prayed. I felt like I had faith.



 So I do think there are some other scriptures that I think go with this and help balance it. But before we go to those, I think it's just good to look at what's the purpose? What is Jesus saying here? And I think it's just exactly what it looks like. He's trying to inspire our faith and he's trying to fuel our prayer life because so often we feel like our prayers don't matter.



 So often we feel like God doesn't hear us. And so often we feel like it takes so much more than faith. We have to live a perfect life. And he's saying, "No, you just trust and you ask and unbelievable things will happen." And so I think first we need to start there that that's the encouragement he's giving. He's saying that unbelievable things are possible through simple prayer and through simple trust. Okay, but once we establish that, we have to go on to the hard part, which is what you're really asking and why does it seem like that's not true?



 There are other conditions to answered prayer in scripture. So there's actually a condition in this very passage at the end. In verse 25, it says, "And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them so that your Father in heaven may forgive your sins." And implicitly he's saying that... That's why I haven't got what I've been praying for. Dang it. We diagnosed it right there. Lynn, I got to tell you something. Yeah. I got to confess. Okay. I've been so mad. No, I'm not even mad at you. You've been better at me? No. Yeah. If there's unforgiveness in your heart, then that's going to be a hindrance to answered prayer. So that's one.



 There are some other ones. First John 5, 14. Actually Travis did a whole sermon on this last year. It says, "If you ask anything according to his will, then he hears you and it will be done for you." And so that's a pretty big condition as well. So not only do we need to be diligent to forgive people as we pray, and not only do we need to have a heart posture of trust and faith in God, but we also need to pray according to his will, which means that we have to have enough relationship with God to be knowing what his will is. Yeah. You were saying fueling your prayer life. The more you feel that, I feel like then your will will align with God's too. So I think that's a good way of looking at it where you're saying, "If your prayer life's not fueled, how are you going to know the will of God?" Yeah. That's so good. Yeah. We all start off just praying selfish prayers and that's okay. It's not wrong, but the more we get to know God, the more we start praying kingdom prayers, I think. And I think we're going to get closer to that bullseye of more often our prayers are answered.



 There's more, James talks about having a double mind and that we shouldn't expect to have our prayers answered when we're double minded, which doesn't mean being indecisive about where you're going to go to lunch.



 Being double minded means that half of your allegiance is to God and half of your allegiance is to the world. So that's a hindrance to answered prayer.



 And then lastly, Psalm 66 verse 18 says that God does not answer prayer when we cherish sin in our hearts.



 So these are some conditions once we put the scriptures together. So we start there, are we fulfilling the conditions? Now, what if we are checking all the boxes and we still are not seeing answered prayer, right?



 I mean, I'm assuming that that's, I'm now getting even closer to your real question because you probably know those things intuitively. Like yeah, I need to be surrendered to God, pray according to his will, all that.



 With this, I always recommend the book God on Mute by Pete Gregg, because this is where it starts to get complicated. It's not, I'm not going to do it justice in like a one or two minute answer.



 But there are so many different things that are going on in the spiritual realm when we pray and sometimes that is why we're not seeing answers. Sometimes there's spiritual warfare. We have to fight through it. We see examples of that in the Bible, Daniel 10, for instance.



 Sometimes God withholds something because he's working out something in our character or in our hearts. And so we have to persevere.



 Because the prayers will be answered, but not until after our lifetime.



 And that is a hard pill to swallow, but that's another biblical reality. Hebrews 11 makes mention of the promises that the saints didn't see come to pass in their own day, but they would come to pass later.



 And finally, sometimes it's a mystery.



 And sometimes God just says no.



 Like the example I think of is when Jesus himself asked for the cup of suffering to be taken away in the Garden of Gethsemane.



 That was a hard no.



 And so does that help? Yeah, it does. Is there any other thought? I know it's kind of a longer answer, but it's a really good question.



 And I guess one other thing I do want to add is that if we ever start to feel like our focus goes from faith in God to faith in faith, or our focus starts to go on the level of our own faith, I think that's a distraction.



 Because I think if we just take this passage and mark on its own, a lot of times we can go that route, kind of like almost the word of faith movement route of like, oh, well, this is so simple. Just if you have faith and believe, then it's going to happen. Well, if it's not happening, then I must not have faith. I must not have enough faith. And so how do I increase this very mysterious level of faith on the inside? And I just almost never see that going well. It always becomes a distraction. You become self-focused. And more often you just get into like a works legalistic mindset of like, oh, I got to do more like read my scripture memory cards more. Also I can get an answered prayer. And I just, I don't think that's helpful a lot of times.



 Okay. That was so good. I hadn't ever put together the Jesus asking for the cup to be taken away with like, with thinking about prayer is not being answered or being answered. No. I've never put that together. It's very clear. Yeah. But I think it's super helpful because even like, obviously Jesus has like the most kingdom mindset mind of all time. Right. Yeah. And he's still asking and he obviously had all these things lined up. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So I just think that was, that's really helpful to hear. It reminds me of like, I don't know, just like the John, John the Baptist story, you know, of like, obviously I'm sure John was praying to be released. I mean, so there is like a reality, even when Jesus walked the earth, even though he's healing people everywhere he goes, he is still allowing a measure of suffering. I mean, all his disciples suffered. He said that as a part of our reality. So it is an interesting tension. I feel like that section and John always gets me because of that, you know, it's like, blessed are you who aren't offended, you know, because of me, like, I'm not answering your request or your prayer and blessed are you if you're not offended because of that. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Matthew 11, I think where he says that.



 I think we have time for like another question if you had another one. Okay. I deal. This is jumping into Exodus.



 And so, you know, a lot of the verses from this week were related to the people, you know, the Israelites, the plagues, them leaving the red partying of the Red Sea, all the good famous stories in Exodus. And all of your kids will learn these stories if you come to if you drop them off at radiant kids. Yeah, they will. Yeah. And maybe I was singing the Prince of Egypt song. The Mariah Carey version. I don't know how that came up, but I listened to it in my car on the way here. Wow. You know the one. I don't. Oh, I'm gonna play it. What? I'm not gonna sing it. That'd be very embarrassing. I'm gonna go for a tag at the beginning of this podcast. Oh, that'd be good. But I think one thing that stuck out to me was as the passages about the Passover. So there's multiple verses in Exodus 12 that are referring to the Passover. And they're talking about celebrating the Passover feast, celebrating these feasts.



 So one is, "This day shall be for you a memorial day and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations as a statute forever. You shall keep it as a feast." So there's multiple times where God is saying, "You're gonna observe this day forever. Throughout all generations, you're gonna like recognize and serve this day." So I guess it got me thinking, there's so many moments in the Old Testament that God asked his people to observe a feast, to make an altar, stones.



 There's so many tangible physical pieces to remembering.



 And God's saying, "Yeah, when your kids ask, "Oh, what is that?" You're gonna tell them this story."



 So I guess my question that it got me thinking, what does that look like for a New Testament believer?



 What place do memorials, traditions, feasts, these things, what does that look like for us? Because it does feel like we don't have as many of those tangible things. I don't remember the last time my kids were like, "Tell me about that thing you built in the backyard. What does that mean, Mom?" Yeah, totally.



 I was gonna make a Christmas joke and it's Christmas. We just celebrate Christmas and it's all taken care of. No, I think it's Exodus. The book of Exodus is in some ways one of the most gospel-y books of the Old Testament because the whole thing centers around salvation, whole thing centers around a deliverance. And so Passover and even all the other Remember passages are about remembering what God did in this huge Exodus deliverance moment.



 So if we zoom over to the New Testament, what's the New Testament equivalent of the Exodus salvation? What is the big deliverance of the New Testament?



 Jesus. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The cross, the resurrection.



 So the greater deliverance of the New Testament was the cross and the resurrection that we were saved from our sins, the thing behind the thing, more than just physical slavery but spiritual slavery. And so in the New Testament, what is the one act of remembrance that we've been commanded to do that concerns the cross?



 Communion. Communion, yeah, exactly. Yeah, so that really, that's the simple Bible answer to that question is, and it's kind of a different question like, should we still celebrate Passover?



 Jesus came not to abolish the law but to fulfill the law. And so I think the feasts of the Old Testament are included in that category of things that have been fulfilled in the life and the acts of Christ. And so as Gentile Christians, we're not mandated to celebrate those feasts. We can if we want to, and there's a lot of meaning to them if we want to, but it's not required. But communion is required. That's something that we are mandated to do in the New Testament. And as we take it, as we take the bread and the wine, we remember the greater deliverance that Jesus accomplished for us.



 We could take it farther than that though, because that in itself is one thing, and probably most of us don't do it more often than once a week.



 There are other ways that we can remember the acts of God in our lives.



 I don't know, what are some ways, do you guys do anything in your lives that call to mind your testimonies or things that God has done in your lives? Because yeah, obviously communion is the big one, but we can make it more personal than that. I think I do. I think what I'm realizing or feeling a little challenged by in this is a lot of what I do or I see the people around me doing feels very personal or individual. I guess to me, I feel challenged by the corporate nature of some of these things. It's like it's a we and it's a community. Even communion, we've made so individual.



 I'm a journaler. I write down what God's doing in my life. I have that record.



 I try at the New Year's every year, I read through all my journals from the last year and take account of what did you do God? I can see the themes and the things he's done in my life and praying into the New Year. I have those moments, but I'm realizing how much do my kids know about those moments?



 How much does my community know? I don't know how often we mark these moments together and there'd probably be a lot of power in more shared, I don't know what God did in your life last year or what were the



 big moments or like, "Oh, this is a prayer God answered. This is how he delivered me." I think the more we are in community and sharing our stories and sharing our testimony, we would know that. But it does feel like we just have such an individualized culture that even in the church, I can work with someone every day or walk alongside someone and not actually know what did God do in you this year. I wouldn't necessarily know that. Yeah, I do feel like there's, since we are individualistic here in the Western world, I think there is a disconnect there. And when I think of all of these questions we're talking about, I think of the Catholic church and I think that they have a lot more things observed across with their whole church. They all do the same rituals, they all do the same things. And so I looked at that and I'm like, "That seems like something I could see the Old Testament looking like."



 But I don't see that as much in the Protestant church. So I just wonder what that could look like.



 I think that my team of volunteers even at youth are doing some of these things. At the end of our youth group, we come together and we share the winds of the night. We get to share that a girl asked for a Bible for the first time ever. She'd never been to a youth group before. Or that a girl said, "I want to know who this Jesus guy is. Can you pray for me right now?" Like aggressively asking our leader to the... And we're like, "This is crazy." So we're sharing winds. And I just think it points to the idea of the church and the Old Testament, the Jewish people are people of remembering. God continues to ask them to remember things. And so it's almost like we had a call to remember your first love.



 Like the moment you first believed, the hour you first believed last night at youth and



 creating moments like that are pretty important. I think there's a really good response.



 I even felt like I was drawn into that moment.



 So I don't... But you're right. I don't see us having something to look at so easily as maybe they did as they were walking through the desert or the wilderness. And they're like, "Oh, we're going to put up this here to remember this." I don't feel like we have that. Yeah, that's good. I feel like it was a question and also sort of a challenge at the same time, which I love.



 And I think in our families, I don't know if this was a generational thing, but my parents did not tell me much about their lives, about their lives. Either they're both first generation Christians and they didn't tell me much about their lives before they met Jesus or even after they met Jesus.



 And that was something that later when I came back to the Lord myself, I grieved over that I didn't know the testimonies of my parents. And so I think that's something really powerful even in our families that we could be proactive in telling our kids what God has done specifically in our lives. This is specifically how Jesus has spoken to me, answered my prayers, saved me. And I think that'll be a step towards remembering. Mm-hmm.



 Yeah, that is good. Yeah, let's end it there and we will see you guys next week with an interview with Eric Schlich. Yee-haw. Prince of Egypt song, Prince of Egypt. Many nights we pray You know it. That's not getting cut out. You know it, don't you? I don't know it. Oh my gosh, it's Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston. Since I listened to it. What did the kids say? It's a real banger. Is that what they say? A little banger. Cut that part out, George. It's a real banger. For our kids' safety. For my own children's sake.



 Sorry, Amy. Sorry, Addie. That's tough.



 I give it up for you I give it up for you I give it up for you I give it up for you I give it up for you I give it up for you I give it up for you