Stephen Altroggeon Greener Grass Conspiracy

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.
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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the
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Apostle Paul said, "...but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you."
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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.
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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes, as we're called by the
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Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Avendroth.
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Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Avendroth, and I'm your host, and today is
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Wednesday. As you know, on Mondays, it's usually one of my sermons preached at Bethlehem Bible Church on First Corinthians.
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Tuesdays, I meet with Pastor Steve, and we talk about issues in the local church, usually controversial issues, provocative issues.
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Wednesdays, we talk to authors, and today is no different. Today we have on the line,
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Stephen Altrogi, and he is the author of The Greener Grass Conspiracy, a great crossway book, subtitled,
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Finding Contentment on Your Side of the Fence. Stephen, welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry.
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Thanks for having me, Mike. Great to be with you. I hate to ask the typical question, the trite question, but I think it's important for our listeners.
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Why did you write the book? And give us the quick overview before we dig into the details. The reason that I wrote the book, it started mainly with my own experience a couple years ago.
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I just became aware of just some serious areas of discontentment in my life, just discontent with even little things like how my schedule was working, and lots of just areas where I wasn't being content, which led me to study
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Philippians 4 a lot, which is where Paul just has this incredible verse where he talks about learning to be content in all circumstances.
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And that passage, it just seemed like God kept pressing that passage into my heart and using it in my life, and just the promise of being content in every circumstance was pretty incredible.
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And that just got me thinking about it a lot. And once I start thinking about something a lot, I like to write about it.
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And so that was kind of what led me to write about the subject of contentment.
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Stephen, I always remember when I would be in the car after maybe a little shopping spree, and we're not super rich, so it was a relatively smaller shopping spree, but we've got all the bags in the car, and my wife and four kids, and typically coming home from Marshall's or TJ Maxx or someplace like that, and everybody in the car on the way home is looking at their purchases and there's a sense of euphoria.
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And then about a day later or about two hours later, we're back to reality again. And if you think about contentment in an unbiblical fashion, it's just fleeting.
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You can never catch it. And so I appreciate the book, and I especially appreciate your talk about depravity and your discussion about depravity early on.
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How is that related to this whole topic of the greener grass conspiracy? I think that you're right on when you're talking about how there is something in us that's perpetually dissatisfied.
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And it seems like in my own life, and this is as I've talked to other people, it seems really like no matter what circumstances we find ourselves in, there's always the desire for something more and for something better and for something different.
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And we just have the ability always to imagine ourselves being somewhere better and different, which then leads us to just be always discontent right where we are and to be unhappy right where we are and dissatisfied right where we are.
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And the reason I think that that is, well, and I think what the Bible would say, is because there is sin within us.
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There is a war going on within us where sin tempts us to be discontent and to grumble with what
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God has given us and to be unhappy with where God has called us in life and to really just dishonor
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God just by being dissatisfied with what He's given us. And so I think that being aware of this tendency in all of us to be dissatisfied with what
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God has given us is a big starting place for the battle for contentment, that awareness then we know, okay,
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I'm tempted to discontentment. I know it's going to be a battle, so I can be ready for the battle. So I think that knowledge is really important.
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Well, Stephen, just yesterday we were at the beach as a family, and we're a surfing family, and we were watching down the beach in York Beach in Maine, and those waves just a hundred or two hundred yards down the beach, they seemed a lot bigger.
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And similarly, we have the greener grass conspiracy. I like it, Stephen, that you discuss the solution and you talked about the gospel when it comes to dealing with contentment.
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Tell our listeners why this book isn't a how -to book. It's not a moralistic book. The problem, diagnosed, lack of contentment, grumbling, complaining, it's solved by the gospel.
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And I'll just quote the sentence that you wrote on page 72, and then you can launch.
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When we complain, we loudly are saying that the blessings of the gospel aren't enough.
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Yeah, I think that if we really get a grasp on and understand all that God has done for us in the gospel and the incredible blessings of the gospel, if we get that and if we really understand that and are rooted in that, that is where contentment starts.
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I don't think it's enough to just tell people to want less things or just be happy where you are.
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You know the song, Don't Worry, Be Happy? That doesn't really work, actually. I think what we need to ask
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God to help us grasp the incredible blessings of the gospel and those blessings, you know, it starts with, through the blood of Jesus, we have access to God himself.
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We have access to the real presence and fellowship of God, which is the most incredible, astonishing blessing possible.
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And so even if just that were all we had, the presence of God in our lives, that alone should be enough to make us content.
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But it goes, I mean, it just keeps going in the gospel. We have forbids of sins in the gospel.
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We have reconciled relationships with other people in the gospel. We have the power of the
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Holy Spirit given to us. It just goes on and on and on. And so I think the starting place for contentment is just wondering and being amazed at what
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God has done for us in the gospel and asking that God would help us be satisfied with that.
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And if we can't be satisfied with that, well, then I'd say that there's a serious problem, because that's the most incredible blessing we could have.
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So the gospel, you write the gospel. It's not a list of how -tos, but a list of what
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God has already done for us. And we find contentment there in the gospel. This is
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No Compromise Radio. We're talking to Stephen Altrogi today, and he is a pastor at Sovereign Grace Church in Indiana and an excellent writer.
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Published a book, The Greener Grass Conspiracy. You can go to crossway .com. You can go to Amazon and all the retailers,
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I'm sure Westminster Books, etc. And you can pick up this book to help you with contentment.
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Stephen, has anyone told you that this is the modern -day equivalent to Burroughs' book on contentment,
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The Puritan Classic? No one has told me that, but I would hope that it would be. You have told yourself that.
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I would hope that it would be. I don't think it's anywhere as good as that book.
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I think that if anyone can read—if they have a choice between reading my book or reading
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Jeremiah Burroughs, I would say read Jeremiah Burroughs. The only thing that I realize is, as a pastor, I realize that reading
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Puritan authors can be tough. Those guys, they were incredible thinkers, but sometimes their writing is just not as accessible for everyone.
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And I get that. I understand that. And so what I was hoping—I really was hoping to try and make some of the things that Jeremiah Burroughs and another guy named
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Thomas Watson—just trying to make what they have already said accessible to the people in my church, the people like me who aren't super smart.
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I just wanted to make those guys who had really mined the depths of the Bible and of contentment,
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I was trying to make it accessible for people and try and take the wisdom that they had and boil it down into something that was maybe a little more easily understandable.
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So thanks for that compliment, though. Well, you know, one of the things that I was thinking about, Stephen, is, you know,
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Jeremiah Burroughs is not going to say something like this, like you did on page 13, but it is perfectly appropriate for our society.
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And you said, it doesn't matter if it's pornography or community service as long as it's not
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God. And so that's the issue of idolatry. And lots of times we think in Christian circles, well, it's pornography, it's this, it's all these excesses, all these negative things.
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But good things can replace God as well when it comes to our idol -making hearts.
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Tell our listeners what that means and how to do a self -diagnosis, maybe, if you would.
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Yeah, I think, actually, I think most of the time the things that tempt us to be discontent are good things in and of themselves.
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And it's funny how that works. But I think that God, you know, he gives us many wonderful gifts, many just blessings.
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And so, you know, you have things like the gift of marriage, man, what a blessing that is, or children, or a new job, or a house, or friendships.
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Those are all wonderful blessings and gifts from God that I think, right, we should enjoy, we should be grateful for, we should thank
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God for them. Because, though, because we're sinful, what often happens is our hearts attach themselves to those good things and put them in the place of God.
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And in a sense, we turn them into idols that we worship. You know, we, in our society, we're probably not going to be bowing down to some golden statue in our, you know, back room or something like that.
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We have more sophisticated versions of idols. You know, we have our jobs, or our relationships, or having enough money, and we put those things in the place of God, and we give our affections to them and our love to them in a way that really only should be given to God.
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And so I think that realizing that sometimes a good thing can become an idol is helpful in understanding discontentment.
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And I think that we can identify when we're discontent. For example, like if I feel like I absolutely have to have something, and I stake all my happiness on getting whatever it is, it's probably a sign that I'm discontent.
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If I feel like I cannot be happy unless God gives me this thing, whatever it is I want, whether that be a new job promotion, whether that be a certain relationship, whether that just be a good night's sleep, if I feel like I can't be happy unless God gives it to me, then
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I'm probably being discontent. Another good sign of being discontent is just grumbling.
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If I'm grumbling about a particular circumstance, you know, grumbling is sort of like smoke with fire.
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Anytime you see smoke, you know there's fire. Anytime you see grumbling, you know there's discontentment.
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And so if I'm grumbling about something, it's a pretty surefire sign that I'm discontent and unhappy with what
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God has given me. Steven, I say to myself often when I diagnose my own sinful heart and grumbling heart, if I buy the world's recipe for life, that is to say, if I put my hand way above my head,
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I deserve this because I'm special and I'm wonderful. I deserve that, but I don't get that.
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I would put my hand down lower to the ground and say, you know, I've been given this lot in life and I don't get all the things that the world promises me.
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The difference is grumbling, complaining, depression. But if I realize what
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I deserved, what I earned, what I merited, hell, and put my hand down really low and then think of the joys that I have in the gospel and forgiveness and reconciliation and in thy presence is fullness of joy, that to me helps me with joy and contentment and happiness.
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Why do so many Christians buy the world's recipe for happiness?
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Well, I think the reason we buy into it is because it's all around us and it looks really appealing.
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And I think if you watch television at all or you listen to the songs on the radio or you really take in any form of media at all, it's everywhere.
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And Oprah Winfrey just spent 25 years trying to tell people how to find self -actualization and self -fulfillment and self -empowerment and how to make your best life possible.
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And everyone around us tells us that we exist for us and that we exist to create our own happiness, create our own existence, whatever will make us happy, go for it.
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And I think that plays right along with our sinful desires. We want to be our own
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God. We want to create our own world for ourselves and do whatever we want.
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And the reality is that God is God and he can do whatever he wants.
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He can do whatever he pleases with us. We belong to him. We're his creation. He made us and he gets to do with us what he wants, which is so counter to everything our culture says, which is so counter to everything our hearts tell us.
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But that's what the Bible says, is that God is God and he gets to do with us whatever he pleases.
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And then as we come to grips with that, I think that's one of the starting places for contentment is realizing that I don't get to decide what's best for me.
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God gets to decide what's best for me. But then also doing what you were saying and doing what I like to call gospel math, you know, calculating the difference between what
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I deserve and what I've received. And that's just incredible, the blessings that God has given me.
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You know, I've sinned against God. I deserve judgment and wrath, and yet I've received forgiveness and blessing.
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And as I do that, that's where contentment comes from. And so I just would encourage people, if you're feeling discontent, take some time to do that gospel math and think about all that you deserve and all that you've received.
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And, you know, we may not have what we want, but we have far more than we deserve. And I think that's really helpful to remember.
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Stephen, it just popped in my mind as I was listening to you, to what extent do you think a lack of thinking contributes to discontentment?
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In other words, the world is so busy. We are so busy, and it's iBuds in the ear, radio on, rushing, hither and thither, pell mill.
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We are so busy that we rarely stop and think. And if we rarely stop and think and do what you call gospel math, well, no wonder we have so much grumbling in our life.
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Is there a connection between the two, do you think? Yeah, I'm sure that there is, because I think if we don't stop and think, what's going to happen is we're going to just simply absorb the messages being communicated to us.
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We're going to absorb the message of the culture. We're going to absorb the message of the world.
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You know, we live in a media -saturated world, telling us that we need to find happiness in a zillion different places other than God.
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And if we don't stop, and if we don't let our thinking be conformed to the Word of God, I'd say that's the crucial thing.
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If our thinking isn't conformed to God's Word, then we're definitely going to be discontent.
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In fact, there's no way we can be content, I would say, unless our thinking is shaped by God's Word.
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And if we're not taking time to take in God's Word, think about God's Word, apply
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God's Word to our life, then absolutely, we're just going to be shaped by what we're hearing. We're going to be shaped by the world, and we're going to be discontent.
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We're talking to Stephen Altrogi from, well, he's from Sovereign Grace Ministries, but he's written the book,
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The Greener Grass Conspiracy, a great crossway book. We're talking to him today. Stephen, I like the way you write.
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It's chocked full of Puritan quotes. It's chocked full of pop culture anecdotes.
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I like the style. Do some people, though, think, well, with that style and with some of the pop culture references, it would be dated sooner than it should be?
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Have you received any criticism for that? Because what I do when I preach, I'll never forget the time when
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I was told not to give a Star Trek illustration in preaching class. And somehow, for irresistible grace or effectual call,
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I always have to talk about the Borg, and you will be assimilated. But I don't know if anyone listens to me in 100 years if they'll know what
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I'm talking about. So what's your thought on that? I haven't, you know,
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I thought about that as I was writing it. I did think, you know, one of my thoughts was, will these references be dated too fast?
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And yet I also, I feel like, well, first of all, I have no,
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I don't necessarily think that I'm going to even, that anyone's even going to care about me in 100 years.
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My main job, I feel like, is to be serving people right now and serving my church right now and connecting with them right now.
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And these are the things that are all around us. These are, you know, Star Trek, Star Wars, whatever.
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That's what people are thinking about, you know, thinking about what's going on right now, what's going on on television right now, what they're reading right now.
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And yeah, maybe 100 years from now, maybe it'll be dated. But, you know, my main job and thought in all this was, how can
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I serve people right now? How can I connect with people right now? How can I help people battle discontentment today?
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And so, yeah, I think you're probably right. There's probably some of it where people will read in 100 years and think, what the heck was this guy even talking about?
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But that's okay. As long as it helps people today, I'm okay with that. Sounds like you're pretty content with that. I'm trying to be.
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Just to give the listeners an idea of your writing style that I just was talking about, you said, according to renowned psychologist
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Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs, if I don't receive food, shelter, love, sex, self -esteem, self -actualization, and the
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NFL Sunday ticket from DirecTV, I'd be a very unhappy person who spends his days panhandling for change on street corners.
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I was almost going to say classic. It's not classic, but it's brilliant. Oh, thanks.
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I guess I feel like a lot of times, sometimes we take ourselves too seriously, too.
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And so I try to talk in a way that I'm very serious about Jesus and following Jesus.
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I'm very not serious about myself. There's just too much to laugh about with me. And so I do try to incorporate things that are somewhat humorous, lighthearted, because I think humor also works to keep our guards down.
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And if we start taking ourselves too seriously, then I think we can miss what God has for us. So I think talking and writing in ways like that is a way of helping stay on the same page as people, not losing people.
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And it sort of disarms people that, you know, I don't take myself too seriously, but I do take the Bible really seriously.
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Excellent. Stephen, help us with this concept. If people read some of the Psalms and they hear
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David pouring out his heart, and I don't want to say rehearsing some of his problems, but bringing his problems to his father, like a young boy would to his dad.
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Is that complaining or is that something different? And walk us through that.
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Can we take our requests and our issues before God in such a way that would not be dishonoring to him?
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Yeah, absolutely. I think that what we see in the Psalms is we see David bringing his problems to God.
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And I think that's actually very helpful, because it shows us, hey, here's King David who wrote some of the
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Bible, and man, it seems like his life was pretty messed up a lot of the time. So it gives me hope for my life. But I think what we also see is
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David, he brought his requests, his thoughts, his prayers to God, and he was very honest and open with God.
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He wasn't trying to be pretentious with God. And I think what we see is he did it in a way that wasn't demanding from God.
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And I think that's the key, is we can tell God these things that we desire. We can tell
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God these struggles that we're having. We can tell him, you know, Lord, I would really like this thing.
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I think that what's most important is the way we communicate this to God. Are we doing it like a demand, like God owes us this, like he must give it to us?
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Or do we just humbly say, Lord, this is what I would desire, but I want your will to be done.
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I want your design for my life. I want that to happen. And I think that's what we see in the
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Psalms, is we see David just sort of pouring out his heart to God. But at the end of most of the Psalms, you see him turning to God in faith and saying,
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God, I know that you're going to be faithful to me. I know that you're with me. I know that even though I go through difficult times, you're going to sustain me.
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And so I think that having that mentality of, I'm going to pour out my heart to God, but I'm still going to trust him.
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I'm still going to humbly submit to him. I'm not going to complain. I'm not going to grumble. I think that's where the difference is.
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And so I think we should be honest with God. It's not like God doesn't know what's going on already. So I think we should be honest with God and just tell him what's going on in our lives and what we're struggling with, but always maintaining this posture of humility before him.
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Excellent advice from Stephen Altruge. Stephen's book, you can get it on Amazon or you can go to CBD or a variety of different places,
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Crossway, The Greener Grass Conspiracy, here on No Compromise Radio. Stephen, we only have about a minute and a half left.
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If you can do this in a minute and a half, if there's a woman out there today or a man married to an unbeliever, how can they have joy when the closest companion they have on earth is not a believer?
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That's a very challenging situation. I guess what I would want to just say to them is, and I hope they wouldn't take this as being too simple advice, but simply to press into Jesus and to stay close to Jesus.
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Because ultimately, our deepest fellowship isn't even with our spouse, as wonderful of a gift as that is, but God wants to give us our deepest, most abiding joy in him.
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And in my own church, I've seen many men and women who have been in that exact situation and they have pressed into Jesus, found joy in Jesus, gone deep in Jesus, and really honored
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God in their life. So I would just want to encourage them through the Scripture, through prayer, through fellowship, to press into Jesus.
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Excellent advice. Thank you, Stephen, for being on the radio show today. Thank you for the book, The Greener Grass Conspiracy.
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Next time, just have something about the waves are bigger down the other side of the beach, all right? The bigger wave conspiracy.
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That is exactly right. Thank you. God bless you. NoCompromiseRadio .com if you'd like to pull up the podcast.
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