Interview with Pastor Steve Kreloff

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.

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This is a daily conversation about scripture, culture, and media from a Reformed perspective.

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Get your Bible and coffee ready and prepare to engage today's topic.

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Here's your host, Pastor Keith Foskey.

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Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.

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My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist.

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We're coming to you today, again, from the Southeast Regional Conference for the Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals.

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That is FIRE.

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If you have any questions or are interested in FIRE, you can go to firefellowship.org.

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It is a group of churches that are connected by our mutual commitment to Reformed teaching as well as being associated with one another, both through prayer and encouragement.

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We meet in these regional conferences and it is a very sweet fellowship.

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Today I am joined by my friend and brother, Pastor Steve Kreloff.

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Hi, Pastor Steve.

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How are you? I'm doing fine.

01:10

Thank you, Keith.

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I appreciate you being here.

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I want to begin by introducing you to the audience because I've been just looking forward to seeing you.

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You've preached at our church and I've known you for many years, but I think you're one of those guys who doesn't quite know how effective you have been in the life of someone else.

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You've been effective in my life.

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I've told you the story and I don't tell you these stories just to make you feel good.

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It's the honest truth.

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It's probably a good thing I don't know these things.

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When I was about 24 years old, I was first introduced to the Doctrines of Grace.

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After that, I began to listen to some people teach.

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The first conference I was ever invited to or ever heard about that had reformed in its focus was hosted by Founders.

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It was at your church.

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It was at Lakeside Community Chapel there in Clearwater.

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Beautiful church.

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I remember going and I brought one of our youth members with us.

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I took him and we went down there.

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It was you and Tom Askle and Roy Hargrave and you were the three main preachers that weekend.

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I remember listening to the three of you, but you in particular stood out to me.

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I want to say this, as the expositor, now I know the other two brothers are expositors as well, but I can still remember, even though I don't know the text that you preached, I still remember how you walked through the context of the book and wherever you landed.

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I want to say it was in Romans, but I don't remember.

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But wherever you landed in the text, you had so masterfully taken us through the history of the book and you gave us a little overview of the book and then you landed in the text and everything you said from that point on, I just remember thinking, this guy knows what he's doing.

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I hope you take that as God has worked through you.

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I purchased your book.

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It was on expository preaching.

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What's the name of it again? I've read it several times.

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I think it's just called expository preaching.

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Yeah.

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And the three parts, you said expository preaching is nothing more than read the text, explain the text, apply the text.

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That's exactly right.

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That's what Paul said.

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And our people have heard me say that.

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So if you're one of our church members, if you're a Sovereign Grace Church member, you've heard me say, my job is to read the text, explain the text, apply the text.

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And again, I know that's not original with you.

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But that is, that I learned from you, watching you do it, listening to you do it.

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You have verse by verse ministries, which is your, do you still do verse by verse? Yeah.

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We still have, we have a radio ministry called verse by verse.

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Yes.

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And I remember that as well.

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You had a little table set up at the, this is so funny because this is 15 years ago, but I'm so thankful.

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And through the years I've seen you, I've seen you preach at various conferences.

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As I said, I've had you preach at our church and last night you preached for us here at the conference.

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And I stood up this morning and I told everyone, I said, this was a master class in expository preaching.

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So brother, I'm so thankful for you.

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And I want to begin by simply asking, can you tell everyone a little bit about your history, how you came to know the Lord and you know, what, what did God do to save you? Yeah.

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Well, thank you.

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Thanks for having me, Keith.

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Well, my background's a little different than a lot of pastors because I'm from a Jewish family.

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I am Jewish.

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My, both parents were Jewish.

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Both grandparents were Jewish.

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They were from Russia, so Russian Jews.

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And the short story of my testimony, grew up in a Jewish home, always believed that God existed, but never saw how relevant he was.

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I always felt like God was way up there and I was down here and, and big deal.

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How was he relevant in my life? And then when I was about 13 years old, 12, 13, three of my grandparents died within a very short period of time.

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And I was devastated.

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I had no answers about death.

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I asked my parents, I asked family members, where did they go? What happened in their lives? And nobody was ever able to give me anything but opinions.

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And even at a young age, I realized that opinions have no authority.

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I don't think I articulated at that, at that point, but that's what I thought.

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I have opinions too, so what? So I entered my teenage years being very fearful of death.

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Not, no, we were secular Jews, so I didn't really have a Judaism background.

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And very fearful of dying.

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It translated into fear of living, no joy, no peace, emptiness.

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I poured my life into following sports and playing sports, and that really is what helped me get through my teenage years.

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It kept me somewhat sane.

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And then I went to the University of South Florida, right in Tampa, and the Lord sent a young man, not Jewish, Gentile, new believer, who just loved me and shared Christ with me.

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I was so obnoxious to him, it's only the grace of God that he was just kind to me.

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And so what I decided to do, in my arrogance, I decided to go out and purchase a Bible and I was going to read through the New Testament and come back and show my friend all the mistakes and errors and discrepancies in the New Testament.

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But lo and behold, it was through reading the New Testament that I came to faith in Christ.

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Amen.

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First, I first came to admire Jesus as a man, then I came to understand he was the Messiah, he was God, the God-man.

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And I can't pinpoint the exact day of my conversion, but there was a time where the Lord opened my heart and brought me to himself.

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Amen.

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Amen.

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Amen.

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Now, I've had an opportunity over this last day and a half to spend some time with your lovely wife, and you and she, were you married before you got saved? No.

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We met, I transferred from University of South Florida to Moody Bible Institute, and that's where I met Michelle.

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She's from Minnesota.

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And we met, we got married right after we graduated from Moody, and then moved back down here.

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The church I now pastor, I started attending that church my second year at USF.

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A friend invited me, another Christian friend invited me, that was his church.

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I started attending and I became a part of the church.

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And so when we were graduating, I knew that the Lord had called me into the ministry, I just didn't know where to go.

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So I decided that I would come down here to Florida and just be an intern for what I thought was a year.

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And then Moody has a placement center, and I would just be placed somewhere else, but the Lord had other plans.

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And I've been here at Lakeside since 19, well, we got married 75, I came on staff 76, 1981, I became the pastor teacher.

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So how many years is that, that you have been a pastor? Well, May will be 40 years.

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That is amazing.

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Honestly, I didn't know if I could last six months.

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I remember after I was voted in, a lady came up to me and said, so now what's your plan? As if I had, you know, a five year plan, I said, well, I'm going to take tomorrow off.

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And I said, Tuesday, I'm going to come in, I'm going to roll up my sleeves, I'm going to start studying for Sunday's sermon.

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And that's always been my plan.

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Amen.

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So Monday is your day off? Monday is my day off.

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Awesome.

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Yeah.

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Awesome.

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And that's, you know, I would love to do that for the next two hours.

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Just ask you what your process is for preparing sermons.

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I'm not going to ask you for two hours, but I will say this, because I recently had, do you know Brian Borgman? No, I don't think so.

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Brian Borgman is a pastor in Nevada.

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He's another man that I truly respect and love.

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And he's a terrific expositor.

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And I sat with him for 30 minutes and interviewed him on the subject of expository preaching and how he prepares his messages.

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And we, that's what we talked about.

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And, you know, us today, I'm learning more about your history and things like that.

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But I do want to ask you, since I do really respect your ability to handle the word, how, and I know this is a pretty standard question, but I find it's not answered the same with every pastor.

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How many hours a week do you spend on one message? And I know that it varies, but what would you say? Well, it seems like I'm studying all the time.

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That's what I do.

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But I'm also, I have to say, I'm blessed to have elders and staff who take a lot of the other loads of things that pastors have to do.

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I mean, I do other things.

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I do visitation.

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When you can visit the hospital, I'm there.

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I do counseling, things like that.

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I look after the staff.

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I'm kind of the shepherd of the shepherds type of deal.

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But I get in, I'm just trying to think.

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It's probably anywhere from, I don't know, 22 to 30 hours.

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I mean, it depends on the text.

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Some texts are a little bit easier, but it seems like I'm always studying.

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And then, of course, on Saturdays, I'm reviewing.

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Even Sunday morning, I'm reviewing.

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So I feel like I'm studying all the time.

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I feel like the Apostle Paul, when he was accused of all thy learning doth make thee mad.

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I'm just learning a lot, I'm mad.

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Well, okay.

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So your Saturday then is your final...

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Well, I have finished pretty much my preparation.

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Saturday is an easier day, but I'm reviewing.

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And until recently, I had two messages.

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Now, because of COVID, I'm doing two services in the morning, and I've turned over the evening service, at least for now, to our associate pastor.

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But I would be reviewing.

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So back when you had...

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And this is just for my own practical benefit.

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Any other pastors who may be listening, because I do know some who do.

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Like for me, I preach on Sunday morning only once, because we only have one service, and we don't have an evening service right now.

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But I preach a few times during the week.

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I preach Thursday morning, I teach Wednesday night, Wednesday and Thursday night at our academy, and I teach at a men's shelter that I go and preach.

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And so when you had the two messages on Sunday, did the lion's share go into the morning message? Yes, yes.

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And Sunday night is more family night.

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I mean, I recognize Sunday morning, there are visitors, people who are...

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They go to our church, but I wouldn't call them connected.

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Yeah, they say the people who come on Sunday morning love the church, the people who come on Sunday night love Jesus.

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Yeah, something like that.

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So Sunday morning's probably 50, 55 minutes.

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Sunday night, usually 40, 45 minutes or so.

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But yeah, that's how I've done it.

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And interestingly, my sermons have gotten longer as I've been doing this longer, because I have more that I know.

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I really, I fly, you know, in the early days, flying by the seat of my pants.

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I'm just learning this stuff this week.

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And if you asked me last week, no, I don't know this, but I'll study this.

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And so I just, you know, the Lord has just wired me to be very curious.

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And I just look at a pastor and go, well, why did he say that? How does this connect? It's just how I'm wired to be very curious, to ask questions.

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And that's just how it is.

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I'm always reading, always studying, listening, thinking through what this passage is about.

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That's my main goal.

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I want to be accurate, but I want to be clear.

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And I want to be practical in my application and pastoral.

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I realize I'm not simply giving an exposition.

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I'm ministering to people who have real problems.

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Their marriages are hurting.

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They have family issues.

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So I try to ask myself, so what? Now that I've given the exposition, so what? How am I going to help these people connect with the truth? So it's different than a classroom where we don't give lectures.

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We give sermons that should be changing people's lives.

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And I'm always trying to think, and that wasn't true in the early years.

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I had a man who I deeply valued his opinion.

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He was on staff at the Moody Bible Institute.

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He came down to Clearwater to do some evangelism.

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I asked him after a sermon on a Sunday night, I said, so what did you think? Because he was really, I wouldn't say a mentor, but someone I looked up to.

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And he said, you gave a history lesson.

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You didn't give a Bible message.

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And that was really hurtful, but it was good.

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It was not harmful.

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And he was absolutely right.

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I went into the whole background in 1 Corinthians 15, agnosticism, and I didn't deal with the text.

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And it was one of the best things I've ever heard.

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He said, you're weak on application.

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You gave history.

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And I said, Lord, help me.

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He's absolutely right.

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I'm not a history teacher.

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I'm a teacher of your word.

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And so I really have worked at trying to be a pastor teacher, not simply a teacher.

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I'll tell you something from last night's sermon that, it's so funny because we're pastors and we listen to each other preach and we think about what we would be saying.

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Exactly, yes.

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How would I put that? Yes, I know.

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While you're preaching in Acts 20, when it says his own blood, that he purchased the church with his own blood.

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And I know that there's some ambiguity in the interpretation, whether it's his own blood or the blood of his own.

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And I was kind of like, I was like, is he going to say it? Is he going to say anything about it? And you didn't say anything about it.

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You went right past it.

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And I was like, I love you.

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Because I probably would have got stuck in the details of something that doesn't matter.

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If you recall, I did actually have a quote, a very brief quote from someone attributing it to Christ and his deity.

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But the challenge of last night was, I took four sermons and put them together in one.

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So even the day I'm coming up here, I'm editing it.

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I thought, I have over 50 pages.

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I can't do it to these people.

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You know, so I'm trying to- I can see you on your iPad.

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You're almost like- Oh, I have.

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And my wife, as soon as I got down, I said, so how was it? And she said, well, you spoke awfully fast.

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I normally do.

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Well, I'm trying to get through this.

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Amen.

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The first five minutes, it was, I was like, is he going to go this fast the whole time? Because he's filling us up.

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It was good.

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But I normally speak fast.

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Yes.

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But I also had a lot to cover.

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Like I said, it was four sermons packed into one.

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Are you in Acts right now? I am.

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I thought I picked that up last night.

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That's Acts 20.

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I'm just starting next week.

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We have a guest speaker this Sunday.

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Week from Sunday, I'll be in Acts 23.

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So it's not that far from what I just did.

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Well, I'm going to ask you one more question about preaching, and then we're going to move on.

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Because again, I could do this all day with you.

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Real quick, in 40 years that you've been preaching, have you always done verse by verse? I have.

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How many of the New Testament books have you gone verse by verse? Well, I can tell you, the way I can answer that is what I haven't covered.

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Okay, that's what I was thinking.

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I have not covered the Gospel of Luke.

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And most people would do Luke and then Acts.

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But I think I'm going to do Acts and then Luke.

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And I will be old, old, old when I finish.

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That is so funny.

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My first verse by verse set of sermons was through the Gospel of Luke.

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Really? And I have a certain place in my heart for the Gospel of Luke.

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Now, of course, I was 25 years old.

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I was taking large chunks at a time.

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So to call it a verse by verse exposition is a little generous.

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But it is funny that that's the...

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There are other books that I think if the Lord gives me enough years, I'd like to go back and do a better job of doing.

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I don't think I did a really good job in the Gospel of John.

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And I'd like to do...

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And I was starting over again in the evening, 1 Corinthians 4.

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I was doing 1 Corinthians.

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I got to chapter 4 and then COVID hit.

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So it's still...

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My plan is eventually to get back to the Sunday night service.

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But I want to give our associate a chance too.

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He's very good.

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And I don't want to frustrate these guys who are good and they want to preach.

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Well, brother, I know we have some other things to get to today.

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And I want to ask you, can you share the Gospel? If there's somebody listening who has never heard the Gospel, how can they know the Lord? Well, it all begins with an understanding that we're sinners, that man is a sinner.

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But I think it's important to understand what does it mean to be a sinner? Because most people would say, well, sure, I'm not perfect.

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But being a sinner means that we are rebellious towards God, that we want to do our own thing.

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We have broken the law of God.

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So often I have said to people...

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Well, at times, I didn't say so often.

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But I've said to people about the Ten Commandments.

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Well, I keep the Ten Commandments.

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And I remember one young man I'm talking to about the Ten Commandments.

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He said, well, I keep the Ten Commandments.

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And I said, could you tell me what they are? He doesn't know what the Ten Commandments are.

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That's just his default response.

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So I think we have to understand that we have broken, not only physically, literally, but in our hearts, every one of those commandments.

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We are sinners before God.

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But what makes being a sinner so significant is that God is holy.

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If God were not holy and just, it really doesn't matter about being a sinner.

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The issue is God is holy and just and must punish our sin.

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Amen.

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And we deserve judgment.

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But God who is holy is also loving.

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And in his love, he provided a way by which his justice could be met.

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And he could express his love to us so that we could be forgiven of our sins.

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And that is, God became a man in the person of Jesus Christ who went to the cross.

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Because God as God could not go to the cross.

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But God as man could.

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The God-man.

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And while Christ was dying, he was paying for the sins of everyone who would believe in him.

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Amen.

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And the judgment that we deserved was upon Jesus Christ.

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And when we recognize our sinfulness and we repent, which means we turn from our sin, and we turn to Christ and we trust him as the only hope, only basis for salvation, God forgives our sins and declares us legally righteous.

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That is the heart of the gospel.

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Amen.

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Amen.

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And that declaration, oh, what a declaration.

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Amen.

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Declaration of righteousness.

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Well, brother, thank you so much for being on the program.

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Thank you, Keith.

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Tell us if someone is in Clearwater and they want to visit Lakeside Community Chapel, how do they get a hold of you? Yeah, well, our website is lakesidechapel.com.

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And we are 1893 Sunset Point Road in Clearwater.

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We now have a 9 a.m.

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service as well as a 10 40 service and a 6 p.m.

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service.

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Amen.

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Well, if you're in Clearwater and you want to go and listen to wonderful preaching and be a part of a wonderful body, I would encourage you to go to Lakeside Chapel.

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And if you're in the Jacksonville area, I want to invite you to Sovereign Grace Family Church.

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That's a church where I pastor.

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And you can find us online and learn more about us at sgfcjacks.org.

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Thank you for listening today to Coffee with a Calvinist.

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My name has been Keith Foskey, and I have been your Calvinist.

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May God bless you.

20:30

Thank you for listening to today's episode of Coffee with a Calvinist.

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If you enjoyed the program, please take a moment to subscribe and provide us feedback.

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We'd love to hear your comments and questions and may even engage with them in a future episode.

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As you go about your day, remember this, Jesus Christ came to save sinners.

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All who come to Him in repentance and faith will find Him to be a perfect Savior.

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He is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him.

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May God be with you.