WWUTT 940 Q&A Breakthrough, Bethel Kids, Loneliness, and Numbness?

What would be my recommendation regarding the film Breakthrough? What is Bethel Redding teaching to their children?

And how do we deal with loneliness and even emotional numbness? The answers to these questions when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text, devoted to the sound teaching of the word of Christ. Folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are saved, it is the power of God.

Tell your friends about our podcast and our videos at www .wutt .com. Here once again is

Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. So did you listen to last week's podcast? I listened to one.

I was able to get in one. I was so excited to get that one in too. No, I meant like our podcast. Oh, no, no.

The episode that we did together. No, not that one. So do you even know the outtake that I used at the end of the podcast?

I don't remember. Somebody had mentioned something, and so I kind of guessed what it was, but no.

Can you remember any conversations we had with the microphones on that might have become the outtake? You have the microphones on all the time, and I am unaware of half the time that they are on.

Okay. So the conversation we had was about where the term catty corner came from.

Oh, right. Or kitty corner. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So typically I don't get emails about our outtakes.

Right. But last week I did. Unless they were like, hey, your mic was on. Yeah, that's right. Somebody. You left your mic on.

When they discover for the first time that we have outtakes at the end of the podcast, they'll go, I think you left your mic on at the end of that podcast.

That's about the only thing. Unless it's giggle worthy, like super giggle worthy. Oh, then somebody will comment on Twitter or something like that.

So we were talking prior to the start of our recording that episode, where the term catty corner came from or kitty corner, because that had to be slang for something.

Right. What was the original term that was taken from? Grant emailed and said, hi, game.

Catty wampus. Catty wampus. Yeah, that's right. That was the other one. You kept saying catty wampus, which up until you saying that,

I don't think I'd ever heard that before. Really? I grew up hearing that. Never heard that. All the time. Had to be a Kansas thing.

Could be. Because you were raised in Kansas and I wasn't. I was Southwest. But I've been here over 20 years.

You've been back. I've still never heard catty wampus. Well, you don't listen enough. Just kidding. Anyway.

It wasn't used in like daily. It wasn't all the time, but we had friends that would leave catty wampus from us.

And so we would, I don't know, quit giggling at me. Which I joked about it being the wampa beast from Empire Strikes Back.

That catty wampus that club Luke Skywalker dragged him into his cave. So Grant emailed and said, hi

Gabe, I heard your post episode conversation with Becky about catty corner slash kitty corner.

It looks like it is a corruption of cater corner or sorry, cater corner, not cater corner.

Spelled like cater. Yes. But it's pronounced cater corner where cater refers to its diagonal nature.

So I looked up the etymology of this word and indeed it's from the

French word that means four. So you think of like four corners. And cater in fact is the official name of the side of the dice with the four dots on it.

Oh, interesting. Which makes me wonder, does every side of a dice have a particular name?

And the side with four is called cater. That's the cater side of the dice with the four dots on it.

I don't know. That is interesting. Something that would be cross diagonal would then be cater corner from it.

And then the slang from that became catty corner and kitty corner. And catty wampus.

But nobody can spell it. So. Catty wampa beast. I'm telling you,

I need to phone in a friend and call my mom and be like, mom, you say that again.

That would be the phone a friend lifeline that you've got to use. Lifeline. Oh, the things you learn on when we understand the text.

You thought this was a Bible study. It's a life of application. On Friday, we respond to questions from listeners and you can submit questions to when we understand the text at gmail .com.

We start with another praise email while following our clarification email from Grant.

But this one is from Khadif. Pastor Gabe, I personally want to thank you for your videos. Your video on how to stop looking at porn helped me extremely along with the protecting hand of God.

Thank you so much and God bless. And this would be a good place to say that if you could help us out financially with this ministry,

I wasn't planning on saying that, but that does suddenly come to mind. Okay. If you see the benefit of when we understand the text and how it has impacted people and you would want to submit a donation to our ministry, we would appreciate it.

Since the donation goes to our church, it's to a nonprofit, so it's a tax deductible donation.

You can send that one of two ways. You can either go to our website, www .utt .com and click on the give tab, or you can send a check straight to the church.

Make it out to First Southern Baptist Church. You may want to write www .utt .com

in the memo section, and you can send that to First Southern Baptist Church, 1220

West 8th Street, Junction City, Kansas, 66441. That's right.

And then I think that we were still having issue with receiving donations from overseas. Wasn't that right?

I think so. I think that was something that you were trying to work out.

Simple give had to be a North America thing, I guess. So there was the PayPal option. PayPal option is you can just submit a

PayPal donation straight to me. So you'd be sending it to PastorGabeHughes at gmail .com.

Right. PastorGabeHughes at gmail .com.

And in good faith, just believe that I'm going to take it and give it to the church. Yes.

We have been struggling this year. It has been a very down year for us as a congregation. Yeah.

We had that last PCS, or the number of soldiers that left in the fall or in December.

PCS is when they move to the next station. Yeah. And that permanent change of station is what it stands for, but it's not permanent.

No. Because you'll be there for two years. Which is why I just describe it as they just moved to a different station, which is really sad to see all our friends go.

Yeah. Every time. It is. Every time. From about September to December last year, it was a gradual trickling away of people.

And then Fort Riley wasn't replenishing those that were being lost. Many were deployed. And then as soon as they came into town, they got deployed right away.

And so that's tough too, because then the new wives, they don't want to go anywhere.

They're not confident enough with our area. So then it takes them a little while to warm up and then start attending a church.

Yeah. They might go to the chapel on post, which is not sound. Not all the time.

There's several chapels on post. There's not just one. That's true. There's the main chapel, though, which is called Victory Chapel, and then there's other places that they can go.

But I mean, you're still talking military chaplains that are leading it. It's kind of hit or miss. There are some sound guys that are military chaplains.

There really are. One of them comes to our church. Yes. But yeah, again, hitting a sound military chaplain is pretty tough pickings.

So they will go to the on post chapel because it's easier to do while their husband is deployed instead of venturing into town and church hopping, looking for a church that they can attend.

It takes a while sometimes when people move into the area to even find it. Sometimes we'll have visitors that come in that say that they've been here for two weeks.

Yeah. Other times I'll ask somebody, how long have you been here? Oh, we've been here for 18 months. Yeah. We've got another six months before we move.

That's right. We want to join. Yeah. Yes. We love your church. We're going to join for six months. Which I love.

I'm not dogging on that. It's just, you know, I hate it that it took so long. Yeah. Yeah. It took so long for them to get there.

And then we have to say goodbye as soon as we make friends with you. But anyway, since that's been the difficulty of our year, your donations would greatly help our ministry and we would sure appreciate it.

It benefits when we understand the text as well as the local stuff that we are doing. And we are beginning an evangelism ministry out of our church this coming

Sunday. In fact, we're going to have our first evangelism class and be looking toward doing some inner city stuff within our own community this coming summer.

Super exciting. Hoping to see lots of folks from our church show out for that evangelism class.

And I said to the fellow who's leading the class, I said, I don't know how involved I'm going to be able to be in the class itself, but just tell me when you're going into town to do evangelism and I'm going with you.

That's awesome. He's doing a good job. Those messages, those sermons he's putting together are really good.

I'm looking forward to them. All right. That was that was Khadif. Thank you, Khadif, for your encouraging word.

This one is from Deanna. Hi, Pastor Gabe and Becky. Have you addressed the movie Breakthrough on the show?

I always try to be a good discerner where these movies are concerned about the only thing that I could find in reviews is where God told the fireman, the emergency guy.

I don't know if he's a fireman or not. I guess he would be the EMT guy, emergency, the emergency dude that's that's in the ice looking for the boy that found under the ice.

He says that God told the fireman where to look under the ice. That seems to be the only about questionable thing in the movie, at least from what she could tell in the preview.

OK, I love your video on visions and dreams. And I showed that video to my son.

Very helpful. Thank you so much for your ministry. I've not seen the film

Breakthrough. I will tell you this about the movie. When I went to go see, oh,

I forgot the name of the film now. What was the name of the the movie about Ashley?

No, Ashley Bratcher was the actress. You're not going to you're not going to know the abortion.

What was it called? I'm blanking on it. Everybody that's listening to this podcast is screaming.

Unashamed keeps popping into my head. That's not that's not what it was. Abby, Abby Johnson, Johnson, unplanned, unplanned.

That's what it was. Abby Johnson. Yes. The Abby Johnson story. Yes. Anyway, when

I went to go see unplanned, the ironic thing about this film is every movie trailer at the start of this movie had teen sex in it.

Oh, some sort of hint or suggestion of teen sex taking place in the plot of the movie, except for one film.

And that was the preview for Breakthrough. Yeah, of course. I never did see Breakthrough. I wouldn't be able to tell you.

I didn't even read any reviews on it. I've seen a couple of my friends, friends on well, not

Facebook, because I'm not on Twitter. Twitter. Yeah. I've seen a few of them say they went and saw the movie and they really liked it.

I guess I did see one particular article. It wasn't necessarily a review of the film, or if it did do a review of the film, it was further down the article and I didn't get to that part.

But the way that it started out was talking about how good the quality of these

Christian films is becoming. Oh, yeah. I did see that. You know what article I'm talking about?

Or heard about it. I don't remember if I actually read it. Like they're really getting big name marquee actors to be playing in these movies and these

Christian films now. And the quality of the films is improving. Better scripts, better delivery of those lines.

And Breakthrough is one example of that. It just seems to be that the quality of these films is coming up, you know, which you can tell by the fact that, oh, what was the movie?

Heaven is for Real had Greg Kinnear played Colton Burpo. Not Colton Burpo.

That was the boy. Yeah. But the dad. OK. Mr. Burpo. I have no idea. Sounds like a kid's book or some sort of kid's show.

Mr. Burpo. Anyway, it was Greg Kinnear. And I really like him as an actor.

I think he's the stuff that I've seen him in. He's always done a good job. And then there was the 90

Minutes in Heaven film. OK. The. Wait, that wasn't the same film?

No. Oh. It's about the same thing. It's Heaven Tourism. OK. They went to heaven and they came back to tell us all about it.

My brain was putting those two in the same bucket. Yeah. But the the 90

Minutes in Heaven movie was Anakin Skywalker. I can't remember his name now. Hayden Christensen.

It was. Well, I mean, it was it was as factual as Return of the Jedi. OK, well, there we go.

Return of the Jedi didn't even have Anakin Skywalker in it. Nope. Except in the form of Darth Vader. Yeah.

Phantom Menace. Wrong Anakin Skywalker. See, I'm not even putting the right actor in there. I have no idea what you're talking about anymore.

Attack of the Clones. There we go. I got the right guy in there now. Hayden Christensen. OK. Sure.

So. So that guy who played Anakin and was terrible at it probably played Don Piper and was terrible at it, too.

I didn't watch the movie. But that's all just to say they're getting these marquee actors on these films now.

And so they're better quality. Better quality and delivery. But not in the same way that they were in the 90 Minutes in Heaven movie. Gotcha.

I would never encourage anyone to watch Heaven is for Real or 90 Minutes in Heaven. What was the other one that was?

Oh, there was that movie with Jennifer Garner that had to do. I can't. I'm not even going to try to explain what the plot was.

I remember watching the preview and going, not watching that one. But anyway, Breakthrough is another one in the, you know, the

Christian feel good genre. You pray to God and God saves your child.

And of course, that's that's encouraging. and uplifting. But what about the circumstances in which a child is not saved?

Right. You have prayed and asked God to deliver your child from this. This disaster that has happened.

And we're going to see in life many, many times in which we've prayed for God to deliver this person and they do not write something tragic happens to them instead.

These films are not answering those questions, right? That's one of the things I don't like about these movies.

Even Breakthrough, though, I haven't seen it. So it's going to be a feel good Christian film, but it's not really going to get to the tough questions, at least as far as I can tell, doesn't really answer the hard questions about.

So what happens now if we're praying and we're asking God for deliverance and he doesn't give it to us? Are we now supposed to conclude that he isn't there because somebody who's a skeptic?

Or that he doesn't love us? Right. Did I do something wrong? Did I not pray the right prayers? Yeah. These films do not help those situations.

You find the answers to that in a good gospel solid church that's doctrinally sound and is leading you according to what the scriptures say, not according to what is entertaining or what will make you feel good in any given moment.

I think that we need to take those things very carefully, even though it might be some good feel good entertainment.

Breakthrough may be as good as watching a Hallmark movie. I don't know. If you like Hallmark movies, like my wife does, maybe you'll like Breakthrough.

I know that I could not watch it. Well, yeah, you don't do well with children in perilous situations, even if you know it's going to be a happy ending.

Yep. I don't. I just don't do this. That probably wasn't helpful, Deanne, but that's as best as I can do.

We have not, in other words, to answer your question. Straight. Haven't seen the movie. No. Next.

Next one comes from David in Glendale, Arizona. Wait. Back up. Just one second. Okay. Okay. Okay. So do you plan on seeing the movie and doing a review?

If it shows up on, you know, something like my Amazon Prime or whatever, but otherwise probably not.

You don't plan on going to the theater to watch it? No. No, I'm not. Okay. The one movie that I was wanting to see was the computer animated version of Pilgrim's Progress.

Oh, right. Was a limited theatrical release. The nearest showing to me was in Topeka.

Oh, okay. But I couldn't get there. Yeah. I was hoping it was going to hit the IMAX in Manhattan, but it hasn't showed up there yet.

It's a big theater. I think that theater is bigger than the one in Topeka, so I'm surprised they chose

Topeka instead of Manhattan to show that film, although I'm sure they got all kinds of huge support from it in Topeka.

Right. True. There's a big Southern Baptist church there in Topeka, Kansas. Anyway, I'm still waiting to see that movie.

That's the one that I want to see, so I'm hoping that that hits a theater nearby to us. I've been watching clips of it for over a year.

I've been signed up to that particular movie organization, movie production company, organization.

That production company that put together the film, and they've been sending clips out, and I've been watching them through my email, and even the kids,

Annie and Zeej, I know sat next to me one time on the couch, and we watched about a 10 -minute clip of it. Oh, that's so cool.

I've wanted to see the finished production, but yeah, I have to wait for it to pop up nearby, I suppose.

Yeah. I made a couple of emails to the production company and said, hey,

I write movie reviews. They get about 10 ,000 hits. I'll do one on Pilgrim's Progress if you let me watch it, but they never replied.

Yeah. I don't fault anybody for that. They could just not see my email. True. Everybody's busy.

I get that. I miss emails sometimes. I miss a lot. But we won't go into my email.

Yes, because your email inbox has 53 ,962 new messages from 1996 on.

So bad. I don't think I had it back in 96. I think my first email account was in, it was either 98 or 99, because it was my senior year of high school.

That was about when I got mine, but not this account. This account was more new. I remember when I was a sophomore.

Because it's this Hughes with the Hughes. Oh, right. Yeah, of course. So you didn't have it before we were married.

A little bit more reason. I remember when I was a sophomore in high school and some friends of mine who were seniors were passing around an email forward that they had printed off and it was a joke.

And you remember when forwards always had those little carrots on them? So you knew how many times it had been forwarded by how many carrots were on there.

That was obnoxious. It was the first time I had ever seen an email forward. Before sending that, you can erase those.

They weren't doing that. But it's a pain. They were printing it off that way. I remember having to do that. Yep, me too. So they had printed that off as the forward with all the carrots on it.

And as a sophomore in high school, it was my first time I'd ever seen an email forward. And I'm looking at that going, that's the stupidest thing I've ever seen. How do you read this?

And so I hesitated getting, I probably waited until my senior year to ever get an email address because I thought no matter what you sent, it had a bunch of carrots all over it.

Anyway, next email from David in Glendale, Arizona. Pastor Gabe, I know this video isn't something that you don't already know about, but I thought that it was just something to share for all those people that may still think

Bethel is a Christ following church. God bless you and your family and thank you for all that you do.

I listen to your podcast every day on my way to work. And of course, I love the Friday edition with you and Becky and all the nonsense that you guys talk about.

Yeah, right. We're rabbit trails. I added that in there. He didn't say that. Oh, okay.

I'm pretty sure I got her name wrong and I apologize. He added a C. So it's B -E -C -K -I. Yeah, it's a fine, it's acceptable.

She's not offended. I just make fun of all of you for not ever spelling it right.

Again, thank you for your ministry and I appreciate all your encouragement through the word and your dedication to sound biblical teaching.

The video clip that David sent me here, it's actually a series of clips featuring

Seth Dahl. And Seth Dahl is the leader of the children's ministry at Bethel Church in Redding, California.

Now there's one clip that I'm going to play at the end of this that was not among the clips that David sent, but it's the more well -known clip featuring

Seth Dahl. And all of this is just terrible, but this is the way that, this is the guy that leads the children's ministry there at Bethel Church.

Here's the first clip. I live with the joy that I have the greatest job in the entire world, but I also have the most important job.

I realize I shaped what the entire world looks like in 20 years. Our biggest priority is to make sure these kids encounter

God. We're going to have a perfect health zone in this room, in this church, and then in the entire city.

So did you get that? We're going to have this perfect health zone in this room, in this church, and in this entire city.

I don't understand what that means. Well, Bethel believes that the gospel and miraculous healing, well, the gospel is miraculous healing.

So the gospel is going to be here in this room and it's going to be a perfect health zone. None of these kids are going to be sick.

Oh. Wow, that's terrible. That's going to be the power and the movement of God. Wow. So it's going to start with these kids and then it's going to go out to the rest of the community.

So it's funny that he says at the start of that, I know that what I'm doing is, you know, changing the future generation or something like that.

Shaping. Shaping the future generation. And he thinks that's health. Oh. Okay. It's health and wealth.

It's the prosperity gospel. It's there at Bethel Church. Wow. So I just found that so prideful that he's taking credit for it.

It has nothing to, I mean, yes, we are supposed to be disciples for our children as well as other adults, but I mean, it just sounds so prideful that he's the one doing the changing.

He's doing the shaping and it's not, it's not up to us. Gets weirder than this. Oh, awesome.

I asked a little girl where the angels were in the room and she pointed off and said, there's one over there by the first graders.

So I asked her, I said, do you know why he's here? And she took off and I think she went and talked to the angel.

And when she came back, she said, he's here for healing. So I had her send all the kids over to the first grade mat where the angel was.

And just a little bit of time later, every single child was healed in the room and no one even had to pray.

Say what now? That's right. So where you were talking about how he's taken all the credit for it.

No glory is going to God at all. We didn't even need to pray and ask. Yep.

Wow. Yeah. That's. Wow. There was an angel over here in the room and she ran over and talked to the angel.

Like I'm teaching kids to be delusional. Yeah. Man. That's.

Okay. I have no words. If there was anybody who still was wondering if Bethel Church was cattywampus, there's the evidence for you.

Cattywonkers. Bonkers, maybe. Bonko.

It's a combination of bonkers and psycho. That's not the weirdest clip from Seth Dahl, or at least that's not the,

I don't know, that might be the weirdest clip, but that's not the first clip from him I ever heard. There was a clip that was circulating several years ago of him preaching a message at Bethel Church in which he was telling the congregation that Jesus had apologized to him.

What? Yep. You ready for this? No. I had a pastor say some things that hurt me really bad.

Hurt me so bad, messed me up emotionally, mentally, really messed me up.

Nothing physical, nothing like that. A pastor I really respected said some words and it hurt me so bad.

And one time I was laying on the floor, actually it was in this room, I'm laying on the floor and in a vision, in an encounter with God, in a vision,

Jesus picks me up and holds me so close that I can't see anything and he holds me so close and Jesus starts to weep and he says, please forgive me.

Please forgive me. I said, what are you talking about? Please forgive you. He said, when that pastor hurt you, it's as if I hurt you.

Please forgive me because it's as if when that pastor hurt you, it's as if I hurt you.

You know how he comes to that rationalization in this vision of Jesus that he had asking for his forgiveness?

It's because Jesus died on the cross for our sins and he took all of our sins upon himself.

So he even took that pastor's sins upon himself. And so therefore Jesus became the one who had offended him.

That's seriously how he rationalizes that. That's not how that works. No. Right. It's a complete corruption, a heretical corruption of the concept of imputation, that Christ took our sins upon himself and clothed us in his righteousness.

The doctrine of imputation is about forgiveness. How Christ has justly paid for the sins that we have committed against God and only for those who have faith in him, not for the sins of absolutely every person on earth.

Otherwise you'd be a universalist. Right. Everybody's sins have been atoned for and so therefore everybody is automatically going to heaven.

But Christ died for his own and whoever has faith in Jesus Christ, their sins are forgiven.

Our sins have been placed upon him. His righteousness has been given to us. Double imputation.

Right. But the fact that our sins were imputed to him does not mean he then became us in the sense that, okay, now everybody's sin that you've done,

I'm the one, I was the adulterer, you know, Jesus saying that. That's not how that works. That's not the way that imputation works.

He became sin who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God through him and this he did for our sake.

Right. But there is a mysterious spiritual imputation that happens there.

It doesn't mean Jesus becomes the one who has therefore offended the brother who had the wrong done against him.

Yeah, complete corruption of the doctrine of imputation. Yeah, I did not see that coming like that. Like whenever you said apologizing,

I just, I thought it meant like, I'm sorry he hurt you or something like that. Not I'm sorry

I'm the one that did it. Right. I'm sorry I'm the one that did it. That was crazy. Yeah. Okay. Didn't see that one coming, did you?

Nope. Nope. As wonky as you've known Bethel Church to be, you know, there's a part where if I played the longer version of that audio,

I just didn't want to take up the whole time with the Bethel Church audio clip. But if I kept playing that, there's actually a part where as he's explaining that he starts stammering.

So it's like, it's clear that you realize what you're saying is messed up and you're trying to cover it.

And you're trying to heal these kids and have a health space. Yeah, with the angel over here, so go and talk to the angel and ask the angel what we're supposed to be doing.

That's so bad. And all the kids go over to that mat where the angel is so we can get our healing.

And I'll pray for those kids. I'm going to keep Becky up tonight if I continue on this.

This vexes her soul. This is just not okay. Yeah, when this is going on in a church, they are corrupting the minds of these kids in this way, teaching them to blaspheme

God. That's essentially what they're doing. That God is a vending machine is just going to give you what it is that you want.

And when you don't get health, it's because you did something wrong. You didn't do it right. What on earth?

Yep. They are setting those kids up for future failure. So he's talking about changing the future generation.

He's going to do that. Yeah. But not for the better. Definitely not. Oh my goodness. Next. It's just, ah.

I'm going to try to move you past this. No. I'm moving you past. I'm stuck on it. Nope, we're going on. Okay, good luck with that.

No more. Okay, here we go. Well, I'm going to try. These next two questions are submitted anonymously.

Okay. First one. Hi, Pastor Gabe. I wanted to know how you would help a person process through loneliness.

I came from a broken family with a fractured extended family. I barely have any friends.

I'm new in this city and I have difficulty retaining the friends that I did have.

Since moving to the South, I live in an area where most people my age are married or comfortable with their current social life.

Studies have shown that loneliness is akin to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

Wow. This person might have seen the same ad on Twitter that I saw actually just recently. Same statistic.

That loneliness, they're saying the detriments to your health that loneliness causes is akin to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

So this individual goes on, I have prayed to God for friends or for a relationship, but those prayers have been lacking in the last three years.

If loneliness is so deleterious to one's health and it's not in God's plan for man to be alone, can you help me understand my next steps and God's will and God's responsibility here?

Anything come to mind for you in particular right away? Well, my first question would be, do you have a church?

Yeah. And to get plugged in there. And once you start getting plugged in, it might take a little bit, but at least you're on a path in the right direction to make some good solid friends that will encourage you and keep you steadfast in the

Lord. I don't know. That's my main, I mean, surely you have to have, well,

I guess if you're retired, it wouldn't be necessary to have a job. I don't know anything about this person.

Well, yeah. Some of the career things that they might be involved in, we don't know that information. And when we say plugged in, that tends to be an evangelical buzz term.

Getting plugged in can mean like volunteer in the Sunday school department or something like that.

Attend Bible studies. Yeah. You're going to have to do a little bit to step out and take some initiative.

Right. Not wait for people to invite you, which for a person who is an introvert, that's a lot more difficult.

It is. I understand that. That is definitely stepping outside your comfort zone. Bring a bag of goodies or something to kind of take the edge off of you feeling awkward that you're coming to this.

At least you have something to give people. Yeah, right. That's great. And it'll give you a good starting point of talking. Sure. So just bring some doughnuts, bring some,

I don't know, baguettes. Baguettes. I don't know if it's an evening.

Cookies. Cookies are always a go. When you first started in on this, I thought it was like walking into church with a bunch of doughnuts.

Be like, hey guys, come meet me. No. I got doughnuts. I was thinking it would take the edge off of meeting people and having that awkward start.

You know, like the whole icebreaker. Yeah. Yeah. That's tough. That's really tough.

And especially as a somewhat introvert, I get like that too.

So that would be, but that's a good starter. You could always wear a t -shirt that says, come meet me.

I have cookies. Yeah. Well, no, that might be a little creepy. Might be odd.

Yeah. But yeah, finding a church, getting to church, talking with people there. Now I would hope that you're part of a congregation where there are people that are kind of reaching, reaching out.

We did a, this was a little over 10 years ago, I think. It was your dad was part of it.

And Brian, his co -pastor at that particular time, and they kind of did a study of some local churches.

Do you remember them doing this? So they would go in with their spouse. One of them would go in with their spouse.

Oh yeah. And the other one would go in by himself. Like I think your mom wouldn't go. Your dad would just go in by himself.

And the one with the spouse, everybody was flocking to. Kids. Right, right. But the one that walked in by themselves, single, almost entirely got ignored, right?

When I first moved to Abilene, Kansas, I lived there for a couple of years.

When I first moved there, the first church that I went to, very friendly church, at least from what

I could tell among everybody else, no one came to me and talked to me. I mean, it was bustling with activity.

People were very happy, conversational stuff always going on. I walked in there by myself.

I walked out by myself. In that entire time that I was there, not one person came up to me and said anything.

And I was a young guy at that time. I would have thought maybe young men would have been a, hey, we need some young guys in this church.

You know, something like that. I would have thought that would have, yeah. But I never went back. It's not a strong suit in the church at the moment.

For people to go out and out of their way to meet the visitors. Yeah. I mean, I find it difficult just because I sit in the front row and I'm usually looking down at the children half the time that I don't know who's been at our church for six weeks and who's just visiting.

So it makes it really tough for me to get out of my comfort zone and I need to get better at that too.

Hey, so are you new? No, I've been here for two months. Yeah, I've been there. I've done that. Yeah. And I've stuck my foot in my mouth quite a few times.

Right, right. So you'll have to have some grace on some folks for that reason. And I hope that it is a church that's a little more outgoing than that.

It's going to reach out to you and draw you in. I'm sorry that you've been dealing with this loneliness for this long. The number one place you're going to come into finding company and people who will want to draw you in as a friend and grow with you and encourage you in the

Lord and help to sanctify you because that's a community project, by the way. As long as you are in this loneliness phase, your sanctification is being hindered since sanctification needs to be done with the entire body of Christ together.

You can read Ephesians 4 talking about that, being knit together in love and holding fast to the head.

First John talking about that a lot as well, that as we grow and mature in loving one another, we must show love to our brothers.

That's part of what Jesus said to his disciples in John chapter 13, a new command that I give you is that you love one another just as I have loved you.

You also are to love one another and you cannot grow in that commandment. Right. In keeping that commandment of our

Lord Christ if you're not with other brothers and sisters in the Lord. Right. So you do need to be part of a church and that's as much on you as it is on the church that you attend, welcoming you in and drawing you in and making you part of that family.

That's important for that church to do that, but it is still, there's a responsibility upon you to find a church and to even have to step out a little bit to say,

I'm going to go to this Bible study. You're going to meet people at the Bible studies, I think more than you're going to meet somebody in the church service on Sunday morning.

Everybody's kind of sitting down facing the same direction. The preacher is preaching, not a lot of interaction going on there, but to then join the

Bible study that is a part of that church and be able to interact with people that are within that study. That's where you're going to make the most relationships.

Right. I also, I had thought of this while you were saying that. Talk to your pastor and your pastor's wife about those who are shut in and can't make it to church because they are lonely and they need that fellowship just as badly as you do.

That would be perfect to go chat with them. Man, let me tell you, the ones that we have, they love to talk and that is wonderful because then it takes a lot of, if you are introverted, it takes a lot of pressure off of you.

You just have to be there and love on them. That's it. Yeah, absolutely. Do you know the song

Light Your World by New Song? I think this came out back in the nineties. It's a pretty old song.

The chorus of this song, well, let me start in the second verse. Just you saying that reminded me of this, and maybe this can help be an encouragement to you as well.

Okay. The second verse starts, a knocking at her door breaks the silence. She looks out to see a little boy from down the street.

She cracks the door, surprised that he came over, flowers in his hand like a little gentle man.

He said, I picked these just for you. I hope you like the color blue. Could I stay a while?

I love to see your smile. Light your world. Let the love of God shine through in the little things you do.

Light your world. And though your light may be reaching only two or three, light your world.

Sorry. I made my wife cry, but yeah, it may be in the fact that you are lonely and the

Lord has placed this on your heart. Maybe you're the one that is going to be stepping out to meet someone else who is lonely and shine a light in their world where they're feeling lonesomeness and darkness in that place.

A couple of passages of scripture for you. So I read to you already from John 13. We also have

Jesus saying to us in John 14 verse 18, I will not leave you as orphans.

I will come to you. Let me jump back to verse 15. If you love me, you will keep my commandments and I will ask the father and he will give you another helper to be with you forever.

Even the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him.

You know him for he dwells with you and he will be with you. And then

Jesus saying in verse 18, I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. First Peter five, seven, cast all your anxieties on him because he cares for you.

Psalm 27, 10 for my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the

Lord will take me in. And you've been teaching Psalm 23 with the kids on Sunday morning and you just went through with them.

Verse four, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me.

That's right. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Tell me what rod and staff means.

Well, the rod is, um, whenever you need a disciplining, right? The rod of correction.

That's right. And the staff is, um, to guide the, the sheep and keep them in line, keep them going the right way.

You explain that to the kids. I just wanted to hear you say it again. You want me, you want to prove that I am over?

No, I thought it would help you collect yourself a little bit. Over crying. Sorry. I didn't realize that reading my lyric was going to make you cry.

Yes. So bad. I mean, it was really, really good. Don't get me wrong.

Yeah. But crying is bad. And then just thinking about the fact that you're crying is making you cry more.

Stop. And then I have mascara, which is just not good. Anonymous, we're going to pray for you when we get to the end of this.

I hope that what we have shared with you has been encouraging. And I hope it didn't come down hard on you as well.

Like when I say you are going to have to take some initiative to step out a little bit. But there, there is some responsibility upon you in the midst of this as well.

Well, and for those that don't know that you're lonely, they, I mean, they don't know. Yeah. So maybe, maybe they want a friend too.

Now they said in their email, uh, if it's not God's plan for me to be alone, can you help me understand my next steps, uh, next steps and God's will and God's responsibility here?

Well, God doesn't have a responsibility to give you a person if, if you're thinking in terms of marriage, because you quote that from Genesis where God looked at the man in Genesis two and said, it is not good for man to be alone.

I will make a helper for him. That doesn't mean that every single man is going to get married and that God has some sort of obligation or responsibility to give you a wife, right?

I will tell you that a feelings of loneliness that you have cannot automatically be solved with friends and even a relationship, right?

You may, you may be in a marriage where you feel alone for the rest of your life. That's true.

And, and an error could be made thinking that this is going to solve your loneliness problem and you end up jumping into a marriage or a relationship that you shouldn't have been in.

And, uh, and then you're, you're even worse off than when you started. So you must find contentment in Christ and know that he is with you.

And though everyone else in the world may forsake you, you are never alone because God is with you.

There's, that's right. There's gonna have to be a contentment in your heart with that first before you can appreciate those friends that God will give you in a way that is giving glory and honor unto the

Lord. That's right. In all things. Because they, I mean, it might be filling a void of where Christ should be filling that void.

Yeah, absolutely. And, and that would be not glorifying him. Yeah. You would be placing those friends up on a pedestal.

That's right. Which is not fair to your friends either. But our Lord God, whom we worship is the father of mercies and the

God of all comforts. The way that Paul describes him in second Corinthians chapter one and where Paul says that we, we thought that we were utterly burdened beyond our strength.

We despaired of life itself. And then he says in second Corinthians one nine, but that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.

Now Paul is talking about going through persecution for the gospel. But if Paul can say this about persecution, then how much can you, who's not being persecuted, look at your situation and scenario and, and be able to say, this is to help me rely more on God who will never leave me nor forsake me.

And then the Lord, I believe will give you friendships, will give you companionship. And I hope that you are able to find that.

And again, as I said, we'll pray for you when we get to the end of the program here. Let me answer my last anonymous question here again.

So I said, I've got two anonymous emails, right? Here's the second one. Different person. Hi, Pastor Gabe and Becky.

I have been listening to your what videos and podcasts for some time and it's been helpful for me.

I have an issue that I honestly don't know how to resolve with scripture. I feel like I've become numb to emotions, specifically saddening ones and heartbreak.

And I'm not sure what has been the cause. I just don't understand why I'm like this.

I can go into more detail with this if you want me to, but I don't know why I feel like I am numb to my emotions.

Have you ever gone through this before? Yes. What would be your advice or your solution to this?

Well, I prayed for God to. Well, first let me ask, like, what would you say was the cause of your numbingness or lack of empathy?

Maybe being overwhelmed and getting busy like a busy lifestyle.

So there's some self absorption that happens. Yeah, I think so. And just trying to focus on me going in the right path and basically self absorption would be a good collective way of putting it.

Yeah. It's not like you got selfish or you did that on purpose, right? It's just a lot of the stuff that's going on in your life was so me focused that you forgot to consider others or child focused.

Yeah, right. Your own kids. It was including homeschooling and going through the day to day and schedule wise and keeping up with everything and checking off the checklist and making sure that, you know,

I'm heading in the right way and I'm learning what I'm supposed to learn and teaching what I'm supposed to teach.

And it's just me, me, me, me, me. Yeah. Usually. And list, list, list, list, list. Yes. Item, item, item.

Check, check, check. Well, check, check. Anyway, there are a few checks not checked.

Yeah, there is a lot. But anyway, so then solution, I come to realize that I was not as broken hearted as I should be as as I read through the scriptures and I see apostles and that were just broken hearted, like sobbing over the lost and the ones who went wayward and yeah, sin and depravity.

Yeah. And I realized that I was, I was pretty hard edged whenever it came to that.

Yeah. Okay. So they send and they're, they need to repent and I'm going to keep going on until they come back and, you know, tell me they are not, not apologizing to me, but just showing in their fruit, in their works that they're sorry and then they can come alongside me again and we're good.

But it's just, I, I finally realized that I should be weeping over them and.

Not rolling your eyes at them, not sighing at how can you guys be such idiots. No. That's me.

Yeah. That wasn't me so much. That may not be you, but that, that was certainly me. Yeah. And I can say that when I got into those places of not feeling empathetic for other people, it's usually because I was probably sitting in front of my computer too long.

So I was looking at people through a social media lens and I had forgotten to consider people in my own congregation, be around more people, even going out and doing face -to -face evangelism instead of, you know, throwing out messages on Twitter and thinking that I'm doing evangelism that way, or I'm fulfilling my evangelism obligation as a pastor.

Paul told Timothy, do the work of an evangelist. So that is a responsibility, a responsibility for me as a pastor to be able to do that as well.

And when I'm just looking at everything through a computer screen, you start to lack empathy.

When you separate yourself from people, it does lead to starting to lose that heart for people.

Right. And that's what I felt like I was doing too, was separating myself and not to a healthy measure anymore.

Yeah. Because I was trying to do it because I was too involved. And so I was trying to do it for healthier reasons. And then it just became the other extreme.

So what I did was I ended up praying that God would help me feel that empathy and be heartbroken over what

I need to be heartbroken over. And it was just, it was eye -opening, but at the same time, it was much needed.

And now I see myself, praise the Lord. He has totally grown me in that aspect of things, where I am brokenhearted over things that I felt like I should have been before, but I really wasn't.

When a loved one loses someone, even though it may not personally affect you, yet now your heart is broken for them because their heart is broken.

That, well, I was always with that part, but I mean, more like...

Yeah, I was going to say, I've never really known a chapter in your life where I've not seen you not empathize with somebody else who's hurting.

Right. Mine was more of if they sin and they're just kind of living in their sin.

And then here I was doing the same thing. Oh, okay. Yeah. You know what I mean? Right. Like, I was not judging them per se as far as like, oh, you're a terrible person, but like, oh,

I see your sin and you really need to start walking, you know, keep walking this way.

Yeah. Keep going. Back to the eye rolling thing, like I was saying before. Sure. Just rolling your eyes at sin. We manifest it in different ways, but yeah.

Yeah, sure. Yeah. It's essentially the same aspect of, come on, you know, but not really going and feeling their,

I don't know. Well let me come to this passage here,

Romans 12 verse 9, which simply tells us, let love be genuine. So don't fake it.

Right. In fact, Paul's instruction to the Colossians, Colossians chapter three is don't lie to one another, but having put on the new self, which is being renewed after the image in knowledge after its creator, that we are to love one another.

So let love be genuine, abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good.

That means we do have to have a disgust over evil things and love the things which we know delight

God. Love one another with brotherly affection. And I think that sometimes loving one another means you're going to have to show affection to one another even when you don't feel it.

But I think in obedience with the Lord Christ and with the empathy of the Holy Spirit that is in our hearts, that there is going to be a desire for one another within the body.

I think that that is going to happen and that's a work that God will do in your heart. But you must be obedient to what the

Lord has said regarding how we are to show love to each other. Outdo one another in showing honor.

That doesn't mean, hey, I'm going to do better for you than you did for me. That's right. One up you one.

It's simply... One up you. One up you one. One up you two. One up you three.

Two up you. It simply means that if somebody does something nice for you, you can repay them like tenfold.

And that's fine. You're not expecting, well, now meet me with the other nine that you didn't give me. Right. It's just outdo one another in showing honor, expecting nothing in return.

Do not be slothful in zeal. Don't hesitate in your excitement or zealousness to show love to each other.

Be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord, rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer, contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.

Open up your home to others. Share what God has given to you with other people.

Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice.

Weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another.

Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. There's some instructions on genuine love, marks of the true

Christian, which Paul gives us there in the book of Romans, in Romans chapter 12. Pray because once again, it says in here, be constant in prayer, pray that the

Lord would give you a soft heart, a heart that desires his people and that desires the things that the

Lord desires. Love the things that God loves, hate the things that God hates, and desire to do the things that you know delights

God. I was not as quick to be excited with people.

I mean, I would try to be, but I didn't want to fake it because it says, you know, do not fake it. And so, but for some reason, it was holding me back.

And so, yeah, now I feel like I'm getting closer to where I wanted to be, where I knew

I needed to be. Well, that's that sanctification being a community project sort of a thing. So we're all growing in sanctification.

Yeah. So you should be able to say, well, I'm getting there. I'm getting there. I'm getting there.

Well, let's pray for our first anonymous friend, and then we'll conclude the program altogether.

Okay. Our Lord God, our heavenly father, the one who has considered our need and has loved us before we first loved you.

I thank you for the affection, the kindness, the fatherliness that you have shown us each and every day, having been adopted into the family of God through the blood of Jesus Christ.

Once we were enemies of God, we have now been made friends of God. And as Paul said in Titus chapter three, once we were hated by others and hating one another, but in Christ Jesus, we've become brothers and sisters with the saints in faith.

And so I pray that we would find that companionship that is necessary for us within the body of Christ so that we may show brotherly love to one another and help build each other up and grow one another in sanctification and in truth and in holiness and in righteousness.

We are our brother's keeper. And so I pray we would be looking out for one another and that companionship that is expected in the body of Christ, the brotherly love is being displayed for this is what you have commanded of your disciples.

Love one another as I have loved you. And I pray for our first anonymous friend in this program today, that you would give him a friend that first of all, he would know that he's got a friend in Jesus and that he is completely content with the company of his savior and the

Holy Spirit that has been poured into his heart, but that he would also find a companion in his life that is able to grow him in sanctification, that is keeping him in check, that is admonishing him, correcting him, teaching him in love and all wisdom as the instruction is given in Colossians 3 16, teach and admonish one another in all wisdom.

According to the word of Christ, may we have friends around us who humble us and keep us submissive unto the

Lord, obeying you and doing all things to the glory of God through our savior, Jesus Christ.

And it's in his name that we pray. Amen. Amen. Say what?

What? Something, something down south.

What'd you say? Hey, you remember my Bible? I was just thinking about this. Thank you.

No, um, you know, when a text message comes up, but you don't have to open it, you can put a already read or something like that.

Sure. Do you know what I'm talking about? I guess. I don't ever do that with my text message. I do it with my emails, but I don't do that with my text messages.

I don't have emails come up as messages. Well, yeah, I know. But in your inbox, you can either mark it as red or text me and I'll show you what

I'm talking about. Why? You're standing next to me. I don't know. I have to run back up for my sweatshirt,

I'm cold. Okay. Marked as red.

Marked as red. Oh, okay. So I tried to click that. And you clicked on Rizzo the rat instead?

No, and it pulled up the text messages instead of doing what I was trying to do.

Okay, that was a very long explanation for something that really has not changed my life at all.

I can't tell. Yeah. Hey, you were pushing. I was pushing. I was pushing.