Episode 103: Jesus, the Living Word: Speaking Light into our Chaos

Jacob Paul: Welcome to the Truth in Love podcast with your hosts Kimberly Faith and John Mack. The Truth in Love podcast seeks to present God’s timeless truth through the lens of his remarkable love.

Kimberly Faith: Alright. Well, dad, we are back here for podcast 103.

John McLarty: Well, that’s exciting, Kim. Very these podcasts and fellowship with you and then opening up the word of God and seeing what it has for 100%. For us and and our listeners. And thank you for joining.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks for the introduction. We’re today, we’re talking about Jesus as the word, how he, as the word, speaks directly into our chaos. And we had we had a little chaos today.

John McLarty: Well, it’s like my daughter says, dad life is full of trouble.

Kimberly Faith: Get used to it. Well, the good Lord knows that he did not create me to be an engineer. And so we’re actually just for those who might be listening and wonder if they think we have it all together. We actually recorded this podcast once, but, due to my not so great engineering skills, we have to do it again.

John McLarty: So the full bluff is this is take two.

Kimberly Faith: Correct? Yeah. Full bluff. That’s right. But this is you know, we always talk about how God uses things that we think are not good and he works them for good.

And so we’re just gonna see what he does today. And this thought though that Jesus as the word speaks directly into our chaos, is so it’s been such a great, great study, for me personally. And let’s just kinda start. I I wanna kinda I wanna get God’s word out there out front first in this because we I wanna just put God on the throne in this podcast. Amen.

Kimberly Faith: So let’s let’s just start with the imagery. We’re gonna compare the imagery from Genesis one to what, was written in the book of John chapter one.

John McLarty: Perfect.

Kimberly Faith: And so do you wanna read the one in Genesis, and I’ll read the one in John?

John McLarty: How about we just start with the very beginning of the bible, Kim? Okay. Genesis one one through three. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep.

And the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, let there be light, and there was light.

Kimberly Faith: And then we have John chapter one verses one through three also, which is interesting. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him, nothing was made that was made. I read when I read those verses and think about those verses in the parallel, Genesis and John one one through three, All I can think about is the power of the trinity from the beginning, communicating together in perfect unity.

And that the the way that we comprehend that, the way that we take that in is so relevant to our lives today. Because think about this, God spoke the word, which John one tells us is Jesus, and the spirit’s hovering. Jesus created everything. He spoke from the darkness or into the darkness, into the chaos Right. Into the great void.

And this is exactly what he does for us today. And that’s what we’re gonna talk about today, how Jesus, the word, speaks into our chaos.

John McLarty: Yeah. And that, void we experience is lack of peace. Chaos is a good description for

Kimberly Faith: it. Right.

John McLarty: And, yeah, it’s really interesting that John one one through three, it’s such a such a revelation. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. And then later on in John, it it makes it very clear that this word is Jesus Christ.

Kimberly Faith: Right. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. Right.

John McLarty: But this idea that in the beginning was the God and then with God and the word was God. So the trinity.

Kimberly Faith: Yes.

John McLarty: And then as we read in Genesis, all involved in creation.

Kimberly Faith: Well, what’s what’s so interesting is that in Genesis, Jesus isn’t mentioned.

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: But it said, God said, let there be light. Mhmm. And there was light. And then John one John one ties that all together for us.

John McLarty: Bears it up.

Kimberly Faith: So let’s look at this word. What does the word actually mean? And we’re gonna look at two layers of this. And so first of all, this first layer is the inner word. And the way I like to think about this is, you know, before we speak, a thought forms inside of us.

And the reason the the way people know what’s in our brain is by what we speak. Right? And so

John McLarty: That’s very true.

Kimberly Faith: It’s so true.

John McLarty: Think a word before we say it.

Kimberly Faith: We we have an idea. Like

John McLarty: But until we express it, no one else knows what we’re what the thought was.

Kimberly Faith: Exactly.

John McLarty: So we express it.

Kimberly Faith: Exactly. And so that taken to as applied to these verses, imagine Jesus as the inner thought of the father made visible for all humanity. That is that’s not something we can comprehend.

John McLarty: Yeah. His loving kindness, his his sacrifice, his

Kimberly Faith: just,

John McLarty: yeah. Everything that he is is represented in Jesus and and shown to us manifest.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. And this is a great mystery, obviously. Just like, I mean, you know, how thoughts form in our mind and then come out to be ideas. I mean, you may I remember when you and mom started the Little Italy business. You know, you you had a thought, you had a plan, you you talked about it, and then the way that people knew that you had that thought was they went in and ate your great lasagna.

Know?

John McLarty: Put it into practice.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. And this this idea that Jesus, the word, is the inner expression of God the father, that’s not something we can really fully comprehend, which is kind of the point. Because it invites us to worship. You know, it invites us to worship because we can’t understand it. Does that make little

John McLarty: aside here just as you know, and then the word was expressed through Jesus, and we saw him manifest in the flesh. Mhmm. But then Jesus expressed the love of God in the very creation of the world. It’s an expression of the love of God.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. The beauty.

John McLarty: And it says nothing was made, and through him all things were made. Nothing was made that was made that wasn’t created by Jesus.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. That’s right. And so I the second idea so we have the the word that reveals the, you know, the the inner word, which is the thought living inside of us, this thought being Jesus being the inner thought of the father. And then we have the spoken word, which the speech that makes hidden the hidden mind known, Jesus is the father’s speech to humanity. And what’s so interesting again, this is this is not a thing that we can necessarily wrap our minds around.

But I think about when Jesus said in John fourteen six, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the father but by me. In other words, he is making the unseen spirit of God known to humanity from inside a relationship. In other words, it’s not an intellectual pursuit, but it’s inside a relationship. He’s saying, I am revealing who my father is, and I am the way into a relationship with my father.

John McLarty: And no one comes to the father except through me. So you think about even in that father, son, and holy ghost, holy spirit, there’s a relationship.

Kimberly Faith: Mhmm.

John McLarty: But then Jesus leads us to that relationship he has with the father. Right. And no one comes to the father except through me.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. We talked about that in the podcast on the great dance. You know. Mhmm. The the how we’re invited to this relationship with the father, son, and the holy spirit.

But to think about I don’t think there’s a more beautiful truth that God is teaching me this moment that Jesus is the manifestation. You know, he came and lived on the earth and showed us how to live perfectly. And when creation was spoken into being, all these things that are manifestations that Jesus showed us as humans to our physical senses are really manifestations of the heart and the mind of the father.

John McLarty: Exactly. His his you know, I just think about this, Kim. His loving kindness. And we’ve talked about just even in this creation, this world that we live in, it’s not just a dull world. I mean, it’s a beautiful world.

The multitude of food variations. Wasn’t You like our food? God just gave gave us a little vanilla wafer as our only meal.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Right.

John McLarty: And just so many ways his loving kindness is revealed to us through creation and through his son.

Kimberly Faith: His loving kindness is better than life. That’s you know? Therefore, my lips will praise you. And I don’t remember where where that comes from, but this is of the Psalms. You know?

And so Jesus is you know, he is the message. He’s not just a messenger. He is the message expression of God. Think about how that changes the way you read the gospels. You know, you’re you’re reading the revelation of the innermost part of the father, the inner thoughts of the father, the word, this this written word who and the story of Jesus.

So you’re getting like it’s a double dose almost of the written word that is giving you the intellectual capacity to understand this is the word. This is Jesus making known who the father is. And then this was his life. This is what he did.

John McLarty: Mhmm.

Kimberly Faith: You know? It’s like you have it in cinematic form, and you have the subtitles. You know? That’s

John McLarty: That’s interesting. He’s showing us the father and the way to the father.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. Yes.

John McLarty: Because he said, if you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the father. Yeah. So that is so interesting.

Kimberly Faith: Well, and it’s and it’s it’s we are able to read God’s thoughts. In other words, God’s thoughts were made audible. And and I’m not gonna say we could understand God’s thoughts, but we’d get we at least get to try. You know? Amen.

I I think that, you know, that and that kinda leads us to this idea about, you know, that if Jesus is the manifestation of the father, well, then we need to understand a better we need to get a better picture of the father. Because I think we have you know, our culture our culture denigrates men, denigrates fathers. It it think about all the movies and all the songs and all the social media, all the stuff that we see. Our whole lifetime makes fun of fathers, doesn’t elevate fathers. I mean, I’ll bet you and I’m just guessing, the percentage of movies made that have fathers in high esteem versus low esteem, I’ll bet it’s pretty it’s I bet it’s pretty it outweighs

John McLarty: be an interesting study.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah.

John McLarty: Here here’s two forms which both are not true of the heavenly father.

Kimberly Faith: Yes.

John McLarty: One is this overstrict authoritarian father

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: That you can never please.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: Right? That’s just, you know, terrible to live with. And then the other one is this bumbling nincompoop that can’t do anything right.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: So both are not flattering of fathers.

Kimberly Faith: Yes.

John McLarty: And yeah, you think about it. You think about movies and just portrayal on TV. Very seldom do you just see a wise, loving, kind, compassionate father. Yeah.

Kimberly Faith: You know, that’s so true. And and if you contrast that with what Luke chapter 15 talks about when he when he read the the story of the prodigal. And, you know, this father, he spots his son. He’s actually been looking for him. You know, he isn’t just in there just enjoying having his best life.

He’s been looking for him. And here comes his son probably covered in pig poop. He probably, you know, he’s been feeding with the pigs, and then he remembers how good his father is. And he he so he makes he makes his way back. And his father doesn’t wait for him to come on with his ledger.

Okay. Here are all the things that you we’re gonna make this we’re gonna get this right because you did all these things that you to offend me.

John McLarty: The accounting.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. The accounting. Right? No. He runs.

Father runs towards him. You know, just you can just see this picture of this, you know, this princely father who is, you know, very wealthy. He’s very well established. He’s respected. And he’s just sweeping his pig’s dye smelling son off the off his feet and just embracing him.

And then he kills the fatted calf. Yep. You know? And this this guy doesn’t even get to make his apology before the father’s just like, you you came.

John McLarty: Yeah. Well, I’ll just read this out of Luke fifteen twenty. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him. So the prodigal’s coming back. Right.

He had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And then, yeah, had a feast for him.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And it’s and, you know, I think that we have to work to undo the image of God

John McLarty: We do.

Kimberly Faith: That the culture has that Satan really you know, we talked about Satan and the four lies he told in the garden, they told Eve. Those are the four lies that are that are completely obliterating what a father is supposed to be. And that is not what the Bible presents as God the father.

John McLarty: Yeah. The Satan, the serpent challenge is is the father really telling the truth? Right. And does the father really care for you? Right.

And is, you know, just he’s trying to hold hold things back from you.

Kimberly Faith: Well, and and what about the way that Jesus prayed in the Garden Of Gethsemane when he was, you know, when he was in agony and sweating drops of blood, you know, and he’s praying. He’s using the word Abba to describe his father, which also I think is is used in Romans chapter eight verse 15. Do you wanna read that?

John McLarty: Yeah. And that’s that’s a great verse. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, Abba, father.

Kimberly Faith: We cry out. That’s us. That’s you and me. Our father says, you know, I’m your Abba. I’m your papa, which is Aramaic for papa.

John McLarty: Yeah. That’s the and the the the you might say, affectionate term.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. Yes. Or,

John McLarty: daddy, papa.

Kimberly Faith: You know, it’s it’s so interesting that I think when I read something that when when Paul when that was written, the Jewish people actually considered that way too informal to use to address God. Mhmm. Irreverent. You know?

John McLarty: Yeah.

Kimberly Faith: And but, you know, I I and this ties into what Jesus said. I use this verse in Matthew chapter seven verse 11 all the time to reassure myself of who the father is. Will will you read that?

John McLarty: Yeah. This is, Matthew seven eleven. If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Yeah. That’s great.

Kimberly Faith: It’s you know, it it’s so I don’t care whether you’re a father or mother. You’ve got lots of baggage, lots of failure, lots of imperfection. But yet, even the worst parent, and I’ve seen a lot of them my practice, has some desire to do good things for their children. And, you know, that is because we’re all created in the image of God. And we have his desires for love, and and and love is something we give, obviously.

And, you know, god is that imperfection. Jesus is like, you can understand this. You’ve either been a child or you are a parent. You can understand this even your own broken efforts to give good things. And I think there’s another passage that says if your child asks for bread, will you give him a scorpion, right, or a serpent?

No. And if God who is perfect, the father is perfect, if if we wanna give good gifts, how much more does god in all his perfection wanna give us good gifts? And, you know, we think we tend to think about this in materialistic terms, I think. But what are the what are the things that money can’t buy? Money can’t buy life.

Money can’t buy love. Money can’t buy peace, joy. All those things that we long for, the father says, I can give all those things to you in a relationship.

John McLarty: Your acceptance.

Kimberly Faith: Acceptance. Right.

John McLarty: Accepted in the beloved.

Kimberly Faith: And it’s we have to if we’re going to be able to understand this benefit of the word in our chaos, we have to know who our father is. And this is just it’s just so critical. And and, you know, I feel like every day I’ve gotta remind myself of these things. It’s not like I wake up one morning and go, oh, I just appreciate God the father for who he is. No.

I don’t.

John McLarty: We we really are programmed by the culture to to have this this wrong headed attitude towards fatherhood.

Kimberly Faith: It’s it’s so true. And we have to retrain our brain. I mean, you know, to get that that judicial part of our brain that this you know, the god the father is just waiting to judge us and to hang us. No. That is not who he is, especially when we’re born again.

Now it it’s what’s so interesting is that when and this is super critical. If you’re looking for Jesus the word to speak to your chaos and you’re not born again, it will never happen. It will never happen because your soul and spirit have not been made in Christ. You are not even capable of receiving the relationship. Does that make sense?

John McLarty: Yeah. It does. I’m just looking back at this verse. It says, for you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear. This is talking about people who have been saved, who have been born again, but you receive the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, Abba Father.

So this is talking to people that have come to Christ, accepted the gift of salvation

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: And received Christ. And then, you know, we’re made accepted in the beloved.

Kimberly Faith: That’s so good.

John McLarty: We’re adopted children.

Kimberly Faith: Thanks for bringing that up. That’s a really good tie back into that verse. It’s one of my favorite verses, actually. So going back to Jesus the word and and this idea that in the beginning, he was he was the one who shattered the darkness. Right?

I mean, it was him that brought the light and and and dispelled the darkness. This is where this kinda gets this is where I you know, mentioned this gets personal. We’ve got lots of examples in the Bible of of Jesus of the Jesus speaking and things happening. Like, we just talked about Genesis. Jesus called Lazarus from the tomb in John 11.

John McLarty: He said, come forth. Yeah.

Kimberly Faith: Said, come forth. Jesus commanded the waves, the raging sea to be still when he said, peace be still.

John McLarty: Mhmm. I think of the verse too that says, my peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth peace, but my peace. Yeah. So the Christ, the word wants to still as Christians and as lost people through salvation. But then in the storms of the Christian life, he wants to give us his peace.

Kimberly Faith: He does.

John McLarty: And he does.

Kimberly Faith: Love that you brought

John McLarty: Totally capable.

Kimberly Faith: I love that you brought that verse up because, you know, I I’m one of these people that I find one of the things that I do that really kind of is a reset for me is hiking. I love to be out or even just going on my back deck, you know, watching the sunset. But without God, without the presence of God in my life, I don’t have that peace. It’s temporary fix. It’s like a maybe a temporary high.

But then when I go back in, the anxiety’s back.

John McLarty: Mhmm.

Kimberly Faith: You know? Mhmm. Whereas when I have the the spirit of God, the presence of God with me, and I go out into nature, it’s a double it’s a double dip. That’s a good best way I can think to put it. Everything physical that we enjoy becomes exponentially better when it’s enjoyed in the presence of God.

John McLarty: Absolutely.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. So and and he not only allows his presence in nature to calm us and to give us peace, but he gives us the presence in our soul, a reassurance. He speaks to the confusion. Sometimes we don’t have the answers even when we go and and and go we run to the father. You know, I’m I’m sure when the prodigal son ran home to the father, it wasn’t like he had all the answers and everything was gonna be made like it was before he left.

You know?

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: That’s not what was but he had the presence of his father again. And that that was all he needed. He didn’t have to have all the answers to, you know, now what? Right? Which is what we’re gonna talk about next week.

John McLarty: You know, this is something we, yeah, we learn as Christians is that we can have that peace. But our default at least my default position in life is in the flesh is to kinda worry about things and anxiety. Right. But God God wants to give us peace, his peace.

Kimberly Faith: Isn’t it crazy how when God fixes one thing, we and the holy spirit’s really been convicting me about this. Instead of spending meaningful time thanking God for all you know, for answering this monumental prayer that was causing me, you know, whatever consternation, I’m almost immediately onto the next worry. And this is not how we were intended to live. No. No.

We were not intended to live this way.

John McLarty: And I think that’s the brain of the flesh. Yeah. It’s just kind of a worrisome Yeah.

Kimberly Faith: Think about when let’s say when my little girl my Sarah. My little girl, Sarah, who’s an adult now. But when she was a little girl, what if Sarah you know, we had breakfast and Sarah immediately started worrying about lunch.

John McLarty: Exactly.

Kimberly Faith: Mean, what would that say about me as a parent? Mhmm. It’s like, no. Sweetheart, I’ve I’ve given you breakfast, lunch, and dinner for all five years of your life. You need to go enjoy school.

You know, you need to go do all the things that you were intended to be. Be all you can be here, sweetheart. You don’t have to worry about lunch. But that’s kinda what we Yeah.

John McLarty: Have I ever just failed to feed you the next meal?

Kimberly Faith: But we but we do that with God.

John McLarty: We do that with God.

Kimberly Faith: He gives us he’s giving us our breath. Hello.

John McLarty: You

Kimberly Faith: know? I I and I think this is a good place to kind of pause, you know, because we’re we’re talking about opening our bible is not just an intellectual, you know, consultation with God.

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: This is the eternal word speaking into whatever chaos or darkness or hard times that we are facing.

John McLarty: Very one on one.

Kimberly Faith: Very one on one. But if you are listening to this and you’ve never experienced that, it it’s most likely because you’ve never been born again. And because the bible says in first Corinthians two fourteen, the natural man, that’s the unregenerated man, does not receive the things of the spirit of God for they are foolishness to him. In other words, incomprehensible. Nor can he know them, completely unknowable, because they are spiritually discerned.

You know, our soul and spirit are born again Right. Christ makes us new creatures. And then we can then his word becomes alive to us. And that’s super important. If you have not received Jesus Christ as your lord and savior, that has to be that has to come first before the word of God and Jesus can ever speak into your darkness or your chaos.

John McLarty: But since before we’re born again, the soul that sinneth that shall die dies that separation from God. So we’re without this resource

Kimberly Faith: Yes.

John McLarty: For peace.

Kimberly Faith: Yes.

John McLarty: So that’s why humanity is full of anxiety and lack of peace Yes. And doing all kinds of things to fill that hole.

Kimberly Faith: Absolutely.

John McLarty: And, actually, the answer is Jesus Christ. The provision God made Right. On the cross, then we ask for forgiveness of sins, yield our life to Jesus. Then as we’re born again, that soul is made alive, and then that opens this up.

Kimberly Faith: That changes everything.

John McLarty: That changes everything.

Kimberly Faith: And and, you know, the Bible says in John sixteen thirteen, it says, when he, the spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth. At the moment we are born again, we receive the gift of the holy spirit. And we’ve had two wonderful podcasts on the gift of the holy spirit and all the things holy spirit does. You know, he’s our advocate. He’s our helper.

He intercedes in our prayers. All these things. And we it’s like we’ve got night vision goggles that have True. Amen. This truth that just reveals, oh, that’s a pitfall there.

Oh, that’s a red herring over there. Here, I’m gonna walk this way because the mud and the sinking sand is over here, you know? And the word becomes something entirely different to us, and it’s because it’s alive. I think about Hebrews four twelve, you know. And you know, let me just pause for a minute.

Let me just tell the story. There was a I met this young man this week, and and I I’ll tell you this story because Hebrews four twelve, know the word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than a two edged sword, piercing in the division of soul and spirit, and as a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Well, I was I was talking to this young man. He he

John McLarty: And came this word is alive.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. It’s alive.

John McLarty: And powerful.

Kimberly Faith: And and so, you know, this he came to see me, and and I had completely I mean, I I asked the Lord to guide me, asked the spirit to guide me through my day. But sometimes I just get distracted, get busy, was not thinking about his soul. But the spirit is so good, took over the conversation probably two minutes in, and led me to start asking him like, you know, who are you? Tell me about your family. You know, just kinda getting to know him, showing some interest in him.

And then the question that the Holy Spirit led me to ask him was, what do you wanna be when you grow up? And this kid was in his late twenties. And he just looked at me and goes, I don’t know. I said, do you know what God has planned for you? And he said, no.

I said, God has he has written a whole story for you. The Bible says he’s written

John McLarty: Amen.

Kimberly Faith: The story of your life. Do you feel like right now that you’re actually living the story that God wrote? And he starts crying. He’s like, no. I said, man.

I said, have you been born again? He said, well, I’ve been baptized. I said, what’s that got to do with anything?

John McLarty: I

Kimberly Faith: said, you know, the Bible says by grace through faith are you saved and not of works, lest any man should boast. Baptism is a work, isn’t it? He goes, yeah, I never thought about that. I said, you need to be born again so that you can get on the path to know what the story is that God’s written to you. And so the conversation kind of kept on like that.

And the Holy Spirit was just leading with verse after verse after verse.

John McLarty: That is fantastic.

Kimberly Faith: It was not me. It was the Holy Spirit taking the word, which is Jesus Right. And working. And he was just crying. He said, I don’t even know why I’m crying.

He says, I’m just I never cry. And I and this is where this Hebrews four twelve, I said, because the word of God is quick and powerful and it’s a discerner of the thoughts and intents of your heart. I don’t know what’s going on inside you, but the holy spirit does. And the word that I’ve been quoting to you reveals that to you. And he just like said he said, you’re really smooth.

I said, no. No. No. I said, that’s not me to have full experience.

John McLarty: That sounds very familiar to me. My salvation was a lot like that.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. And and it’s and it’s like the most one of the clearest signs that we are born again is where we experience the power of God’s word transforming us to and helping us and desiring to be more like Jesus.

John McLarty: So you have to tell us the rest of that story. What did this young man do?

Kimberly Faith: Well, you know, he he it was so funny. I said, man, I said he’s I said, have you been born again? He goes, no. I don’t think I have. I said, what are you waiting for?

John McLarty: Amen.

Kimberly Faith: And he said, well, I’m just not sure I really wanna give it all over to God. And I said, dude, you’re not promised tomorrow. He said he’s he was so cute. He goes, well, the Bible says, for with God, all things are nothing is impossible with God, I said. But the Bible says, it is appointed unto man once to die and then the judgment.

I said, you’re taking that verse out of context. You gotta look at the whole Bible together. He goes, oh, I’ve never heard that verse before.

John McLarty: Yeah. Interesting.

Kimberly Faith: And so I said, do you really wanna gamble your eternal future on something that you’re hanging onto here on earth that’s gonna burn up anyway? He said, no. I guess I don’t. And so he prayed and received Jesus Christ as Lord and And I was like

John McLarty: That’s wonderful.

Kimberly Faith: It was so wonderful. And it was just one of those moments where we’re we’re talking about Jesus the word, dispelling the chaos. That’s the pinnacle example of that occurring. He was the light when it came in, the darkness, all the doubts, all the things that he the the wrong things he had thought about how to know God were thrown out the window by the light of God’s word.

John McLarty: And what’s so interesting is you did not intellectually persuade him No. To make profession of faith. No. The word of God, you might say, pierced his his heart.

Kimberly Faith: Yes.

John McLarty: Pierced his mind and showed him his his problem and the solution.

Kimberly Faith: Yes.

John McLarty: Well, amen.

Kimberly Faith: And it’s and what’s so crazy about this whole thing is that I, you know, I the the chaos of our day, that we all experience chaos. We all we live in a chaotic world. We live in a world that is ruled by the prince of the power of the air, which is not God. It’s Satan. And anything from your gas your gas tank is low to how am I gonna pay the bills to

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: I’ve got a grandchild who’s got these problems. I you know, how are we gonna solve this problem or that problem? You’ve got a HR problem. All this chaos culminates and tries to distract us from our purpose.

John McLarty: It does.

Kimberly Faith: And Absolutely. Jesus, you know, when we ask him at the at the very beginning of the day before we can get out of bed, light my path, dispel the chaos, then we get these great opportunities that would have never happened had we been living in the chaos as opposed to above it. And that’s what the word does. You know, that is Jesus, the word, is the one who shines the light into our darkness.

John McLarty: That’s so key.

Kimberly Faith: Yes.

John McLarty: And wants to give us peace, his peace, past his understanding Right. Light for our path, and just, you know, walking know, even the life has valleys, has troubles.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: He’s with us.

Kimberly Faith: You say the valley. I mean, Psalms twenty three four, David says, yay, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, which is our greatest enemy here on earth. Right? I will fear no evil for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

John McLarty: Perfect. Psalm twenty three four.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And David doesn’t say, I won’t fear any evil because the valley’s gone. Oh, no. Oh, no. We live in a in a world that is corrupted by sin and but we get to live.

We get to live letting God lead us. And that’s actually what we’re gonna talk about next week is how how do we hear God in the chaos. We’ve learned today that Jesus, the word, speaks. He speaks the into the chaos. But, you know.

John McLarty: And, you know, we can trust him for salvation, obviously.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: And we can trust him through life’s valleys

Kimberly Faith: Yes.

John McLarty: And troubles.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. That’s right. You know, it’s I just I just wanna come back to this an original point we were talking about that Jesus, he wasn’t just our messiah. And that’s a lot. I’m not minimizing that.

He wasn’t just a great teacher. He is the father’s perfect self expression.

John McLarty: Amen.

Kimberly Faith: And that that is the message. That is the message. He is the the the self expression of the father. Man, I you know, this this is very personal. We need to get to know our father because when we know our father, we know who we are.

And then we know why we’re here. We know what our purpose is. We stay on point in our mission, our life. And then it’s it’s kinda like, you know, going back to to Sarah and and worrying about her lunch. We as Christians don’t need to live like that.

Worried about things like our next lunch. We need to worry about the person who crosses our path who doesn’t know Jesus. And when we are allowing Jesus the word

John McLarty: to

Kimberly Faith: shine the light into our darkness, And we don’t don’t worry about the next meal. We’re not worried about how much gas is in our gas tank. We see through his perspective.

John McLarty: Yeah. I think when when we allow our own flesh and our own worry to get kinda get wrapped around that axle, then, if you’ve been concerned with some other problem that day, you might have missed that opportunity. But when we have that peace, it’s just such a blessing and God wants peace for us, then we’re more helpful more likely and more helpful to others.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. Yes. And we

John McLarty: you know,

Kimberly Faith: and and I think about Hebrews chapter four. I wanna end with this. It says, we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but he has in all points. All points. The bills, the, you know, being tired, you know, being hot, being thirsty.

All points, been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. See, I when I think about that that’s out of Hebrews chapter four. When I think about that, just going back to that scenario of that young man, sometimes I think the Holy Spirit just sets up his bulldozing equipment. And he just bulldozes a path ahead of us because we need that.

There were thoughts that before that encounter with that that young man that I I remember thinking, why am I even going to see this person? It’s not I can’t help him. You know? The Holy Spirit bulldozed all that out of the way and set me up to be an instrument to lead this kid into eternity.

John McLarty: Amen. And

Kimberly Faith: I I just wanna encourage you, if you’re listening to this podcast and you’re a Christian, you were born again, and you feel like the chaos is closing in and and just making your life, I don’t know, full of anxiety. You don’t have to live that way. Jesus is not anxious. The father is not anxious. And if we belong to him, we don’t have to live that way either.

Is our great high priest. We can come boldly because we are his child. We can cry out, Abba. Abba, father. Right?

John McLarty: And our god is a god of mercy and grace.

Kimberly Faith: He sure is.

John McLarty: His nature.

Kimberly Faith: He sure is. Well, next time we’re gonna talk about how to actually hear God in the chaos.

John McLarty: Amen. Very good.

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