David Asscherick: A Journey With Jesus

[Music] so when I came into Christianity I didn't leave all of that idealism at the door I just brought it with me right we sometimes have this idea that when you're baptized you leave all your baggage you leave all that behind and now you're this new creature in Christ that's true but that transition is incremental and it's sequential and we grow into who we are in Christ every journey with Jesus is unique but one thing is certain every road of sojourning has both the transcendent moments of mountaintop clarity as well as the valleys dark night of the soul so today we have the privilege of getting to know someone who has experienced both joining us on this podcast is David Ash Rick a well-known speaker preacher pastor author avid rock climber husband and father on today's program we will take an inside look into his own spiritual journey of fatherlessness thorns in the flesh spiritual maturation from his youth experience with professional jealousy and as the crowning jewel his journey of falling in love with Jesus day after day if you're not already following us on Facebook and Instagram you can find us at the handle at Advent next joining us as my co-host as max akka and I'm your host Kendra Arsenal and this is at that next so I have a confession to make those who are listening we had an amazing incredible phenomenal first episode with David asterik and it was not recorded there were four people in the room and we all were extremely blessed it was a really good podcast it's really good but it was it was a limited release yeah limited to one guy one guy who's shaking his fists in triumph in the and the three of us I mean it was great to be a part of that conversation it was great so we're gonna try our best to kind of recreate some of the magic that happened okay I think that the Lord is going to bless us and so thank you Jesus and Kendra just be of good courage she was you were a little discouraged but running around she tore down half the studio it was I said fire please it was it was I was heartbroken but that's because the Lord is gonna bless this one even more and don't feel any time constraints let's just have that conversation it's gonna be awesome so I wanted to kind of get the behind-the-scenes look at who David Eric is I think people see you on a platform they see you doing a wonderful ministry God has blessed you and elevated you and I kind of wanted to kind of know a little bit of behind the scenes of who you are and share that with this audience so that you have this opportunity to kind of share you know who's the real David and one of the things I wanted to kind of start off with is looking at the thorn in the flesh you know I think that as God brings us to different heights in our ministry as he entrust us with more responsibility sometimes he also brings a thorn that is of the same magnitude they kind of keep us humble and I was wondering what is that thorn in your life look like well first of all I want to say thank you guys so much for having me on the podcast here I've been a follower of yours on Instagram for several months I love the look I love the vibe I love the interviews you had dr. Peckham on while back that was incredible great interview by the way you guys really do a great job so thank you so this is gonna sound like kind of a funny answer but my personal feeling is I think if you go back and look at the text Paul's thorn in the flesh was probably related to his eyesight right there are these little textual hints and indications that you know probably traced back to his experience there on Damascus Road where he was blinded by the risen Christ and then he went into Damascus and three days was blinded and you know I know you guys are both in seminary so you would know some of these like little intimations that it was maybe the eyes right he says in Galatians you would have given me your eyes if you could have large Henry yeah the large handwriting right you see I've signed this with my own name look at how large the handwriting is so two things I want to give kind of an unusual answer here the first is one of the things that's been difficult from me in my life and and I think this is only coming more and more to the forefront of sort of my awareness is since I've had children now that are transitioning into their late teens and over the course of sort of my parenting and my two boys I have noticed that my own fatherlessness in my early life is showing up in ways that I would have never expected sort of the short version there is I never met my illogical father he was very young my mom was very young when I was born he left about three weeks later Wow a couple years later my mom remarried and the man that she married was not my dad but she and he had my younger brother so we have same mom different dad and he stuck around for like six years seven years and then left now that was particularly hard for my brother as you might imagine because when my biological father left me I never met him and I was still a little baby wrapped in a you know a blanket hmm but when my brother's dad left he what my brother was like six years old I was like nine and he was my dad like he was like my you know not my biological father but he was a father figure and so we both had significant experiences of abandonment from our father and it wasn't until we were in almost our early teen when I was in my early teens where I got a dad that is now my father to this day he's an incredible man he loves my mom he's loved me and my brother and I've got two brothers and two sisters he brought two to the family and then my mom and dad had adopted a sister so it's really a crazy family wild wonderful composite family but in the raising of my own children I have found myself at times just feeling almost an anger or a frustration at times even like I kind of like I'm on the verge of violence and I'm not a violent person not at all and I'm thinking where's that coming from and I think it's coming from the sort of reservoir of unconsciousness about this father wound right what some have called the father wound that I have in my life and that has been an opportunity for me to rely on my Heavenly Father yes and throughout my teen years and then into my 20s 30s and now my 40s my my dad the man that I call my dad now whose last name I bear asterik has become an incredible father figure to me Wow so he was so your last name comes from someone who wasn't your biologic yeah no yeah I've actually had three last names so I was born David Cross and then I was David Dorman II after I was adopted the first time for like seven years and then I was adopted again my own choice I actually spoke on this this morning at Andrews I chose the name asuric because I elected to be adopted by this this new man that was in my mom's life who to me was somebody to be wary of right I'd already been left by my first dad left by my second dad who was my brother's biological father so I was on the backfoot like I was not ready to accept another father-like figure into my life but he he was incredible frankly and he loved my mom and he loved me and he loved my brother and we were given the option by my mom whether or not to be adopted and we elected to be adopted so the name that I have now is a name this will sound kind of crazy but it's a name I've chosen right a Sharik is a name because it felt so weird to have the name of somebody who was not my biological father who had abandoned me right why would I have that name right so this name now I love this name a Sharik and so an answer to your question I think that has been at least something that I've had to be mindful of and I think we'll talk maybe a little bit more about this but one of the things that I've been really passionate about is rebounding off of that adversity rebounding off of that thorn in the flesh to turn that generational curse into an opportunity for a blessing and I've just decided I want to be a great dad I just want to love these two boys I want to love my wife I want to create a new story a new legacy in my family I want to be a great dad to my two boys I want my two boys to be great fathers when the time comes for them and so yeah that's something I've had to be mindful of that I think we all are products sometimes of both the conscious and the unconscious reservoir of traumatic experiences in the past and it wasn't until I had kids that I was like why am I saying this why am i acting this way why am i behaving this way and dear friend of mine Jennifer schwarzy brought to my attention this was years ago that probably some of this is coming out of this sort of reservoir of woundedness that I feel an abandonment that I felt from my father wound and I love how you've taken a story and and something that happened to you you didn't have a choice in it and you've turned it around and I think that that's such a model of what we have for our own lives you know there are a lot of things that we don't have choices about happened to us and how do we play our deck of cards in the most way that can glorify the Lord amen I like the way you say that I'll tell you something else I kind of find interesting this is a weird answer remember I said there's a two-part answer I would never call my wife Violetta who's the most incredible woman I've ever met I would never call her a thorn in the flesh she is not that she's the rose of my life right to use the analogy but Paul's thorn in the flesh served the purpose of keeping him humble and keeping him grounded he wasn't married right so maybe he needed something external like that right to sort of keep him because in my life I can tell you this I have an incredible wife who is affirming and she she loves me and she celebrates me at times when it's appropriate but she also can be real she can drop the hammer she can show up I'm in my life in all the right ways and all the healthy ways and say hey you know David I don't think you handled that situation very well and because I know she loves me because I know she would never reject me or purposefully hurt me I can receive the groundedness that she brings to me yeah and so while she's not a thorn in the flesh she serves as we do for one another it's mutual she does serve that sort of incredible space she's a minister of God to me keeping me grounded and humble and turning me hopefully by the grace of God into the best version of myself I literally would be less than half of the man I presently am without this incredible woman they say behind every good man is a surprised woman that's good and I know that you've grown a lot since your conversion experience when you look back on who you were when you first came to Christ like how how do you see yourself having changed as a pastor as a teacher as a Christian in your journey what are some of those shifts that have taken place from front when you first began to where you are today hmm one of the things I think that's been very important in my journey and I think this will be similar for lots of people I was converted when I was young I was 23 years old I was studying pre-med at the University of Wyoming I was a former punk rocker I was a straightedge kid I don't know if you know what that means vegan straightedge no drinking no drugs none of that and so I was incredibly idealistic like teenagers people in their late teens and early 20s tend to be idealistic anyway and I was like hyper idealistic so when I came into Christianity I didn't leave all of that idealism at the door I just brought it with me right we sometimes have this idea that when you're baptized you leave all your baggage you leave all that behind and now you're this new creature in Christ that's true but that transition is incremental and it's sequential and we grow into who we are in Christ right our maturity in Christ and so for me the kind or the version of Christianity that I came into really suited the carnality of my early idealism yeah and that lent itself toward a judgmentalism it lent itself toward a frankly a know-it-all mentality it lends itself to a kind of did I say judgmentalism already sort of like I know what's going on and and I know better and that did not serve me well honestly and unfortunately that period in my life wasn't very long and I love this language ty Gibson's a dear friend of mine he's gonna be here this weekend for the arize intensive and years ago I was having this conversation with Ty and we were talking about how people sometimes come to us and say your preaching has changed you're different now than you used to be and that is sometimes communicated in a positive way which is great but other times in a negative way like hey you've changed how come you don't speak the way you used to speak as if I have to be kept or we have to be kept hostage to the person we used to be five or 10 or 12 years ago right and Ty's answer I think is the best answer I've ever heard he says well I just tell those people well the reason I changed is I kept reading I kept reading I kept growing I kept read and so in my own personal journey I would say it was the factor of being super idealistic bringing that idealism baptizing it sanctifying it and then being like whoa actually this isn't really working and then I'll say this I had a couple mentors early on in my journey that didn't didn't provide the kind of counterbalance to that idealism that they should have they actually fed that and they fostered that and it took me being in different places geographically and in different places socially to be exposed to other people other situations to also in the words of Ty Gibson keep reading where you could sort of look back and say yeah I don't know if I could have gotten to where I am now if I hadn't gone on that journey but I'm glad I'm here and not there mm-hmm you used a phrase that I want to unpack a little bit you said a carnality of idealism yeah and I think that that's a very difficult concept for a lot of people to swallow yeah because I think it strikes people with the force of oh we need to live by ideals we didn't live by standards and all the nomenclature that comes with that gotcha but to use the word carnal to describe that yeah would really fly in the face of a lot of deeply held assumptions hmm so maybe we can unpack that because I think that in a way that would to some people sound like overturning a virtue and I think that's what you're going no certainly not only striking okay we'll check this out for me Max and I love the fact that you honed in on that I've actually never used that phrase exactly that way before it just kind of came to me in the moment but it's growing out of I think the very experience that Paul describes in Galatians right where Paul talks about look you want to talk about you want to talk about spiritual resumes I was I was a you know a Pharisee of the Pharisees according to zeal I persecuted the church I was of the tribe like he brings his spiritual resume out and he says but what things were gain to me those I count but lost for christ yay doubtless and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung he basically says you want to talk spiritual resumes I'll play that game with you but I've actually moved beyond that I've moved away from virtue I've moved toward virtue and the truth of the matter is is that even our spirituality our religion can become carnal right I mean right you get read the Gospels you read the experience of Paul we can turn I mean I this is this incredible statement from the pen of Ellen White where she talks about she uses the language that that was the bigoted religionists that were ultimately responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus right religion is no surefire guarantee of a connection with God or of being the best version of yourself in fact in many ways religion is the number one place to hide from God right and in my own experience I was never a hypocrite and I don't say that in a pious way like I was not purposefully living a life contrary to what I knew was better I just was growing yeah I was young I was passionate I was idealistic I thought I knew a lot more than I did there's this great quotation from Mark Twain where he's describing his own development and he says that he was amazed at how much his father learned between the ages of when Mark was like 18 to 25 or something yeah it's great it's a great quotation I'm kind of uh you know massacring it here but but the point is is that what Twain is saying is is his dad quote unquote learned so much that's not what happened his dad just kept saying the same stuff but Mark grew right he began to understand maybe my dad knew something right and as I say if I would have had I think different mentors early on in my experience not that I had bad mentors I had good mentors but in certain capacities I think they fed that idealism I think they fed that sort of sense of hey we've kind of got it figured out and too bad for the rest of these people that don't really know what's going on and that's carnal sectarianism is carnal a reliance on self you know my self-righteousness is carnal and it doesn't mean that virtue is carnal or that righteousness is carnal or that you know obedience is carnal no but for me there were aspects of even my religion that I look back on and think that was worldly hmm that was earth earthly I appreciate you sharing that and giving that insight into how we can take our own religion and make it into a carnal thing mm-hmm I'm curious because I know that you like I said you embody a lot of what people see as excellence in ministry and I kind of want to go behind the veil of like what all goes into a sermon preps some people just see you at the mountaintop but they don't see the climb they don't see all the the planning of the gear and the packing and Men and scanning the routes right so what does that look like for you and when you're preparing how much work do you really put into this I love the fact that you just use the climbing analogy another high five because you know I'm a climber are you a climber no no you just use the analogy it just came so so easily maybe you should be a climber maybe they have a climbing wall right here on campus I was just up there yesterday and the Johnson gym I actually didn't know that until you tell a lot of people don't know it there's a great little climbing gym up there Randy Falkenberg and a bunch of others are up there and they're doing a great job of course yeah they're doing a great job so hmm sermon preparation first of all let me say my favorite thing about what I do my two favorite things about what I do is number one connecting with people I just love people I I I Drive my wife crazy because I can talk to people for hours and hours and hours late into the night after a sermon I'm there for 1 2 3 4 hours I love it I love people I love connecting with people I love hearing their stories and so there's there's gonna be that part which I absolutely love my second favorite thing is communicating something that God has shown me from the text of Scripture and you'll often hear me say when I get up in front of a congregation or like we've been doing here the week of prayer at Andrews and I'll say I'm so excited about today's presentation I'm not just saying that people sometimes ask me do you get nervous no I get excited I sometimes will wake up and think man it's only 6:00 in the morning I have to wait five hours to preach I'm I can't wait to get access and say the Lord showed me something incredible this week and I can't wait to share it with you which really is the question you're asking if you've not spent that time in the text and not just in a studious way sitting down but ruminating thinking some of my best sermon ideas come to me when I've when I've been in the text and I've spent those hours there and then I'm out climbing then I'm out cycling then I'm out doing something while the text is cooking while it's baking in my mind while I'm thinking about and I'll give you a really good practical application here and I just want to strongly encourage young creatures or any preachers do not do your sermon preparation on Friday yes don't do it on Thursday right if if I know I'm preaching next week do you know in my sermon preparation begins right like it's already probably begun before this but like for this upcoming week's sermon my sermon preparation begins on on Sunday yeah because what I want to do is I want to have done the hard work of digging into the text on Sunday Monday Tuesday have at least a general sketch of what's gonna be talked about come Sabbath so that I can ruminate and think illustrations on the Wednesday the Thursday then what I do is is I sit down usually on a Friday sometimes on a Thursday just to put the finishing touches on the work that's been done the week but you know earlier in the week or let's say my associate pastor preached last Sabbath well now I've got two weeks that I've been ramping up right and so what happens is it doesn't mean you couldn't pull off a great sermon that you prepared for on Friday or even heaven forbid Saturday morning right you you can do that but what you don't get is that that rumination every time - yet just to bathe in the text and my experience has been the longer that I wait to prepare right the later in the week that I wait to prepare the longer and more verbose and more professorial my sermons become right they're more they're more punchy they're more pithy they're more powerful and I've kind of given you just a little you know a little clue here to discern whether or not I've done good sermon preparation if you hear me going on and on and on and on for a long sermon and it sounds very verbose and very professore Ile and it's very you know sort of intellectually based I probably threw that together at the last minute and if it's shorter and it's more punchy and you're like wow that was a great way to say that well the only way you get those hooks is if you've been bathing on the text and ruminating in the text for two three four days or a week more well its I've heard people say I don't know who said this but like if you can't explain it simply you don't understand it well enough yeah and I well said I've been in situations like at a church where they had two services and the it was you know I'd done a little bit of prep but the first go at it was verbose and winding and kind of directionless and it finally landed it was like okay and the second go at it and not everybody gets you know you don't always get that opportunity test it out but having had the chance to sit with it a little longer and get familiar with it yes the second one is shorter it's much more impactful it's much more intense it has all of the things that make it what it is are suddenly honed and sharpened okay so so that's exactly right and and one of the things that I often think about is at least have an idea of where you want to go this is why I'm really committed to preaching sermons series not just one offs occasionally I'll preach a one-off but I like the idea that we're gonna develop an idea we're gonna develop a concept we're gonna study through a book we're gonna talk about something not just for a week but for five weeks or eight weeks or ten weeks then what happens is your mind is on these themes on these ideas for week after week after week and your congregation yeah is thinking about these things week after week after week and what it does is it allows you to sort of again marinate in those ideas come up with the best ways to communicate them so that when you're standing up to preach you're not just faking it and let's be honest sometimes you're just kind of like the old saying goes when in doubt say it with confidence right sometimes you're just pulling it off by the skin of your teeth and I hate that I want to have something that Jesus has shown me we've connected we've spent time together and I I wake up on Sabbath morning with that giddiness and I'm like man I like for example tonight I'm gonna preach in you know a few hours here for the final night of the week of prayer I cannot wait to share what God has put on my heart because it's going to be in many ways the culmination for the whole week of prayer and it's an idea it's a concept that for me has been revolutionary and I can't wait Wow it sounds like you know it's a there's a difference between a slow cooked meal and one that's just thrown together yeah exactly yeah well said yeah so I'm curious because you know like I said I know people see you kind of in this place flying high in your ministry and I was thinking about this earlier the story of Daniel and the story of Joseph hmm you know the Kings who were a part of that rule appreciated the diligence of Joseph and and the giftings that Daniel had but their peers within their occupation did not appreciate that and I was wondering if you've ever experienced any of those types of professional jealousies and how do you deal with that you there have been some of that I try to I try to not pay too much attention to it years ago I read this really lovely quotation from a female rock climber from many many years ago she's probably a hundred years old now truly hmm her name is Jan Conn and she has this incredible quotation where she says and this is a life-changing quotation you ready for this simple concept paradigm-shifting what other people think of me is none of my business right and when you sort of take that assuming the best and not listening not having your ear to the ground to see how do people relate to me and this is what social media does doesn't it it just programs us to be hyper mindful of what other people think about us but when you just sort of back away from that and say I'm going to assume the best about others I'm going to assume they want my success I'm not gonna be even mindful to professional jealousy you'll hear a lot less of it now having said that not everybody wants your success right certainly the enemy doesn't but even among your peers not everybody wants your success I recently preached a sermon in my local church and then did a devotional at the school that my son's go to tweed Valley Adventist College on Barnabas and the cool thing about Barnabas the fascinating thing about him first of all is that his name wasn't even Barnabas his name was Joseph and Barnabas was the name the nickname that was given to him by the disciples and the name literally means son of comfort or son of encouragement and what that tells us is is that Barnabas was the kind of person and when you look at the sort of the pictures that are painted by Luke in acts between Acts chapter 4 and action after 15 where Barnabas makes his appearance man the guy is always networking in such a way that he's creating opportunities for people to succeed he becomes the one that actually when that right after Saul's conversion this is an action after nine everybody's afraid of Saul all the disciples are afraid of Saul they know that he was a former persecutor they're probably thinking oh this guy's just pretending to be converted so he can get access to us know where we meet and then he's gonna you know launch this you know secret attack on us and Barnabas it's like no no no this is the guy he was convert and it actually says that that Paul went to Jerusalem and tried to join the disciples but they were afraid of him it says but Barnabas took him and brought him to the disciples mm-hmm so Barnabas is this incredible figure that is a mentor to Paul it's kind of weird to think about Paul almost as protege but but Paul was really not only brought by Barnabas to the disciples a little bit later in Acts chapter 11 when that Gentile church has been planted in Antioch and Barnabas goes to check it out he's like whoa this is crazy a Gentile Church I know just the guy for this situation and it says that he went and found Saul and brought him there so you get this feeling that Barnabas is somebody who loves the success of others right like he is facilitating Paul and then this really cool thing super subtle that super cool thing happens in the book of Acts that Luke you know he was a great rider very organized so it's highly likely that this was intentional in the chapters chapters 4 to 12 you you the phrase is this for the most part I think there's maybe one exception but it says Barnabas and Saul Barnabas and Saul Barnabas and Saul Barnabas and Saul after action after 13 where Paul goes on his first missionary journey and he stands up under the inspiration of the Spirit rebukes bar Jesus on the island of Cyprus there and then he preaches that incredible sermon in the synagogue and Antioch it shifts and it's Paul and Barnabas Paul and Barnabas Paul and Barnabas one has now stood into the role of primacy from protege to primacy and you never get anything other than this strong sense that Barnabas couldn't have been happier right to see others succeed there's just certain people that have the gift of helping others to flourish right and Barnabas was that person I want to be that person right don't you don't you want to be that person who if buddy gets up to your level and then even goes beyond you you don't feel insecure and jealous you're like hallelujah God is using them and I can say there was at least at least two circumstances in my journey with Jesus where I was given opportunities by early mentors to be invested in and to be grown and I was loved and I was appreciated and I would have I was affirmed right up until the point where in some ways my ministry and my opportunities began to get a little more shine than even the mentor and I'm sad to report that that was not well received and I went from being somebody that was mentored to somebody that was viewed as an adversary and I'll be honest that didn't hurt me professionally but it pierced me emotionally and I think that goes back to some of that sort of fatherlessness that we talked about because these were significant figures in my life that had invested in me and then all of a sudden it was like wow am am I being rejected here just because God has gifted me in certain areas so you know there have been some instances of the professional jealousy but I think if you largely ignore it it kind of goes away and if you just love people and they see that you're a real person and you're not a primadonna and you just love people people say yeah you know he's a little loud he's he's a you know he's a big loud American but yeah he's a good guy yeah and I think that you know it just goes to show like that that God you know sometimes uses other people shine to test our hearts yeah thank you and you mentioned this in the first podcast that he did this was Saul you know that you had the song of Saul kills as thousands but david has ten thousands and and that was something that was a point of pride for so strong and he began to be jealous of David or even when you look at how Joseph found if his brothers were really converted what gave Benjamin a double portion so sometimes it's even a test to our own heart when God allows people to kind of rise and outshine us and how we respond to that really does show our own care I agree think of the John the Baptist thing with apples come and they're like hey Jesus is baptizing a bunch of people over there and a lot of more a lot more people are going to hear Jesus and what it's John the Baptist response he must increase and I must decrease we need to get to the place where we are so surrendered to Jesus and so unmindful of self and of ambition that we are absolutely thrilled when God is growing his kingdom through other people's expertise through their giftedness I want to be thrilled if my arise students or if my colleagues are my associates go running by me because we have a world to reach yeah and at the end of the day who cares who gets the credit we're all gonna take our crowns off we're gonna put them at the feet of Jesus and we're gonna say worthy is the lamb right so I just this professional competition that sometimes emerges and again if you pay no attention to it it's like a bee that buzzes around you if you start swiping at it and really become mindful of it you might agitate it and it'll sting you if you ignore it it goes away and so for the most part I just ignore it but if it does rear its head you just say man what I don't want to do is what was in some ways done to me and that is treat people in a way that if you get ahead of me then you're my adversary yeah no way yeah I go with God and I hope you do ten times the work that I've done a hundred times the work that I've done Wow Wow and kind of as we wrap up my last question really kind of revolves around you know how God goes in the process of making you fall in love with him over and over again hmm so wanting to know like what is your love language and how does God speak to you in that love language well as I told you in the first podcast that got deleted or whatever unfortunately in record unrecorded my love language I got to write the five love languages we're talking Gary Chapman here five love languages number one physical touch I'm a toucher I love to to be massaged I love to be touched I love to have my back scratched I love to hug people I've always been that way I don't know why just I love that and my second is words of affirmation I really get wind under my wings when somebody says hey I like the way you said that or the way you handle that situation I got a real insight it that speaks to me now listen if you want to buy me a gift I'm not gonna say no you're right if you want to do an active service I'm not gonna say no but those are really the things that resonate deeply with me and in sort of my experience with Jesus I think that it's very important for me to stay connected to him in Scripture I can trace like direct causation not just correlation but direct causation to the joy that I'm experiencing the connection that I'm experiencing the power that I'm experiencing in ministry - how much time am i actually spending in the word if I'm in the word and I'm praying for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit man Jesus is just doing his thing in my life and for me personally that happens in the word and it happens in nature I'm that outdoors guy I'm not a city slicker I'm from Wyoming where the Antelope roam and the Buffalo player I think I said that backwards again but I love to rock climb I love to fly fish I left a trail run I left a backpack I I find that those moments for me are not just moments of recreation they're moments of worship and when I'm out there I might be hanging from a cliff just by my fingers and just take a deep breath probably one of my son's as belaying me and my wife's there with us at the cliff hanging around in the hammock reading a book and I just think I'm living the most incredible life right now I'm so thankful to Jesus in fact this might sound a little McCobb and I don't want it to sound that way but there have been many times in my life where I've had the thought if I died right now I would have nothing but incredible thankfulness to Jesus for the life I've lived right the the sunsets that I've seen the experiences that I've had the people that I've met the sermons that I've preached the the things that I'm just so thankful I feel like at 47 years young my cup already runs over and that gratitude and that thankfulness that we have is itself an act of worship and it's in those moments particularly in the word and in nature those are really my spiritual love languages where God speaks to me and says you're my son and I love you I want to say one thing on that - please in Romans chapter 1 Paul goes through this incredible catalogue of like the Gentile sins and he's like you know they exchanged the natural use of the women and they were idolatrous and they turned the glory of God and do you know corruptible things you know this passage I'm talking about Romans 1:18 to 31 and then right in the middle of this catalogue of like really egregious sins that Paul knew his audience would be reading and going wow yeah that's right those Gentile sinners he says neither were they thankful and that is just always resonated so deeply with me that Paul Paul was very happy to Ida Mize unthankfulness with idolatry and sexual perversity Wow and so for me I'm like whoa I want to live an incredibly thankful life yeah and for me that's one of the most attractive things that as Christians we can do to just be thankful people people whose very effervescence is gratitude Wow well I can definitely tell that you are grounded in gratitude in the way that you was that exude the love of Christ and I I have a confession to make clear our audience this podcast episode was actually better than the one we long okay good good I'm glad to hear you say that though you guys are getting the creme de la creme you didn't miss anything we're so thankful to have you all Kendra I've loved it and Maxie I just want to say again you guys are doing a great job I love the advent next podcast I'm gonna tag you on Instagram we got to get you a bazillion followers because the work you're doing is incredible thank you so much stay tuned for next week's program as we continue our conversation with David asterik discussing his journey in ministry and advice he would give to young leaders it's a conversation you definitely don't want to miss once again we like to thank our guests as well as the Adventist learning community for making this program possible on whatever platform you're listening on be sure to comment like and subscribe thanks for tuning in and see you next week

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Views: 23,175

Rating: 4.9232244 out of 5

Keywords: Advent Next, Adventist, Adventist podcast, Advnt nxt, Andrews seminary, Andrews university, Bible podcast, Bible Study, christian architecture, christian podcast, cosmic conflict, David Asscherick, design, Desire of ages, Ellen White, Kendra Arsenault, Light Bearers Ministry, Max Aka, podcast, sda, sda church, SDA podcast, seminary classes, Seventh-day Adventist

Id: EThJ_jz4fmY

Length: 37min 36sec (2256 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 26 2019