How to be Faithful and Fruitful in Ministry with Dr. Charles Stanley | Passion + Purpose Podcast

hey everyone welcome to the first full episode of the passion and purpose podcast hosted by myself louis giglio i am so excited to be launching this podcast and so thrilled to be able to bring some of these conversations to you and i'm really really pumped about this conversation today i recently had the honor of sitting down with a father and even a grandfather of the faith dr charles stanley someone who's deeply impacted my spiritual development along with that of countless other people across the globe and in this episode we talk about his time at first baptist church atlanta that's where our paths cross we talk about what it means to be called to ministry how to endure and how to continue to walk in godliness as a church leader a pastor and a proclaimer of the gospel it's such an honor for me to have him on the very first passion and purpose podcast so here's my conversation with dr charles stanley i have the incredible privilege and i do count it a privilege dr stanley to be with you today so thanks for coming and being on the podcast i was thinking as we are starting this conversation that you are currently on tv right now somewhere in the world you are currently on the radio somewhere in the world a lot of places in the world right now your voice is heard globally daily and it has been for as long as i can remember since the beginning of in touch and yet here we are having a conversation together and god's using you while we're sitting here to proclaim his word to people so i just want to say thank you i'll say that again at the end but i have so much respect for you i've known you since i was a middle schooler and i've we've been on vacation together where you were pulling the trailer behind the family car down to florida to st augustine and setting up in the rv park and i've watched you go in down to your dark room in the basement and starting to develop your own film before there was anything called digital cameras and i've seen you at home and i've seen you in the pulpit i've seen you in the normal day and i've seen you leading in extraordinarily challenging moments and i just have so much respect for you and a lot of people do and i'm just saying thank you on behalf of a whole lot of us on planet earth for being that true voice to god's word you have a statement that sums up in a way your whole ministry trust god and leave the results to him so when did that become sort of the heartbeat because i can't remember a time when that wasn't your boilerplate message well the first time it came to me was after i had been to see my grandfather i was just finished in high school and um for some reason i felt like i want to go see my granddad i don't listen to him three times and he was in his seventies late seventies and um i just wanted to hear him talk because i read his little book and um so we spent a week you most of the time sitting on his screen then back porch and me is just asking him questions he was just full of answers so when the week was over and i left and i was riding back home on an old trailway bus remember those old buses and i kept thinking what did my grandfather say to me because he gave me lots of illustrations of things that had happened in his life and when i was riding along it came to me what he said to me was obey god leave all the consequences to him so i thought well you can't beat that so i that just became something inside of me that governed my life just obey god leave all the consequences to him and so i thought well at this point in my life i'll find out if it's true and it is and it is you've seen him prove that over time i remember the early days when you came to first baptist atlanta i think i was maybe 12 years old when you and the family arrived in atlanta and it wasn't necessarily the smoothest few years as you became the pastor of first baptist and in fact sometimes it got so contentious in the business meetings that you wouldn't even let your kids be in there so i'd have to run kind of a counterpoint and i'd be up in the balcony and i'd jet back down to your study and tell them what just happened and then i'd go back up and come back down but god brought you through that god set you up and a lot of people were against that but god was for it and it was i remember watching from the very first day that you became the senior pastor the church had split some people had left uh we had this big packed auditorium and all of a sudden now it was like a tribe of maybe three or four hundred people and i can't believe that i got to sit on the front row of that moment where you obeyed god and left the consequences to him and then he started building a church and that church just absolutely changed the world so what do you recall about that step where okay we've kind of come through the storm but now god has put me in motion what's the next thing i'm going to do well i'll look back of course and see how that was all god's doings because i came from a little church in bartow florida nobody knew who i was and i knew that he carried me there because he gave me this vision one night that i'll never forget that he was going to move me and so i knew god had put me there and i knew that what my grandfather said to me i had to i had to let it out obey god leave all the consequences to him and the night they voted on me to vote me out i'm sitting over in this dark corner of the auditorium and nobody knew i was there and i just kept reading the scripture and remembering what my granddad said obey god no matter what you're hearing and they were fussing and fighting over not having me as the pastor and so forth and then when they voted i won but i think it was like 61 to something whatever and then i just stepped out and walked up and they didn't know i was there and i just thanked them for voting for me and that was it and then of course we had about three more months of fighting going on to the guy and you know god had strange ways of accomplishing his will because we had to put up with them you know they wouldn't come to church they'd do this and that and so forth and then we had a business meeting and this fellow thought he was doing the right thing i guess he sucked me into jail right in the pulpit i saw it with my own eyes i could not believe what was happening well you know what obey god leave all the consequences you don't like the consequences sometimes but that was the end when they did that that finished them off they were gone and i've watched what happened over the years and at that time of course we were on one black and white station in atlanta and from that point on god's put it around the world i can't take any credit for it because all of that was just part of his way you would think well look like they would have just voted and been nice that's not the way it was but i look back and thank god you've been in all of this i didn't do any of this this is your doings and then i've watched him just make clear decisions to me about things that i just had to go back and say okay i'm going to be obedient here's what you said i'm going to leave it to you and he's never disappointed me you know when i was in my maybe around 30 i was living in texas and i was just getting my start uh preaching i would preach at youth events and anywhere they'd have me honestly and i've told this story a lot dr stanley but when one of those events was a conversation afterwards with some of the leaders and someone asked me what did i see myself doing in 10 years from that day and before i could answer another guy answered and said well i'll tell you what he's not going to be doing in 10 years from now and i was like oh okay well why don't you all talk about what god's gonna do with my life and he said he's not gonna be a local church pastor and then he went on to explain why the way i preach and the way i lead wouldn't work for a local church people don't want to hear that every sunday and in the back of my mind i didn't say it out loud but i thought you know after watching the way they treated dr stanley i don't know if i want to be a local church pastor right and i it really did make a mark on me as a because around that time i you know was in high school and i just thought if that's what pastoring is about i don't know if i want to do that but you endured through that and you actually were able to lead through a really explosive age in the faith the 70s and the 80s were a beautiful time of renewed evangelism right there were big revival meetings happening around the city of atlanta and around the nation and then we started buying up every corner of peachtree street for a moment fourth and fifth street it was everybody else was going out of business and first baptist church was very much in business and so what do you think the message is for somebody struggling right now in their situation but they can't quite see all the way to the other side like you can now well i would say first of all the most important activity in your life is your prayer life and it can't be centered on what i need today but lord what is your will for my life in other words i know he's not gonna always show us a long ways ahead of time because he knows we probably couldn't handle it if we could if we saw ahead of time but i'm just i'm literally i'm going to trust you for today whatever you have in mind i'm going to trust you for today and he knows when we need little help and when we need for his entrance into our life in a special way for example i remember one week i'd been preaching and the next week i was thinking about what i was going to be preaching and so i'd been trying to study and somehow i had no sermon and wednesday came and no sermon usually about thursday i had my outline pretty early most pastors listening right now are nodding along they've been in this spot that's right and so friday came no sermon saturday morning came no sermon i'm thinking god what are you up to i mean what's i've been sitting all week and when i when i started trying to outline nothing saturday afternoon nothing saturday night i'd been studying from since about six o'clock and finally out of desperation i reminded the lord tomorrow sunday i don't have anything to say what's this all about and i was struggling until about 11 o'clock at their belts and the only other time that it happened was uh when we were going to have the business being devoted on me and the sunday before that i had no sermon and i'm sitting there in the car singing and i'm thinking god well they're going to prove to me that i'm totally inadequate today i have no sermon and so when the choir finished i walked up to the pulpit opened up my bible and it fell to proverbs 3 5 and 6. i just started and it was like a machine gun i couldn't stop it it's all god people started getting up walking out because they were getting under conviction i guess but anyway i remember that and then here's this time i'm thinking lord no now now what's what is this all about you've got to be sort of frantic to be a pastor facing a congregation and say i don't have anything to say and so when i was at my most desperate peak it's like the lord said to me you must never ask for any money on television or radio you must trust me and i'll decide how far and why this ministry goes wow so i remember thanking god well if it never gets out of atlanta okay but i you know i didn't get out here to pray about this anyway so i said okay perfect peace this is the truth i couldn't write the outline fast enough god was giving me what to say so obey god leave all the consequences to him i think i can say i'm at least attempted to live by that in every way that i know possible and i would say to anybody you can never go wrong yeah when you're committed to being obedient to god you won't understand it you may hurt you may suffer whatever it might be but if you leave the consequences too to holy god almighty sovereign god can he handle it yes he can you have been a good preparer of messages so i think you're good to have had a couple of times when you walked up there without knowing what you're going to say that happens i i think i can remember at least maybe twice in my life that it's like okay this is going to be good because i'm walking up right now and i don't know what the first word's going to be but you have to be a pastor to know that you do but that i just want to say again um that's not your go-to you were very prepared and i remember a lot of times in high school you know andy and i both sensed god stirring our hearts when we were in high school and even before and we knew there was something special about what we were seeing on your life and i think we were sensing there was maybe something on our lives not anything close to what was on yours but just a stirring but we were still uh we made less than great decisions all the time in that season so i would like to on the record apologize for the 2 a.m uh coming ins on saturday night when you were in prayer trying to get your sermon all tidied up and yet you're waiting for these knuckleheads to come home late because we got who knows our car towed somewhere or whatever happened but i remember a lot of those weekends you would come home from work on a friday this is the way i remember it you change clothes out of your work clothes you grab a legal pad your bible and a jug of water you guys had the water delivered to your house one of those little water makers where you could put your cup under and you take a big jug like fill it up a gallon jug with that water the water my legal pad my bible and off you'd go you get in the car you drive away and you wouldn't come back till about dinner time the next day where'd you go what'd you do and why was that such an important part of your development and leadership because i knew that if i wanted to listen to god i had to give him time to sort of push all the stuff of that week out of my mind out of my heart and things that i thought or whatever it might be and i just need to be quiet and listen to him and you have to you have to practice that to make it work because sometimes you know i'm down praying i'm thinking about something got anything to do with the sermon and you know of course the devil would intervene in any possible way but if somebody asked me well what's the key to everything i would say your personal quiet time with god is essential to everything that happens in your life as a pastor especially and so you know he's going to test us and he'll test you with the telephone and with this interruption and that interruption and this and this all and he and she and they and whatever you just have to make a decision and i'm sure that people said well he's not interested in me he's doing something well you can't be interested in what god wants and do everything everybody else wants you to do so people will be unhappy they have to be unhappy because ultimately they'll get happy when troubled hits and the first thing they do or they want to call you because they know you'll talk to god for them so you know being a pastor is not is not easy and it's probably more difficult today than ever you would know that it's been an interesting year to be a pastor for sure i think a lot of the pastors i've talked to this year feel like the way they would sum up the past year was i lost it was impossible to win at anything it's possible to get anything right no matter what you tried whatever said whatever you attempted there was a good number of people who liked it and a fair number of people who didn't like it and a lot of people who weren't sure in between but you know that's part of leadership also right reading is rising above and i think that's what a lot of pastors have leaned on god to help them do this year to rise above we have to be able to get above the noise above the negativity above the fray hear from god and speak hope to people right you're doing that every day bringing that message of hope and i want to take you back to where it all started so take us back to the moment that you got saved and called and you knew i'm saved a and i am called by god to do what you've been doing now all these years of your life well i was 12 years of age and i went to a pentecostal homeless church the pastor was very old he probably wasn't as old as look back you think he was he was old like probably 60 or something yeah not like and so but i always sat on the second row right on the end i don't know why but that's where i sit and i could never remember anything he said i had a wonderful sunday school teacher his name was craig stowe and i remember one thing he said he was in the navy and um was probably the first thing that really hit me that god's real because he was on a ship they were getting it to be attacked by the japanese and the commander was asking for a volunteer to go up in the perch is what i call it to spot what was happening and nobody volunteered and he said that god told him i can take just as good of care of you up there as i can down here and he volunteered and they were under a great attack he was not hit he was he came out perfectly fine and i thought all of a sudden i thought god's real you know that's the only thing i got out of it and then this lady came to preach a revival well in those days pentecostal you know the moment he preached good as a man so she preached all week and on a sunday she gave the invitation and i went i stepped out and went to the altar i was 12. and before i knew it five of my sunday school friends that surrounded me and they were praying for me to get saved you know in those days you had to work at being saved in their minds but anyway i surrendered to the lord that day is 12. then i was in high school and my friend and i raymond barbour was sitting on the ball field one day and i wanted to tell him something so badly but but i was sort of embarrassed but i asked him i said raymond what are you going to do when you grow up that's why we looked at it he said i don't know what are you going to do i said i don't know later on both of us told each other we both knew that god had called us to preach he ended up in the fundamental baptist he ended up going to go into seminary in fort worth at the same time i did i didn't even know it was there he ended up being president of that convention as i did mine and i just see how god worked all those events and you know you just have to follow him when you don't know what to do next and i'd say that you know and you don't know what to do the best thing for you to say get on your knees and say god what whatever you want me to do that's what i'm willing to do then it's when you find that whether you're really willing to do it or not yeah i always say that if you can do something else besides being a pastor or preaching you should go do that but if you get to the point in life that you cannot do anything else but preach the gospel then you should do that even when you're scared even when you don't know how you do when you think what would i say i remember obviously very well when god called me to preach i didn't see it coming i was a freshman in college and it was a very powerful moment and back in the day you would go down the aisle at the end of the sunday night service normally and tell the pastor i feel like god's calling me to preach right so i went down the aisle and took your hand and whispered to you dr stanley i think god's calling me to preach and you said okay i won't talk to you for a few minutes afterwards and so you may not remember this but you said i want you to read a book and you gave me a little copy of so send iu by oswald chambers right and you said read this book and study this passage and come back and talk to me in two sundays so you wanted me to ruminate on it a little bit and to really give it some thought i did go back to that phrase here am i send me and when isaiah said that he didn't know what he was signing up for he just knew he'd seen a vision he'd seen grace and if god had something going on he wanted to be a part of it right and so i remember coming back after two sundays and saying i'm sure this is what god wants me to do and you had the church pray for me that night because that's the way things work things worked a little faster at church back in the day he said this is uh i went by butch at the time this is butch giglio you all know him he grew up in our church and he is surrendering his life to the ministry tonight and we are going to pray for him and you prayed for me and that that moment i went back to that book a few months ago got it off my shelf opened it looked at all the highlighted places in it and remembered that day but talk about how simple that is just to say i've seen enough because we want blueprints we want diagrams we want explanations but god isn't in the business of giving blueprints he's in the business of giving a vision and then saying do you want to go with me and if so come on well you know it's amazing how god takes little things to say so much to us it just so happens i finished reading a chapter before i walked in here about oslo chambers because he had an awesome effect upon my life and of course he died very early in life of appendicitis he was in the army in egypt and when i first started reading that book i thought what's all this about and chapter up to chapter up to chapter i began for god to help me to understand what the will of god was really all about and i was in college i never heard of israel chambers and he's always been uppermost in my thinking and it just so happened this morning i finished that chapter that i was reading about israel chambers and i think lord when i think about the influence of this man who died of appendicitis which wouldn't have been a problem with me who died in an army camp in egypt and who died at a very very early age and the influence in the impact of his life and i'm still i'm still profiting from that lord just whenever we go we want to go live in something behind it's that's immeasurable and inescapable and unforgettable yeah when you were preaching in the old days you preached three times a week you preached sunday morning a couple times then you'd come back on sunday night and preach a completely different sermon message and on wednesday night you would have a bible study and teach a different message and you uh taught me and andy or taught me andy as a little bit of a shorter preacher than you and i are but i i took your tradition and i tried to carry it on i like to you know say as much as i can and as long as i can right but you would preach these messages and this is the way they would all start take out your bibles and turn to second chronicles chapter eight that was your opening no opening stories no illustration no set up just if you have your bibles today turn to second chronicles chapter whatever today i'm gonna speak on fortitude how to remain faithful in your faith and i have and then this is what i always would wait for i have 14 points today and they all begin with p and i mean you know i'm taking notes and you still remember it too don't you yes i'm taking notes on the back of the offering envelope so i learned to write in microprint i still can write in very tiny print because of that i'm asking you do you remember how many was the most points we ever had in one of the sermons i think 17 might be the winner it might be do you remember some of those well it just depends on what i was talking about and they all think they all start you haven't forgotten it they all start with r and it just was so simple so clear so convicting and commanding and there was so much authority on it and i just wondering in your opinion how do you think preaching has changed over the last 40 50 years since i've been in ministry and do you think or do you think it has changed and do you think some of it's been good or you think some of it's been not so helpful well i think it has changed and i think it has from what i can tell become less biblical more stereoism or this more that and um i'm not being critical of anybody but i'm saying i think it's become less powerful because of our approach and i think a lot of people are trying to appeal to people because of their age or this or that or whatever it might be instead of sticking to the word of god it's the word of god it's not it's not technique and it's not all the things we surround it with because if you recall when you were growing up decorah had that song and we sort of did the same thing oh that was different every week but week after week after we kept the week you've got to stick with the word of god because you think the people who were there this sunday won't be the next one they at least have them will some of them want and so i think from what i can tell i see less biblical preaching less quoting the word of god and less explanations from all sorts and looking and seeing what who is doing this and who's got the biggest congregation that's not the issue jesus spoke to one he spoke to multitudes and my feeling is i give it the best god will lay it up on my heart if there are ten people sitting out there ten thousand and i think uh that's that's the thing that troubles me it's a lot of words and a lot and i've i've even said to some people very close to me you know what where is where is the word of god what did jesus say in other words you you can you can try to appeal to the world but but where's the world going the world needs to hear the word i've got to pull them back into the right relationship with them so i see i see a weakness that's beginning to take its toll i remember about those days that even though we sang hymns and there was a choir in an orchestra it was still powerful and i remember coming to preach for you i think it was around one of your anniversaries of your birthday a few years ago and my mom was a you know she loved singing in the choir first baptist church about as much as anything on planet earth i can still see her yeah and um i remember walking in that sunday and when the choir and the orchestra started playing i just lost it i just was so emotional because it hits a you know it strikes a tenor somewhere deep down in my soul right that takes me back to once i stopped being a knucklehead and i started sitting up in the balcony by myself on the end of a road because i didn't want anybody around me i didn't want anybody you know fooling around i wanted to hear the word i wanted to be attuned to god and it didn't really matter i learned in that day it doesn't matter whether you sing a song it was written this week or a song that was written 250 years ago it can still be powerful right and then we would have some of those sunday nights where we would sing a chorus at the end it was blessed be the tie that binds there's a sweet sweet spirit in this place or maybe one other one and if uh we had you know like pentecostal revival breakout we join hands across the aisle but it was still powerful and i knew from that moment i didn't understand it but i knew it if you preach the word and invite people into god's presence in worship not into music but into his presence and worship whatever you're doing will grow amen wherever it is whoever it is and so i started a bible study with my wife shelly at baylor when i was in grad school there grew to 1500 students we didn't have snacks food skits it was just worship in the word came to atlanta started 722 bible study same thing no skits snacks games just worshiping the word and three four thousand single adults would be there start a passion conference worship in the word and i still believe in that formula it's simple but it works everywhere because the word does not return void amen well you've been a perfect example of that and when you look around today what are people doing trying to attract people and it's not the word it's when i look at it i think lord whatever happened to the simple pure gospel and just as i am does not go out of style just as i am without one played but that thou bloods cleanse me nerds it's just a simple word and i think we're going through a period that's dangerous for the church it's almost become theatrical and a lot of people think it has to be part theatrical and it'll degain people but even if it i mean even if there were fewer and fewer people the issue is are they hearing the word of god and if persecution comes to this country and i won't get into that but if it does little by little it's going to be more and more important to hear the word of god and not all the things that we think attract people absolutely i want you to talk a little bit about your relationship with the holy spirit so you got your start in a pentecostal church and yet you were a southern baptist preacher up until just recently you were the pastor of first baptist church atlanta for my entire lifetime just about you were the president of the southern baptist convention you were you're there's no bigger leader in the southern baptist story than you and southern baptists haven't been known necessarily as a holy spirit people just generally speaking that's a big broad brush straight statement but i think people would understand what i mean by that but yet you have a very special relationship with the holy spirit and it's evident in your ministry but it's more evident when i'm around you personally and we had a chance to pray together a few maybe two years ago you had me come up for lunch at your office and we prayed at the end and i just could sense that closeness that you have with god in that closeness that you have with the holy spirit and so talk to us not just about how important biblical preaching is but how important is it to have that intimacy with god and that intimacy with the spirit you know the first church i had was up in the mountains of north carolina and they invited me to preach to a big associational meeting all the pastors and i preached on being filled the holy spirit well this elderly well he was held that lived to me and then pastor came up to me and he said young man if i'd have preached that sermon years a few years ago they'd have thrown me out of this convention because their idea of the holy spirit they categorized it as something that pentecostals preached but i knew in my heart that the holy spirit was a person i knew in my heart that according to the scripture if i was ever going to be able to do anything he had to be the heart soul and core of whatever i was doing and so i remember graduating from seminary came into this church and then i had the privilege of being an instructor or a pro whatever it might you might call them and this bible institute with all pastors there were 100 some they'd all been past this pretty good while and i'm just green out of seminary and thinking god then are they gonna listen to me and they gave me evangelism homiletics preaching and something something about religions at four courses i had to teach and i remember being on the floor in my very small study in our house at fruitland on the on the this was a friday afternoon and school started on on monday and they said nobody had ever seen me before they didn't know me from adam except that i was past the fruitland baptist church which is right next door and that's when the holy spirit became absolutely real to me because i had to say god first of all i'm just out of seminary strike one number two i'm pastor the small church strike two and and lord here i'm coming to a group of guys who've been pastors for years strike three why should they listen to me and i mean i remember i remember the rug i was i was praying on and asking god lord you're gonna have to do this i cannot do this i may have some information but what are they going to think and how they're going to feel and why should they listen to me so but i walked in on that first it was on monday tuesday morning i felt like god was all over the place i just started and in about a week's time they loved me yeah and i knew it wouldn't be it had to be god but all my fears were gone and i just saw myself as a servant and said lord i may not re i may not be able to preach nearly as good as these guys have been preaching a long time but i'm gonna do it the best i can with the holy spirit i trust the spirit of god to work in me i had a wonderful wonderful time yeah there's a print there's a little art that's developing through your stories i had an opportunity i didn't think i was ready for it i got down on my knees on the floor and i cried out to god and i said you're gonna have to help me i need you to help me i got up off the floor and i went to the to the moment and i said here i go and i just started and then god took over right and did something that you knew was not you because you had been down on the floor knowing that you weren't ready but now you're seeing i am ready because god is making me ready and doing this and it's beautiful to see you tell that story over and over and over in your life of how many different moments you were in and i have a feeling you're still in those moments today where you're saying god i don't know about today and i don't know about this situation or that situation but i'm gonna trust you and surrender to you and then you just get there and even like today we just started and then here you are just opening up such wisdom and doing it in such a way that is i know touching people so powerfully i want to ask you about something uh your other passion i think you have i might have several passions but i think two primary passions preaching and the other one is photography and you have been about it as long as i've known you i don't think i understood it again when i was in high school but you loved it enough to build a dark room in your basement at your house in um tucker and you would go out on these expeditions and i think if you're still able you still are going and doing that but what about photography became such a central part of your life what was it about it was it the time alone was it what god spoke to you through nature was it a combination of things that's a good question and i'm happy to answer it um i'll tell you this and then i'll tell you i got started but anyway here's the key when i look through the lens of a camera first of all if i'm looking at a mountain or whatever i'm looking at and then i'll look through the lens of a camera which shuts out all of that and zeroes in on this that's when my heart starts beating i mean i think what an awesome scene you may look at and think what's that all about but when you narrow it down for example that's a good example let's say that flower right there if i stood over here and shot that flower just be a flower but if i got really really really close and i saw each one all of a sudden i would see what an awesome thing god's done because there's no flower in the world exactly like that one and it's this picture and that and mountain stream in other words all the things and i would say that photography it's it's it's the second most important thing in my life because i keep seeing god and you know one thing that's bothered me about this year is i couldn't go anywhere and do anything and um i i just see god and all that and i look at some i'll give you an example i went to switzerland i one of my primary reasons for going and going to this particular place up in this mountain was to see a particular mountain peak and so i'd i'd been there i had to drive the train up there pretty good ways and then i was there rain first day rain second day of rain third day and i just chose this hotel and its top floor and uh [Music] yeah i didn't even know where it was because it's cloudy the whole time i kept praying god you know how far i come lord you know how much i would love to do this and god i'm giving you all the credit father father father father father i wake up the fourth morning i still remember and i had opened the shutters i woke up and what's it right there in front of me and i run over to the one that here's this huge mountain peak it's dark it's white with snow it's absolutely awesome i just i just said thank you jesus thank you jesus thank you jesus that's the reason i came i knocked on the wall from my friend i said get up and get dressed so i've had so many those moments in my life where i've just seen god answering prayer and answering prayer just as much about seeing something that i wanted to see because he knew it's going to give him credit void and um that's the second most important thing i do in life and one of the things that's frustrating for me for this time when we can't go and can't photograph and i have all this wonderful equipment and what do i do i walk and i pick it up every once in a while shoot out my one and anyway i see that as another avenue in my life of seeing god because i can get just as excited about seeing him in a beautiful mountain stream the mountains of snow the mountain just all of that's just god to me that's beautiful if we uh are going to wrap up i wish we could talk all day and i just want to say again thank you and every chance i get i just want to honor you and i think the reason why i continue to sense dr stanley that people are attracted to the message that you're proclaiming is because it is biblical but also because you've made it a long way in the journey and you're a grandfather of the faith you know we talk about the fathers of the faith but you're 88 years old or something close to that and not slowing down anytime soon as far as i can tell and you've made it a long way down the road through a lot of hardship had a lot of ups a lot of downs a lot of disappointments a lot of successes but you're here and you have the same message same gospel same heartbeat and so thank you for that and i know everybody that's listening to this interview is saying yes thank him for that and thank him for me i wish i could sit there and tell him thank you and so on behalf of millions and millions and millions of people i just want to honor you and say thank you personally for raising me up in faith i remember going to southwestern seminary this is i can remember this as clear as today and sitting in the first class and professor amazing professor stood up started teaching and i thought okay i got three years of this but i think i already got one seminary education before i got here because i've been listening to you teach the word of god from cover to cover every week since i was 12 years old up until the time i graduated from college and so you made such a big deposit in my life and i want to thank you and honor you for that and it's been a hard year for everybody it's been hard for you because you you transition from first baptist this year i know that's a decision that was hard for you because that's a place you love so much you weren't able to go and do photography and you weren't able to get on planes and you like to go places and you like to see new people and you like to see god doing new things and so you understand where we all are we all have different situation but what is uh what's your sermon for us your short sermon for us god is the same yesterday today and forever he hasn't changed he has seen and permitted all of this to happen and i think god would use this to drive us to him not to something else and god is faithful he'll be faithful in every circumstance every situation and i think the future is awesome that whatever is going on we have god we know the track to follow we have the word of god he wants us to have listen he is and to be obedient and if we obey him we can afford to leave all the circumstances to him and i think we have an awesome possibility of watching god do an unusual work if we're willing to be obedient day by day step by step now let me say this let me say that your life is a wonderful testimony and the ministry that god has called you to and i can still see you sitting on the first row in the second row down that you and didn't even know what you were talking about each other but you were out there week after week and watching you how you have grown up and how god has used you in the most awesome way i think thank you jesus thank you dear god i know it worked there and i know it's worked in other places but the the wonderful thing about how god works is he does the choosing you know we we we don't do that he does the choosing and thank you for answering the call of god and letting him do through you what he's doing and you know what i know there are lots of pastors who have fellows who have followed them but i would say i don't know of any pastor personally not i'm not taking any credit i'm just saying that you and andy have had the most far-reaching response and outreach to people all over the world from any one pastor i know of so i take no credit i'm just looking thinking god i know you still work miracles amen well we have a saying around here we like to honor people and we like to give all the glory to god and so we you and i both know that it's a privilege to be called by god it's a huge undertaking and i'm humbled by that today and every day but you have a lot to do with it and i'm more more to do with it than probably you want to say uh and then also there was mary gillerstadt who you know she's still rolling as well and you know she was right in there from the very first day we got to the youth group and she believed in us when you know we probably didn't deserve to be believed in it she would defend you she would defend you when you needed defending yes she would and i remember on more than one occasions i think we had we not been at andy not been your son and i not been his best friend we would have gotten sent home from probably most youth camps and most mission trips that we went on but something stuck and we're still here and i want to ask you if you just pray for people as we close i'm thinking about a single mom out there i don't know why this morning um and you know that journey of life and i think you have a special place for single moms in your heart and somebody who's just trying to manage it today trying to keep all of the balls rolling in the right direction and not really sure what all is going to happen thinking about young people who are confused and don't know what to believe there's so many different opinions out there right now and they just don't know really which way is up and everybody in between and i wonder if you just pray over all of us today as we close out i'd be grateful thank you father how grateful we are that we can trust you 24 hours a day thank you that you don't change thank you that you're as powerful today as you were when you created this earth you're trustworthy you're awesomely indescribable ever-present and willing to help us and father you know we all need help we all need the awareness of your presence and so we kneel in this place today and i want to thank you first of all for what you have done in pastor louie's heart and life and ministry keep it up lord and i pray that you'll keep him strong and healthy all the days of his life that you keep on using him to the maximum of his potential and lord from that as he has mentioned we think about all these mothers who are going through difficult times hardly making ends meet wondering what's going to happen to their children hearing things that they're being taught in school that they know are not right i pray for these mothers today in jesus name for the spirit of god to hover over them to work in them and through them and to give them courage and confidence that no matter what happens their children will do the right thing because they're covered in prayer i think about the fathers who are so frustrated at this time of making a living for their family and wondering what's going to happen to their children watching the unsafe atmosphere in which they're having to raise their children that you give them wisdom god and courage to trust you when things look so bleak and father i pray for all the pastors who are going through difficult times and most all of us lord at some time do i pray that you will keep us faithful to the word don't let us get drawn away by things and attitudes and [Music] actions to the lord that appear to be strong enough to draw people to you lord just remind us that our trust must be in you we're trusting you for everything that we need and father i pray that the church in america the church in america would stand strong and be faithful loyal devoted through all the things that we are facing and things we will face and father i pray that the holy spirit will do a work in your church today in spite of all the things that we hear we're trusting you that we will stand strong dear god with the word ever delivering the word faithful loyal and devoted as we know how to be accomplish your purpose and your will and lord i pray that you will stand out greater than ever before as the solution and the answer yeah and the source of what we need thank you that you don't change god i'm so very grateful you don't change what you were a hundred years ago you are today or two thousand years ago just as faithful just as loyal just as forgiving just as empowering we say thank you thank you thank you and i ask for a special blessing lord upon pastor louie i known him a special and a new lord for the work that you've called him to do and thank you for all that you've already done keep him strong healthy committed absolutely obedient to you and trusting you for everything thank you for the way you have supplied every need that he has faced i trust that you'll continue to do that and lord will continue to watch you work and do an amazing work of the holy spirit in him through him and for your sake in your glory in jesus name amen amen you

Channel: Louie Giglio

Views: 5,712

Rating: 4.9631338 out of 5

Keywords: Louie Giglio, Passion and Purpose Podcast, Dr. Charles Stanley, Passion Podcast

Id: OpCCdaELZYY

Length: 55min 54sec (3354 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 10 2021