Episode 1627: Companion for the Journey

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Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 1,627 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

Clay Boatright: Hi, I'm Clay Boatright. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. We have the ability to choose our path, but sometimes we need inspiration to find it.

Great way to be inspired is to listen to this, the Inspired Stewardship podcast by my friend Scott Maderer.

Scott Maderer: While we were even enemies, we were reconciled. We. So now whether we're loved or whether we feel loved, or whether we don't believe we are loved, and that invites us back into community, no matter what you've done, no matter [00:01:00] who you are, no matter what suffering you're going through.

Clay Boatright: Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

If you truly desire to become the person

Scott Maderer: who God wants you to be. Then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

In today's spiritual foundation episode, I talk about Psalm 95 and Romans chapter five, verses one through 11. I share how boasting in afflictions may not mean what you picture, and I also share how suffering in afflictions are healed in community and connection. Psalm 95 [00:02:00] says, oh, come let us sing to the Lord.

Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come into his presence with Thanksgiving. Let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise. For the Lord is a great God and a great king. Above all Gods in his hands are the depths of the earth. The heights of the mountains are his.

Also, the sea is his, for you made it. And the dry land, which is his hands of form, oh, come let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord, our maker, for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. Oh that today you would listen to his voice. Do not harden your hearts as the merab on the day at ma Masa and the wilderness.

When your ancestors tested me and put me to the proof. Though they had seen my work for 40 years, I loathed that generation and said they are a people whose hearts go astray and they do not regard my ways. Therefore, in my anger, I swore they shall not enter my rest. [00:03:00] Romans chapter five, verses one through 11 says, therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.

And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions. Knowing that affliction produces endurance. And endurance produces character. And character produces hope. And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us for while we were still weak at the right time.

Christ died for the ungodly indeed. Rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person, someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us much more. Surely. Therefore, since we have now been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him for the wrath of God, for if [00:04:00] while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, much more surely having been reconciled will be saved by his life.

But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. I don't know about you, but that passage from Paul in Romans makes me wonder if maybe Paul meant something different when he says boast than what I normally think of when I hear that word.

That has to be true. Boast in our sufferings. Boast in our afflictions. What is that about? That doesn't make sense. Is he talking about those folks who insist on showing their scars? Even when it makes you a little bit TMI, is it? About making noise, about the struggles we've had and talking about that.

I mean, I don't know about you, but I don't like that when people go around saying how [00:05:00] hard they had it, not because it's true or not true, but because often it ends up in a show of I had it worse than you did talk. He then goes on to talk about the value of suffering, how it produces endurance and all of these other things, and so maybe.

He's talking about the result of suffering or the product of suffering, that part I understand, but boasting about suffering might seem a little excessive, a little odd. What's interesting is the Greek word here I've say seen is actually K-A-U-C-H-A-O-M-A-I. Kacha. Oma, I think. And it actually has both a positive and a negative connotation.

It's translated here as boast, but that bad sense is what we're most familiar with. You know, the self glorifying, taking pride in oneself, [00:06:00] self-centered boasting. That's what we think of when we hear the word boast. That's what we see all too often. I don't know about you, but I think our culture today glorifies the self in all sorts of ways.

Self-made man. The suffering made me who I am. I pushed through it. I was able to overcome, and that's a temptation, that feeling of you did it and you did it all. And yet it grates against our understanding of what it means to be a follower of Christ. And yet, Paul here is saying, boast in that.

Well, the positive side to that word might fit a little bit better here. The meaning of that is to have confidence in God. It's often translated in, in other places in the Bible as rejoice in or glory in, and you'll see that word in Greek translated [00:07:00] both ways. So maybe what Paul is asking of us here, maybe it's got more than way, way to interpret it.

Maybe he's trying to remind us that we're not alone in our journey of faith or our journey through life. We're not alone. We're in community. That we didn't do it all ourselves. We didn't pull ourselves up by our bootstraps without help from others and help from God. And yet that seems awfully contrary to what we hear in the culture today.

To turn and emphasize that I didn't do it alone, that the companions on the journey with me were part of my journey. That our faith is a faith because it's a shared faith. That's what Paul is asking us to acknowledge even in our moments of suffering. Paul is saying, [00:08:00] don't suffer in isolation. Don't. Do it alone and do it.

What's more, you can't do it alone if you're going to break through and have the good fruits that he's talking about, the endurance, the character, these things, these are relational. Hope is relational. Yes, there is an individual component, but it's really tested and built and grown through how we interact with others.

Hope is built in community. Character is built in community, and without a doubt that community not only includes us and others, but includes God. God is present. Even in the darkest moments, God is being poured into your heart and that is that faith and hope that we have. The boasting that Paul is talking [00:09:00] about might be rejoicing in that presence after all.

That's where the glory comes from, not from us, but from God. And that's what Psalm 95 is reflecting a call to know that same joy, that same glory seeing and rejoice because we know that God is present. God is seen in the world that surrounds us. Is what the Psalm says, and the Psalm invites us into an intimate relationship with the God who sits and permeates throughout all of creation.

We belong to this God. We are the sheep. God is the shepherd. That is really what we're being called. To do not to harden our hearts, not to separate ourselves from God and from the community, but to reach into [00:10:00] it, to connect with it, not to harden our heart, but to soften it while we were even enemies, we were reconciled.

So now whether we're loved or whether we feel loved, or whether we don't believe. We are loved, and that invites us back into community. No matter what you've done, no matter who you are, no matter what suffering you're going through. Thanks for listening.

Clay Boatright: Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship

Scott Maderer: podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor. Go over to [00:11:00] facebook.com/inspired stewardship and like our Facebook page and market.

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