Introduction - Part 2

Continued:

Hello everyone and welcome back to Grounded with Matt Round. We're glad you're tuning in today. If you joined us last time, we were just finishing our introduction. This is currently part two. We're going to pick off where we were last time. I was in the middle of asking Pastor Matt a question, so let's go ahead and dive into that.

Moments of God's Presence

I think that there are a couple of different answers to that because, again, I think sometimes we need to understand what it means to feel the Lord's presence like, especially in our culture. Sometimes we associate the Lord's presence with a feeling, with an emotion, a moment response. And certainly God does move in particular moments to ingrain things in our lives. But I can remember several times, But I'll give you a couple. One of them is when we were living in Santa Clarita, before we went up to before I finished my degree and before we went up to Medicine Hat in Canada to do ministry up there, we were in a house that we were rapidly not able to afford. We had purchased this place. We needed someplace bigger. We had had two kids. At that point there was a job promotion that was kind of promised at work and that ended up falling through. And so we were digging into reserves deeper and deeper, and we were just came to this point where it was looking like we were going to have to find a new place to live, sell the house at a loss and move somewhere else. And I can vividly remember being upstairs in the office and kind of praying, we'll say, with some disagreement between the Lord and I on what he was doing in our lives at that moment and me just talking to God and saying, I thought this was where you wanted us.

We prayed about it. This seemed to be the door that you open to lead us here. Why do that? If you were going to change the plan and move us out? And I remember the phone ringing as I'm praying in that probably not most humble spirit. And I remember as the phone is ringing, I was actually pretty annoyed because here I was trying to talk to God about something and, you know, how dare the phone interrupt that and answer that. And it was actually our lender and they had restructured our loan and it was this kind of miraculous provision two days before Christmas. And it was just one of those times where there was the understanding of comfort and joy and that that is linked to God's provision in that moment, but also kind of the the bite of realizing of my own little illness of faith in that moment. So that's one of those that's one of those moments that I recall that there's a clear understanding that God was in it and all that that brings with it not only a view of his goodness and his grace and his mercy and his kindness in that moment, but also especially acutely in that moment, the understanding of how far short I had fallen in demonstrating faith even there.

Heros of the Faith

Some of my heroes in the faith, Again, I look back to guys like my grandpa, who is a hero in the faith because he just lived a normal life of faithfulness. He owned a business, he raised a family. He served in his local church, and no one knows who he is and no one ever will know who he is. And it didn't matter. It was it was powerful because it was normal. It was powerful because he lived his life understanding that it wasn't to reach some great goal or notoriety, it was just to be faithful. And that is that is a heroic thing. I think if we had more Christians who saw faithfulness as just the normal byproduct of loving Jesus, then then heroes would be easy to find. I mean, you look toward ministry and there's all kinds of heroes of the faith. And biblically, you look at the life and the Ministry of Paul, and there's just so much boldness and trust and faith there that I would love to be able to emulate. I deeply admire guys who serve at churches for a long time, who who land in a ministry and who love their people well over a number of decades. And there are several. I mean, in our close circles geographically, here you have guys like John MacArthur who have just served in one place for over 50 years and agree, disagree on any number of things. That level of faithfulness and commitment to a local body is, again, something that I deeply admire. So that's that's a couple that's incredible.

Sermon Preparation

So for my Sunday sermon, typically I know where we're going because the way that we work through the Bible here at Chapel City is we start at the beginning of a book typically, and we go till the end of it, which is very, very helpful as a pastor because you know what's coming next and love it. Or hate it. That's the passage that you're going to work through as we try to kind of work through the whole counsel of God and develop the context and the understanding of where the author and where the Holy Spirit ultimately are taking us through that. So I'll read the passage and assuming that I know where it's going to break down based on thoughts and arguments and scenes and whatever, whatever the sense is, whatever the chunk that makes sense is I'll take the passage and the first thing I'll do is I'll try to outline it kind of grammatically. We'll look at the languages that it's written in and where it makes sense to break up, like where the author would break up his thoughts. And then I'll try to form another outline that is more thematic that's not so rigid in terms of grammar technically, but is more more designed for people so that they can absorb the main points.

Once I have that outline, then I really kind of dig into research whether that's language tools that I have and that I use or commentary, his or historical sources. It all kind of depends on the passage and where it's at. But those are all things that we use I use for my sermon series. What I try to do is rather than just have entire series of commentaries, one of the things that was really helpful in seminary was the recommendation by a couple of professors that when you're preaching through a book, you look to get the four or five best commentaries on that book, regardless of what series they're from and work with those. So that's what I've tried to do, is to kind of collect some of the best resources for wherever I'm at, people who have just expertise in that particular place so that they can feed into my understanding of that. So I'll look at the commentaries and I'll look at the historical sources and like I said, whatever language resources I have, and I'll put that together and then I'll listen to other guys that I trust, other guys that are faithful, other guys that are theologically solid. I'll listen to at least two, usually three other guys preach the same passage.

Number one, because I want to make sure that I'm not coming up with anything new after 2000 years of church history, If you're finding something new that nobody else has, you're probably not just creative. You're probably wrong. So you want to stay away from that. So I try to make sure that I get the sense in the same way, at least broadly, where other faithful men have seen. And then obviously it gets detailed and refined for our particular people. That's a part of shepherding the congregation that God has given you. And then I'll start writing and I write out everything that I'm going to say, mostly because that keeps me short. And anyone who's ever heard me preach knows that it's not short. But trust me, if it was just a couple of bullet points, we'd be there for a lot longer. So. So I try to manage my thoughts by working all the way through it. The last thing I do to prepare is put in whatever illustrations are going to be there and put the PowerPoint together. But all those main points have to be done by Thursday when I send it in to Ellen so that she can put the main points in the bulletin. So.

Pastor Matt's First Sermon

So my first sermon was in the college group when I was serving there, and it was, oddly enough, kind of in a preaching competition. The college pastor got three of us guys and he gave us these passages and we had a little bit to prepare and preach. And it was as much as preaching is not a competition, that's what it was. So my first sermon was a very brief, very bad sermon in the context of a sermon contest. My first kind of normal sermon was at a Romans 1 in the college group at Church of the Canyons. And again, I am glad that the recording of that does not exist anywhere because it would be real bad and really humbling to listen to. Maybe, maybe it should exist somewhere. Humility is a good thing, but yeah, those were the first two real ones. And the fact that they are lost to history is probably an act of God's good providence.

Coming to Chapel City Church

Yeah, we'd been doing ministry up in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada for five years and God had grown that ministry. He was gracious to put us there for our first go round of again vocational ministry. There were fantastic people. It was a ton of learning, a ton of new experiences. It was encouraging, it was refining, it was challenging, It was all the things that ministry always is. But it was a great landing spot for our family. And then five years later, God called us and again we use that word calling. There was no voice from the clouds. There was no sign beamed into my head. It was circumstances that God opened doors to move us back here through some family health circumstances through some. Friends who attended Chapel City who let us know about an opportunity here through the encouragement of Bob, my mentor who was at chapel or who was at Church of the Canyons at that time still, and made me aware of the opportunity. And it wasn't that I was looking for someplace else. If this door didn't open, then I wasn't trying to push on any others. But again, through through a series of open doors and long communication. God brought us here to Chapel City, and that was four years ago. And we're really thankful that he did that.

Favorite Biblical Passages

So you're not allowed to have a favorite book when you're a pastor because whatever book you're preaching through kind of becomes your favorite. When you spend a long time in one place and you kind of immerse yourself in it, I find that whatever book I'm preaching becomes my favorite because I always learn something that I hadn't known before. I always I always get encouraged by things that I hadn't been encouraged by before. And more often I get my toes stepped on by things that hadn't stepped on my toes before. And that's that always becomes my favorite. Probably consistently the books of Romans and James, I go back to those a lot. Romans For the deep encouragement in who we are in Christ and how we live that out. And James, for the constant reminder that I lack a lot of the fundamental needs for self control that I ought to have. And out of that, some of my favorite passages come out of, particularly Romans 8, as we're reminded of the spirit interceding for us, even in our weakness, the promise that God will work all things together for the good of those who love him, and the push toward understanding that that greatest good is that we're ultimately conformed to the image of Christ and the way that Romans 8 closes with the idea that nothing separates us from that love of God, that that passage always has always been very meaningful to me and very encouraging and very challenging.

The more that I preach and the more I find that there are words to say on anything. I think one of the one of the places that I keep coming back to is one of my consistent favorites is 2 Corinthians 5 and the closing verses there in 21. The idea that God made Christ, who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. And just finding that that one sentence kind of encapsulation of the gospel message is one of the most profound and powerful verses. Just because you could spend a lifetime unpacking and understanding what that means. And and yet it's so simple and beautifully stated there.

Favorite Theological Books

Yeah. So I remember there's not a lot of books that kind of change the way we think about things, but there were a couple just in my undergrad as I was thinking through World View Things and Lady named Nancy Pearcey has just written some great books. Total Truth was one of them that just really impacted the way that I think about things. So I've always loved that book. I like some of the classic stuff. Sherlock Holmes. I have the thick Sherlock Holmes collections of stories and I read those a lot and I read them over and over again. As far as theology books. Lewis Very Schaefer's systematic theology is one that I go back to a lot, so it kind of depends on the category and where you're going. But those those are some of the ones that have impacted me. Yeah, I think those are probably those are a few I like reading. I could go into a lot of different things. Thomas And Campuses Imitation of Christ is another one that that I've read several times. And it's a thin book and it's an old book and it's just a great book that continues to impact me and sharpen my thinking.

Favorite Bible Translation

That is an interesting question because I, I grew up going to a oner. And so when you go to a one, you memorize stuff in the new King James. And so, so much of my memory work was done in that that kind of that's the default that's in my head. A lot of times when I was working through seminary, I use the new American Standard Bible. So that became a lot of the foundation for my study and understanding and working through class work on it. And now here at Chapel City, we preach out of the ESV and I like them all. I'm a guy that reads a number of different translations. Because I think that to try and work the nuances into one particular translation is a lot of times really difficult. And there's some things that the NASB does really well in a passage and some things that the NASB does really well in a passage and some things that the Neve does really, really well in a passage. And so finding those is always kind of more exciting than not because God uses these translations of faithful people to impact and encourage people. If you had to narrow me down to one, I'd probably do the NASB. But again, that comes with a deep appreciation for several others.

Favorite Foods

I like anything savory. I, I love Indian food. That's probably the genre of food I love more than anything but food. And I get along real well. That is not always the best thing, but I am. Some would say not discerning. I'll say not picky when it comes to food. I'll eat just about anything. Although I've really got to stay away from the carbs as the body continues to get older.

Hopes for the Podcast

I am hoping. I'm hoping that it will be an encouragement or help to someone I don't know, to anyone listening in a world where there are 10,000 voices and everyone has a podcast. My hope is that somehow this is through God's grace and through his sovereignty. Just what someone needs to hear at any particular time. I hope it encourages people to ask questions because I firmly believe that God has the ability to answer our questions, our longings, our curiosities, our are challenges to Him. The Bible is enough. And I'm convinced and convicted that when Peter writes that we've been given everything we need for life and godliness, that that's the case. And so often as we go through life, we come to the point where at least as Christians, I don't think we would answer or we would say out loud, God doesn't know what he's doing or he doesn't care about my situation or there is no right answer here. But we function that way a lot of times. And I'm hoping that through whatever we do here, that it reminds someone in some answer or some context or some way that that God has given us what we need, that we have the wisdom from His word that speaks truth into our lives. And we have the help through the Holy Spirit, through that Word and through ultimately the help of our brothers and sisters in Christ in the church, to live in a way that honors him. And if this podcast does anything to move people toward that in the discipleship process, then I'm excited about it.

Closing:

Pastor Matt, thank you very much. This has been episode one of Grounded with Matt Round and we are so glad that you listened in. If you stayed this long, please check us out. Our website is grounded with mat dot com and tune in next time to hear us ask the question. If jealousy is a sin, how can God be a jealous God? Thank you very much for listening. We hope you have a great day.