Episode 039 || You Are Being Prepared

Well, what's up, Pando family? We are so excited that you are joining us for another Pando exclusive podcast. We love getting to do this every week to be able to talk about the sermon, talk about, the text behind it, and what God wants to do in our life through that. Now, as you can see, we have a little bit of a different setup today, which we think is awesome. We have Brandon, myself, I'm Derek, we're part of our online team, but we have a special guest that you have seen before, not only at the beginning of this new sermon series that we're calling The Unexpected Leader, but you've also seen Bryson preach from our Blankenbaker stage several times, and we're excited to have him on the podcast for a couple times during this series. So, Bryson. What's up, guys? Hey, what's going on, man? What's going on? How we doing? Good, so update us. So you are our Franklin Campus pastor down in Tennessee, and take us from there. Tell us a little bit about yourself, about who you are, your life, how you got to Southeast. I love it. I am 31 years old. I've been at Southeast since I was six years old, so you can do the math. 25 years of growing up in this church. I'm a native of Southern Indiana near Louisville, Kentucky, so obviously how I got connected with the church, and man, I know that we all love Southeast. Us three, our whole audience watching today, this church means so much. So I know I say it all the time, but I mean it. I'm not the man I am today or the follower of Jesus I am today if not for the ways that God has worked in my life through this church. So about almost 10 years ago, it's a little over nine, I had the honor to come on staff at the church that discipled me. Started as an intern and then served as a community engagement pastor, like a local

missions role for one of our campuses. I got to serve as the Indiana campus pastor for a few years, and then last year, spring of 2025, moved down here to Tennessee to be a part of Southeast's first campus here. I have my wife, Holly, we've been married for a little over nine years, so right along the same trajectory of me coming on staff. And we have two little girls, Madison is almost five and Lucy is two and a half. They are my everything, like they have me wrapped around their fingers, it's fantastic and really scary thinking about just them growing up. And I remember them being newborns in my hands, it's crazy how much time flies by. Yeah, man, that's awesome. And one of the cool things is, with Franklin launching, what was it? Has it been about a year since that campus? Yeah, yeah, so we launched in August of 25, so we're coming up on our one year. Okay. Amazing. That's awesome. Brandon, have you been down to Franklin yet? I have been down to Franklin. Okay. It's beautiful. Yeah. It's beautiful. Okay, okay. Did you pick a spot out to eat down there? Do you remember? No, we ate at Bucky's on the way back. I was going down there with my dad. Yeah, we stopped at Bucky's, got some Bucky nuggets, it was a great time. Okay. Yeah, you can't not stop at Bucky's, it seems un-American.

So, Bryson, if we were to... Go ahead, go ahead. Did you get some Bucky swag, like did you get a hat? No, because I think my wife thinks that's too far, so I think that would be a source of contention between the two of us. You didn't do the whole Disney World experience? No, no, no. I mean, I could if I wanted to, yeah. Yeah, if y'all on Pando haven't experienced the Bucky's experience yet, maybe one day you'll get to be a part of that. It's like a gas station on steroids. I don't know how else to describe that. I remember when we, my wife and I and our two kids, we moved down to Dallas, Texas for a ministry role in 2019, did that a couple years, and we lived just right off this exit, and they were plowing this big plot of land right off the interstate next to us. And my first day in the office at that church, they were like, oh my gosh, you live in Royce City? Do you know what's coming? And we were like, no. They're like, it's called Bucky's. It's a gas station. Bucky's. And we were like, okay, great. That's awesome. I guess I'll get gas on the way to work now. And when that place first opened, it was insane. Yeah. I don't know how you got home. It was insane. And so having a Bucky's at your fingertips can change your life.

Oh, yeah. It's literally life-changing. Well, Bryson, give us a pitch for Franklin. What's something about Franklin that you love, whether it's the people, the environment? Tell us about that. So this is hard. I don't know if you can see this. I have all my IU's. Wow, this is confusing with this TV. Hang on, hang on, there we go. The Hoosiers. So born and raised a Hoosier in Southern Indiana, moving to SEC country. I was like, I don't know about that. But man, Middle Tennessee is beautiful. The Rolling Hills, you mentioned it, the amazing food. I've been told that it will take at least two years to be able to eat at all the good food spots here in the area. So we're only about halfway through. Man, it's a sweet community. Just the amount of churches here in this community, as well as just a great school corporation. There's every weekend something happening in local parks or libraries for kids and families. It's just a very family-oriented environment. And so being a husband and a dad of two kids, that's been really sweet for us, especially leaving our whole network of community up in Indiana to come down here.

And most importantly, there's amazing people. There's new people moving to Nashville every day. It's cool to be a part of just seeing people come and get connected to a church community or to Jesus for the very first time. And to be a part of that's really special. Yeah, man. And so what was, because I'm sure moving from so much of what you're familiar with in Southern Indiana all the way to Tennessee, that's a massive step of faith. And so walk us through that process. What was that like for you and your wife? Man, it was hard. Like I said, I was getting to have the honor and privilege of leading our Indiana campus where I was quite frankly discipled. The campus was opened when I was a freshman in high school. So I grew up in the high school ministry there and served throughout my college years. And so honestly, Holly and I would have said, hey, we could have served at Indiana for the next 20, 25, 30 years and been so happy and so fulfilled. I can't explain it. When the conversation started about if we would be willing to pray about and seek God's wisdom on potentially moving down here to be a part of the Franklin campus, at first Holly and I were like, no way. Like our family's all up here.

We love Southern Indiana. Like we're not, neither of us are real big city people. Like Louisville's, we always loved driving to Louisville to shop, but then we just wanted to go back to Indiana, back to the country. And so the idea of coming down to Nashville and just how fast this community's growing, there was some anxiety around that as well as being far from family for the first time for either of us. But man, I can't explain it. My wife, she really challenged me one night. She said, Bryson, if this is really from God, we need to pray that he changes our hearts. And guys, we just, both her and I just really started fervently praying like, God, if you want us to do this, just make it so clear. And he did through conversation, multiple conversations with so many people, that still small voice that we all know of when God just kind of convicts your heart in something. And most importantly, when both her and I have big evangelistic hearts, when we heard about how fast the Nashville area is growing, like anywhere from 1.2 to 1.5 million people in the next five to 10 years moving here. So basically the city's gonna double in a half a decade to a decade.

There was something where it's like, okay, God, that's a lot of people that potentially need Jesus, let's go be a part of it. We feel you calling us, we'll be obedient. So it was hard, but he's faithful and it's been a sweet year of building community and seeing him move. And that's awesome. And Brandon, I know you've moved a few times for ministry over the years. Do you have a lot of similarities in some of those conversations? Oh yeah, like it is always, it's probably terrifying to move anyway, but especially when you have small kids. Like I think when we moved back to the Louisville area 10 years ago, like my daughter was, my oldest daughter was four. So we had four, two and like newborn. And it was like, we are, first of all, you know this Bryce, there's a lot more stuff when there's more than two of you. We were like, where did all this stuff come from? But like that to me was the bigger stress of it was like, hey, we're gonna have to help them get adjusted. We're gonna have to sort, like I can sort this out fine. I can deal with it, but helping them do that. But I think when you feel, and Bryson, you kind of spoke to this, like when you feel like, okay, God is in this and He's moving,

like it's gonna be worth whatever, it's gonna be worth whatever stress that puts on us. It's gonna be worth the change because God is gonna work in that. Amen. Totally, amen, amen. That's good. Well guys, in terms of the reason we're having this conversation today, and like we do every week, it's to apply what the sermon was on Sunday at our church to let it have legs throughout the week and apply it to our lives. Because it's one thing to just be hearers of the word, but it's another to be a doer of the word. And Bryson, we were so excited that we have you and Lucas DeVries, who are Pando family, you'll get to meet Lucas a little bit more in depth on next week's podcast episode. But Bryson, I'm curious, the sermon title for this series is called The Unexpected Leader. So walk us through, where does that title come from, and walk us through that. That's great. When Lucas and I were sitting down to think through what the summer would look like, it's really interesting because both he and I, like Moses, was right at the forefront of our minds. And I don't know if it's because we as a church just went through Genesis together, and so it felt like kind of this really beautiful, seamless transition into the very next book, and let's see what happens to Joseph and Jacob's family after Jacob and Joseph both pass away. But he and I just very quickly recognized, okay, God's clearly wanting us as a family here on Pando to dig into what Moses' life looks like. And when he and I just really started studying Moses' life, and we see a man that for everything on the surface, looks like he should not be qualified or step in in any way to being a leader. He would be the last person that you would think that God would ever use to lead God's people in an extraordinary way. I think that's what really convicted our hearts, and that's why this Exodus

story that we as followers of Jesus have just clung to for the last 2,000 years, it's why it's so powerful because it is such a story of no matter your past, no matter what life has looked like up to this point, God can use any one of us. And in fact, he's oftentimes working behind the scenes to even prepare us for things that he might have for us, even like what we just studied in the life of Joseph when Joseph was sitting in a prison, and yet God is forming and shaping him into the man that he's going to be and the impact he's going to have. And so that was really where that idea of the unexpected leader came from. You'd look at Moses' life from an outside perspective and think, no way that guy can be a leader. And yet we were really challenged in two ways of first saying, hey, God can use anyone. We see that all through scripture, and he loves to use the most unlikely of people. And then secondly, we even tried to re-identify what that title of leader and definition of leader looks like, because I think there's so many different ways in which that gets context in our culture. And so that was fun to kind of dig into in this series. I love that. So, as Bryson said, y'all, we are going to be studying the life of this guy named Moses, and you may be someone that you're like, you know what? Out of all of the biblical characters, I've heard of that guy. And if that's you, man, that's awesome. But even if you're in a place where you're like, it doesn't ring a bell, that's fine too. That's why we do things like this, so that we can help one another grow in our understanding of the story that God has placed us into, and who are these other people? Who are these broken people, these unexpected leaders that God is using? And so Brandon, maybe just set us up a little bit of an overview of who is Moses, right? Set the stage for us. Well, there's a movie called Prince of Egypt. That's a good start. Yeah, there you go. What would you say if I told you I watched it in preparation for this series? Hey, I love it. It's a great movie. So Moses, we open up in Exodus, the second book of the Bible, and it's interesting, because Exodus is really an interesting turning point in the story of Scripture, because it's both really gonna call back into Genesis, as Bryson made clear this past week, but also it starts looking forward a lot to like, hey, this is the deliverance that God is ultimately gonna give his people. So it's a really interesting book in that it's continuing the story on, but also really foreshadowing in very significant ways what God is gonna be up to when Jesus comes on the scene. At any rate, we open in Exodus. It's about 400 years, we're told later, since Joseph has died. And in those 400 years, we've gotten to the point where the leaders

of Egypt, they don't remember Joseph. They don't know anything about him. All they know is that they have these Israelite people living in the land of Goshen. And over the course of those 400 years, the 70 descendants of Jacob have become... It's hard to get an estimate on it. It's over a million people who have grown up into this mighty nation that's living within the borders of Egypt. And so this somewhat rightly freaks Pharaoh out, but he deals with it in a very poor way. He looks at these people and rather than... seeing them as like, how do we incorporate them into Egypt or whatever? He wants to beat them down. He wants to oppress them and make sure that they do not rise up against the nation of Egypt. So he begins to use the nation of Israel as slave labor. And Bryson, I love how you pointed out, maybe you can speak a little more to this, that the word that is used to describe how Pharaoh deals with the Israelites is the same word that's used of the deceptive nature of the serpent in Genesis chapter three. It's almost a mirror image. It's wild. In a lot of my historical study too, it was really interesting finding the references to many of the Pharaohs would have a snake or a Cobra symbol on their headdress as well, which within that context was royalty, things like that. But as I'm reading this and I'm just seeing how Pharaoh's being described, he in so many ways, like I alluded to in the message, just is walking the path of the serpent. He is in defiance against God and against God's people. He seeks to break God's people down. And so, man, when I really latched onto that, and so many biblical scholars have pointed that out, it gave me a really interesting perspective of continuing to unpack chapters one and two of, wow, it's almost like this reminder of, hey, remember what happened back in Genesis three, but man, God is gonna continue to overcome what happened in that chapter to bring ultimate redemption, like you're talking about, Brandon. Yeah. So you get this idea that Pharaoh, much like the serpent, he's doing what seems right to him. It seems right to me that I would make these people work. And so he begins to force Israel to do this slave labor to build up the cities. I think we're told it's the cities of Ramses and Pithom. So they're building up these cities and that's not enough to oppress the people, to make their numbers dwindle. In fact, they start to grow even bigger. So he begins this campaign of really what we can only describe as genocide, I think, in wiping out the Israelite people. And he tells the midwives of the Hebrews that, hey, if a woman gives birth to a girl, she can live, but if she gives birth to a boy, you're to immediately... You're to kill him. So two Israelite

midwives, they hear this and they decide they're gonna disobey it. Their names are Shiphrah and Puah, and they decide, no, we're gonna let all the babies live. We're not gonna have anything to do with this. They get called an account to Pharaoh, and he's like, what are you doing? I told you to kill the baby boys. And they're like, well, you can't stop these Israelite women from giving birth. These people. Yeah, they're already born. You just don't know. You just... They don't call us in time and... They don't even need us. No, they don't... We don't... Yeah, they're... Anyway. But Bryson, I like how you brought out in the message the idea that historically, we have some ideas, but biblically, this Pharaoh is given no name. But the midwives who save the babies, we know their names. We know who they are. Yes, yes. I thought that was so significant, and it just... It put a big smile on my face, because we see this all through Scripture, right? Of God elevating the lowly and the ones that the world overlooks, the ones that the world would normally forget. God says, no, that's the person that I'm going to just raise up and use in powerful ways, even in something as simple as their kind of faithfulness behind the scenes in the story. And I really alluded to that in the message, right? That God sometimes works in the most powerful of ways just simply through the faithful obedience of, quite frankly, unnamed people to the rest of the world. You have this powerful Pharaoh who, the author of Exodus, which I think historically, we think it's Moses. Moses chooses not to give Pharaoh's name, but yet name these midwives as a way of resetting, valuing God's kingdom. That these women are of higher honor because of just their faithful obedience over this king who's doing his own thing and chasing his own desires. Yeah, I love that, because there's such a powerful message, I think, in there for us, that ultimately what matters in God's perspective is not building up the cities, right? What matters in God's perspective are those steps of obedience of... I think we're told the women refuse to obey the king's orders because they fear God. They fear God more than they fear the king. There's definitely something to be said there. Yeah, like, I am going to obey... I mean, it's the attitude of the apostles, right, in Chapter 4,

we must obey God rather than... We're not going to listen. So they begin this campaign of saving the boys. Pharaoh turns even more homicidal. And it's... It's like, well, no, now, when the baby boys are born, just throw them into the Nile River. And so then we get to Exodus chapter two. That's the first chapter of Exodus. So it's like, it's great. This is very... Encouragement. Yeah, it's very encouraging. We get to chapter two, and it opens more on a family from the tribe of Levi, where the wife becomes pregnant, she gives birth to a son, which means he's gonna have to go to the Nile. But she's able to save him for a time. I forget the exact amount. Is it three months? Six months? It was three months. Three months? Three months. Yeah. So she's able to keep him safe for three months. But then it just becomes too difficult to hide this baby. So she does what Pharaoh has told them to do, but she does it with a twist. She takes a basket, and Bryson pointed this out in the message. She takes a basket, puts her baby in it. The word that's used, their basket, is only used, I think, one other time in Scripture, and it's the word that is used to describe Noah's Ark. Wow. I thought that was so cool. That's crazy, isn't it?

Yeah, she builds an ark to take down to the water. Brandon, did you see? I know I said it, but they're even waterproof the same way. Yes, yeah, with pitch. It's just... Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, it's the same way it's described back in Genesis 6. Yeah. So you get... Crazy. If you're following along... Yeah. If you're following along the first time in Hebrew, you would automatically kind of recognize that word and be like, oh, so this is a story of deliverance. This is God saving people. She puts him in this ark and takes him down to the Nile and just hides him there among the reeds. And it just so happens, I love biblical coincidences, it just so happens that Pharaoh's daughter happens across the basket, sees this baby, and picks it up out of the basket and takes it into her home. There's even crazier coincidences in there where Moses's sister Miriam is there seeing this all unfold, and when Pharaoh's daughter picks her up, she's like, hey, that baby's gonna need to be nursed. I know a Hebrew woman who can do it. And so... I happen to know somebody. Yeah, I know a guy. And so Moses's mom ends up being involved in his life after kind of giving him away for this impromptu kind of adoption.

Getting paid for it too. Yes, getting paid for it. And his daughter says, hey, if she needs me to compensate her, basically, I can do that. Just so cool how God delivered. Yes, yeah. So Moses is taken from this baby that Egypt wants to destroy, that Pharaoh wants to destroy, to being raised in Pharaoh's very own house. And that kind of sets the stage for where the rest of the story goes. All we know now is that once again, as it was in the days of Joseph, there's an Israelite in the house of Pharaoh. And we're gonna see what God ultimately has to do with that as the story of Exodus unfolds. That is so good. And I think it was last week, we had a Tripoli here at Southeast that was finishing up our Meant for Good sermon series. And one of the things that he had somewhat encouraged us with in the midst of that sermon was this idea that no matter what the circumstances are, that God will work out all things for the good of those that he loves, for those that love him. So my question would be, where do you see this already in Moses's life? We're two chapters in, pretty much. Where do you see that in his life? Wow. Yeah. Is that for Brandon or me? Either one of you. I'll let you go. Go for it, Brandon. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I know I taught through this, I was really praying through how to unpack the text, and so I kind of took it in that kind of the three different points, because I saw just these

three movements. First of all, the fact that God was working behind the scenes, even as Pharaoh was bringing upon the suppression. So he's going to have the Israelites work harder and harder and harder, and yet I love the line of, but the more the Egyptians oppressed them, the more the Israelites multiplied and spread their first wealth. So just that mindset of like, hey, even though God hasn't been expressly named yet in this story, it's so clear that his hand is on his people. Especially if you go back to Genesis 1, God blesses humanity, says, be fruitful and multiply. And so there's just these echoes back to, hey, it doesn't matter what Pharaoh is doing. God is preserving his people. Also, we talked about Shifra and Pua, but the fact that God then works through the ordinary of these ladies that the rest of the world doesn't see, but God sees them just in the brightest of lights. I love their names, too. Their names are Sparkle and Beauty, and it's just the fact that they're named. I think it's so beautiful and honoring of them and their faithfulness. And then lastly, just, I mean, Brandon described it. The fact that Moses is... placed in the reeds, and this biblical coincidence just so happens that here comes Pharaoh's daughter with this setup, and now Moses is going to be raised in the palace. I think I talked about, obviously, there's not an exact verse to this, but I figured, hey, how would this have helped Moses later in life when he returns back to Egypt, knowing, having grown up in the palace, like Egyptian customs, and the way that Pharaoh's household works. As he's going to the palace, telling Pharaoh these things that God is telling him. And so it's just so cool how God has kind of worked behind the scenes when you may not see him, and he's working through the lives of ordinary people, and he's placing Moses perfectly in these positions to set him up to be the leader that God's made him to be. Brandon, did you see anything else? Those really stuck out to me. Yeah, no, I just, I love how the Bible throughout Scripture just has so many of these things that just happen at the right time, and that you see God is working in all of these

things that you couldn't have planned for, that in fact, Pharaoh thinks that his plans are gonna win, that he's gonna keep Israel down, that he is going to have this permanent workforce of slaves, and this is how I'm gonna oppress them and keep them under my thumb, and God is like, oh, you think you're going to do that? And he uses Pharaoh's very edict to plant the seed that's eventually gonna grow up into the deliverance of God's people. And I think it brings a certain amount of hope to us as we live out our day-to-day lives, that they certainly couldn't have seen that in the moment, right? Sure, yeah, no doubt. I know the text describes that Moses' mom saw that he was a good and a special baby, and she sees there's something going on, but I don't think she could have understood, like, oh, this is what this... This is going to lead to the systematic dismantling of the gods of Egypt. But she just knows... Maybe not. Yeah, but she knows her role in that is to just be obedient in what I see in front of me, and I think that's a great amount of... That brings a great amount of hope to me, anyway, that I don't always understand, like, hey, what... This is what this is gonna lead to, or this is what God is gonna do. But if I'm faithful in what I think He's calling me to do now, like, who knows? Who knows what He's gonna do? Yes, no doubt. And yeah, I think the temptation here is that if we were to just have chapter one right here, and we're coming off, even as a church, walking through Jacob's story, through Joseph's story, and you see this story that has been tied up in a bow with God's blessing and provision, and we know how it all works out, and then you read chapter one, the temptation's to be like, well, hold on a second. Well, hold on. Did God lose control in the midst of this? What is going on? But you guys are right that there are so many times where we don't have that bow wrapped on the story or the season that we're going through, and so we don't always have the perspective to be able to look back and say, man, yeah, I saw God do this, this, or this, or I see Him, God, doing this at the moment. But Bryson, I interrupted you. What were you gonna say? Oh, I was... Brandon had a great point on just the... Even with Moses' mom, just doing that next right thing that she feels called to. Psalm 119, I love it. You know, your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. I always think about that of, man, what is through scripture or prayer or just how I feel God moving, what is just that next right thing that He's asking me to do, even if I can't see further down the path? Because I can

trust Him to just give me one step at a time, and if I have the courage and the trust to just take one step, I am... I think we wake up one day and we look back years from now and say, man, thank you, God. Thank you, God, for moving in my life, even when I couldn't see it. But it takes just those first steps. Absolutely. And I think that's great, applicable advice for all of us, and especially for you watching this right now on your tablet, that you listen to a podcast like this, to Bryson's message, you may even be able to read these chapters in Exodus, and you're trying to figure out, well, what do I do with this? Well, that's one of the things that I think is so applicable, that it's, you know, what is the next right thing? You know, what I loved about those midwives is that they weren't just going along with this evil thing that Pharaoh wanted them to do. Like, they knew what the right thing was to do, and they did it, right? And God used that, and like Bryson just encouraged us with, He'll continue to use that over and over and over again. But Bryson, I'm curious if... someone watching this right now were to walk away with, like, one thing that you want them to remember from this sermon. Like, hey, here's the thing that I would love for you to be encouraged by, challenged by, whatever that may be. Yeah, I think this one was unique because it's obviously the unexpected leader, but Moses is a baby slash a child growing up in the palace when we end these first two chapters. So he's not necessarily doing the leading yet, but there's this picture that God has just been with him. We read this in Genesis with Joseph's story, even when he's in prison and being falsely accused, it kept saying, but the Lord was with Joseph and the Lord was with Joseph. I think the confidence that God, even like his invisible hand, is holding and guiding. And to your point, Derek, has the power to rewrite our stories and use no matter what happens, even our own painful and destructive choices. Like, I think back on my life in, gosh, my marriage and relationships, like things that I've said or ways in which I've harmed others or maybe sin struggles in the past, how God has taken those and woven them into a part of my testimony that I can talk about his grace and his forgiveness and walk with people in similar spots. It's really beautiful. I think too, and it goes right in hand, a big piece for Lucas and I in the series was to redefine that language of leader. And I don't know if this is a question that you guys have that we can get into,

but I think that with a series like this, we were wanting to help everyone see themselves in the life of Moses and really recognize the influence that we have in the lives of others and how that's really important to God and how that's a beautiful opportunity for us and how he sets us up for that. So I don't know if that's something we want to dig into. Yeah, no, let's dive into that right now. Because I think that's the pressing question of, you know, I would imagine for several people that may be watching or listening to this podcast right now, they may be saying like, Bryson, like, I get that. I could see how, man, you are a leader, or I can't even think of people in my life that have been leaders. But man, like, I'm incarcerated right now. I don't know how long I'll be here. I feel like an afterthought or just an outcast of society. Like, how can I be a leader? How can God use me? How would you pastorally walk someone through that question? That's really good. We use the analogy of like walking into a bookstore, first of all. And you go to the leadership section, and you've got all the books from, you know, Fortune 500 CEOs. And here's, you know, 10 best practices for workplace success. You know, all of the leadership type stuff that's on podcasts and social media platforms and everything, influencers, all that culture. And we just recognized that language of leader has been given a certain shape in our culture today. But really, when we dug deep, like, the idea of being a leader is to influence. And I'm looking at what we wrote here, to influence, to inspire, to point others towards a vision, a goal, or a way of life. And it's whether we know we're doing it or not. So like, Derek, I went into examples of like, you are a leader, and even the ways that you interact with the people around you, like in the ways that they see you talk, in the

ways that they see you, you know, practice your faith and keep faith and trust in the Lord, despite what circumstances you're going through, to the way you just carry yourself in all your interactions with others. Like, that's being a leader and influencing people, whether we recognize it or not. And we really tease this out through thinking through who are some of the most influential people in our lives, if we had to think about that. It's probably not the person that's made the most impact on me, probably isn't the NFL quarterback or the celebrity on Instagram with millions of followers. It's probably the parent or the grandparent or the pastor at a church or a friend that even some of our audience that maybe you've even met in your situation that you find yourself in. Like, these people that show up for you, and they love you, and they consistently care and pour into your life. Even if they don't recognize the impact they're making. Like, even our words alone, we don't recognize when we just speak life into others and encourage someone like that's leading that person, that's inspiring, that's influencing. And so for us as followers of Jesus, as much as we can, through all of those things, make Jesus the person that we are pointing people to, that's really what we wanted to get to the heart of in this message. So I would argue that that's important. Derek, that no matter where you find yourself, if you're around others, you have the ability and the calling and the equipping from God to be a leader in no matter what context. That's good. Will you read the list that you had read again? I thought that was so good. I sure did. That was powerful. I said, and I'm just reading straight off my notes here.

I said, leadership is about influence. To lead is to influence, to inspire, or to point others towards a vision or a goal or a way of life, whether you know you're doing it or not. And so for us as followers of Jesus, that looks like pointing and leading people towards relationship and life with Him. Which means that leadership, it's not reserved for the few people with the right title or the biggest stage or the microphone. It's a call for every single one of us in every sphere of our lives. We said, hey, whether you recognize it or not, like you're leading in how you're shaping the emotional or spiritual atmosphere of your home for your spouse and your kids. Or the decisions you make that influence the culture around you with your coworkers at your workplace, or how you're even talking with your friends about what you believe and value and pursue and how that influences them. So yeah, as simple as conversation or observation, you're being a leader, whether you recognize it or not. And so that's equally really exciting and humbling, but also really scary, right? Like, are we allowing the Holy Spirit to really shape our lives to become more and more the leaders that God wants us to be? Which I think is someone who loves His word and is getting to know Him more and more

and trying to live our lives in obedience to Him. Love that. And Brandon, I'm sure that in next week's podcast with Lucas, just knowing where we're going in scripture with Moses' calling, like we'll probably end up talking with Lucas a little bit more about this idea of calling. But what I love about what Bryson just said is that, I mean, this isn't just for like select people. Yeah. This is for all of us, all of us. And I just think that's so good. Yeah, no, like I think it does recast that for us because it helps us understand like we are always in someone's sphere of influence, right? We're always like influencing other people, especially when we talk or think about discipling other people or giving them an idea of who Jesus is. It's like, we are always speaking the gospel to people even if we're not talking to them about it, with the way we live, the way we influence them. And some of you may be sitting there and thinking like, well, I really don't, like I don't have anybody in my current situation that I'm leading. And I would say, that doesn't mean also that some of the most important work you need to do is leading yourself in those moments. That's good, that's really good. I need to lead myself to follow Jesus better. And you and I have talked about this before. We talked about it in context

with our group leaders a while back. Like the hardest person to lead, man, is myself. Like to influence myself to be like, hey, you need to start doing this. You need to stop doing this. You need to get your act together, buddy. This guy will not listen to me. He does not pay attention. Come on, come on, come on, come on. Knock it off. But yeah, so I think some of you, you may be thinking, well, I don't have influence over anybody else. And maybe that's true where you're at. And I would just encourage you, you have influence over yourself. And it's that, we talked earlier about the everyday sort of act of obedience. Maybe today it's just, hey, I'm gonna lead myself to follow Jesus better. I'm gonna lead myself to those environments, to those relationships, to those practices that I know are gonna put me in a place where Jesus can lead me. And that's how I'm gonna improve my leadership today. It's really good, it's really, really good. And so for you, Pando family, that are watching this right now and trying to process through this whole idea of what does that look like to influence people? I know that there's probably a large group of you right now

that are probably grieving a little bit because you know and can recognize that you probably haven't had a ton of people like that in your life. And man, I wish I could fix that. I wish we could fix that for you. And I'm so sorry for that. But what I do know is that you have a Father in heaven that loves you, right? Who has gone first, right? That in our sin that He put on flesh and Jesus lived a life that we couldn't live, y'all. It's not that Jesus just came so that all these laws and all these things didn't matter. Like He came to live the life we couldn't live. He died to death we deserved and literally rose from the grave on the third day so that we could have eternal life. And the blessing of that, the blessings with that are infinite, right? But what scripture tells us is that He gives us His spirit. Not a random spirit that's roaming around in heaven. He gives us His spirit, right? And when we become children of God, when we become... come His, right? He gives us a new hope, He gives us a new future, and we become a new creation. And so our encouragement to you today, just like Bryson said, is that you are a leader. God is going to use you to influence people in one way or another, right? And you may be listening to this and you're like, man, maybe you're 50 years old, and you're like, you know, for 50 years I have literally led people away from Christ. Well, the good thing is is that there are a lot

of people in Scripture who made mistakes. There's even people on this podcast right now that have made mistakes. Two heads. Yeah, and God still uses us. But before we wrap, Bryson, any closing thoughts on week one of The Unexpected Leader? I love what you said about God being the ultimate leader, and we tried to be so clear throughout this series. I think our audience will hear that a couple times in the messages. The fact that it's so interesting the way you phrased it. When I talk about God as a father, sometimes I'll be talking with someone who their earthly definition of father is a really painful definition. And so there's trouble in translating, well, what does it mean for God to be a father? And just the idea of allowing God as the perfect father to define fatherhood. I'd say the same thing if God is the perfect leader to define what a leader is. And so to your point, whether we've been poor leaders or we've had really poor leaders that have tarnished and kind of broken that definition for us, like God is that perfect leader. And we have the Spirit who is going to form and shape us more and more into leaders that aren't just better versions of ourselves. They're versions that look more like God, that look more like Christ as the perfect leader. And so I love it. That's why we really landed on this question of the question not being what, or the question is not, am I a leader? It's what kind of leader am I? And ultimately, am I a leader who's becoming more and more like the ultimate leader? So I love how you phrased that, Derek. I think that's a great way to summarize things. Well, cool. Well, Bryson, brother, thanks for being on here. Yeah, guys. We greatly enjoyed the conversation. I know we're going to see you again, is it week three of... Week three. Week three of this sermon series, and then we'll have you back on the podcast again to talk through what's going on in Moses' life at that point. Love it, for sure. But Pando family, we love you. Thank you for clicking on our channel on the Pando app. Thank you for taking time to listen to us talk about God's Word, about Moses, and we'll see you next time.