Episode 041 || Self-made or God-made?

Well, hey, Pando family! We are so grateful that every week you decide to jump in with us, not only at our weekly worship services on your tablet, but also our Bible studies we post on these Pando-exclusive podcasts. And if it's your first time with us, welcome. We're glad that you're here. If you're looking for a way to learn more about the Bible, to grow in your faith, how to follow Jesus better, this is the place where hopefully you'll learn how to do that. My name is Derek. This is Brandon. We're part of our online team, and we have, I would say, special guests, but this is your second time with us in the past three weeks. Yes, I'm getting the hang of it, guys. Yes, getting the hang of it. Well, this is Bryson Cook. He is our Franklin campus pastor, which is down in Tennessee. And so that's a cool kind of part of our church, is that not only are we here in Kentucky, but we're in Indiana, and we're also in Tennessee. And so... We are. Yeah. And so, Bryson, will this be the second fall, then, that you and your family have been down in Franklin? This will. So we moved spring of 2025, so we got to experience last fall, which was fun but hectic. We were launching the campus. It launched August 17th of 2025. So this will be the second fall. We still got groups and stuff that are coming up, but should be a little bit slower paced. We as a Cook family might be able to do a little more fun things and slow down a little

bit. Okay. I like that. Well, Brandon, what about you? What's a favorite fall tradition? Oh, man. Oh, that's tough. You a pumpkin carving guy? You paint the pumpkin? You do both? I mean, we're definitely pumpkin carving. Okay. It's a little scarier now that my kids are older and want to, like, you know... Ease of the butcher? Yeah. Do it themselves. I know for you, it's like pumpkin spice season, though, so I know that you like... Pumpkin spice. Look, I'm all, yeah. All about that PSL life. That's right. Yeah. But obviously, I mean, the big thing in fall race football, like, we are, I mean, almost minutes away from the football season, right? And I'm excited about it. I'm ready to be disappointed, as always, but, you know, I mean, Bryson had a good football, like, college football season last year, so... Indiana University fan, the Hoosiers. We went from, guys, the losingest program in Division I history to natties. I don't know.

I don't know how that happened. I need the same thing now to happen for the Bengals. I need Joe Burrow to not get hurt. I need his knee to stay intact. We have Jamar Chase. It could be a good year, but I also say that every single year, so, yeah, at least I have IU now. Yes. Yeah. I don't know what it is. I always loved, I loved the fall, loved, you know, football being on TV, love all the pumpkin flavored things. You know what's funny, though? There's an energy drink that's called Alani, and last Halloween, they came out with some sort of pumpkin flavored energy drink, and it was the worst thing I've ever tasted. It sounds terrible. It was terrible. It was terrible. It was great. Like pumpkin, like I can do pumpkin bread, pumpkin cookies, you know, coffee, pumpkin pie. Pumpkin's good in a lot of things, but in like a carbonated, do like a cold carbonated experience with a pumpkin is not great. Derek, would you ever, would you ever in carving a pumpkin just cut a chunk out and just take a bite? I mean. Like pumpkin nothing, just straight pumpkin. I think you at least had to put it in the microwave first. Warm that thing up a little bit. Just chewing on those pumpkin guts.

Sprinkling it with some brown sugar. Oh no, the seeds. Did you guys ever do that as a family or even now, like baking the pumpkin seeds? We tried it once and it did not go well. Oh really? No. I, uh. Oh, you go ahead, Finn. Well, I was just going to say like our kitchen smelled for like three days. It just didn't work out. I didn't bake them, but I would, when I was a kid, I would, I'd take them out of the pumpkin and secretly plant them in our landscaping. My parents loved when a pumpkin would pop up. That's for sure. Oh my gosh. Would one actually pop up out of there? There's like a little. I got, I got one one year. I was really proud of it. That got to be my pumpkin. That's incredible. Well, now Brandon and I know what sort of mission we have for this fall. We should plant pumpkin seeds all across the like office building and just be like random. Super random places. Yeah, yeah. You know, I, for whatever reason, like this back half of the year, like going towards fall, towards Thanksgiving, towards Christmas, um, you know, Pando family, I'm sure that there are probably a lot of, uh, conflicting. emotions, you know, for you as you're navigating through that and trying to figure out, you know, what does that look like to walk through those seasons? And for many of you, maybe you've done

it for decades now, figuring that out. And, you know, but I think one of our prayers for you continually as a church is that even while you may be away from your family, we pray that God would give you a Christian community where you are at. That as you celebrate these things, right, that you'll continue, God will bless you with those memories. And I know that for all of us, just as humans in general, right, being able to have those memories of even fall and all of that is just, it's so important, right? It's so important. But fellas, today we are here to talk about week three of The Unexpected Leader, the sermon series that Bryson and Lucas DeVries have been leading for us this summer and heading into the fall. And so Bryson, maybe let's just pick up right away and give us a little bit of a preview of what the sermon's about, and we'll jump in and maybe just give like an overview of what you spoke about on Sunday. Yeah, and I'm excited to hear Brandon. He's, you're quite the theologian, man. That was fun getting to hear you unpack Exodus 1 and 2 last time. No, this was really a fun message to kind of tackle. It's primarily when you think about the Exodus story, for those of our audience who have read it or maybe heard it before, you've seen Prince of Egypt, like this is what you think about typically when you think of Exodus, like the plagues and the Red Sea split and Moses saying, you know, let my people go to Pharaoh. And so we had quite the chunk of text to have to cover, chapters 5 through 14, but it's a really powerful section of God moving. And I know Lucas is going to talk, I think next week, about what it looks like to just lead faithfully when things get really hard and it's a grind. Man, for Moses here, there's some difficulty on the front end, obviously, and emotions all throughout, but God is showing up in some powerful ways. And so in this message, we were really wrestling with what did it look like for Moses to stay dependent on God, even when things were going really well, versus even what we see in Pharaoh's heart, which is his hardness and his closed-offness to what God's wanting to do. So just that idea of dependent power, what does it look like when God shows up big on the scene in the areas where you're getting to lead and influence people? Very good. Very good. I know we definitely enjoyed it. I genuinely enjoyed listening to it. And Brandon, I know that this is one of those parts of Scripture that may be one of the more famous parts, right, where you kind of hear about God bringing these plagues on Pharaoh, on Egypt. And so walk us through a little bit about where we are specifically in the texts. And I think I saw you write, and there's probably some cool little tidbits of information about some of those plagues.

Well, that's my grocery list. Hey, we gotta see your hieroglyphics you were working on earlier, too, man. You gotta hold it up for the camera. Yes. So yeah, Moses has come back into Egypt. We saw his call last week, right, with Lucas, and talking about the moment of the burning bush. Moses begrudgingly accepts this assignment, it seems, but he goes back with his brother Aaron to the throne room. And it's probably because his connections with growing up in Pharaoh's household that he's allowed to even walk into the palace. But he walks in, and he makes that demand of the very famous either, like you said, Bryson, either Prince of Egypt or Charlton Heston Ten Commandments, let my people go kind of thing. And you can imagine Pharaoh's like, no, no, why would I do that? Why would I listen to you? And they tell him that God has commanded this, God has said, let his people go. And Bryson, I love how you brought this out, that Pharaoh responds to that demand by being like, well, who is the Lord? Who do you think you are? Who does he think he is that I would do this for him? And so what really kind of comes of all this is a battle between Pharaoh and God in the midst of... And by battle, I mean, not a battle. It is Pharaoh just getting completely obliterated again and again. It's a beat down. Yeah, that's a good word. It's not a battle. It is a beat down. And so we read throughout the text, there's this tension between like Pharaoh hardens his heart against God. It gets to the point where like God is just continually beating Pharaoh down with these plagues. The text says it's God hardening Pharaoh's heart. There's this tension there that kind of exists in this text. But the point of it is that Pharaoh is just completely becoming so embittered towards God. And so like, it's not that he's asking, maybe he started out asking that question, who is God, like genuinely wanting to know. And now at the end of it, he's like, no, like, who is he? Like, I don't, but God answers him, right? God tells him exactly, like, this is who I am. And the 10 plagues, you know, Bryson, you brought this out. What I was writing down earlier was the 10 plagues.

So I can remember them. Like the 10 plagues are all, each and every single one of them is a direct assault on the gods of Egypt and saying like, oh, you think you know, you think you know these gods. You know, Egypt in that day was a polytheistic culture. And some of it, we know, we remember some of the gods. You know, I think I studied them in middle school. But you know, Egypt had a pantheon of gods, just a ton of them. And each one of them gets assaulted with the plague. So let me walk through my hieroglyphics real quick. I love this, let's go. So the plague of blood, it turns the Nile River into the blood. Well, the Nile River was itself considered a god. It was the source of their livelihood. The plague of frogs, the goddess Hekhet was attacked through that. No, I might cough. You've been working on your Egyptian, I love it. The plague of lice was Geb, who was the god of the earth. The flies was Shu, the god of air. Livestock was Hathor. Boils was attacking Isis. Hale was Seth. Locust was the god Osiris, who was over agriculture. And then finally, you get to the 10th and final plague, the plague of the firstborn. And that is an attack on Pharaoh himself.

In that day, Pharaoh was considered to be a god. And so by attacking even the firstborn child of Pharaoh, who himself is a god, God is saying, no, I have dominion over every single god you can imagine. And I think it's just so intriguing that these are not arbitrary plagues. These are not arbitrary punishments. These are designed to show Pharaoh the absolute error of the dependence he's been putting on these other gods. These gods have nothing when compared to the God of Israel, the God who revealed himself in the burning bush as I am. They're nothing compared to him. Can I stop you there for a second and ask a complicated question maybe? So we have Jacob's family that has now expanded for tons and tons and tons of people that live in Egypt, and they're following this God, right? They're following God himself. And yet they're living amongst this nation of Egypt, and they apparently have all of these different gods, right? So where would Egypt have gotten these from? Like, do we know any of that? Like, where does that come from? You know, I don't particularly know off the top of my head. I think, I mean, it was very common. Pantheism was kind of the broad rule in that culture. Like, you know, the Mesopotamians had different gods. Certainly, as you get into the history of Israel

and you see the nations around them, they believed in different gods, and they had different gods for different things. So I think it just became kind of a ritualistic, kind of primitive idea of, well, something has to be guiding this. And so it's just easier to imagine like, okay, well, there's a God who controls the water, and there's a God who controls the air, and there's a God who controls the underworld. Like, that's a very, like, almost every ancient culture has a God of the underworld, right? Like, it's a very, very common sort of motif. So I think it was just this idea, like, there has to be something more going on in this world than we understand, and so we're just gonna assign a deity to it to help us make sense of it, and actually to help us manipulate it. Because if we think there's a God over the Nile, and he makes the Nile go, well, if we think there's a God over agriculture and he gives us the crops that we need, then if we do what makes him happy, then we're gonna get a good crop. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you know, it's interesting, because in so many other places in the Old Testament, too, as Israel moves around different places, and there's a line that is used a lot where God mentions, and, you know, such and such happens,

and they will know that I am the Lord God, right? Yeah. And so many times, God is so specific about making sure people know that like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, quit trusting in all of this other stuff. Right. And all of these other gods, almost in quotations. Like, because you're gonna know that I am the Lord God, right, I am the only God. And Pharaoh is unfortunately gonna learn that, you know, the hard part. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and throughout the history of Israel, right, like you get later when Israel becomes a nation and the prophets are calling them out of idolatry, like the prophets are very clear. Like, this idol that you've made, like, it's just wood, buddy. Can't do anything. Yeah, you put a tchotchke on your mantle and you're praying to it. That was a very Yiddish word, like a little totem, a little token. Like, you put this tchotchke up on your wall. I thought that was Egyptian again, man. I was really impressed. And you just said it there, and you think this thing that you created is going to save you, and it's just not. And in fact, I'm trying to think who it is.

It sounds like Isaiah, so I'll say it's Isaiah. Like he talks about like, hey, if you worship an idol that's empty and vain, that's what you become. Your life is empty, your life is vanity. It's meaningless because you have devoted your life to something that has no substance behind it. And that's what God is exposing to Pharaoh here, is like everything you have built your life upon, it's nothing. Bryson, so for you in these plagues and in some of the takeaways, like what are some things that maybe you learned or something that is applicable as you were studying through these plagues and how God was navigating this, somewhat flying with Pharaoh? Yeah, Lucas and I really, we really honed in on the idea of the self-made versus God-made. We want to be leaders and people who are constantly operating out of a place of humility and dependency, that the only way that my life is operating in the way it is right now is because of God's love and his care for me, like versus this self-made culture that we see around us. And so I love something that Brandon just said in quoting Isaiah, that idea of in worshiping these things, it's vain, it leads to a life of just emptiness and vain. And really studying these deities of Egypt, I'm sitting here, and yes, we have different world religions today, like Hinduism and Buddhism and things, but maybe for a lot of us, I think I even joked,

you're not worshiping a river goddess or something like that, but this same idea of idolatry could be present in so many areas of our lives, like in the way that we're perceived by other people in our deep, deep, deep obsession with that, or in our ability to make a name for ourselves or the wealth and the toys and the status and the family that we've built. And then when those things come crumbling down, what does it ultimately reveal about where our identity is placed? And so I love what Brandon said. This is a just onslaught from God against Pharaoh to basically answer Pharaoh's question that he starts chapter five with of, well, who's the Lord? Because Pharaoh has built himself up in kind of this idolatry around him, as well as, I think, clear in the text, an idolatry of himself, that he thinks he's better than God. Why should I listen to him, Moses? I'm higher than him. And then here comes God in kind of a pruning process, removing all of these different idols and sources of confidence that Pharaoh and the Egyptians have had apart from him. And where does that leave the Egyptians at then? Wow, I guess these things that we did find confidence in pale in comparison to this God of the Israelites. And then you still have the sea crossing and things and them chasing them.

So clearly they didn't fully lean into that lesson that they were learning through the plagues. But I really did see this as a section of God kind of revealing the idolatry and ultimately the pride that was built up in the heart of Pharaoh in really the heart of Egypt. That's good. So let's talk about this idea of idolatry for a second. So that may be a completely new word for someone watching this today. It may not, depending on your relationship with Scripture, maybe if you've heard that or not. But for Brandon or Bryson, either one of you, like how would we just very simply define idolatry? Brandon, you go first. I'm curious your thoughts. I mean, it's tough. On the hot seat. I think broadly, right, when we think in terms of where Israel is headed in Exodus 20 when they're given the 10 commandments, right? The very first commandment is, you shall have no other gods before me. And I think fundamentally what God is telling us about our life in that is that we were made to worship something, right? Like our eyes are always gonna be drawn to something better than ourselves or something greater than ourselves or something that we think can give us meaning.

Our eyes and our hearts are always looking for something. And ultimately what our lives and our hearts and our eyes are looking for is Him. We just don't always realize that. So we look in other places and we search after other things. And so idolatry at its base is that violation of the first command, is that I've taken something and put it in the place that God is rightfully supposed to have in my life. That it has priority, it has my passions, it has my heart, it has my mind. You know, Jesus talked about, you know, the first and greatest commandment is love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And again, it's. we are going to love something that way. Whether it's a good thing, like our families, or our security, or taking care of ourselves, like we're gonna love something like that. And what scripture calls us to again and again and again is that it's God that deserves that place. And when we give anything other than Him that place, that's an act of idolatry, is even taking, I think Keller used to say it as taking a good thing and making it a God thing. And that's where we get ourselves backwards. Bryce, any additional thoughts? Yeah, I would, just this royal image of Pharaoh just sitting up on a throne, I just imagine,

I can't remember the first time I ever heard it described, but that idea that there's this throne that sits in our hearts, right? And anything placed there other than God is idolatry. Whether that is us, like I'm my own God, I'm gonna decide my own path, the kind of something that we see in culture today, right? Of live your own truth and whatever you desire, just chase after it, and that's good because you want it. Or things that I place in that spot that I feel like will bring significance, or comfort, or stability, or a sense of accomplishment. Whether that's the amount of money in my bank account, or what my family looks like, or my success in my career field, whatever that looks like, whatever's sitting on that throne that isn't God is an idol. And I think what we see loud and clear throughout Scripture, but especially here in this middle part of Exodus, is those idols have to fall, and that throne has to be vacated for the Lord to take the rightful place there. Yeah, and I think what's unfortunate, but what also is a blessing, is that as children of God, or as when we've placed our faith in Christ, and we've become that new creation in Him, He's gonna be faithful over the course of our life to continue to tear down those altars, continue to tear down those idols that we have.

And it's not a fun process, no one enjoys that. But the Lord does discipline the one that He loves, right? He continues to sanctify us, to make us more like Christ, to take those things from our life. And one of the things Bryson just said that's so true in my life is that, when I look at what would be the greatest idol that I struggle with in my life, it would be me. Yeah. It's me, it's how I look, how I sound, how I come across to people like me, to people not like me, and is this giving me comfort, is this making me happy, is this bringing me joy? And even in the seasons where I've really struggled with mental health, or I've felt that deep depression at different points, well, where that deep depression oftentimes comes from is still along that, and it's unfortunate, but it's still on the same vein of pride, where I just can't quite take my eyes off of me, where it's like, well, this isn't going right, and that isn't going right, and I feel like this, and they see me like that. And I'm just continually reminded, or I would say this, God continually reminds me that the times where I am able to take the focus, not just completely forsake myself to the detriment of my health, like that's not what I'm saying, but the times where I'm able to take my eyes off of myself

and put my eyes on Him and other people, man, those seem to be the seasons of life where I tend to thrive, right? And I think it's because what I end up doing is I end up walking in what God actually wants for me rather than being so focused on what I want for myself. Yeah, well, and I think Pharaoh, unfortunately, reveals something that's terrible about what sin has done to human nature, and that is that the cure for idolatry is very often pain, is that we have to go, yeah, we have to go through something in order to recognize that something else was on the throne of our hearts. And for whatever reason is you can't, people can't come to us and point out the idolatry in our life because what do we do then? We get defensive about it, right? We're like, whoa, like you can't attack that thing. Relax. And actually defensiveness is probably a really good symptom of idolatry, but that's another story. But so often the remedy for idolatry is pain, is for that thing to be knocked so solidly off the throne of our heart that it hurts. And I actually think it's Kyle, in his book, Gods at War, says something to the effect of what suffering is

is suffering is an idolatry eliminator, that we don't realize how much we propped up our life on those idols. idols until they start getting taken away. And then we see them for what they are. The pain piece is so, so, so good. You know, we really honed in on this idea of behind idolatry is ultimately a sense of pride, right? Like a pride in self or a pride in something exterior that then gives me that sense of validation. And, um, and scripture is so clear on this and I know all three of us could probably attest to this in our own lives. Ultimately behind pride is some type of deep insecurity that pride is serving as this mechanism, this defense mechanism against. And so part of what Brandon's alluding to with the pain is sometimes when these idols topple over, it leaves us like exposed our hearts, like the, the wounding, whether it's, whether it's, uh, uh, just this really poor image of ourselves that was adopted when we were a kid, maybe a message we got from a parent or a sense of loss that we experienced in life, or, um, maybe just a, just a constant struggle that has marked our lives. You know, we've, we've built up these exteriors of, of pride to kind of find these senses of stability and comfort and, and identity, and I'm going to push down all of the things that I'm scared about myself. And so when the idols are gone, it's you left with your exposed heart before God, and that's, that's painful because sometimes it looks like rehashing some of those wounds that you've carried throughout your life, but tried to numb. Yeah. Bryson, not to put you on the spot, but there was a, there was a fray, there was a way that you set that up in your sermon that I thought was brilliant because it, it, it was so helpful. That's why. And it was so clear.

Yeah. And I think again about, you know, it was something like insecure, like behind your pride, like insecurity is hiding. Like there was some sort of way that you had set that up that I thought, man, that was just so good. Yeah. I, so kind of, it was kind of the beginning of the message, I think if it's what you're referring to. I think so. Yeah. Um, we were talking about how our culture today just celebrates the self-made, you know, they, you know, they did it, whether the celebrity or the athlete or whatever, and just the pride, the self-pride behind that. And we talked about what the, what the Bible calls kind of that itch and that desire for significance and for acknowledgement from people. And yeah, you know what? I did do a great job. Like ultimately the Bible calls that pride. And what we wrote is, Hey, it's not always the loud, boastful, obvious kind of pride. Usually it's the quiet kind, the kind that just wants a little more credit. The fish is for a little recognition that our effort mattered or we're looked up to by others. And if we were to dig even deeper underneath that pride, if we look really closely and honestly, what we find typically at the root is insecurity. That beneath pride is a fear that if we don't get the credit or if we're not seen as capable or impressive or we have it all together, then maybe we don't actually matter or our lives lack purpose. And then you have all those messages just bombarding in your head about who you are. So yeah, I think so often the, the idolatry and the pride, it's just masking deeper fears and wounds that we have that we're leaning into cheap remedies to help numb the pain.

Yeah. I loved that. I thought that was so applicable because I mean, you know, I'll address the elephant in the room, you know, even right here, you know, Pando family, I know that even just there's so many of the letters that you've sent us that our team and I have sat down and read through them. I know that there are so many of you as you're listening to that, it probably identifies really closely to you, right? Probably, man, really paints a picture of like, you're looking at yourself because of the way that maybe a parent or a relative or an adult treated you as you were growing up, right? Made you feel insignificant. And then it's kind of pushed you down a dark path. You know, maybe you're in a place right now where you feel super insignificant, right? Because you've been writing your family for a long time, and they've kind of grown weary of that, and they haven't wrote you back in quite a while. Maybe those visits from friends and family continued for a little bit, but they've kind of stopped over the years, and you feel like, man, I just, I feel lost and insignificant and lonely. And if that's you, you know, I'm sorry. I hate that that's the reality for you in this season of life. You know, but what I do know, like Bryson is saying, is that there, even in the midst of those things, like, number one, God does not see us as insignificant, right? He sees us as His child, right? Like, He loves us, that His grace for us, His mercies are new every morning. He is going to call you His child as much as He would any one of us. on this podcast, and that's one of the things that is beautiful, that you are significant to him. But Bryson, there's also this other side of how we can live and how we can navigate, and what Jesus calls us to, not this life of being self-made, but this idea of being God-made and this idea of humility that you spoke about earlier. Walk us through what does that look like?

Yeah, it really stood out to me reading just this, you know, this account. Pharaoh takes front and center, obviously. He's kind of God's sparring partner, and as Brandon alluded, it's not really an even sparring match. He's getting beat down by God as God is trying to reveal the idols of his heart to ultimately wake Pharaoh up to what God desires that's so much better than anything Pharaoh could want. So looking at Pharaoh in this story, it's really easy to fixate there, but I found myself kind of juxtaposing Moses as that opposite character, and just seeing the two ways they responded. You have Pharaoh, who's just at odds with everything that God's doing, that he's continuing to want to elevate himself, versus Moses. Guys, there is just a dependency through this whole story. You know, we talked about it at the beginning with obeying even when it's hard, but when Moses first goes to Pharaoh and says, let my people go, and Pharaoh says, who's God? It's almost a callback to the first chapter. Pharaoh makes the work harder for the Israelites, and some of the Israelites actually come to Moses and Aaron and say, thanks a lot, guys. Like, I thought you were here to help us. Way to go. Yes, yeah, and you just wonder for Moses, obviously, we've talked about it the last couple, you know, the last two weeks. Lucas really got into this last week. Moses is, you know, his life has been marked by growing up in a foreign household apart from his family. He's murdered someone, and can you imagine the shame and the guilt he carried with that? He kind of goes into his own little self-induced exile out in the wilderness for all these years. You know, finally has this encounter with God, where he realizes, like, wow, God can use me. And so you think, in going back to Egypt, there would have been, especially when here comes the plagues, and then obviously when we get to the sea crossing, just so much temptation for Moses to be like, yeah, you know what? I have made it. Like, I am the leader that, you know what I mean? Like, he would have had all the reason with everything that he had walked through to allow those insecurities to build a sense of pride in him, as opposed to just continuing to point to God as the ultimate one on the throne and empower. And so quite beautifully, like, we see Moses with that humility all through this section. It's all about God. It's all pointing to God. It's all for God's glory. And so, Derek, I think to answer your question, it looks different for all of us, but I think a piece of it is, I mean, when we start to feel that pain come up, like Brandon was talking about, when maybe some things are stripped away in our life that we didn't recognize were being in an elevated place of worship in our hearts, when those get stripped away and we're left with our insecurities before God, I think there's a

piece of, just from Moses here, of just a humility of saying, you know what, God? Like, I'm yours in all that I am. And like you said, Derek, a mindset of God, you love me despite my flaws, despite the things that I have tried to fill the holes of my heart with. And then I think a sense of just trusting God within that, that if there's things that you've been clinging to, thinking, this is gonna set me where I need to be, this is gonna give me the name and the notoriety or have people look at me in a certain way, I mean, just setting that to the side and taking God's word for who you are and aligning your life around how God asks you to live and lead. That's the God-made leader. That's the leader that, once again, might not look like the flashiest or most successful in the eyes of the world, and yet that's the type of leader that God desires and uses all throughout Scripture. I love that, because it's a reminder that there, again, there's another way to approach life, there's another way to approach thinking through these sorts of situations, because the temptation is... Whenever we feel this insecurity, man, I don't feel significant, I don't feel important, I feel like I've broken things. A lot of times what we tend to do is we tend to swing the complete other direction and try to puff our chest up, make ourself feel valuable, be the loudest one in the room, the one that everyone sees in this... pride just builds up in us, and over the years, right, the more you practice that, and for some people, right, it's a sense of protection, where it's this like protection mechanism they've built over the years, this wall to protect themselves from other people so they don't seem weak, right, so they don't seem like they have any flaws, and sometimes it's a survival thing. But what God is wanting to do in our lives is that He is wanting us to take down those walls, right, He wants us to break down those walls, because, like, in those moments of vulnerability with Him, and I especially want to emphasize with Him, because I know that there are situations where people have hurt us, people have taken advantage of us, and so even that idea of vulnerability can be a stressful thing to think about, like I get that, but when you make yourself vulnerable and transparent to Him, and you allow Him to work through your weaknesses, He transforms us, right? He transforms us. And like Bryson had mentioned a couple podcast episodes ago, it's not so much that He's doing this just to make us the best version of us, right? He's doing it to make us more like Christ, because that's not only what we need, but it's what the people around us need. Like,

if we're going to be a leader that influences people around us by the way that we're living, by continually walking the way that Jesus walked, doing the things that He did, believes the things that He does, well, like, we are going to become obviously more like Him, and the people around us are going to see that, and we're going to have a good effect on people in our lives. And again, it's something we all can do. It's not just limited to a few of us. Absolutely. Yeah. Derek, I think, you know, this is such a—and Brandon too—this is such a raw, like, story. Like, bloody rivers, and the sun going dark, and, you know, firstborn children passing away. Like, it's a really, it's a really visceral story and account of God confronting, I think, to the same level, the, you know, the pride that's built up in the heart of Pharaoh. Right. And I think what I don't want to miss is, like, God's tenderness as well. I mean, we see Him later in Exodus talking far more about His love, and His being slow to anger, and His patience. I was thinking recently, as you were talking about Derek just coming before God in humility, my daughter Madison's in this weird phase right now where she takes a lot of pride in being able to do things on her own, like ride her bike without us, or you know, X, Y, or Z, whatever it looks like. She's just all about doing things on her own now as a four-and-a-half, almost five-year-old. And there's times where she, like, for instance, she was riding her bike the other day, and she fell off and scraped her knee pretty bad. And her immediate first reaction, which it's hard, I can't psychoanalyze my four-and-a-half year old or pretend to know what she was thinking in the moment, but for the purpose of this illustration, let's roll with it. Instead of coming to me, she ran and hid and tried to hide her wound and almost nurse it herself. And I actually ended up finding her, you know, Holly and I, and said, Madison, what's going on? And she was just crying, like she was embarrassed. You could sense just the emotion she was wrestling with. And then obviously in that moment, as loving parents, we scoop her up in our arms and we clean her off and we get her bandaged up in a way that she never could. And I was just reminded of that, even in this passage of God's love for us, especially as His children, Derek, and just how that goes hand in hand with that authenticity before God. Like, I

think sometimes in the midst of our insecurities, we can feel like, well, I don't want to bring this before God because of my shame or because of what I might think that He'll think of me when ultimately the clearest thing that we get is the picture of a loving Father that just wants to care for you in a way that none of these other false ways can. And you just have to be willing to run into Him, even with the bloody knee. He's going to bandage you up and your insecurities in a way that you can't through any sort of prideful puffing up. And Bryson, unless there's anything more that you wanted to add into this podcast, I'd love to let that actually be the final word, because I think that is such a great advice for all of us, because I think sometimes the temptation is that we think that especially when we've messed up, when we've fallen off the bike, when we've tried to do something ourselves and we've gone in hiding and we've hurt ourselves, a lot of times what we do is we picture that God is standing back at the house with, you know, his arms crossed, sitting on the porch, and like, see, I knew you'd be right back here. I knew it, you know? And actually, what I believe is that his posture is a dad that is one with open arms, you know, saying, come home, let me help you. And Bryson, I thought that was a great illustration. But fellas, we are wrapping up week three of The Unexpected Leader, and Bryson, it's been so good having you on several times this month. So much fun, guys. To be a part of our Pando podcast. And Brandon, even though I know you didn't write in hieroglyphics, it makes us— You know what, maybe next time. Maybe next time. Maybe next time. Wait, Brandon, Brandon, one more Egyptian word for us? You got one? You know, well, I mean, it was a really easy one. Oh, he does. Don't be humble. Because I didn't talk about... He's being humble. We were just talking about humility. We just talked about pride.

Well, if I had to say something. No, because I didn't say, like, I forgot about the plague of darkness, which was against Ra. So there's an Egyptian word for you. Yeah. Is that where the football player, part of his name comes from? Actually, yeah. Well, there you go. There you go. There you go. Back to football. Back to football. It all comes back. Always comes back around. All comes back full circle. Well, Pando family, we love you. We're grateful for you. Again, you are welcome here as part of our church family. One of the things we love is that quite often now, we get to meet several of you walking through the doors of one of our Southeast locations. And we absolutely love even more getting to get you connected to that staff that's there at that campus. And so if you ever wind up in Franklin, if you're watching this from Tennessee, and you're looking for a church home, at least you know a guy. And Bryson, he has a great staff of people that would love to welcome you, help you get plugged in. And we'd love to do that as well at any of our campuses. Y'all, we love you. We're grateful for you. And we'll see you next time. Bye, guys.