Moving Beyond Secondhand Faith || Victory Church [Book of John Roundtable #4]

All of y'all are going to hell, right? Oh, no. And like, what are you learning in that Bible study? Right. Well, thank you both for being here today and being at the table. I know Pastor Johnson's message this weekend was really good. It was really good. We have been in the woman at the well now for a few weeks and it's been challenging and it's been exciting. So have y'all been enjoying it? It's been amazing. Yeah, no, it's great. I love John four. Well, we talked this week about a specific scripture, John four, 39 through 42. So I want to read the scripture out loud to you guys and then ask you a question. Okay? Okay. All right. Many Samaritans from the village believed in Jesus because the woman had said, he told me everything I ever did. When they came out to see him, they begged him to stay in their village. So he stayed for two days, long enough for many more to hear his message and believe. Then they said to the woman, now we believe, not just because of what you told us,

but because we have heard him ourselves. Now we know that he is indeed the savior of the world. So Pastor Johnson talked about borrowed faith, right? And he talked about believing and knowing. And so sometimes we believe because of somebody else in our life that believes. And then we have that encounter where we know. And so they say like, now we believe, not just because of what you told us, but because we have heard him ourselves. And so the question I have for both of you is, borrowed faith is a great place to start, but a bad place to finish. So tell me about the moment you moved from borrowed faith to a faith of your own. So that's an interesting question because for me, this is a special year for me because this is actually July of 1976 is when I put my faith in Christ. This is my 50th year. That's amazing. Of following Jesus, right? Yeah, thank you, appreciate that, that's right. And I found faith when I was in a little thing called Vacation Bible School. You ever heard of that, right? I was in middle school and Vacation Bible School. And I was going through a season where, middle school is just rough, right? People are mean and treat you any kind of way. And the thing that I realized was that

I wanted to be accepted. And the message for that Vacation Bible School was about the fact that Jesus accepts you, just as you are. You don't have to become anybody else. And so that message of acceptance was what I needed to latch on and own it for myself because I was in a place where I needed acceptance and Jesus would love me just as I was. And so that kind of was the initial place. There was a place later on and I won't go into that, but initially that's where I started. If I think about when I got saved, I don't really have a date and time for me. Like my dad's a pastor and I grew up in church. And so I kind of have always been around it. Kind of like what Johnson was saying about the, yeah, no, I know how to do church really well. But I think it's been these little increments of, oh, wow, I know Jesus in this way for myself now. If I really think about it, it was in college when I was in the military. I don't know if we've, the three of us have talked about that before, but I was in the military. And when I went to basic, was probably when my faith really truly became mine. Because it's like, it's just me. These people are traumatized and traumatizing. And I needed Jesus in a different way.

And so the faith that I had, I won't say that my faith wasn't real before I graduated from college because I had beautiful experiences in like praise and worship and in Bible camp and vacation Bible school and the youth conferences and all that stuff. Like I experienced Him, but there was something different when you're out in there by yourself in almost a hostile environment where it's like, no, this is not set up for me to win for real, where you can feel God and feel Jesus in a way that is unique. And so I think that that was truly the beginning of where I can say, if you look at your faith journey as a plant and you can see everybody else's faith that you were leaning on at the beginning and then you can kind of see a cutoff where it's like yours. I think that my cutoff point was when I went to basic. I grew up praying and believing God for things, but I have a specific story about healing. And I was young, I was in school, I played sports and I had to go see this doctor. And there was something that was going on and it was frustrating to me. And my mom was like, we're gonna pray about it and God's gonna heal you.

And it was like, that's it. Like there was no questions asked. We didn't, you just didn't, I didn't ask the question and I didn't think for any reason that he wouldn't do it. You know, it was like, my mom said it, it's happening, that's what we're gonna do. And so we prayed about it and God did. He completely healed me. I haven't had any, I haven't had that issue ever again. So, and I'm well out of my teen years, but you know, it was, my mom always had faith and she always believed, but she never gave me any opportunity to doubt ever. And so it was like, no, we're praying about it. We're asking God to do it and he's gonna do it. And sure enough, every time he showed up. So for me, it wasn't my mom saying like, you're gonna be okay. She was like, no, we're praying. And when I did pray and I asked the Lord and I believed 100% and he did it, it was so real to me. It was so real to me because then I knew for myself. It wasn't like, oh, that happened for somebody else or I've heard this story. It's like, no, it happened for me and then I have countless stories from, you know, teenage years, preteen years, all the way up now into, you know, my adult life of God just showing up and I have so much faith because I've seen it and I've experienced it and it's been so beautiful.

So, you know, it's good to have people that you can lean on, but it's so good for you to know that you know that you know for yourself because you can stand on that without, and like when you said you were alone when you went to basic training, you were there, but you knew it. You had been, you had had the faith of other people and you had built that up and then when you stood out on your own, you had it for yourself. Yeah, I can remember feeling like when I first started in my faith, there were so many people around me and we were all kind of leaning on each other and I could kind of fade in the background and just be, okay, well, yeah, no, I definitely agree with what you're saying and I definitely believe it and I can say what you said and do what you do and it means something to me. But it wasn't until I went to, when I was out there, again, like in Connecticut by myself with no real community that I had to go and find community and believe that the Lord would provide community for me. I had to go and believe that the Lord would comfort me. I had to believe for myself that the Lord is good and faithful and is a good father and all these, so it's like I had a basic understanding before I left, but then I had actual knowledge, experiential knowledge once I left. But to your point, even for me,

I think that, yes, I received Christ when I was 12, but when I was really challenged was when I went to college, right? And I grew up in this Baptist background and thought I knew the Bible, right? I'm invited to a Bible study and then my faith was challenged and I was challenged with some things. I was kind of like, well, I didn't know that was in the Bible and it was so significantly impacting me at the point that I called my dad who was a deacon in our church and I said, hey dad, based on what I'm going to Bible study and he's like, that's great. I said, yeah, you know what I've learned? All of y'all are going to hell, right? Oh no. And he's like, what are you learning in that Bible study, right? And come to find out that, hey, there are lots of different beliefs centered around the Bible, right? That aren't necessarily truly biblical, right? And in that confusion is when I really began to passionately seek Christ, right? And I found someone on campus who said, hey, I know you're going to that Bible study and I know where you came from, let's talk, right? And I had that conversation with this gentleman and he gave me a book that I still have in my office

that helped to solidify what it means to follow Jesus, right? And to know that you know what it means to be a follower of Jesus. And so, to your point, there's a book called Experiencing God, Henry Blackaby calls it the crisis of belief, right? That's when you have to own it for yourself, right? And until you have that challenge, you're not kind of sure, is it mine or is it somebody else's? And I think we all were talking about, hey, this is when I knew that it was mine. And that was my point when, yeah, I accepted when I was little, when I was challenged, now I know, hey, now I know what I believe and that makes a difference. Yeah, yeah, I mean, and you look at the actual scripture, like in verse 42, we no longer believe that transition from belief into knowledge. Like it's serious, you know? And it's the thing that we're gonna shake everything that can be shaken until the only thing that remains is the things that can't be shaken anymore. That process, and I think, I don't know if it's just our generation or my generation.

The generation that we live in right now where people will just Google a thing and that's the case, or chat says this, so I have to believe that, that has to be real. But like, it's not a, and so when you get into conflict, you know, conflict is this bad word where it's like, oh no, like now I'm having this crisis. is because this thing that I thought to be true is being challenged. And in reality, it's a gift. And that sounds, I feel like that sounds crazy, but in order to even be in an educated, I also used to be a teacher, and some of my favorite days in school were when we would have Socratic seminars where we're sitting and we're having conversation, and the stuff that you thought to be true might not pan out. And to find that out in a situation with your peers that's like, it's safe, it's an environment where we're just exchanging ideas. It's like, no, okay, so this thing that I thought was biblical, I thought this was Acts 29, 43, or whatever. It's like, sweetheart, that's not even in the Bible. You know, and so it's an opportunity

to step into a deeper, more true knowledge. Almost like if you're, I don't know if you've, I'm seeing this image of somebody chiseling away at creating a sculpture or something like that. It's that chiseling, it's that confrontation, it's that conflict that really reveals truth. And I think that God invites us into that, and we shouldn't shy away from it. No, yeah, no, it's beautiful. I felt like in the message this weekend, Pastor Johnson challenged us and called us higher, you know, to really know the word of God for ourselves. And you know, if we have been in a relationship with Jesus for many years and have read the word for ourselves and it's helped to grow our faith, you know, we do have a general understanding, maybe more than some people, but we all are talking about times when we knew Jesus for ourselves. And so everybody comes in at some point to faith. And it's so important that we read the word of God for ourself, that we know the word of God for ourself, that we're praying because, I mean, it's so easy, especially now that you can go to the internet for everything versus just asking your parents and allowing them to pass their faith to you, that you can just go look something up. And you don't know, you don't know what you don't know.

And the only way that you really know the truth is you seek it out for yourself. And so I think that was such a challenge and calling us higher and such a gift for all of us that seasoned or not, brand new to the faith or seasoned in the faith, like to continue to learn God's character. I wanna leave you guys with this one scripture because we're talking about our faith, right? And how we believe in Jesus for ourself and how our faith has grown. And this is a scripture that I hold on to because I've seen God answer so many prayers in my life and show up so faithful in so many ways. And so this is Philippians 4, 6, and it says, don't worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, talk to Him. It doesn't say talk to Him, I say that. It says, tell God what you need and thank Him for all He has done. Yeah, that's good. And that is just such a key verse to the fight. Yeah, it is. He's always there and He always wants to be with us.