God is Sovereign Over Every Story: Matthew S1E1

Summary

Podcast Summary: Deepen with Pastor Joby Martin

Episode: "God is Sovereign over Every Story" (Matthew S1E1)

Date: January 12, 2026
Host: Pastor Joby Martin
Guests: Jonathan Vincke, Ryan Britt

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Overview

In this inaugural episode focused on the Gospel of Matthew, Pastor Joby Martin and his team launch a new deep-dive series into the life and teachings of Jesus, emphasizing God's complete sovereignty over every story—including the personal histories of unlikely and broken people. The episode reflects on how Eleven22's journey and the church's recent spiritual growth are intricately connected to a deep alignment with God’s order, as seen in Scripture and specifically in Matthew’s Gospel. The conversation weaves biblical insights, practical discipleship advice, and personal anecdotes to encourage listeners to commit to a year of wholehearted devotion to Jesus.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Reflections on Spiritual Growth and Church Direction

• Alignment with God's Order: Pastor Joby expresses emotional gratitude for being led by God to focus on biblical manhood and spiritual order within the church, which directly led to church growth and spiritual vitality.
  • “I'm just a regular dude from nowhere, honestly. Much like the genealogy of Jesus. And by God's grace, he saved me.… I'm an under-shepherd for you. What do you want to do with them?” (01:05, Pastor Joby Martin)
• Impact of Calling Men to ‘Stand Firm’: Emphasis on getting church leadership and families lined up with God’s design produces fruitful outcomes, such as explosive student ministry and robust women’s discipleship.
  • “When you do that rightly, it's like breaking the dam at the headwaters and then it just flows.” (03:07, Pastor Joby)
  • “Now we are preparing ourselves to launch… Neighbors to Nations.” (04:02, Pastor Joby)

2. Cultural Context and the Readiness of the Church

• Desire for Substance Over Style: The hosts reflect on a cultural hunger for truth and authenticity rather than surface-level encouragement.
  • “I just want it straight. Just tell me the truth. And if I believe that you believe, that's a great place to start.” (05:47, Ryan Britt)
• Spiritual Fertility of the Time: They discuss how societal instability has made hearts more ready for the gospel.

3. God’s Sovereignty and Human Agency

• Complete Sovereignty: God’s purposes work through all circumstances, including human brokenness and even sin.
  • “His sovereignty is complete.” (10:05, Pastor Joby)
• Natural Order and Living in Tune: There are natural “grain” or patterns to creation. Living in sync with these results in blessing; fighting them brings pain.
  • “If you go against that grain, it's painful. No matter who you are.” (10:29, Jonathan Vincke)
  • “We don't follow Jesus because he makes life better, but he is better than life.” (11:02, Pastor Joby)

4. Big Picture Approach to Matthew’s Gospel

• Importance of Context: Understanding the meta-narrative and literary structure of Matthew enhances how we see Jesus and our role in God’s plan.
  • “He goes 14, 14 and 14. And the reason is because… the number of David is 14.” (14:22, Pastor Joby)
  • “You want to talk about God throwing curveballs? Here’s a guy that betrayed his people, writing to his people about how Jesus is for all people.” (14:22, Pastor Joby)
• Matthew’s Unique Perspective: As a former outcast and tax collector writing to Jews, Matthew emphasizes Jesus as the fulfillment of Abrahamic and Davidic promises and the call to be a blessing to all nations.
  • “Don’t do what the nation of Israel did and get wrapped around the axle of yourself… The moment you got saved, you got sent.” (17:08, Pastor Joby)

5. Scripture’s Unity and Supernatural Inspiration

• Old and New Testament Connections: Understanding Matthew requires hitching it to the Old Testament.
  • “If you don’t know the Old Testament, you can’t know Matthew… we’re going to spend all year hitching it to God's preordained plan.” (23:38, Pastor Joby)
• Divine Orchestration Over Human Agenda: God’s Spirit guided the formation and content of Scripture, not just human intellect or intent.

6. Genealogy and the Outcasts of God’s Family

• God Uses Broken People: The genealogy of Jesus is filled with morally flawed and culturally marginalized individuals—including women and non-Israelites—which demonstrates that God's grace is for all.
  • “Your past doesn’t define you. And outsiders are used by God. It’s not some random idea… it starts from the very first words—Tamar.” (28:02, Pastor Joby)
• No One Too Far Gone: Illustrations of Rahab, Tamar, Abraham, and David reinforce that faith, not pedigree, is what God honors.

7. Grace, Faith, and Human Effort

• Salvation by Grace: Faith is the vehicle; grace is the substance. Even faltering faith does not nullify God’s grace once received.
  • “Your measurement of your own faith in any moment is not the requirement of your salvation. It is grace that saved you.” (32:11, Pastor Joby)
• Human Agency versus Sovereignty: We are responsible, but God is ultimate in salvation and history.

8. Consequences, Restoration, and Repentance

• Consequences of Sin Remain: Though God’s love is unconditional, there are real-world consequences and disqualifications for certain roles due to sin.
  • “You can’t be disqualified from heaven… but there are positions of authority that if you make dumb decisions, you don’t get to do anymore.” (39:00, Pastor Joby)
• Restoration Process: Forgiveness is mandated, but restoration to roles or positions requires both repentance and communal discernment.
  • “Forgiveness is a command. Reconciliation is a process that requires both people and repentance.” (42:44, Pastor Joby)

9. Meta-narrative of Scripture & Practical Tools

• Central Them: ‘God with Us’: The whole Bible traces the arc from God’s presence with humanity, the separation by sin, and ultimate restoration in Christ.
  • “The whole Bible could be described as Emmanuel, God with us.” (45:48, Pastor Joby)
• Resources:
  • God’s Big Picture (Vaughn Roberts),
  • The Jesus Storybook Bible,
  • According to Plan (Graham Goldsworthy),
  • The Garden, the Curtain, and the Cross (children's).

10. Practical Discipleship: The One-Year Challenge

• Step-by-Step Commitment: Listeners are encouraged to try “one year all in,” taking regular steps and giving God time to work.
  • “We’re talking about small deposits over a long period of time, so just take a step.” (48:28, Pastor Joby)
• Expect Resistance: Spiritual warfare, excuses, and discouragement will likely increase when someone commits to God.
  • “Expect the skepticism and the excuses and the lazy and the reasons as to why not to be more clear and more blatant in your life.” (51:45, Ryan Britt)
• Service Schedule Adaptation: Attend less crowded services to make room for newcomers (e.g., not 9 a.m.), especially in anticipation of more people responding.

11. Repentance as the Believer’s Daily Practice

• Ongoing Turning: Quoting Luther, Joby insists daily repentance is central to Christian life.
  • “The life of the believer is that of daily repentance.” (54:30, Pastor Joby)
  • “Every day I wake up… thinking wrong. I need the Spirit of God to help me think like Jesus.” (54:51, Ryan Britt)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “We don't follow Jesus because he makes life better, but he is better than life.”
  — Pastor Joby Martin (11:02)
• “The moment you got saved, you got sent.”
  — Pastor Joby Martin (17:08)
• “His sovereignty is complete.”
  — Pastor Joby Martin, echoed by Ryan Britt (10:05)
• “Your measurement of your own faith in any moment is not the requirement of your salvation. It is grace that saved you.”
  — Pastor Joby Martin (32:11)
• “You can’t be disqualified from heaven… but there are positions of authority that if you make dumb decisions, you don’t get to do anymore.”
  — Pastor Joby Martin (39:00)
• “Draw near to me, and I will draw near to you.” (James 4:8 as ongoing invitation)
  — Pastor Joby Martin (49:30)
• “You’re not employed by grace.”
  — Pastor Joby Martin, regarding consequences for leadership (40:54)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Opening and Reflections on 2025/2026 Church Vision – 00:48–06:43
• Sovereignty of God and Cultural Readiness – 09:54–12:11
• Reading the Bible in Big Picture Context – 13:43–20:28
• Meta-narrative: God’s Plan Through Matthew – 17:08–20:28
• Genealogy and God Using ‘Outsiders’ – 26:43–29:46
• Abraham, Rahab, and the Nature of Faith – 31:02–32:40
• Sovereignty, Free Will, and Faith – 34:23–35:47
• Consequences, Repentance, Restoration – 39:00–43:38
• Tools for Understanding the Meta-narrative – 45:48–47:45
• Practical Challenge for Listeners (One Year All In) – 48:28–52:15
• Repentance as a Lifestyle – 54:19–55:37

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Conclusion

This episode sets a powerful foundation for the Gospel of Matthew series. The conversation is honest, humorous, and packed with encouragements for practical faith and deep engagement with Scripture. The core challenge is clear: take God seriously for a year, engage daily in repentance, and expect God to work in and through you—no matter your story or background. The sovereignty of God means your story, too, is part of His grand narrative.

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Transcript

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Welcome to Deepen with Pastor Joby Martin. The Church of 1122 is a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ. And we're praying this message helps you deepen your relationship with him. Now let's dive in.

[Jonathan Vincke]

Hey, welcome back to the Deepen podcast. It's 2026. My name is Jonathan Vincke with a V. This is Ryan Britt.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Pastor. Pastor.

[Jonathan Vincke]

And this is Pastor Joby Martin.

[Ryan Britt]

My man.

[Jonathan Vincke]

Happy New Year.

[Ryan Britt]

Let's get it, bro.

[Jonathan Vincke]

We have a ton to cover. This would be about a two and a half hour. Deepen. I think I'm gonna get the leg squeeze if I go that long.

[Ryan Britt]

People don't know about the. They don't know about me kicking you under the table.

[Jonathan Vincke]

I get kicked if I go too long. It's past Brit's bedtime.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

It's late.

[Jonathan Vincke]

Hey, Pastor Joby, before we talk about 2026, last year we talked a lot about stand firm and act like men. So what are the reflections that you have on the impact that that has had on our church and our community?

[Pastor Joby Martin]

I know I'm an emotional person, and when I talk about this, it. It gets me in my emotions. Let's just be clear. I'm a nobody. I'm a. I mean, I'm just a regular dude from nowhere, honestly. Much like the genealogy of Jesus. And by God's grace, he saved me. And I, as you know, I can't get over that. And then for some reason, called me to do this. And because of the incredible team, I have you two playing very key roles in the generosity of this church, I'm. I am afforded the opportunity to spend lots of time with little distraction in the presence of God. With the word of God saying, lord, they're your sheep. They're not my sheep. I'm an under shepherd for you. What do you want to do with them? And I don't know how to explain it. I get a sense of the direction God wants to take this church. And it's just that. It's just like you just make up something in your mind, like, how do you explain that? I don't know. And so, you know, two years ago or something, I'm thinking we need to spend a year calling men to stand firm and act like men. A part of the reason I was thinking that or is so that our church would be ready to launch Neighbors to Nations at the end of this year. Okay. Because if you don't have the foundation, right, you can't go to the places God has called you to go right. This is. We're going to get to it at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. And so my biggest reflection. This is the biggest year and the things you can measure that our church has ever had reach. More people grew by more people baptized, more people, more people saved. And it doesn't make sense like sociologically, you know, but there's something about us calling all the humans to align themselves to God's created order. Right?

[Jonathan Vincke]

Yeah.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

So God creates Adam first. He gives him dominion. After he gets his house in order, he gets a wife. And then they together co labor with God to make all things the way God had instructed him to. Sin enters the world, breaks that thing. I think my biggest takeaway is not the cool events which we had lots of them. It's as a church, men and women leaned into God's created order of his design. And when you do that, rightly, it's like breaking the dam at the headwaters and then it just flows. So student ministry is on fire because the created order is aligned rightly with how God intended to the discipleship of the women in our church. By the way, man, high five to the women of 1122. Right?

[Ryan Britt]

Amen.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

I mean, they're the backbone of the church for a long, long time. And I've mentioned it a thousand times. I didn't get the questions. What about us? I got the questions. How can I help? Because that's the question godly women ask. See the Bible. That's my biggest takeaway. And now that we got men worshiping and praying and taking responsibility and stepping into the call of God in their life, now we are preparing ourselves to launch in the fall Neighbors of Nations. And in order to do that, I think we got to get our minds around the context that the Great Commission was given in which is the whole book of Matthew. So the thing that gets me like emotional is sometimes at the end of something like that, I think, oh my gosh, I think the God of the universe talked to me, you know, not in some kind of spooky way, but gave allowed me to sense his direction for his people. And then I communicated out loud. You say it out loud and then you get on the back end of it and you look over your shoulder and see the faithfulness of God and you realize I we aligned oursel with where God was taking us. We didn't try to go do a thing. And then God ask God to come and bless it. So it's very John 10:10. So for two years we're talking about he's the good Shepherd. You listen to his voice, you follow his voice. Don't follow the stranger's voice. And then you're like, we're doing that as a church. That's what we're doing. So that, that's my biggest takeaway for 25.

[Ryan Britt]

I think the spiritual landscape of specifically the North American culture, certainly true in the Southeast, is that it is a spiritually fertile time in our. In our country. No question about it. I think there's a lot of contributing factors to that. There's lots of commentary.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Yeah.

[Ryan Britt]

But I do think one of the things is that because we've been on a 24 hour news cycle so long because we've been inundated with what used to be called news, but it's all so much misinformation and the entertainment machine and, and I do think the consciousness of people has just come to a point to where they're like, I just don't know. Just don't give me cute anymore. Yeah. I just want it straight. Just tell me the truth. And if I believe that you believe that's a great place to start. And we really believe this gospel here. And I think that, that the way that translates and has translated into men is exactly what Pastor Joby just said, is that when you give it to people straight and you expect people to be who God has made them to be.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Right.

[Ryan Britt]

We're not trying to be like all. We're not trying to be mean or brash or crass about it. But at the same time, we're not trying to be like all winsome and like, you got this, buddy.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Yeah.

[Ryan Britt]

It's like, this is who God's called you to be.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Right.

[Ryan Britt]

Step into it. Be it.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

You know.

[Ryan Britt]

And I think people respond to that. And there's the, the, the minds and hearts of people are fertile to receive that, that message. And then I just think there's been a dramatic increase in ownership in regards to what I think the Bible maps as the outworking of discipleship. There's an ownership that men are taking and women over their life, over their choices and over their calling. Y And abdication is one of those things that it's like, no man, you're. You're made for more. Don't abdicate and step into. And it's a really ripe, rich time to be a Jesus follower here for sure.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

And so I didn't see that coming.

[Ryan Britt]

I'm good on you for the like, because that's not how faith is not a sight journey.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Yeah. So like what I mean by that I, I'm a, I got all these pastor converse things. I speak at them all and I don't ever do what the guys say do. So I think I'm an okay expositor of the scripture. I am a terrible expositor of society. Like I don't do it, you know, I, I don't, I'm not, I'm not paying attention to the cultural moments and being strategic about. I don't do that stuff. I, I just do the, like, I mean, from the beginning, I've told the story 10,000 times about when I was in high school and the, in the, the armed services showed up to recruit and the Navy and the army and the, and the, and the Air Force gave kind of pitches on how it would benefit you. And then the Marine got up and was like, there may be two of you that could be a Marine. If you're one, can you come see me? And the line was out the door. And that's been our. My posture from the beginning because it wasn't up to me if this worked good or not. Okay. There's no chance that I saw the flickering of revival coming for sure that Charlie Kirk would get shot on public tv. And the response of that is lots of men would come to church. The overplay.

[Ryan Britt]

Most attended church Sunday and non wartime.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Correct.

[Ryan Britt]

Ever. Across the country.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Correct. Yeah. And that's when a book called San Ferman Atlantic man came out that week. Like this. This is not like a strategic move. All of these things I was praying. So one of the things you'll see not to jump ahead too much. The two most common repeated things in Matthew 1 and 2 are an angel came to somebody and told somebody to do something and they did it. The second most common thing to fulfill the scriptures. So I'm trying to lead that way, read the Bible and do what God tells us to do, period. It's not luck that these things all intersected in the life of our church at the right time. I honestly believe that if you'll lean in and listen, he will speak to you through His Word. There's no new revelation, but he will illuminate his Word and light the path that we're supposed to walk. And, and if you do that, then God's in it. And that's what I've experienced and that blows me away, man. Listen, we know us, bro. That, that's my biggest takeaway.

[Ryan Britt]

Well, let's just prove what you said tonight in the sermon, which I think is a great line you said. And his sovereignty is so complete, it's just. His sovereignty is complete.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Complete.

[Ryan Britt]

And praise God for it.

[Jonathan Vincke]

I was reading judges and it says that. So Samson, he goes to his parents and demands to get this wife who's a Philistine. And there's a line in there, just like casual. He, his dad didn't know it was from the Lord because the Lord was looking for an opportunity against the Philistines.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Oh, yeah.

[Jonathan Vincke]

You know, that's how sovereignty is. You said the natural order. You know, Paul says in, in Romans 1, that there's these things about God that are clear and what he's made. Have you ever heard anybody say so when people are talking about the universe, they say it has like a grain, like a wood grain almost, you know. And so I think that's. They're trying to get at. That's the natural order of things. And when you go. If you go against that grain, it's painful no matter who you are.

[Ryan Britt]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Vincke]

And if you go in line with it, it's just better.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Yeah. I mean, we say it all the time. We don't follow Jesus because he makes life better, but he is better than life.

[Jonathan Vincke]

Right.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

However you follow the way the Lord told you to live, generally speaking, it goes better.

[Jonathan Vincke]

Yeah.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Especially in the Western world.

[Jonathan Vincke]

And it is. It is a part of the sin nature to think, nah, I could do it different and, and succeed. And yet again and again and again, it's a brick wall.

[Ryan Britt]

There's an analogy in there somewhere. You ever golf with somebody that's like, well, the grain's going this way and they're talking about how the grain goes and how it's going to affect your play? Have you ever been there? Can you see it? No. No, you can't see.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

You're talking about playing Pablo, aren't you? Yeah.

[Ryan Britt]

Oh, yeah. Pablo.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Guys love to talk about some, particularly at Pablo.

[Jonathan Vincke]

Oh, there's.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

It's rolling like what, 15 or something.

[Ryan Britt]

I mean, anywhere the grains are fast. They do some love some grain out there. There's no question about it. And get on them. And I love your grain too. And that said raise B there, some people can just see it. I think they're making stuff up because I've played a lot of golf and I still can't see it. And. But I do think that there's something to that. Like the grain of how things are supposed to go and the impact that it has.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

And.

[Ryan Britt]

And so anyway, I just think it's.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Funny because kind of reminds me golf.

[Ryan Britt]

And they're like the grains pulling left.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

And you're like, Is it very similar kind of analogy? I've had the opportunity to hunt in Africa a handful of times now. And do you know the trackers there don't track blood, they track footprints. And they. I've tracked hundreds of shot animals. Hundreds. And dude, they a hurt. Like you'll shoot one in a herd and they'll all run off. And I can obviously see a big hoof print, like in mud, but I'm talking about over rocks and leaves and. And they can tell the difference between an injured and an uninjured animal by the way the foot splays out and things like that. It. And even the. Even the white Africans that are professional hunt, they're called phs, Professional Hunters. And there's this extensive program you got to go through to get license and all that. It's extensive. The local guys that grew up in the tribe there, you know what I mean, they just see things the other guys can't see. And with. I mean, with a casualness, like they're just walking by with a stick and they'll touch a leaf, and that means he stepped on that leaf. And you're like, what? That's it, dude. When you draw near to God, he draws near to you. You begin to see things that the casual church attender Bible reader just. It ain't. They ain't got eyes to see it. Now we've got the spirit of God in us illuminating God's word, you know, and so, I mean, that's a big part of it.

[Jonathan Vincke]

Many people won't know that. Several years ago, we did an extended study of the book of Romans that was close to the same length of what we're about to do.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

38 weeks. Yeah.

[Jonathan Vincke]

In Matthew. And one of the things that you said in that series, Pastor Joby, which I think we've repeated, is that you wanted to help us palm it like a basketball.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Correct.

[Jonathan Vincke]

And so let's talk for a minute about what are some of the benefits of being able to see a big picture in a book like this. And you mentioned a few of them in your sermon, like the five teaching sections and stuff like that. What are some other things that would be helpful to know?

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Well, the thing is, quite honestly, man, one of my favorite things I get to do is take like a book of the Bible and take a few weeks, quite honestly, and just figure out how we're going to teach it and how long it's going to take. You know what I mean? Almost always when you read the Bible, you usually just read the sections that they have marked out for you or you read some Bible reading plan or whatever and you miss kind of like, sometimes you got to back up from it. I mean, I get digging into every word and doing a word that's cool too. But sometimes it's really helpful to back up and make the connections and be able to see the end from the beginning and the beginning from the end. Like, for instance, like, you ever rewatch a series and all of a sudden it makes ten times more sense. There's all this foreshadowing in the beginning that you didn't know because you hadn't seen the end yet, you know, and you go back and you do it. It's kind of like that. And so some. Like, for instance, the first narrative portion of this is about these wise men from a different kingdom coming from afar to come and worship King Jesus. The way it end, we are taking the kingdom to the far ends of the world. Like, that is not an accident. You know what a sermon's about by the way it begins and by the way it ends. And so what I'm trying to do here is I want us as a people to help see this. Another thing, if you don't know all the backstory about Matthew, who is an outsider by choice, that's key. Writing to a Jewish audience. So think about that. You want to talk about God throwing curveballs, Here's a guy that betrayed his people, that are writing to his people about how Jesus is for all people. When you begin to understand that, you begin to see what's the why behind the genealogy. He doesn't even list all of the people in the genealogy. He goes 14, 14 and 14. And the reason is because if you do numerology in Hebrew, the number of David is 14. That's what he's actually connecting to. And he's connecting Jesus not just to the king, that Jesus would be the fulfillment of the king, that would live forever, reign forever, but also back to Abraham. Because again, like I said, the Israel missed the promise of Abraham, that they were chosen so that the world may know who God is. And they got stuck after cool were chosen. And so Jesus is here. Matthew wants us to understand Jesus came to fulfill the law and then reorient you out of the middle with him in the middle. And that we're a conduit, not a cul de sac, of the blessing of God. If you don't see that, you're going to miss the whole Sermon on the Mount. You're going to think it's the new ethic. It's that's not it.

[Jonathan Vincke]

Yeah.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

You're going to think that the parables are just stories in and of themselves now. They're actually stories to illustrate the five teaching sections. But if you can keep the lens, if you can just keep the so that or another word for so. That is therefore. And so Matthew 28, therefore is not just because Jesus said, all authority in heaven and earth has been given unto me. That therefore, is because of the whole book of Matthew that I. This thing is a movement for all people. And the moment you got saved, you got sent. The moment you got rescued, you became a part of the rescue team. So don't do what the nation of Israel did and get wrapped around the axle of yourself and start kicking the Gentiles out of the Gentile court so that you can make this thing about you and make money off of it. What are you doing? Therefore, you need to make disciples everywhere you go. Because the whole intent, all the way back to Genesis 12, was about every tribe, tongue and nation, every family will be blessed through the promise of Abraham. And it's easy as 21st century evangelical American Christians to kind of read judges, look down your nose at the dumb Israelites, like, how could you and not see yourself in the mirror that a church like ours, that God is blessing really quick, can get wrapped around the axle of 1122. And then all of a sudden, we forget to sow that. And so a big push in neighbors. The nation is going to be, yes, he wants to reach our neighbors and our neighbors on the other side of the world. This is not in either order. It always has been a both hand.

[Jonathan Vincke]

You know, we're very convinced that this Holy Spirit inspired Matthew to write his gospel. But you don't often think about what would it be like for a guy to sit down and think, all right, I'm gonna write the story of Jesus and what would his thoughts be? You know, in the west, we're. We're so chronological with how we write things down. That's how we usually think. And so you got to get yourself out of that frame. I mean, Brett, I know you love, like Christopher Nolan or different artistic storytelling will often use these different tools of like, I'm going to arrange these things different to make my point. So there's so much of that that's here that could be potentially hidden if you don't know how to see it.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

So a Jewish man who was an outsider became a follower of Jesus, and he's now trying to convince his Jewish audience that this is the Messiah prophesied about in the Old Testament, that he is the greater Moses, he is the Redeemer, he is the Savior, that he is the promise that God gave to Abraham. That's his point. That's the why. If you miss that, then you'll start seeing it through our American Western eyes and you'll think it's about you. Like so quick.

[Jonathan Vincke]

Right.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

And honestly, you still know any better. You downloaded the Bible app. Praise God for the Bible app. You know what I mean? And you start reading random stuff, random stories, and you don't realize the meta narrative that Matthew is communicating. And you're right, chronology is not very important to him. Everything Jesus is going to teach is this. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. That's what he's teaching.

[Jonathan Vincke]

Yeah.

[Ryan Britt]

One of the things that sticks out to me in Matthew is that obviously when the Holy Spirit came to the disciples, he open their eyes to a new understanding of the teachings of Jesus and it all kind of came together. It's like, I'm going to teach you all things. And there's a lot of time during Jesus ministry he'd say things and they're like, what do you. They don't even understand what he's trying to say. But in hindsight it's like, oh, it makes total sense. One of the things you see throughout the course of Matthew, even though we only have so many of Jesus's words recorded, which I do think is important, is that Jesus was not just a great teacher, he was obviously a great teacher, but the point is in his name that he came to save people from his sins. And so what we know that Jesus said is all leading us to that he came to save people from his sins. In regards to the divinely inspired testimony, however, in the gaps between what he said, like their lived experience with Jesus, you know, that cat was downloading stuff on them non stop, no doubt. Like Matthew is not this smart in and of himself. Like this is a very intelligent, very well written. The number of stories, the number of parables, the amount of time Jesus spent with these guys downloading the kingdom of God for him to be able to produce this, even divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit who put it all together. That's one of the things that's just beautiful about Matthew is the amount of like detail and the amount of, you know, just specificity that could only have come correct from sitting right at the feet of Jesus and hearing him teach about this different kingdom.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

So one of the things I read in all these commentaries and I really don't like them that much. I'm gonna be quite honest. Like, they're like, I don't think the magi had any intention of declaring that he was prophet priest. I don't care what you think they thought. The reality that the title of Jesus as described in Luke is perfectly represented by the gifts the magi brought is evidence that the spirit of God is at work in this more than the intentions of a magi. Right. You know what I'm saying? So there's a lot of that. It irks me in the commentaries where they try to always explain the supernatural work of God in only natural ways. Like, what are y' all doing? The genealogy is a perfect example of this.

[Ryan Britt]

Like, you don't have to apologize for miracles.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Right?

[Ryan Britt]

Yeah.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Or the connections that. Okay, so we get to. When we get to the. When we get to Jesus being transfigured on the mountain. The amount of correlation between Moses going up on Sinai and Jesus going up on the mountain of transfiguration is just stinking unbelievable. Moses takes three named men. Jesus takes three named men. Moses waits six days. The disciples and Jesus wait six days. Like, it's just. There's all these correlations. Now, Matthew is an expert in the Bible, like, he grew up in it. He knows it. Maybe just, you know, you cut him and Old Testament comes out. I don't even know if he intentionally makes every one of these connections. He's just led along by the Holy Spirit of God. But they are there.

[Jonathan Vincke]

That's right.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

I mean, this is. Jordan Peterson talks about. He. He puts that graph up. The most hyperlink thing that's ever been created that is impossible from a human being. And to have all these different authors over thousands of years from different continents, and there's. And it's just one story from the beginning to the end. This is. But God, this is impossible. But if the tomb is empty, anything is possible, like this book. So I want. I want people. And, you know, I'm not trying to, like, bash on poor old Andy, but the worst thing you could do is unhitch from the Old Testament. I understand. I think what he meant when he said that was like, our salvation is not rooted in the store or is not dependent on the stories of the Old Testament. It's dependent on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. He just chose the worst words ever to use when he said, we're unhitched from the Old Testament. That you, Matthew, is all the way hitched to the Old Testament. If you don't know the Old Testament, you can't know Matthew, like, and we're going to spend all year hitching it to God's preordained plan that. I mean, dude, when Moses is doing the thing Moses is doing, all Moses knows is what he knows and what God told him. And God knows that he is just paving the way for the Lamb of God to become, for the to come, for the redemption of sins. You know what I mean? That everything is pointing to the centerpiece of all reality, which is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Whether Moses and Pharaoh know it or not, God knows it and is orchestrating it that way, while those same people have agency over their own humanity. And yet God is sovereign over it.

[Jonathan Vincke]

Yeah, I mean, you know, it's inspired because if somebody asked you to give a detailed account of three weeks ago, I don't know if I could write more than a couple sentences. You know what I mean?

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Sure.

[Jonathan Vincke]

Holidays, they're writing them on years. And I'm going to come back to the meta narrative in just a minute, but let's talk about the genealogy for a second. There's two gospels that have genealogies, Matthew and Luke. I'm sure you were looking into this also, Pastor, but let's talk about the differences there. Luke's audience is a Gentile audience, and he starts with Jesus and he works back to Adam.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Y.

[Jonathan Vincke]

But Matthew is primarily talking to a Judas audience, like you said, and he starts with Abraham, he makes mention of David, and then he ends on Jesus.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

So the question is why? So why are they writing the genealogies? So Luke has given an ordered account to the Gentiles, convincing them that this is the God man. Okay. So they traces him all the way back to the original man, right through the line of Mary. That's why there's some different names. Secondly, Matthew is writing to a Jewish audience, tying him to the promise of Abraham in the line of King David. And so the why behind it matters. Again, he doesn't even list all the names. He just goes 14, 14 and 14. Because he's. That's. That's the point of what he's telling.

[Jonathan Vincke]

Yeah.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

And again, it's like you said in. We think chronologically, we. We're kind of more on like the news cycle thing. And so it's just a different style of writing. That.

[Jonathan Vincke]

That's why I love the connection that you made about the word Genesis and genealogy being.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

I learned that this week studying it.

[Jonathan Vincke]

Awesome.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Yeah, that's it. It literally in he. In Greek, it uses the, you know, the word that would be in Hebrew Translated to Greek, it says, this is the book of Genesis, the genesis of Jesus. So if you were a Jewish person, you'd be like, oh, like Genesis 1:1. And then, and then Matthew's like, right, so we're going to pick it up in chapter 12 with Abraham.

[Jonathan Vincke]

And you preached on this a few weeks ago, Pastor Britt. But the, the fact that he includes those, those outsiders, I mean, what, what else can we say about the gospel implication? I mean, if you miss that, how do you, how do you miss that those people are in that list? And, and that's what.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

The reason I didn't do the dudes. You did such a good job unpacking all the, like, dudes. How jacked up Abraham and Judah. I mean, they're, I mean, mess. And what you said. Oh, God. What's your line about David? What David struggled with, what David struggled with.

[Ryan Britt]

Someone turned into a sport, bruh.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Okay, so then I just picked four women because. Same thing. But that, the whole genealogy part of what I want to do. Here's what I think, okay? I think when you get around like a really good worship leader, don't you just get this sense like, God, I do love God. You know what I mean? Like, they kind of, it's almost like a really good, a good in shape trainer. You're like, that guy's in such good shape. I want to be in better shape. A good worship leader. They love God so much. I want to love him like that. I think a really good Bible teacher loves the word so much and the parts that most people skip over, you're like, no, no, no, no. Can I make some connections for you to let you see what a treasure you have? And so, I mean, I love me some Bible. And that's what I'm trying to point to, which the moment you put on the lenses of the intent of Matthew, you're like, all right, so we're like four words in and we're already. This is a movement for all people. And your past doesn't define you. And outsiders are used by God. You know what I mean? So it's not some random idea that I have hooked to the Great Commission. It starts from the very first words, Tamar.

[Jonathan Vincke]

There's a line in that story of Tamar. Well, so when he find, when Judah finally finds out what happened, he says, she's more righteous. She was more righteous than me.

[Ryan Britt]

I know that whole story is like, what?

[Jonathan Vincke]

I just.

[Ryan Britt]

Yeah, no doubt.

[Jonathan Vincke]

That is. That is not PG rated.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

I saw you, I saw you laugh. Good on this one. Rahab, nobody's like, what you doing to the prostitute house? There's like, obviously that's where we go first when we go into a new city.

[Jonathan Vincke]

Like, nobody's going to look for us.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

There at the prostitute's house, man.

[Ryan Britt]

Speaking of, speaking of the commentators, you can stand on your ear and you can look upside down and say whatever you want to say. She's straight lied and she's a hooker. I know, I know. It's, it's.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

And the scarlet thread hangs out the window. By God. Yeah, yeah, bro, nobody's too far gone. Nobody. And going to Israel next year. So we going to go to the walls of Jericho. And guess what? There's one corner of the wall that is still intact. There just is one column that they've unearthed. And, bro, it doesn't take an archaeologist to figure out that there was one part of the wall didn't fall down and there was a group that was saved and it was the family of Rahab. Look, this is. I mean, you could do it with Abram, too. Abram's some outsider. He's from the, the. From Ur, the land of Chaldees, right? Like, he. He's like a nobody from nowhere and he's a rat. And God by God's grace, chooses him and places his favor on him. And then Abraham's response to that is he believes God. And then God's not response, God's. Whatever reply to that is he credits that faith as righteousness. Well, what Abraham do You mentioned it in your sermon a couple weeks ago, by the way, which I just listened to again, way to go, man.

[Ryan Britt]

Thanks, man.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

I mean, way to go.

[Ryan Britt]

Abraham's story is wild. And help me if I'm not thinking about this holistically in terms of the scripture I taught on Abraham a while back, and I went through like a lot of Genesis to get there. One of the interesting things is the. I think it's in Hebrews. Later it talks about it being credited to him as righteousness again. And it was the initial. It was the initial response to God saying go and then giving him instructions around, leave your father's house.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Right?

[Ryan Britt]

And he goes. It is in this act of faith, this like. But it was totally a mustard seed act of faith because he went. But he didn't really do, as I understand it, what God told him to do because he said, leave your father's house. But he took lot with him.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Right? And he went with a promise of a blessing.

[Ryan Britt]

Exactly.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

I mean, what man among us, if God's like, hey, man, I want you to go to. I'm gonna make your name great. I'll make you a nation.

[Ryan Britt]

So he had faith, but he was still trying to, like, hold on a little bit, to control you see what I'm saying?

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Which is your Christian life, not mine, because I'm totally surrendered. But this is mine. No question.

[Jonathan Vincke]

That's what I'm saying.

[Ryan Britt]

It's such a human story.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

That's it. And then his disobedience did not disqualify him from salvation because of his faith. That's where you get.

[Ryan Britt]

Because God had already qualified him for it.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

That's the counted it to him as righteousness. We are saved by grace through faith. Faith is the vehicle that brings the grace. Even if your faith wavers, the grace has already been put on you.

[Ryan Britt]

Amen.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

I used to do this thing with my students when I was a youth pastor, and I'm always looking for illustrations and I was like, okay, we're getting old, man. Bro, I used to do this thing with my students, dude, I'd put a kid at the back of the room. I put him on a skateboard. I would say that skateboard is faith. If you put your, your body on that thing and I'd throw him a rope and I go, this is grace, and I'm going to draw this to you. It is by grace, through faith that you have been saved. Throw the skateboard out the window. Are you here with me? By grace. Peter completely doubted Jesus in a moment. He had no faith. But by grace. Now those are momentary. That's different than what James is talking about. You can drown in unbelief and then you didn't believe. You know what I mean?

[Ryan Britt]

Right?

[Pastor Joby Martin]

And so like Calvin says, the faith that fizzles was never faith to begin with. Right? This is the perseverance of the saints. But your, your measurement of your own faith in any moment is not the requirement of your salvation. It is grace that saved you. Faith was the vehicle by which God put his grace on you. And even that faith you don't get to brag about because the faith was given you as a gift by God. See Ephesians 2. Okay, so in the whole, like, you know, the, like, Calvinism isn't quite as cool as it was a few years ago. And people like to talk about that. And okay, they're talking about the wrong thing. Like, what do you have to do to be saved? You do have to believe, but your ability to, to believe in God is a gift of faith from God that he is the initiator you are not the initiator. That is the fundamental difference between like reformed and Armenian theology.

[Ryan Britt]

Yeah. People's dictionaries are different and words are broken. You're talking about agency and we're talking about sovereign. You know, it's all those things.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

And I don't even like the word free will anymore. I refuse. It's not in the Bible. So let's talk about human agency. Yes, free will. Will yourself to live longer.

[Ryan Britt]

Exactly.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Will yourself to be taller. Will yourself to not be tempted. You can't. So what are you talking about, free will? You do have agency. You do have responsibility with what you do with what God gives you. Okay, so all that matters, Abraham in his disobedience in one of his biggest screw ups, when he sleeps with his servant after his wife says, this is what you should do. It was a lack of faith because he didn't trust God to do what God was going to say. This is a, this is the primary picture that Romans 9 uses of works based righteousness. This is what he's saying. So what you got? You got two kids. You got a promised kid and you got one that Abraham by his own will made. Got it? One is, I'm going to try to declare, I'm going to try to accomplish the promise of God by my own work. That ain't good. I got an. There's another one that is a gift of God, not by my work. That is the difference between a workspace righteousness and an imputed righteous. Righteousness by the grace of God. That's how the New Testament interprets all of that craziness. And it's so big. It's so big.

[Jonathan Vincke]

And I grew up in church and whenever we start talking about all these people, all the Bible stories, they're more than stories. It baffles me that it's not so obvious that God uses broken people. Because, I mean, so why is it that you. Why do you think? Maybe it's church culture. We look at these people and we sort of put them on a pedestal as if they were some sort of other. They were sent the saints of old and they were sort of other than us. But then you start getting into it. You're like these freaking. It's messed up. What's the disconnect there? What is it in us that makes us think, well, that's different from us because they had something else and they were, you know, it was, it was Father Abraham and it was David. You know, I don't know, maybe it's just the sort of the culture of vbs and stuff that I grew up in. But it wasn't, it wasn't preached or plain how broken they really were.

[Ryan Britt]

I don't know that this answers your question, but the interesting thing to me is that the Old Testament and the New Testament, it doesn't seem to have a high tolerance for people who mentally subscribe or mentally ascend to religion. Whether that be the Jews, the Jewish and the religion in the Old Testament, or we see it all over the New Testament. What comes down to with God using these broken people, it's not about a mental ascension to or an agreeing with an idea. It ultimately comes down to love. That Abraham had faith in this God and even though he stumbled and tripped and disobeyed and you see throughout the course of his story that God put a love for God in Abraham, even, even at the beginning, he is from a place of. The only way he knows how to express his love is to build an altar, is to say, I want you to see that I respect you, I revere you, I love you. I'm not building this so that you will do something for me. I'm building this because I think you're worth it. And based on the information I have, does that make sense? And so you see that with David, you see that with Solomon, you see the really mess. I think that the Rahab story goes to that. I can't explain it, but I think there was something in her that just said my heart has now been connected.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

To something greater than she knew their God could do for her what the God of the Canaanites couldn't.

[Ryan Britt]

Exactly.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

And so she said, I'm gonna sign up for yours.

[Ryan Britt]

And so it's like, do you, do you think God won't use you? Because I can't really unpack all that I get really always comes down to. We talk about this a lot. It really comes down to like in here, do you have an affection for him? And if you have an affection for him, the only way to have a positive affection for God is to your point, for God to give you that.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Correct.

[Ryan Britt]

And so if you have that, then that thing is going to. It's going to grow and it's going to produce in your life even in the midst of struggles and stumbles. And just like we see in these very human testimonies, one of the things.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

We don't talk about, so the other side, like the steel man of that there are qualifications for church leadership and you can be disqualified totally. And all through the Old Testament, many, many, many of the Quote, unquote. Heroes were disqualified from God's best in their life based on sinful decisions they made. Right. David doesn't get to build the temple. Moses doesn't get to go in the promised land. The home life of Abraham is utter hell.

[Ryan Britt]

So it seems that Solomon actually goes crazy.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Oh, he loses. He's worshiping false idols. He marries. I mean, it's just a train wreck, right? So that's part of it too. So, you know, you're raising up a bunch of kids and in, you're in church and yes, you want to preach the grace and the love of God and also that dumb decisions have dumb consequences. You know, you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. Both of these things are simultaneously true in the scriptures. So you can't be disqualified from heaven, totally from love. Correct. And you, and you can't be disqualified from being a part of God's family and being used by God in mighty ways. There are positions of authority that if you make dumb decisions, you don't get to do anymore. You don't get to steward that kind of responsibility in God's house anymore.

[Jonathan Vincke]

You know, do you think we as people have a hard time walking that out? Like, so God's perfect. We forget that a lot of times as people. So people mess up and we think, nah, we, we want to remove love as well. And God says, well, I'm going to remove, I'm going to add consequences. I might remove my best blessing, but I'm not going to remove love.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

And most of the time though, we're thinking about usefulness. And God's first step is love. It's different. So like, I mean, you know, like, I mean that, that's it. Like an employee did something dumb. You're saved by grace, you're not employed by grace. So you don't get to do this here anymore because you have not stewarded the responsibility given to you. You know what I mean? And so the humanity of that, I think a lot of times we make those kind of decisions.

[Ryan Britt]

I do think though, the process of discipleship, Matthew 18, even in our, even in ministry, full time, vocationally, when the goal of when brokenness happens, and I think this is God's aim, is the restoration is always the goal. And I think restoration usually goes. Restoration with God goes best on God's terms. And we're very impatient normally in the restoration process. And one of the keys to healthy restoration processes to me is when the person who blatantly was in the wrong and did the dumb thing puts their future in other people's hands and just says, I'm not even really going to ask you. Just let me know when you see something. I'm going to be as faithful as I can with what I have today.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Yep.

[Ryan Britt]

And I'm not going to be like trying to get back to where I was. I'm just going to be faithful with the next thing as it is in front of me. And I'm going to put that in the. Whoever the authorities are that God's put in my life when, when they see or when they think or when God leads them and they approach me about taking a different position or a different authority. But you're not self advocating yourself, trying to get back to what you once had. Well, the key is saying I TR the Lord to bring back to me in his time. For now I'm going to get humble and walk out this.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

So you, this repentance, you are restored to God through the blood of Jesus and it is a done deal, period, end dot. Totally. You can be restored to people through the process of reconciliation. Forgiveness is a command. Reconciliation is a process that requires both people and repentance and forgiveness have to be present. If there is not ownership and repentance, reconciliation won't happen. You have never promised restoration to a position and that's it. And too many people are trying to get restored to the position instead of trusting the restoration of the blood of Christ to Christ, to God the Father first, and trying to be restored in right relationship with people through confession, humility, repentance. The moment you get that out of whack and I'm trying to use those things to get my position back, you got it all out of order to begin with.

[Jonathan Vincke]

Yeah.

[Ryan Britt]

One of the things I've seen quite a bit is like that usually when someone's trying to be restored to a respect or to a position, whether that be in ministry or in the context of marriage or marketplace or whatever. When somebody's trying to get back a respect or a way of life or whatever it is that they've lost because of the choices that they've made, when one of the. You say it all the time that you can never really be free until you're honest. Normally whenever my experience is normally whenever somebody's just really chomping at the bit to get back to that respect and they want that, whatever position, whatever word you want to use, they actually, there's actually a degree of honesty they've not come to yet.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

True.

[Ryan Britt]

And they're trying to move faster through the healing process. Like they're not really trying to heal, they're just trying to move on. And because in order to heal, you gotta really, you gotta be honest. And honesty is the only thing that can set us free. You know what I mean?

[Pastor Joby Martin]

So.

[Jonathan Vincke]

Let'S come back.

[Ryan Britt]

We went, Jenny, we went hard after the genealogy there and ended up in forgiveness and reconciliation. Let's go.

[Jonathan Vincke]

I want to talk about the meta narrative. It's one of my favorite topics. There's a great book called God's Big Picture by a guy named Vaughn Roberts. And it's not long. I recommended it to a guy on our hunting encounter and he read it and it was. I mean, it. It basically says, here's the big picture of the story of the whole Bible. And so that's really, really important to have. I didn't know it for so long as I was reading the Bible that once I started discovering it, it helped me so much. And I think it's going to come up quite a bit because we're talking about sort of the meta narrative of Matthew's gospel. But is there anything else we could say about metanarrative generally from the whole scripture that would be helpful? Because there's so many themes that are repeated. I mean, even think about Abraham and Isaac, his promised son walks up the hill with wood on his back, like those kinds of things.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

I heard this verse from Matt Chandler that the whole Bible could be described as Emmanuel, God with us.

[Jonathan Vincke]

Yeah, you mentioned creations.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

God with us. Then sin breaks that. So God sets up the temple system to make a sacrifice for God to be in the presence of his people, which is a foreshadowing through the incarnation. That's literally God with us. Then the church age post Pentecost is actually God in us. I mean, God's with every individual one of us through the sacrifice of Christ, our future, hope and glory, heaven or eternity, new heavens and new earth is really us with God and the us is whoever believes. So if you look at it that way, if he's like, all right, what is. How does this explaining God with us then that that's a meta narrative. Glasses to put on to help you understand the particular thing that you're reading.

[Ryan Britt]

Couldn't say it better. A couple of additional resources that I've pointed people to. One is shorter and an easy, easier read than the one you even mentioned. That I think is a great place to start if you want to start to get your head around the meta narrative. And the whole story of God is actually, and I don't say actually, sleight of hand. I Mean, it's the children's storybook Bible. I mean, the whole thing starts with every story whispers his name. Because the only way to understand and define the meta narrative of Scripture is to go to every page, to every testimony, and to look for Jesus. Where do I see signs of God at work, pointing toward redemption, pointing toward promise being fulfilled, pointing toward specifically the person of God's Son, who is Jesus. And so every story whispers his name. That is the ultimate aim of the meta narrative, is to see Christ on every page. So the children's story of the Bible, another one for the varsity level, is one called According to Plan by Graham Goldsworthy. Get you some of that. And that's a really rich read, and it does as good a job as anything I've ever encountered in regards to helping you see the big picture of what God's up to.

[Jonathan Vincke]

There's some great children's books out there. My kids are younger. I found this book. I think I was at a conference and found it in the bookstore. It's called the Garden, the Curtain and the cross. And it. It connects the garden gate, the curtain of the temple, and then the cross. And then, I mean, it was really, really good. That's. If you got little kids, that's a great way to try to explain that to them. Pastor Joby, you said on Christmas Eve, and again, give me a year to people who are just trying church out. It's January, a lot of people are coming to church, maybe haven't been in a while, or maybe they're coming for their first time. So let's just say there's a person who's like, all right, I'm going to give you that year. What other advice do you give them.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Besides just come take one step at a time? I just wouldn't, you know, it's new year, I go back to the gym, there's so many people I've never seen before. God bless them. God bless them. If you try to do it all in one day, you won't make it back for another day. It. It. We're talking about small deposits over a long period of time, so just take a step. Maybe the step for you is I'm going to commit to show up to church and pay attention and make that a priority. If you've been doing that a while, get in a group, go to growth, track whatever that thing is in just one step at a time. Not one step for the year, but one step at a time for this entire year, and then see if God is faithful. I mean, Jesus Said, follow me. So just do that. Just do that. And I can't tell you the number of people I've talked to already. That's like, all right, I'm in for this year. You know, I'm going to do this. And so, I mean, one of the greatest promises of the Bible is, is James 4, 8. On behalf of God, James gives this offer, draw near to me and I will draw near to you. So do it. Draw near.

[Jonathan Vincke]

We were talking all about these different figures. Rahab, Abraham. It's kind of amazing how little information they had.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Vincke]

Do you know what I mean?

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Like, yeah.

[Jonathan Vincke]

So it wasn't information that they needed. It was like, okay, I believe so I'm gonna move revelation. I'm gonna take a step. I'm gonna act on something. What are your. What's your advice for the person coming back to church now in January?

[Ryan Britt]

Go all in every. Whatever you give yourself to. Give yourself to it.

[Jonathan Vincke]

Yeah.

[Ryan Britt]

If you're timid and if you're trying to dip your toe in the water and. Well, I guess the guy would ask a question if. Whatever. What do you want to be dominated by? Indecision? Skepticism? Do you want to be driven by fear and what if. Or do you want to be a person who lives your life making excuses? Or do you want to live a person that just says, be a person that says, I went all in on this. I'm going for broke. And so I think, challenge yourself and go into it. And you are going to quickly see, quickly see that being with God's people, in the presence of God, studying God's word in God's church, is just a different human experience than anything else you can have anywhere else. And you may could slice up little parts of it and have part of that experience somewhere else, but holistically, you cannot have that experience anywhere else. And you shouldn't do it for the experience. But if you will put yourself in that experience over and over again, God will meet you there and he will change you and he will help you. And so it is almost this. Like, there's just. It's bad. There's no way it's going to backfire. It's going to have impact on your life. And expect spiritual warfare. Expect the skepticism and the excuses and the lazy and the reasons as to why not to be more clear and more blatant in your life. Because there's an enemy that you have that is real, that wants to keep you from enjoying God. And the only way to truly enjoy God in this life is as one of God's people, in God's church, that's the only way. And so I think that you have an enemy that would want to stop you from doing that. And so I tell my kids all this time, like, don't let them hold you down. You get after it. You know what I mean? Don't let that discouragement hold you down. And that's it. So go all in. If you take the one year challenge, I'm just fascinated to see one year from now how many people are like, all right, I'm gonna do it. And how many of them we see in the ocean in May getting baptized because they surrender life to Jesus. Can't wait.

[Jonathan Vincke]

I think some of them did tonight.

[Ryan Britt]

Let's go.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Yeah, a lot. Yeah. A girl came up to me in line tonight and just said, one year ago, I wasn't here for the very first time. And now my whole life's changed. My marriage is different, my kids are different, I'm. Everything's different. So she's just given testimony to the promise of James 48. I think of my friend Daryl Jester. He's a deacon here. He's been serving a long time way back at Beach. He's like a retired military guy. Life was all right, but it was just kind of. And he was like, I'm gonna do the church thing, but I'm not gonna halfway do it. Whatever they tell me to do, I'm gonna do it for one year. And he got in a group, he showed up to church. When I said, open your Bible, he opened his Bible. He went on a mission trip. It changed his whole life forever. Because he encountered the living God. None of those programs will do anything. They're just designed for you to encounter the living God.

[Jonathan Vincke]

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

[Ryan Britt]

One of the things on that front. Sorry, I'll throw this in since it's the Demon podcast and seemingly a lot of our church listens to it. Something you said tonight, it's like more Church of 1122 practical. Because of the people who are committing to come one year, they're probably going to come at 9 or 11. And so we need a lot of people to go to 7:22, 7:30am, 4:22 to some of the other. Not 9 o', clock, specifically 9 o', clock, the other. Not 9 o' clock services. And so if you're listening and 9 o' clock is your normal service hour, man, we just need you to join. We need you to join us in Moving off of 9 o'. Clock. This is any campus moving off 9 o' clock and going to one of the other service times and making that your new rhythm. And that is a way to partner with God in the work that he's doing in other people. And you don't. We could sit down and explain it to you, or you could just trust us. I'm just telling you, this is how it works, man.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

In August, we're going to start 5:22 here at San Pablo.

[Jonathan Vincke]

So on Thursdays.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Yeah, on Thursday nights. So we Two Thursday night options and four on Sunday here at San Pablo.

[Ryan Britt]

So we need a lot of people to do that. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. A lot.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Yep.

[Jonathan Vincke]

Pastor, before we close, will you just talk about daily repentance? Like so if somebody hears repent, they're like, well, okay, I've already done that. So are you talking to me?

[Pastor Joby Martin]

I'll quote Martin Luther.

[Ryan Britt]

And I was about to say, can you just do the whole Protestant Reformation for us?

[Pastor Joby Martin]

That's it. The life of the believer is that of daily repentance. Jesus said, take up your cross daily and follow after him. That means we got a daily turn our back to the world, turn our face to Jesus. We got a daily renew our mind to rethink about how we're going to do life. Get us out of the middle of it, get Jesus in the middle of it.

[Ryan Britt]

Every day I wake up in a. Part of me is thinking wrong every day. And I need to. I need to the spirit of God to help me think like Jesus and be aware of that need.

[Jonathan Vincke]

So Jesus's core message is, is discover and deepen. That's is for the person who has never repented and has never seen the kingdom of God. And it is for me and for.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

You so that we can be a conduit of the grace of God so that we can go and make disciples. And nobody thinks go and make disciples means go find people that know Jesus and teach them more things about Jesus. Everybody understands that means go to people that don't know Jesus and introduce them to the loving grace of Jesus through the gospel. Amen.

[Jonathan Vincke]

Well, that's it. We did it.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Matthew 1 and 2.

[Jonathan Vincke]

We didn't even go two hours. And so I'm excited for this year, Pastor.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

I'm.

[Jonathan Vincke]

I'm looking forward to what the Lord is going to do. So any closing words and a prayer for us.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Let's just pray.

[Jonathan Vincke]

Yeah.

[Pastor Joby Martin]

Our good and gracious heavenly Father, Lord, I thank you and I praise you that you continuously use the outcast, the not enough, the broken to be about your business and God. I pray that we as a church, starting with us three at this table, would repent every single day that we would be about your kingdom right here, wherever we are, and it is within our grasp. If we will just do what you tell us to do in accordance with your word, we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you for listening to the podcast the End. You nailed it.

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