After the Sermon: 12/15/25

12/15/2025 | Will DuVal | The Antidote: God’s Cures for the World’s Contagions

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Welcome to after the sermon podcast where pastor will answers follow-up questions and we share your personal applications from the sermon for the benefit of the church. My name is Brian and I'm here with our lead pastor Will. What's up? We want to remind you with this podcast that sermons are not just a Sunday thing, so we had one that was submitted digitally and a few from one or two other folks. So thanks for sending your questions in person or digitally. Just a reminder, you can always scan that QR code that's up on the screen briefly and fill out that form and also submit 'em on your get connected cards.

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I think mainly supplemental from Pastor Thad because

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He submitted a bunch,

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We're disappointed we only had one question. We're going to start with Kate's because she actually submitted it through the app and everything, but yeah, some good ones from Thad. So hey, we'll take the supplemental. But yeah, thanks for the reminder, Brian to everybody to submit the questions. Again, you never know whether the sermon was just that good, no stone left unturned, no follow-up questions needed or the sermon was just that bad. I don't want to talk about this anymore than you already did, so anyway. Yeah, but thanks for thanks Kate. We'll start with hers.

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Yeah, she wrote in our purpose is, our purpose in part is to reflect God by multiplying both physically and spiritually because God commanded it in Genesis based on that scripture, is it disobedience for married believers to choose not to have children? Is it disobedience to use birth control to intentionally limit the number of children a couple has? Is there a scripture that gives believers the freedom to choose for themselves

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All really good questions? Yeah. So for context, in case you're listening to this without having listened to the sermon or whatever, we've been going through an advent just some of the biggest, I call 'em contagions just for alliteration, God's cures for the contagions. But yeah, just ailments and diseases dis-ease. Like if God wants a life filled with love and joy and peace and for us, what is threatening that in our day and age today? And so this past week we're looking at how God's purpose is the antidote, the cure for the aimlessness that we otherwise experience in the world and open with some of the statistics about just people expressing a lack of purpose direction in their life and just kind of drifting through life and not knowing why they're here.

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And so we looked at three big picture purposes, why God says and his word, this is why I created you. This is why I put you here to reflect and image me in the world in Genesis one to bring me glory. Isaiah 43 7. That's why I created you. He says is to bring me glory in so far as you do image me well and reflect my nature and character and then also to proclaim me. I mean this is why one Peter two, nine says that we've been recreated and born again into his kingdom, brought from darkness and delight is so that we might proclaim his excellencies and he's given us a testimony to shout it from the rooftop, steal it from the mountain as we sang yesterday.

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But under subpoint of point number one about imaging reflecting God as Kate's mentioning here, we looked at God's creation mandate in Genesis 1 26 and 28 where he says, let's make man in our image. And then his first kind of two commands are to have dominion, to exercise dominion, to subdue creation. Different translations of the Hebrew there have authority to rule is kind of how I just enter more simply to rule and exercise authority and then to be fruitful and multiply. So Kate's asking specifically about the second one about being fruitful and multiplying and wanting to know based on that, is it disobedient for married believers to choose not to have children or to use birth control to intentionally limit the number of children?

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  It is interesting. Even before I preached yesterday, I had a couple from our church come in and talk with me one morning just last week about this very issue. And in their case, having two young ones quickly in marriage already and just like we're feeling like having a three in diapers kind of thing, that thought is kind of scary and we want to make sure we'd love to have enough time and energy and bandwidth and whatever for one another, for the Lord for work and other things. Is it sinful for us to? And so I had that personal conversation with them in their specific context. I do think it's a context by context thing and I do think it's a conscience by conscience thing more so I think to me it's kind of what I told them. It's like I am just going to tell you upfront I'm not going to try and give you a thus sayeth the Lord on this one for you because I really believe that it's a conscience issue.

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  Again, there are obviously there's whole churches, the nominations, whatever, the Roman Catholic one being the first that comes to mind. The Mormons I think are pretty big on this too. They love lots and lots of kids. We love lots and lots of kids, but there's the quiver full branch of the kind of evangelical super, super whatever, independent fundamentalist quiver folks. But yeah, there's churches and denominations that are going to take a very hard line, black and white stance on this and say, yeah, no, there's no room ever for birth control or for Christians even. Basically birth control is the sort of obviously negative preventative thing. But if you really are going to take God's commandment literally in Genesis one for us today, still in the same exact way, you'd have to say, well, not only should you not be actively preventing pregnancy or something like that, but you should actively positively, you should actively be trying to get pregnant as much as possible at all times and maximize your number of kids kind of thing.

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  So again, you could push it is all a matter of how far you want to push it because again, even the folks that are like, oh, birth control stigma, whatever, still, sometimes they're going to practice in the rhythm method or the pullout method or whatever and feeling like, well, but at least we're not using birth control or condoms or something. And to me it's like, well, if you really want to take God's commandment at face value, you shouldn't be doing any of that. You should be trying to have 20 kids doing everything in your power to make that happen. But again, I think it's more nuanced than that because I think a lot of us are going to look at that again, Genesis one, God's first commandment creation mandate and say, yes, there is a principle there, namely that God wants more little mirrors running around reflecting his glory.

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  God is radically pro-life. God loves humans and loves life and life is a good thing and pregnancy and babies all great things. And also you're talking about a pretty unique time in human history where there are literally two people on the planet. And so there's a pretty important compelling reason for them to get busy and to make more people or else there's an existential threat to the species kind of thing. So they're in a little bit different situation than we are now. Again, somebody could hear that and say, well look at the birth rate amongst Muslims versus Christians and how it's declining. And a lot of people are going to look in a lot of these cases with the, I don't know they're going to make it into an existential threat for, yeah, no, it's just as incumbent on us as Christians today to be making babies and raising them to know the Lord.

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  And that's why I think it's a matter of conscience. Here's what I will say, and just to bring it from the philosophical more so to the practical personal for folks is that, and I can certainly speak from personal experience on this, I think for, and fortunately, I mean we're blessed with a lot of young couples at the church here who are really thinking about this differently, who have not just drunk the world's Kool-Aid on this because the world's Kool-Aid is like delay marriage. As long as you can sew your wild oats delay kids, certainly as long as you can live it up while you can because children are a burden and you're stuck at home and your freedom and have fun and whatever, they're going to put a damper sew. But we've got a lot of man, the number of couples even in their twenties that have been married less than five years at our church that are having kids is amazing. And it's convicting to me because I look back and Paula and I got married young, I was 23, she was 22 and I was pretty adamant, I think there was a negotiation at some point about how long she was going to have to wait. Polly's parents got pregnant with her when they were on their honeymoon. At least that's the story we've been told. The math is a little fuzzy, but anyway, it's some shade at my in-laws.

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  But Polly would've been, I mean she would've wanted if it was up to her, probably kids, kid's first thing. I mean she always only ever really wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. And I was like, I had drunk the world and I had my ideas of what I wanted to do. And again, kids are going to put a damper on that. And of course as soon as we had our first kid, it's like, why did we wait this long? This is the best. Why didn't you tell me sooner how great kids are? Because I just didn't know anything about kids really. But I say all that to say that I think in a lot of cases, hopefully not as much so like I said here at West Hills, but that the church has been too influenced by the world's kind of decision making matrix on this and thought process and influence to our detriment. And it has at a big picture level affected things like the birth rate in the Christian West or whatever where you read the literature and the surveys and studies, whatever. And I think it was sometime in the last five years that in the US finally dipped beneath what's considered the sustainable. I think it's 1.7, don't quote me on that, kids per childbearing woman or something like that, that basically the sustainability birth rate, that for just maintaining the population level

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  Replacement.

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  Replacement, basically. We're not making enough babies to replace the boomers who are getting ready to age out and die and whatever. And then obviously there's implications for paying into social security and Medicare and all these kinds of things. But then also just like, yeah, who's taking care of those folks when they get old and at what point, and that's why you get the Elon Musk and who aren't even Christians who are all of a sudden just looking at it from a humanist standpoint and saying,

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  Kids,

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  We need more kids around. How many

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  Kids does he have?

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  He doesn't know. No one knows, but enough, too many. But all that to say, I think is it disobedience for married believers to choose not to have children? I think it certainly can be. I look back on my own story and I think ultimately it's a matter of the heart motivation. Is it about you just selfishly not being too kind of tied down or something? And is that again, what does that say about the way we're making our decisions and who we're really living for God's glory or my glory, my plan, my fun. Now that said, I think it can absolutely be the case that in some cases folks could be making that decision, I believe for the right reason to say, you know what? God has got us in this really unique phase of life right now when we're married and we haven't had kids yet, and we've got a really, again, unique window of opportunity.

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  And I think you can make a biblical case even with one Corinthians seven where Paul says, look, it's better to not get married then You can just wholeheartedly be about the Lord's business and not be distracted by worldly things. I mean, he kind of calls 'em just the stuff of life like a wife or a husband or kids. And so again, the more you kind of get entangled in those kinds of diapers and breastfeeding, just the stuff of life that comes with babies, the less time you're going to have for the others. So I look back, for instance now on that season of life, for us as a young married couple, at least after I finished div school and then we were up at the boarding school in Culver for five years, and I still romanticize those five years, best five years and dah dah, and Polly has to remind me, look, I know sometimes it's temping to look back and what if she's like, if we were to quit here, move back and take that job again.

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  She's like, it would be totally different. Now we have kids. It's just a totally different experience. And I think back, she's like, and she's absolutely right. We were able to give our hearts and souls to the students there and to the community and to the ministry building the ministry almost kind of like missionaries there is probably the closest to what we were church planter missionaries. And you think about, I mean, gosh, I don't know mean we support as a church, some missionaries in their late twenties, early thirties through West Hills now who are over in all the Ethiopia and Uzbekistan and Tanzania and whatever, and these young people with kids in Japan. And I'm just like, how do y'all do it? How do you parent and pay attention to kids? And also of course, they could look at me and say, how do you do it with almost 300 members now at West Hills and you're supposed to be spiritually parenting them and being a shepherd to all these sheep, but you got three full-time sheep of your own at home.

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  It's like, it's a lot. So I think all that to say, God calls us to different gardens. To go back to the Genesis one, two metaphor, we all have our different garden that God has called us to attend. And I think it's possible that if God has put this calling on your heart and your life for such a time as this certain season of life, that it could be wise for a young couple, for instance, or even a couple. I mean, I think, yeah, there could be couples, for instance, missionaries that are just like, this is too urgent. I mean, this task is too urgent. We can't stop the ministry that God's called us to and put that on pause to be distracted by our own kids. Right now we have our own kids. It's this unreached people group over and Tibet or whatever it is.

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  So I think it's possible, but I think probably more so than not, you'd really want to check your heart. Yeah, what is my motivation? Why am I reticent to have a third kid, a fourth kid, whatever it is, because again, there is a principle there. God is radically pro-life and kids are great, they're blessing Psalm 1 27 or blessing from the Lord, and yet more is not always better. And that's where it does get tricky and fuzzy with us now having three kids of our own plus the church at 300 plus dah, dah, dah, dah. And it's like, yeah, when do you get to that bandwidth issue where putting more on the plate is going to spread us then and things are going to be falling through the cracks? And I think the counter argument that people would point out to that is, but aren't you just failing to trust God to increase your bandwidth and to continue to provide over and above what you thought he could in terms of energy and strength, patience and et cetera, and to pick up the pieces and the balls that you drop, God's going to pick up and he's going to sort it all out and don't take too much of that on your own self.

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  And I think there's probably a lot of truth to that too. So I say all that to say, and I could talk even more, but I'll stop there, is that I think it really just kind of depends. And I did a whole separate, maybe that's what you're looking up, Brian, a whole separate ask the pastor episode. I know on number

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  36 is using birth control a sin.

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  Thank you.

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  November 5th, 2020.

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  Alright, so five years ago now. Wow. So is birth control a sin? So definitely would recommend that. Number 36. Thanks. And is there a scripture that gives believers the freedom to choose for themselves? Was Kate's last question. And I do think, I guess if you wanted a specific scripture, I think that Paul's thing about the, I don't know, I was going to say the meat sacrifice to idols and first Corinthians and Romans and just, it's a gray area morally so it's a conscience issue, but that in the context of that, he's more talking about bear with those of a weaker conscience. Although I would say that there's a thing there with husbands and wives because a team, you're making a team decision and it's like what happens? The couple that met with me last week where he's more so on the conservative side of, hey bandwidth, and I'd rather parent these two really young kids, well get our feet under, keep our feet under us than to over stretch ourselves and just be running around chickens with our heads cut off the next three to five years and life be a blur and not enjoy any of it and dah, dah, dah.

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  And she's thinking it more from the standpoint of, yeah, but we trust God to provide and to expand our bandwidth and take care of us, and we're going to other families do this all the time and they survive and sometimes even thrive. And so yeah, I think what does it look like for you in that case to bear with the weaker conscience is the way Paul puts it with the meat sacrifice to idols thing? I don't know. I mean, gosh, maybe it does look like him bearing with, if she and her conscience really feels like for me as a woman to take birth control or whatever would be a sin, then gosh, certainly as a husband I wouldn't want to be asking my wife to do something that felt like sin to her. So I would want to take that really seriously. But also if she doesn't mean her bearing with him, if he feels like, I'm not saying, I don't know that he was necessarily saying it would feel like a sin to have another child right now. And again, there has to be that degree of humility with all of this. It's like you don't just get to decide to have a child. You can decide to try, but God's going to have to give that gift or not to you. So even after Polly like, okay, I'm ready to have a kid. And then it took us two plus years to get pregnant with Ellerie. So yeah, your murky territory. But I'll stop there because we got some other questions too, but thank you Kate. That was a really good one.

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  Thad's first question that he sent to us was which part of God's purpose reflecting, glorifying, or proclaiming in your opinion is the most underdeveloped at West Hills? So you want to start with

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  It is good. Yeah, we'll just go down in order. So yeah, we looked at those three big picture reflecting glory proclaiming, God, it's easy for me to say that proclaiming is the one that comes to mind because it's the most outward, I think external. You're talking about proclaiming with your actions and words, God's glory in the gospel to others shining a light that others may see preaching the gospel that others may hear. We were talking about this in our elders meeting last night and just kind of how do we assess the health and strength of our church and what are the kinds of metrics we'd look for? And one of 'em, for instance being like, I mean, I don't care how many people are coming butts in the seats, pledges turning into giving and money and whatever else. It's like, and I've mentioned this in a sermon a while back, but a few weeks ago, if I was to ask your hand if you've shared the gospel with someone in the last month, let's say, how many people would raise their hand?

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  I mean that probably I would imagine most churches in our country, that would be a very sobering slap in the face or not dose of reality for probably most churches and most pastors in America to ask that question and to see how many hands didn't go up, let's say. So that one I think is easy for me to keep just harping on and frankly was I initially was going to title the sermon, God's Mission is the Cure for our Aimlessness and talk all about the great commission and all about just the making disciples and just the proclaiming and taking the news and all of that. Go tell it on the mountain. But the more I was really thinking about it and aimlessness and the root of it and just that drifting and purposely to me, I wanted to go a little bit bigger picture with not just that our entire purpose is proclaiming, but really you could put both the proclaiming and the reflecting and multiplying and ruling and all of that under, I think the biggest umbrella of them all is bringing God glory.

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  The most direct I think of all the statements is the Isaiah 43 7 1 where God says, I made you for my glory. And again, the Westminster Catechism, what is the chief end of man to glorify God and enjoy him forever? So I think the glorifying God is kind of the biggest umbrella. However, I think you can make the case for all of 'em because the way I kind of defined and explained the reflecting God and mirroring imaging God and being like a little, I almost said, but then it's like that has a negative connotation with Dr. Evil. But I don't know if you remember the Austin Powers, you're too young, Austin Powers movies, but there was many me, Dr. Evil had a son, I don't know Seth Green played the song, I forget his name Anyway, and the son defected and kind of sold his dad out. And so in the second movie, Dr.

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  Evil create clones himself and makes a little mini me and it's played by, I dunno, whoever the little midget, what's the appropriate term? Small person. There you go. Yes, Scott Evil and Mini me was played by, it doesn't matter, Dr. Evil's little clone. But in the positive sense of it, that's what we're, and even the term which I mentioned Christian means little Christ, many Christ, and it was used derogatively of Christians by Pagan Roman or the pagans originally in Antioch, I think it was that they made fun of like, oh, you guys are just like your dead Messiah who got crucified and your many, many little Christ, but that is our calling to be these many mirrors. But I say all that to say, I think you could certainly make the case that, I mean, gosh, if any of us was to not just raise our hand, did you share the gospel?

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  Raise your hand if you looked like God this week, raise your hand if you lived like Jesus this week. It's like, how high do you want to raise your hand? I mean, that's a sliding scale, but I'm not putting mine up that high, I'll tell you that much. So hopefully all three of those kind of living like God, living in a way that glorifies God, that is in, again, obedience to his commands and pursuing him with all our heart and then proclaiming him to others. I mean, they're all very related. Someone could even say they're somewhat arbitrary, my distinctions on it, but three point sermon is helpful for people. So that's what we went with. But yeah. Thanks Ted. Let's keep it going.

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  The second one, what metrics should we use to determine how we are doing in fulfilling God's purpose in numbers, visibility, faithfulness, or long-term fruit?

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  Well, I just touched on that a minute ago, and I think if I was trying to think through that, whether that's individually as a believer, hey, I want to make sure I'm being faithful to my calling here and the purpose for which God's put me on earth. How do I measure that? How do track that at the end of the year? We're coming to the end of the year here, and I mean one of the things I love to do at the end of the year, end of December, beginning of January, is looking back, looking forward, kind of taking inventory, checking in, how was this year? How did it kind stack up for me personally, for us as a family, for us as a church against other years? Where can we grow? Are we praying and asking God to grow us in the year to come?

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  And so yeah, I think it would depend on whether you're talking personally, individually as a family, as a church, but yeah, what kinds of metrics would we use to determine how faithful we are in fulfilling God's purpose? I do think it's a very, again, squishy subjective thing because I think you do want to be real. This is what I was telling the elders last night with it is don't fall into the trap of just thinking that because people are coming and staying, that that means we're being effective or faithful as a church because some of the fastest growing churches in the world are the most cultish. And you can attract people for all the kinds of wrong reasons. And I hope that that's not true of us. And on the flip side, I think it's at least possible that you could be very faithful and not be very fruitful in that sense, however, certainly.

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  So I think context is everything. One of the things that I've always said about West Hills, for instance, if we look at the church level, is we were one of the most centrally located visible churches in greater St. Louis area, right at the center of the 64 and two 70 population density of St. Louis. A hundred thousand cars drive by our church every day. There's no reason that West Hills shouldn't be attracting folks growing unless we're not being faithful and we're not doing it right, because Jesus should be attractive to people, not everyone. I mean, Jesus said the world's going to hate you and hated me. So yeah, there's going to be the world, there's going to be people that hate the message, that hate the church, that don't want anything to do that drive by every day and hold their nose and look the other way.

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  But there's also like Paul talks about the aroma of death and the aroma of Christ and the sweet aroma that we know that there are also those who are of the elect that aren't yet here with us and gathered into the fellowship and that God has more people yet to save and redeem or else Jesus would've returned already. So there's folks out there. So anyway, I say that to say I think that's a very different context for us and where we're at in just even location and resources. Again, I mean, we have a budget to be able to spend thousands of dollars on marketing and getting the word out and whatever that again, churches that are struggling to pay one solo pastor, they got 30, 40 people out in the boondocks an hour from any stoplight. That's a very different context where again, I think you just have to be very, very cautious if you're the solo pastor there of judging your effectiveness in really firing on all cylinders and glorifying God by the butts in the seats because you're in a town of 200 people and more cows than people.

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  And so just have some grace for yourself and whatever, and be faithful where you're planted. So I think, yeah, and all of those things go on the individual personal level and the family level as well. And that kind of goes to one of Thad's next questions, if I can just read it too, is what would faithfulness in multiplication specifically look like for you right now given your season of life? I think it's contextual, right? So again, phase of life, and that was part of what I was trying to get at when I talked specifically for three or four minutes in the sermon yesterday to folks who were retired. I really believe, not to get off on a whole thing, but I really believe where I see demographically, one of the biggest gaps in discipleship in the American church, at least in my experience in our church and in today is in that age group is the empty nester retiree, but not yet sort of not greatest generation, whatever, the boomer older boomers, but just I personally, I see a lot of folks that grew up in their more formative church years in their thirties and forties, probably during the Rick Warren, bill Hybels, just kind seeker, church consumer, church attractional model of ministry, just kind of, it was all about the butts in the seats and the gene and Hawaiian shirts and that whole culture of it was the tide was such that people were leaving the church, leaving the church, and it was, what can we do to get 'em back to church and pastors zipping onto stage on zip lines and pyrotechnics and whatever we got to do to put on a show to get 'em here, that's what we're going to do.

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  And a lot of, anyway, I don't want to get too far off on it, but I just see it still to this day wreaking havoc on even folks at our church that I was kind of trying to preach with the spirit of conviction that hopefully they would hear just like John Piper had his famous seashells sermon, whatever it was, probably almost 40, 50 years ago now, where's like, is that really how you want to spend your last 20, 30 years of life? That's the biggest dream you have, is to save enough that you can retire comfortably and just collect seashells on the beach every day. And that's the legacy you want to leave is a bag full of seashells for your kids to throw out when you die and you just want to coast. So, and Piper inspired Piper to write his first and kind of, I think put him on the scene book, don't Waste Your Life, and then all the spinoffs, including Don't Waste Your Retirement, which I've started giving out to, and I need to do a better job of just ordering a bunch of copies and giving it to people when I hear that they retire.

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  Don't waste your retirement because to me, I really do believe that, again, if God is calling us to be faithful with what we've been given, how did you steward the talents you were given? When you get to that age that you retire and you no longer have that nine to five and you no longer tied down, or when you become an empty nester and the kids are finally out of the house and you no longer have that on boots on the ground, day in and day out, investing in my 15, 16, 70, 18-year-old, now they're gone and now, whoa, that should not just be a whew, okay, lemme just take a breath for the next 30 years. Take a breath for 30 days and then find something to do. You're not here, Ecclesiastes nine 10 from a couple weeks ago with the busyness. It's like, yeah, don't just be unnecessarily busy just because you don't know how to rest. But Ecclesiastes says there's not work in SHEEO where you're going do work while you can't hear because there's a lot of work to be done. There's a lot of gardens out there that need tending, and there's a lot of Christians that are barely gardening.

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  They might be literally gardening, which can be meaningful work. I'm not saying don't have a hobby. I'm not saying don't keep your stamp collection. I'm just saying if that's all it is, is you wake up, the reason you get out of bed in the morning, your purpose is your literal garden in your backyard. That's sad and small. There are human beings that are being born and living for themselves, for dying and not knowing Jesus, and they're your neighbors and God has given you a mission field with them and called you to go to the ends of the earth to make disciples. And if you won't cross the street to do it with a neighbor, there's too much work to be done for Christians to be coasting. So that was the thing I wanted. So to go to Thad's question, I think it really depends. I don't know if he was asking for me specifically. Yeah,

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  I'm not sure either

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  Pastor will, but I just, I'll leave it at that and let people reflect on it. Can I read, can we interrupt fads to read a couple of Brad's questions real quick?

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  Yeah, absolutely.

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  So Brad had told me that he had a couple of questions he wanted to send too. How should knowing that we bear God's image impact the way we view our worth and identity in a word tremendously. Absolutely. Like when you know that your worth and identity are not tied again to what you do, I think that goes back to the busyness sermon and how productive you are. Yes, there are lots of gardens that need tending and there's lots of good work that needs to be done, do it, but also don't fall into the trap of thinking that that makes you a better person because you're contributing to society or contributing to the God's kingdom or whatever it might be. No, your worth and identity come from being created in God's image and being loved by him. So yeah, that's a good second question. When we fail to understand that we are made in God's image, how might this be manifested and how we choose to spend our time with whom we choose to spend our time and even how this could impact our addictions and failures again. Absolutely. I think it's the flip side to everything I just said is, yeah, kind of like King Solomon's looking for meaning and purpose in all the wrong places.

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  You could expand that to say how many people are looking for identity and worth and their value in all the wrong places. And we see it sadly all the time, and sometimes we even are tempted to slip into that in the church, for sure, not immune from it. Question three from Brad, how should being made in God's image influence our decisions at work, at home, at church? Yeah, I think again, tremendously. I think certainly in terms of whether it's at work, at home, at church, I think the thing that comes to mind that again was not the point, the purpose of the sermon yesterday, but is probably as much as anything is how we view one another, how we view others. I think if we really thought of every time I was having an interaction with someone in the office at church, my spouse at home that I'm frustrated with because she did this or that today, it's like if we really stopped and saw this person as a child of God created in his image, if we could see, even when Jesus says in Matthew 25 as he'd done it to the least of these, you've done it for me.

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  I mean, if we saw Jesus on the face of every homeless person or much less our own spouse or brother, sister at church, I mean, how majorly would that impact how we treated them? You'd like to think that it would have a massive impact. So Brett said, the prior week you spoke about the pitfalls of busyness. How does our compulsion to be busy keep us from being fruitful and multiplying spiritually? That's an interesting question, but it's an

  (43:38):

  Insight. I know you got to go.

  (43:40):

  Yeah, yeah. Maybe the last one, but I think it's an insightful question because how I think we absolutely can become, like Martha did so busy that we forget about the one thing that we're actually here for to glorify God and doing it by tending the garden or to glorify God and do it by proclaiming. So yeah, I think we absolutely, I think we would just be appalled to see how much some of our busyness and the kids' sports and the laundry and the this and the that. And again, some of that is necessary activity, got to do it, but when it becomes unnecessary activity

  (44:29):

  And goes overboard, and it's how much of that is getting in the way of us really doing the work that we're called discipleship, sharing the gospel, tending the better gardens that God has for us. Alright, I got one minute. You said glorifying God is one of our purposes in life. What does that mean practically in terms of our ordinary routines of daily life? Well, again, my mind goes to one Corinthians 10 31. Whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do it to the glory of God. There's a way to eat, to drink, to shower, to use a bathroom, to brush your teeth, certainly to make your widgets to pasture, to raise your kids. There's a way to do it for God's glory. Again, I don't presume in every single, I don't have time to go through, but we just got out of Galatians, so that obviously doing it with the fruit of the spirit. Are you lovingly, joyfully, peacefully, patiently, parenting, disciplining your kid? Are you lovingly, joyfully, peacefully, patiently waiting in traffic on the way on your commute to work? I mean, you could go down the list of all the daily life routine things and how do we do that to God's glory? But yeah, how do you eat? Eat in a way that, I mean, we did the episode on gluttony here recently, so we know there are ways of doing it not to his glory.

  (46:08):

  And his last question, how can we identify what habits or attitudes currently fail to glorify God? The last thing I'm going to add on that is you listen to the spirit prayerful. I think just raising it to the level of consciousness where we're actually even asking the question and pulling back long enough to look at our daily routine, look at the activities we're engaged in, assess our life as you come to the end of December and look back on the year that was, and what rhythms need to change going forward in January and goals and resolutions. I think consciousness is just paying attention, being intentional about it, being prayerful, listening for God's direction. All of that is step number one. But I would just say quickly, step number two would be involving others and asking others. I mean those closest to you, your spouse. Ask your kids, if you're a parent, ask your parents, if you're anyone, ask your parents if you trust them, ask your pastors.

  (47:07):

  Ask your elders of your church. Ask your other folks in your small group, your life group, your D group, ask your closest friends, even if they're not Christians, ask them to weigh in and say like, Hey, help me assess going back to Thad's question. Help me assess my faithfulness and fruitfulness. Where am I just really bringing God glory and where am I failing to without realizing it? Help me see my blind spots. I think that's something we just, none of us do probably enough, and no one's going to get upset. I mean, that's going to do nothing but good and buy you relational capital. When somebody sees you say, you trust me enough to speak that honestly into your life in these areas and to point out blind spots and give some constructive criticism, and you're humble enough to do that. Wow, you're humble. I want to be like that. So that would be my last exhortation there. And we didn't get to all of that's questions, but we was just going to do 'em for us because we didn't get enough questions. But then we got Brad. So thanks, Brad. Thanks Thad. Thanks Kate, and thanks everybody for listening and keep submitting those questions in the weeks to come.

  (48:18):

  Yeah, we hope this has been an edifying listen for you as you seek to be changed and to love God more as you apply God's word after the sermon. So go apply the sermon and continue to make disciples, and Lord willing, we'll catch you right back here next week.