Monday, September 4th | Devoted

Hello, everyone. Today is Monday, September the fourth. I'm Ryan Hill.

I'm John Galantis. You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com. If you have any questions for Dr. Shah or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028, or you can email us at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com.

That's right. You guys can help us keep the conversation going by supporting the show. You can share it online with your friends and family. Leave us a good review on iTunes or Spotify and where you get your podcasting content from.

We're going to leave a link in the description so you can do just that. And today's verse of the day is coming to us from John chapter six, verse 68. But Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. I love Peter's realization here because I think we all need to get to a place where we realize there is no hope outside of Christ.

There's no hope outside of a relationship with him. There's lots of things we can turn to. There's lots of things we can try to fulfill ourselves with. But Peter says it. You have the words of eternal life. Where else are we going to go?

What other option is there? You're the only one. Yeah. Everybody kind of has that existential moment where they realize that nothing I do in life matters. And if there's no hope of an eternal life, then yeah, that's exactly right.

That's true. You can build up this great empire here on earth, but one day in the future, it's just going to be dust and ashes. And people may or may not remember who you are without the hope of eternal life, without the assurance of eternal life. Yes, everything is hopeless, but Peter understands it.

He says, Jesus, you have the words of eternal life. You are that hope. You are that assurance. And so, you know, he understands it. And that's why, you know, when you turn to Christ, you do find that peace and that fulfillment.

You're going to have those bad days. Sure. But ultimately you have that assurance within you that Christ is everything.

He's the end goal. That's right. I had someone write in this morning.

They said, they said not to give their name, so I'm not going to give their name, but they wanted to know who has worse sneezes. Like of us? No, no, no, no, no. Like, okay. So they said, they said men are women.

And what I took that to mean, I really took that to mean women or dads. Yeah. Dad sneezes are something else. When a dad sneezes, he's got to let the whole world know. It's like a sonic boom. Yeah. Like it breaks the sound barrier and maybe your eardrum.

Oh goodness. Rest in peace headphone listeners. We should have given a headphone warning on that. Men, men just sneeze. I think it's really dads because I didn't use to sneeze like that. Now when I sneeze, like I got to let the whole house know that something was tickling my nose. But you got to get the whole sneeze out. I mean, like you feel like some of it's still stuck in your nasal cavity.

So you got to all of your might force it out. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I do. Like there are some times where I can kind of stifle a sneeze, but rest assured it is coming back later. Do you do it to annoy your wife? Cause I do it on purpose sometimes. Like if I'm sitting beside my like Ellie, I'll just be like, now, now women see the person who wrote the sin, they said men are women.

I took that to mean dads and women. Cause I've never met women who just sneeze. They they're like, and they'll, they'll like hold it until they're like laser. Like they're like a mouse. They're like a little mouse and like their lungs will expand. So full of air, their throat closes up.

I know it hurts. Now there are some times that Elizabeth, my wife sneezes like that, that little tiny girly sneeze. But there are other times where she has a sneeze that rivals mine catches me off guard because there's no rhyme or reason to it. Like sometimes you're going to get the little like quiet, like, and other times it's like, it's not like a snore where like you can tell, like if someone's snoring hard, they're like, Oh wow, they're really tired. It's like, you can't predict. There's no, I mean, one day you might get just this tiny, quiet little thing. And other times you might like, you've been shot.

Like, I don't know. I don't know why it really annoys me when, when women will do that. Just like, I'm like, dude, why like, doesn't it feel like Ellie will do it. Ellie will do it, but she won't make the noise. She'll just be like, and just hold it in.

Wait, wait, make that sound one more time. She'll like get it. She'll be like, I'm like, let it out, babe. She's like, I did. I just sneezed. I'm like, no, no, no. Let the air come out. You okay?

Oh man. That I was not expecting that. I'm going to do it one more time.

Okay, one more time. I can feel, she's like, she won't let the sneeze out. And I don't know why it is. I guess they're scared to take up space or I guess they're scared to just let it, let it come out. I don't know why it is.

I don't know. But like something happens to men when they transform into dads. It's like they're letting all of it out. We used to do a thing in school where we would see who would sneeze the funniest in class and not get called out by the teacher. So I had a friend who would sneeze and he'd put like a note on the end of it. He'd be like... Did he call out by the teacher? Oh yeah.

We were kind of goofy and called out a lot. Well, let us know for you guys, who is the more intense sneezer? I don't know that I've ever actually heard Dr. Shaw sneeze.

I'm trying to think about it. I think he holds it all in and he just... I don't know what his sneezes are like.

I'm trying to find that memory, but I don't know that I've ever heard it. He's got a dad sneeze. I don't think he goes all out. I think his is a real sudden spike. He's just like...

It's like a quick spike, but then a quick release. I don't know. We'll ask him. We're going to bring him in in just a second and ask him that question. But let us know what your sneezes are like.

Dads, moms, who has the worst sneezes? Write in and let us know. We're going to get started with our episode in just a second, so we'll be right back. Well, good morning, afternoon, evening, Clearview Today listeners. My name is Jon. And I'm David. And we just want to take a quick second and let you know about another way that you can keep in touch with Dr. Shaw's work.

And that is his weekly podcast series, Sermons by Abaddon Shaw, PhD. As a lot of you may know, or maybe some of you don't know. If you don't know, you do now. And if you don't know, then maybe just hop off the podcast. David, hop off the podcast.

I'm just playing. Keep listening. Dr. Shaw is actually the lead pastor of Clearview Church in North Carolina. Every single weekend, he preaches expository messages that challenge and inspire us to live God-honoring lives. One of the four core values of Clearview Church is that we're a Bible-believing church. So every sermon is coming directly from Scripture, which is great because that guarantees that there are timeless truths that are constantly applicable to our lives. This is a great resource because whether you're driving, whether you're cleaning the house, whether you're working out, you can always benefit from hearing the Word of God spoken into your life. And God's Word is always going to do something new for you every time you hear it.

Sometimes it's conviction and sometimes it's encouragement. But know that every time you listen to God's Word, you're inviting the Holy Spirit to move and work in your life. You guys can check out the Sermons by Abaddon Shaw, PhD podcast. First and foremost, check it out on our church app. That's the Clearview app. You can get that in the Google Play Store. You can get that on iTunes. But you can also find the podcast on the Apple podcast app or on our website at ClearviewBC.org. And listen, if you've got a little extra time on your hands, you just want to do some further reading, you can also read the transcripts of those sermons.

Those are available on Dr. Shaw's website, AbaddonShaw.com. And we're going to leave you guys a little link in the description so you can follow it. But for right now, David, let's hop back in. Welcome back to Clearview Today with Dr. Abaddon Shaw, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com, or if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text, 252-582-5028.

That's right. And if today's your first time ever joining us here on the Clearview Today Show, we want to welcome you, let you know exactly who's talking to you today. Dr. Abaddon Shaw is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor and the host of today's show. You can visit all of his work on his website. That's AbaddonShaw.com.

And also I will say that Dr. Shaw is a bonafide dad. I haven't seen this in years, but like Jean's shirt, I've seen pictures, Jean's shorts. Did you ever wear a fanny pack? Never.

Never wore a fanny pack like to the amusement park. Did you ever sneeze real loud? Like you know how when dads sneeze? I've done that. That supersonic dad sneeze for some reason. It's like they're blowing the horns to call for Gondor.

They're like blowing war horns. You did do that? I've done that before. What about last one, socks with sandals?

I always thought about these during the break. No. Never socks and sandals?

No. So I'd say like half stereotypical dad, the Jean shorts and the dad sneezes. Jean shorts sometime like a couple of years ago were like in style. Yeah, they look cool.

They came back. They have those quintessential dad things. You know, you got to. Is it Father's Day? I mean, is it?

What's going on? No, we just talked about it. Someone wrote in, asked about like, I can't remember how they phrased it, but they were like, what's worse, the dad sneezes?

Like those really big dads sneezes or like the when moms or women are just like they just don't let it out at all. Well, you know, as dads, it's important that we support one another. We hold each other up and lift each other's arms proverbially, which lines up with what we're talking about today. We're talking about a message from a couple of weekends ago about the story of Moses as he goes on top of the mountain and Aaron and her who come alongside him and support his arms. Well, you know, while you were in India visiting your mom, you actually sent us this text. I remember you and I were talking at some point and I was, I was, Ellie and I were praying for you and we, we had Gavin and we were, we were having Gavin pray for you as well. Just like, you know, please be with Dr. Shah, bless Dr. Shah. And afterwards I remember texting you and I said, you know, is there any verse that's sticking out to you? Cause I was also in kind of songwriting mode and I could never in a million years have guessed the verse that you sent. Yeah.

Yeah. The one that I shared with you was from Exodus chapter 17 where there's a battle taking place between God's people and Amalekites or the sons of Amalek. And Moses goes up on top of the mountain or top of the hill with the rod of God in his hand. As Moses is up on the mountain top, he has two people with him. One is Aaron, his own brother and Huor, which a lot of, a lot of speculations about who exactly was he. Was he the father of Caleb or was he somehow connected to Moses's family, like his sister's husband?

We don't know for sure exactly which Huor this is, but nonetheless, he's up on top of the mountain along with Aaron and Moses. And as long as Moses held up his hands, the victory belonged to God's people. That's right. But when any time he began to lower his hands because hands get heavy. I mean, try it one day. He's going to hold it up like this and you know, it's tough. Yeah.

It's not long before you go, Oh, I got to put my hands down. And he did that. And every time he did that, the Amalekites started winning. And so Aaron and Huor supported his hands, one on one side, one on the other, and they won the victory. When you texted us this passage, Dr. Saul, what led you to this, this, this story, this account?

What grabbed you from that account of Aaron and Huor? Well, you know, when I'm going through what I was going through at the time with my mom being very sick and at the point of death, you know, I just felt like I needed that support. I needed people to come alongside and hold up my hands because my hands were getting weary.

They're getting tired. And it's not just because of all the craziness that's happening, but also because all the other responsibilities are on top of me. And so I needed support and support came. People lifted up my hands. Ryan, you led in prayer.

John led us in prayer in the services. And it helped me tremendously. I was able to preach as I'm reading a text that says your mom is, her kidneys are failing and it's just a matter of hours. And I'm still preaching. How am I able to do that? Not because I'm able to compartmentalize things. It's not because I'm able to shut things off and just be warrior-like. No, it happened because people were praying for me.

And I was able to then put things in a compartment and move forward, but it's because of prayer. So that was fresh on my mind. Yeah.

Yeah. I really liked that because I think people in the church and not just our church, but in churches everywhere, they sort of minimize their role in supporting their pastor, their church leadership. You know, I know you gave this illustration at one point, Ryan, which I thought was really brilliant. Like we've got a beautiful foundation here at Clearview Church, but if we just start, like we're in the process of building our new church sanctuary right now and the slab is laid, the foundation is there. So what if we just held a party and said, guys, we did it. We have a building. You know, there's no support structures. There's just a foundation and a ceiling.

We can't say that we have a building. So also with people in the church as prayer warriors, as praying for their pastor and for their leaders, you are that support structure. Well, 1 Corinthians 10, verse 11 reminds us that these things happened to them. And we're talking about them as in the Old Testament, people of God, these things happened to them as examples and were written down as a warnings for us for whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. So a lot of things that God's people went through in the Old Testament were massive spiritual truths, albeit they were being acted out in everyday life in physical forms, but don't stop there. They had deep spiritual meanings. So when, say, for example, this whole Moses, Aaron, and Hur story, yeah, it was just physical hands being lifted up and propped up. But in reality, the spiritual principle was then as well as today that we are to lift up the hands of our leaders. That's right.

That's right. There was a period that you went through here at Clearview, Dr. Michelle, where we were very... I don't know if it was every sermon, but I think it was even a Wednesday night series that we did where we just followed the life of Moses and we followed his leadership. And I remember one of the things that I learned through that, and I think even through this, is just how spiritually taxing and spiritually exhausting interceding for the people of God is. I think about Moses leading those people through the wilderness and they're constantly complaining, even after so close to coming through the Red Sea, and then God's sending the manna from heaven and they're like, this is gross, I don't wanna eat this anymore.

Food is dropping out of the sky. And we're like, I really don't like it. And you compound that... We lead a church of maybe 700, 800, but he had millions and millions of people didn't he? Constantly questioning his motives, constantly coming down on him, and I can't imagine how exhausted that man must have been.

I can't imagine either, but even all of that was set up as an example for us. As he's up on the mountain. Do we know if he called Aaron and who were to go with him? Well, the Bible simply says that they went up with him.

Okay. So the passage goes something like this in Exodus chapter 17, verse eight, it says, Now Amalek came and fought with Israel in Rephidim. And Moses said to Joshua, Choose us some men and go out, fight with Amalek.

Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand. So Joshua did as Moses said to him and fought with Amalek. And Moses, Aaron and Hur went up to the top of the hill. Aaron we know, brother of Moses. Who is Hur?

A lot of ideas. Was he the son of a father of Caleb? Remember Caleb and Joshua? They were sort of like these two spies and at the same time, two young men who were totally dedicated to the Lord.

But Hur, according to Josephus in his antiquities, was probably the husband of Miriam, Moses' sister. And again, we don't know all these things for real, but that doesn't make sense to me that Moses, Aaron and Moses' brother-in-law, brother and brother-in-law went up to them at the top of the mountain. And so we don't know exactly why those two went with him, but God had a purpose. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, it kind of, like you said, it lays the example for us that they saw the need that Moses was going to have. Like, he's like, all right, I'm going up here to do this. They probably understood very well, like how taxing this was going to be, not only physically, but spiritually. Well, and especially if they were, I mean, Aaron being his brother and Hur, if he is indeed Moses' brother-in-law, would have been close enough to Moses to see maybe the strain that leading takes, that leading the people, especially spiritually, to see how taxing and how draining that was for Moses. So to know that, hey, we're going to be here to support you.

Yeah. I think with us, because we're so close to you, and I think people who listen to this podcast that are close to their spiritual leaders, like their pastors, they may see glimpses of those hardships, but I think the average churchgoer doesn't know even a fraction of what their spiritual leaders have to actually go through. They don't understand how taxing, praying and interceding for their people actually is. And so I think there is this sort of tendency to think, well, he's the pastor, he's got it. If anybody knows how to pray this way out of this, it's him. You know what I mean? Right. And we need to support our people. If that's okay, we can talk about our Tuesday morning prayer time that we have begun.

I have a clear view. For those of you who may have been following us, you know, we've been talking about having a prayer time early in the morning, and I'm talking about six o'clock in the morning. And we've been talking about this, talking about this, talking about this. And it seemed like every time we were ready to implement this or announce it, something would happen, or it would just be a very busy season, or some craziness in the world.

And we would be like, you know what? Hold off. Hold off.

It's not the right time. Now, I don't know if that was the right thing to do or not, but we kept holding off for like a year and a half, two years, until finally David and I talked. We said, we need to start. And David kind of got behind that and he said, if you want me to, I can push it out. I was like, yes, remind me sometime in August that we need to get this going.

Something like that. And do you remember that? So we started talking about it. I feel like you'd had the idea a long time ago, like you were saying, and we had talked about it and then just stuff kept coming up. And then eventually, like you said, it got to the point where you were like, hey, remind me in August.

So August rolls around, we talk about it. And then after everything happened with your mom and we saw all those answered prayers of how we got all that stuff, it was like, this is the perfect time to do this. This is a very tragic time, but people are seeing how prayers are answered.

People are gathering together and being more community minded because of this. So as soon as you got back, not that Tuesday—well, you weren't back that Tuesday, you got back that Wednesday. The Tuesday that you got back, we went ahead and started. It was just last week.

Yeah. And I had talked about it in my message, Inner Seed. I talked about starting a lay-led prayer ministry for men in our church every Tuesday morning. And at the time I said 6.30, but then we heard a lot from people, not a lot, but enough to go, you know what, make it six o'clock. Six o'clock would be better because I'd rather start earlier and then men have more time, whether to take the kids to school or get to work or get to the gym and get out of there in time to take a shower and go to work.

But either way, six o'clock would be better. And we began. And it was a success.

Oh yeah. We did it for the very first time last Tuesday and we're going to do it again tomorrow as well. But it was so amazing because I remember it was like getting to be 5.40 and no one had came in like 5.45. And I was like, okay, like one person came in and then it was like 5.50, 5.55. And then all of a sudden the floodgates opened and I guess they had been hanging out in the parking lot, just talking and greeting each other. But man, just to see all those men come in and then just keep coming.

Literally in droves. I mean, we expected guys to show up because they had talked to us about it. I knew there were some that were planning on being there, but I mean, there were a ton of guys here. You always think it's going to be like a couple of older guys who were just kind of up anyway and wanted something to do, but to see men who wanted to make it a priority to come out there and pray.

Yeah, they were people dressed for work, dressed for the gym, dressed for the farm, all walks of life, ready to pray. And we began right on time at six o'clock. By the way, we had done our research.

Okay. So for those of you who are watching us or listening to this podcast radio show, this was not some random knee jerk program that we just kind of threw out there and said, let's go with it. We had talked to people, we had called up churches that are doing this and asked them how does this early morning prayer ministry work for you? And so they kind of laid out for us what they did. And we began with a worship song. And the one we sang, John led us, is a battle belongs to the Lord because we need to hear that. A lot of things we're trying to fight, but the battle belongs to the Lord, just like Moses realized the battle belongs to the Lord. That's right. Yeah. It's kind of the perfect song for this.

It's a little bit of an older song by this point, but still the message is so relevant, especially with what we're talking about. Cause we've been talking about fighting through our prayers. When I fight, I fight on my knees with my hands lifted high, you know, those holy hands, men of God lifting holy hands. That's exactly right.

That's exactly right. And we began with the worship song. That was about three minutes or so. Then I got up there and I thanked the people from being there.

And then I took the time to explain to them what this prayer ministry is about and how we're going to honor their time. So we're not going to drag this on to like 6.40 or even 6.35. We are going to end 6.30. And you'll be walking out.

If you, if you're there talking to some men and you want to take the time just to kind of, you know, connect with each other, I'm fine with that. As long as you know, we're done. And then we're going to read some scriptures, get our hearts and minds on track because the word of God to me is the foundation.

That's right. The Bible, Genesis, to revelation is the foundation. So we read from scripture about bearing each other's burdens. We talked about casting a burden on the Lord.

We talked about Jesus' words, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, I'll give you rest, that we need that rest. And once I explained that, it was about 6.09. And then I said, guys, you're dismissed. And what we had done prior to that was every guy who came in picked up a number. And so that number was from one through six. And so all the ones head to room number so-and-so, all the twos go to here, all the three and fours and five and six stay in this cafe. All the sevens go down this hallway to this room. And so they quickly dispersed. There was no confusion. There was no, where do I go?

What's going to happen? They were quickly in their rooms and then we walked around and checked on them for a few minutes, like a minute or two, I would say, to see if everybody was situated and they were sharing their prayer. And I also emphasized, don't take more than 20 seconds to discuss your prayer needs.

Don't share a story about someone for like five minutes. Maximize your time to talk to God. And they did. And so while they're doing that, we four, myself, Ryan, John, David, we gathered in the hallway and we had our prayer time. We had our prayer time and we had given out a suggested list of things to pray for, pray for ourselves, pray for our families, pray for our communities, pray for our nation, pray for our church. So we got on our knees and prayed or at least stood there and prayed. What I loved is as we were walking around, you know, we spent time in prayer and then we walked around just kind of, you know, making sure everybody was good and you could hear the things that the guys were praying for. And they were praying for you, Dr. Shah, and they were praying for your family and they were praying for our church family and they were praying for our leadership. And just, just knowing that, you know, kind of going along with what we're talking about with, with Moses and Aaron and who are, uh, that, that sense of being bolstered, that sense of being uplifted and held up.

We got to witness that last week. And guys, if you're in the area, we want to invite you to that prayer time tomorrow morning. It'll be at 6am at Clearview Church.

If you need that address, let us know at 252-582-5028. But if you are local, if you're nearby, we would love for you to be a part of that prayer time right here at Clearview. Guys moving in powerful ways, and we want you to be part of it. And like Dr. Shah said, it is very structured in a way that honors your time and respects your time, especially as a man in the morning. There's stuff to do.

There's responsibilities on your plate. But the thing that struck me last week when I saw it for the first time was how much we were able to, because like men typically, I know I do, love efficiency. We love, and think about how much we were able to accomplish. We were able to worship God, listen to a devotional, fellowship with our friends and our church-going men, drink a cup of coffee, talk and pray, all those things in 30 minutes. Because you did your research, you planned it out, and it was structured in a way that wasn't like to get people out the door, but just to honor them. And I think that really made all the difference.

That's right. Also important was that the night before, John and David got to the church, and they set everything up, cleaned out the cafe because the last thing is on Sunday night, where the youth and our student ministry and our college and career ministry or young adult ministries all over the place. So there's food and this and that and trash. So they got there Monday evening and cleaned up everything, had everything ready. They had slides made. They had the little pamphlet made out. It was ready. Coffee was ready.

The doors were open. Those numbers were made out beforehand. It was not like we were running in the morning trying to write out one, two, three, four, five on a piece of paper with a crayon or a marker. All that was done.

So it was just a matter of rolling with it. Yeah. And it's worth doing that stuff because I've seen personally, me, I've seen what happens when men pray, and it gets to the point where you want that. I want to be able to make this as easy as possible so these men can come in here and pray.

Yeah. So guys, as we're wrapping up today, we want to encourage you to do two things. Number one, pray for your leaders. Pray for your pastor. Pray for your leadership team. Pray for those who God has placed an authority over you, because that is important. We're commanded to do that in scripture.

Like we get in this story, the picture that is painted with Moses and Aaron and Huor is a spiritual picture of what we should be doing in our lives. And then men, we want you to step up and pray. We want you to lead in that going to God in prayer, being men of God who lift those holy hands and pray and lead your communities in doing the same thing. And like we said, if you're local in the area, come join us for prayer tomorrow here at Clearview Church at 6 a.m. We'd love to see you there. If you have any questions about today's episode, if you'd like more information on that men's prayer meeting, you can send an email to contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com, or you can text us at 252-582-5028. And on that same website, ClearviewTodayShow.com, you can join with us, partner with us financially as we seek to impact the nations with the gospel of Christ. We love you guys. We'll see you next time on Clear View Today.