Friday, March 8th | Just Keep Swimming

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A healthier, happier you is just a click away. With that said, let's start the show. You can help us keep the conversation going by supporting the show, sharing it online, leaving us a good review on iTunes or Spotify, anywhere you get your podcast and content from.

We're going to leave a link in the description of this podcast so you can do just that. And today is March the 8th. That means our date, the word is coming from 1 Peter 3-8. It says, Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another.

Love as brothers, be tender-hearted, be courteous. We lose sight of that because we are self-centered. We are self-focused. And that's, you know, we can argue that we're brought up in a culture that pre-programs us to be self-focused.

I mean, we talk about a for you page, your algorithm tailors content to your preferences on social media. But the word of God reminds us that we are not called to a life of individualism. We are called to one another and not just to live life together, but to live life together as brothers, as a family. It says be of one mind. And how do we do that?

Through having compassion for one another. That's right. You see this tall Gumby looking Frankenstein monster beside me. This man is my brother. This man is my brother in Christ. You know, it's funny. So many people at NRB, first and foremost, so many people just think that we're brothers. They think that we're related despite us having two completely different last names.

But then at NRB, we had at least three or four people a day. Oh yeah. Are you guys brothers? I've got a question for you. Okay.

A million dollars. I haven't done one of these in a while. Yeah, I know. I just thought of this yesterday and it kind of, cause I was at, I was out to eat with my wife and we saw a kid's birthday party. It made me think about it.

I wrote it down. A million dollars. Okay. Any birthday party that you go to.

Sure. It could be a kid's. It could be a church member.

It could be your grandma. Any, any birthday that you go to or birthday party, you have to angrily demand the first piece of cake. Do I have to insist when they refuse? Oh yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You either, until you get it or until someone like matches your energy and gets angry and scolds you. They may not refuse. Like, like if you come out swinging hard enough, they might just give it to you. I am reluctant to do this, but I'd probably take it.

I'd probably take it for the million. Like you go to a church member's kids birthday party and it's like a little bluey cake. It's like the duck cake from Bluey. And you're like, all right, now, now I get the first piece.

Yeah. They're like, Oh, okay. And you're like, no, I'm dead serious. I want the first piece. And they're like, all right, Ryan, calm down.

This is for the kids now. And you're like, listen, I'm not going to say this again. Give me the first piece. Would you do it, David? You'd do it? I would probably, I'd probably take it. I think I would do it too. That's a million dollars.

I feel bad about it, but a million dollars would help. Yeah, man. Yeah.

Look, I can buy that kid all the birthday cakes he wants. Yeah. Well, yeah, probably.

That's pretty funny. I'm going to ask Dr. Shaw when we come in. We're going to break for a second. But when, when we come in, I wish I was not big on cake no more. So I don't know.

But he is. Ice cream cake. I don't know.

Yeah, that's true. We got ice cream. I got kind of a weakness for ice cream cake too.

It is the best of both worlds. Let's pitch it to him. Write in and let us know if you would take that deal. Million dollars, but you have to angrily demand that the first piece of every birthday cake you are around. There's really no downside.

People look down on you a little bit, but you're a millionaire now. They can't afford to. I mean, you could, you could, if they're angry with you, just give them like 100 bucks or give them like 200 bucks. True.

And you don't go to that many birthday parties. I guess you could just like pay the person and just like, here, give me, give me the first piece of cake. Yeah. Yeah. True.

Yeah. You don't have to, I guess you don't have to angrily demand it. You just have to see to it that you get the first piece. I would try to persuade them.

I can. I would probably just do that for free. What?

David just does that. Just go into parties and be like, give me the first piece of cake. I want the first piece of cake.

Without the million dollars? Yeah. Just to have the first piece of cake? Give me, give me the corner piece with icing on both sides. We want to serve the birthday girl first. It's a power move. The birthday girl?

Yeah. The birthday girl's three. She doesn't know what's happening.

You push her down. David's a birthday terror. Go for it. Write in the letter if you take that deal.

2525825028 or visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com. We'll be back after this. Hey. Hey, you. Me? No, not you.

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That's right. And we are here in the Clearview Today studio with Dr. Abaddon Shah, who is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism. Dr. Shah, it's Friday. Friday. Got to get down on Friday. You know why?

I'll tell you why. Because everybody's looking forward to the weekend. Weekend. Weekend. Weekend.

Nice echoes. Dr. Shah, million dollars. But anytime you go to a birthday party, any birthday party, kids party, adults party, grown folks party, you have to demand the first piece of birthday cake go to you. Here's a bad thing. I mean, I don't know. Bad thing. Good thing.

I don't know. I'm not a big cake person. We said that at the top.

Like, yeah. I said, I don't know if cake is worth it. So let me, let me add this to it.

Okay. What if it's always ice cream cake? Carvel ice cream cake. Oh, I will steal it from that cake.

I'm not supposed to eat sweets. I mean, you know, I do anyways. Here's the thing. I try to bargain. I try to say, okay, so if I eat that ice cream cake, then I'm going to eat, but this much, not more.

And I'm going to give up on the bread that's in the meal or the rice or the potatoes. And I'll do something to balance it. And I think that's what you have to do.

You have to negotiate. Yeah, there you go. It works for every other one. Yeah, that's right. That's exactly right. It's about balance. You balance it out, you balance it out.

That's right. Well, today's episode, we want to start with our daily encouragement for our episode, for our listeners today. Dr. Shah, what do you have for our listeners and viewers today? Don't quit. Don't quit. A lot of people quit. And as I heard this sometime back, I heard that 30 years ago, that most people quit somewhere in the last 25% of the race.

Wow. And that's not contingent on the time. It's not like the last quarter of the race or the last 10 years of their lives or 15 years.

No, it's not dependent on time, but it's like the last 25% means you're almost near the finish line. You could finish well. You could create a legacy.

You can make an impact. And for some reason they veer off or they just quit or just jump out of the race, the track, and they sit on the sidelines. And unfortunately, many times it's because of moral failure. And it's so sad that you were doing so well until you came to that temptation, lust, greed, whatever it is, and you blew it.

Yeah. I'm the type of person who loves to start a project and then be in the middle of the project. But then when it gets to that last 25% where it's really time to start wrapping it up, I have definitely felt that desire to be like, man, I want to just move on to something else.

This either didn't work or it's taken too long. It's more than I thought. I want to start something new. It takes more than I thought it was going to take. It's demanding more of me than I wanted to give. So I'm just... But then we wonder why we can't achieve our goals.

H.W. Longfellow said this, and I know I've quoted this before, one of my favorite poets, he said, the heights reached by great men and kept was not done by sudden flight. But they, while their companions slept, were tolling upwards into the night. So if you want to reach the great heights, it's not done by sudden flight. It's not like, hey, they lucked out.

They were at the right place at the right time. I know people say that. Don't listen to it.

Yeah, that's true. Don't listen. Listen. And then just kind of let it go. Because what they're saying is I just happened to be. No, by God's grace, you were able to stay in the race, not take the shortcuts and get to the finish line.

That's how you win. And when you watch people, whether biblically speaking in the Bible or you talk about people in life, in history, it's only those who stayed in, they persevere to the end, are the ones that they build monuments for, are the ones they talk about, they write songs about. They become larger than life figures that you tell your children to emulate, that you make a model for your life. It's those people who finish well. And my goal is not just finish well in like, oh, what a great church or what a great ministry. I want to finish well as a husband. I want to finish well as a father. I want to finish well as a Christian. I think one of the things you told me when I first started almost 10 years ago that has still stuck with me to this day is when I started here at Clearview, I started with the end in mind. That had a profound impact on me because I was just looking for something to do, somewhere to be. And so to begin, and if we had had that conversation years down the road, I don't know that I would have got it. You know what I mean? But thank God that you told me that when I was young and when I was first starting, it's like, I want you to start with the end in mind.

And man, that has still stuck with me to this day. I mean, I can recall similar conversations that we've had where it changes the way that you view things. It changes the way that you approach work. It changes the way you approach tasks because it's not just something to cross off the list and just move on to the next thing. Everything is a step on the way to where you're headed. Because ultimately you weren't asking for my 20s.

You're asking for my life. And I know that sounds weird to the untrained ear, but I'm telling you, when you raise that expectation of people, they will give you their excellence. And that's my goal is to give this excellence. And we're not just talking about spiritual things and high and lofty spiritual ideals. We're also talking about your daily life, your physical health, right? Your physical health. You want to finish well physically, or do you want to be in your 70s and 80s and struggling with every kind of ailment because you cannot exercise self-control?

You just eat whatever you want to eat and whenever you want to eat it and to heck with the consequences. Yeah, that's what it is. I'm going to die with a smile on my face. You know, no, maybe not. I'm telling you, you're not going to be smiling. Yeah, that's not smiling. Even if it's not for you, your family won't be smiling. That's right. Right? Your wife, your husband won't be smiling.

They'll be, yeah, he's got so many ailments, but you know, you know, daddy, he loves, he loves to do that, or he loves to eat this or mama, you know, she just, she's, she's had a rough life and she just wants to, I guess you got to let her indulge. No, no, right. We don't have to do that way. So exercise self-control. Yeah, that's right. Finish well.

That's right. And then I think that kind of goes into what we're talking about because we've been talking, going through second Peter and this is one of those wrongs. It's really the next wrong on the spiritual ladder, that perseverance, that staying in when we feel like quitting.

Well, I love that it comes right after self-control because when you exercise self-control, it's easy to be like, man, I did that. Great. Now I don't have to do that again. Yeah.

No, you have to continue exercising self-control. And that's where that perseverance piece comes in. That's right. And we're going back to second Peter chapter one, verse five, where Peter says, but also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith, Seritis. Remember the word Seritis I used, which is like building on the previous virtue. Add to your faith virtue, which means excellence. To excellence, knowledge. By knowledge, we're talking about wisdom and discernment in life.

That's right. To wisdom and discernment in life, self-control. Self-control, perseverance. So let's focus on perseverance for a little while. What does that mean when we talk about perseverance?

Well, I mean, I hate to ask you to set you up, but what is the Greek? Because every single word we've seen, it ends up not meaning exactly and cleanly what the English word might suggest. That's right. And by the way, for those of you who are Bible students or pastors or seminarians, whatever, just keep in mind, words derive meaning from their context. Etymology helps, but don't forget words, diachronically speaking, they change. The meaning they had synchronically at one time is no longer the meaning now. Synchronically means at one point in place.

Diachronically means it changes over time. So that's why context is key. So the word for perseverance is hupamene.

Hupamene means patient endurance, which is much more than just patience or endurance. Right. That's interesting that it's not one or the other. It's both together. Yeah.

Yeah. Patient endurance. Because I think of patience and endurance as synonyms. You know what I mean? It's just, he's just talking poetically.

He's trying to get a point across, just like me repeating something in a different way. But patient endurance is a thing all its own. Right. Because people can be patient. I'm just patient. Hey, I'm a patient person. I can wait or endure.

I'm just going through it and I have to grin and bear it. But patient endurance means remaining steadfast and persevering in the face of temptations and trials. Means I'm being hammered on every side and yet I am continuing this journey. Right. Right. Whether the hammering is temptations or the hammering is trials. Yeah.

I'm pressing on. I think it's one of those Christian misconceptions that when the trials come and storms batter us in life, we are supposed to smile and just praise God and be almost unaffected by it. You know what I mean? Just to be completely like Christian robots, almost. Like with a smile on our face, like the shiny, happy people. But what I'm getting from it is to persevere means just to continue. Just to keep going.

Yes. I mean, think about it. We're soldiers in God's army, which means no matter how you're feeling, your stomach may be messed up. You may have a headache.

You may have fever. Something is wrong. But when it's time to report for duty, I have to because we're marching. You're saying we can't call in sick on Monday when the weekend's been too long.

Well, we have to take our positions because the enemy is marching in. That's right. Yeah.

No, you don't have a choice. You just work straight through the holidays. Think about it. How do you think soldiers do it? Especially soldiers living in a foreign land under horrible circumstances, elements of nature, bad food sometimes, bugs. What do you think they do when the enemy army is about to charge?

Do you think they're like, oh, count me out, guys? I submitted the form. Like I took, I asked Linda for my further request off and it's not going to prove. No, it doesn't work that way.

It doesn't work like that. I mean, it's like, I got to go. I got to go.

I have to, I have to fight. This will have to wait. That's right. Yep.

That's right. So here the word hupameneh is found about 32 times in the New Testament. And, and of course, we don't have time to look at every one of them, but I want to look at some of them if that's okay.

And maybe you guys can jump in and read some of my references. The first one is Luke 8, 15, where Jesus is describing a good listener of the word. I got it. It says Luke 8, 15, but the ones that fell on the good ground are those who having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience. Yeah. That's actually, that's the parable that led me to Christ.

The parable of the sower. Okay. Okay.

Special place in my heart. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and here's the thing. It's not enough just to hear the word. You have to keep it and you have to bear fruit with hupameneh, which is patient endurance under temptations and trials. Wow.

Gives it a whole new meaning. Yeah. So yes, salvation start to finish is the word of work of God, but here's your human responsibility. And again, this is all enabled by the grace of God.

So nobody, I hope nobody says, well, I don't know. I mean, you're saying it's a man's, no, everything you are is by God's grace. That's right.

We know that. I mean, our very breath is God's grace. Our very existence is God's grace, but He has given you a free will to cooperate with Him.

That's right. That's why we have over half of the New Testament. It doesn't stop at the plan of salvation. So many books in the Bible dedicated to helping you live the Christian life because it's actually important. Amen.

Amen. So that's what makes you a patient enduring person. Now, Paul used it many times to emphasize the importance of hupameneh, patient endurance, in the Christian life. And there's one, which is Romans 5-3. By the way, this is an awesome list as well. And Romans 5-3. It says, and not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance and perseverance, character and character, hope.

Beautiful. So that's the way we grow in the Christian life. And maybe one day we can do a series on this. Oh yeah.

I would love that. Tribulation produces patient endurance. Patient endurance produces character and then character produces hope. See, we spend so much time resenting those tribulations.

Yeah. And it really, it's, it's the thing that God is using to mold us and shape us and help us develop that perseverance. And hope is not just, I hope it works out, right? Hope is an assurance of a better day coming. Hope is an assurance that this is simply a bend in the road, not the end of the road. Hope is the assurance that God is working all things together with something bigger and better and eternal.

That's what God is doing. So unless you go through trials, you're not going to learn patient endurance. And if you don't have patient endurance, your character is not going to develop. And if a character is not going to develop, you're not going to have this bigger and better eternal thing that God is preparing. So that very thing you're looking for in the midst of the trial, which is hope, hope for the other side, hope that the trial is going to be alleviated, hope that there's a better tomorrow.

The very thing that you're looking for, you have to go through the trial in order to get. That's what I love about this show is the show goes so much deeper and explores what the Bible is actually saying. Because what you'll typically hear is, hey, either get through it or you can go a little level deeper and say, those trials are actually good for you because they just help you to trust God more. It's like, yes, that's true. But it's even deeper than that because God is using those trials to help you become the Christian you should be. Shaping you up. Then it's easier to trust.

Right. And in the end, it's not just, well, you trusted God through it. He got you through.

No, he got you through to a better day with something bigger and better to come. You may lose people in the process. People will pass on into glory. You may lose your health in the process. You may lose finances in the process.

You may lose relationships in the process. But it's not the end because God is working towards something bigger and better that may not make sense to us in the moment. But in the end you go, yeah, I get it now. And some of those, yeah, I get it now will happen on the other side. That's okay.

Did y'all say yeah? Here's another one. James one, two. My brethren counted all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience, but let patience have its perfect work that you may be perfect and complete lacking nothing. And this goes hand in hand with the Romans five.

Exactly what Paul says is what James is saying. Right. And who pomine is there. Another example.

And by the way, who is the one person who exemplifies or exemplified patient endurance? I'm going to, I'm going to say, go out on a limb here. Let's, let's, let's take the Sunday school answer and Jesus off and let's say Job. I'm going to go Job.

Yeah, I think you're right. What does it say in James five 11? It says indeed we count them blessed to endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and have seen the end intended by the Lord. The Lord is very compassionate and merciful.

Here you find that word who pomine as a verb first and then as a noun. Yeah. Wow.

But, but it's, it's very interesting that Job is the poster child, so to speak, um, for patient endurance. I mean, look at what all he went through. He was in, in just a matter of few hours, he lost his, his, uh, livestock, lost his servants, his houses, his property, even his own children.

Yeah. And then came the worst of all, he lost his health in just a matter of few days. All that is gone. And yet in all of this, he did not sin. He did not blame God. He did not lose his integrity. And he kept saying the Lord gives and Lord takes away.

Blessed be the name of the Lord. Yeah. And in the end, what did Job see?

He didn't just see a better day. And I mean, we think, oh, well, he got all that back and he didn't get his children back. Right. That's right.

You know, he lost a lot of that. But what he did get was a vision, not only of God's sovereignty and God's goodness and all that, but he saw a vision of Jesus Christ. That's right.

Cause he says, I know that my Redeemer lives and at last he will stand on the earth. And this, I know that when my flesh is destroyed or when my skin is destroyed in my flesh, I shall see God. Yep.

Wow. So I'm going to die. My skin is going to be gone, but it's going to come back. That flesh is coming back. He saw his, his own physical bodily resurrection.

Wow. And that he will stand on the earth, which means the new heavens and new earth are coming back. And if he had never, if he hadn't persevered through those tribulations, he would have never seen that vision of Jesus, of himself and of the new heavens and new earth. I mean, so much is there. Much greater and more profound than just, hey, got all this stuff back.

Yeah. And so many Christians will, unfortunately, will never get that assurance. They'll never have that, that, like you said, that hope because we didn't learn how to persevere. We only say Romans 8 28, we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, those are called according to the purpose, his purpose. And that's great.

But what does that mean? Right. Ultimately, it's not just that man, it all worked out ultimately is I saw Jesus and I saw myself standing with him. Wow. And I saw everything healed and whole and fulfilled. You guys need to hit the little 15 seconds back button and listen to that again.

I wish I could do it in real life. I saw Jesus. That's the, that is the, that's really the ultimate destination. Yeah. Wow.

I love it. We've talked about R.G. Letourneau, one of my heroes in the faith, you know, the Dean of Earth Moving, right? He invented all these heavy equipment machines back in World War II. But there's a lot that happened in his life that was very painful. And we don't think about that.

For example, it began with the First World War. R.G. Letourneau was not prepared for what's about to happen. He, when he went back on the first day to the garage, his friend told him that they were bankrupt. The whole, just everything going. Yeah. I mean, his friend had a bad habit and he used all the money to profit. And by the way, this is about the time when the automobile industry was just growing. It's like, think about it as the dot com burst above all. Like it was, it was really a revolution.

This is a time and you happen to know how to work on computers. Right. And now you're bankrupt. And your person, your partner took your money and blew it on some addiction.

Right after the birth of your child. Yes. Ran right after a major global conflict and a widespread sickness. And you have, you have the assets and the understanding to really capitalize on this new technology. Oh, well, you don't have anything. But the neighbor down the road who has a garage is doing great.

Yeah, they didn't have, their partners weren't addicted to stuff and they still have all their money. Yeah. So that happened. And then another bad news came or another creditor needed to be paid.

Another deal went down. And so all this kept on going. And then the worst of it came when one night he returned from the garage and his wife Evelyn was pacing the floor. And sure enough, the Spanish influenza, which was killing people or especially children all around, took the life of their only child.

Their baby died. Wow. And listen to what R.G. Letourneau said. He said, I held Evelyn. But when I could find words, it was to God that I addressed them. What's wrong? What have we done that we should be so punished? We've worked hard. We've tried our best to be Christians.

Oh, where have we gone wrong? And then he says, that night, while we were still numb with sorrow, the answer came to me. My child, the voice said, you have been working hard, but for the wrong things. You have been working for material things when you should have been working for spiritual things.

Wow. The words were few, but the meaning ran deep. And all that night, I reviewed my past and saw where I had been paying only token tribute to God, going through the motions of acting like a Christian, but really serving myself and my conscience instead of serving him.

You guys enjoyed today's episode. If it was encouraging to you, maybe you're going through a difficult time, write in and let us know what that encouragement was like for you. Write in and let us know how we can pray for you. We've got you as part of our Clearview Today Show family, so let us know if there's something going on in your life.

We'd love to pray with you, pray alongside you during that difficult time. 252-582-5028, or you can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com. Don't forget, you can partner with us financially on that same website.

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That's T-O-D-A-Y. It's going to get you a great discount and a portion of those proceeds come right back here to the Clearview Today Show. Jon, what's coming up next week? Next week, we are coming towards the end of our spiritual ladder.

Well, maybe not the end, but the destination, I should say. You know, perseverance is going to ultimately lead to godliness, and I think we can all agree, if you're listening to this show, then you probably agree that this world needs some godliness. How do you contribute more godliness to the world?

You know, how do you do that? Make sure you stick around next week. We'll talk about it.

Amen. As we close, I also want to encourage you guys, find a church family to worship with this weekend. If you don't have one, and you're near the area, we'd love to invite you to Clearview Church. We've got four services.

Check out our website, ClearviewBC.org. We'd love to see you worshiping with us this weekend. And text us some of those pictures of you guys and your worship centers worshiping the Lord here to the Clearview Today Show. We'd love to see those. That's right. Love you guys. We'll see you next week on Clearview Today.