The Power of the Word: Rechab & Brittany Gray

We don't realize just how much we're like implanting seeds in our kids, not by what we say, but by what they see. So discipleship is happening, whether we know it or not, it's just what are you showing them?

They're picking up so much more of what they see, rather than what you say. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Shelby Abbott, and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson.

You can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is Family Life Today. All right, so we're sitting in the studio today with a couple I think's living our former life. I do too, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, Recav and Ricky Gray are with us, and they're in pastoral ministry, and it's like us, you know, we won't say how many years ago. I was going to say a long time ago.

We never looked as good as you guys. But our listeners are going to love them and their story, their heart for Jesus. You guys are inspiring.

Just having lunch together was super fun for us and inspiring of your walk with God and all that he's done. He's going to praise me. Let's talk a little bit about the Recav and Brittany story. Tell us. Oh my goodness. I'm not too much on that, huh? First of all, tell our listeners what you do now so they can understand why I said you're doing what we did for 30 years, and then tell us sort of your journey.

Yeah, right now we are currently involved with a church plant. It's not an infant anymore, but it's still not a grown up yet. Wait until it becomes a teenager.

30 years or something else. It's going to be fun. I feel like we'll be more mature then. So prayerfully we'll be able to handle that.

Yeah. So our church plant is now a year old. We are here in Orlando planting a new creation fellowship with multiple friends of ours that have been together for many years.

That's Recav's full time job. And what about your family and your kids? We have four kids varying in ages. We have three, four, 13 and 14. What's the gap there? What's that all about? Yeah. Oh, that's a story. That is a deep story. That's a deep question actually. Should we get to that later? You should get to that later.

Okay. I have a question for you Brittany. Tell us why Recav, your husband, is a good pastor. Very amazing question.

What do you like about him? Can you sit under his teaching? Because I sat under my husband's teaching for 30 years.

Yes. And she critiqued it. Do you ever critique his?

I didn't critique it. I helped it. We're there to help. That's right. We are.

Yes. Encourage and help and also guide. Don't talk about poop all the time. True story. I have actually said that today. When we're talking about parenting, you don't have to get into it so much to detail. I said there was too much poop on the walls. We don't need to hear that.

All of that. But from the day I met him, I knew he loved Jesus. How could you tell? Because he was young. You guys are both young. He was young. He was young and he has grown a lot from there.

I'll tell you that much. Jesus has really matured him, but he loves the word, loves the Bible. It seeps out of him. Even in normal conversation, you'll just hear scripture seeping out of him. He's a man who trusts in everything.

Like every little thing he's trusting in Jesus. It'll get on my nerves. We'll be like, can you just make a decision? He's like, I got to pray about it.

I'm like, all right, I can't say anything now. But he really is like little things where it's just, we're standing there deciding, do we go to the bowling alley or do we go to mini golf? He's just like, we're talking back and forth. He's like, let me just pray about it. God does his work. And so just seeing him over the years, he has proved that he loves Jesus and everything he does. He has followed after the Lord's heart. So he's living out what he preaches.

Living it out every day. Every day. Yeah. And I've seen it since we first met. I mean, there are a lot of better things a wife could say about her husband.

Nah, that's a good taste of cake. It's actually true. I really, truly see that every day. So you guys met back in? Freshman year of high school. First day of high school. First day. First day of high school.

I was in the military, so we moved around quite a bit. We didn't really know anybody. So we're in the cafeteria alone and you know how it is in high school.

You got to sit by yourself if you don't know anybody. So I'm by myself and I see the shorty like walking across the room. It's like one of the movies, like Spike Lee movies where like she gets on like the roller cart. And she's just moving in slow motion with the spotlight on her.

But then the like cart started coming towards me. I'm like, no way. She about to sit over here. So she says, hey, can I have this seat? And like inside I'm like, yes.

But they ain't going to pick nobody up. So I'm like, absolutely. You can sit right here. Yeah. So we had this amazing conversation. The first time you met right there in the cafeteria? Yes. Amazing. You picked that seat because you wanted to sit by him?

You know, I did. He was smiling. I want to sit by him. He looks like he's not going to be intimidating and mean and grouchy and or aggressive like the other guys were. Let me sit by him.

He seems sweet. Do you remember that conversation too? I remember some of the things we talked about. It was so funny. He was a basketball player. So we're talking about basketball and I was going to be a cheerleader for the basketball team.

So I was like, maybe I'll see you there. Was he wearing good shoes back then? He was very put together back then. Was he? Very much so.

He's always been very spiffy. Yeah. Yeah. Very much so.

I mean, in first day of school, you know, you have to look amazing. So that was a big deal. So yeah. Yeah.

But after this amazing conversation, I go home and tell my mom, I think I found a girl I'm going to marry. What? You're a freshman? Yeah.

I'm a freshman in high school. So I had just come to Christ that summer. So marriage is on my mind now.

I just, you know, I just want to talk to a girl or whatever. So legit. Yeah. I went home and told my mom, found a girl I'm going to marry. And the next day my schedule got changed. So we didn't talk for like the next three years.

Yeah. So no conversation, like really didn't interact much at all. Knew the same friends, but just didn't interact. And then senior year of high school, we got cool again. We were also dating other people at the time. And then we ended up going to Temple together. Not together though, because she chose to go to Temple after. I want to say after. So it might've had something to do with me, but she chose to go to Temple after me. And then we ended up just spending so much time together and that's when we got really close.

Yup. But for her to see as a freshman in high school that you love Jesus and you were fairly new in your faith then. Very new. What happened? Well, I was so hungry and I say all the time, like I get a chance to speak to students quite a bit all over the nation. So different contexts, different cultures. One of the things that like is painful is like we set the bar so low in terms of expectations of students being able to take into scriptures. I was 14. I hated reading. I didn't like books at all.

All the like summer reading jobs, I ain't do nothing to that. So I just come in and hope for the best with the little multiple choice test that you have to do. But when I became a follower of Christ, my story was like, I came to Christ in my room by myself. Like wept and simultaneously experienced my overwhelming sense of sin and God's overwhelming grace. And from that moment it was like there was this hunger to like read the Bible. So I didn't know what had happened to me, but I was like, yo, I got to just read it and let's just start a Genesis.

I didn't really have anybody discipling me. My parents were both followers of Christ, but discipleship just wasn't in that culture. Yo, I started reading Genesis. I couldn't stop.

Picked up Exodus. I even liked Leviticus numbers was hard, but I was eating it alive. And I remember vividly, couldn't wait till I get out of school to get back to my Bible. But I was a knucklehead though. I was still messing around with girls. I was still doing foolish things cause I wasn't discipled, but I knew I experienced conviction from the spirit of God. I was a new creature and it was most vividly seen and just how much I love the scriptures and how much I did. Yeah. Just talk about Jesus with like everybody.

And I wish I lived it better than I talked it at that time. But man, God is faithful. Even when we're faithless, he can't deny himself. So yeah, I'm thinking about that right now of parents listening with their kids in mind, you know, that freshmen, that 14, 15 year old.

You guys have those ages right now about. So you said you hadn't been discipled. Talk to the parent whose kids are grown up in a house of believers who love Jesus, but you're like, I want them to be discipled. Do I disciple them?

How do they go about getting discipled? Yeah, I would say, uh, you know, every context is different, right? But one of the major things like because of my upbringing, cause my pop was a lover of the word that became my love for the word. The greatest gift he gave me was not what he taught me, but what he showed me. And so we don't realize just how much we're like implanting seeds in our kids.

Not by what we say, but by what they see. So I would see my pop in his word. I would see my pop cry over the Lord, weep over the word of God.

Like that was a big deal for me. So when it clicked, when I came to Christ, when the Lord saw fit to just snatch a knucklehead, those things that I never treasured before that moment now became treasures. And I began to follow what I had seen already. And so I would say one discipleship is happening, whether we know it or not, it's just, what are you showing them?

They're picking up so much more of what they see rather than what you say. But I will also say, even with our kids, because I want them to have their own walk with the Lord. We've had devotional times and all that, but one of the things we wanted to birth early in our kids is your own reading time with the scriptures. And I think it was about two years ago, Aaron finished his run through the Bible for the first time. Was he 11 at the time, maybe 10, 11? And then Zipporah followed like a year later, something like that. I don't shit up because we're doing something awesome.

I don't. I just simply shit up because they started, it had to be nine or 10, made a little checklist. They had a kid's NIV Bible. So all 66 books of the Canon, all written out, not a children's book, but a real Bible, but in their language. And they were excited to be able to check off the chapters that they read and get in just a fun way of them to be able to take that journey. And now it's what used to be like something that we taught so much has become like more habit for them. And I just praise God for that. Again, I don't think we're doing something like amazing, but I think it's more our mindset of like, do we have expectations that are high enough that they have to go reach for something? And sometimes we set it so low that they don't have to reach. They actually have to bend down.

And that's sometimes a problem even for us when it comes to parenting and discipling our kids. So yeah. I mean, there's rumors are out here that you memorize books of the Bible, not chapters or verses.

You're laughing because this is real, huh? I mean, do you ever just sit at the dinner table or whatever and give them Ephesians one? Yeah. Paul, the apostle of Jesus Christ, to the saints and Ephesians, we were faithful in Christ Jesus, grace and peace to you from God, our father, Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world I can go on.

I mean, you talk about how inspiring you are to your kids. I just picked any chapter in the Bible and you knew it? No, it just happens to be Ephesians. Do you know every chapter in Ephesians?

Yes, ma'am. You know the whole bunk of Ephesians. So ironically, we're talking at the time of this recording, like maybe a few weeks ago, we never get to travel just me and her. We got a chance to travel to a church in South Carolina. I quoted Ephesians there and I was only able to make it through three chapters. Cause he was quoting and preaching. Cause I was quoting and preaching at the same time.

You can quote, pause, preach, and then quote, pause, preach. For my church in January, I recited preached Philippians. You did first John a few months ago. I did first John a few months ago. I did first Timothy in the car just recently, but there's a whole story. Are you all catching this?

I mean, we're talking books of the Bible, but the Torah, I mean, in Jesus' day as Jewish boys had the whole Pentateuch or the first five books of the Bible memorized their scriptures. But you've taken that to heart like, well, I'm going to do that too. It was a challenge though. Brittany, are you ever challenged by that?

Very much so. And I see the effort he puts into it. I think when we see him do it, it just, he has inflection and it just flows right out of him. But he studies the word every single day. He recites back over the things he's previously learned. And in doing that, he's reciting it as he's living his life.

So then he, you know, something happens and then he's like, let me recite first Peter because this is coming from what's going on in our lives right now. So it's such a God given blessing to have that in our home every day, you know? So yeah, it's beautiful.

Yeah. And it wasn't always like that. I would say I'm probably like most listeners, like I didn't think I had the ability to memorize much of scripture. And then on the flip end, I thought I already knew so much scripture. And so I feel like we all have that weird dichotomy of like, I've been in the church for so long. I know so much Bible.

And then when you really think about it and challenge in that way, you're like, oh, I can never do that though. But it was a dude in my life, Carl Matthews, a Hooper. I love Hooping.

So he was a Hooper. And one day after Hooping, we was in the car in Philly. It was so funny. I was playing Blueprint album and like, oh, Jay-Z album. I'm sure our listeners all know. So I know that whole album, like straight through word for word, he's like, I see you can memorize well.

How do you do with doing that with the scriptures? Ooh, challenge. Yeah. And it was like, caught me off guard. Wasn't ready for it. And it's like, he waited for me to like get through like the fourth song to like say something. He bobbing his head with me.

I thought we having a good time the whole time. He just waiting. And, and then he drops that bomb. I'm like, well, I think I do pretty well. You know, I got a few verses memorized and he says, no, I'm not talking about just verses.

I'm talking about larger chunks. And he said like me, like I memorized Galatians. I was like, Galatians what? He said like, no, like Galatians, like the whole book. I said, there ain't no way you got all the Galatians memorized.

And for the rest of the ride, he just recited all of Galatians, all six chapters straight through from memory. And I was like, yo, that's crazy. I said, bro, that's impressive. He said, nah, it ain't. He said, you do it with me. I'm about to start first John, rock with me. And I said, first John, what? He said, stop playing, man.

You know what I'm saying? I said, well, I'll do you this favor. I'll start with chapter one and if I can make it through chapter one, I'll keep going. And chapter one, you know, is only 10 verses that was just from the beginning, which we have heard, which you've seen in our eyes and looked upon and touched with our hands concerning the word of life. The life was made manifest and we have seen it and proclaimed to you the eternal life was with the father and was made manifest to us that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you that you too may have fellowship with us and indeed our fellowship is with the father and with his son Jesus Christ and we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. This is the message that we have heard from him and proclaim to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, his son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. And yo, you can think that was all chapter one folks. You can think like as a young dude who was a knucklehead, love the scriptures, convicted in my soul, but I'll have these moments of stumbling and all types of just sin, but particularly lustful sin, whether it be pornography or anything like that, I find myself falling into these things, but you get down to that last part after hearing about this wonderful Jesus who is life.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Hearing that by itself is dope, but when you hear it in the context, that did so much for me, especially as a young married man, I was hooked and it became like an obsession. Not because I wanted to show it off, but real rap because it was so quickly applicable. And man, I love Jesus, yo, like I really, really, really love Jesus.

But when you hide his word in your heart, it deepens your conversations throughout the day with him and with others who know and don't know him. And so from that, it became a session. I went to Philippians after that, and then first Peter after that, and then Ephesians and it just wouldn't stop.

First Timothy and then the last book I tried to go through was a first Thessalonians, which is still sloppy, but yeah. So you retain it though. It's retaining through work though. But the beauty about memorizing scripture, and this is why it's such a pivotal part in the global church, is that you can do it even if you're not reading because you can hear it and then deposit, hear it and then deposit, hear it and then deposit. And now it's just an exercise. And so you could do it while you mowing the lawn, you could do it while you washing dishes, you could do it while you putting the kids to bed. It's so many times where we can spend the time and- Talk about renewing your mind.

Yes. I mean, think of where our thoughts and our mind goes, but you're taking and you're washing your mind continually with God's word. That can't not help but change you.

That changes you. And you're probably doing something that could be sin or you're struggling. I'm sure scripture's constantly popping into your mind. Yes, ma'am. You talk about discipleship for your kids.

It's a faithful God. Took a dude who don't like to read and said, I'm going to make you a reader and not just a reader, but one who memorizes something. We got a story with my daughter and best friend Ike, he was babysitting one time. This is when she had to be like four and he was like pulled out a book and she was like, oh, where'd you read it? She looked at it. She's like, oh, a regular book. And she had already been trained as regular books. And then this, that thing, that Bible, she was like four.

Yeah. And so I look at that and I'm saying like, man, God took a dude who don't like to read, but it's cause all I was reading was regular books. Soon as he like showed me this, it like opened up my whole world. Now I'm like pursuing a PhD, but it started with this book, man, because it's not just about what's written.

It's about the one who wrote it and it's such a deep, deep thing that happens when we treasure up the word of God in our hearts. And I say that as a dude who didn't think I could. So yeah.

But it took someone just challenging you. Yes. PhD in what? Biblical studies.

Yeah. Working actually on John 13, the washing of the disciples feet and talking about how, you know, John 13 sits right in the middle of the two parts of John's gospel. So for anybody who's listening now, this will help you read it through John's gospel, the book of signs, which is the first 12 chapters and then the book of what is called glory. And right in the middle of it is the washing of the disciples feet. And in the book of signs, it's kind of like John is proving his first statement in the beginning was the word in the worlds with God and where was God. And then verse 14 and the world became flesh and dwell among us. So the whole book of signs, he's proving the I am statements to be true. Then you move to the book of glory, the book of passion, where he's leading towards his suffering. Now it's the suffering servant. And right in the middle of that, you have this passage that brings together suffering servant and this Yahweh God smack dab when Jesus, after being proclaimed to be the King Hosanna, Hosanna highest, the next scene after the pinnacle of his popularity is him kneeling down and washing the stink nasty feet of the disciples. So talk about a paradox and yet this is who our savior is. And so what I'm trying to work on my dissertation is talking about most of the time we think about the foot wash and we think of the activity, but really it is a proclamation of his identity that he is the Yahweh servant.

Therefore we should model after what he has proven to us. So yeah. Wow.

I don't like to read a lot of PhD dissertations, but this one sounds like one I want to read. We're done today and we'll continue more of that tomorrow. Well, I should mention your daughter. Yeah. We want to talk about that.

We got to talk about tomorrow too. But I'm wondering too, could you just finish with giving dads just a challenge of leading in that way of following Jesus? Yeah. What about moms? Well, I'm just saying, because I think we moms want our husbands to walk with God. And we feel like we're kind of, yeah, we're pushing them and we're challenging them, but we don't know what that looks like to do it in a good way.

Come on. Yo, when I say this is such a passion of mine, the quick word I can say, but like a deep passion, because I especially been in Philly where I was at in North Philly, especially in our neighborhood, 97% single parent home. So most dudes, young men don't have fathers in the home though. They might be around, but not in the home though. And so what happens is there's this birthing of fatherless men becoming men who are not fathers and the problem is not with the fatherlessness primarily, it's actually with being a husband and you can't be a husband if you don't know the perfect groom.

And we have fathers and husbands trying to be a groom and a husband when we don't know the true husband, no one to model it for us. And so my one challenge is that it's possible a dude who don't like to read can fall in love with the scriptures. If you don't have the desire to get in the word, the good thing about our God is that he's not waiting for the desire to be birthed. He's waiting for you to ask him to give it. So if you don't have it, make your next morning prayer, give me a desire for your word that I don't have right now. And I'm telling you, those are the kinds of prayers that a Heavenly Father will answer.

What a challenge from RECAB, maybe you don't have the desire to read the word, but do you want to want to read it? Asking the question of God is really one of the manliest things you can do as a husband and father, ask him and see where God leads you. I'm Shelby Abbott and you've been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson with RECAB and Brittany Gray on Family Life Today. It's been an incredible conversation and we're gonna hear more from them in the coming days. I'm so excited about that, but they've been talking about really in many ways investing in your marriage in order to be good parents.

And building a strong marriage, it takes intentional effort. At the Weekend to Remember Marriage Getaway, we provide the tools and environment for couples to grow closer to each other and to God. So from now until September the 16th, you can take advantage of the half price sale that's going on right now and register for two at the price of one. All you have to do is click on the banner at familylifetoday.com to start investing in your marriage today. Now coming up tomorrow, RECAB and Brittany are back. Just as I said, they're going to talk about parenting children with sickle cell disease, coping with loss, finding faith, and facing medical emergencies. If you fall into any of those categories, you don't want to miss that tomorrow to hear more of their story. We hope you'll join us. On behalf of Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a donor-supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.