This is Rodney from the Masculine Journey Podcast, where we explore manhood within Jesus Christ. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds.
Sit back, enjoy it, share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. Welcome to Man Talk, brought to you by TAWCMN, talking and walking Christian men's ministry, where they're devoted to breaking down the walls of race and denomination and challenging men to take their God-assigned role. Here's our hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr., a black guy and a white guy.
Welcome to Man Talk Radio. Roy, it's good to be back in the seat this week. Yeah, Will, it's great to see you. You look like you might have got a little suntan while you're up there.
Well, look, it's hard to tell if I got a suntan or not, but it's good. It's good to be back. On this show, Roy, we have the Reverend Kendall McBroom, who is pastor of Turner Chapel AME Church in High Point, and we want to welcome Pastor McBroom to Man Talk. Welcome, pastor. Welcome, pastor. Thank you all so much.
Thank you all so much. Grateful and glad to be here. So, pastor, tell us a little bit about yourself so the audience can just know who you are.
Good things, good things. So, again, I'm the pastor of Turner's Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in High Point, North Carolina, a historic congregation in this community, and am a native of Burlington, North Carolina, born and raised, graduated from there, graduated high school from there, went off to college, went to a historically black college, Hampton University in Virginia, returned back to North Carolina to Duke University to pursue my master of divinity and master of public policy, graduated last year and received my, in the Methodist tradition, received my first appointment last year, right a week before graduation, have been involved in the community locally as well as nationally through internships and field education experiences, focused on really the uplift of communities that are impoverished, that are often left out, that are marginalized, and that's been my background now for the last five or so years. Well, praise God, pastor. That seems like you are very active. Yeah, busy.
How did you find time to get all the degree work done? That's quite amazing. Yeah, I know.
It was definitely, that was a task. That was nothing but God there. Amen. Praise God. Well, you know, our topic today is how to stop grieving the Holy Spirit. And pastor, we see a lot of things that's happening around in the news and what we want to focus on for this segment is how do we get the church to stop grieving the Holy Spirit as it's talked about in Ephesians chapter 4 verses 25 through 32. But we're going to look at verses 25 through 28. And Roy, how about reading 25 through 28?
Okay, thank you, Will. Ephesians 4, 25 through 28. Therefore, putting away lying, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath anger, nor give place to the devil.
Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands, what is good, that he may have something to give to him who has need. Praise God. And of course, we were reading from the new King James version there. But as you listen to that, pastor, how do the church take these verses? How do you present these verses to your congregation if we are guilty of grieving the Holy Spirit?
Yeah, that's a great, great, great starter and great topic, first off. So the first thing I think I say, I would take this from verse 25. And I'm reading out the New International Version. The New International Version reads, you must put all falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body. And I think one of the ways that we greet the Holy Spirit is when we don't tell the truth about, when we don't tell the truth to one another, and with one another. When we either put on a facade, or either we kind of go along to get along, we don't really want to ruffle any feathers, we don't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable.
We don't want to be put in a hot seat. I believe in those ways we greet the Holy Spirit because God can't do the transformative, the breaking, the transforming, the molding work that God desires to do in our lives. But because we simply allow falsehood, false tradition, false ideologies, false practices, false behaviors, to take the place of the truth of the gospel, and the truth of the Christian message, and the truth of God. And so that's one of the ways that we greet the Holy Spirit. And one of the ways that we get rid of that is truly in saying, I'm going to speak in love to my neighbor the truth.
The truth about the situation, the truth about our history, the truth about these false narratives. Doing just that, or starting there, is how we begin to stop breathing the Holy Spirit. That's good, Pastor. So if I'm hearing you correctly, when you said the false truths and the facades, that tends to be more and more what people are gravitating towards in the modern day church. I think we're getting away from the Word of God.
Exactly. And the fundamental truths that lie there, and we're supposed to be in the world, but not of the world. But what I think is happening across, at least in the U.S. culture, it appears to be that the church is becoming part of the world rather than in the world. And it's creating this false truths, this facade, the false narrative that's going on about what's right and what's wrong. And you know, Roy, any time when, as a pastor, I know any time when you're speaking the truth, you know, in today's time, people don't want to hear that.
They want their ears tickled. And I think when they get that, then they feel like perhaps maybe we had church. So Pastor, I appreciate the fact that you talked about, you know, all of these falsehoods, because in the verses prior to this in Ephesians, it talks about taking, putting off the old man and putting on the new man. And so we who are born again, we can associate and understand what the people who are still out there in the world are going through. And God has brought us from that point. So so when you speak to your congregation in reference to the life that you once lived and now the life that you're living now, how do you put that in perspective to where, you know, the members and congregates would understand that?
Great question. I think one of the ways of putting that in perspective is to and part of this, you know, as a young pastor, I don't have as much lived experience as the people that I pastor. So that's a deficit in a way. However, one of the things that I do try to hone in on is that there were times and are times and things that I've learned from Scripture and from the testimony of the saints, right? The testimony and the witness of the saints really is what encourages me. And I say from that, that by sitting at their feet and by learning from them, I am able to now shape my life in a way that is pleasing unto God and move in that direction that God would see fit. And so in explaining that to my congregation, it is really kind of talking to them to see the stories that they know, the witnesses that they've been told, the witnesses, the Christian witnesses that they've been told that in a way help them understand where we're at is not where we're always going to be. And we have to grow into who Christ has called for us to be.
Even some of the things that we used to do back in the day, sometimes they try to creep back up on us. And not all of them were bad. Amen. Not all of them were evil or anything like that.
But they were just behaviors and practices that were contrary to the will of God. And so in saying that, I try my best to ensure that they understand this is a journey and not a merit. This is a journey and not a race.
Or it's a journey and not a sprint, I should say. And so we talk in that way. Well, you know, Timothy was a young pastor, too. So a lot of age and as you begin to grow and blossom into that pastor that God has called you to be, then if the membership is open to receive that and begin to support you in those ways, then I think that that is a testament to God bringing you to the place where you're at so not only you can grow but the members as well. Absolutely.
Absolutely. Well, the good part is, Pastor, that you recognize that. That's just the humility in what you just said. That's a big first step because your congregation is going to recognize that, that he knows he's not and will not often say this that a man with an opinion doesn't have an argument with a man with experience.
So you're having to go to these folks because some of the things they're going through you haven't had the opportunity to be a part of yet or gone through in your life. That's a great approach to your congregation to be very humble and with a sense of humility coming through that. So because, you know, as the leadership goes, so goes the congregation. So in order for the congregation to see and witness the things, for example, that you are involved in, and I'm very well impressed about a lot of the things that you mentioned that you're involved in because this is what we need. We need young men who are willing to step out on faith and let God be the one who directs and alter their steps in a way that we as the church can come into an agreement, you know, with the direction that God is bringing us. And all of the time, you know, people are not going to agree with the direction that you want to go.
Do you think? I'm telling you, Pastor, I mean, in my 33 years of pastoring and ministering the gospel, yes, this is something that's going to happen. We're coming up on a break. Yeah, Pastor, so when we come back, we'll get a little bit comical here. We want to know what's the craziest thing that's happened to you as a young pastor without mentioning names, of course, and we'll come back to the Scripture. It's a good way to open us back up when we come into the second half. All right. 1130 North Main Street in Cartersville.
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Call 336-885-1987. So Pastor, right before break, we ask you to think about, let us know what the craziest thing that's happened to you that might bring a little bit of humor to our listeners. Have you had something to come up that comes to mind since you've been in leadership as a pastor? Oh, let's see.
I've been here a year. The craziest thing, let's see, the craziest thing was, oh, well, this was kind of crazy. We were in Bible study one Wednesday night and we were talking about, because I'm very, I'm very justice for you, very, very much so, you know, the church's mission and the church's work is to be with the poor and be with the impoverished and do that. And I had a member who went totally left field on me. And it caught me off guard. And I was really, the hardest thing was trying to get us back on task and bring us back in.
But that caught me way off. I was like, whoa, wait a minute, that's not what we're talking about. That's not what it was. So yeah, that's been the craziest so far. So the question is, did you get everybody back on track?
No, we never did. And that's okay too. Okay. Verse 26, pastor says, be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath. Wrath is anger. Yeah.
And if you're married listening to this, this especially speaks to both spouses, the men and the women, because too often we all, I won't say you, we all go to bed and we should not go to bed because there's a dispute going on. Exactly. Exactly. So how does this verse speak to you, pastor?
Yeah. So when I, I, I will say I read some like commentaries on it. I, after I went through my interpretation and, you know, usually what we hear is like, is that first part in your anger, do not sin. And so what does that actually mean when it says do not sin? And I think that, that sin is to, um, it doesn't say don't be angry. It gives room for us to be angry.
It recognizes that anger is a human emotion, but it lets us know that we should be angry. We should not sin in that. And when we, when I think it's talking about sin in this context, it's very much so, um, do no harm. Do no harm while angry. Um, bring no malice, have no malice. And we talk about malice later in the, in the passage, but, um, but really bring no harm to, to yourself, to the person, to the situation, um, with which you're angry.
Um, no physical harm, no spiritual harm, no abuse, um, anything like that. Um, and then even when it says, do not let the sun go down while you are still angry. I think that's not just, you know, when the, when the physical sun goes down, but, but even at the close of an argument, right? Because so many times I think people can leave from an argument or disagreement, um, feel upset with one another.
Um, and, and no, no sense of, of, of clarity or no sense of, um, of compromise when they leave that argument. So to me, that's what it says. It says, you can be angry, but never leave that situation harming someone and never leave that situation the same with the same amount of anger that you had when you first entered into the conversation or the situation.
Yeah. Because see it going into verse 27, it says, don't give place to the devil. So, so that's what happened when, if we continue to dwell on it, number one, that then that means we're not letting it go. If we continue to talk about it, that means we're not letting it go. So if we, if we have allowed ourselves to be angry, because again, as pastor put it, it's that human emotion.
That's part of us. We're going to get angry, but I think this angry is the, is the anger because there is a righteous anger. In other words, in other words, you can have an anger against someone who is sinning or someone who is doing someone else harm. So, so yes, this, this anger here is, is when we, when we overstep that boundary into that sin boundary area, that's when we begin to give place to the devil and the scripture tell us, don't go there. Just, just don't, don't overstep the boundary in which God have established for us. Absolutely.
And I thought about, and this was brought up in the commentary as well, but I thought about it and it made sense. I wanted to share here was, you know, the story of Cain and Abel. Cain is angry and allows, and is jealous, right? And allows that anger to fester to the point where he ends up killing his brother. And I think oftentimes where we're, where we could be right now at times, and I don't, I don't think we're fully there yet and praise God for that, but it's a place that we don't want to get to as a, as a country or a society where we are so angry or so jealous of our brother or our sister and seek to retaliate and seek to allow the devil that foothold in our lives.
I think that's a, it's a dangerous place to be and it's not where anyone, any of us wants to be. And so that's why I think, you know, Paul says this, Paul, Paul really says, whenever you, whenever you let, whenever you let it, the sun go down on your anger, whenever you let a conversation close on your anger, whenever you let those things happen, you allow room and space for the devil to come in and start to tinker with your mind, to tinker with your heart, to tinker with your emotions and move you in a way that seeks to bring harm, be it physical, verbal, or any other form of malice to your sibling in Christ. Darrell Bock And that's where I think the righteous anger, and reading some of the commentary too, is when it turns to bitterness because you're angry for the right reasons and that righteousness and following Christ, but if you focus on it, Will, to your point, you sit there and let it fester. And then that's when Satan jumps on your shoulder and starts turning it into a bitterness and then that retaliatory mindset or being vindictive or whatever you choose to chase in that pursuit, right? So I think that's the difference, is turning it loose once you get anger in your heart from a righteous perspective, then you pray it up and turn it back over to God and say, okay, Father, I'll address it when you tell me to address it, but I'm turning it back over to you.
Darrell Bock And see, and I think this is some of the things that we're seeing, you know, in a lot of the protesting that's going on. You know, it is a unrighteous thing when there's social injustice. You know, I mean, when, you know, that's, it's just unrighteous. However, and we can be angry at that, but at the same token, if we allow our anger to be carried over to the point of being lawless, now we've overstepped the boundaries of God and we've entered that sin zone. Dr. Darrell Bock Yeah, and I think there's a piece of that, there's maybe even one transition before that, too, Will, is, you know, the anger is one thing, you have a righteous anger about something that's gone wrong, but then when you turn that towards your brother before the violence occurs, I think there's a transition that potentially occurs, too, between those two pieces, right, between the lawlessness and, because that can be angry righteously about something that you've done, but then when I get angry with you as my brother, and then my attitude starts to reflect that, then that's really where we've got to address it as well, because that's where the treatment of others, the lack of love, and we go back to love your neighbor, which is everyone you can see, doesn't say anything about holding them accountable in an abusive manner. It's about loving them through the wrongdoings, right? Dr. Darrell Bock Amen, and it goes, and this winds up our verses, let him who stole still no longer, but rather let him labor working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give to him who has need. So how does that speak to you, pastor? Pastor James Yeah, so, I mean, I was thinking about a number of things. Well, first, to go back real quick to the former point, I wanted to say, I think I was agreeing with Pastor Jones in that, you know, there's something that happens in there when we don't see our sibling as our sibling, but see them as either the enemy or see them as someone not made in the image of the same God in whose image we are made.
And so I think that when we remove that factor, that being able to see or view my brother or sister as my brother or sister, we do, we open up that floodgate. In context with this verse, when I'm thinking about this, I see that this idea of work and this idea of not feeling any longer or changing of the changing of a behavior is not just for oneself, but it's for the benefit of the entire community. Amen. Amen.
Amen. Even this work is not so that I could get rich, or so that I'll be independent, or so that I'll be wealthy. But Paul is saying that those that may have something to share with those in need, that with doing something with my hands, I'm able to contribute to the larger group of the faith. And so, you know, during this time, there's still as a church, the church of Ephesus is still, you know, in the, in its stages of figuring its way out, understanding itself, figuring out who it is in the body of Christ.
And so they have to put down these, these instructions in a way, early on, so that they look different than how the Greek and those who were practicing polytheism, they're trying to put in these practices and behaviors that make it look different than how how they operate. And one way to do that is, is, is if you have if you use the skill set and the gift and the talents and the things that God has blessed you with, to benefit not only yourself, but to benefit the whole. And so I really think that's what Paul is getting at, in saying, essentially, you know, stealing from your, your oppressor, while it might feel good in the, in the moment, it might feel very good at the moment, but it still will bring a challenge, because the whole word needs to be about community. And so what are you going to provide for the community? And that's exactly what Jesus did, right?
He was never, it was all about everybody else, loving on everybody else. I think that's the thing. Take care of your brother that's in need or your sister that's in need. So that's good, pastor. The pastor's been great having you with us.
We've got just a few more seconds. Pastor Will, why don't you give them a quick plan of salvation? Well, you know, confess that you are a sinner. Believe that Jesus died on the cross, rose again the third day according to the scriptures, because you can't save yourself. And ask Jesus Christ to come into your heart. And when you do that, he'll do it and you'll be born again and find a body of fellowship to be a part of when we get out of this COVID.
Exactly. As we wrap up today's show, be assured that TAWCMM, Talking and Walking Christian Men's Ministry, is building a community of men that are Christ followers with a desire to be servant leaders in their homes, communities, churches, and work environments. Check out our website for upcoming events and regularly scheduled meetings. Drop us a note for topics that you would like to have us visit in the future. Thank you for joining us on Man Talk today. Visit us at www.tawcmm.com. Men walking the talk. This is the Truth Network.
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