When Did Someone Help You In A Time Of Need

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Good afternoon. This is Alicia Grimes. Welcome to Truth Talk Live. I'm here in the studio with Austin Needham. And we're going to talk about several things today, but our question is, when did someone help you in a time of need? And you're going to understand the nature of that question as we get into conversation with Austin. But Austin, tell us a little bit about yourself and fill us in. Oh, well, first of all, it's great to be here.

Loving this every second of it. Good to talk with you, Alicia. As always, and I'm excited to be here and just let's just talk about what God's doing, what he has done.

And but anyway, that's a great question. When has someone helped me or us in a time of need? I like to think this is something God's brought to my mind a lot recently is that all of us are both needy and needed. And at some point, yes, and at some point in your life, you really start to understand that. But for much of for much of my life, I think I've spent a lot of time trying to help others. And over the last couple of years, I have needed a lot of help emotionally, spiritually, just because of some different things that happened in my life. Sure. Unpack that a little bit, Austin. I know part of your story, but you have definitely had a lot of loss in the last 18 months or so.

Yeah, yes. In the last 18 months, it's been a unique season. I'm will be very honest, a very challenging season, but one that you can look back and just see the hand of God and God's presence throughout.

So it's a definitely a season of growth as well and closeness to our father. But what over the last 18 months, our family, I lost my grandmother first, and then a few months later, my dad took to battle with cancer. And then a few months after that, my my grandpa, and, and then a close friend from high school, young, you know, passed away as well, and then a cousin. And then I had to, I was able to officiate and help in for those funerals. And you said you'd never done a funeral before, but then you did for and people who were so close and so dear to you, yes, for me so hard.

Yes. And so like, it's almost things you can't prepare for it, right. And then it hits. And then you kind of go through it. And then you start to feel all the feelings and you feel every every emotion imaginable.

And that's where the magnified 1000 1000 times it is and I remember some real life stuff like there are multiple nights where I'd wake up in a cold sweat not even know why I was so anxious and because of all the loss and right and and all that to say I was in a season of need. And first of all, our Heavenly Father was there through all of it, cried and still cry to him out to the many times. But then God uniquely put my wife that newly married as well, we're, that was our first is amazing.

Yeah, Christians just beautiful person all the way around. And what first year of marriage, we're just like, here we are in the middle of all this. And so she was there, the church that I work for church, and part of a wonderful church family, they were there God used them to meet many needs on so many levels for me and my family and then my family goodness, my family, we're just kind of leaned into each other.

And that was key as well. So well, thank you for sharing that. I think sometimes we, when we've been in situations where we're the primary caregiver for other people, and that gets flipped, it's it's very disorienting. And it's, you know, it's very humbling.

But I think that's part of God's plan is to, to show us the other side of what the body of Christ is like. And, you know, once you've been on the side of being needy, then your heart is so tender to other people. I'll share a little bit of a story a little bit later as we move into the podcast about a time in my life when I was definitely needy, and I really saw the beauty of the body of Christ at work.

So as far as what you're doing right now, yeah. Tell us about your job here at Two Cities Church. You are director of Mercy Ministry. Is that your title?

That's it. Director of Local Missions and Mercy. And yes, at Two Cities Church here in downtown Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Yeah, we need to tell people where we are, because there are people listening to them all over. So yeah, we're right in the heart of downtown. And so as the director of Local Missions and Mercy, what I have the privilege of doing is really helping connect our church to the city, working with our local nonprofits, working with our schools that do adoption and foster care, working to connect our community groups to serving and really helping others, you know, find and follow Christ, but also meeting felt needs and forever needs.

That's actually our mission statement. Yeah. Tell us about what is a felt need and what's a forever need.

Yeah, so exactly. So part of our mission is, we want to meet the forever and felt needs of our city with the hope and help of Christ. So forever need, we define that like is what we need is like, like your eternal need, right, like your need for Christ for salvation.

Yes. And that's, we need the hope. We need the hope of Christ. Whereas a felt need is more of a physical need. And believers or unbelievers can have felt needs. And so that's from the help of Christ. And so you got the difference, like good deeds and good news, right?

Good news is the good news of Jesus Christ, the gospel, the forever need, and then good deeds, serving, being there for people, that's for like the felt needs. And bridging that gap is just key. We want to have that we want to do both felt needs and forever needs. And so that's kind of what I get to do on a day to day basis now.

Sounds like your dream job. Well, I know, I know part of your background, but why do you think God has put you in this position in this moment of time? What led up to that? How does you know somebody who grew up in Kernsville, how do you have a heart for your city?

Did that just come on one day or? Oh, it's one of those things where God has done it in me more so than me trying to pursue it. And shortly after I became a believer at age 12, I just felt like this desire to help people and just didn't know what that would look like. The church I grew up in and was at at the time, they had a large ministry called a bus ministry where we would go out and bring people to church. And so I'm like 14 years old, got together with another 19 year old in our church, and we just decided to go into one of the largest cities in our area, engage with families and people knock on hundreds of doors and just say, Hey, and figure out who can we connect with in honestly, some under-resourced communities in some of our larger cities and who can we bring to church?

So we'd spend all day Saturday with people, you know, and bring them to church on Sunday. Well, we'll circle back to that. We're on them. We're about to hit a break. But when we come back, I want to, I want to tell, I want you to tell more about that story.

Of course. You're listening to the truth network and truthnetwork.com I'm here with Austin Needham, and we're talking about just the idea around mercy ministry and that we're all needed and we're all needy, but our question for the day, when did someone help you in a time of need, if you want to call in the numbers 866-348-7884, 866-348-7884, we would love to hear your story. So Austin, when we left off, you were saying that you were 14 or so, and you got involved in this bus ministry. Tell us how that unfolded and what happened.

What did God do with that? Yeah. And it's just one of those things. And I got to get some credit to my parents because I come to them, I'm like 14. I'm wanting to go into one of the largest cities in our area and just, they probably didn't even know half what I was doing probably now they do, but I could tell stories all day. A lot of those things you don't tell your parents until later. I've appreciated that with my kids. Some of the things that they've done that were awesome, but they just, I'm like, share that, share some of those details when you're back and you're safe on the, like three years later or something.

Oh yeah. And that was us. And you know, here's one of the things like we didn't know what we were doing, honestly. And you look back and just see God at work and we just wanted, we just knew we wanted to like, make a difference and talk to people and God just took it. Like I remember we knocked on, we just found the largest multi-family housing apartment complex we could in Greensboro and just started knocking on doors on a Saturday and got to know families. We had 14 kids and adults, some come to church with us that first Sunday, a few years into this, we ended up having 222 come to church with us from Greensboro.

Bust in for a big day. Did you have multiple buses or were you just going back, are you just piling them in there? Multiple buses.

I think we had four or five buses that day. I still have my bus license CDL because of this, because of what God did, just bringing, and we would spend all day Saturday with these families, inviting them and inviting you go back on Sunday and then go back to Sunday and pick them up and, and just, I'm still friends with, with many of the people we used to connect with. And here's what God did. Here's what God did in my heart.

I grew up in the suburbs, just kind of just, I don't know, just middle-class suburbia just, and then 15, 20 minutes from my house was, or a lot of people that honestly lived a little different than I had. And you know, and what God did in my heart was he, he helped me see that we are all made in God's image. We all have similar dreams and passions. And I just became so close with people just up the street from me. And it just, that, that whole idea that we're all needy and needed just became so real. And God just put a desire in me at that point for those eight years, um, doing this, um, for just the city, uh, for the, the under-resourced communities and just people that are just like all of us. Like we're all, we all have needs, we're all, and so that's, we're just here together. And I was blessed just as much as anybody that I was trying to help it just from the friendships that God put. It's crazy how that works. You know, you think you're going to go do something for someone else or, you know, bless them and they, they bless you in return, in return. You know, some of the, the people that, um, have most impacted me or are ones who were one for, through tremendous suffering or, you know, very hard circumstances, but somehow that joy of the Lord comes up in them and you know, then they're, they're ministering to you. So it's just the crazy how God does that is super, so supernatural.

Yeah, it is. It's a wonderful thing. And then I know we've talked about this before too, but then like the things that we go through our experiences, then we can turn those around and we can help each other and we can point each other back to Christ or help each other with each, with the next step. You know, and we see that in the life of Jesus. You know, I know we may talk about that a little, little bit later on this, on the show, but how Jesus Christ literally went anywhere where there was a need and even got criticized for it. You know, he went out of his way.

Yeah. Why aren't you eating with tax collectors and sinners or why are you touching the leper? You know, all so controversial, we don't, I don't think we are fully able to put ourselves into that biblical narrative and realize how radical Jesus was in his culture that he connected with people.

You know, there were so many rules, you know, written rules about a rabbi doesn't do this and a man doesn't speak to a woman and here he is at the Samaritan, at the well talking to the Samaritan woman. You know, I just, and I guess let's, let's speak to that a little bit. Like why do we do, why do we, why does God put these things in our heart? Where does that come from? Well, I think it comes directly from the heart of Christ.

Yes. You like, you see God who is like perfectly content, right? God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit together in perfect harmony, perfect unity does not have to do what he did, right? And he comes down, right, and he, and he actually makes himself, becomes a servant and serves us who are all broken and needy. And that's, that'll, that'll humble any of us. Like there's, there's no, um, one of the things in mercy ministry is you don't want to have this feeling of superiority as if you're the savior, right?

Because we're not, there's only one savior and his name is Jesus. Yeah, definitely. And that's, I think the heart. I think that's where it comes from, the very heart of Jesus, Philippians 2, right?

He comes down, made himself of no reputation. And then you have the, all the stories in the gospel of him just going out of his way and it, it should change us to where we do the same thing, become uncomfortable a little bit sometimes. Um, who would say, what's the scripture say?

If any man wants to be his disciple, you have to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow him. Right. That's, that's gospel language. Yeah. Like surrender, sacrifice, um, staying close to him to follow, right? And that's, that's the heart of it. Absolutely.

Christ centered heart. Do you have a favorite, uh, story from the gospels of Jesus interacting with somebody? There's so many of them.

I don't know. Does it have to be a very favorite, but any, anyone you want to bring out? Yeah. I have a favorite. Um, honestly, it brings me to every mid tiers or every time I read it or even like see it just portrayed on anything. But um, the woman at the well, when, when Jesus literally breaks all kinds of socioeconomic boundaries and barriers and just to, to meet someone where they are and then they're seen, they're heard and he points them back to, um, himself, you know, and it's just like this eyeopening moment of Jesus going, breaking down barriers, social economic barriers of the time just to, just to share life, to share living water. I love Jesus. Like he just feeds the multitudes and he calls himself, I am the bread of life, right? He always teaches based on what miracle he's worked. He's like, here's, here's a physical truth. Now I'm going to give you a spiritual truth.

So good. You know, I used to, you stole mine, but the Samaritan woman, I, she just has my heart and I love how Jesus, she comes to him with this broken identity and if so many perspectives and he starts to peel back the layers of her identity to reveal his identity and when he comes to that moment when he says, I am he, he's saying, I am God. And she's changed and she leaves her waterpot and goes back to her people and her mess becomes her message. And you know, she's one of the first evangelists in the book of John.

And so I just, I think it's interesting that she's not named because I think she represents so many people who are broken and all of us are, but, um, in a, in a specific way that she was isolated and you know, now cast and Jesus went out of his way to meet her that day at the well. I just, I can't get enough of that story. Yeah. Put that together. Yeah.

Or both. So we can talk about it. I know. Um, what else do we have here? Uh, let's see. Let me look on my list here. Just a second.

Austin. I wanted to circle back. Um, just a little bit. Tell, tell our listeners a little bit about what Winston's like. Oh yeah. You got about 20 seconds and then we can come back and talk about more. Yeah, sure.

It's a small city, um, not a super large city, but not a super small city. There's a lot going on in Winston-Salem, a lot of needs and we'll talk about that. Yeah. So when we come back, I want to talk about how someone would start a ministry like this in their city.

Yeah, of course. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live. Our question for today is when did someone help you when you were in need?

If you want to call in, it's 866-348-7884. I'm here with Austin Needham and we're just talking about Jesus's interactions with people in the Bible. And I asked, we left the segment kind of asking Austin, give us some insight as to how you started this ministry, how somebody else in another city might start a ministry or even just take a first step.

What can that look like for people? Yeah, cause it can be, I know it can be a little daunting sometimes know what to do, where to start. Get in a car and drive around. That is like what you did. That's an option.

Looking back, I don't know if I always recommend, but probably not the best option, but here's the thing. Like, I mean, I know we're in a mid-sized city and everyone has different, different cities, but the truth is there's, there's, there's people everywhere. And so here's some of the things I would think through. Number one, the local church, like who, who and where are you connecting your local church? What's already happening? Because the truth is God is, God is at work already and it's our task to say, okay, how can I join God in what he's doing? And that could be joining in with a church and organization could be starting something, but God's already working something in you, around you, in your city. So pray to that end, say, God, where are you working and how can I be a part of that? And most likely there are a lot of organizations who have been working in various demographics and various areas to, to meet the needs of people. And they've been doing that for a long time maybe. Have you seen that in our city? Have you connected to those organizations? Yeah. So for that, is that what you would recommend or is that one pathway?

That isn't us pathway for sure. Outside of your local church, um, as you could, there are organizations that specialize, um, that God has raised up in different cities, different towns, connect with them. One of the first things I did when I took on this, this role is I went around and just met the people who are running these organizations and I would ask them, Hey, who, what do you do? What's your mission? How can we help or how can we be involved?

And I learned so much about all the different things, whether it was homelessness, jail and prison ministry, uh, adoption and foster care, um, pregnancy care, pregnancy care. Like there's just so many, um, organizations that are doing things well and God's already at work. So I would suggest seeing how can you get involved there? How can you put your time, talent, treasure into what God's already doing? Um, and then maybe you look around and say, I don't really know anything.

Well, maybe you did. You could start something. Maybe you could pray about what does it look like for you or some of your close friends or maybe even your church to, to meet a need.

That's all it's about. Jesus saw a need and he moved towards it. So the question is, how can you move towards a need? Could that be through an organization? Could that be through your church? Could it be through starting something? And so it, what's your next step?

Right. That's the, I know a fun thing when our kids were younger and I think you had some of the same experiences. We were in a church that was very mercy ministry minded. And during that time, Myanmar and the United Nations relocated about a hundred families from Myanmar, their Kareni, into our entire, really our neighborhood around our church. And so our church kind of took that on.

And so it was just a beautiful partnership. And so the refugees came here for the first time, you know, and a new, everything was new. Electricity was new in the course of two or three days, their lives just changed drastically. But then we got to do ministry with them, for them, shared the gospel. Many of them became believers.

Now they do ministry to other pockets of Kareni people in the United States who don't know the Lord. And so it just comes full circle, but I felt like it enriched our family. You know, Avi and I talked about this the other day, sometimes we send our kids places or we go places and we come back and we're like, oh, aren't we lucky? And it's missing the point. It's like, what can I learn from other people? What can I, where's the beauty? Because image of God is everywhere and where's the beauty even in the brokenness. And so to not come in with the perspective of, oh, you know, kind of that superiority complex that we talked about that I'm coming in broken and I want to meet you in your brokenness and let's see what God does.

And it's a different perspective on it, but I don't really, I think it did impact our family over the years. And then even hearing you share that and for any of the listeners, nothing's too small. You can start somewhere. Nothing's too small because God takes like the smallest things and you never know what he does with it. And so I think sometimes when it comes to mercy ministry or serving or getting involved, it seems daunting because it's like, where do I start?

Do you think we have to do something like on a, just this large scale? No, like it could be as simple as there's a need across the street, right? Like cross the street, you know, or like just recognize a need and move towards it no matter how small it is.

And that's a win. And then God, God's the one who gives the increase like, so that's the, that's the beauty of that. And there's so many, there's so many stories and stuff of, of things that have happened in, in my life, in our church and that just encouraged me of people just taking small steps and then watching God do what he does.

Right. Sometimes it's hard to get out of your comfort zone, which is usually where God's going to work right over the edge. At least at least a step over the edge, maybe like 52 steps over the edge. But tell us, tell us a few stories about what you've seen as people have gotten involved with mercy ministry. How's it changed them? Maybe it, how's it changed some of the people that you've crossed paths with? Yeah, for sure. I mean, I was texting.

Obviously don't use the names, but you know, of course. It's so, it's so inspiring and encouraging to hear what God's actually doing. And it's not what we're doing is what he's doing in us, through us, the Holy Spirit, just going after people. It humbles you. It takes it off of you.

It pressures off. I'm like, God, you could do this so much better if you didn't use us, but somehow I think it goes back to the fact that he's relational, that he's existed as a relationship and he draws us into relationship and he wants, he wants to do it with us. So it kind of blows my mind when I think about that. So I'll tell you a quick story. You know, like we have, we have a pretty, pretty good jail and prison ministry now at the church that we're getting started. We've done worship nights at the, at the local prison. We've, um, I want to know when the next one is, I would love to be part of that. It's going to be, it's going to be great. It's amazing to see the inmates worship, you know, singing about freedom in Christ.

It's just like, it'll change your life. But yeah, we, we, we started that because of, you know, in part a gentleman in our church who was very passionate about it and was just talking about it, put, put, put some contacts together. I talked with him. Um, this gentleman would, before I even, before we even started an official jail and prison ministry at the church, he was bringing, um, inmates to church on release because he was part of the program. He would go and they would have approvals and he would bring them to our church and they'd be worshiping with us. Had no clue this was going on, but having conversations with him, he's still doing that by the way.

He's still bringing and other people were doing it now as well. So having conversations with him got us to thinking about how can we really be involved. But that's just like a small thing. Like here's one gentleman in our church who was passionate about it and sort of having conversations and then here now our church as a whole is partnering in a big way financially with community groups and with events and we're just getting started. And so that's, that's, that's a story that's like wherever you are, whatever church you're in, whatever community you're in, God's put, God puts things on your heart and in your path that you can then talk about, bring other people along and who knows what, what, what, what God's going to do with it. So I love that story.

Um, yeah, go ahead. We're going to press pause just a minute because we have Buxman from Dayton, Ohio. We want to hear from Buxman.

Let us know. Buxman, what, when were you in a time of need and how did somebody help you? Hey Alicia, how are you? It's always good talking to you. Good to talk to you too. How's your day?

Well, I just left the lumber yard. I got to share Christ with some people and I know you love doing that too. They're young lady.

I'm so proud to call you my sister cause I know that's your heart as well. Um, but yes, I do have a story and like I was telling, uh, St. Nick, our producer, um, there was a time Alicia where, um, I and another brother was doing some ministry and I won't tell you what it was, but it was to help save babies. Okay. And sure enough, if several groups guys put myself and my friend, a fellow believer on two city police watch lists, I'm not kidding you. It sounds like it would be a Babylon B story because we were, we were trying to save unborn babies and these, these several organizations put us on watch lists. So the one city's, um, police chief contacted the County Sheriff that we live in, that my friend and I live in. And I don't know if you know that wonderful book by a pastor, Matt Churella, uh, doctrine of the lesser magistrates, but our dear sheriff had read that, but here was also a divine appointment is our sheriff knew my friend and I personally, and that's convenient when you're on the watch list. Wow. Correct. Uh, so our sheriff guys goes to the chief of police of both of these jurisdictions and says, I know Bussman and I know his friend, they are not troublemakers.

They're men of God and they're, and this is the ministry that they're doing. And he was able to avert, uh, these two jurisdictions from, you know, watching chorus and possibly, you know, questioning us, you know, at the minimum, but, uh, you know, incarcerating us at the, at the, at the maximum. So I have to say our sheriff saved us.

Well he did. It sounds like it. That's a good story. Thank you for calling Buxman. I'm sure we'll talk to you the next time. Okay. Bye bye.

Bye bye. If you want to call in, it's eight, six, six, three, four, eight, seven, eight, eight, four. You're listening to the truth network and truth network.com. Welcome back to truth talk live. You want to call in and tell us about a time when someone helped you when you were in need.

The number is eight, six, six, three, four, eight, seven, eight, eight, four. Austin. We left off talking about several things, but I wanted to start just by asking you a little bit about your family. Tell me about your better half.

I'm sure she would say the same thing about you, but I know she has a heart heart, a similar heart for a lot of things. What does that look like? And tell us, tell us how you met each other and when you got married and yeah, sure.

So it was one of those things where he does. He's lighting up. I am.

If you could see him, he's beaming from ear to ear. I love her. It was like such God just had us for each other.

I feel that so deeply. And so, so much so that I actually, I met her and married her less than a year from when I met her. Um, she's actually the first girl that I ever actually asked to be my girlfriend, much less my wife married her at age 32. So that just goes to show there was something very special about Kristen.

I just knew. Um, and honestly, it's funny what we're talking about, part of what attracted me to her just as the beautiful person she is was just her heart. Um, I remember talking early on and she was telling about the different, um, the country she visited. I'm Spanish speaking countries has always had a heart for that.

Actually studied Spanish and English in college, taught, um, taught in schools for a little while, lived in Mexico for a couple months and, um, just seeing her heart for the nations and for, and for people, I just was very like, she, she goes where the need is. And um, it's just one of the things that we, and he must have been the need you needed carrot. Kristen, she needed you.

I don't know. It's just, it's just a, one of those things that God is the one who brought us together. And I met her actually five days after she moved to North Carolina, um, and she came here to teach. Uh, and five days after she moved here, I met her, um, and never forgot. Uh, and then we ended up, our first date was at church. Amen. Yeah. Um, we ended up getting married like less than, I met her in, um, July of 21. Um, we got married in June of 22.

Okay. So, and now we have, uh, just welcomed, uh, we have our two month old daughter now and so she's wonderful and it's just, it's just special to be able to do life and do ministry with someone who loves, she loves Jesus and she loves people. It reminds me of when, you know, when we have teenagers and we're just trying to encourage them and young, young people in their twenties looking for a spouse, I'm like, just run towards Jesus.

Yes. And if you look over and somebody else is running towards Jesus, maybe that's, maybe that's somebody to pay attention to. But especially if you're running the same direction as far as ministry, like what a gift. And she's so encouraging. I'll share this like, and what I get to do at the church and life and with like, uh, there's a lot of heaviness. Yeah, I'm sure. And empathy being high.

I'm like a, you can probably relate to this at least, but I'm like a sponge. Like I feel everything. I feel it also deeply. And so God has used her uniquely in my life. I will, I will come home and have, she would tell you many times and just kind of just share my heart. I have, you know, cried on her before and said like, and she just like rubbed my head and prayed over me. She's read the Psalms over me before at night to help me fall asleep because of just some stuff that I had seen or heard about some stories and are sitting time you, anytime you do ministry, what is it a couple of weeks ago, I heard you're gonna have a broken body and a broken heart. And so she's got his usual uniquely in that way to help.

So I'm very grateful for her. How did you come to Christ? What did that, how did that happen for you? So I, I grew up in the church and my parents said, uh, kind of rededicated their lives just before, right around the time I was born. So I grew up in the church. Um, knowing a lot about God, um, was actually even baptized at age five, uh, because a lot of my friends were, and I just knew what to say, honestly, sounds like a very familiar story. I hear, I hear that a lot.

Yeah. So, and then around age 12, I started really thinking like, I don't really know Jesus. Um, I was afraid if something happened, would I, would I really go to heaven?

What if he came back? And it just really bothered me. I spent a whole year of my life probably, um, just really worried, almost nightly praying the sinner's prayer, trying to feel saved and it just wasn't working. Um, one night I came home on a Wednesday night and I told mom, I said, I'm, I'm done trying and I'm not saved. I don't know how to do this. I can't figure this out. I've tried to pray the prayer.

It's not working. I went in my room, frustrated, fell on my knees on the ground beside my bed and just for the first time in my life told God, I was tired of trying. I didn't know what to do.

Help me. And boom, that's all God was waiting for. It was like the first time in my life, right there, age 12 in my room, I realized this Holy Spirit helped me realize that it was not about what I could say, the right prayer, what I could do, but what, what Jesus Christ had done. And it's like, I was honest for the first time and humble for the first time and relied completely on him and not my own words. And Christ saved me and life's never been the same.

No, it's not. That happened for me when I was about 20 and honestly, Austin, there was this huge relief when I realized that there was more, like I had been trying really hard and I was, you know, I was in church and I was trying to do the right thing, but I was conflicted because I knew I wasn't really the person that I was pretending to be. And I went to a camp and saw people who like, they knew Jesus like they knew him, knew him.

Like he was their friend and he, their God. And I was like, I've never seen this. It's something that I didn't have. And that was a turning point for me. I'm like, I think I've just always been religious. And what I've been missing is, is Christ that to know him personally and, and that I found so much freedom in that.

I was like, Oh, I can exhale. Like he loves sinners. He's going to help me. He gave me the Holy Spirit. He's going to change me.

I don't have to like white knuckle life so hard just to try to like make it be something that I could never have pulled off anyway. So he says, come into me, all you who labor and I will give you rest. He does the one who has done it and gives us rest.

It's arrested. You can't describe. And so it's a beautiful thing to, I love hearing your story because I can relate so much to that and how Christ is the one who really gives us the rest that we, that we long for.

We can't manufacture it. We can't do enough to feel that he's the one who does it in us and through us. It's like that resting in the finished work of Christ. That phrase is really what stuck in my heart and mind as it's just resting in his finished work.

Are you resting currently in the finished work of Jesus Christ? And that's, that's salvation. And he just, it's, it's wonderful. I'm another 20 plus years older than you, but one good thing about having, having years with Christ is you do start to really trust in that relationship and you know, you realize I don't have anything to prove.

I don't have to have it all together. He loves me and I can allow him to work through my frailty, through my failures. He's always going to be faithful. And it's just, it's just a security in that relationship that I really never imagined I could have, um, you know, kind of, you know, my life's not mine. Every day I wake up and I'm like, okay, what have we got? What are we doing?

I know. And the older, the older I get, the more I've walked with our savior. My favorite concept in all of scripture is Emmanuel, God with us, I think it's like God with us. Like it's just something it's, you realize that he really is with us, right? He is with us through everything, all of it.

And I love that, that, that concept and it brings so much comfort, so much rest, so much peace that I'm constantly saying, God, God is with us, God's with me. He says, fear not. I'm with you. Fear not.

I'm with you. And just letting that sink in. It's like a life changing. I want you to, we've got a little bit more time, but I want you to finish out for anybody who is listening, who may not know Christ, who's like, I wish I had what you have, but I don't really know how to get that. Can you just explain the gospel to us and what does that mean for anybody who might be listening? And maybe if somebody just needs a reminder, yeah, it's perfect because we, in, in a session, this is really about the gospel. It is the way we love people.

Our response to Christ shows itself in a transformed life, the way we see people and know them and love them. It's just because we've been seen on in love. So yeah, go ahead.

That's it. And I think it flows perfectly. We've been talking about needs and being, and what that means and helping. And ultimately we all share in the greatest need. And there's two things that we can't fix on our own, no matter how hard we try sin and death, we're all broken. And no matter if you just stop and, and, and get quiet just for a second, you will know that you're broken on the inside and the outside. Sometimes I say like, can I really say that I'm not, I mean, I don't even meet my standards for myself, much less that God has any standards for me. I mean, on a daily basis, I can even like pull, pull off my regular life.

That's pretty small. And I'm constantly falling short. So yeah, for all of sin and come short and deep down, we all know that we know we fall short. And we also, we know that we're, we're, we're finite. The wages of sin is death. And so we know that because of sin, because of our brokenness and death is to follow and, and that's something else, no matter how much we exercise, no matter how good we eat, death is something that's a reality. So sin and death, the two greatest needs, the two greatest obstacles in our life. And so the solution is not inside of you.

The solution is outside of us and it's in a person. Jesus Christ, who literally came down and took sin, became sin. He became sin. He took all the sin that you've ever done or ever could do upon himself was punished for it.

He took, he put, he took our place. He was punished for you and for me. So we took our sin and then he died a criminal's death, even though he was the perfect son of God. And this is salvation. Three days later, he rose again, defeating death and sin. And so because of what he's done for us, we can now be forgiven. That takes care of sin and we can now live forever because he has defeated death as well.

Right. His resurrection is our resurrection. It's through him. We are in Christ. Like Paul says over and over again, in Christ, in Christ, because of him, we are in him. We're alive.

We're forgiven. We're made righteous. That's the gospel. And that's good news.

That's great news. You know, it reminds me just as you're sharing the gospel that there, there's a huge tie in between what we've talked about today and the gospel, because when God created us, he created us in his image. But unfortunately we chose our own image instead of God's. And we, the image of God in us was darkened. It was marred, but God loves us and he doesn't want to destroy the ones he's made in his image. And so, you know, he set out this plan of salvation to, to re you know, die in our place. Exactly what you said and to restore the image of God in us. And so that's why when we come to know Christ, we're in him.

If you want to do a study of it, all that we have in Christ, phenomenal. But I thank you so much for being here, Austin. I love talking to you. I love your heart, your family. You're such a blessing to so many people. Thanks for being with us today. And I hope you have a good, great rest of your day.