Beyond Sunday S2: This Is My Son - Listen to Him
God once again reveals Jesus’ identity as his son and anoints him for mission like he did at his baptism. This one phrase, repeated, confirms Jesus as the fulfillment of the prophecies in the Old Testament and points the disciples to the truth of the new covenant: God once again dwells with us. The transfiguration isn’t for the mountaintop alone- it informs our identity and calling as followers of Jesus and sends us back into the world with the foundation of a Jesus-shaped church: God with us.
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Hey guys, welcome to another episode of the Beyond Sunday podcast uh where we decided to take the conversation deeper. Uh this one we've got a few extra screens and faces on for this episode. And so I'm joined as always with uh by my friend Sherea. I am Devin. Uh, and then also joining us next to Sherea is Jamie. Jamie, how are you? >> I'm good. >> Great. And then, um, next to me, actually, I don't know how this is going to edit, but um, whatever. Uh, right. Yeah. Uh, is Henry. Henry, how
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are you? Fantastic. Hey, uh, before we before we dive into the conversation discussion, uh, take a look at this video. Heat up here. All right, guys. Welcome back. Um, so Henry, Jamie, we were wrapping up a series, the the Epiphany season and this God with us series. So, um, Henry, what was the big idea? What what main text were you in this week? >> Um, my main text was first pet or second Peter chapter 2 or chapter 1. >> Yeah. Jamie, were you where where was your main >> U? Mine was Matthew 17 1-9. Um,
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and what was the what was the big idea or the main >> uh for me it was um just really God um speaking over him um listen to him and just um the difference of how um when they were on the mountain, how um God pointed out brought out with uh Moses and Elijah and they started out and then uh Moses and Elijah just kind of disappeared and God, you know, focused on Jesus saying, "Listen to him and and how um everything up until that m moment was pointing to God or pointing to Jesus and pointing the way to him."
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And so um just that kind of uh transitioning into that, you know, >> Henry, how did you how did how did you get to first Peter, sorry, second Peter chapter 1? Um because that was part of the revised common lectionary for this week. >> Yes. And it stood out though I imagine. >> Um I think the the bigger question is I ended up in second Peter chapter 1, but I actually didn't get to the verse that got me to second Peter chapter 1 until toward the end. Um, and I did I do believe I read Matthew uh
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chapter 17 as well with the idea that um I can't remember now honestly. Did I? >> Yes. >> Okay. I I I don't remember and I don't go and watch myself back. It's just too embarrassing. But anyways, um uh the idea that was shaping in me was is that uh when when Peter gets all excited that they're on the Mount of Transfiguration, they're seeing all this happen and God interrupts him and he says, "Uh, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased." the that isn't
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even the part that sticks out to me as much as that is baptism. Um, and it's been the idea that we are beloved and how do what does it look like to live into Jesus being beloved and because he is who he is and that he didn't have to do anything. He hadn't made wine. He hadn't healed people. He hadn't raised people from the dead. He hadn't raised himself from the dead. He hadn't, you know, done any of this stuff and he was the beloved. And so my mind went with and then the language of second Peter
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chapter 1 is all beloved language without saying beloved and but Peter gets to that at the end of chapter 3. And so it's I'm glad you gave me a long runway, four weeks of prep, and uh we just let the Holy Spirit take everything that I was fixated on and make it happen. So, >> there was one night where I literally couldn't get second Peter out of my head all night into the morning. It was a very consuming evening for me. I never had that before. And I don't know if it's
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because I was sick. I don't I don't know. It's just weird. But >> if anybody hasn't seen Henry sick, it's a it's a sight to behold. There's a lot of uh things that that come forth. Some some I would say maybe even divine. And then the other things are like left field. All right. I I did because I saw Henry sick and I didn't know he was sick and I tried to give him a hug and he was like, >> "Do you remember?" >> distance, >> social distancing.
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>> Yeah. Um, one of the things that you called out, Jamie, I know that uh for me was uh has stuck because I I what I loved about this series even and the way that the lectionary um kind of gave us the guide rails is that we open and closed this series with the same uh God speaking the same thing over the sun, right? So, we open with his baptism. This is my dearly loved son who brings me great joy. We we close this series with God's voice on the mountain saying the same thing but you called out that
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there's an addition to that of like this is my dearly loved son who brings me great joy listen to him and the way um I know well you can you can talk us through this if you want but for me the the call out of like in this space God's like don't just listen to what has been don't just listen to uh the echoes that have been before and >> we've been having a lot of conversations um even at the district level around monuments and movements and the idea that actually like the monuments, the
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things in our past where God's already spoken matter a lot. >> Um, but they matter because those are the things that help us trust him for the movement and help us uh pay attention to what he looks like in the movement and we can get stuck on like this is where God has been and this is what God looks like and what he's done already um and miss the fact that he's already moved and and invited us into that. And that's what came to mind as you called out that like that little
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phrase that's added of like listen to my son because he's actually going to show you what this looks like now. Um was powerful for me. Yeah. And I think for me that was the big one. Um especially as we're walking through this um what it looks like to be a Jesus shaped church. Um just looking at the like uh as we're walking into that um looking at like you know God God spoke to us and said you know yes I'm calling you by name. I'm speaking into your identity and so these are the things that I'm speaking to you.
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It doesn't matter, you know, who you are as as a how big you are or think, you know, how how your identity sits as as your popularity or whatever in your community. And so, um, you know, monuments like I went back to like, you know, where we were as a church prior to where we sit now. And so thinking into like what did God speak into that moment listening to where he is bringing us now you know listening to God >> um just speaking into that identity like that for me that moment where he he's
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changed those words you know he this is my son and I love him and he brings me great joy but but listening to him and following his words um following his path instead of just looking back and saying, "Okay, yeah, that was a great moment. You know, God spoke. >> Move on. >> Moving on." Um, you know, we're listening to him. We're following him. >> Yeah. It's a big echo. >> Yeah. Well, and also it made me makes me think too of um Henry with this beloved
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and the the you had alluded to on Sunday is the book in which you were posed with this question. Can you share the the question um that you were posed with in this book? I can and I will. Thank you. >> It is. By the way, I didn't share what the book was at the end. So, the book is beloved. >> There's the teaser. >> Beloved, >> people have to watch this. >> That's right. >> There you go. There you go. Okay. Um, if I could approach our holy God right now
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and ask him how he feels about me, what do I think he would say? And uh this sounds like an echo of what what Jamie you were just talking about an identity that that question brought me to and then what Henry you're talking about with this beloved and there's this there's um you you posed that question to me uh was it Sunday morning? >> Yeah. >> Yeah, >> I did. >> Yeah. >> Up on the mountain. >> Yeah. I was giving you a little teaser. >> Right before we got on this call, like
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seconds before we got on this call, um I was sharing with Jamie one of the things we did up at camp. Um so, so Devon and I spent this past weekend up at winter camp with 120 teenagers and leaders from across the district. And one of the things that we had the teenagers do um in a way to practice the prophetic like practice hearing what God might be speaking over them um we gave them letter head that was like okay if God were to write you a letter right now what do you think he would want to say
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to you? Um and so that was a powerful exercise for a lot of teenagers but for me um in that space uh God it felt like God was offering some things that I've been waiting a couple weeks for. And so even as you're saying, this is again such an echo of like um will we trust the father to speak and to speak what we need to hear and when we need to hear it and let that be the thing um that shapes >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's it's you know um just the identity that he speaks into us
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and the um even looking back over just this last week um just from Sunday till now um I was sharing with Shay when you know we were talking about okay we're gonna um film I was like gosh I can't even remember what I talked about on Sunday because it's been I totally react to that. >> It's been a week for me. Um it's just it there's been a lot of things that have happened this week and today has just been an overflow of blessings where I've just um seen God just pour into my life
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today. And so it's just um walking that out today and just seeing that like, you know, um I closed part of my sermon on on Sunday with just um you know, how is he, you know, how do we how do we walk this out? and and understanding that we are living by um you know delighting in him and in his identity in us and and how that makes us who we are. And so just um knowing that if we listen to him and we follow him that our identity speaks through that. Well, and I think too as you're saying that, Jamie, what comes to mind is like
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you you're sitting right now in a day of an overflow of blessings and some answers um that were what we've been praying for. >> But you on Sunday in the middle of the heart and the waiting and the not knowing >> um you sat in a space calling out this is my identity and this is your identity. And so even there's something about um when we let the identity come directly from the father that even when the blessing hasn't shown up yet and that's the the idea of belovedness like
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actually the biggest blessing is that God says I'm loved and actually like you you standing in that space and calling that out in a message when you are in the middle of waiting for something that could be really bad and really hard um is a testament to like where your identity is rooted and like >> even if even if the worst thing happens. This is who God is, and he says, "I'm loved." Um, and that's powerful. That's a powerful testimony. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
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>> Yeah. Even draws me back to uh second Peter uh one uh as he talks about their their witnesses of of Jesus. They're witnesses of his life and his death and his resurrection. And um and in being a witness, an eyewitness even of his majesty as it says in verse 16, um then it gets into Peter recounting and remembering what was said over Jesus at the um uh transfiguration and that then draws us back to the baptism. So in these in all of these places it's like more um evidence proof or again talking
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about eyewitnesses uh recounting and accounting uh being accountable of the the the person of Jesus the divinity of Christ uh what God has spoken over him and also then to we attribute that to what God desires to speak over us through his son Jesus and those are like um Uh, I don't know what what's the the the metaphor, the visual of like if we're just if we're if we're pleasure stacking, that's the pleasure stacking of the goodness of God. Reminders and and recounting again as he talked about
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eyewitnesses, we call back to those stories of the goodness of God. uh whether we're in a good week or we having a hard week or it's full or we're anticipating something hard coming or we've just come out of something hard. What is what's the phrase like you're either you're either um coming out of a of a trial or you're going into one. >> You're you're one you're at one one place or the other. Um and if you're not in one, one's coming. And if you just
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come out of one, you know, catch your breath and another one's coming later. But in some ways too as we're talking about this idea of like stacking things or um building up faith or or you know pleasure stacking the goodness of God and I like yes in all those things but there's also uh there's there's also kind of a stripping away in the hard spaces that say like when the only thing that's left is actually like kind of nothing. this is still this is still true and that because sometimes and like
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>> I don't know we've talked about this before Devon but sometimes um >> as I I do want to always call out the goodness of God of which there is much um and and actually the more that we have practiced doing that and we even did this we just got done with our family gathering and we went around the tables tonight um and shared like it would have been enough button everybody shared and there was some big huge things um of where like, oh my gosh, God moved so powerfully. And then there were
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some little things of like I got to have dinner with my dad at my grandparents house. Like the all across the spectrum. And so I do want to always call out God's goodness and and uh when we do that, it reminds us of who of the places he's shown up before and we can trust him for what comes. >> But sometimes um I actually think that it's okay to say in this moment, in this space, I don't see the goodness of God. I don't see it yet. um or this is a hard thing or whatever. And still in this
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space, what's true is that God says, "I am his beloved and he he delights in me." Because uh >> people who do not ne who do not yet know the father um it's hard to see the goodness of God when you don't know the father yet. But what we can offer is like, "Hey, I actually get it. I I've been in spaces where I've struggled to see his goodness and still um this is what I know is true. And I had a conversation with a teenager at winter camp this weekend who was
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questioning a lot of these kind of things like is God good? Is God real? Um everybody around me thinks I'm a big joke. And in that moment it was like let me speak some truth into you because the most true thing about who you are right now is that God is madly in love with you. And you actually don't have to believe that. It's okay if it doesn't feel like that's true but it is true. um because of who God is and because of how he made you. And so in those spaces like the the goodness I do want to call
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out, but I also want to recognize that in the spaces where it feels like there isn't and there's a stripping away, what's left is still the voice of God saying, "You're my beloved >> who brings me great joy." Um and when there's nothing else, there's that. >> Because it's not based on anything that we can do or we have done. >> Yeah. >> You know, it's who he created us to be. It's who he is. And that's the biggest blessing. The presence of God and the
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fact that he'd speak to us >> and call us his own is the blessing and everything else is icing on the cake. >> Right. Exactly. >> Yeah. So, as we wrap up here, >> we'll we'll talk about Chyros. What's God saying? How are we going to respond? Um so, Henry, what's that for you this week? Like, what's still sticking that God's saying? Um, for me it's it's the thing that I've had conversations with since Sunday are it's the Greek word pleonazo. It's
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increasing or abound or superabound. And it's if we if we lean into what God has already provided, we didn't have to do anything for what he has given us. So if we lean into what he's given us um not out of things that we had to earn or do anything like that that um that we actually bring honor to him and that that out of the outcome of that is not just to simply abound but the word is superabound. It's it's it's if you think of abounding as a river flowing, super abounding is what
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does the river look like when it overfilled its banks. And and like we get that visual here in in the Pacific Northwest because we see that happen a lot. Oftent times we look at rivers flooding over as catastrophe because we also build cities and flood planes and it it's not meant for that. It's actually meant it's actually some of the richest farmland that you can have. So when the river spills over in normal context, normal settings, it it spills out into um everything around it and then the
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nutrients of the land are improved. the the trees that are sitting there, the the crops that are sitting there um have a significant potential to to multiply whatever they're producing because something um happened that made the river go beyond what it was supposed to go beyond. And and that's what Peter's spending a significant amount of his time is in setting up the idea that we're beloved is you need to understand that because you're beloved, you have the same access Jesus had.
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>> We have the same access that Jesus had. And so when he starts off with may grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of uh God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who have called us into his own glory and excellence. Not some things. It's not an occasional thing. It's all things. And when we tap into all of those things, it it it's hard. I mean, it the visual is when you tap into all those things,
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you're overflowing the banks. It's beyond what we can contain within the banks. And so leaning into those things or wanting wanting to grow in our pursuit of who Jesus is. And and I led with the idea that like we've had a lot of talk about the idea that we want to be a Jesus shaped church, but we will never be a Jesus shaped church until we're a Jesus-shaped people. And and that's and and that is an individual thing, but it is also a communal thing >> because as I spill over my banks, it's
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going to impact >> dozen, you know, and and as he spills over his banks, he's going to impact the people around him. And and then the the then we have a flood on our hands, you know, and then it's all over the place in our community. And that's the reverberations of what that is. is it's it's actually a positive impact. And so um tapping into what he has already provided for us, tapping into the the idea or the understanding that we already are his children and that we can
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tap into the same power and the same resources as as the one we follow and that's Jesus. So, >> it's good. >> Jamie, what about for you? It's still sticking. >> I think for me it's just uh just being loved. I mean, just no matter what, like it it again, it just goes back to like there's nothing that I can do, can't do, didn't do, failed to do, did wrong. That's just uh God's grace and God's love and um >> you know they even if it doesn't matter
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>> you know. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. It's like simple and overwhelming at the same time. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> It's a good gun. >> Devin, how about you? >> Yeah. Um for me, I think it's Henry's question that he posed to me on on Sunday from the book Beloved. And um just sitting sitting with that question uh some of what I reflect in in that question. It's a simple question but it's one that um I I've sensed like I don't stop long enough to ponder that
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one. And um and being in the presence of God, what what would God say to me? What would be the look on his face towards me? And I I think there's something really beautiful that I I sense an invitation from God is to is to sit on that question and to ponder uh not just the answer and offer words but like the whole if I could picture myself in the presence of God like all of that that exists around, right? if I could visualize myself there and and call out uh call attention to those different um
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senses and emotions and things around and what I'm taking in is God takes me in I guess is the is the so there's I think something in there of a really beautiful way of or invitation to ponder to sit in that with God uh and to let that uh flood over me, roll over me, fill me, and you know of I'm I'm beloved by God, not because I've shown up with anything of worth. Um just me. >> Yeah. >> I haven't done anything to earn it. I just show up with me. And he and he
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says, "Beloved." So >> yeah, >> uh for me I think it's the second half of that that phrase that gets echoed at the baptism and the on the mountain of like yes this is my dearly loved um but in whom I am pleased or who brings me great joy in whom I delight. um which is an echo of of even what God was offering me at camp in this space of like hey these things that are in you that maybe you've seen as uh defects or flaws um actually might be something I I put in you um it might be
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evidence of something um of me in you and it might be something that I actually uh put in you with intention and so the idea of God looking like before Jesus does anything not only does he say like the most true thing about you is I love you, but also I delight in you. Um speaks to like you're exactly the way I made you to be. Um and so that's an echo for me uh in some places that I was wrestling with um and asking questions about that that feels like God's reminding like um in those places you look like me and I
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delight in that. So, >> yeah, >> it's good. It >> was a good truth. >> Yeah. >> Well, guys, we uh thanks for joining us um and uh this episode. And for those listening and watching, thank you for listening in. And we hope and pray that your conversations are going beyond Sunday. That uh as God stirs your hearts that you've got others that you're having these conversations with and um discerning and uh praying through and um allowing God to to speak and to speak
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his truth uh truth of who you are, who you are because of him over you. And uh and that that encourages you, uplifts your spirit. Um and so again until next on next episode, take care.
