The Coworkers Podcast

Ben H and his family have been serving in East Asia for more than 17 years, and are now at the point of forming missions agencies with the Chinese church to send out Chinese missionaries all over the world. Listen as Ben shares key principles in partnering with locals, such as clear communication, deciding on our essential convictions and where we can differ, the importance of building trust in relationships, and more. The key theme was TOGETHER - partnering together side by side in the gospel. 

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If spiritual health is having more of the Holy Spirit, then how can we position ourselves to experience more of Him? Two essentials are obeying God and loving / enjoying god. "If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love" John 15:10. In part 1, we discussed the importance of obedience; in part 2 we share 3 ways to enjoy God more: through nature, music, and evangelism.

“I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” John 10:10

"These things I’ve spoken to you so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be full." John 15:11

Key components to help us go from ho-hum, mundane spiritual life to “abundant life:"

1. Nature
2. Music / Special times of musical worship – either alone or corporately
3. EV

Nature:

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.” Ps. 19:1
“Once for all I have sworn by my holiness; I will not lie to David. His offspring shall endure forever, his throne as long as the sun before me. Like the moon it shall be established forever, a faithful witness in the skies.” Ps. 89:36-37
“Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; your judgments are like the great deep; man and beast you save, O Lord.” Ps. 36:5-6
“Mightier than the waves of the sea, the Lord on high is mighty!” Ps. 93:4
“From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the Lord is to be praised!” Ps. 113:3

The purpose of nature is to remind us of God’s faithfulness, power, and beauty, and lead us to worship. Nature is a gift of God to us, to open up our hearts to experience Him! 

Music:

“Come into His Presence with singing!” Ps. 100
“It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High; to declare your steadfast love in the morning and your faithfulness by night, to the music of the lute and the harp.” Ps. 92:1-2
“My heart is steadfast, O God! I will sing and make melody with all my being! Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awake the dawn!” Ps. 108
“Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!” Ps. 150:6 

Music is similar to nature in that it uniquely and powerfully opens up our hearts to experience more of God. God created music. He created people to create and enjoy music. It’s a bit mysterious how music affects us. I believe it can open up our hearts in special ways to experience God. For example, you can read truths about God in the Bible, and be struggling to feel them. And then when you sing those truths to God, He changes your heart and mood and may set you free from bondage to stress or busyness or fear! 

Singing worship to God is clearly commanded in God’s Word. It is part of God’s design for the Christian life. It’s all over Psalms!

Evangelism:

Sharing the gospel is included in the “obedience” aspect of this teaching. When we obey God in any way, such as sharing the gospel, we experience more of Him. But I believe sharing the gospel has a unique power in affecting our relationship with God, for a few reasons:

-Speaking the gospel truths out loud to someone who doesn’t know or believe them, actively builds up my faith in those truths, and makes me treasure them more. I am reminded of how terrible it would be to not know those truths or have Jesus in my life, so it floods my heart with thankfulness. It regularly changes my mood.

-Speaking the gospel usually requires stepping out of my comfort zone, dying to self, and sacrificing my time, which is good for my heart. It helps me surrender to the Lordship of Christ in my life, and reminds me that my life isn’t all about me and my happiness.

-Speaking the gospel sometimes results in seeing God work in powerful ways, which is also uniquely spiritually encouraging!

Recommended book: The Things of Earth by Joe Rigney

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If spiritual health is having more of the Holy Spirit, then how can we position ourselves to experience more of Him? Two essentials are obeying God and loving / enjoying god. "If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love" John 15:10. In part 1, we discuss the importance of obedience. Loving Jesus and obeying His commands are inseparable, and result in experiencing more of Jesus!

Commandment-keeping does not usually communicate a loving relationship to us. It brings up images of begrudging obedience, or doing something other than what we want to do. But obedience is life-giving and leads to more of Jesus, which is the definition of spiritual health: more of Jesus!

John 15:1-17: We did an episode on Abiding already—5 elements from John 15 and 1 John 1. We’re going to zero in on one of those elements: commandment-keeping, or obedience, as a key to spiritual health. But the underlying truth that supports everything we’ll talk about with reference to commandment-keeping is Abiding in Him—our relationship with Him. That is the key to spiritual health. 

Look what Jesus describes in v. 11: These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. The fullness of Jesus’ joy in us. That was Jesus’ goal in speaking these things to us. In the verses just before Jesus has just spoken these things: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.” These are the things He has spoken so that their joy might be full.

First thing: our commandment-keeping is grounded in His love for us. This has to be clear from the first. Our commandment-keeping does not produce His love for us. It does not earn it. His love for us is prior—He shows His love for us in this, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. So righteousness through commandment-keeping is not a condition for Christ to love us. 1 John 4:10 says, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” God’s love for us is first and foundational. It provides the possibility that we could love Him back, because He made a way for us. He is the propitiation for our sins. This makes it possible to be loved by God and for us to love Him.

Second thing: Loving Him and keeping His commands is inseparable. John 14:15 says it plainly “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” That’s more than a command. It’s a promise.

John 14:21: “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

John 14:23-24a: “Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.”

Loving Jesus means keeping His Word. It is the sign that we love Him.

Third thing: Our commandment-keeping is a pathway to deeper abiding in Him. Jesus modeled the full life for us. He is the embodiment of Spiritual health, of goodness and fullness. And He kept His Father’s commandments and abided in His love. Those two are inseparable—fullness of joy in the Father’s presence and keeping His commandments.

Might help to dig in a bit to what Abiding in Christ is. I take it to be a rough equivalent to being Full of the Spirit. It’s to experience the fullness, or a greater measure of His presence. The fact that abiding in Him is not just our automatic state as Christians is shown by the fact that Abiding in Him is a command. It’s the only command in John 15:1-10. If it’s a command that must mean it’s not just an automatic state for a Christian. Just like “Be filled with the Spirit” is a command in Eph. 5:18. That means, I think, that the state described by abiding or filling with the Spirit is a greater measure of His presence in our hearts, a greater experience of His grace and goodness in us. Jesus lived in that state. And we can experience more of it by obeying His command to abide, first of all, and then by keeping His commandments.  

Fourth thing: Our commandment-keeping is empowered by the Spirit. 

John 14:15-16: If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever.”

The Spirit helps us keep His commandments. He is our Helper, who enables us to keep Jesus’ commands. 

Fifth thing: What are His commandments?

And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 1 John 3:23

And now I ask you, dear lady—not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning—that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it. 2 John 1:4-6

Our commands are Faith and Love. All commands are rooted in faith and love.

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How do we have healthy, joyful family lives in the midst of busy, stressful ministry lives? Jennifer D, a missionary (and wife and mom!) of over 17 years in East Asia, shares practical and biblical wisdom on this topic. Jenn and her husband Jarod D (who spoke on hard work in episode 53), are passionate, disciplined, wise coworkers with so much to share. Jenn boldly challenged fathers to be intentional in discipling their children, spouses to seek the good of the other, and how busy ministry lives do not have to be a "loss" to our children! Don't miss this one!

A couple Jenn quotes I loved:

"The Christian life is not about self-fulfillment."
"One day at a time, Sweet Jesus."

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Engaging in ministry is signing up for more "stressors" in our lives, but how we respond to those stressors is up to us! Listen in as Pastor Vance Pitman (founding pastor of Hope Church Las Vegas and current President of the SEND Network) shares why and how we must eliminate stress from our lives.

A few highlights from the interview:

Stress is incompatible with God's character. 
The root of all stress is fear. The opposite of fear is faith.
Feeling "stressed" is usually rooted in an identity issue or an intimacy issue.
Stress reveals a dependence on my own (limited) resources, instead of depending on God's (unlimited) resources.
How to manage our daily schedules and avoid the "tyranny of the urgent."
How stress and anger are related, and how to rid our lives of sinful anger.
Rest was God's idea, and is an issue of spiritual obedience.

Also check out Vance's newest book The Stressless Life.

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How can we make Christ preeminent in our lives in the midst of heartbreaking circumstances? Listen in as our dear friend and coworker Becca M shares how God has met her in powerful ways throughout her (just 30-year-old) husband Chris's battle with cancer and then going to heaven in late August of 2022. This episode will not depress you; it will fill you with hope and faith that God will ALWAYS be 100% faithful and enough for you - no matter what happens in your life! 

Becca shares honestly about how God taught her to give His Word more weight than doctors' words. She shares about making God's Word her bread and sustenance, learning to take God's promises literally, and wrestling with the Lord when His promises don't seem to be coming to fruition. 

Becca shares that we can ask big, seemingly impossible things from God- full of faith and hope- without worrying about the possibility of being crushed with disappointment, b/c God is big enough and loving enough to take care of our disappointment for us too. (This was one of the biggest lessons Becca taught me, that I really want to grow in!)

Becca encourages the listener- no matter how big or how small your current situation is - God WANTS to meet you in it. He loves you so, so much and always gives more of His Presence when we come to Him humbly. 

Yes, you will probably cry during this episode. But it is chock-full of Scriptural truth that will fortify your soul. 

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The Bible teaches that our bodies are created purposefully by God in His image, are gifts from Him, are wasting away and fail us, and that we are to glorify God with our bodies. How do we glorify God with our bodies, think rightly about our bodies and physical health, and not fall in either ditch of neglecting our bodies or obsessing over our bodies? So that, "in everything, Christ might be preeminent" (Col. 1:18). Listen in as Shanee interviews Brandy G, a health professional, counselor, and missionary of over 15 years. 

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Resources from Brandy:
 

www.fitnessforthefield.com

Membership for coworkers is FREE at Fitness for the Field!   For access to this free membership

• Email Brandy [email protected] and verify 2 things:

1.  You live overseas (outside your passport country)

2.  You are a like-minded coworker.  

We realize security may be an issue—only share enough to verify those 2 things. 

• Create a login and password on the site.  Access will be granted and you will receive an email confiirmation.

FREE Engage workouts and guide:  https://www.fitnessforthefield.com/workoutandengage

Also mentioned: 

www.revelationwellness.org

www.brandygainor.com

Reporting "big numbers" (of baptisms, churches, etc.) seems to result in controversy, and many Christians are hesitant to openly pursue the salvation of multitudes of people. We can get disappointed when we aren't seeing big numbers of people coming to Christ in our ministries, and wonder what we're doing wrong. Jesse shares from 2 Cor. 4:15 (and several other Scriptures) God's heart to have more and more worshippers, which should also be our heart, and how to shepherd our hearts when we aren't seeing abundant fruit in our ministries. 

When our loved ones are going through difficult seasons, God commands us to carry their burdens alongside them. Even Jesus wanted his closest friends with him in his darkest, most painful moments. It is an honor to enter into our loved ones' pain with them (through acts of service and empathy), but we are limited in how much we can carry. Ultimately, we must entrust them to God and remember He is their Heavenly Father and will truly be enough for them. 

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New missionaries on the field often experience anxiety over the legitimacy of their platform and what to say when people ask them what they do. Listen in as we discuss a couple key biblical texts, right thinking and heart posture on this topic, and provide practical tips for platforms.