Unraveled Podcast

Why do some kids who grew up in church walk away while others carry the faith into the next generation? Following Sunday's sermon on Genesis 9:1-7, we talk about what it takes to pass down a faith that's real, and what happens when a generation doesn't.

Pastor Daryl Evans tells the story of three boyhood friends who grew up in homes with little to do with God, and Gus Johnson wonders whether his own churched classmates would have made it onto the ark. We get into what to say to the parent who wants their kid to choose for themselves, the person who stays away because they were dragged to church as a kid, and why Daryl says your theology shows up in how you live more than in what you say you believe. Near the end we take a hard turn to Genesis 9:4 and Jesus' words in John 6 about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. Pull up a chair.

Noah steps off the ark onto empty, barren ground, and the first thing he does is build an altar and give God the best of what he has left. We sat with what that kind of surrender looks like for us, and with the uncomfortable fact that the flood washed the world clean on the outside while the human heart stayed the same.

Pastor Daryl Evans starts with his sermon illustration about water damage and hidden mold, and the conversation turns to sin we keep covered, accountability, and what to do when a temptation you thought was gone is still waiting for you. Gus Johnson and Dayton Kilgus join us, and the guys share honest stories about shame, long fights with temptation, and a John MacArthur line that has stuck with them for years. Then we get practical about giving first, giving when it stings a little, and offering our time and energy along with our money. Pull up a chair.

Genesis 8 opens with "God remembered Noah," and it's easy to read that like God had forgotten him. He hadn't. It's a covenant word, the moment God turns from judgment back toward mercy, and it comes after 150 days of Noah floating with no word from God and no dry ground in sight.

RJ sits down with Pastor Daryl Evans, Gus Johnson and Monte Schaffer to talk about the holy fear Noah's family must have felt, and how God can be good and terrifying at the same time. Most of the conversation goes to the waiting: why silence can feel like being forgotten, what it looks like to keep living while you wait, and why Noah didn't climb out the moment he saw dry ground. The guys also talk about making room for suffering in how we understand the gospel, and how a church family can carry people when their own strength gives out. Pull up a chair.

Genesis 7 puts Noah and his family on the boat a full week before the first drop of rain. Seven days with the door standing open and nothing in the sky to prove any of it. It's easy to read that as a scheduling detail, but the waiting is the mercy. One more week for Noah to plead with the neighbors and relatives he was about to lose.

RJ sits down with Pastor Daryl Evans, Dayton Kilgus and Monte Schaffer to work through Genesis 7:1-10. They ask what you'd actually do with seven days' notice, and how fast that urgency drains once ball games and bills start again. There's a long stretch on praying for people who never turn, and the pastor who prayed fifty years for friends he never saw come around. Daryl takes the phrase blot out in verse four and follows it to baptism, where the water is both judgment and rescue. Pull up a chair.

Genesis 6:9 sums up a man's whole life in three words. Righteous, blameless, walked with God. The verse before it is the one that matters most though, because Noah found favor first, before any of that got said about him. We're wired to think it runs the other way, that you earn the favor by getting the words right.

RJ sits down with Pastor Daryl Evans, Dayton Kilgus and Gus Johnson to work through Genesis 6:9-22. They run the three words exercise on themselves and on their wives, and it gets honest fast about words that haven't always been true of them. There's a long stretch on the ark being a box with no rudder, and what it means to float where God puts you. They also sit with Noah building for 120 years without a drop of rain, and the waiting seasons they've each been through. It lands on George Mueller praying for five friends for fifty years, and finding your own five. Pull up a chair.

Genesis 6 opens with one of the strangest passages in the Bible, sons of God, daughters of men, and giants in the land. It ends a few verses later with God grieving that he made people at all. Daryl preached it Sunday, and the honest answer he keeps landing on is that he doesn't know for certain, and that's alright.

RJ sits down with Pastor Daryl Evans, Dayton Kilgus and Gus Johnson to work through Genesis 6:1-8. They walk the three main views of the Nephilim, why Daryl leans toward a hybrid one, and where the Gerasene demoniac in Mark 5 fits the picture. There's a long stretch on verse 6 and what regret means when God is the one feeling it, plus a story about a family watching a child lose ground to addiction that makes it land. They also get honest about their own brushes with the demonic, and why the animals drowning still bothers them. Pull up a chair.

enesis 5 is a list of names and ages that ends the same way every time. And he died. And he died. Except once. Enoch walked with God, and God took him. Daryl preached it Sunday, and the question that came out of it is the one worth sitting with: what does walking with God actually look like on a Tuesday?

RJ, Pastor Daryl Evans, Dayton Kilgus and Gus Johnson work through the pogo stick problem, the Sunday to Sunday bounce that feels like momentum and never turns into a walk. They talk about busyness as the tool the enemy is using best right now, why faithfulness doesn't belong on a scorecard, and what Daniel, Abraham and Simeon have in common with the older saints sitting in our own rows. It lands where it should, on the guilt that keeps people from starting again and the smallest next step out of it. Pull up a chair.

Genesis 4 ends with two family lines, and most of us read right past them. One line builds cities and writes revenge songs. The other one starts calling on the name of the Lord. Daryl makes the case that Moses put those names there on purpose, and that the real question is which line your own house is living in.

RJ sits down with Pastor Daryl Evans, Dayton Kilgus, and Gus Johnson to work through Genesis 4:17-26. They get into Lamech bragging about seventy-sevenfold revenge and how Jesus turns that number around when Peter asks how often he has to forgive. There's a long stretch on resume virtues and eulogy virtues, what actually gets said about a man at his funeral, and how fast the years with your kids go. They also talk honestly about raising children in a culture that keeps sliding, and why who you surround yourself with might be the most practical thing in the episode. Pull up a chair.

Cain is easy to read as ancient history, somebody else's story. Daryl makes the case that the way of Cain runs through all of us, in the anger we carry, the person we resent, the defensiveness that shows up the second we get caught. The question he keeps coming back to is simpler and harder than whether we would ever hurt anyone. Where is your heart actually at?

RJ, Pastor Daryl Evans and Dayton Kilgus work back through Genesis 4 and Jude 11 from Sunday's sermon. They get into what it means to sit in church for decades without ever really knowing God, why compassion is a better test than behavior, and how fast we shift blame instead of owning our sin. Daryl talks about the losses in our church family this week and what they remind him about what actually matters. There's also a story about a woman here whose simple invitation is about to end in a baptism. Pull up a chair.

Genesis 4 usually gets remembered as the first murder, but this conversation keeps landing somewhere else, the heart behind what we bring to God. Monte Schaffer joins the table after preaching his first sermon on Cain and Abel, and we talk through why God received the two offerings so differently and what that says about our own priorities.

Monte walks through the difference between first and best and whatever happens to be left over, and how that shows up in a calendar and a bank statement long before it shows up on a Sunday. Pastor Daryl Evans is at the table too, and we get into Abel's faith still speaking generations later, sin crouching at the door, and the difference between white-knuckling your way out of sin and actually leaning on God. There's honest talk about seeing Cain in ourselves, and why God's mercy toward him is good news for the rest of us. Pull up a chair.