00:00:00What Steadfast Really Means
00:04:51Falling Off The Wagon Myth
00:08:34Community As A Force Multiplier
00:12:56Worship As A Steadfast Response
درباره این اپیزود
Steadfast can sound like a personality trait you either have or you don’t, but Paul uses it as a lived description of hope that keeps its seat when life tries to shove you off course.
In this episode, Melissa and Bishop Wright have a conversation about 1 Thessalonians 1:1–10 and what “steadfast” actually looks like in real Christian life: spiritually stable, determined, and resilient, without the fake shine of perfection. They challenge one of the most common stories people tell about their spiritual life: “I fell off the wagon.” Bishop Wright offers a different picture, where faith is more like music, made of notes and rests, sound and silence. Sometimes the moment you think you’re farthest from God is the moment you’re finally honest enough to be helped. That’s where grace shows up, not as a reward for getting it right, but as a steady presence that doesn’t quit. Listen in for the full conversation.
Read For Faith, the companion devotional.
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WEBVTT
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I think that's what Paul means.
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Steadfast is not that we have the gold medal today in faith.
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I think he's simply identifying that uh faith needs to look like this, can look like this, and is more than we can sort of get our arms around, and yet it is this durable sticky thing.
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It's an adhesive.
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And once God gets a hold of you, uh whether you let go or not, uh God nevertheless is affixed to you.
00:00:43.200 --> 00:00:50.399
I'm your host, Melissa Rau, and this is a conversation inspired by For Faith, a weekly devotion sent out every Friday.
00:00:50.399 --> 00:00:55.359
You can find a link to this week's For Faith and a link to subscribe in the episode's description.
00:00:55.359 --> 00:00:57.359
Hey, hey, Bishop.
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This week's devotion is based on First Thessalonians chapter one, verses one through ten.
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So the beginning of Thessalonians, you called it steadfast.
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Steadfast, steadfast.
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In his inaugural letter, Paul gives thanks to God for the faithfulness and love of a congregation.
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He calls their hope in the Lord Jesus Christ steadfast.
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Now, that is a compliment to be desired.
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Steadfast means to be seated securely, spiritually stable, determined, not rigid, but witnessing to reality, not given to being blown off course.
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Steadfast doesn't mean perfect, it means resolute and with an active endurance.
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It means we are persuaded to a level largely beyond words that godly hope is a reasonable response to a steadfast God, particularly in tough times.
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There is so much to be said about this devotion, this particular passage.
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Bishop, I'm curious why did you choose this line into First Thessalonians?
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Well, you know, again, as a as someone who writes and does this, I've been doing this heading into my 15th year, you know, I'm still curious about scripture.
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I'm still, you know, after all this experience, 28 years of being ordained, I'm still thinking about the men and the women who wrote these letters, who heard these letters, their lives, what it was like to live on the on the tip of the sword of empire, uh, what it was like to be fledgling believers in this new way to understand God.
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Like I've I'm I'm sort of getting down into the cracks and crevices of it because I I think they have something to say to us.
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And and you know, this is Paul's first letter.
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This is the oldest letter in the New Testament, right?
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And, you know, this is this is Paul's first draft, you might say, of being apostle.
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And he's encouraging them and he's praising them.
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He's also setting the standard with them.
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And so I love and want to learn how to encourage people who are in the midst of tough times.
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And so he calls their faith steadfast, right?
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What a wonderful modifier, right?
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Steadfast.
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And then what does it mean to be steadfast?
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And then, you know, he goes into uh what that might mean, and I offered, you know, some definition.
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But but I I like this idea of what faith is supposed to be: elastic, consistent, not about perfection in any way, and yet persistent, determined, seeking, expanding, unfolding, companioning us as we go through our ups and downs and all arounds, you know, steadfast, meaning that you know what the psalmist says, that that where can we go where God is not?
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And understanding that while I may go through seasons that feel alone and even I may feel abandoned, I'm I'm actually not, if God is who God says.
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And if I can pause in the midst of my anxiety, even legitimate anxiety, and remember the steadfast nature of God, then I can try to respond, tweak my response to who God is, and that would be a steadfast faith.
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Even if that just means for me today, one foot in front of the other for the next hour.
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You know, the song that comes to mind, Bishop, is Chumbawamba's, I get knocked down, but I get up again.
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You know that song?
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Yeah, I do is another thing.
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I do have well, it's not a problem.
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It's just a bit of a question around falling off the wagon and getting back on again.
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Yeah.
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I think people who fall off the wagon, and I'm not just talking about drinking or whatever.
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I feel like they feel like they're a failure.
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That they've like, you know, talking about not being perfect is one thing, but where is failure come into play with this?
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You know, I I don't, I don't know.
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You know, you talk about falling off the wagon.
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I'm not sure that there is a wagon here.
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I mean, if if I'm if I'm understanding this correctly, I I think there's life here.
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And I and I think that, you know, I think about God more like music, where it's made of notes and rests, sounds and silence.
00:05:55.519 --> 00:06:12.959
And, you know, in my own journey, some of the times I thought I was the furthest away, I end up actually the closest because I was, you know, the ego had burned away and all the pretense had burned away, and I was finally authentically available.
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And so is that falling off the wagon, you know, when I've stumbled the most, made bad decisions, or had a bad day, or even a bad deed, you know, to to in retrospect to realize that grace was still there, there was grace available to me.
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I mean, did I fall off the wagon, or or is that sort of the a precondition of actually getting to know God uh for who God actually is?
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And so I'm not trying to be cute here.
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I'm just trying to say, I I just understand that faith is so much more expansive than deeds or or or questions or queries.
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Uh I was just in Connecticut and was with a group of folks, and we were having a Bible study, and and one gentleman was telling me that that uh he was a recovering Catholic.
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And and yet he was at this Bible study, and and he said that he didn't he didn't believe anymore and those sorts of things.
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And yet he was at the Bible study.
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And and so what he was saying was the absence of something.
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By his very presence and questions, he was actually at the beginning of something.
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He was just working it all through.
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And so there's an element of steadfastness there, that that something has arrested him, something has captured him, which is more than denomination.
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It's uh and and so something was was budding there, and he just had to work it through.
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So, you know, I think that's what Paul means.
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Is steadfast is not that we have the gold medal today in faith.
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I don't think he's ready to award the gold medal.
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I think he's simply identifying that faith needs to look like this, can look like this, and is more than we can sort of get our arms around.
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And yet it is this durable, sticky thing.
00:08:01.360 --> 00:08:02.720
It's an adhesive.
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And and once God gets a hold of you, uh whether you let go or not, uh, God nevertheless is affixed to you.
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You know, I'm thinking about the importance of community here because I've realized steadfastness, you know, Paul's addressing a community, not an individual.
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And I feel like as individuals, we might fall, we might lose faith.
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But when we're surrounded by community, the aggregate sum is far larger than the individual.
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You have named, I think, something that is absolutely critical, which is the dynamic of community, right?
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Community is a force multiplier.
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And so if there's faith in the room and we're in community, everybody's making a contribution.
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Some have more today, some have less today.
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But the thing is swirling around in the singing, uh in the sacraments, sometimes even at the coffee hour, in the in the encouragement we can lend to one another.
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That's why I used to tell people when I was a senior pastor of a congregation, you ought to sing today if you got song in you, because the man or woman beside you might have had the song beat out of them this week.
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And who knows, down the road, they'll be able to return the favor.
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And so I think what you're naming is I think what was also first and foremost on Paul's mind.
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See, I think we've got to remember that we tend to want to read everything as individuals.
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And that's our great temptation.
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But Paul was writing to communities, communities first, right?
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And so let this be the ethos of the community.
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We as a community are going to stay as a part of this.
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I went to the W.E.B.
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Du Bois Center in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and a gentleman gave us a phenomenal tour of this great Americans church, childhood church, and and began to give us a sense of how he became this great thinker and great civil rights pioneer.
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And he said something that really struck me, that's Germaine here.
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And he said that we we tend to want to pluck these geniuses out of the communities that produced them and give the communities that produced them very little, if any, credit.
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And so he talked about this congregation that produced W.E.B.
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Du Bois, that that identified his genius early on, and that put their pennies together literally to send him off to Fisk University to begin his formal education.
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I think this is what you're saying.
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So there was a steadfastness, there was a resilience, there was a commitment to excellence in the community, which then produced this individual.
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And so the steadfastness was community property.
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There was a bank there that they lent steadfastness to this young fella, and he was able to live out 95 years and share that steadfastness with us.
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So I guess if there's a message, if if there's someone listening today who is not yet engaged with a larger community, what would your message be for them, Bishop?
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Oh, yeah.
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I mean, I think you can't do it alone, friend.
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You you just can't.
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It you can you can get down the road, you can start the road, you just can't do it all by yourself.
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We're made for each other.
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I need uh to benefit from you.
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Uh I pray to God you can benefit from me.
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I benefited from so many.
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That's the only reason I get to sound sit here and sound halfway smart, is because people have poured into me.
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I've been at critical intersections when I didn't have answers.
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I didn't even know the questions.
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And thank God that the community resourced me.
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And so I would say to anybody, you can't make it alone.
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You're not alone, right?
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And so let's just sort of fend that off and let's go somewhere.
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Let's find community.
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Let's sit down somewhere.
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Let's get to the singing, let's get to the community Bible study, let's do all of those things together.
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Because I think that's what'll help us to develop the resilience that we need to make it through life.
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And that will become the steadfastness that someday somebody will be able to borrow from us.
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My favorite quote, one of them, is you alone can become yourself, but you cannot become yourself alone.
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Wow.
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That's not great.
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Beautiful.
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Well, Bishop, I I any last words about steadfast overall?
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Is it about grit?
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Is it about community?
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I guess the last word would be I think of steadfast as a way to help me understand worship.
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Right?
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Because I I I want to hold up steadfastness for myself because I experience the steadfastness of God.
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That God is not slack according to God's promises, as the Bible would say, and that God wants a future and a hope for us.
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And so I have looked in my own life and I've seen the steadfastness of God's provision.
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A little boy born in an orphanage finds himself with education and discretionary income and hope and future and resources.
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God has been steadfast in my own life.
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And so I want to offer back to God my reasonable worship.
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And that would be having experienced a steadfast God, steadfastness in my own worship.
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So I think it's connected.
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I just want to respond and reflect back to God what I've experienced at God's hands.
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And I think that's um, I think that's the best way to approach this thing.
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We're only responding to God, whatever we have to offer, the best we have to offer.
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It's it's all a response.
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And so because God is steadfast, we attempt to offer our own steadfastness back to God.
00:14:21.279 --> 00:14:21.840
Indeed.
00:14:21.840 --> 00:14:23.279
Bishop, thank you.
00:14:23.279 --> 00:14:26.559
And thank you, listeners, for tuning into For People.
00:14:26.559 --> 00:14:35.279
You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at Bishop Rob Wright or by visiting www.forpeople.digital.
00:14:35.279 --> 00:14:39.759
Please subscribe, leave a review, and we'll be back with you next week.
00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:01.439
I think that's what Paul means.
00:00:01.439 --> 00:00:05.200
Steadfast is not that we have the gold medal today in faith.
00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:19.760
I think he's simply identifying that uh faith needs to look like this, can look like this, and is more than we can sort of get our arms around, and yet it is this durable sticky thing.
00:00:19.760 --> 00:00:20.800
It's an adhesive.
00:00:20.800 --> 00:00:27.600
And once God gets a hold of you, uh whether you let go or not, uh God nevertheless is affixed to you.
00:00:43.200 --> 00:00:50.399
I'm your host, Melissa Rau, and this is a conversation inspired by For Faith, a weekly devotion sent out every Friday.
00:00:50.399 --> 00:00:55.359
You can find a link to this week's For Faith and a link to subscribe in the episode's description.
00:00:55.359 --> 00:00:57.359
Hey, hey, Bishop.
00:00:57.359 --> 00:01:05.120
This week's devotion is based on First Thessalonians chapter one, verses one through ten.
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So the beginning of Thessalonians, you called it steadfast.
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Steadfast, steadfast.
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In his inaugural letter, Paul gives thanks to God for the faithfulness and love of a congregation.
00:01:20.799 --> 00:01:25.840
He calls their hope in the Lord Jesus Christ steadfast.
00:01:25.840 --> 00:01:29.359
Now, that is a compliment to be desired.
00:01:29.359 --> 00:01:44.640
Steadfast means to be seated securely, spiritually stable, determined, not rigid, but witnessing to reality, not given to being blown off course.
00:01:44.640 --> 00:01:52.239
Steadfast doesn't mean perfect, it means resolute and with an active endurance.
00:01:52.239 --> 00:02:08.479
It means we are persuaded to a level largely beyond words that godly hope is a reasonable response to a steadfast God, particularly in tough times.
00:02:10.319 --> 00:02:16.159
There is so much to be said about this devotion, this particular passage.
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Bishop, I'm curious why did you choose this line into First Thessalonians?
00:02:23.919 --> 00:02:34.000
Well, you know, again, as a as someone who writes and does this, I've been doing this heading into my 15th year, you know, I'm still curious about scripture.
00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:59.280
I'm still, you know, after all this experience, 28 years of being ordained, I'm still thinking about the men and the women who wrote these letters, who heard these letters, their lives, what it was like to live on the on the tip of the sword of empire, uh, what it was like to be fledgling believers in this new way to understand God.
00:02:59.280 --> 00:03:06.960
Like I've I'm I'm sort of getting down into the cracks and crevices of it because I I think they have something to say to us.
00:03:06.960 --> 00:03:09.759
And and you know, this is Paul's first letter.
00:03:09.759 --> 00:03:12.479
This is the oldest letter in the New Testament, right?
00:03:12.479 --> 00:03:18.639
And, you know, this is this is Paul's first draft, you might say, of being apostle.
00:03:18.639 --> 00:03:23.360
And he's encouraging them and he's praising them.
00:03:23.360 --> 00:03:25.919
He's also setting the standard with them.
00:03:25.919 --> 00:03:31.840
And so I love and want to learn how to encourage people who are in the midst of tough times.
00:03:31.840 --> 00:03:36.080
And so he calls their faith steadfast, right?
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What a wonderful modifier, right?
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Steadfast.
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And then what does it mean to be steadfast?
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And then, you know, he goes into uh what that might mean, and I offered, you know, some definition.
00:03:47.360 --> 00:04:22.560
But but I I like this idea of what faith is supposed to be: elastic, consistent, not about perfection in any way, and yet persistent, determined, seeking, expanding, unfolding, companioning us as we go through our ups and downs and all arounds, you know, steadfast, meaning that you know what the psalmist says, that that where can we go where God is not?
00:04:22.560 --> 00:04:34.399
And understanding that while I may go through seasons that feel alone and even I may feel abandoned, I'm I'm actually not, if God is who God says.
00:04:34.399 --> 00:04:51.199
And if I can pause in the midst of my anxiety, even legitimate anxiety, and remember the steadfast nature of God, then I can try to respond, tweak my response to who God is, and that would be a steadfast faith.
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Even if that just means for me today, one foot in front of the other for the next hour.
00:04:57.920 --> 00:05:04.079
You know, the song that comes to mind, Bishop, is Chumbawamba's, I get knocked down, but I get up again.
00:05:04.079 --> 00:05:04.800
You know that song?
00:05:04.959 --> 00:05:06.240
Yeah, I do is another thing.
00:05:06.800 --> 00:05:08.800
I do have well, it's not a problem.
00:05:08.800 --> 00:05:15.199
It's just a bit of a question around falling off the wagon and getting back on again.
00:05:15.360 --> 00:05:15.680
Yeah.
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I think people who fall off the wagon, and I'm not just talking about drinking or whatever.
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I feel like they feel like they're a failure.
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That they've like, you know, talking about not being perfect is one thing, but where is failure come into play with this?
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You know, I I don't, I don't know.
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You know, you talk about falling off the wagon.
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I'm not sure that there is a wagon here.
00:05:38.720 --> 00:05:43.519
I mean, if if I'm if I'm understanding this correctly, I I think there's life here.
00:05:43.519 --> 00:05:55.519
And I and I think that, you know, I think about God more like music, where it's made of notes and rests, sounds and silence.
00:05:55.519 --> 00:06:12.959
And, you know, in my own journey, some of the times I thought I was the furthest away, I end up actually the closest because I was, you know, the ego had burned away and all the pretense had burned away, and I was finally authentically available.
00:06:12.959 --> 00:06:29.279
And so is that falling off the wagon, you know, when I've stumbled the most, made bad decisions, or had a bad day, or even a bad deed, you know, to to in retrospect to realize that grace was still there, there was grace available to me.
00:06:29.279 --> 00:06:36.639
I mean, did I fall off the wagon, or or is that sort of the a precondition of actually getting to know God uh for who God actually is?
00:06:36.639 --> 00:06:38.720
And so I'm not trying to be cute here.
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I'm just trying to say, I I just understand that faith is so much more expansive than deeds or or or questions or queries.
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Uh I was just in Connecticut and was with a group of folks, and we were having a Bible study, and and one gentleman was telling me that that uh he was a recovering Catholic.
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And and yet he was at this Bible study, and and he said that he didn't he didn't believe anymore and those sorts of things.
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And yet he was at the Bible study.
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And and so what he was saying was the absence of something.
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By his very presence and questions, he was actually at the beginning of something.
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He was just working it all through.
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And so there's an element of steadfastness there, that that something has arrested him, something has captured him, which is more than denomination.
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It's uh and and so something was was budding there, and he just had to work it through.
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So, you know, I think that's what Paul means.
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Is steadfast is not that we have the gold medal today in faith.
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I don't think he's ready to award the gold medal.
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I think he's simply identifying that faith needs to look like this, can look like this, and is more than we can sort of get our arms around.
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And yet it is this durable, sticky thing.
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It's an adhesive.
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And and once God gets a hold of you, uh whether you let go or not, uh, God nevertheless is affixed to you.
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You know, I'm thinking about the importance of community here because I've realized steadfastness, you know, Paul's addressing a community, not an individual.
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And I feel like as individuals, we might fall, we might lose faith.
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But when we're surrounded by community, the aggregate sum is far larger than the individual.
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You have named, I think, something that is absolutely critical, which is the dynamic of community, right?
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Community is a force multiplier.
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And so if there's faith in the room and we're in community, everybody's making a contribution.
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Some have more today, some have less today.
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But the thing is swirling around in the singing, uh in the sacraments, sometimes even at the coffee hour, in the in the encouragement we can lend to one another.
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That's why I used to tell people when I was a senior pastor of a congregation, you ought to sing today if you got song in you, because the man or woman beside you might have had the song beat out of them this week.
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And who knows, down the road, they'll be able to return the favor.
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And so I think what you're naming is I think what was also first and foremost on Paul's mind.
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See, I think we've got to remember that we tend to want to read everything as individuals.
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And that's our great temptation.
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But Paul was writing to communities, communities first, right?
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And so let this be the ethos of the community.
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We as a community are going to stay as a part of this.
00:10:07.840 --> 00:10:09.279
I went to the W.E.B.
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Du Bois Center in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and a gentleman gave us a phenomenal tour of this great Americans church, childhood church, and and began to give us a sense of how he became this great thinker and great civil rights pioneer.
00:10:26.080 --> 00:10:29.679
And he said something that really struck me, that's Germaine here.
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And he said that we we tend to want to pluck these geniuses out of the communities that produced them and give the communities that produced them very little, if any, credit.
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And so he talked about this congregation that produced W.E.B.
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Du Bois, that that identified his genius early on, and that put their pennies together literally to send him off to Fisk University to begin his formal education.
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I think this is what you're saying.
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So there was a steadfastness, there was a resilience, there was a commitment to excellence in the community, which then produced this individual.
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And so the steadfastness was community property.
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There was a bank there that they lent steadfastness to this young fella, and he was able to live out 95 years and share that steadfastness with us.
00:11:22.399 --> 00:11:34.480
So I guess if there's a message, if if there's someone listening today who is not yet engaged with a larger community, what would your message be for them, Bishop?
00:11:34.799 --> 00:11:35.279
Oh, yeah.
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I mean, I think you can't do it alone, friend.
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You you just can't.
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It you can you can get down the road, you can start the road, you just can't do it all by yourself.
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We're made for each other.
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I need uh to benefit from you.
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Uh I pray to God you can benefit from me.
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I benefited from so many.
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That's the only reason I get to sound sit here and sound halfway smart, is because people have poured into me.
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I've been at critical intersections when I didn't have answers.
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I didn't even know the questions.
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And thank God that the community resourced me.
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And so I would say to anybody, you can't make it alone.
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You're not alone, right?
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And so let's just sort of fend that off and let's go somewhere.
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Let's find community.
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Let's sit down somewhere.
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Let's get to the singing, let's get to the community Bible study, let's do all of those things together.
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Because I think that's what'll help us to develop the resilience that we need to make it through life.
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And that will become the steadfastness that someday somebody will be able to borrow from us.
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My favorite quote, one of them, is you alone can become yourself, but you cannot become yourself alone.
00:12:44.240 --> 00:12:45.279
Wow.
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That's not great.
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Beautiful.
00:12:48.960 --> 00:12:53.200
Well, Bishop, I I any last words about steadfast overall?
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Is it about grit?
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Is it about community?
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I guess the last word would be I think of steadfast as a way to help me understand worship.
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Right?
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Because I I I want to hold up steadfastness for myself because I experience the steadfastness of God.
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That God is not slack according to God's promises, as the Bible would say, and that God wants a future and a hope for us.
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And so I have looked in my own life and I've seen the steadfastness of God's provision.
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A little boy born in an orphanage finds himself with education and discretionary income and hope and future and resources.
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God has been steadfast in my own life.
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And so I want to offer back to God my reasonable worship.
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And that would be having experienced a steadfast God, steadfastness in my own worship.
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So I think it's connected.
00:13:57.759 --> 00:14:02.879
I just want to respond and reflect back to God what I've experienced at God's hands.
00:14:02.879 --> 00:14:07.279
And I think that's um, I think that's the best way to approach this thing.
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We're only responding to God, whatever we have to offer, the best we have to offer.
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It's it's all a response.
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And so because God is steadfast, we attempt to offer our own steadfastness back to God.
00:14:21.279 --> 00:14:21.840
Indeed.
00:14:21.840 --> 00:14:23.279
Bishop, thank you.
00:14:23.279 --> 00:14:26.559
And thank you, listeners, for tuning into For People.
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You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at Bishop Rob Wright or by visiting www.forpeople.digital.
00:14:35.279 --> 00:14:39.759
Please subscribe, leave a review, and we'll be back with you next week.
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