00:01:25
Speaker 1: Hi, everyone. I'm David Chadwick, and this is 107.9 FM WBT, Charlotte's FM News Talk Radio. Thank you for being with me. Great to have you be a part of the show today. If you don't know, this is a Faith and Values program that's been airing now on WBT for over 26 years. Been a great run for me. Many thanks to Perry's Fine Jewelry, for without you, I could not do this show on a weekly basis. It's been my joy looking at things locally and globally and trying to filter them through a faith and values perspective. I have a very special friend today who's on the show with me. His name is Stu Epperson Jr., and I say Jr. only because his dad is so well-known, Stu Epperson Sr., who's gone on to be with the Lord. We'll talk about him in just a second. But Stu does radio stuff all over this region, just a great friend again for many, many years. He has a book he has just written called Thanks Living that we'll talk about today. But mostly, I just wanted to welcome to my show, Stu Epperson, Jr.
00:02:24
Speaker 2: Stu, great to have you today. It's great to be here, man. This is sacred ground. I tell you, what a blessing. I've been listening and just love your work. And you've been a great friend for years. And just thank you for having me.
00:02:35
Speaker 1: Well, I'm grateful to have you. And you're such a radio guy. You understand how all of this works. And you know how this station is just a behemoth of a voice here. in the southeast, and you are in Winston-Salem now, correct? That's right, yeah.
00:02:49
Speaker 2: But this station is legendary across the country and the world, and this has been a heritage radio station for years, and your program has.
00:02:56
Speaker 1: Had a great run on here, man. Thank you for doing it. They've not fired me yet. I mean, I keep waiting for it, but not happened yet. It's been a great joy, along with Ed Billick, my producer, and he's going to join us maybe today as well for some time. Just great, again, to have you here. Tell us about who you are. I mean, the Epperson family is so well-known with Salem Radio and such, and your dad. Let's talk about that beginning.
00:03:18
Speaker 2: Your dad and Uncle Ed started Salem Media about 60 years ago. And so I guess I'm kind of like a, either call me a son of a pioneer or call me a radio brat.
00:03:28
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know which one fits better.
00:03:30
Speaker 2: But so I hung around these radio studios, these towers, these mics, these booms, fooled around playing with, you know, the vinyl records, tossing them.
00:03:38
Speaker 1: Here and there. A vinyl record. Who imagines that? I'm telling you, man. So, yeah, I grew up in it, but just was really encouraged. You know, a little bit like you're doing, you know, David.
00:03:46
Speaker 2: You know, they just had a passion to put good news on the radio 24-7. And that really led me about 29 years ago to start the Truth Network, which is kind of just a spoken word Christian format. And so now we're up to about 40 signals or so. And then I host a syndicated show where I interview awesome people like you. And so you're kind of turning the tables on me today. Yeah, you got to learn what it's like, fella. Well, our passion is to encourage people. And that's always been my dad's passion, just to bring people hope. bringing people moments of hope.
00:04:21
Speaker 1: That's the deal. That's why my church is called Moments of Hope. I just believe if everybody in the world would daily look for ways to give other people moments of hope, the world would be a better place in which to live. That's right.
00:04:32
Speaker 2: Everyone's fighting some kind of battle. People listening right now are struggling. There's things going on.
00:04:35
Speaker 1: How are you doing? How are you really doing?
00:04:37
Speaker 2: And so we just want to flood the airwaves with good news and encouragement and hope that there is hope in Jesus Christ. There is a Savior who came to do for us what we couldn't do for ourselves, and to take us and to heal us and forgive us and give us that hope for eternity, not just for now.
00:04:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's called the blessed hope in Titus 2.13, and it's a good hope. And I don't know how I could live for one second without hope. You know, I can live for some period of time without air, without water, but I couldn't live for one second without hope, Stu, and that's why I do what I do, and I hope I do give people hope. That is the major passion of my life. Was it hard growing up under the tutelage of a great man of God who was well known all over the world.
00:05:19
Speaker 2: It was, it was, it was awesome, but yes, it was hard because you kind of like, right when you pop out of the womb, you're like expected to be in radio, you know, to, you know, the, from, from the womb to the mic, you know, you're expected to be a part of that. And I never, I never disliked radio, always supported and believed in everything they did, but it took a while for the, as part of my story to, to get me into radio. I was actually going a whole lot of other different directions, and the Lord used me and some other folks in a weird way to start an on-campus radio station at a little Christian school in California, which kind of got it in my blood, like confirmed it, like, hey, this is what you need to do, not just because of what your pops or your uncle or other folks are saying. And I just really, the power of sitting behind a mic, talking into this mic, and it going out and touching someone out there, who knows where, who knows what they're going through. And that right there just It just got in me, and I've been doing it ever since.
00:06:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is seed scattering, isn't it? I mean, you just don't know how your words might be planted in the heart of someone out there. And you're saying, Lord, I'm just responsible for sales. You're responsible for management. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Yeah, we're in distribution. We've got to get the good word out there.
00:06:34
Speaker 2: And the crazy thing is in the parable of the sowers in Matthew 13, the word for the sower went out to sow his seed. The word for sowing is actually where we get our word broadcasting.
00:06:47
Speaker 1: Is it really?
00:06:48
Speaker 2: So we are doing a very biblical thing, if you go right back to the original Good Book, of broadcasting, sowing a seed out there.
00:06:56
Speaker 1: So you nailed it in your comment there. Well, I've always told people that with evangelism, for example, and sharing your faith, sharing your story, that you're just responsible for sharing it. And God's responsible for using the seed in the hearts of other people to bring the harvest about. And I use a business term that is very helpful for people, and that's we're in sales, God's in management. Again, we're in sales, God's in management. We're not supposed to manage anything. We're supposed to be responsible for the sowing of the seed. Yes, sir.
00:07:26
Speaker 2: I love that verse in Romans 10, 17, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So if we can sow that, that's a very powerful thing. That's a supernatural thing. And it never returns void, and it really touches the heart and gets in there where no one else can get, only by God's mighty work.
00:07:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this station goes all over the Southeast, and people can hear this word today and other times when people share the good news of what Jesus has done for us. And I pray anybody out there today that you're going to hear in this program through Stu's book that he's just written, Thanks Living, about how to give thanks in all things. It is so powerful to think about the attitude of gratitude and what Thanksgiving can do to bless our lives and give us hope today. That's what we'll talk about when we come back with Stu Epperson. Ed Billick will join us as well. I'm David Chadwick. We'll be right back.
00:08:49
Speaker 3: Is there a chance I dare to conquer all my despair? Not trying to cope, but living with hope You're alive, the grave has no claim So tired of all of my fears Now is the time to draw near Stop all the strife and live in his light. You're alive, the grave has no claim.
00:09:27
Speaker 1: No more dread.
00:09:29
Speaker 3: He rose from the dead.
00:09:32
Speaker 4: You got up so I came too.
00:09:37
Speaker 1: I lift my eyes, time to rise.
00:09:41
Speaker 4: You got up so I came too.
00:09:46
Speaker 3: Yes, you got up so I can too.
00:09:50
Speaker 1: It's a song that I wrote myself after a very difficult time. The feeling that Jesus was raised from the dead. He got up so I can too. I pray all of you.
00:10:00
Speaker 3: Will live in that same kind of hope. Jesus got up. You can too.
00:10:16
Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm David Chadwick and this is 107.9 FM WBT Charlotte's FM News Talk Radio. My guest today, Stu Epperson Jr., who manages the Truth Network, which is a gospel-centered radio ministry that goes all over the Southeast and indeed the world. He is the son of the famous Stu Epperson Sr., who helped found Salem Radio, which is just mammoth in its broadcasting abilities today. And it's just such a great honor to have you on the show today. Stu Epperson, thanks again for being with us. Honored to be here. Thank you for having me.
00:10:46
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:10:47
Speaker 1: Well, I want to talk about your most recent book. It's entitled Thanks Living, and it's embracing the power of gratitude every day. It's based on one verse in the Bible. Let's talk about the book today because I want everybody to know the power of thanks living. Well, thank you.
00:11:04
Speaker 2: Yes, somewhere in America or in the world today, Someone's going to get a check for $ 50, 000 for giving a TED Talk, giving a 30-second message at a huge corporate Fortune 500 company. And somewhere in that message, I'm going to guarantee you what they're going to say. It's almost you could script it. They're going to say, you should have a gratitude journal. You should write down things you're thankful for every day. That will help your psyche. That will help your mental health. That will help you with anti-aging. You should go on a gratitude walk every morning and do that. This TED Talk speaker is going to say that. It's all over everywhere, and they're going to get a big check for it. And so this power, the gratitude is recognized even by secular psychologists and by these, you know, famous speakers and authors. It's really becoming big now. And so I just discovered from one little verse in the Bible, you know, they say you read the Bible, it's the only book.
00:11:53
Speaker 1: That'll read you, right? That's right. It really does. God knows your heart and he wants to speak to your heart. And that's what the Bible does.
00:12:00
Speaker 2: And this 518, 1 Thessalonians 518, it's probably about seven or eight years ago. that this verse started really sticking. And I started digging into one little verse. This book is based on one verse, on the power of gratitude and the source of gratitude and where it comes from. And so the Lord kind of gave me five A's of 518 and a little song too, which I will not sing because I don't want you to lose any of your listeners. I don't want to hurt your ratings. And so that's kind of how this book came out to really take All the way here in the culture, all the way here in the world, and this gratitude thing that's kind of become really in vogue and big, to take it back to the source, like, where's it come from? And what's the root? And this is kind of the whole point of this book, just to bring people to it.
00:12:48
Speaker 1: You know, Stu, I've always said that every person who teaches grammar teaches that if you have a verb, it needs a direct object. And if you have the verb, give thanks directly. It's got to have a direct object to make sense. So why give thanks unless we're giving thanks to someone who has given us something for which to be thankful? And I've always said the whole idea of thanksgiving demands the direct object of God's existence because everything we have comes from him, and we give thanks to him for all of those things. But let me read the verse today. It says in 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 13. Well, you go ahead and quote it. Tell us what it says exactly.
00:13:27
Speaker 2: Well, basically it says, in everything give thanks. For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
00:13:35
Speaker 1: Okay, let's unwrap it. Let's look at those action items that you have for the rest of the show and help people understand how to have gratitude and it be such an important part of their life in everything. Talk about that.
00:13:48
Speaker 2: Well, so that's the first A of the five A's of 518. In everything is the amount. So he kind of gives us this, and this gets difficult because there's a lot of people going through a lot of tough stuff. And they're sitting here thinking, how can we give thanks in everything? Not necessarily say for everything.
00:14:06
Speaker 1: That's a key point. Everybody listen to that. It's not give thanks for cancer, for difficult physical problems, for the loss of people that you love. It says give thanks in that situation. Again, talk about that.
00:14:20
Speaker 4: Well, yes.
00:14:20
Speaker 2: So you have Corrie Ten Boom in a Jewish concentration camp.
00:14:26
Speaker 1: They're going to be exterminated. These guards are rough.
00:14:29
Speaker 2: They're abusing all of these prisoners, and they're taking them to gas them. And she's sitting there with her sister, and they're doing their Bible study, and their Bible study happens to be in 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 18. And they get to this and everything, and they get stuck. They're like, we are in a living hell here. We're about to get gassed and killed and murdered in this concentration camp. And they look around, and they're like, the only thing we can see are these flies, these lice, and these fleas and bugs. And Corrie Ten Boom's sister says, let's give thanks in this messy lice flea infested situation.
00:15:05
Speaker 1: In the situation. Yes, sir.
00:15:07
Speaker 2: And so they started thanking God for the fleas and the bugs. Well, he made the fleas. Well, they got to be here for something. Well, they found out later, a few weeks went by, the guards never touched them.
00:15:18
Speaker 1: Nothing happened.
00:15:20
Speaker 2: And they found out later that The guards had been abusing and doing horrible things to all these prisoners, except they skipped over their cell. And the reason they did is they didn't want to get the lice. And so God used that to protect these little Jewish girls.
00:15:34
Speaker 1: In that moment.
00:15:35
Speaker 2: And, of course, they went in to write about that and to speak about that. So, you know, Romans 8.28 is a classic go-to because, you know, he's working all things, all things, everything, all things together for the good. So he's in control. So it's not the circumstances that are driving my heart, driving my response, driving what defines me.
00:15:57
Speaker 1: It's God, and he is a sovereign God in control of everything. So that Romans 8, 28 verse says that God's working all things together for good, but we need to remind ourselves this for those who are working his will in their lives and are called according to his purposes for people who really love the Lord. And that was Corrie Ten Boom and her sister. They really love the Lord. So in this awful circumstance, And so they're trusting God in it. Stu, this is a debate among theologians, but I personally don't believe that God causes cancer, that God causes all of these evil things to happen to the world. I believe there's a thief, there's a devil, there's an enemy who comes in John 10, 10 language from Jesus' own lips to kill, steal, and destroy. So he took God's once perfect creation, gave temptation. We fell for that temptation and invited that sin into the world. But Jesus said, I did come though, to give life, and to give it to you abundantly. So the author of evil is the evil one. We've allowed that to come into this world, but we're allowing God then to come into our lives as we're called according to his purpose and trust in that difficult circumstance that God is using that for good in a powerful way that we can't understand maybe immediately, but we trust God in all things. 100%.
00:17:09
Speaker 2: He's in control. Nothing occurs to God, and he's allowing this stuff to happen. And No one is saying, thank you for this sharp scapel that's going in to take this out. We're very thankful that the cancer is being removed. We're very thankful for what God's done. I mean, the people going through the worst stuff are the people that are the brightest witnesses for Christ.
00:17:28
Speaker 1: I don't understand it. Johnny Erickson taught other folks that have suffered intensely. She's a paraplegic for 40, 50 years now, and yet she still praises God amazingly, powerfully. What Chuck Colson once said when he was on cancer floor, having surgery himself for his cancer. He prayed, thank you, God, for the cancer, and he realized that his witness for the Lord amidst all of the other patients who were on that floor with cancer who did not believe and had hopelessness, Chuck Colson had hope, and he praised God for his witness there among all the others that his witness gave glory to God. And the nurses and the doctors were greatly impacted by his thanksgiving to God for how he was in the midst of that cancer.
00:18:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, and who ends up in prison? and says, thank you, God, that I'm in prison. Well, God used prison to bring Chuck Colson to Christ. God used prison to start the largest prison ministry. Prisoners are getting saved all over the world because of that man's witness. So I would say he's a 518 kind of guy.
00:18:25
Speaker 1: Exactly, yeah. And I think that's exactly what we're talking about here is, and I want to start here, that we give thanks in all things. Yes, even the bad circumstances, because we know God is in those circumstances and using them powerfully for good. And if we trust him and are called according to his purpose, we can see that good ultimately lived out. If not here, certainly in eternity, as I say to people all the time, the most often spoken word in heaven is going to be, oh. As God reveals to us how he was working in those circumstances for good, we're going to go, oh, oh, oh. And even praise God louder because sometimes our witness is even more powerful when things aren't going well. than when they are going well because people see the great faith that is within us. Stu Epperson's my guest. Let's continue thanksgiving on the other side of this break.
00:19:57
Speaker 3: There's a joy that overwhelms our souls because we know our God is in control of the flow. Let your favor pour out, Jesus. This is the day that the Lord has made.
00:20:15
Speaker 4: We will rejoice and be glad in it.
00:20:29
Speaker 1: This is the day that the Lord has made. Let's rejoice and give thanks and be glad in it. Hi, everyone. I'm David Chadwick, and this is 107.9 FM, WBT, Charlotte's FM News Talk Radio. My guest today, Stu Epperson, who is one of the real radio giants today, helps oversee the Truth Network, which is amazing news. Christian network that proclaims the gospel of Jesus all over the Southeast and the world. And by the way, if you'd like to hear this interview with Stu Epperson, go to wbt.com, scroll down to the weekend shows. You can hear it from beginning to end with just a few commercials. And that way you can make it a part of your day all week long. And also thank you to Perry's Fine Jewelry for your sponsorship of the show. Without you, I could not do this on a weekly basis. Stu, one thing we have in common, not only our love for the Lord, but we're both tall and we both love basketball. You played basketball. You're right around my height level. I didn't play for the Dean, but it's God's favorite sport. And we know that.
00:21:31
Speaker 2: Because he built the world is shaped like a basketball. The world is not shaped like a football or like a rugby ball, but it is a great sport.
00:21:40
Speaker 1: It is a great. And James Naismith, who founded basketball as a sport, had it as his purpose of bringing young men together in a YMCA environment to play a sport and use it for the proclamation of Jesus Christ to those young men who would come together and play. So maybe that's why we love the sport again together. Great to have you here today. Your book is entitled? Thanks Living, and the subtitle is Embracing the Power of Gratitude Every Day. We're looking at 1 Thessalonians 5.18, which is the source for the entire book. And we looked at the first segment, In Everything, Give Thanks. So we looked at the first part of that phrase in our previous segment, And everything means everything. In all things, we are to give thanks because there's just something powerful, again, Stu, in giving thanks. Yes, sir. And it's kind of broke it down. The KISS method, keep it simple, Stu. I've got that. I need to get that trademark.
00:22:33
Speaker 2: It's basically five A's of 518.
00:22:35
Speaker 1: What's the A, the first one? The first A is the amount. The amount in all things. In all things. Everything. No matter how bad it gets, you're sitting there thinking, well, you know, I'm sitting in a waiting room. This is very upsetting.
00:22:46
Speaker 2: Well, thank you, Lord, that I'm not in a hospital waiting room. I just heard some horrible news. There's always something to... Matthew Henry, this is a great... I'm going to probably booger this quote up, but he said.
00:23:00
Speaker 1: He's like a 400-year-old commentator on the Bible.
00:23:03
Speaker 2: Just kind of a legend, and a lot of folks read the Matthew Henry commentaries. He said he was robbed. Someone mugged him. And I don't know if he was on his way from preaching or whatever he was doing, but he said, he said, this was an opportunity for a cause for thanks. He said, first of all, thank you, Lord, that while they took my purse, they didn't take my life. He said, thank you, Lord, that while they took what I had with me, they didn't take everything. It wasn't that much. And he said, thank you, Lord, that it was I who was robbed and not I that robbed. So he found even in that difficult situation, no one wants to get mugged. He found you know, cause for gratitude. And of course, the point of the five A's, you know, the 518 is it all points back to, you know, like the great hymn, praise God from whom all blessings flow.
00:23:57
Speaker 1: It points back, this is the source of gratitude.
00:23:59
Speaker 2: And the secular world even recognizes gratitude and the power of it medically, physiologically, psychologically. And this is what these speakers are using gratitude that don't even have a foundation in the Lord or in the word of God, but they're seeing, and this is like a superpower. And so I thought, hey, let's write a book that'll point people to where, you know, to the nest, you know, right, to where this all comes from. And so that's kind of what, you know, so that's why those five A's cover the whole spectrum of the verse.
00:24:29
Speaker 1: Okay, the first one is all. It's all-encompassing. Gratitude is. What's the second A?
00:24:34
Speaker 2: You have the amount, and then you have the action. And you kind of touched on this in our other segment, you know, give thanks. So this is an action. So you've got to make a decision to give thanks. So this morning when I woke up, earlier than I should have, and I started thinking about some kind of crazy stuff, I realized, wait, I'm going to be looking at David Chadwick on his radio show in the studio, and I said, I've got to make a choice right now. I'm going to intentionally give God thanks. Thank you, God, for saving a sinner like me. I could be on my way to hell right now, and you saved me.
00:25:06
Speaker 1: Wow.
00:25:07
Speaker 2: So I started actively giving thanks, you know, and God started. We give thanks because God gave us. For God so loved the world, He gave. So he is a giving God. Can we add to that? Can we die for the sins of the world? We can't even die for our own sins. We need a Savior.
00:25:23
Speaker 1: A free gift. Yes, sir.
00:25:24
Speaker 2: And so all we can do is respond and give thanks.
00:25:29
Speaker 1: So that's the action. That's the action. So we take action every day to give thanks. That's the gratitude journal that some people do. They actually write down things they're thankful for. And when you really think about it, the air I breathe, the clothes I wear, The car I drive, the city I get to live in, my family that I have. When you start thinking about all the gifts that you have from God, that list can get longer and longer and longer and longer and give you an attitude of gratitude every day.
00:25:56
Speaker 2: It keeps going on. And then, you know, you end up like, where's all this going? Well, that's the third one, the aim. So Paul says in everything, you know, the amount, give thanks, the action, but the aim, this is God's will. I don't know anyone that doesn't want God's will.
00:26:11
Speaker 1: Everybody wants it. You walk in a class and say, who wants to be out of.
00:26:14
Speaker 2: God's will for the rest of your life? No hand's going to go up, right? Everyone wants to be in God's will. So, Paul, when you say, well, what's God's will? Let me look at the clouds. Let me see if he'll give me a sign or a song will come on the radio that I can remind me of. Well, how about when God says in his word, this is my will, we should listen up.
00:26:35
Speaker 1: So in the moment, we give thanks because if we weren't supposed to be where we are, God would have us someplace else. And that's what we give thanks for. That's his will. Yeah, the safest place in the world to be is in the center of God's will. Well, I have people asking me all the time things like, well, I'm looking at a job in Cincinnati, Ohio, and I'm not sure whether I should take that job or not. I'm struggling with it. And I go, look, if God wants you in Cincinnati, Ohio, he'll open up every door to get you there. But what you should do is right now live in thanksgiving for where you are because God wants you in Winston-Salem where you live or Charlotte, North Carolina. And trust God that this is God's will for you today, right now. And he'll open up the door for ever he wants you to be tomorrow or the next day.
00:27:20
Speaker 2: Well, the will of God is revealed in the word of God. And I had a mic drop moment.
00:27:26
Speaker 4: Dr.
00:27:26
Speaker 2: Tony Evans spoke in chapel when I was at the Master's University in California. This was in probably 1989. Now I'm telling everyone how old I am. And he got up in chapel in front of all these Christian kids, you know, Christian college. We're studying the Word of God. It's a liberal arts school, so we're studying all this stuff, but it's with a Christian emphasis. It's a chapel message. And he says, stop looking for God's will. And it got quiet. You could have heard a pin drop in there. Like, wait a second, this is a leading pastor, author, speaking to this huge amount of students, thousands of students. He says, quit looking for God's will. And then what he said next was powerful. And the chapter goes deeper into this on the will of God and the aim of gratitude and thanksgiving.
00:28:07
Speaker 1: He said, look for God. Seek after God.
00:28:10
Speaker 2: With all your heart, and his will will find you. So he said, quit looking for God's will. Is it this girl I'm going to date and marry? Is it this job I'm going to do?
00:28:19
Speaker 1: Is this career? What's my major? Blah, blah, blah, all that stuff.
00:28:21
Speaker 2: And a college kid, we got all these, oh, a whole potpourri of decisions we have to make, and there's a lot of pressure.
00:28:27
Speaker 1: He says, quit it. He said, look for God. Seek God. Open his word.
00:28:31
Speaker 2: Seek God to know him in relationships. and his will will find you. Psalms 37.4, delight yourself in the Lord. He'll give you the desires of your heart.
00:28:40
Speaker 1: Now, the key is to delight yourself in the Lord, but then the desires of your heart will be met by him. And then as you look back, Stu, over your life and you're old enough, like I am myself, to see all the doors that God just opened right at the right time when they were least expected, God doing what he said he would do, and that's take care of you in every possible way. Yes, sir. I look back and think I wanted to marry a girl, and I had several that I thought, and they didn't work out. But then I look back at how amazingly, on a blind date, I met my wife out of the blue, and now 48 years later, she's the love of my life. But God opened that door. I couldn't have done that. He surprised me with her. And I think that's the whole idea of being surprised by joy, which is the book of C.S. Lewis and why he wrote it the way he did. Amen. Yes, sir. So that's the aim, and then you have the access. Nothing. That's the fourth thing. In everything, give thanks. This is God's will, the aim, through Christ Jesus. He's the access.
00:29:33
Speaker 2: He made a way when there was no other way. He made a way when we were running the other way. And so he came, and he makes all the way.
00:29:40
Speaker 1: Possible.
00:29:41
Speaker 2: Without what he did on that tree of death, we couldn't eat from the tree of life. So Jesus Christ is the access. And then the final A is application, you know, concerning you. So you have all these five A's of 518, and we're the beneficiaries of this great gift.
00:29:55
Speaker 1: We're the you out there. That you is plural. Anybody listening right now, anybody who trusts in the Lord for their eternal life, this is for them. Live in thanksgiving every single day. Stu, that's what you're trying to say. We're trying to say that breath you just took, that heart that just beat it a couple times here as we were talking, that is from God. Give him thanks. Jesus Christ made it possible, and it all points to him, all of grace. Well, what I want to do when we come back in our final segment is let's do some practical application. Okay, how do you live in this wonderful thanks living? And you purposely called your book Thanks Living, not Thanksgiving, because you want to live every day in the power of thanksgiving. Let's give some practical suggestions to all of those who are out there listening right now how I can make thanksgiving a thanks living in my life. And folks, I'm just going to tease and tell you that if you can make thanks living an important part of your life, you'll never be the same. It opens the door to the power of God to guide you every single step of your life. I'm David Chadwick, along with Stu Epperson. We will be right back.
00:32:54
Speaker 4: There's peace that outlasts darkness Hope that's in the blood There's future grace that's mild today That Jesus Christ has won So I can face tomorrow For tomorrow's in your hands.
00:33:23
Speaker 3: All I need you will provide.
00:33:27
Speaker 4: Just like you always have.
00:33:33
Speaker 1: I'm fighting the battle.
00:33:38
Speaker 4: You've already won. No matter what comes my way.
00:34:07
Speaker 1: So when we let the Lord fight our battles for us, knowing He's gone before us to fight them, we can rest, we can relax, and celebrate the victory. Hi, everyone. I'm David Chadwick, and this is 107.9 FM, Charlotte's News Talk Radio, WBT. Stu Epperson, Jr. is with me. He is the overseer of the Truth Network, which is a broad-based Christian radio network that speaks God's truth all over the Southeast and beyond. I've been a dear friend for a number of years, and it's great to have you on the show, Stu, because you've just written this book called Thanks Living from 1 Thessalonians 5.18. Would you go through the five steps of 1 Thessalonians 5.18 again? then let's give it some practical application. Yes, sir.
00:34:49
Speaker 2: The five A's of 518. First, you have the amount in everything.
00:34:53
Speaker 1: You have the action. Give thanks.
00:34:55
Speaker 2: You have the aim. This is God's will. You have the access through Christ Jesus and the application concerning you.
00:35:02
Speaker 1: Gratitude. You mentioned earlier how people do TED Talks for like 17 minutes and get paid $ 500, 000 or whatever for that brief talk, and so many of them. are the same message about the power of giving thanks. Even the secular world knows about the power of giving thanks. It's throughout the Scripture. Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. His mercies endure forever. And you have written this wonderful little book. How can people get it real quickly if they're interested?
00:35:27
Speaker 2: Well, we have a little Vanity's website that's mythanksliving.com. You can get it from Amazon. You can get it at Moody Press. Moody's the publisher. And if someone wants to buy a whole bunch of them, as you can see, it's not a real thick book.
00:35:40
Speaker 1: It's just a short one, but so powerful.
00:35:42
Speaker 2: Well, I spend a little more time in the gym on the basketball court than I did in the classroom.
00:35:48
Speaker 1: Don't tell my teachers or anyone. I won't do it, Stu.
00:35:51
Speaker 2: But I really felt like I just wanted to put something kind of simple for folks to get a hold of.
00:35:56
Speaker 1: And this verse just kind of rocked my world. This is a seven-year journey.
00:36:02
Speaker 2: Like about seven, eight years ago, I was coming up with something, a verse for a men's group that I lead, and the Lord just put 518 in my heart.
00:36:10
Speaker 1: And I thought, one verse?
00:36:11
Speaker 2: You can't do a whole sermon, a message on one verse. Well, through God's grace, there's a whole book now about one verse of the Bible. It shows how rich it is, how we need more pastors like you who are teaching through the Word of God, because the Word of God is the power. It's quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword.
00:36:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going through the Gospel of Luke right now at Momus Hope Church that I pastor, and people are really enjoying it. It's been Six months, we've gotten through seven chapters. There you go. That's how God gave us his word to teach.
00:36:36
Speaker 2: When you're going through Luke, you don't have to come up with some big whiz-bang smoke show just to entertain people and bring in all this other stuff. You just let God's word do the work. And it doesn't mean you're not winsome. It doesn't mean you're not creative and all that. There's all kinds of little fun analogies and stories from my life and from all kinds of other things that have.
00:36:58
Speaker 1: A pastor friend of mine... He called me. He says, you're not going to believe this.
00:37:02
Speaker 2: He said, I've been riding my bike for years. I had this bike accident. He says, I've been doing this forever.
00:37:08
Speaker 1: I feel like a dunce. I feel terrible. How clumsy can I be? And he gets home.
00:37:14
Speaker 2: He's not feeling totally well after this little bike mishap. And so he calls the doctor.
00:37:18
Speaker 1: He says, come in. You might have internal bleeding. Comes in. They found a massive tumor in his stomach that they would not have found. The man would have been dead two months later. So the bike accident caused the doctors to find a life-threatening tumor that they were able to excise and give him many more years on this earth.
00:37:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, and as I'm saying this, I know people are hearing this and they're thinking, wow, that kind of happened to me or my aunt. There's stories, and these are testimonies that show not just about my story, it's about his story and how that can point people to the Lord and what he's doing and how there's no chance encounter with God. God is not the God of chance. He's the God of second chances. And so that's the whole kind of the thrust is, hey, let's take this to where it gets real, because heaven and hell is at stake here.
00:38:09
Speaker 1: So let's talk about practical application of thanksgiving. How can people practically apply these principles that you talk about in your book? Wow, that's a great question.
00:38:18
Speaker 2: This is such an important question, David, because the tendency of, in fact, as the publishers book me all these interviews and several initial responses, well, we want to have you on in November.
00:38:32
Speaker 1: You know, we just want to have you on. Because Thanksgiving is one time a year affair. There you go.
00:38:36
Speaker 2: And so one of my favorite parts of writing was the introduction of the book. Because the whole kind of sense, when people think about gratitude, they think, okay, well, we've got to wait until November.
00:38:46
Speaker 1: It's going to involve a lot of food, a lot of football, and a lot of family.
00:38:50
Speaker 2: Right?
00:38:50
Speaker 1: The three F's. Right? And fellowship. You can come up with a bunch of other ones. Right?
00:38:54
Speaker 2: And then once that food coma lifts... and we're off to Black Friday, it's all about Santa Claus. It's all about the next season. And we've forgotten about. And I thought, wait a second. This is not a seasonal thing. This is a lifestyle. And the guy who wrote this is one of the greatest applications. I do a whole section in the last chapter on practical application.
00:39:17
Speaker 1: Paul lived this.
00:39:18
Speaker 2: I mean, he's writing half of the New Testament from a jail cell. He's got these wounds.
00:39:24
Speaker 1: He's been beaten.
00:39:24
Speaker 2: He can probably hardly lay down with his back and all that. Who knows what's going around?
00:39:29
Speaker 1: Moldy bread.
00:39:30
Speaker 2: He's on his way to be killed, and he's writing about giving thanks. He's writing about effusive praise to God for all that God is doing, and he's writing these things. 2 Corinthians 11 chronicles The stuff he went through, the beatings and the shipwrecks and just floating around, holding on to cargo.
00:39:47
Speaker 1: Lord, I'm here serving you.
00:39:48
Speaker 2: I'm here sharing the gospel, and I'm getting bit by vipers around a fire. I mean, what in the world's going on?
00:39:54
Speaker 1: And yet at the end of that, he says, God's grace is sufficient. Yes, sir.
00:39:57
Speaker 4: Yes, sir.
00:39:57
Speaker 1: And he learned that God's grace was enough for his life. Yes, sir. Unbelievable.
00:40:02
Speaker 2: Well, when I wrote this Christmas book, and I came up with this quote, I said, to the consumer, Christmas Day is the end. But to the believer, it's only the beginning. And the same thing is true of thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is meant to become thanks living. And that starts with connecting with Jesus Christ. That starts with finding him and pursuing him. And at his feet, you'll find you'll be flooded with things to be thankful for. Maybe start your day with thank you. Write a thank you note to somebody, a handwritten thank you note. Text someone who led you to the Lord. Thank you for leading me to the Lord. Thank you for teaching me in second grade. Thank you for giving me this job. Thank you for just being my friend.
00:40:46
Speaker 1: How about it? Anything and everything. And literally, we have so many ways to communicate today with email and text and voicemails, everything. Just let other people know how thankful you are for them in your life. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So grumbling is the language of hell. Gratitude is the language of heaven. Yeah. And we are rehearsing for heaven right now. If you complain, you'll remain in the problem. But if you give praise, God will raise you up.
00:41:09
Speaker 3: Wow.
00:41:09
Speaker 1: So don't complain. Don't murmur. I've got to write that down. I'll give you that one, Stu.
00:41:13
Speaker 4: Yes, sir.
00:41:13
Speaker 1: I love it. You've got 30 seconds. What do you want to leave us with today?
00:41:17
Speaker 2: Well, I want to tell you that the only king who came to die for his own subject's is King Jesus.
00:41:23
Speaker 1: And he came and he made a way.
00:41:25
Speaker 2: Go to him and live a life of thanksgiving because he's the source of all that.
00:41:30
Speaker 1: From him it all flows.
00:41:32
Speaker 2: And this is the whole point of this book, to embrace the power of gratitude every day and let it be infectious and be about that. And watch what happens around you when that takes place as you're walking in the power of the gospel.
00:41:43
Speaker 1: And I'll do this. Thank you, Stu Epperson, for years of friendship, for being on the show today, and for helping us be stimulated to give thanks. in everything to our God, for this is God's will for you to learn thanksgiving. Stu Epperson, thank you. Ed Billick, thank you for being the producer as well. Thank you listeners for today. Talk with you all next week.
Speaker 1: Hi, everyone. I'm David Chadwick, and this is 107.9 FM WBT, Charlotte's FM News Talk Radio. Thank you for being with me. Great to have you be a part of the show today. If you don't know, this is a Faith and Values program that's been airing now on WBT for over 26 years. Been a great run for me. Many thanks to Perry's Fine Jewelry, for without you, I could not do this show on a weekly basis. It's been my joy looking at things locally and globally and trying to filter them through a faith and values perspective. I have a very special friend today who's on the show with me. His name is Stu Epperson Jr., and I say Jr. only because his dad is so well-known, Stu Epperson Sr., who's gone on to be with the Lord. We'll talk about him in just a second. But Stu does radio stuff all over this region, just a great friend again for many, many years. He has a book he has just written called Thanks Living that we'll talk about today. But mostly, I just wanted to welcome to my show, Stu Epperson, Jr.
00:02:24
Speaker 2: Stu, great to have you today. It's great to be here, man. This is sacred ground. I tell you, what a blessing. I've been listening and just love your work. And you've been a great friend for years. And just thank you for having me.
00:02:35
Speaker 1: Well, I'm grateful to have you. And you're such a radio guy. You understand how all of this works. And you know how this station is just a behemoth of a voice here. in the southeast, and you are in Winston-Salem now, correct? That's right, yeah.
00:02:49
Speaker 2: But this station is legendary across the country and the world, and this has been a heritage radio station for years, and your program has.
00:02:56
Speaker 1: Had a great run on here, man. Thank you for doing it. They've not fired me yet. I mean, I keep waiting for it, but not happened yet. It's been a great joy, along with Ed Billick, my producer, and he's going to join us maybe today as well for some time. Just great, again, to have you here. Tell us about who you are. I mean, the Epperson family is so well-known with Salem Radio and such, and your dad. Let's talk about that beginning.
00:03:18
Speaker 2: Your dad and Uncle Ed started Salem Media about 60 years ago. And so I guess I'm kind of like a, either call me a son of a pioneer or call me a radio brat.
00:03:28
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know which one fits better.
00:03:30
Speaker 2: But so I hung around these radio studios, these towers, these mics, these booms, fooled around playing with, you know, the vinyl records, tossing them.
00:03:38
Speaker 1: Here and there. A vinyl record. Who imagines that? I'm telling you, man. So, yeah, I grew up in it, but just was really encouraged. You know, a little bit like you're doing, you know, David.
00:03:46
Speaker 2: You know, they just had a passion to put good news on the radio 24-7. And that really led me about 29 years ago to start the Truth Network, which is kind of just a spoken word Christian format. And so now we're up to about 40 signals or so. And then I host a syndicated show where I interview awesome people like you. And so you're kind of turning the tables on me today. Yeah, you got to learn what it's like, fella. Well, our passion is to encourage people. And that's always been my dad's passion, just to bring people hope. bringing people moments of hope.
00:04:21
Speaker 1: That's the deal. That's why my church is called Moments of Hope. I just believe if everybody in the world would daily look for ways to give other people moments of hope, the world would be a better place in which to live. That's right.
00:04:32
Speaker 2: Everyone's fighting some kind of battle. People listening right now are struggling. There's things going on.
00:04:35
Speaker 1: How are you doing? How are you really doing?
00:04:37
Speaker 2: And so we just want to flood the airwaves with good news and encouragement and hope that there is hope in Jesus Christ. There is a Savior who came to do for us what we couldn't do for ourselves, and to take us and to heal us and forgive us and give us that hope for eternity, not just for now.
00:04:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's called the blessed hope in Titus 2.13, and it's a good hope. And I don't know how I could live for one second without hope. You know, I can live for some period of time without air, without water, but I couldn't live for one second without hope, Stu, and that's why I do what I do, and I hope I do give people hope. That is the major passion of my life. Was it hard growing up under the tutelage of a great man of God who was well known all over the world.
00:05:19
Speaker 2: It was, it was, it was awesome, but yes, it was hard because you kind of like, right when you pop out of the womb, you're like expected to be in radio, you know, to, you know, the, from, from the womb to the mic, you know, you're expected to be a part of that. And I never, I never disliked radio, always supported and believed in everything they did, but it took a while for the, as part of my story to, to get me into radio. I was actually going a whole lot of other different directions, and the Lord used me and some other folks in a weird way to start an on-campus radio station at a little Christian school in California, which kind of got it in my blood, like confirmed it, like, hey, this is what you need to do, not just because of what your pops or your uncle or other folks are saying. And I just really, the power of sitting behind a mic, talking into this mic, and it going out and touching someone out there, who knows where, who knows what they're going through. And that right there just It just got in me, and I've been doing it ever since.
00:06:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is seed scattering, isn't it? I mean, you just don't know how your words might be planted in the heart of someone out there. And you're saying, Lord, I'm just responsible for sales. You're responsible for management. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Yeah, we're in distribution. We've got to get the good word out there.
00:06:34
Speaker 2: And the crazy thing is in the parable of the sowers in Matthew 13, the word for the sower went out to sow his seed. The word for sowing is actually where we get our word broadcasting.
00:06:47
Speaker 1: Is it really?
00:06:48
Speaker 2: So we are doing a very biblical thing, if you go right back to the original Good Book, of broadcasting, sowing a seed out there.
00:06:56
Speaker 1: So you nailed it in your comment there. Well, I've always told people that with evangelism, for example, and sharing your faith, sharing your story, that you're just responsible for sharing it. And God's responsible for using the seed in the hearts of other people to bring the harvest about. And I use a business term that is very helpful for people, and that's we're in sales, God's in management. Again, we're in sales, God's in management. We're not supposed to manage anything. We're supposed to be responsible for the sowing of the seed. Yes, sir.
00:07:26
Speaker 2: I love that verse in Romans 10, 17, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So if we can sow that, that's a very powerful thing. That's a supernatural thing. And it never returns void, and it really touches the heart and gets in there where no one else can get, only by God's mighty work.
00:07:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this station goes all over the Southeast, and people can hear this word today and other times when people share the good news of what Jesus has done for us. And I pray anybody out there today that you're going to hear in this program through Stu's book that he's just written, Thanks Living, about how to give thanks in all things. It is so powerful to think about the attitude of gratitude and what Thanksgiving can do to bless our lives and give us hope today. That's what we'll talk about when we come back with Stu Epperson. Ed Billick will join us as well. I'm David Chadwick. We'll be right back.
00:08:49
Speaker 3: Is there a chance I dare to conquer all my despair? Not trying to cope, but living with hope You're alive, the grave has no claim So tired of all of my fears Now is the time to draw near Stop all the strife and live in his light. You're alive, the grave has no claim.
00:09:27
Speaker 1: No more dread.
00:09:29
Speaker 3: He rose from the dead.
00:09:32
Speaker 4: You got up so I came too.
00:09:37
Speaker 1: I lift my eyes, time to rise.
00:09:41
Speaker 4: You got up so I came too.
00:09:46
Speaker 3: Yes, you got up so I can too.
00:09:50
Speaker 1: It's a song that I wrote myself after a very difficult time. The feeling that Jesus was raised from the dead. He got up so I can too. I pray all of you.
00:10:00
Speaker 3: Will live in that same kind of hope. Jesus got up. You can too.
00:10:16
Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm David Chadwick and this is 107.9 FM WBT Charlotte's FM News Talk Radio. My guest today, Stu Epperson Jr., who manages the Truth Network, which is a gospel-centered radio ministry that goes all over the Southeast and indeed the world. He is the son of the famous Stu Epperson Sr., who helped found Salem Radio, which is just mammoth in its broadcasting abilities today. And it's just such a great honor to have you on the show today. Stu Epperson, thanks again for being with us. Honored to be here. Thank you for having me.
00:10:46
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:10:47
Speaker 1: Well, I want to talk about your most recent book. It's entitled Thanks Living, and it's embracing the power of gratitude every day. It's based on one verse in the Bible. Let's talk about the book today because I want everybody to know the power of thanks living. Well, thank you.
00:11:04
Speaker 2: Yes, somewhere in America or in the world today, Someone's going to get a check for $ 50, 000 for giving a TED Talk, giving a 30-second message at a huge corporate Fortune 500 company. And somewhere in that message, I'm going to guarantee you what they're going to say. It's almost you could script it. They're going to say, you should have a gratitude journal. You should write down things you're thankful for every day. That will help your psyche. That will help your mental health. That will help you with anti-aging. You should go on a gratitude walk every morning and do that. This TED Talk speaker is going to say that. It's all over everywhere, and they're going to get a big check for it. And so this power, the gratitude is recognized even by secular psychologists and by these, you know, famous speakers and authors. It's really becoming big now. And so I just discovered from one little verse in the Bible, you know, they say you read the Bible, it's the only book.
00:11:53
Speaker 1: That'll read you, right? That's right. It really does. God knows your heart and he wants to speak to your heart. And that's what the Bible does.
00:12:00
Speaker 2: And this 518, 1 Thessalonians 518, it's probably about seven or eight years ago. that this verse started really sticking. And I started digging into one little verse. This book is based on one verse, on the power of gratitude and the source of gratitude and where it comes from. And so the Lord kind of gave me five A's of 518 and a little song too, which I will not sing because I don't want you to lose any of your listeners. I don't want to hurt your ratings. And so that's kind of how this book came out to really take All the way here in the culture, all the way here in the world, and this gratitude thing that's kind of become really in vogue and big, to take it back to the source, like, where's it come from? And what's the root? And this is kind of the whole point of this book, just to bring people to it.
00:12:48
Speaker 1: You know, Stu, I've always said that every person who teaches grammar teaches that if you have a verb, it needs a direct object. And if you have the verb, give thanks directly. It's got to have a direct object to make sense. So why give thanks unless we're giving thanks to someone who has given us something for which to be thankful? And I've always said the whole idea of thanksgiving demands the direct object of God's existence because everything we have comes from him, and we give thanks to him for all of those things. But let me read the verse today. It says in 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 13. Well, you go ahead and quote it. Tell us what it says exactly.
00:13:27
Speaker 2: Well, basically it says, in everything give thanks. For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
00:13:35
Speaker 1: Okay, let's unwrap it. Let's look at those action items that you have for the rest of the show and help people understand how to have gratitude and it be such an important part of their life in everything. Talk about that.
00:13:48
Speaker 2: Well, so that's the first A of the five A's of 518. In everything is the amount. So he kind of gives us this, and this gets difficult because there's a lot of people going through a lot of tough stuff. And they're sitting here thinking, how can we give thanks in everything? Not necessarily say for everything.
00:14:06
Speaker 1: That's a key point. Everybody listen to that. It's not give thanks for cancer, for difficult physical problems, for the loss of people that you love. It says give thanks in that situation. Again, talk about that.
00:14:20
Speaker 4: Well, yes.
00:14:20
Speaker 2: So you have Corrie Ten Boom in a Jewish concentration camp.
00:14:26
Speaker 1: They're going to be exterminated. These guards are rough.
00:14:29
Speaker 2: They're abusing all of these prisoners, and they're taking them to gas them. And she's sitting there with her sister, and they're doing their Bible study, and their Bible study happens to be in 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 18. And they get to this and everything, and they get stuck. They're like, we are in a living hell here. We're about to get gassed and killed and murdered in this concentration camp. And they look around, and they're like, the only thing we can see are these flies, these lice, and these fleas and bugs. And Corrie Ten Boom's sister says, let's give thanks in this messy lice flea infested situation.
00:15:05
Speaker 1: In the situation. Yes, sir.
00:15:07
Speaker 2: And so they started thanking God for the fleas and the bugs. Well, he made the fleas. Well, they got to be here for something. Well, they found out later, a few weeks went by, the guards never touched them.
00:15:18
Speaker 1: Nothing happened.
00:15:20
Speaker 2: And they found out later that The guards had been abusing and doing horrible things to all these prisoners, except they skipped over their cell. And the reason they did is they didn't want to get the lice. And so God used that to protect these little Jewish girls.
00:15:34
Speaker 1: In that moment.
00:15:35
Speaker 2: And, of course, they went in to write about that and to speak about that. So, you know, Romans 8.28 is a classic go-to because, you know, he's working all things, all things, everything, all things together for the good. So he's in control. So it's not the circumstances that are driving my heart, driving my response, driving what defines me.
00:15:57
Speaker 1: It's God, and he is a sovereign God in control of everything. So that Romans 8, 28 verse says that God's working all things together for good, but we need to remind ourselves this for those who are working his will in their lives and are called according to his purposes for people who really love the Lord. And that was Corrie Ten Boom and her sister. They really love the Lord. So in this awful circumstance, And so they're trusting God in it. Stu, this is a debate among theologians, but I personally don't believe that God causes cancer, that God causes all of these evil things to happen to the world. I believe there's a thief, there's a devil, there's an enemy who comes in John 10, 10 language from Jesus' own lips to kill, steal, and destroy. So he took God's once perfect creation, gave temptation. We fell for that temptation and invited that sin into the world. But Jesus said, I did come though, to give life, and to give it to you abundantly. So the author of evil is the evil one. We've allowed that to come into this world, but we're allowing God then to come into our lives as we're called according to his purpose and trust in that difficult circumstance that God is using that for good in a powerful way that we can't understand maybe immediately, but we trust God in all things. 100%.
00:17:09
Speaker 2: He's in control. Nothing occurs to God, and he's allowing this stuff to happen. And No one is saying, thank you for this sharp scapel that's going in to take this out. We're very thankful that the cancer is being removed. We're very thankful for what God's done. I mean, the people going through the worst stuff are the people that are the brightest witnesses for Christ.
00:17:28
Speaker 1: I don't understand it. Johnny Erickson taught other folks that have suffered intensely. She's a paraplegic for 40, 50 years now, and yet she still praises God amazingly, powerfully. What Chuck Colson once said when he was on cancer floor, having surgery himself for his cancer. He prayed, thank you, God, for the cancer, and he realized that his witness for the Lord amidst all of the other patients who were on that floor with cancer who did not believe and had hopelessness, Chuck Colson had hope, and he praised God for his witness there among all the others that his witness gave glory to God. And the nurses and the doctors were greatly impacted by his thanksgiving to God for how he was in the midst of that cancer.
00:18:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, and who ends up in prison? and says, thank you, God, that I'm in prison. Well, God used prison to bring Chuck Colson to Christ. God used prison to start the largest prison ministry. Prisoners are getting saved all over the world because of that man's witness. So I would say he's a 518 kind of guy.
00:18:25
Speaker 1: Exactly, yeah. And I think that's exactly what we're talking about here is, and I want to start here, that we give thanks in all things. Yes, even the bad circumstances, because we know God is in those circumstances and using them powerfully for good. And if we trust him and are called according to his purpose, we can see that good ultimately lived out. If not here, certainly in eternity, as I say to people all the time, the most often spoken word in heaven is going to be, oh. As God reveals to us how he was working in those circumstances for good, we're going to go, oh, oh, oh. And even praise God louder because sometimes our witness is even more powerful when things aren't going well. than when they are going well because people see the great faith that is within us. Stu Epperson's my guest. Let's continue thanksgiving on the other side of this break.
00:19:57
Speaker 3: There's a joy that overwhelms our souls because we know our God is in control of the flow. Let your favor pour out, Jesus. This is the day that the Lord has made.
00:20:15
Speaker 4: We will rejoice and be glad in it.
00:20:29
Speaker 1: This is the day that the Lord has made. Let's rejoice and give thanks and be glad in it. Hi, everyone. I'm David Chadwick, and this is 107.9 FM, WBT, Charlotte's FM News Talk Radio. My guest today, Stu Epperson, who is one of the real radio giants today, helps oversee the Truth Network, which is amazing news. Christian network that proclaims the gospel of Jesus all over the Southeast and the world. And by the way, if you'd like to hear this interview with Stu Epperson, go to wbt.com, scroll down to the weekend shows. You can hear it from beginning to end with just a few commercials. And that way you can make it a part of your day all week long. And also thank you to Perry's Fine Jewelry for your sponsorship of the show. Without you, I could not do this on a weekly basis. Stu, one thing we have in common, not only our love for the Lord, but we're both tall and we both love basketball. You played basketball. You're right around my height level. I didn't play for the Dean, but it's God's favorite sport. And we know that.
00:21:31
Speaker 2: Because he built the world is shaped like a basketball. The world is not shaped like a football or like a rugby ball, but it is a great sport.
00:21:40
Speaker 1: It is a great. And James Naismith, who founded basketball as a sport, had it as his purpose of bringing young men together in a YMCA environment to play a sport and use it for the proclamation of Jesus Christ to those young men who would come together and play. So maybe that's why we love the sport again together. Great to have you here today. Your book is entitled? Thanks Living, and the subtitle is Embracing the Power of Gratitude Every Day. We're looking at 1 Thessalonians 5.18, which is the source for the entire book. And we looked at the first segment, In Everything, Give Thanks. So we looked at the first part of that phrase in our previous segment, And everything means everything. In all things, we are to give thanks because there's just something powerful, again, Stu, in giving thanks. Yes, sir. And it's kind of broke it down. The KISS method, keep it simple, Stu. I've got that. I need to get that trademark.
00:22:33
Speaker 2: It's basically five A's of 518.
00:22:35
Speaker 1: What's the A, the first one? The first A is the amount. The amount in all things. In all things. Everything. No matter how bad it gets, you're sitting there thinking, well, you know, I'm sitting in a waiting room. This is very upsetting.
00:22:46
Speaker 2: Well, thank you, Lord, that I'm not in a hospital waiting room. I just heard some horrible news. There's always something to... Matthew Henry, this is a great... I'm going to probably booger this quote up, but he said.
00:23:00
Speaker 1: He's like a 400-year-old commentator on the Bible.
00:23:03
Speaker 2: Just kind of a legend, and a lot of folks read the Matthew Henry commentaries. He said he was robbed. Someone mugged him. And I don't know if he was on his way from preaching or whatever he was doing, but he said, he said, this was an opportunity for a cause for thanks. He said, first of all, thank you, Lord, that while they took my purse, they didn't take my life. He said, thank you, Lord, that while they took what I had with me, they didn't take everything. It wasn't that much. And he said, thank you, Lord, that it was I who was robbed and not I that robbed. So he found even in that difficult situation, no one wants to get mugged. He found you know, cause for gratitude. And of course, the point of the five A's, you know, the 518 is it all points back to, you know, like the great hymn, praise God from whom all blessings flow.
00:23:57
Speaker 1: It points back, this is the source of gratitude.
00:23:59
Speaker 2: And the secular world even recognizes gratitude and the power of it medically, physiologically, psychologically. And this is what these speakers are using gratitude that don't even have a foundation in the Lord or in the word of God, but they're seeing, and this is like a superpower. And so I thought, hey, let's write a book that'll point people to where, you know, to the nest, you know, right, to where this all comes from. And so that's kind of what, you know, so that's why those five A's cover the whole spectrum of the verse.
00:24:29
Speaker 1: Okay, the first one is all. It's all-encompassing. Gratitude is. What's the second A?
00:24:34
Speaker 2: You have the amount, and then you have the action. And you kind of touched on this in our other segment, you know, give thanks. So this is an action. So you've got to make a decision to give thanks. So this morning when I woke up, earlier than I should have, and I started thinking about some kind of crazy stuff, I realized, wait, I'm going to be looking at David Chadwick on his radio show in the studio, and I said, I've got to make a choice right now. I'm going to intentionally give God thanks. Thank you, God, for saving a sinner like me. I could be on my way to hell right now, and you saved me.
00:25:06
Speaker 1: Wow.
00:25:07
Speaker 2: So I started actively giving thanks, you know, and God started. We give thanks because God gave us. For God so loved the world, He gave. So he is a giving God. Can we add to that? Can we die for the sins of the world? We can't even die for our own sins. We need a Savior.
00:25:23
Speaker 1: A free gift. Yes, sir.
00:25:24
Speaker 2: And so all we can do is respond and give thanks.
00:25:29
Speaker 1: So that's the action. That's the action. So we take action every day to give thanks. That's the gratitude journal that some people do. They actually write down things they're thankful for. And when you really think about it, the air I breathe, the clothes I wear, The car I drive, the city I get to live in, my family that I have. When you start thinking about all the gifts that you have from God, that list can get longer and longer and longer and longer and give you an attitude of gratitude every day.
00:25:56
Speaker 2: It keeps going on. And then, you know, you end up like, where's all this going? Well, that's the third one, the aim. So Paul says in everything, you know, the amount, give thanks, the action, but the aim, this is God's will. I don't know anyone that doesn't want God's will.
00:26:11
Speaker 1: Everybody wants it. You walk in a class and say, who wants to be out of.
00:26:14
Speaker 2: God's will for the rest of your life? No hand's going to go up, right? Everyone wants to be in God's will. So, Paul, when you say, well, what's God's will? Let me look at the clouds. Let me see if he'll give me a sign or a song will come on the radio that I can remind me of. Well, how about when God says in his word, this is my will, we should listen up.
00:26:35
Speaker 1: So in the moment, we give thanks because if we weren't supposed to be where we are, God would have us someplace else. And that's what we give thanks for. That's his will. Yeah, the safest place in the world to be is in the center of God's will. Well, I have people asking me all the time things like, well, I'm looking at a job in Cincinnati, Ohio, and I'm not sure whether I should take that job or not. I'm struggling with it. And I go, look, if God wants you in Cincinnati, Ohio, he'll open up every door to get you there. But what you should do is right now live in thanksgiving for where you are because God wants you in Winston-Salem where you live or Charlotte, North Carolina. And trust God that this is God's will for you today, right now. And he'll open up the door for ever he wants you to be tomorrow or the next day.
00:27:20
Speaker 2: Well, the will of God is revealed in the word of God. And I had a mic drop moment.
00:27:26
Speaker 4: Dr.
00:27:26
Speaker 2: Tony Evans spoke in chapel when I was at the Master's University in California. This was in probably 1989. Now I'm telling everyone how old I am. And he got up in chapel in front of all these Christian kids, you know, Christian college. We're studying the Word of God. It's a liberal arts school, so we're studying all this stuff, but it's with a Christian emphasis. It's a chapel message. And he says, stop looking for God's will. And it got quiet. You could have heard a pin drop in there. Like, wait a second, this is a leading pastor, author, speaking to this huge amount of students, thousands of students. He says, quit looking for God's will. And then what he said next was powerful. And the chapter goes deeper into this on the will of God and the aim of gratitude and thanksgiving.
00:28:07
Speaker 1: He said, look for God. Seek after God.
00:28:10
Speaker 2: With all your heart, and his will will find you. So he said, quit looking for God's will. Is it this girl I'm going to date and marry? Is it this job I'm going to do?
00:28:19
Speaker 1: Is this career? What's my major? Blah, blah, blah, all that stuff.
00:28:21
Speaker 2: And a college kid, we got all these, oh, a whole potpourri of decisions we have to make, and there's a lot of pressure.
00:28:27
Speaker 1: He says, quit it. He said, look for God. Seek God. Open his word.
00:28:31
Speaker 2: Seek God to know him in relationships. and his will will find you. Psalms 37.4, delight yourself in the Lord. He'll give you the desires of your heart.
00:28:40
Speaker 1: Now, the key is to delight yourself in the Lord, but then the desires of your heart will be met by him. And then as you look back, Stu, over your life and you're old enough, like I am myself, to see all the doors that God just opened right at the right time when they were least expected, God doing what he said he would do, and that's take care of you in every possible way. Yes, sir. I look back and think I wanted to marry a girl, and I had several that I thought, and they didn't work out. But then I look back at how amazingly, on a blind date, I met my wife out of the blue, and now 48 years later, she's the love of my life. But God opened that door. I couldn't have done that. He surprised me with her. And I think that's the whole idea of being surprised by joy, which is the book of C.S. Lewis and why he wrote it the way he did. Amen. Yes, sir. So that's the aim, and then you have the access. Nothing. That's the fourth thing. In everything, give thanks. This is God's will, the aim, through Christ Jesus. He's the access.
00:29:33
Speaker 2: He made a way when there was no other way. He made a way when we were running the other way. And so he came, and he makes all the way.
00:29:40
Speaker 1: Possible.
00:29:41
Speaker 2: Without what he did on that tree of death, we couldn't eat from the tree of life. So Jesus Christ is the access. And then the final A is application, you know, concerning you. So you have all these five A's of 518, and we're the beneficiaries of this great gift.
00:29:55
Speaker 1: We're the you out there. That you is plural. Anybody listening right now, anybody who trusts in the Lord for their eternal life, this is for them. Live in thanksgiving every single day. Stu, that's what you're trying to say. We're trying to say that breath you just took, that heart that just beat it a couple times here as we were talking, that is from God. Give him thanks. Jesus Christ made it possible, and it all points to him, all of grace. Well, what I want to do when we come back in our final segment is let's do some practical application. Okay, how do you live in this wonderful thanks living? And you purposely called your book Thanks Living, not Thanksgiving, because you want to live every day in the power of thanksgiving. Let's give some practical suggestions to all of those who are out there listening right now how I can make thanksgiving a thanks living in my life. And folks, I'm just going to tease and tell you that if you can make thanks living an important part of your life, you'll never be the same. It opens the door to the power of God to guide you every single step of your life. I'm David Chadwick, along with Stu Epperson. We will be right back.
00:32:54
Speaker 4: There's peace that outlasts darkness Hope that's in the blood There's future grace that's mild today That Jesus Christ has won So I can face tomorrow For tomorrow's in your hands.
00:33:23
Speaker 3: All I need you will provide.
00:33:27
Speaker 4: Just like you always have.
00:33:33
Speaker 1: I'm fighting the battle.
00:33:38
Speaker 4: You've already won. No matter what comes my way.
00:34:07
Speaker 1: So when we let the Lord fight our battles for us, knowing He's gone before us to fight them, we can rest, we can relax, and celebrate the victory. Hi, everyone. I'm David Chadwick, and this is 107.9 FM, Charlotte's News Talk Radio, WBT. Stu Epperson, Jr. is with me. He is the overseer of the Truth Network, which is a broad-based Christian radio network that speaks God's truth all over the Southeast and beyond. I've been a dear friend for a number of years, and it's great to have you on the show, Stu, because you've just written this book called Thanks Living from 1 Thessalonians 5.18. Would you go through the five steps of 1 Thessalonians 5.18 again? then let's give it some practical application. Yes, sir.
00:34:49
Speaker 2: The five A's of 518. First, you have the amount in everything.
00:34:53
Speaker 1: You have the action. Give thanks.
00:34:55
Speaker 2: You have the aim. This is God's will. You have the access through Christ Jesus and the application concerning you.
00:35:02
Speaker 1: Gratitude. You mentioned earlier how people do TED Talks for like 17 minutes and get paid $ 500, 000 or whatever for that brief talk, and so many of them. are the same message about the power of giving thanks. Even the secular world knows about the power of giving thanks. It's throughout the Scripture. Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. His mercies endure forever. And you have written this wonderful little book. How can people get it real quickly if they're interested?
00:35:27
Speaker 2: Well, we have a little Vanity's website that's mythanksliving.com. You can get it from Amazon. You can get it at Moody Press. Moody's the publisher. And if someone wants to buy a whole bunch of them, as you can see, it's not a real thick book.
00:35:40
Speaker 1: It's just a short one, but so powerful.
00:35:42
Speaker 2: Well, I spend a little more time in the gym on the basketball court than I did in the classroom.
00:35:48
Speaker 1: Don't tell my teachers or anyone. I won't do it, Stu.
00:35:51
Speaker 2: But I really felt like I just wanted to put something kind of simple for folks to get a hold of.
00:35:56
Speaker 1: And this verse just kind of rocked my world. This is a seven-year journey.
00:36:02
Speaker 2: Like about seven, eight years ago, I was coming up with something, a verse for a men's group that I lead, and the Lord just put 518 in my heart.
00:36:10
Speaker 1: And I thought, one verse?
00:36:11
Speaker 2: You can't do a whole sermon, a message on one verse. Well, through God's grace, there's a whole book now about one verse of the Bible. It shows how rich it is, how we need more pastors like you who are teaching through the Word of God, because the Word of God is the power. It's quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword.
00:36:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going through the Gospel of Luke right now at Momus Hope Church that I pastor, and people are really enjoying it. It's been Six months, we've gotten through seven chapters. There you go. That's how God gave us his word to teach.
00:36:36
Speaker 2: When you're going through Luke, you don't have to come up with some big whiz-bang smoke show just to entertain people and bring in all this other stuff. You just let God's word do the work. And it doesn't mean you're not winsome. It doesn't mean you're not creative and all that. There's all kinds of little fun analogies and stories from my life and from all kinds of other things that have.
00:36:58
Speaker 1: A pastor friend of mine... He called me. He says, you're not going to believe this.
00:37:02
Speaker 2: He said, I've been riding my bike for years. I had this bike accident. He says, I've been doing this forever.
00:37:08
Speaker 1: I feel like a dunce. I feel terrible. How clumsy can I be? And he gets home.
00:37:14
Speaker 2: He's not feeling totally well after this little bike mishap. And so he calls the doctor.
00:37:18
Speaker 1: He says, come in. You might have internal bleeding. Comes in. They found a massive tumor in his stomach that they would not have found. The man would have been dead two months later. So the bike accident caused the doctors to find a life-threatening tumor that they were able to excise and give him many more years on this earth.
00:37:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, and as I'm saying this, I know people are hearing this and they're thinking, wow, that kind of happened to me or my aunt. There's stories, and these are testimonies that show not just about my story, it's about his story and how that can point people to the Lord and what he's doing and how there's no chance encounter with God. God is not the God of chance. He's the God of second chances. And so that's the whole kind of the thrust is, hey, let's take this to where it gets real, because heaven and hell is at stake here.
00:38:09
Speaker 1: So let's talk about practical application of thanksgiving. How can people practically apply these principles that you talk about in your book? Wow, that's a great question.
00:38:18
Speaker 2: This is such an important question, David, because the tendency of, in fact, as the publishers book me all these interviews and several initial responses, well, we want to have you on in November.
00:38:32
Speaker 1: You know, we just want to have you on. Because Thanksgiving is one time a year affair. There you go.
00:38:36
Speaker 2: And so one of my favorite parts of writing was the introduction of the book. Because the whole kind of sense, when people think about gratitude, they think, okay, well, we've got to wait until November.
00:38:46
Speaker 1: It's going to involve a lot of food, a lot of football, and a lot of family.
00:38:50
Speaker 2: Right?
00:38:50
Speaker 1: The three F's. Right? And fellowship. You can come up with a bunch of other ones. Right?
00:38:54
Speaker 2: And then once that food coma lifts... and we're off to Black Friday, it's all about Santa Claus. It's all about the next season. And we've forgotten about. And I thought, wait a second. This is not a seasonal thing. This is a lifestyle. And the guy who wrote this is one of the greatest applications. I do a whole section in the last chapter on practical application.
00:39:17
Speaker 1: Paul lived this.
00:39:18
Speaker 2: I mean, he's writing half of the New Testament from a jail cell. He's got these wounds.
00:39:24
Speaker 1: He's been beaten.
00:39:24
Speaker 2: He can probably hardly lay down with his back and all that. Who knows what's going around?
00:39:29
Speaker 1: Moldy bread.
00:39:30
Speaker 2: He's on his way to be killed, and he's writing about giving thanks. He's writing about effusive praise to God for all that God is doing, and he's writing these things. 2 Corinthians 11 chronicles The stuff he went through, the beatings and the shipwrecks and just floating around, holding on to cargo.
00:39:47
Speaker 1: Lord, I'm here serving you.
00:39:48
Speaker 2: I'm here sharing the gospel, and I'm getting bit by vipers around a fire. I mean, what in the world's going on?
00:39:54
Speaker 1: And yet at the end of that, he says, God's grace is sufficient. Yes, sir.
00:39:57
Speaker 4: Yes, sir.
00:39:57
Speaker 1: And he learned that God's grace was enough for his life. Yes, sir. Unbelievable.
00:40:02
Speaker 2: Well, when I wrote this Christmas book, and I came up with this quote, I said, to the consumer, Christmas Day is the end. But to the believer, it's only the beginning. And the same thing is true of thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is meant to become thanks living. And that starts with connecting with Jesus Christ. That starts with finding him and pursuing him. And at his feet, you'll find you'll be flooded with things to be thankful for. Maybe start your day with thank you. Write a thank you note to somebody, a handwritten thank you note. Text someone who led you to the Lord. Thank you for leading me to the Lord. Thank you for teaching me in second grade. Thank you for giving me this job. Thank you for just being my friend.
00:40:46
Speaker 1: How about it? Anything and everything. And literally, we have so many ways to communicate today with email and text and voicemails, everything. Just let other people know how thankful you are for them in your life. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So grumbling is the language of hell. Gratitude is the language of heaven. Yeah. And we are rehearsing for heaven right now. If you complain, you'll remain in the problem. But if you give praise, God will raise you up.
00:41:09
Speaker 3: Wow.
00:41:09
Speaker 1: So don't complain. Don't murmur. I've got to write that down. I'll give you that one, Stu.
00:41:13
Speaker 4: Yes, sir.
00:41:13
Speaker 1: I love it. You've got 30 seconds. What do you want to leave us with today?
00:41:17
Speaker 2: Well, I want to tell you that the only king who came to die for his own subject's is King Jesus.
00:41:23
Speaker 1: And he came and he made a way.
00:41:25
Speaker 2: Go to him and live a life of thanksgiving because he's the source of all that.
00:41:30
Speaker 1: From him it all flows.
00:41:32
Speaker 2: And this is the whole point of this book, to embrace the power of gratitude every day and let it be infectious and be about that. And watch what happens around you when that takes place as you're walking in the power of the gospel.
00:41:43
Speaker 1: And I'll do this. Thank you, Stu Epperson, for years of friendship, for being on the show today, and for helping us be stimulated to give thanks. in everything to our God, for this is God's will for you to learn thanksgiving. Stu Epperson, thank you. Ed Billick, thank you for being the producer as well. Thank you listeners for today. Talk with you all next week.
