Podcasts about beause

Let's talk about the intern process...op het moment dat ik dit schrijf hoor ik ook de radio "er zijn pieken en dalen"... Het is niet altijd rozengeur en maneschijn, de ontdekking de upgrade die je meemaakt als je op het spirituele pad bent. Door deze podcast neem ik je mee in mijn proces zodat ik ook jou kan ondersteunen. Beause you are not alone

In this final hour, we hear from the Dolphins after their Monday practice after certain players were cut before Tuesday where the roster has to be cut to 53.

In this new series, John Dues and Andrew Stotz discuss John's model for improvement. This episode includes an overview of the model and how John uses it for goal-setting and planning in his school. 0:00:02.4 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz and I'll be your host as we continue our journey into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today, I'm continuing my discussion with John Dues, who is part of the new generation of educators striving to apply Dr. Deming's principles to unleash student joy in learning. The topic for today is building an improvement model. John, take it away.   0:00:24.8 John Dues: It's good to be back, Andrew. Yeah, so we sort of wrapped up this last series. We had a six-part series on organizational goal setting. And we, if you remember, we talked through those four conditions that are important for organizational goal setting, especially healthy goal setting, where before we set a goal, we understand sort of how capable our system is. We understand how our data is varying within our system. We are looking at our system and seeing if it's stable or unstable. And then, of course, we want to have a method for how we go about improving. And so you kind of have to have an understanding of those four conditions before you set a goal.   0:01:03.6 JD: And I thought sort of as an extension of that, or possibly a new series, we could kind of take a look at an improvement model that would help us sort of better set ambitious goals. Because when we did those four conditions, it kind of leaves you wondering, well, how ambitious should my goals be? Should I still do stretch goals, those types of things? And I think this improvement model that we're building here at United Schools sort of addresses that. And it's something we're building.   0:01:34.4 JD: And so I think the listeners kind of get like a little bit of behind the scenes on what it looks like now. I think we'll see a version of it. And perhaps through this dialogue, through the series, we'll even think about ways to improve it.   0:01:48.4 AS: Can I ask you a question about that?   0:01:49.6 JD: Sure.   0:01:50.0 AS: One of the things, I do a lot of lectures on corporate strategy and workshops, and the lingo gets so confusing, vision, mission, values, and all kinds of different ways that people refer to things. But when I talk to my clients and my students, I oftentimes just tell them a vision is a long-term goal. And it could be a five-year or a 10-year goal. And because it's long-term, it's a little bit more of a vision as opposed to, you can see it very clearly. Like my goal is to get an A in this particular class, this particular semester. Whereas what I try to say is, a vision is: I want to be in the top of that mountain. And I want us all to be at the top of that mountain in five years. And I kind of interchangeably call that a long-term goal and a vision. And I'm just curious what your thoughts are on long-term versus short and medium as we go into this discussion.   0:02:53.8 JD: Yeah. I think as we get into the model, we'll actually see both of those things, sort of a long-term sort of goal, sort of a more intermediate thing, and then how you work back and forth between those two things. So I think that's a good segue.   0:03:08.4 AS: Let's get in it.   0:03:08.4 JD: Yeah. And so just maybe just a few other things about the model before we get right into it. So one thing to know I've come to appreciate is when when I say a model, I just mean something visually representative that helps us understand and communicate how we think things should be functioning in reality. So when I say improvement model, I'm actually like talking about a diagram on a piece of paper that you can put in front of everybody on your team. So everybody has an understanding for how you're approaching goal setting in this case.   0:03:38.1 AS: Would you call it an improvement visualization? Or what's the difference between what you mean by model and like something that I would call, let's say, a visualization?   0:03:49.5 JD: Yeah, I'd say it's a type of visualization when I say model.   0:03:52.8 AS: Okay. Excellent.   0:03:53.8 JD: Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. And I think you'll see it when we get into the model that definitely there's credit due to Mike Rother and his concept of Improvement Kata because this model heavily borrows from the work that he's done, if you're familiar with that four-step Improvement Kata process.   0:04:15.1 AS: Yeah. Very.   0:04:19.7 JD: But anytime, whatever the thing is that you call like key performance metrics, key metrics, whatever you call that thing that we all set in our organizations, there's always this gap between what we want and what we're currently getting. And this model gives us the scientific way of thinking and working to close basically that gap. In this world, the gap between the voice of the process and the voice of the customer, how do we close that gap? So that's sort of what the model is addressing. So I'll share my screen so you can see that and anybody that's watching can see what the model looks like. And I'll just kind of leave that up as I'm talking about it, put it in slideshow.   0:05:08.7 AS: Great. We can see that now.   0:05:14.6 JD: Great. So we can just start by just kind of giving an overview, especially for those people who are listening, but you can kind of picture like a path going up a mountain and that path has twists and turns. It has obstacles. In this particular diagram or model, there's rocks in the way of the path. There's a water hazard, there's trees in the way, there's a roadblock. And as you go, it's kind of strange because you're working your way up. And I'll explain this all as we go through it kind of one step at a time. But as you're working from left to right in the model, this four-step improvement model, you have a team over on the left. This team's working on a goal that you're setting. And then over on the left, you actually have step two, which is grasp the current condition. And then you have this big crack in the path that's called the threshold of knowledge. And I'll talk about what that is.   0:06:11.1 JD: And sort of the next step is actually step four, experiment to overcome obstacles as you're working left to right. You go further up this path, up this mountain. And number three, the step three is establish your next target condition. And then when you get all the way up the mountain and you have this challenge or direction. So that's what you were just talking about. So what's that long-term thing that you're trying to accomplish? We call that a challenge or direction. So the steps that you're taking actually chronologically are you're going to do number one first.   0:06:43.2 JD: You're going to set that challenge or direction, but it actually is the thing that you're working toward. That's the sort of beginning with the end in mind. So that's why it's way up on the mountain, but you're going to do that first. And the next thing you're going to do is go all the way back down to the start of the path and grasp whatever that current condition is in your organization. And then you're going to run experiments on the way to trying to get to the next sort of intermediate step, that next target condition. So four steps, and then you have this team working on it.   0:07:16.8 AS: Which I would say for the traditional American style, as from my perspective, it can be a bit confusing because you're starting with number one at the farthest point away instead of closest to you. Then you're going to come to number two. From a timeline perspective, it feels like you're kind of zigzagging back and forth in your thinking.   0:07:38.8 JD: Yep. You definitely are. And it takes a little bit to wrap your head around it, but we'll kind of work through this piece by piece. So let's start with the team. So you have these people on the left-hand side of this diagram. There's sort of three different groups within that team. And we've talked about this a number of times, but remember that there's this key concept when you're going to take a thinking systems or a systems view of an organization. That you have to have these three different groups of people. You have to have the people that are working on the system, the people that are working in the system, and then from Dr. Deming's perspective, you have to have somebody that has profound knowledge, has that lens. So again, someone from the outside that has profound knowledge. And then in our case, the people working in the system, generally speaking, are the students. And then you have to have the managers that have the authority to work on the system. So in our system, that would be teachers and school leaders. But this model is not specific to educational organizations. You could translate this to any other type of organization.   0:08:50.4 JD: So if we were a hospital, then perhaps the people working in the system, depending on the improvement project, could be nurses. And then the managers that have the authority to work on the system, maybe the hospital management team. And then someone from outside with profound knowledge could be either someone internally that has familiarity with the System of Profound Knowledge or someone that they bring in externally, like a consultant to help out. So the point is, is that, again, this team, whoever's working in the system is going to differ by the organizational sector that you're working in. But it translates in the system basically.   0:09:31.0 AS: It's interesting that I've seen this type of diagram or concept about work on the system, work in the system and a System of Profound Knowledge coach. But it just kind of clicked for me to think about it. It obviously, like when I work with a company, I'm working with the owners and the top management. And when I do that, we're working on the system.   0:09:58.5 JD: Yep.   0:10:00.2 AS: And I have the knowledge of the System of Profound Lnowledge. So I'm coaching them about the system. And then within the system, they have the employees who are executing on what they're trying to improve and do, but it just perfectly explains it. So I love that diagram.   0:10:17.8 JD: Yeah. And I have the same experience. And I think we've mentioned on this podcast before that in my world, we often have school or district-based improvement teams. And it's typically leaders of the organization, sometimes teachers, but almost never is it students working in the system that are a part of, or, providing significant input into the improvement. So, I think if you can combine, in our case, students working in the system, because they have things that they can identify in terms of how they experience the system that are different than the people that work on the system. And then having that third group that, or that person that has that outside profound knowledge, if you put all the three of those things together, I think you have a much better chance to improve. But I think in schools, that's probably never happening. I'm assuming that's the same in other industries as well.   0:11:08.3 AS: And this also explains why when Dr. Deming would see slogans and things like that, encouraging the workers to do better and higher quality, he was like, they don't have the authority to change the system.   0:11:22.5 JD: Right.   0:11:24.1 AS: And what you've said is the group that's working on the system has the authority or the ability to change the system.   0:11:35.4 JD: Yeah. This is one...the makeup of this team that's using this four-step process, that's one innovation that we've done to this model that would be different from the Improvement Kata. So in the Improvement Kata, there's just coach and learner. Usually sometimes there's a coach of the coach, a coach and a learner, depending on how it's represented, but this is in my view, an innovation where you have the work on the system group, the work in the system group, and then the System of Profound Knowledge coach. I haven't seen that in this model.   0:12:07.4 AS: And could that be because when Mike Rother was writing his book, he was particularly referring to Toyota.   0:12:18.7 JD: Could be. Could be.   0:12:19.5 AS: Where the workers have more authority to impact the system. Whereas in the typical American system, the worker doesn't really have the authority to stop the production line or something like that to the extent of the Japanese. So interesting point.   0:12:36.1 JD: Yeah, that's a really good point. My understanding of Mike Rother's work is he sort of derived this improvement model by watching, observing, working with Toyota over a very long period of time. So that very well could be the case. Cool. So we have the team, so let's go to step one, that's the challenge or direction. And I really like that because again, when we did that six part series on Goal Setting is Often an Act of Desperation, one thing that I did think was missing was like, well, still as an organization, we want to move forward. We want to improve. We want to be ambitious in how we're setting our goals, but I don't think that fully came through in the four conditions. And so I think layering this model on top of the four conditions really helps because I think it is important to be ambitious, especially when we're talking about like a mission driven organization, we need to be setting ambitious targets for student learning, coming to school, those types of things.   0:13:39.6 JD: So really what we're doing in step one of the model is we're asking the question, where do we want to be in the long run? So this is a long term goal. This is a longer range goal that would differentiate us from other schools if we achieved it. But currently when we think about this goal, it actually seems nearly impossible because it's so far from where we are currently performing. We don't know how we're going to get there. So an example in my world is, schools have been paying much closer attention to chronic absenteeism, which is when a student misses 10% or more of the school year. And those numbers basically skyrocketed towards the end of the pandemic and then for the last several years. So that's something we're focusing on as an organization. So our chronic absenteeism rate is really high, like 52%, something like that over the last several years. And we want to get that down to 5%. So there's this huge gap.   0:14:53.6 AS: That's a huge move.   0:14:54.5 JD: Huge gap, order of magnitude, right? To go from 52%, that's the voice of the process. That's what's actually happening. And the voice of the customer, what we want is 5%. And we really don't know how to get there. And that's going to be the case at the point where you're at step one, but you're doing that first. You're setting that challenge or direction. And that really is something that needs to be set, in my view, at the leadership level, at the management level. So, that's step one.   0:15:22.9 AS: And you just said something that's interesting is we really don't know how to get there.   0:15:25.6 JD: And we really don't know...   0:15:26.9 AS: I mean, if we knew how to get there, we'd probably be there.   0:15:28.6 JD: Yeah. Yep. Yep. So that's step one. That's why if you're able to view the model and you're watching the podcast and you can see the video, that's why number one happens first, even though it's on the far right hand in the upper right hand corner at the top of the mountain in the model.   0:15:45.8 AS: And is there a reason why it's a relatively vague thing, right? Challenge or direction.   0:15:54.0 JD: Yeah.   0:15:55.5 AS: Why is it vague as opposed to specific target, goal or saying something like that?   0:16:03.7 JD: Yeah. I mean, I think, I like challenge or direction. One, it fits on the page. And it sort of conveys that it's going to be a challenge. And it also, if you're going to work in this way to achieve something like that, that it's actually setting the direction of the organization, the direction that the organization is moving toward. So.   0:16:24.0 AS: In other words, is it acknowledging that we really won't, we really don't know that target. We think we know it, we see that mountain, but as we go closer to it, we want to go in that direction, but as we get closer, it'll become more clear exactly where we're going to be or want to be.   0:16:44.7 JD: Well, I think this would be something that... I think in my view, we're still learning. But when we set that challenge or direction, I guess I could see some circumstances where we would come off that, but I think we kind of want to set it in a way that really pushes us. Right. So I'd be, I mean, I think you could learn some things that would say, okay, maybe that wasn't the exact right number to set, but I'd also be careful about just adjusting it because it's hard.   0:17:13.2 AS: Okay. So you mentioned 5%.   0:17:17.9 JD: Yeah.   0:17:19.1 AS: Would that be, would you state it as achieve 5%?   0:17:25.9 JD: Yeah. 5% or less of our students are chronically absent.   0:17:30.4 AS: Okay. Keep going. I don't want to slow it down. But listeners may get it faster than I do. I'm a little bit slow and I have a lot of questions as we go along.   0:17:37.0 JD: No, no. And I think what we could do in future episodes is dig into each of the steps a little bit more too, and use this as an overview session.   0:17:46.9 AS: Yep.   0:17:48.3 JD: So that was step one. So now what's going to happen in step two, you're going to come all the way back down. Now you're at the very start of the path.   0:17:56.6 AS: Back to reality.   0:18:00.6 JD: Back to reality, step two. And the first thing you have to do, okay, we've set the target, this very challenging direction we want to head into because it's the right thing to do. The next thing we're going to do is grasp the current condition. And so in step two of the model, we're going to ask, where are we now? So we know the long-term goal and now we need to study the current process and how it operates basically. So basically this study represents our current knowledge threshold about the process. And then it's going to contribute to how we define the next target condition we've set that sort of intermediate step on the way to the challenge. And so a lot of that six-part series on goal setting is often an act of desperation, a lot of that learning is right here at what we're doing at step two, because we're creating a process behavior chart in a lot of cases, and understanding how our data is performing over time in this particular area. That's what grasping the current condition means.   0:19:02.6 JD: So part of it, it's a data thing. So in this chronic absenteeism example, what I'm gonna do is I know where I want to be. Now I need to understand where are we historically. And then also as a part of grasping the current condition, I may wanna do some things like interview students and families that are chronically absent, then sort of dig into why that is. Interview teachers about why they think that is. There's a number of things that you could do at this step on the ground where the work happens to grasp the current condition. And I think there can be a sort of quantitative component to that and a qualitative component to that. Also, we sort of understand like how are things actually working on the ground that contribute to us not being where we want to in this particular area.   0:19:56.7 JD: So that's step two. That's what we're gonna do next. After we've set the challenge or direction, we wanna sort of understand the situation on the ground, grasp the current condition. And then next what we're gonna do is step three, which is establish your next target condition. So in step three of the model, we ask where do we want to be next? So we know we can't make this leap, from 52% to, 'cause we wanna decrease it down to 5%. We know we're not, that's too big a step that we're just gonna get there somehow magically. So our target condition, then it's our next goal, usually within a time bound, achieve by date. In Mike Rother's work, he suggests something on a pretty short term scale. Something like one week or one month. So something like chronic absenteeism, I think one month would be sort of where I would set the next target condition. Just having experience with something like attendance rates.   0:21:07.0 JD: And at this point we don't exactly know how we'll achieve the next target condition, but it also, it doesn't feel as impossible as the challenge. So it's a step towards the challenge. So we're gonna do that next. So we set the big challenge that may take us three years to get to. Then we understand the current conditions on the ground and we use that knowledge to set our next target condition. So that's step three. And then the fourth step is we're gonna experiment to overcome obstacles.   0:21:45.9 AS: And before you go to fourth, let me just ask a question about establish your next target condition. One of the things that's missing from that, obviously is, you know, coming from a different perspective, is that when we say, all right, here's where we want to be, and let's go back to reality, and here's where we are. Sometimes, when people work like myself and others, work with people who say, okay, let's map out all the steps to get to that vision. What are the next five things we have to do? Whereas here you're saying, let's focus on the next target condition rather than the next five.   0:22:25.4 JD: Yep. And keep in mind when I say establish the next target condition, what I literally mean is what's our next intermediate goal that we're gonna shoot for? So if we're trying to get all the way down to 5% from 52, remember decrease is good in this case, establish my next target condition, maybe over the next month, I wanna see if I can get that from 52% down to 35% or down to 40%. Part of what I would look at when I set that next target condition is what did the variation look like when I was charting in step two? So the magnitude of that variation will give me some indication of what would be a reasonable sort of next step target for step three basically.   0:23:11.9 AS: And maybe just explain for those people not familiar with Mike Rother's work and, you know, terminology that you're using, why do you say establish your next target condition?   0:23:28.0 JD: I think, I don't know. I think that, you know, really what I mean is just establish the next target, establish the next intermediate goal, basically. Now, I think using the word condition is because when you think about something like chronic absenteeism, there's conditions that probably contribute to that and part of that condition may be the things that you wanna work on. So I kind of think of like, you know, 'cause when you look at step four, you're gonna experiment. So you're creating a new set of realities, a new set of conditions in your organization. And so sort of that coincides with the metric that you're shooting for. So it's not just the metrics, it's also like what are the conditions surrounding that metric. If that makes sense.   0:24:15.8 AS: Yep.   0:24:16.9 JD: Cool. And then step four then is experiment to overcome obstacles. So basically in step four of the model, we move toward the target condition with experiments. And by experiments, what I'm talking about is Plan, Do, Study, Act cycles or PDSA cycles, which uncover obstacles we'll need to work on. So the path, and that's the path in the model is windy 'cause it's this path to the target condition is not gonna be straight line, but it's gonna require this rapid learning to move in that direction basically. And so let's say we've set that next target condition to be one month from now, that's what we're shooting for. And we're gonna run a series of experiments. Maybe it's four one-week PSDA cycles, maybe it's two, two week PSDA cycles. Maybe it's one one month cycle. It depends on sort of the nature of the Plan, Do Study, Act cycle. But running these cycles where we make a plan, including a prediction, run the experiment, and then study what happens and see if it's moving us in the direction of the target condition.   0:25:40.0 JD: And so in that way, we're rapidly learning what it's gonna take to hit that next target condition. And the other important part of this, you'll see in between the grasping of the current condition at step two and running those experiments, there's this huge fault line, this huge crack in the path that you can't just jump over. And it's kinda labeled there, it says Threshold of Knowledge. And basically it's the point at which you have no facts and data to go on. That's the threshold of knowledge. There's always a threshold of knowledge. And so to see further beyond that threshold of knowledge, that's where you conduct your next experiment.   0:26:28.7 AS: Interesting.   0:26:29.8 JD: So because you, like you were saying, we wanna outline these five steps that we're gonna do. So with chronic absenteeism, I read somewhere a Harvard study where if you text parents what a kid's attendance rate is on a regular basis, they're then more likely to come to school on a frequent basis. So you could see where a school system would spend all this money to get a texting system, maybe even allocate a person or a half of a FTE of a person to run this system. And they faithfully implement this texting system, and it has no impact at their school to impact those chronic, because it had nothing to do with what the actual problem was in that context. And you've spent all this money. And that was just a hypothetical.   0:27:21.2 AS: And you could have done a pilot test of 10 parents or 20 and done it manually and sent out some messages and just tested a little bit.   0:27:31.1 JD: Yeah. You run a test with 10 chronically absent kids. Just to see if you can improve their attendance for a week. And maybe you learn something or for a month and maybe you learn something. And then if the early evidence is pointing in the right direction, then you can run that experiment with more kids or for a longer period of time or under slightly different conditions. Those types of things.   0:27:54.6 AS: So an example that I would say in relation to this for one of my clients is that we've identified that they need to get a higher gross profit margin.   0:28:04.7 JD: Okay.   0:28:05.5 JD: And their gross profit margin is about 23%. And I know that the average is about 30 in the industry. And so my work with them is how are we gonna get that profit margin to be 30 or 35%? 35 would be showing that you've really got pricing power because of something that we've done. And so, I'm pounding away that we've gotta improve this, but you know what? We don't have data to understand the current condition. And this week we've... It's taken us about a couple months to pull that data together. But now we have absolutely comprehensive data that my team has calculated on the profitability of every product, the profitability of every customer, and the profitability of every process. We know the capacity utilization of each part of the production process. So now we have the knowledge that we didn't have before that's gonna, that once get, digest this knowledge, it's gonna give us the indication of what to do next. Which is it's gonna be shut down a particular production process or increase price there. We may lose customers, but it's not worth doing it at this low price or so, but without that knowledge, we're just, it's a dream.   0:29:21.4 JD: Yeah. It sounds like you guys have done step one and step two in that process.   0:29:28.0 AS: Yeah. Which is exciting. 'Cause now Friday's meeting is gonna be about, all right, how do we take this huge amount of data and effort that we've put in and now it's time to come up with what are the steps that we're gonna take?   0:29:40.4 JD: Yeah. And I think even just in that situation, even just acknowledging that there's the threshold of knowledge. Even just getting people to acknowledge that in a room that they actually don't know what's gonna happen. That's the power of the PDSA because it makes you predict, okay, you say this thing is gonna work and when you put in this plan in place, this is your prediction. And then when you come back next week and it doesn't work, then you have to explain that, you know, it's not a gotcha, but it very quickly makes you think in a different way.   0:30:13.0 AS: It keeps a record so someone has gone back, well, I didn't think it was gonna work, you know, for sure.   0:30:18.8 JD: Well, right. And it's usually very like, some of the things that I found in that is when people are off on their predictions, it's very mundane things that they didn't account for. We're in student recruitment season and we set a goal for the number of calls we're gonna make to prospective families. And then hypothetically a recruitment director could fall short and it's like, well what happened? It's like, well, oh, the two part-time people that we had, I forgot they are actually out two days last week right? And so it's usually things like that are actually getting in the way of us accomplishing these grand targets that we have set.   0:31:05.5 AS: By the way, where does the threshold of knowledge fit? We've got number one challenge or direction, number two, grasp the current condition. It's after the grasp the current condition that we come to the threshold of knowledge.   0:31:17.7 JD: Yeah. Because, well, we have somewhat of an understanding of the condition on the ground, but we don't know what's gonna improve it until we run the experiments. So we start running the experiments and we try to sort of narrow that knowledge gap basically. And this is sort of the final part is basically like what do you do when you get to that experiment and when you hit that target condition, when you reach that by the achieve-by date, well now there's a new condition and you repeat the four steps because you haven't reached the challenge or the direction. You just met that sort of intermediate goal. And you basically keep running this four step cycle until that learned long-term challenge is achieved.   0:32:12.5 AS: Okay. Great. So we've got the establish your next condition down where it could be one week, it could be one month, in some cases it could be longer, but it's really our next intermediate goal. Where do we wanna go next? What's the next right step?   0:32:28.5 JD: Yeah. Well, so you go back to step two 'cause you're not gonna change the challenge or direction. Now there's a new set of conditions 'cause you've moved ahead, right? And now you're gonna go back and say, okay, what are the current conditions like? And now we're gonna, okay, let's say we move from 52% to 42%. Now we go back and sort of understand the experiments from that last cycle. And we're gonna set that next target condition. So maybe now we wanna get it down to 25%. And we're gonna run another round of experiments in a certain amount of time to see if it hits that next target condition. And basically you're just gonna keep doing this over and over again. That's really the continual improvement model that we're operating under.   0:33:22.7 AS: So how would we wrap this up?   0:33:24.4 JD: So the big thing for me is, you sort of have to have a model to bridge that gap between current conditions and future aspirations. Beause there's always a gap between those two things. And what this model does is it gives us a scientific way of thinking and working to close this gap. It's a more powerful model than I've ever sort of seen anywhere. And then literally you put it on a piece of paper like this and then you have to explain it to people over and over and over. And then you have to actually do it with people. So we're actually doing this, getting people excited about running PDSAs. And the most important thing is that the challenge or direction, especially for leaders that are listening to this, you don't stand on this mountaintop and set it and then say, go do it. That's why this team aspect is so important. We're setting this challenge or direction as a team, and then we're working together on the ground. Putting that work in, running those experiments to try to bring this thing about, is a completely different way of working. It's not an accountability system, it's an improvement system.   0:34:39.4 AS: Yeah. That's a great overview of this system that you guys are applying and it's exciting to learn more. So I wanna thank you on behalf of everyone at The Deming Institute, John. And I thought the discussion was very interesting myself. And for listeners, remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey. You can find John's book win-win W. Edwards Deming, the System of Profound Knowledge and the Science of Improving Schools on amazon.com. This is your host, Andrew Stotz, and I wanna leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming. "People are entitled to joy in work."

Bio   Victor is a Lean/AGILE Strategy and Transformation Consultant, helping organisations in emergent environments navigate the path to a successful future via "Agile Ways Of Working". This usually involves developing and implementing Lean/Agile Strategies for these organisations, coaching & mentoring Senior Leaders, Managers and Teams in attaining the Agile Mindset that allows them to achieve high performance. Experiencing this evolutionary journey with clients from traditional ways of working to successfully achieving full Agility is his career passion. With a career path spanning over 30 years, starting as an accountant and Business Analyst, Scrum Master to being an Agile Coach today. His best skill amongst many is as a motivator and his work ethic is all around making work fun. Other passion outside work include helping Africa as a whole achieve Agility – Victor is the creator of the A.P.I.A.M-R.A.T.S Agile Culture Model and also an amateur chef, gastronome and suffering Chelsea FC fan. Victor lives in England with his family, 3 dogs and 12 fish. Interview Highlights 01:40 & 08:00 Childhood bereavement 04:00 The importance of adapting 09:45 A.P.I.A.M-R.A.T.S model 14:50 Using local language 20:00 WakandAGILITY 22:25 Sustainable transformation 29:00 Transformation buzzword 32:15 The importance of timing   Social Media   ·         LinkedIn: Victor NWADU | LinkedIn ·         Email: victor@wakandagility.com ·         Medium: Victor Nwadu – Medium ·         Twitter: @wakandagility   Books & Resources ·         The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt: The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement: Goldratt, Eliyahu M ·         Turn the Ship Around! by L. David Marquet: Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders L. David Marquet ·         The Wisdom of the Crowds by James Surowiecki: The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations: James Surowiecki, Erik Singer ·         WakandAGILITY.com: Enabling Agility for Africa: Agile Training, Support and Networking | Wakandagility ·         The A.P.I.A.M. – R.A.T.S. MODEL | LinkedIn Episode Transcript Intro: Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. Ula Ojiaku So I have with me here Victor Nwadu, who is an agility strategist, Agile coach, everything-in-between, maestro. Victor, it's an honour to have you on the Agile Innovation Leaders Podcast. Thank you so much. Victor Nwadu Thank you, Ula, thank you for having me. Thank you. Ula Ojiaku So let, just tell us, Victor, about your background. What are the things that you've experienced, that have shaped you into who you are today and how you've ended up to where you are professionally? Victor Nwadu I mean, just cutting to the flow, I'm from Nigeria. I'm also, like all Nigerians, educated in Nigeria and then for some, you know, reason found myself here in the UK. If I wanted to pick on anything that has, you know, brought me to where I am and what has driven me to who I am today, I think it's just, it's my childhood, right. I was born to working class parents that, you know, Catholic people that worked hard for everything they've got. And as a Nigerian, you are told, it's instilled in you from a very young age, what the benefit of hard work is. Unfortunately, I was traumatised at the age of 13 by the death of my mum. So, and yeah, left with five siblings and my dad was broken by the course of events, but, you know, at that young age getting to where I am, having to, you know, do what I had to do to get to school and all that and still have these five siblings with me as well. Ula Ojiaku Because you're the first. Victor Nwadu Yes, I'm the first. You know how it is, especially when you're Igbo, right, you're expected to be strong and do it. Ula Ojiaku Di-Okpara (First Born) Victor Nwadu Di-Okpara, you say, that kind of thing, you know, so, yeah. But thank God for today and I find myself here today talking to powerful people like yourself. And I mean, I think that that has made me stronger, and I miss my mum terribly, but if I look back, to be honest with you, the course of events in one's life really defines, helps one define one's destiny. And that's how, you know, so I believe that what I went through in life has made me stronger, you know? So, yeah. I came to the UK, became an accountant, funnily enough, I did what we need to do. Then I find myself being a BA then a, after systems accounting, because I loved computers and all that, you know, then find myself doing, I don't know if you know what SAP is, so I did that for a while. Met a chap, a BA guy that I was doing his invoice, I saw how much was earning and I said, what, Jesus, I mean, tell me what to do, man. I then became a BA from that, then became, at that time, luckily, Scrum was just coming into the industry and, you know, we, I found myself doing something called an Agile BA, that's how I got into Agile. Then became a Scrum Master, became an Agile coach, and the rest is history. So that's basically it in a nutshell. Ula Ojiaku That's interesting, that you started off as an accountant and now you're an agile coach. I mean, I'm not throwing stones. I started off as an Electronic Engineer and I'm an agile coach, but yeah, it's all about, what I'm trying to also tell young people, including my children, that what you start off with doesn't necessarily mean that that's the career you're going to have for your whole life, you know, there is a whole lot of options, but it's just about starting somewhere. Victor Nwadu Especially now, I say the same thing to my kids, especially my son. You need to be in a state of mind where you need to adapt. A lot of paradigm shifts are happening underneath us and, you know, you need to be ready, and you need to be ready to go and adapt to the present circumstances. Otherwise, you know, and this is why we do what we do. Ula Ojiaku Yeah, and I think it starts with a mindset as well, you know, just having that Agile mindset, not to flog it, but agility starts first with the mind. What's your take on it? Because things are changing to be able to adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing world. Victor Nwadu Exactly. I mean, so we are living in exciting times, like you know already, agility was born out of the times that we're living in. It all started with the internet and outsourcing and all that, the world becoming a small village and all that. Then, we then have this digital thing going on and the information age and that brought yourselves all sorts of fantastic things. Things are, because we are utilising and leveraging the power of technology, we find out that we don't need to do certain things. Unfortunately, some jobs have to go, but then new ones are coming in. So all these things started happening, and again, it's affecting generations right now. If you were Generation X like me, you would've seen at least three more generations in your time when these changes are happening. It's crazy. So we now have, how do we survive? You know, you survive by adapting. If you don't adapt, you become obsolete, extinct, and that has tailored it to the industry, and the way we work. And even now talking to you, I'm working from home, I have a home office, you know, and that makes it even more fantastic because I can work anywhere in the world. Right. So what it does now is that it creates a bigger competition, right, where anybody can apply for any job anywhere in the world. It also helps the earth, and I don't want to go into that working from home debate, but that's all these things that are happening are as the consequences of the various paradigm shifts that are happening. So we need to adapt, like you said, in the mind, our mind needs to be open to change. And we need to put ourself in a place where we leverage all the advantages of those changes for our own benefits and so yeah. Ula Ojiaku Well said Victor. I mean, I completely associate with what you've said so far and the changes that are happening, especially with technology. For example, the recent one that's making waves is like AI, you know, so we're now in, someone said we're in the knowledge, information age, but now it's something like augmented age. So it's not just about the information, but it's also about being able to leverage, you know, technology like AI to still do productive work. But it still ties back with being adaptable, being able to learn and unlearn, to remain creative because machines are not taking over anytime soon. Victor Nwadu They can't take over the creative aspect and we need to automate and become, the competitive edge now is about who does things quicker, who gets to the market quicker and who get to the customer quicker? Who satisfies the customer in terms of the value threshold. So yeah, that's what we are, you know, we're creative, but we'll still be the same, but if you don't have creative guys in your design and engineering design, or software design, you're still going to fall back into that obsolete group of people that don't change or are not changing as quickly as it should. So yeah, I agree totally with that. Yeah. Ula Ojiaku Thank you. I know we went off into a rabbit hole, but I did want to just take you a little bit back to what you said earlier when you were talking about the things that happened to you that shaped you into who you are. And you mentioned your mum's death at 13, you know, I'm really sorry about that, and I can't imagine how tough it would be because my son just turned 13 and I can't imagine the difficulty it must be, well, you did say it must have been for you. You said events in one's life defines one's destiny. Can I, so my twist would be, because the same thing could happen to two different people and you have two different outcomes. So could there be something about how they react to it as well? Victor Nwadu Yeah, obviously. I mean, the way people react is the key, right. Yeah. So one person could react, have reacted, okay, fine. You hit the ground, I mean, you fall and you cry, and you get traumatised. Then you kind of rebuild yourself and stand up and keep going. And some people, it's just like a tough man's thing, right? It's a storming it and all that. So people stay in that trough, they never, some teams just stay there, they never rise above, you know, so some people, not because it's their fault, maybe their environment, maybe because resources that are not there to guide them, to help them stand up, you know? Yeah. We're not the same. So, yeah, I just happened to be who I'm hopefully strong enough to have been able to lead myself from that trough. Ula Ojiaku Well, you inspire me and I know that you are an inspiration to many other people as well, so thank you for sharing your story. So you did put together this model, agile culture model A.P.I.A.M-R.A.T.S. Can you tell us a bit about that? Victor Nwadu Actually, I have a little of pause on that. So it's something that, you know, that's been on my mind, the pet project, purely because, you know, some people are saying, are you trying to create another agile, and no, it's not. It's just like a clarion call to people that are coming to Africa and the Middle East to engage in a transformation process. We're looking at the way Agile is, when the forefathers of agile went to Utah to dream up this fantastic thing. I'm sorry, they were not thinking about Africa, they were thinking from their own Western perspective, right. And then we Africans, Agilists and change leaders from Africa, we know that things we've learned from what the manifesto and the principles have taught us, are not that straightforward in from where we come from. So it manifests itself with many of my colleagues in the West that have gone to Africa and met these challenges and have complained. And I say, yes, it's because we are totally different, mindset is different, the Western mindset is totally different. So I've kind of modelled it more to Africa and the Middle East, and mainly to Nigeria and South Africa because that's where I got most of my data from. And it's A.P.I.A.M-R.A.T.S it's actually Agile Practice in Africa and the Middle East. Okay. And the R.A.T.S, I get lots of stick from my friends, the R.A.T.S is just when I kind of listed out the main things, main factors, some of them not that bad, some of them, the bad ones, it just, the best way I could figure it out to make, to create a soundbite was, it came out as R.A.T.S. So you have your religious intrusion, the R is religious intrusion, the A is an age respect paradox, and the T, obviously time. The other one is secrecy cults, and the fifth one, which I've added on later on was language, the leverage language and that kind of stuff, right? So the religious one is the effect of religion in the way we work. If you go to any African or if you go to Nigeria today now, you will see, say for example, people doing their standup. The standup, daily standup is, that's supposed to take an average of 15 minutes. They will give an average of five minutes for prayers and, you know, the way we pray, evangelistic sometimes things more than that. And imagine a Muslim guy in that scene. You know, imagine a Western guy, a Western agile coach and like woah, really? You know, so you have that aspect of it. You also have the age respect paradox. So it's a paradox because yes, while people in the West understand age and respect, in Africa and in the Middle East we take it up a notch or two. You know, where sometimes actually the negative aspect is that somebody that is older than you now thinks because he's older, you cannot allocate well as part of a member of the team, you feel, oh, it's an insult for you to tell them what to do, which is wrong and very crude, but it happens, it happens. So we have that and we also have the African Time, so it's not fair to call it African because the French do it. It's not labelled an such connotative when the French do it… Ula Ojiaku I've been to different countries. They do it. I'm not going to name it, name them. Victor Nwadu Yeah. So, exactly. So the way it's been made to feel as if some kind of, like we, Nigerians and Africans started it. I don't really like it, but, you know, that has become something that of note and something that has kind of embedded itself in our culture and our behaviours. Yes, the French do it, but is in social circles, however, we've kind of brought it into professional, our professional lives, where we lack that discipline for some reason of keeping exactly to time. And that itself, obviously as you and I know, has an effect on cost of delay and all that kind of stuff. Ula Ojiaku And morale as well. Victor Nwadu The fourth one is secrecy cult. For some reason, we don't share knowledge. And I'm happy, agile is, has brought the fact that we need, when we bring transformation into an organisation, part of it is making the organisation at the end of the day, a learning organisation, where we collaborate and collaboration means we have to share knowledge, we have to share, you know, for us to win. Okay? So, yes, so for some reason in Africa, that doesn't take place as much as we would love to see that. The last I've put there is language, so this one is very important for me because, and Sophie Oluwole that's one of the, she's late now, but she's one of the people that have kind of been evangelising the need for us Africans to get rid of the Western language, like English or French. We should start teaching our kids chemistry, maths and everything, the academic learning journeys should start with our local language. It's easier on the brain, it's less stressful, and they learn. Then we can learn English later on, or however, we shouldn't waste time to learn a foreign language, then start learning the basics of academia, right. So if you look at it, it's timeframe itself is a waste in terms of agile thinking, right? So for me, I brought it into an agile space because you find out that, I have worked across global teams, right? And when, as an agile coach, you give teams freedom to please, create and design within yourself with your local language. Only come to me when you, you know, when you need to, when you need me. And then you'll normally find a language champion that will do the translation or whatever. And so you find out that it's easy, the engagement is easier, and they're loving you for giving them that freedom. So I've been bringing it to Africa to be the way we work in Africa so that we as teams are, we don't become too stressed or thinking of how we sound when we speak English. When we are designing, we are talking about, and when we are in an agile space, we are talking about and discussing with our local language, we are free, and you find out the mind is less stressed. So these ideas just keep flowing, the brainstorming session is fantastic, lively, because you don't have to, oh, let me think of how I'm going to put, structure this, my idea in English before I have to speak, it just comes out, like it's easier. So I think we have more benefits if we trace ourselves back into our local language, especially if the team is regional and everybody there is speaking the same language. Ula Ojiaku I was going to get there, so it seemed like you read my mind. I was going to say, but what if the team, because in Nigeria there are over 200 languages or 200 ethnic groups, since we've started off with Nigeria, you know, what happens? Because you might still have to go to a shared common language. Victor Nwadu That's a very good question. So, but the thing is, like most African, especially in India, places like India and even in the Middle East, we have a kind of broken English, we have a local slang anyway, that's a kind of, it's mixed with English, like in Africa, Pidgin, we call it Pidgin, it's a mixture of Creole and Hausa, Wazobia, that kind of thing going on there with English, everybody already speaks that language. Why don't we use that? So that's a tie breaker anyway, that, why don't we use that, you know? So yeah. So, but basically, when you go to places like Enugu or Kaduna, you tend to be of that particular region. But if we have a thought person there that's from other place, let's use our local vernacular to break that ice in terms of the way we speak and communicate. So that's my answer to that. Ula Ojiaku Okay. And where you have someone, if there's only maybe one person who's not of the culture, not from that country, doesn't know it, where does inclusion come in here? Victor Nwadu It's highly unlikely, but however if it happens, because in the small village that we have now, the global village that we have, I normally would have a language champion, somebody that's, you know, you should be able to find some kind of, somebody within the, just like your Agile champion, the team. You find somebody that can translate, right? Otherwise, I've developed all sorts of apps right now, where you can use something as Google translates. So when you, when you want to give important meetings and you want to write, you just do the one in English, then translate it to their local language and just send it out. Everybody will understand and they'll come back to you. So, yeah. But it's very rare, very, very rare, to find a place where the English language and French has not touched on this planet, or Spanish. So when that happens, you just, we just use tools that, simple tools are available to us, Google translate, use an Agile champion to kind of leverage and that, kind of make that disability or handicap a non-existence or minimise the impact of it in the way we communicate. Ula Ojiaku On a slightly off tangent point in terms of languages, Mandarin is also like going up there,  you can't ignore that.  So what have you been working on lately as you've talked about the A.P.I.A.M-R.A.T.S model, why you came up with it and how, in a little way, how it could be used, but what else have you been working on lately that you'd like to share with the world? Victor Nwadu Apart from work and all that, I give a lot to my people. I have tried to empower a lot of people, so I've created this WakandAGILITY group where we, it's a global support thing where we kind of give masterclasses to people that are coming into the industries from masters and Agile coaches already there, but want to, you know, so I kind of hold these master classes for free actually, because, I am looking at the scope of how we can kind of create, make sure that as Africa develops and becomes more hungry, resource hungry, we have the resources on the ground to accommodate those requests, right? Ula Ojiaku So skilled manpower, you mean? Victor Nwadu Exactly. We don't have it. So, and now to train up, agile training is expensive. So that's my own way of giving back. But apart from that, I've been working with people, great people, great change analysts, internationally based people like, I don't know if you know her, Mary Laniyan, she's based in the UK and we have a lovely woman that did African something sometime ago that invited me to Lagos Abiodun Osoba. We also, in fact, I think we have somebody, her name is Anu Gopal, she's even a powerhouse in agile affairs, I think one of those, yeah. I also have Etopa Suley from Canada. You know, all these guys who come together in the last Agile 20 something, we came off with the whole government manifesto for Nigeria. That was our presentation, it's fantastic, right? It is there on the internet right now, so yeah, so it's people like this I'm working with, we came up with the manifesto for good governance for Nigeria and many other projects like that. So yeah, that's what I spend my time doing behind the scenes, apart from work and spending time with my family. Ula Ojiaku That's really awesome, and I'm sure some of the listeners would want to know more about it. So we'll make sure the links are in the chat. Do you still do run these sessions? Victor Nwadu Yes, I do. It's keeping with the requests. I have a lot of requests, and you know. Ula Ojiaku So there is a question I have for you with respect to transformation, because as an Agile coach, I would expect that you've been involved in a number of transformation efforts with organisations in involving leaders and teams. Can there be a sustainable transformation without vision or strategy? Victor Nwadu So, it's possible for you to have a transformation, well a transformation, it's possible for that to just happen once, right? So it's like a rider, you know, you are told to ride through one end of the Serengeti to the other with dangerous animals and valleys and all that. With a horse, no compass. And you don't have a compass, you have a map or maybe don't have a map, you just know just face there, you get to the end, right? And you don't have a compass. You don't know the health of the horse and you just got on that horse. And yet, it is probable that you may be able to get to the end. But how sustainable is that? That is why the word sustainable that you use is very important. How sustainable is that for us to now create some kind of tourist pamphlet for other people to come behind us to use? It's exactly the same way. So it's probably, it's very, very probable for you to run this kind of transformation rather than just win with one team or whatever, then where's the playbook for those coming behind you, if you want to kind of multiply that, accelerate it within the organisation. So that's why sustainability is important. You know, how sustainable is that? How can we we create a model, or a playbook for us to use as an organisation for our own peculiar transformation, right? That's why it's important for us to have vision. I mean, you know, we need to have a strategy, you know, so the vision itself, first of all is the what and the why we are doing it, and all that kind of stuff. Then the strategy, the Agile strategy is very important. The Agile strategy itself is the vision plus how we're going to do it. Under it, in a timeframe, and how we're going to fulfil the objective required to actualise that vision, right? And with regard to the scope, timeline, course and the organisational culture. So that's the strategy. We need to have all that. When you have that and you place it, and you can start to kind of base it under the kind of, your playbook of entry, the change itself and the exit, then you have something to go with, you know? So, yeah, that's basically how it works. You cannot have a sustainable transformation without a clear vision, without a realistic strategy that kind of makes sure that all these aspects of the scope itself, the objective, the goals, and then taking into consideration the culture I dealt with, you know, you cannot have a, what is known as transformation, a sustainable one without having a transformation strategy. So that's it. Ula Ojiaku You may have touched on this, but I'll say, just going back to your Serengeti Crossing analogy. I mean if you are crossing, or the person has been assigned a horse cross, that it's important to say why are we crossing the Serengeti? Because it might be that if you evaluate the why it might be better for you to stay where you are and don't put yourself and other people in danger and waste resources crossing, just for crossing's sake. Victor Nwadu Yeah. I mean, all these things will come in when we are laying out the strategy and, you know, we will have the vision, somebody comes, you know. I have to say transformation is sexy nowadays. So the metaphor is dealing with the, the Serengeti itself is the transformation, what we assume to be all the wahala inside the transformation. Ula Ojiaku What is wahala? Beause not everyone understands what wahala is? Victor Nwadu Wahala means all the troubles in life, all the challenges you meet in everything. So we need to first of all understand that nowadays transformation is sexy. Where many organisations, I heard a rumour that many leaders engaged in these big companies engaged transformation purely for the benefit of their PE ratio in the stock exchange. It's a rumour, I haven't confirmed it, but I don't know how to confirm it, but I do know that it's very sexy to say your organisation is carrying out its transformation. Everybody wants to be a saviour, that's what we're doing. So that is part of the big problem and the challenges that we face as change leaders in the transformation, because the success of the transformation depends on the leaders and the person at the top. How committed they are to it. So the commitment of that leader is tasked from the top. If they don't have the buy in, if they're not convinced about it, they're just doing it for show, when push comes to shove, and it will happen, the challenges will come and hit you. Cultural challenges, personality challenges, the ego of leaders or middle managers, and you'll hit them as you already know. How committed is the leader at the top to come down and say guys, and create that space for us to be able to make this transformation happen? Because as the ultimate impediment remover, that person should be able to have the time, to have the commitment to come down to the team level, to the whatever program level, whatever, and be able to remove that impediment for that to happen. So if this leader or sets of leaders or whoever is given the mandate to commission a transformation doesn't have total commitment or is not bought in, is not doing it for some show or for some reason, it's not going to work. Ula Ojiaku Very true. Do you have any anonymised stories of your experience in guiding organisations in enterprise agility or transformation journey. Because one thing you've said, you know, transformation is sexy, it's really a buzzword. And if you ask two people, and they could be in the same leadership team, you know, C-suite team, what is transformation? And they'll give you different answers. It's just a buzzword, which means different things to different people. But do you have any story underpinning, you know, what you have said about leadership being key? Victor Nwadu If I give you all the stories, you're not going to leave here, right. However, I want to make a few things very, very clear that just standing in most organisations, that starts their transformation journey with a few teams, as you would expect. When they succeed in that they then call it an enterprise wide transformation. Where you take a few teams to delivering some funky, sexy, innovative products, that is not enterprise wide transformation, that's not business transformation or business agility, right. It is you showing that, and delivering a particular product as quickly to the customer, whatever works using agile ways of working. So there's that misconception there, that's the number one misconception that people think, oh, when we succeed with a few teams, yeah, we have, no, we haven't, because you still need to scale it, you know, to the entire enterprise, to non-IT enterprise to both upstream and downstream and all that. It is when your organisation as a whole, no matter how tall it is, can have a transparent view of where everything is, when an organisation can adapt to news in the market very quickly, when an organisation can innovate, it has the people they have been enabled to, to have a different idea, different mindset towards failure and seeing failure as a learning bridge, all those kind of mindset things, but happening in very large scale so that the organisation becomes a learning organisation, everybody's learning, we have a lot of COPs (Community of Practices), you know, that's when you say a transformation has been successful, that's when you can actually say the organisation has transisted from a traditional stoic, siloed set up to where we have open collaboration, and the cultures, mindsets and the culture have been changed in that the mindset of people that lead and those that make things happen is one, and they have this adaptive way of behaving. When something happens in the market, nothing shocks them. Even when it does, you have some, I understand some people even have an anti-disruptive, you know, when you come up with an idea in your organisation and you go back and you go out to the market and sell it, you become disruptive, you disrupt the market. However, some organisations as well are having anti-disruption strategies. If somebody else comes, how quickly can we respond? So those are the kind of things that shows that organisation has actually transisted from those traditional ways of working to an agile way of working. However, the other aspect I want to draw to our attention is about timing, when we are thinking of transformation. So for me, my advice is first of all, number one, to get the top person involved in it. Timing is very, very important. You need to have time for this transformation, to start this transformation. The time when you start transformation is very important. You don't want to start it when you have disruption in the market, things will not happen normal way, and it's better for you to do transformation in peace time, what I call peace time, before some major disruption, so that you can leverage what you've learned from that transformation in that, when that disruption happens. Timing is very important when you're carrying out a major transformation in your organisation, okay? You need to have committed leaders, leaders that are really committed to the cause, they're not just doing it for show and leaders should be able to come down and do Gemba walks, and see that what is actually happening in the kitchen is what their executive information system is relayed to them, right? There needs to be complete transparency from the top to bottom. So that we are sure that what the developers and the guys creating all our products are doing is exactly tied to the revision and objective of the executive. So that's part of it. And for me it's common sensical things that we already know. However, when we have transparency, this transparency increases trust. And it needs to start with the leader, he needs to show transparency by example, right? So it increases trust, and trust enables organisation-wide collaboration, right? So when teams start collaborating, teams that were locked in silos start collaborating, we start seeing silo breaking, and when you start breaking the silo, you start seeing aggregates, paradigm shifts happening. And that is when you now then see that almighty cultural change emerge. So it comes from, and transparency, it comes from transparency leading to trust, and trust leading to collaboration that breaks down silos. And when that thing happens, you start having all this shift because we now trust each other. There are no more silos, then the cultural shift that people say is hard to do, it is, however, if you follow this, if you allow this thing to flow the way I just listed, it'll flow in its normal cadence, right, without having to have unnecessary, you know It's not easy to have a cultural, don't get me wrong, when we are as change analysts and change agents, it's not easy for cultural change. No matter where we are in the world, people don't like change as a result. However, it starts with common sensical things like the leader taking the first step, the leader coming into, sometimes when you have a Gemba walk, you come into a meeting and you, like, for example, in some recent, not recent, about two years ago, where the leader came into a meeting or for an impediment that had been there, so kind of a Scrum of Scrum meeting, that had been a feature type impediment, and had been there for quite a while. And he came in and after they've had the conversation, he just raised his hand and everybody was surprised to see him and just said, what is it? And he kind of listed back to him, you know, this impediment that I've been there for roughly about almost a month was dealt with within two days. That is one of the major advantages where you have the leader there, and you need to ask yourself a question, what was causing the impediment delay? The verification of the impediments and the delay of the action of impediments before the leader came in. Middle management, also cultural things, bureaucracy, my space, your space, so the person at the top comes in and slashes through. If you have leaders that are prepared to do that, that have the time to do that, transformation will take its normal course without unfortunate circumstances happening. Ula Ojiaku You've said a lot of things in this time and space and they make sense to me, but is it possible, because you said transformation is ideal when done in peace time. How can you, it's almost like saying you time the markets. Because there are other people, many organisations that have admitted, for example, the Covid, the pandemic accelerated their transformation per se. Victor Nwadu Accelerated, but many of them died. You know, yes we have unforeseen circumstances that you cannot help that, right? Aliens landing on the planet and disrupting the world, you cannot help that, right? But I was saying that if you are given a time to select, so it's better for you to do it now before any, covid is part of it, but you also have market disruptions as well, right? So the best time would be when you think just kind of stability, because it starts from a small team, then expand. So you want to make sure that team is not distracted by bigger factors that may be beyond the help, the beyond the reach of the remediating powers of the leaders in the organisations, right. So that's given, if you are given, you know, if you can help it. If you can't help it, start it as quickly as possible, but you know, it's better to have it started in peace time. Ula Ojiaku Awesome, thanks Victor. I can see that you are quite passionate about what you are saying. So what books have you recommended to people about this topic or anything else and why? Victor Nwadu I have many books. The main book, that for me has kind of created powerful insights in the way I do my work, the way I even see life. One of them, the top one is The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt. Then the other one is Turn the…. Turn the Ship Around! by David Marquet. We'll put it in the links. You know, I use that a lot. And it's just leadership should be, you know, it should be about enabling, self-managing, self-organising team. I mean, in the way we work nowadays, you can't know everything. And that was what the point he was trying to say that as a captain, yeah, he's supposed to know how they work, but the details, there are experts that is within his reach, there are the guys that are the experts, so enable them to do the thing and you just deal with it. And the third one will be this one. I just read this book, it's called The Wisdom of the Crowds by James Surowiecki. He was saying that data shows that if you take, if you ask people to solve a problem and a group of people from just non-experts, and you get the experts to predict that same problem, the crowd will be, the answer will be closer to the reality than the experts themselves. Why, I don't know, maybe it aggregates knowledge of the crowd coming together rather than experts, and the other point he was making also, is how the HiPPO opinion (HiPPO: Highest Paid Personality), like when you have a team of engineers and the manager comes in that meeting and you ask a question of how do you think we can do this and he gives his opinion first, his opinion is going to skew the answers of everybody else. So this is why it's important, where you have a meeting and some HiPPOs are there, let them be still, let us hear the opinions of the team, the ordinary members of the team before if they need to give their opinion, right? Otherwise we just have a skewed opinion and that opinion will not be the best for that particular question. So that is another very good book. Ula Ojiaku Thank you. So there are three books. The Goal, Turn That Ship Around, The Wisdom of the Crowds. So how can the audience find you or contact you? Victor Nwadu You can get me at wakandagility.com, you can get me at victor@wakandagility.com. You can get me at LinkedIn, Victor Nwadu, you just type it there, you'll see m there. Ula Ojiaku Any ask for the audience, or any final words, Victor? Victor Nwadu Final last words, yes, Agile is real. Agile is here. And so be inspired, be prepared, be Agile. First of all, you be inspired to change, to have that mindset to adapt to your present circumstances. You know, be prepared for future disruptions, for anything, and be Agile, right? That's it. Then you will definitely succeed. You will definitely live longer. You will definitely transcend all the challenges, all the Covid 19 time, even aliens coming to this world or whatnot. Ula Ojiaku So can we hold you to, to account for it? Can we take it to the bank and say Victor said if we're inspired, prepared, and agile… Victor Nwadu It will help. I mean, from my experience in life, it'll help if you're inspired, you have to be inspired. People that are not driven cannot achieve much. You need to be passionate about what you do. And then you need to be prepared. You need to be prepared by having the skillset, challenge yourself to learn, constantly learning. Then be agile, all those things that we do, your mindset, the way you think, you know, having agile ways of doing things, you know, having a different mindset towards failure. When you fail, it doesn't mean you have, you know, you've done anything bad or the end of the world, failure is a sign that that option is not going to work and you've learned something new, you pivot and try a new one. So if we have that kind of mindset, we'll be innovating every year, every six months, every three months. If we have a different attitude towards failure, so be inspired, be prepared, be Agile. Ula Ojiaku Thank you so much, Victor. It's been a pleasure having this conversation Victor Nwadu It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much, Ula. Ula Ojiaku The pleasure is mine. That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!   

Many great figures in American history are full of contradictions. Thomas Jefferson wrote stirringly about liberty while owning human beings as property. Woodrow Wilson was both the idealistic author of the 14 Points, and a racist who re-segregated the federal work force. But few figures in American history embody as many contradictions as the two featured in this week's Horns of a Dilemma: Lyndon Johnson, and J. Edgar Hoover. Yale Professor Beverly Gage discusses her new biography of Hoover, G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century. Beause she is speaking at the LBJ library, she focuses particularly on the relationship between Hoover and Johnson. Her talk is humorous, informative, and helps to highlight the way in which Hoover played a critical role in both securing and undermining many of the civil liberties that define contemporary American society.  

The story of those lepers continues to challenge. Did you get the mystery that unbelief makes God angry? And He uses the intense anger, the word “wrath.” Have you considered that? You can no longer take unbelief lightly. The Bible calls unbelief and the impact on your heart "an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God". I notice sometimes the enemy will put a thought and I will just rebuke it. I say don't you dare bring that nonsense here to doubt, or to question, or to fear. Absolutely not! You cannot tolerate it. You have to war against it with everything you have. Beause it says to keep your heart with all diligence because out of it are the issues of life. You must war against these enemies and drive them away, in Jesus mighty name. 

'MAY I help you month' has begun and every day I will be writing remedies to those who share their stories with me via emails and messages. Would you like one too? Just send me something difficult you are trying to face and I will share the remedy via my Instagram page without tagging you (but I'll let you know in a private message that it's yours.) Hope it offers a healing - SezTo emergefrom what hasbeen concealing youis to recognisethat you are already in tact, fully whole, an entity unto yourself - and with enough courage, 'to rise' would mean to pull yourselfup & through the weight that has buried you -but which hasnever separated you from your wholeness.______Dear one, To believe you break under the weight of this world is not so. To believe that you splinter and fray at your edges, leaving lesser and lesser of you is nothing but an old wound passed down by those who believed more in their brokenness. Beause it's easier to see your surface-dwelling fault lines than it is to remember the depth and substance of your mantel.This journey into the ache will end at its core - and once you have met with its centre - so too will you emerge again, passing through to the other side - whole as you've always been, only wiser for the encounter._______________Feel free to share these words if you believe they could be of guidance to another soul.______________________Links:@sez.kristiansenhello@sezkristiansen.comwww.sezkristiansen.com

The fight for a cure to Parkinson’s Disease has been a decades-long battle, with several treatments evolving alongside the evolution of medicine as a practice. In this episode, host Richard Miles sits down with Dr. Michael Okun, the Chair of Neurology, and Professor and Executive Director of the Norman Fixel Institute for Neurological Diseases at the University of Florida College of Medicine. He is an expert on deep brain stimulation, and author of over 400 peer reviewed articles as well as the book Parkinson’s Treatment: 10 Secrets to a Happier Life. Here, Dr. Okun dispels myths surrounding Parkinson’s, talks about his research and clinical work, and discusses his involvement with several non-profits raising awareness on other conditions and diseases. “Every day that I practice medicine, I know less,” says Dr. Okun. “It’s a profession where you have to have a lot of humility. You have to have an open mind and things change over time.” TRANSCRIPT: Intro (00:01): Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade, a podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Parkinson’s Disease. What do we know about it? Why does it seem to be more common and how do we treat it? Welcome to Radio Cade. I’m your host Richard Miles today. I’m pleased to welcome Dr. Michael Okun the Chair of Neurology and Professor and Executive Director of the Norman Fixel Institute for Neurological Diseases at the University of Florida College of Medicine. Dr. Okun’s also an expert on deep brain stimulation and author of over 400 peer-reviewed articles, as well as the book “Parkinson’s Treatment: 10 Secrets to a Happier Life.” Welcome to Radio Cade, Dr. Okun. Dr. Michael Okun (01:11): My pleasure to be here, Richard. Richard Miles (01:12): So before we start, I have to mention you’re also a poet and that caught my eye mostly because I find myself in middle age becoming very interested in poetry, but only as a reader, not an actual poet. So I have to start, is this something you’ve always done or is it because being a brain doctor wasn’t challenging enough for you? What got you into poetry? Dr. Michael Okun (01:28): My original bent was in humanities, and I have a degree in history. And so, I love to write, and I love to try to express myself in different ways. I love poetry, because there’s a new precision towards, and I think that through poetry, you can express concepts using emotions and other modalities to reach your readers. And so, over the years I’ve done a number of poems, and I have an old book called “Lessons From the Bedside” and have done some writings in said time as well. Richard Miles (02:01): I love that analogy too, to the work that you do. Cause one of the things I have noticed in my very limited foray into studying poetry is precisely what you said, that the precision of the use of certain words versus not other words. And that reveals a lot of the thinking and so on. And I imagine studying medicine, there is some similarities there. Dr. Michael Okun (02:18): That’s right, and really keeping an open mind. And I am also a neurologist by training. And so I practice medicine and I say often that every day that I practice medicine, I know less. It’s a profession where you have to have a lot of humility. You have to have an open mind and things change over time. And we’re really like cabinet advisors to people. We’re here to help with the best information that we can, but we really shouldn’t be so prescriptive, and so sure of ourselves. And I think anybody, whether you’re an inventor, you’re a scientist, you’re a clinician or all of the above, will look back and say what I did five years ago, versus what I’m doing now, is different. And it might seem subtle because you lived it, but if you think in those terms, that’s, I think what I would term as wisdom and you realize that practice of medicine and the understanding of diseases evolves and that there’s not one solution for everyone. Richard Miles (03:15): That’s a great way of looking at it. And that really helps, I think, for what we’re about to talk about now, and that is you have developed, or you’re known as really one of the world’s experts on a technique to treat Parkinson’s. But before we get into the details of what that is and how it works, I’d like to talk more broadly about Parkinson’s itself, which is a disease that most people probably have heard of or know somebody with Parkinson’s, but they may not know exactly how it works and what are some of the underlying causes. And I noticed that a few years ago, you wrote a paper called “The Emerging Evidence of the Parkinson Pandemic,” which caught my eye, obviously because we’re in the midst of another pandemic. And so pandemics in general, I think are of higher interest to everyone. But in that paper, you said that neurological disorders are now the leading source of disability globally, and the fastest growing neurological disorder in the world is Parkinson’s disease. And you said that from 1990 to 2015, so about a quarter century time period, the number of people with Parkinson’s disease doubled to over 6 million. And finally your quote, “for most of human history, Parkinson has been a rare disorder, but various factors have now created” what you call Parkinson’s pandemic. There’s a lot there, but why don’t we start by briefly describing for listeners who are maybe not exactly sure how Parkinson’s differs from other types of neurological diseases. Define it for us. And then why don’t we spend some time talking about those various factors that have caused it apparently to go from a rare condition to pandemic-level proportions. Dr. Michael Okun (04:40): So first Parkinson’s Disease, it’s a neurological syndrome, and it comes with symptoms that people can readily detect. Oftentimes when you’re in a crowd, you see somebody might be shaking, they might be shuffling their feet, their handwriting might be small when they’re at the bank, and they may be struggling with some of these, what we call motor features and also what we call non-motor features. So it’s a brain disease that affect depression, anxiety, and quality of life. And it turns out that Parkinson’s Disease is not just a disease of dopamine. And so a lot of people believe that you lose dopamine in the brain and you get Parkinson’s, it’s actually degeneration of multiple circuits. I’ve spent my career studying the circuits and Parkinson and in other diseases. And when we think of Parkinson, I remember when I was at the White House in 2015, I was quoted as saying, “Parkinson is,” and I’m not the first person that said this and won’t be the last, “the most complex medical disorder period,” because there’s over 20 motor features and non-motor features. So tremor, stiffness, slowness, (and not everybody gets tremors and not everybody gets stiff necessarily, it could be different varieties) in depression, anxiety, sexual dysfunction, other issues too. And then you throw in dopamine replacement therapies, you throw in deep brain stimulation ,what you mentioned, and it’s something that we’ve been researching now for a few decades here at University of Florida with one of my partners, Kelly Foote, and Mendez and many other people in the laboratory. And so Parkinson’s Disease is a neurological disorder. It is rapidly expanding. And about eight years ago in the book, 10 Secrets to a Happier Life, in the prologue, I said: “Parkinson has all the same characteristics of a pandemic.” And that was very controversial at the time. That’s eight years ago. And our most recent book that just came out from Hatchette publishing, “Ending Parkinson’s Disease,” it was originally titled the Parkinson’s pandemic. The publisher changed the title, and they wished they could have that back because it came out in March, 2020. So, “pan” means “all” in Greek, “demos” means “people.” And when you apply the concepts of a pandemic, they can apply to other diseases. Although, I was just on a call with the World Health Organization last week, and I think it’s fair to keep the term pandemic reserved for infectious diseases. Although people should know that the rapid expansion, the geography, the people not being immune to it, it all applies to other diseases like Parkinson’s. Richard Miles (07:06): So tell us, what are some of the factors that researchers have uncovered, or maybe that you hypothesized are at work here that are causing it to grow, I’m guessing, dramatically on a per capita basis? Are there geographic differences, for instance, in range between different countries or different demographic groups? What is going on here, and what do you think is behind it? Dr. Michael Okun (07:25): So we just had a conference with our colleagues in Geneva, Switzerland at the World Health Organization that have taken this on. And there’s a working group of us from all different countries, from rich countries, from poor countries, from countries somewhere in the middle…Parkinson occurs in all of the above. Now, one of the myths of Parkinson is that it’s all due to aging. And so as you get older, you get a higher prevalence of Parkinson and that’s true. Now, many people might be surprised when I tell you in our waiting room, I see people in their teens, and twenties and thirties with Parkinson’s, and it becomes more of a common as you get older, but it doesn’t mean it can’t occur in young people, as well as people–I don’t say old people–I say more seasoned people. And it turns out that age, it’s a myth. Age is not the only thing that’s driving this increase. There is going to be a doubling of Parkinson between 1990 and 2015. That’s already happened. It’s going to double again from 2015 to 2040 and could collapse healthcare systems, cause lots of suffering if we don’t get out in front of it. And so there are other factors that are driving this. And one of the ones that we talked about in the latest book is about pesticides and chemicals and environmental factors, and how those factors and the industrialization of society and how that’s changed the game. Richard Miles (08:47): That’s fascinating. So let’s move on to, what are some of the treatments that are available? You mentioned deep brain stimulation that you and Dr. Foote and others have been working on for a couple of decades. What led you to that I guess, and tell us how it works and what sort of improvements that you see? Dr. Michael Okun (09:02): Back in the 1930s and 40s, there weren’t treatments for Parkinson’s and for other diseases of movement. Some of the early attempts were actually making holes in people’s minds and disrupting these abnormal conversations. So if we think of the brain as a group of islands and the islands are all talking to each other, if you disrupt the conversation, people discovered that this is a potential way to treat specific symptoms, depending on which circuit you disrupt that conversation. And as time evolved, we were able to modulate conversations by using medicines. And the first major medicine was introduced by George Cotzias in the 1960s, and that was dopamine replacement therapy. And that actually modulates, it changes the way the brain’s oscillations are moving, and everybody, whether you’re awake or you’re asleep, your brain is always oscillating. And when you have a disease, particularly in neurological disease, that oscillates in different ways. So surgeries came back; when we have better technology to get to very specific sub millimeter zones of the brain, we started burning out pieces of the brain and that’s what I did during my training. And then as we moved along, we began to understand how the different areas were talking to each other, and we develop what’s called neuromodulation, so sticking straws in, introducing electricity into those circuits, I’m trying to change the way that they would talk to each other. And so my mentor and one of Kelly Foote’s mentors who I work with is a man named Mahlon DeLong at Emory University. He’s retired now, but a tremendous human being, and he was the one that really spent years and years at the National Institute of Health, and then at Hopkins, and at Emory decoding what the circuits are. And in 2015, he received the Lasker Award, which is one of the highest awards in medicine, just under the Nobel, for this work. Richard Miles (10:50): Doctor, now that this is becoming more common and will become more common, walk us through what happens when, let’s say someone’s parent they’re 60, 65, 70 years old, they’re brought in to a doctor like you or a clinic somewhere, and they’re diagnosed with Parkinson’s. What are some of the first steps of treatment? And coming back to deep brain stimulation, is this a one and done type of treatment, or is this a continuous regimen of treatments over time? And then what does the outcome look like for, say, someone in their mid-fifties or early sixties? Dr. Michael Okun (11:20): So when we think about Parkinson’s Disease, the first thing we think about is when somebody comes in, we need to understand when you say those words, “you have Parkinson’s Disease,” it’s not the end of the world. Okay? There are a lot of different forms of Parkinson’s Disease. And I have folks in my practice I’ve taken care of for 20, 30, 40 years. Okay? So it’s important for us to dispel that myth. And as we dispel the myth and begin to deliver treatment, we recently wrote in the Lancer last week, a seminar on Parkinson’s Disease, 20 page-seminars, get your coffee if you want to read it. But we talk about, in that seminar, there’s a picture of when we started here at University of Florida, we had this concept of model for caring for the Parkinson person. And we said, the person’s the sun, and we should all orbit around the person and the family, because this is such a complex condition. And there are so many, you know, specialists; you need an archeologist, a neurosurgeon, neuropsychologist, PT, OT, and speech, or maybe you need a nutritionist, access to clinical trials… We have over a hundred clinical trials, it becomes confusing. And so, we need to integrate the care, and if we integrate the care into what we call a multidisciplinary team, we’ve learned that it isn’t just–I call myself the drug dealer as a neurologist. It isn’t just the drug dealer or the device dealer, where we take people to the operating room and put a device in that provides the best possible care. It’s this model of interdisciplinary care, and it continuously changes over time, and you have to actually listen to the people, so it’s a different specialty, and to actually listen to the clues that they give you on how they’re living in order to change timing and change doses. There’s over a dozen different medications, there’s all sorts of infusions, there’s deep brain stimulation. And I like to teach, and we have fellows here who, after they’re done with their neurology residency, spend two years with us to train in this, and we’ve trained about 70 of these were all over the world. And what I like to tell people is Parkinson is like a lifetime disease. Think of all these different therapies, and you need to understand how the disease evolves and when is the right window to apply each one. So deep brain stimulation isn’t for everyone at all times, but there are points in the treatment where it can provide extremely beneficial effects on things like just suppressing tremor or movements we call dyskinesia. And so knowing the disease and knowing the person, and then creating the right multidisciplinary plan is important. And the last point is, we wrote something for the Journal of the American Medical Association last year with Melissa Armstrong here at UF. And we, as experts said, a first-line therapy now is exercise. We now recognize that exercise is so beneficial for this disease, that it’s now considered a first-line therapy, right along with the medications. And so that should tell you something about the humility of treating this disease for so many years and us understanding what’s good for folks and what’s not. Richard Miles (14:18): If we compare this to a disease like cancer, is Parkinson’s something that could actually be put into remission, or is this a steadily degenerative disease? All the treatments are just slowing down or resting that trajectory, but essentially it’s going down, or can you stabilize somebody for a decade, for instance, with no decline? How does that compare to something like cancer? Dr. Michael Okun (14:37): Parkinson’s is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder. Now there are multiple what we call phenotypes. So we have what some people call benign Parkinson, because it progresses so slowly. And then there are other forms that progress faster. We’re just beginning–it’s like Genesis of the Bible–we’re just the in first couple of days in understanding actually the differences between some of these entities, but it is progressive. Now people might say, well, tell me, how did Pope John Paul get anointed as a Saint, right? Didn’t he cure a nun of Parkinson disease, and that’s how he achieved sainthood. Well, we’d like to leave that story alone because it turns out that many people who are presumed to have Parkinson’s disease do not. And so if you get better then you may not have Parkinson’s, and then there’s a group of people who have tremors and other symptoms that look like Parkinson’s. About 10%, about one in 10, very early on, when you first see them, then never progress. And a lot of times people don’t go back and realize, wait, this person’s not progressing at all — hey actually don’t have Parkinson, they have something else that’s more benign. And we realized that, and we gave this crazy name to that called scans without evidence of dopaminergic denervation. I would never call a person a sweat, that’s what it stands for. But, if you’re not progressing, you may not have Parkinson’s. And sometimes early on the diagnosis can be made in the wrong direction as well. And so it’s very important, but when you do have Parkinson right now, it’s progressive. Now we are searching for things that will slow the disease down and, or provide precision medicine or other treatments for it, but we haven’t gotten there yet. Richard Miles (16:15): So let me come back to something you just said about perhaps a faulty diagnosis. It sounds like the ideal treatment or regimen of treatment is this interdisciplinary approach, which you’ve got multiple people looking at it and working on it from different angles for a patient, but I’m guessing that that level of complexity of care is not available to everyone. Do you have to be next to, say a major research hospital, like University of Florida, or some major metropolitan area to get that kind of care? And if you’re not, and you’re in a rural area or in a very poor country, for instance, what is the outlook for somebody in their mid-sixties? Dr. Michael Okun (16:44): So in general, if you can get access to one of these multidisciplinary teams, it’s better. We know from Medicare data done by Allison Willis, who is at the University of Pennsylvania, that if you have access to even a neurologist, and most people don’t actually see a neurologist, if you have access to a neurologist, your morbidity and mortality, your nursing home placement, all of those things that are super important, those numbers get better. Just having access. If you have access to multidisciplinary care, the data is beginning to point that this is also better. There are centers of excellence that have been set up through foundations, ike I work as a medical advisor and former medical director for the Parkinson Foundation. We have 47 centers all over the globe, but these aren’t widely available to people. What we do at the University of Florida is we see people from all over the world, we always have, and we try to construct plans for them, so these plans can be carried out by people within local zip codes, whether your local zip code is in Australia or Asia, or you have flown in to be seen, you know, from there where we set the plans, and then we ask the therapists to follow them out. Beause a lot of therapists and other members of a multidisciplinary team, they may be giving you the wrong therapy. And sometimes the wrong therapy, Richard, is worse than no therapy in a disease like this. And so setting the right plans, communicating and creating public health value is important. And one of the three things, we just had a campaign it’s still ongoing called the Give a Dime for Parkinson’s Disease campaign, and our first goal was to get to 10,000 red cards to the White House. We’ve now reached 25,000. One of the three points, while we asked for three things– because if you ask for too many people get distracted–we’re asking the White House and congressional members to consider as one of the three things is to maintain telehealth access for people in the United States. That didn’t happen before COVID-19, and many people don’t realize that that’s not permanent. That has to be made permanent, and then we have to develop these types of interdisciplinary models, so that people who don’t have access or don’t live right next door can still get access and the right advice, and then put the right team together, so they can have the best outcomes. The best outcomes mean less falls, less fractures, billions of dollars in healthcare savings, happier people. And so I think it’s in everybody’s best interest, particularly as the disease has exploded. Richard Miles (19:06): And Dr. Okun, In addition to your research and your clinical work, I know you are involved in at least several nonprofits that I know of, probably more. Tell us a little bit about what you’re doing in those areas, like Tyler’s Hope and so on, and what has been the response as you’re trying to raise awareness on some of these conditions or diseases that are not as well known. Dr. Michael Okun (19:23): Yeah. So I think when you look at other diseases and what they’ve done to change the trajectory, the story of polio, the story of HIV, and in HIV, it took what we call four pillars to do that. So you have to develop a system with any of these nonprofits for any of these really important diseases that are going to affect society. P is for prevent, A is for advocate, C is for care, and T is for developing new treatments through research. We call it the PACT. So when we went and we researched, we said, what do you need to do? So we need to get all of our non-for-profits together and we need to organize and sum our voices, and reach that inflection point where we can become loud enough. We can advocate with enough force to actually push change. And that’s what happened in HIV. For example, they went from a few hundred million in funding to 3 billion, a year in funding. And now HIV, when I was an intern, my first year out of medical school, 25 years ago, this was a bad word to be on. If you have HIV, it was kind of the death word, and it was really not great. And now, it’s a chronic livable condition, the trajectory has changed for literally tens of thousands, if not more people, worldwide. And there’s a reason why that happened: prevent, advocate, care, and treat them. And advocacy was huge. And so I’m a big believer in non-for-profits and even more than opening the checkbook and writing the check, getting involved. And I’m a believer that when you sum voices together, if you can get to a certain level–and nobody knows exactly what that is, maybe we can ask them out loud while our tipping point lives through these things. But there is a moment where things tip. And so one of the things in Perkinson, for example, we’re trying to tip, one of the three things we’re asking for us increase the funding from 200 million to 2 billion a year, by 10 times, because we know that if you increase it by two times, you’re going to get twice as much research, twice as many young researchers. And so this is going to have a multiplicative effect. When it comes for Tyler’s Hope for just only a cure, here, this is a disease where we know the deletion. We know where it lives. We know quite a bit about it. We have a lot of technology, we just need to, sum our voices, push more money into this, and that’s what Tyler’s Hope is doing, push the advocacy, and we can create a precision medicine treatment. And I think we’re on our way and that disease as well, there’s still a way to go, but the same for Tourette. So I’ve been in the tourette world with a non-for-profit called the Tourette Association of America. So I think the story is the same, but I think part of the formula to reach impact is you have to bring together globally voices. And when we were speaking with World Health Organization, there were representatives from all countries talking about Parkinson and creating that grassroots movement. And we have a grassroots movement called the PD Avengers on Twitter. Now there’s 3000, like really loud, obnoxious people on one of them that are really making a lot of noise. And that’s what we need. We don’t need to be polite anymore. We need to be aggressive and charismatic and a bit obnoxious for these diseases. Richard Miles (22:26): I like how you put that and, as a comment, as an aside, I spent a good portion of my career overseas. And one thing that non-Americans are amazed by is the level for nonprofit activity that we have in the United States, directed towards all sorts of things, but in particular medicine or health, and the vibrancy of that sector really is something almost distinctly American. They obviously exist in other countries, but not nearly at the level and scope of what you see all over the place in small towns, big towns, and so on. Dr. Michael Okun (22:53): It’s a very special thing. And you’re absolutely right. I’ve done outreach to other countries. And I, I won’t say which country I was in, we actually brought some devices in and probably could have been arrested for doing that. And we were helping the doctors with some devices and some implants. And we were out seeing people all over, who just needed help. And it struck me in that experience, and I’ve seen it in other countries as well, that we helped a woman, and then they invited us to dinner, and we realized that, Oh my God, this woman that we helped is the mother of somebody huge in the country that has these huge business interests all over the country. And we said, why don’t you give a whole bunch of money to Parkinson’s disease? And they said, “give money to Parkinson disease? We don’t give money. This is an American thing.” You know, too, we’re having this discussion. “You all give away your money. We don’t do that. We don’t do charity.” And I thought, wow, it is really something special. And, and then I think they felt a little bit embarrassed. And then they said, well, we do give charity. But the charity we give is we support our sports teams. And so we explained to them, well, that’s not exactly charity. And so I do think that it is a uniquely American thing. It’s one of the things that differentiates us, makes us stronger and gives us the potential to mobilize and galvanize against diseases and other issues that face society. Richard Miles (24:12): And it’s also a perfect way to mediate between the individual who alone can’t do much, and the government, which often has a lot of resources, but is not terribly efficient in how it distributes them, so it creates this whole layer between small groups and very large governments. Dr. Okun, one final question or a couple of questions actually. At the Cade Museum, we like to not just tell a story of inventions, but the inventors, and not just the story of technology, but the researchers behind the technology. So tell us a little bit about pre-professional Michael Okun: what were you like as a kid? Did you know, early on you wanted to be a doctor or a researcher? What were some of your early influences? Dr. Michael Okun (24:48): Yeah, so I had it pretty good as a kid. I grew up with a good house. I had two parents. My father was a dentist, my mother was teacher. And so I kind of got left brain, right brain. They had very different ways of looking at the world. I was always memorizing things like the backs of baseball cards, statistics, things like that. And my life I’ve always had a joy. I’ve always been a person that’s had pure joy to be part of things. And so for me, a lot of my joy was in reading history and humanities and things like that. And so I saw myself more as a teacher and a teacher of history and even going into medicine for me, I saw myself as a black bag family practice doc. But what happened to me was life as a journey. And it’s like a lot of Chinese philosophers say, Lu Zhen is a famous Chinese philosopher who talks about roads, and there are no roads, and when there are no roads, a road is formed because people walk on that road. And so you walk your journey and you take your opportunities. And sometimes you don’t know exactly what you’re interested in or not interested in. And so even when I ended up saying, I want to go to medical school now and try to help people in underserved communities, I couldn’t tell you the difference between a neurologist and neurosurgeon you know, at that point in my life, and you just keep walking the road, and it turns out I’ve always been fascinated by people with tremors and movements and saying why. And I said, I would never do research. I’m a teacher. I would never do research. And then I realized that the government will give you a whole bunch of money to study things that you’re super passionate about that can help people. And so I was super passionate about figuring out where in the brain ticks came from. And so I’ve spent 20 years working on that problem, and we’ve developed devices, systems and things to try to address that problem, same with Parkinson and tremors and certain movements and funny walks. And so I’ve always been fascinated by that. I think the secret is, you find your passion, you spend as many minutes as you can doing your passion. And if you can get somebody to actually pay you to do it, then that’s the bonus, but the bonus doesn’t always happen. And I think in my life, all of those things have aligned and I have great joy every day that I come to work ,every day that we go to the operating room, Kelly and I, I have great joy. We’re always thinking, we’re always innovating. And we consider our labs a continuous beta test. We’re always writing papers. We’re always thinking about stuff. Now, one thing we’re not for people that are listening to this podcast, we’re not like business entrepreneurs. So we patented a whole bunch of different things: how you do a cap on this, how you do reporting on that, how a device would do this, how one side might turn this side on. And, we get involved with all of these things–vaccines–but our job is we just keep innovating, and then we hand that over to someone else and innovations square and let other people run with it, because our passion and our impact is trying to help as many people as we can. And so there are various different aspects to the creativity process, to the invention and the innovation process. And we have kind of a human laboratory, you know, in the operating room and in the clinics and in seeing people and they tell us what the problems are and we try to innovate for them. And the next steps happen as we try to create that, we try to write it down. Remember I like to write poetry and other things. We try to write it down and tell people what we did, and then the next steps will happen. So there is this beautiful process of innovation that happens, and there are a lot of people that quietly do that in the background like Kelly Foote and groups here that are just quietly doing their jobs, writing down what they’re doing, and then letting other people take it to the next level and commercialize these things and make sure that they get out there to help people. And there’s a great quote, I think it was Jonas Salk who they said, are you going to patent polio vaccine? And he said, well, that would be like patenting the sun. And so we’re all into patents and innovations and everything. But at the end of the day, we have a certain amount of minutes on the planet, and if we can come up with innovations that are going to help and impact people’s lives, I think that’s what most of the people, at least on the medical disease side of innovation, are interested in. And so you asked me what my message would be for kids or young people would just be follow your road, spend as many minutes doing the passion that you can, impact as many lives as you can. Don’t worry about the money. Don’t worry about that. Just worry about how much joy you have in your heart. That’s all you need to do. Richard Miles (29:14): That’s a great answer. And whether intentionally or not, you summarized also a good chunk of the origin story of the Cade Museum and Dr. Robert Cade, who invented as you know, Gatorade, because he didn’t have any idea how to take that product to market. He liked to write poetry. He had just a real joy in life for helping others and to his final day, he and his co-inventors, the number one thing they were proudest about, about Gatorade, was the fact that it became the cheapest and most widely available treatment for infant diarrhea in the third world. Wasn’t intended to do that, but that’s what they are really the proudest to have, not that it became a culture or a sports icon. And so it’s nice to hear you say that, but just in different words. Dr. Michael Okun (29:50): I think it’s a great story, and one I hope kids are listening to, but so many people will give you advice about your career and everything, and I think they make it more complicated than it needs to be. Richard Miles (30:01): You precluded my last question, was what would your career advice be? And you just gave it to me anyway, but it’s great advice and really appreciate having you on the show. You’re doing tremendous work, keep doing it. It’s inspiration on all sorts of different levels and wish you the best of luck. Dr. Michael Okun (30:13): It’s my pleasure, and we love the Cade Museum. We talked about being involved in non-for-profits, my wife and I are involved in, and we think it’s just a great thing for not only this community, but for the world. So thanks for all you do. Outro (30:25): Thank you. Radio Cade is produced by the Cade museum for creativity and invention located in Gainesville, Florida. Richard Miles is the podcast host and Ellie, Tom coordinates, inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood, soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist Jacob Lawson.

Welcome to the recruitment hackers podcast. A show about innovations, technology and leaders in the recruitment industry brought to you by Talkpush, the leading recruitment automation platform.Max: Good morning and welcome back to the Recruitment Hackers podcast with me Max Armbruster, talking to some of the thought leaders and leading executives in the talent acquisition space, looking at how they're leveraging recruitment and talent acquisition to give them an edge for their business.And today I am honored and pleased to welcome on the show Kim Howell Chief People Officer at ERC. Welcome Kim. Thanks for joining. Kim: Thanks for having me, Max. Good to be here. Max: So, Kim, we're going to be talking about how you and ERC have adapted to the new normal and how your organization has responded to the challenges of the pandemic and the transition to work from home.Then we'll see where the conversation takes us. But, before we go into that, perhaps, if you would, give us a brief introduction on what you do and your background and on ERC.Kim: Absolutely. So, yeah, I'm currently with the ERC. I've been in the industry now for 25 years.However, I'm still 21, so don't do the math. Okay. I started years ago in a call center in Buffalo, New York. As an agent on the phones, collecting past due bills and, you know, throughout the years, I attribute a lot of my successes to the fact that I stayed very grounded in where I came from.I think that you can exceed much better in business if you did the work you're supporting now as an executive. So ERC, I've been with them now, gosh, since 2006. It's been a little bit of a blur because it's an excellent and forward moving company. We're a global BPO. We support our clients cradle to grave.Anything from phone work, chat, email,  tech support, you know what I mean, full global provider. We really strive on having the best experience, starting with our applicant experience through to our candidates' experience onto the employees' experience, which we all know deeply impacts the client's experience and our customer's experience.So that's one of the things that we've really held true to. Max: All right. Thank you. And I think collections is indeed a skill that will serve anybody for the long run. I certainly have been doing a lot of collections over the last few weeks. It doesn't matter, you know, where you are, whether it's Chief People Officer or CEO, I think you have to collect sometimes.So, well, that was my experience with the recent few months. We had a bit of a scare on who would be paying the bills on time. Tell us about your scary moments from the last four months at the company level. Kim: Yeah. So first and foremost, biggest scariest moment is how do we protect our staff, right.Clients absolutely being our top priority. And our staff being the top priority to one, keep them healthy and to support the business. And at the end of the day, we wanted to make sure that we could retain the most number of employees because it's a scary time for them, right? Their kids are being sent home from school.Things are getting shut down. You know, they're getting locked away at home to quarantine and not everyone was getting locked away in the best circumstances. So our biggest scary moment is how do we keep our staff to still have the best experience while keeping their jobs? We were very fortunate that we were prepared.You know, outside of your typical disaster recovery plans and what do you do if, and knowing that a lot of our sites are in Hurricane Valley, you know, we're pretty nimble. But that was kind of the scariest moment, will the staff be able to work from home? Will we be able to deploy them quick enough?And then how do we continue our business, in this new norm? We executed very quickly. And I think that's what we are most proud of. Although it might've felt chaotic. Although maybe in the background, there was some chaos. I don't know that we ever let it get out. Max: You, you were telling me earlier, you moved to a work from home in a 48 hour span.And I guess over multiple countries, which geographies do you operate in? Kim: So currently we are in the United States, the Dominican Republic, India and South Africa. Max: Okay. So that's about five or six different time zones. If my math is correct and two and a half languages, or, well, one English.But, what was some of the logistics that you had to deal with that transition? In late March. How did you figure out the move to work from home in such a short timeframe? Kim: Yeah, so domestically, it was a little bit easier. It was a matter of letting our employees know when you go home today unplug everything on your desktop monitor screen, computer units, your headphones, everything that you need, unplug it, put in your car and take it home. Right. And obviously we had inventoried those and done the right signup process. So it was a little bit easier there, weird feeling to watch all of your equipment walking out the door.But it was easier in the Dominican Republic, a little bit differently due to laws there, they couldn't necessarily walk out with stuff. So we had to deploy our transportation team to deliver the desktops, to all of our agents that had the ability to work at home. Right. And there's a lot that goes with that.We were having everyone do their, you know, internet speed tests to find out whether or not they could work from home. If they couldn't we were trying to cure my five devices to support the internet that they would need. And then obviously trying to get more equipment when the entire nation is going work at home at the exact same time you had, a lot of supply versus demand concerns.Can we get enough headsets to continue to support ongoing recruitment efforts? But yet in about 48 hours, we were back up and running very little downtime. Couple little hiccups along the way as we figured out tech solutions or internet concerns. But at the end of the day, you know, very little client impact, nearly no employee impact.There's a few clients that were not comfortable with the work at home or work from home solution. That's really the only place that we saw any employee impact, but anyone that was not working. Max: Those customers will probably be out of business soon enough. I don't wish that of course, but they may sing a different tune today than they did three months ago, of course.Kim: AgreedMax: And so you delivered 800 PCs to people's homes, you have to hire a few trucks to, to run that operation. I presume. Kim: Yeah, within DR, 800 total pieces of equipment, deployed within a matter of days, we used everyone's personal vehicle that could drive. Obviously we had a, there were some deadlines that the government had put into place that you have to have it all done by this day.So it was definitely a scattering of anyone that has a car, or two hands and can drive. Let's go. Because you need to pick up these equipments and you need to get them delivered in. It was a wonderful showing, a force by our employees there, folks that weren't part of the transportation team that became part of it, just to get it deployed.And I think that really speaks volumes, well, not just, you know, of ERC and our culture, but definitely of our folks, down there in the DR, just working together to make sure everyone can stay working. Max: I didn't realize you were present in South Africa and India as well. We also have clients in these geographies at Talkpush. I'm a big traveler. I noticed that these waves did come at a different time and what people don't talk about is the universal kind of nature of this crisis. Almost every country reacted the same way. And every group reacted the same way. We keep talking about our differences, but really those kind of universal responses.One thing that I keep hearing back though, is we didn't think that emerging markets were able to work from home. We didn't think that we had the right internet speed, but these were, you know, these were overcome a little bit easier than people had thought that it would be. Does that reflect your experience?Kim: It does. And for the most part, there were a few folks that we had to furlough because they did not have the internet support that they needed or, and we couldn't, for whatever reason, get them a device or even with the device it wouldn't work and what was most prevalent is their home environment didn't support a work at home situation, right. Five kids, kids screaming and yelling all day, multiple, dogs barking, whatever the case may be. And also, especially when you look at some of our folks in the DR it's kind of a different environment, right? You have multigenerational families. So it's not where you can lock yourself away in a room and get work done. So we had to make sure that they had the opportunity to work from home. Max: Yeah. The sad part is these are the families that probably need the job the most. If you need the income and you need to have the structure in your life where you can get away from that noise. Yeah. All the more, traumatic this crisis would have been.It goes back to your earlier point that, you know, people need a job sometimes even more than they need the income. They just need that structure. Kim: Yeah. And you know, that's one of the things that did work out well for us, both domestically and in our international sites. For the clients that could not do work at home because of whatever security restrictions that they had.We were able to classify some of our staff as essential workers. So we were very selective in who was going to be an essential worker. If you can work at home, work from home. If you can't we're going to find a way to get you right size or rehomed to the projects that's essential so that we can keep you employed or keep you in a safe harbor or whatever the case may be.So there was some shuffling of roles and responsibilities based upon people's abilities. Max: The talent pool that you're picking from now is going to be vastly expanded with your work at home program. And you were telling me before our call that, you've seen a significant increase the applicants from pre-crisis to today's, right now we're at the end of July, almost August. Can you give us the numbers in terms of how much of an increase have you seen over this period? Kim: Yeah, actually, absolutely I can. And we've seen a few shifts over this new norm or the COVID period. So historically when we were hiring for, there are brick and mortar sites, we saw anywhere from 400 to 600 applicants per month, right.Pending on recruitment needs. At the time, once we went to work at home, that volume increased to 3,500 a month. That was fairly significant. And we didn't have the time to double our staff or more appropriately up it by 10 more people to keep up with that volume because it takes time to train a recruiter.It takes time to get them up to speed. Then we really had to find ways to deal with that increase in volume without the candidates experience being monopolized. And that's one of the things that we really. We had to get creative with technology and we had to get creative processes, right? Because the processes of the past to have one on one interviews and one-on-one screens, none of that works unless you want to give yourself three months to reach back to a candidate.And that's a horrible experience, right? Especially in today's environment, when everyone needs that immediate gratification, you need to respond to them within 24 hours or you've lost them. That's no longer a warm lead for our recruiting staff. And, you know, not only that, but the shift in the demographics of people that were applying was also different.So historically work at home, you see about 70% part-time utilization, meaning people looking for part time work, 30% looking for full time. In the  COVID environment so many full time workers were displaced that that completely reversed, where we saw 70% seeking full time employment and only 30 seeking part time.So it changes scheduling. It changes again, the process flow when we recruit fundamentally changed and, and the how .Max: it sounds like it's a better talent pool to choose from, which makes sense. When you go from 3.5% unemployment to whatever it is today, maybe 10 times that yeah. Kim: You know, max, it's funny, it's not necessarily a better candidate. And that's one of the things that has one of the places where we get to change our questioning. And our processes, because if you think about it, historically, the only people that were applying for work from home are folks that had a need to work from home, not a want, a need, right? Because they're differently abled. They are working parents, they are single parents, whatever the case may be. Now it's different. So you have people that have never worked from home and don't understand the discipline it takes to work from home  applying for a job that will have you locked at home all the time. And that's, it's really in the recruitment process.We'd never, before had to explain that because the only people applying for work at home are folks that did it in the past. Now we're having to spend time of our recruitment process explaining what to expect working from home. Because it's easy to get distracted by the load of laundry that needs to get changed out or a TV show that's on during the day that you don't typically get to watch or the doorbell ringing.They're really making sure that we're explaining the expectations of working from home before we even get into whether or not you're a good fit for us. Max: Do you have a dress code for people to work from home? Kim: No, we really don't.Max: The benefits of the new normal Kim: It is, and that's one of the things that, and it was weird that you say that because when we initially moved to work from home, our brick and mortar folks, we saw an immediate uptick in productivity because now they're sleeping a little bit longer because they don't have Jacksonville traffic commute time.So they're getting that extra couple of minutes. It has them more refreshed. They can go get their cup of coffee very quickly versus having to wait for break time and then wait in line to get to the Keurig machine. There's all of these conveniences of home, it was new and fresh and exciting.Everybody was uber productive. Then the challenges became kind of post recruitment. Post-deployment post all of these things. Now it has shifted to engagement because it's very easy to lose your staff at home. Because you don't see them. You don't know when they're having a bad day, cause you can't look at them.So that's really where Zoom and the different technologies that we use for engagement became very necessary just to know if they're having a bad day. Max: Yeah, we do a few of these things ourselves internally. We have a coffee break or a water cooler chat where we're randomly paired with somebody in the company to do a random chat and related things help and create connectivity.Of course, the zoom calls, are a factor, but right now I'm trying to a company, 60 people. Um, I kept not ask all to come together, right. So I have to commit method of thinking.training, classroom, tacticaltraining or onboarding. Kim: Yep. So through training and onboarding, we have a couple different things that we do, um, onboarding right now we do in a group setting and we do a couple sessions throughout the day because we do hire route multiple time zones. So everyone can't always join at the same time. So we'll set up multiple times throughout the day, both with am and PM offerings, but it is a total group session.And what we've learned with that, even in the past,you know, post recruitment or onboarding has always been in a classroom setting. Let's all get together, but now you have even more opportunities to compound factor that in. Classrooms of the past: 20 people. And our classrooms of today are still not much more than that.But you can onboard 50 at one time, as you can fit more people into a classroom, a virtual classroom. You still want to break out for the actual training, because obviously you want to make sure that they're getting the attention that they need, and that you can keep up with the questions that are happening via polling or chat.But from an onboarding experience, you can onboard multiple people at one time. So it really makes the team more efficient because they're not spending as much time on those isolated touch points. Max: You're using that for the, uh, for the interviewing process as well. These group sessions?Kim: Ee are. And that was a very big shift that we had to make.Like I mentioned earlier, application flow went from 400 to 600 to 3,500. It was impossible for our process of the past to keep up with that. Our former process was everybody got a one on one phone interview. And if you were advanced, then you sat down for a face to face interview with the hiring manager.That's not realistic for 3,500 people. And again, there's no brick and mortar to bring them into you for that face to face. So one of the process changes that we did was that first initial phone interview, we'll invite anywhere from 10 to 15 people into that interview. And we'll have one group interview.And this is just the preliminary interview. If you think about recruitment,  it's a joint sales effort as a candidate you need to sell me on why I should hire you. But as an employer, I also need to sell you on why you should want to work for us. So in this setting, I'm able to do that sales pitch one time versus 15 isolated times.And if you think about a normal course of an interview, that phone interview is usually about 15 minutes long, sometimes a little bit longer for supervisory or executive low level roles. Obviously they're significantly longer, but think about 15 minutes over 20 candidates. Versus having those 20 candidates come to one 15 minute interaction so that I can give my sales pitch once, but more importantly, engagement of that team or excuse me of those candidates is so much better because typically these are awkward, right? They don't necessarily want to ask a question because what if it exposes me as having a weakness? Now it's a conversation. Max: Your story made me kind of flashback to when I was a job seeker, myself and I was invited for a group interview.I flew from London to Paris for that interview, I think, or from somewhere to somewhere. And, I put on a suit, I took the train, I went to the office and then I was accepted, you know, welcomed into a conference room with 10 others and I had to do whole thing. And all of this was just like a buildup of tension and anxiety.As I came to present myself, I was very, are you nervous. But if I have to talk about who I am for a couple of minutes, while I'm looking at my computer in the comfort of my home, I'm sure I can knock it out of the park, even 20 year old version of me, you know? Right. So, one of the tricks of recruitment is putting the candidate at ease so you can see really who they are, then you're working from a better place, actually, if you're letting that happen from their home. Kim: Yeah. And I think that putting them at ease is so important, especially in today's environment. It's a great point that you make Max, because if you look at where we are today and in the environment, So many people need a job and they're going to therefore tell you what they think you want to hear to get that job.So it's not just a recruitment to put candidates in the seats of our training class, but recruitment needs to put the right candidates in the seats, in our training classes, ones that are going to have stickiness, and that are going to stick with us for a long period of time. Turnover is expensive.Recruiting is expensive. So the less people you have to introduce into the organization, the better. So you really need that stickiness. Hmm, but then what the recruiters are really tasked with doing now is candidates need to be at ease. It's less about the skills they bring to the table, and it's more about their ability to be taught the skills we need them to have.And that's really what we've changed in our philosophy, because it's not, we want to experience or you have to have X number of years in the industry. It's are you teachable? Because teachable individuals have more loyalty and have more stickiness. If I've taught you a scale. If I've taught you how to be successful.And then more importantly, I've made you successful within the company, based upon the trainings. You're more apt to stick with us versus coming to me with 10 years experience and not necessarily liking the environment and know you can go someplace else. So we like to really have a good mix of tenured people with experience, and then just the teachable individuals go a long way.Max: I don't know where you're going to get the best retention from, from the old timers or from the freshers. Because of courseboth come with a risk, um, going from 400 or 600, hires per month to, or candidates per month to 3,500, almost 10 X in volume. Um, You've been able to perhaps a bit to create a few more filters and what are some of the filters that we can use, that recruiters can use to determine if candidates are teachable or, or to make sure you hire people who are adapted to work at home?Kim: Some of that is done even before we ever talked to them. And that's really where I think employers can leverage whether it's their ATS or just standard processes to have people self select their course, meaning what path are they going to take?Beause we have various different openings, whether it's collections, chat, email, customer service, retention efforts, whatever the case may be. So you want to go through some questioning within the application process. That's going to have them select the right course. That's best for them. Are you looking for a PM shift?Okay. Well, that's going to put you into a different pool than if you're open and can work whenever. So some of the questions that we do even before we talk to them, we have them do their internet speed tests. You know, you have to have proof of a workspace, show us your workspace, submit those pictures to us.All that's done via our ATS portal. So that when we go to sit down with the candidates, we've already done all the checklist work, right. We already know that they pass the sniff test so to speak on a tech solution and an environmental solution. Now we need the teachables. And in that group setting, you'll be very surprised on how much you get from that.Because one of the requirements of the interview is you have to be on camera, right? We need to see you. We need to know the reaction. So as people are asking questions, you can see the folks that have a ton of experience. They're either open to our answer or they're like, oh, I know the answer. Well, I know the answer means, you know, the answer of your past employer.Not that you're going to be open to how we do it at ERC. So we do a lot of profiling in those interviews in just how receptive are you to people's questions, to our feedback, to our responses, and to our environment. So we like to read those facial expressions and you know, one of the problems with zoom is now I talk to my hands a lot.It's the New Yorker in me. I can't help it. I always tell people to keep a distance. So I don't accidentally get to you. But some things you lose in zoom. So we always tell people, you know, we give them a zoom etiquette course before we do the interview. Sit back from your computer, don't have it right up on your face.You know, we want it exactly, but we want it to be a good experience for everybody. We don't want anyone to feel uncomfortable. And that was one of the things and something I definitely recommend for employers to do for your recruiters. Don't assume everyone understands technology. As savvy is I'd like to pretend that I am, I was very new to zoom when we went into COVID. I was very used to, hey, meet me in the conference room. So I had to really educate myself on how to do a good zoom experience for my staff. And that's one of the things that we really had to sit down with the recruiters to say, how do you make it a good zoom experience for your candidates?And, you know, you were talking earlier about some of the engagement activities. And I think so many people look at recruitment as being over once the job starts. And it's not, in my opinion, it's just starting. Our best applicant source are our staff. Refer is the key referrals, stickiness. They know what they're walking into, so you don't have that, or it's not what I expected turnover rate at play for referrals.And it always tell everybody recruitment is a continuous effort. The employee that's been with the company for 20 years should be your best recruiter. They should be out there, you know, handing out cards. Here's, you know, we're hiring whatever the case may be. And we do a ton of engagement efforts.We did a lip sync challenge the other day on zoom. And we brought everybody in and just did some lipsync battles. We've played charades via zoom. We've done impersonations. You have to guess the person there's so many different things that we've been able to do on zoom. And I know that sounds weird.It's used as a recruitment tool, but think about it. How many people get to say, like, I actually had fun at work today and yes, it's a grind and we work hard and it's exhausting. But at the end of the day, I played charades with an executive. That was pretty cool. And I don't know many companies that do that.So you've got to continue to invest in your business to make sure that recruitment stays exciting. Max: That is very creative. And my idea of creativity was we're going to send them sandwiches and beers at home, which probably works too. But this is good stuff. I am not looking forward to it, but I have a feeling that my Head of HR will organize some charades, unfortunately, all that.Kim: It is super fun. Max: Yeah. I can do that. Maybe with a beer ,if I can combine the two. Kim: Yeah. That's what I was going to say. Send yourself, the sandwich and a beer and you're good. Max: All right. Well, you've given a lot of great ideas to our thinkers. To close it out and thinking about that continuous improvement you were talking about I really think that, we're really at the beginning of this transition.Where do you see the next level of automation? What are some of the stuff that your recruiters are still working on that you feel is a little too time consuming and you wish you could take off their desk how are you I'm imagining the next few months or a few years of innovation?Kim: The biggest thing that I see right now is finding a way to capture both the voice component of recruiting and the text or context component. Right? So there's a ton of vendors out there that do a lot with whether it's profiling the video assessment or taking speech and keywords and all of these other things.And we have our Mars application, which is our homegrown application that we use for text analytics or excuse me, speech analytics and the speech analytics are super important in recruiting by listening to the conversation and giving feedback or training opportunities to our recruiters. But more importantly, and what we want to tie together as we continue to evolve, our tech solutions is taking all the texts that happens within the application process, right? The resume.Yeah. If it's required, if not just what they fill in on the app and looking at our success stories internally and tying the two together, you know, putting in that, if this, then that logic, within the entire recruitment process, because what we see when we manually look at it, which is a super time consuming and archaic process is, Hey, this person had all these work gaps.They were not successful. Okay. Well, how do you drop those work gaps or put them into a different bin for a different type of work treatment to find out why are those work gaps? Was it contract work? You know, there's other things where we find a great success rate in our customer service arm of folks that come from Chick-Filet.Everyone that I strictly as a huge customer service backing and, and really invested a ton of time in that. And I know it's weird. Right. Okay. So someone who served fast food is successful at a BPO. Absolutely. Because again, BPO is customer service. Max: Yeah. That doesn't shock me. I'm still trying to think how you can automate this, you know, when you do that group video group interview that you do, and you say you're, you're reading, people's faces to see, see how people react to what. I think the HireVues of the world do analytics around video, but I don't think anybody, maybe the Chinese government has figured out a way to analyze 12 faces set simultaneously and contextually.But that is some next gen stuff should keep us busy for the next appointment.Kim: At least. Right. And, and that's really where, you know, one of our biggest things is finding the right partner. That's trying to figure it out also, and let's build it together. Right. That's because I don't think anyone's figured that out yet.And I know it's coming and my goodness technology is advancing quicker than we can get through R and D with different vendors. So that's really where it's okay. Who's got the bandwidth, the savviness and the patience to deal with us in a partnership to build that. Because it's coming. And I look at the amount of time that my recruiters, I don't want to say waste because it's valuable, but right now, so much of recruitment is processing, not recruiting.Yeah. And if you could find a way to automate those manual touch points, um, that are necessary to decide, do they get an interview or not? Using, you know, a data analytic tool on the resume using that data analytic tool on the conversation, now they can recruit. Max: I cringe at the thought that people are going to take the current crisis as an opportunity to revert back to bad behaviors and treat, you know, stop treating candidates nicely.I get the feeling that is not going to happen at ERC. And, I really want to thank you, Kim, for your inspiring words and sharing the story of the last few months with us. I wish you and  ERC all the best.Kim: Thank you so much. Thanks for your time. Max: Thanks Kim. Talk soon. Max: I had a lot of fun talking with Kim Howell, and you can see from her determination and attitude, how she managed to drive her career from working into collections all the way to Chief People Officer at ERC. That kind of leadership where an opportunity comes in the shape of a crisis to transform and move things around and where you have to start changing hats, putting on your logistics hats in order to facilitate hundreds of people staying at work and being able to continue, have structure in  their lives through this pandemic. So great chat Kim. I hope you stay on for more Recruitment Hackers Podcast.Please follow us and share with your friends so we can get the word out on our new podcast. 

Flan's the biggest hypocrite of 2020, he thinks people share too much. In this episode he talks about his issues with sharing on social media, why he does it, why he hates it, what he thinks it says about him. Thanks as always for listening! Go Sound!

How did IMPACT grow the subscriber base for its email newsletter to 40,000+ in under two years? This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, IMPACT Editorial Director Liz Moorehead talks about THE LATEST, IMPACT's email newsletter. Created in 2018, THE LATEST is written by Liz and sent out three times a week. It's one of several email newsletters that were created around the same time and are really disrupting the world of email marketing. In this episode, Liz shares the story of THE LATEST, from how she writes it, to the newsletter format and design, how they grew the subscriber base, and the impact the newsletter has had on IMPACT's business. Best of all, she shares her advice for anyone who wants to start an email newsletter, or is interested in revamping the one they currently publish. Highlights from my conversation with Liz include: Liz is the Editorial Director at IMPACT, where she overseas a team that publishes approximately 25 articles a week and a thrice weekly email newsletter, THE LATEST. In 2018, IMPACT had a large audience and a lot of content, but no email newsletter. THE LATEST was originally created as a way to consolidate all of the email that IMPACT was sending and create a better experience for its subscribers. When THE LATEST launched, there were only about 1,200 subscribers. Today, there are around 42,000. The newsletter goes out three times a week and every issue is personally written by Liz, and sent directly from her email address. Each issue begins with a personal story by Liz, where she often includes very personal details. This choice to mix a business newsletter with very personal stories was a deliberate one that has helped THE LATEST connect with its audience. Liz's advice to anyone writing an email newsletter is to be honest and vulnerable, but keep the stories somehow relevant to the content and audience. Liz tested a variety of different formats for THE LATEST, and eventually landed on one that is very text heavy, with few if any images. This ran counter to what she thought would work, but testing proved it to be the best performing format.  She uses emojis to break up the text and draw the reader's eye to what she wants them to see. IMPACT uses HubSpot to measure the performance of its marketing and through that, can tell that THE LATEST has influenced more than 2 million dollars in revenue. Resources from this episode: Visit IMPACT's website Check out THE LATEST Connect with Liz on LinkedIn Follow Liz on Instagram Listen to the podcast to learn what makes an amazing newsletter and how you can use your newsletter to grow an audience and drive revenue for your company. Transcript Kathleen Booth (Host): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm your host Kathleen Booth. And this week my guest is my good friend Liz Morehead, who is the editorial director at impact. Welcome, Liz. Liz Moorehead (Guest): I am so excited. Can you believe it's taken us this long to have the idea to have me on this podcast? Liz and Kathleen having WAY too much fun recording this episode. Kathleen: And if I'm being honest, I honestly think I thought I had already done it, which is why I didn't do it because I thought I already had.  Liz: I'm going to try not to take this personally. You may get an official demerit in the mail. The jury's still out on that. We'll see how today goes.  Kathleen: I don't know how this happened, but we're making it right now. I'm so excited to have you on because you are somebody who is doing so much amazing work in so many different areas. To be candid, when I invited you, I had to choose because there were so many topics we could have covered. You're the pillar content pro and all these other things. But the thing I really wanted to talk with you about is email newsletters. But before we get into that, pose people out there who may not know who you are or who or what IMPACT is, can you please talk a little bit about yourself as well as the company? About Liz Moorehead and IMPACT Liz: Absolutely. So as you mentioned, I'm the editorial director here at IMPACT. IMPACT is a digital sales and marketing company. That basically breaks out into a couple of different things. Number one, we consider ourselves the top educators in the space of digital sales and marketing, and that manifests itself through our publishing. We publish the anywhere between 20 and 25 articles a week, seven days a week, even on Christmas. We have IMPACT Plus, which is a self guided learning platform for digital marketers, sales pros and business leaders. And then we also have our agency services as well. So we originally started out as an agency, you know, the traditional inbound marketing HubSpot partner agency before we really started getting our claws into the education piece of it. One thing I will say though that is a little bit different about our agency services is that instead of the traditional model of, you know, "Hey, just, you know, kick your marketing over here, we'll take care of it. Like don't worry about it. We got it, we'll take care of it," we have more of the "Teach a man to fish" model. So we do a lot of empowering businesses to bring their content in house, bring their video in house, really take ownership of their marketing technology stack with things like HubSpot. So that's, that's IMPACT in a nutshell. All things digital sales and marketing. If you have questions about it, basically just come to us. Kathleen: You've had an interesting journey because you're like part marketer, part editor, part writer. You're a different kind of a person than we've traditionally had on the show. So could you talk about your journey a little? Liz: My journey is strange. I never fancied myself ever getting into marketing. I only ended up in marketing and quite frankly, landing in your lap Kathleen, as the result of a layoff. Prior to being in the inbound marketing and content management space, I had been working in communications and I had been working as a senior editor at a digital publisher that catered exclusively to trade associations and then they overhired, or there was a market contraction, and there were a bunch of us, since we were the last in, we were the first out. So my editorial team, we all just like, 50% of the people, left like overnight. Then, the next day, a mutual friend of ours who was working at your agency Quintain at the time said "you should come out for lunch." I'm like, "I don't want to," like, "I want to stay in pajamas, I want to be sad, I want to keep crying cause I just lost this job that I really loved." And it turned out it was when you were guys were doing the Inbound Marketing Summit at The Metropolitan in Annapolis. And I walked over to her and I said, "I had no idea the rest of everyone that you worked with would be here." And that's how you and I met, because you said "You're the one who writes the beer column for the Capital Gazette. Right?" And I said, "yes". And the next thing you said was, "I don't like beer". And then I, there was a little pause and in that pause I'm like, "This is the worst 48 hours". I'm like, "I look like I just got dumped. I feel like I just got dumped. This lady in front of me, dressed to the nines, and I looked like, just awful." And then you said, "But I like your writing". Kathleen: Yes, it's true. I was a devotee of your beer column, which I just think, it's hysterical because you're right, I don't like beer. I don't drink any beer, but I loved reading about beer because you made it so interesting. So go figure. Liz: Yeah. So I came on board at Quintain and I'm going to make this part of the story pretty short, but it was kind of, it was a, it was the first time I had really failed at something. I was very excited to be in marketing. It was a new challenge. I had done each piece of that job desperately across different roles throughout my career. Things that I had done historically very well, and it just wasn't working. I think about a year or so afterward, you and I had one of those “carefrontations”, a candid conversation, a crucial conversation, whatever you want to brand it as. And you and I were sitting there talking and you and John Booth, your husband, who ran the agency with at the time said essentially, you know, we have a right person, wrong seat. So you put me in a content management role. That was, I feel like, when my career changed, because prior to that moment working in marketing, I had always been brought on in the way we had discussed it. As, you know, "you needed a marketer who knew how to write". And the reality is I was a writer who had a strong marketing backbone. It was the flip. And so once I really went into that role, which at that time I remember you saying like you had heard about it from Marcus Sheridan and you know, there were all, you know, people were starting to realize that you couldn't just like market, you had to have someone who knew how to write, who knew how to communicate, who knew as a native skillset, the way people know how to build dimensional, like email marketing strategies and revenue campaigns and like all of these things that are not native skillsets. To me, brand storytelling, interviewing, voice and tone development -- like, how do you make content that is so memorable that people not only remember the answer that you told them, they remember that you're the one that said it to them. That's the kind of stuff I was really good at. So to be able to really focus on that exclusively in the role just really changed it. But that is something we're still seeing today. You know, there's more traction, there are more content managers now, but at the time, you did something that was atypical. You created that role that I think was, in a way, ahead of its time. Kathleen: Well, you're giving me a lot of credit, but you are an incredibly talented writer. And for those listening, Liz and I have had the opportunity, and I would say for myself, the good fortune, of working closely together several times. We don't work together now. You've had a really an amazing career and, I would say, she has set the bar for what it means to be a Head of Content in many ways, in the sense that not only does she do an amazing job, but she also teaches others how to do it. Why IMPACT started THE LATEST Kathleen: So that being all said, let's talk about email newsletters. I want to preface this with, when we were working together back in 2018, we were both at IMPACT and IMPACT produces a lot of content and has a big audience. But at the time, it didn't have a newsletter, which I always thought was interesting because it had this huge, built in audience. So we were talking about creating one, but we really wanted to create something special and not just kind of check the box with a newsletter. It just so happened that that all happened around the same time that I feel like newsletters were undergoing a Renaissance. It's funny, I just gave a talk on this last night. 2018 was the same year that Morning Brew was founded, that The Hustle was founded, that Ann Handley started writing Total Annarchy. That was a pivotal year for email newsletters. And I think I would hold up the newsletter that you're involved in right alongside those others in terms of the, you know, how it's kind of breaking new ground on what it to send an email newsletter. So with that as an intro, maybe you could rewind the clock and start at the beginning. For people who are listening and might not be familiar with the newsletter, could you talk a little bit about, you know, what it is, how frequently it is sent, who the audience is, et cetera? Liz: I like how you phrased the history, by the way, of THE LATEST, because I remember that conversation. "Liz, how would you feel about writing our newsletter?" And I said, "Nope." I waffled, was a bit wishy washy. I was trying to say no, but with as many yes words as possible. And then you did that thing that you're so good at doing, which is like basically communicating that you're voluntelling me. Like, "So you're going to try it out and see what you think about it." So that went pretty great. So we have THE LATEST. It's meant to give digital sales and marketing pros everything they knew need to know to make smarter decisions, faster, and to do their job better in around five minutes. It hits inboxes Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. I do emphasize to people who may not have heard of this newsletter before or are new to this, yes, an actual human being writes it. That human being is me. I spend about six to eight hours a week working on it and it is a labor of love. Now, Kathleen, you remember the discussions that we had. We had already been doing some passive email distribution of our content, but we were starting to run into a couple of challenges. You know, HubSpot, for those who may or may not be familiar, has an option where you can automatically generate instant, daily or weekly digests of the content that you're publishing. We had scaled up rapidly from the traditional model of like, a few times a week of publishing content, to what I mentioned before, you know, seven days a week. No holidays off, 20 to 25 articles a week. That's a large volume. And we were running into a situation where we had emails competing with each other. You know, we had events we wanted to promote. We had all of this content that was going out and it was just this passive valuable-ish maybe kind of thing that we'd been sending previously. So THE LATEST was really meant to solve for that, as the centralized location where we could put all of our most important information. And we had a new opportunity to show one of the things that we believe about the most at IMPACT, which is our people, our products. So if that's the case, we're going to make it as personal and as impacting and as thoughtful and hand curated as possible. We wanted it to be as valuable as it could possibly be. Kathleen: So that was the nice things about newsletters, is it's their ability to consolidate a lot of what you want to communicate to your audience. And I do remember at the time that, you know, we have those instant blog notifications going out, but we were emailing people about events, and webinars and you know, social groups that we were running. There was a time, I think we counted and people were getting, you know, an email every day from us, if not more than that. And that can quickly lead to major email fatigue, which you know, really can hurt your sender score. So that was a great reason to shift over to the newsletter in and of itself, was let's email people less and let's be more efficient about it. But I think you're right, there was so much more to it in terms of being able to really cultivate a voice and develop a relationship with the audience. Getting personal in a corporate email newsletter Liz: I believe though, that was the thing I didn't expect out of it. And I'll admit, I'll still get the heebie jeebies every time I have to smash the send button on a newsletter that goes to I think 42,000 people at this point. That's still something where in the pit of my stomach, I'm like, "fine". The thing I never really expected out of it is that piece you just mentioned, which is really developing a relationship with your audience. I remember when I first started writing the newsletter, earlier issues were a little bit more pithy, a lot shorter, not very personal. I always like to embrace the Kathleen mindset of "keep doing stuff until people tell you to stop doing it", then just keep going and see what happens. And so I started using it, especially last year, to just be more emotional and honest about where I was personally because I went through quite a bit of stuff last year. I'm just ripping off that bandaid. I now live in Connecticut, but I used to live in Annapolis, Maryland with you -- not with you in the same home, but like a mile down the street. I was married at the time. I am not married anymore. I was moving up in my career. I was trying a lot of new things. I was experimenting with a lot of, just, new things professionally. It was a really big year of growth for me and I started talking about it. I started talking and I had no idea. I don't know what possessed me to do it, but very similar to Ann Handley and a lot of other newsletters you might see out there, we really focus on putting the letter in the newsletter. Now you may think to yourself, well, things like divorce and moving and all that stuff -- that's not really relevant to digital sales and marketing leaders. What was surprising to me is how many of those elements of going outside of your comfort zone, being willing to embrace change, all those things really apply personally and professionally as well. And the audience, that really ended up resonating with them. I would get start getting responses and replies. You know, we were in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic and I remember there was one where like, I was trying to be positive. I was trying to be like the little fortune cookie, you know, confused to say it's all gonna be fine. Like it's not, I couldn't get myself there. And finally I just wrote this thing about how I was just flirting with an emotional cliff. I wasn't in a really horrible spot, but it was becoming increasingly more difficult to carry the weight of my own feelings, carry the weight of the feelings of my friends and family -- the fear that for a while there was really gripping the country and the world and still is to some degree. That was one of the issues that I got the most responses to. It becomes this thing where I essentially started just writing to the people in front of me and they would respond and they would also still read all the stuff I put in there -- still read everything else. They would read all the articles, they would click through everything.  Mixing business and personal in email newsletters Kathleen: so taking a step back, as I think it's interesting, if somebody isn't familiar with the newsletter, this might be confusing. This is a corporate newsletter in the sense that it is IMPACT's newsletter as a company, but you write it pretty much every time. Every now and then somebody else jumps in if you're on vacation or, you know, for whatever reason to take a Saturday off. But really, this company newsletter starts off every time with a very, very personal introduction from you. So can you just talk about that dynamic because I think that's a dynamic that is going to be very new to a lot of people. They might be thinking, "why would you have a company newsletter come from one of the employees and start with a personal letter from him?" Liz: Well, let's face it. People trust human beings. People buy because of relationships they have with human beings. Now more than ever, since we are trapped behind our screens, my entire social life is conducted via Zoom at this point and has been for the past seven plus weeks. They don't want to talk to a nameless, faceless company. They want to talk to a human. Also, if you want to just get more technical and tactical about it for you business leaders out there going "I don't know, we're different. That's not for us guys." Just to be perfectly candid with you, your open rates will increase if it comes from a person. The moment we stopped sending things from IMPACT or "Liz from IMPACT" or "whomever from IMPACT" and just put "Liz Morehead", boom, open rates popped. Kathleen: Yeah. It's funny, I was, so I mentioned I was giving a talk. I gave a talk last night to the Public Relations Society of America about basically this topic of newsletters. I talked about having it come from a person and, and how a lot of companies are very skeptical and they think "No, our audience is too professional, we need to be more formal." The example I love to show that shatters that myth is there's a company called CB insights, which is a technology analyst firm. Like, big time tech companies, you know, are their clients -- the Googles, the Microsofts of the world. This is a very highly respected company in the analyst field. They have an email newsletter that has hundreds of thousands of subscribers and it comes from Anand Sanwal who's one of their principles. This is the part I love the best. He signs off, like at the bottom of the newsletter, he writes his intro just like you do. And at the very bottom, instead of saying "from Anand", he says, "I love you, Anand". This is a highly professional tech analyst company and one of the principals signs off the newsletter "I love you". Like, you know, I think that that to me just says, if they can do that, then anyone can kind of cross that bridge and become more personal in the way they do their email outreach. Liz: A hundred percent and I get that feedback a lot too. "Well, Liz, you're in marketing, you're allowed to do this kind of thing". I'm like, wait, hold on a second. Our target audience are high level VPs, CEOs, no nonsense business leaders, and they're reading and subscribing to my newsletter. It's still works. Yeah. I think a lot of people talk themselves out of trying things before they're even willing to see, you know, they're, they're ready to indict it. They're ready to pass judgment and say, "Oh, this won't work for us. Yada, yada, yada." But that's not true. And I would also say, you know, this is something we've been seeing with video right now too. This sounds like a strange correlation, but especially in this, you know, in the wake of Coronavirus, the threshold for production quality right now is a little bit lower, especially in video. People are expecting you to be in your homes, to be more human, to be more open. And I think this is a great opportunity for us to open that door and realize, yeah, so they're tech people or they're this or they're that, but they're also humans first. They are human beings first. The anatomy of THE LATEST Liz: But to get back to your original question, yes. So the anatomy of the newsletter in terms of how it's set up. At the very top you're always going to have a big headline that basically showcases the three top stories that we're covering in a given issue. So for example, the one that went out yesterday was "How to have really difficult conversations over video" and "Are you ready to do content marketing right?" and "How we planned and executed a 3,000 person virtual event in only three weeks." So we'll have that right underneath that. If nobody wants to read my letter, that's fine because we give you the links to those three articles in a little box right above it. So you could just like, you know, "That's fine Liz, you have a lot of feelings. Maybe later I want to read this stuff." Now underneath that then we have the letter. The letter itself usually falls into one of two categories. I would say 75% of the time it is somehow tangentially related to one of the three articles that's included. I like to keep it relevant. There are, however, the fringe cases -- that other 20% of the time where it's like, I have something I want to talk about. Maybe something big happened at IMPACT. Maybe there's just something more global that I want to talk about. For example, let's just go for it. The issue when I told everybody I was getting a divorce and I did it kind of euphemistically was the New Year's Eve issue. So it really made sense because essentially I was saying I was moving to Connecticut and doing so by myself. I'm only going with my cat. It's crazy to think about what the beginning of this year was like versus the end of this year. And I think a lot of us are feeling that way. That is something where like there's a bit of a balance. It's not always like, emotional bloodletting, but that's how I bring those types of stories in. I don't just decide, "Well I don't have anybody to talk about my feelings with. I'm going to do it here." It has to be relevant to the moment, to the context of what I'm talking about after the letter. Then it goes into a little bit more detail about each of the articles. You know, what question does it answer, what is it about, who wrote it? And then I also include some related links. So for each article, if somebody is interested in the topic, but that's not quite the article they're looking for, I'll pull in some other things. We feature our latest podcasts and shows -- the usual stuff like marketing events you need to know about. And then right now, because everything is so stressed out, we used to have something called weekend nonsense in our Saturday issue. Now it's in every issue because I think we all really need a laugh right now. And then I might throw in like, "Hey, I'm reading this" or you know, I, I fool around with what's in there. But that's really the anatomy of it. The goal is essentially to make it something people are excited to open. I think if you're creating an email newsletter, yes you want to drive traffic to your own site. But when I wake up on the days that I have to put this together, my number one goal is to make it something so insanely valuable that no one will ever regret having opened it. Even if they don't click through, that's fine. I just want them to feel like I have somehow made their job easier, their life easier or made it easier to make some sort of decision that day. Designing your email newsletter Kathleen: That's awesome. Now I know way back in the beginning we had a lot of debate about what this newsletter should look like, and how it should be formatted. There's lots of different schools of thoughts on this -- you know, how many graphics do you include and pictures and videos and gifs and emojis? Liz: So many things. I was so wrong. Kathleen: So talk a little bit about that. I think it's evolved over time and you've done a really good job of testing everything so that you can make data backed decisions. Can you share a little bit of that whole evolution and what you've learned? Liz: Sure. First of all, it's good to keep in mind, just from an email deliverability perspective, the more graphicy, flashy, design-y your email newsletter is, there is a higher likelihood that people will not see it that way either due to settings in their email that automatically turn off images if you're in a particularly like cybersecurity or technology focused space. Outlook inboxes are brutal in terms of what they will let through or what they will actually show. So we tried to keep the structure of it pretty lightweight. It doesn't look all the way plain text. There's some tabling in there, there's a little bit of structure, but for the most part it's just a basic rich text editor. But it wasn't always that way. Well, originally it wasn't. We had a little bit more structure around it, but for the most part I would say as long as I've been doing it, I really try to keep it more of that loose structure. Now a couple of the things though at the beginning that I, let's just talk about the thing I was most wrong about. So, as you know, every blog article you publish on your website should have a featured image associated with it. You know, people like things to look at. So I was of the idea that every featured article -- because again, they were under that welcome letter for me, there are three articles -- that every single one should have like, a featured image with that. We did that for a while and the open rates were great, but the click through rates were fine. Then somebody said we should test it without images. I just thought that was going to be a disaster. I am always coaching people about content, when they create it, to not create giant word walls. Beause that's the first thing that makes people go, "No, no, this looks hard. I don't want to do that. That is visually, that is not a content piece I would like", you know? So this idea that we were going to have just like, so many words, really freaked me out with no visuals. Lo and behold, when we took out the three featured image, one per each of the articles, our click through rates went up. Now that I think about it, it kind of makes sense. Imagery in a newsletter. If you subscribe to it already or will be in future, you'll see that I still use images, but they're purposeful. They're only there to drive the story forward. They're only there to provide visual context where I think you actually need the context. Otherwise it's not there. There are no images. I like to use emojis, which is also another thing I was wrong about. Not really so much in the text or the letters, but we use them as visual guides. Like for example, there's always a pointing finger in front of every headline for each of the three articles. The marketing calendar always has the same little calendar box, hot topics and Elite -- I'm very proud of this one -- a little spicy pepper. Things like that. It's so that people can visually scan and they get used to knowing where things are. And it allows me to visually call things out without it being intrusive. But that was something I was always very against. Just, you know, I'm, I'm knocking on the door 40, I've never been a huge emoji fan. We had to have like two or three people in our team at the time help us try to figure out Snapchat, and I still don't understand it. I've just never been an emoji person, but it allows me to add a little bit of personality, razzle-dazzle when I want it. Occasionally I'll just like throw one in to be a little bit cheeky in my intro, but that's really the only visual compliment other than me including an image when I feel like it's necessary. Otherwise it's just, it's just words and links. Kathleen: I think this is another area, like, emojis are a great example where you hear people say, "I can't do that because my audience is older and more professional". But the audience for THE LATEST is, how would you characterize it? Liz: All over the place? I think a lot of people on the surface would say, okay, so you're a young, hip marketing agency. You can get away with this stuff. The people I hear the most from -- this reminds me a lot of my beer column. Everybody always thought that my beer column audience was like young bearded flannels, you know, the usual beer drinking crowd. And I did have a lot of those. But the people I've heard the most from, my most devoted people who still actually read me to this day, even though I retired from that like what, six, nine months ago? They're older, 40 and above. It's the same thing with this. Some of my most devoted people, the people I hear from the most, are much more established in their careers. CEOs of businesses, VPs of sales and marketing. One of the guys is actually one of our clients, was one of our clients. He's like some good old boy from Tennessee. He's a straight shooter. He's just that guy. People you would never imagine are actually reading my newsletter and they're engaging with it. The other thing I'll say about emojis, too, is that remember it doesn't always have to be a smiley face. There are emojis for things like charts or very basic things like a calendar tab. You know, take a look at what's available to you. You can get away from the kitty stuff, you can get away from like the silly stuff. There's a lot of good stuff in there. Kathleen: Yeah. And there's a great site. My favorite resource, the site getemoji.com because you could just go there and you can see them all and you can copy them and use them wherever you want. I use them a lot, not just in email newsletters but in LinkedIn posts and stuff like that. The other thing too is that going back to the conversation we had about fact that a lot of your images will get stripped depending on where it's being sent to and what the email platform is. Emojis are Unicode text. So you are able to make your visuals have a little bit of flair. Liz: It gets in there without it getting stripped out. Kathleen: Yeah. Liz: So that's really nice. It's, it's good for me. I use it for visual hierarchy the most. Kathleen: Yeah. It's very, very effective for that. What impact has THE LATEST had for IMPACT? Kathleen: So, this started in 2018. Can you talk a little bit about the results? Like how large is the list now? What are you seeing in terms of marketing results from the newsletter? Liz: Oh yeah, for sure. When we started this, I think the  number was somewhere around like 1200 people maybe because we didn't want to force opt-ins. We had people who were opted into our daily, our weekly notifications, but we didn't want to force people to come on board with it. We did an initial push, I believe, with garnering subscriptions. We brought some people over who were already opted in in certain capacities and it started as a very small list. After that, today, I think I already mentioned it, we're now at 42,000, and in terms of results of what we're seeing from it as of today, we're closing in on about $2 million in revenue associated with it via HubSpot, which is outstanding. Kathleen: That's awesome.  Liz: It's a newsletter. You watched me last year on stage at IMPACT Live. I like content that makes money. You know, a little little skin off my back there. I'm pretty happy that that's uh, that's doing well. The results really speak for itself. I think if you go into that with the same mindset that I have, whether it ends up looking like mine or not, it's not just about what articles do you want to in here? Do you want to drive traffic? If you just focus your entire energy for a couple hours that you're putting it together and say, "I want to make this the most valuable thing that my ideal buyer would have in their inbox", you will be astounded at the brand evangelists you can build out of that. Email newsletters in the time of COVID-19 Kathleen: That's great. Have you had to change anything with the newsletter as a result of this whole craziness with the Coronavirus? Liz: I think what's been surprising is how much benchmarks no longer matter. Like, we had all this benchmark data, right? We've even written the same articles, like "When's the best time to send an email newsletter?" When's the best time to do to do that? Those rules no longer apply because everyone is trapped at home. So for example, we had, you know, a pretty steady average open rate that had been growing incrementally over time. And then there were a couple of days just because, you know, I think a lot of people can relate to this, as soon as Coronavirus hit, it was, it moved like a wave across the country and around the world. But when it would hit wherever you were, it was like 24 to 48 hours of complete madness. There was shell shock. There was, what are we doing at our company? There are all these things that need to happen. And so I was talking with Vin, our VP of Marketing, one day and I said, "Look, there's no way I'm going to get to this until like, THE LATEST is actually going to be the latest my time. Like that's just how it's going to happen because I have X, Y and Z to do." And he's like, "Those are the top priorities. As long as it gets out the door today, I don't care when it gets out." We had sent it at like six or seven o'clock at night. We had almost doubled our open rate. Kathleen: Wow. Liz: It was absolutely absurd because it made sense. Right? People are now just sitting at home, not understanding boundaries between work and play because, I don't know if anybody else is like me, I know I'm done with work when I move from this side of the couch, which is the right side of the couch, to the left, just to kind of mix it up just to see what happens. That's been kind of crazy. I would say also the level of emotional honesty I'm allowed to get to has been great, but it is a balance. I really was struggling for a couple of weeks there of, you know, I used to find inspiration for the newsletter out in the world, face to face human interactions. What do you do when 80% of your stimulus for how you create as a writer for me is gone? That was really a big challenge for me. Some days I feel better than others. And I think as this has become more of a normal, as this has become more status quo, again, this is the end of week seven of this, at least for me, I'm learning to find stories in different ways. But for awhile there it was hard. You know, just, I couldn't be depressed all the time. Kathleen: You can only talk about your favorite Netflix show so many times, right? Liz: Well the other thing too though, is that there's an emotional delicacy to it. There is a reality that I need to constantly be aware of. There's a difference between humor that genuinely puts someone in a good mood for the first time in a day and humor that's tone deaf and falls flat and actually ends up offending someone. So it's been a tricky thing to figure out because I understand that everybody has a different situation. Here's a good example. IMPACT Plus is that learning platform we were talking about earlier. I run the virtual peer group for content managers. We have CEOs and business leaders, sales and videographers and content managers, yada yada yada. So I run the content manager one. We had a content manager virtual peer group scheduled for the week after everything just caught completely on fire. I had originally slated to be teaching people how to build a content strategy, and instead I was like, I'm not sure if this is what they even want to be hearing about or if this is even what they care about right now. I'm so glad I didn't do that because as it turned out, a couple of people on the virtual peer group had been laid off, weren't even content managers anymore, but they were still there, there were business owners who were concerned whether or not in a month they were going to still have the business. I mention that because I had a similar reaction to THE LATEST. I remember the first couple of issues, I sat there and said "Am I helping people who have just lost their job?" You know, I'm in a place of privilege. I still have my job. It's all relative in terms of what everybody's dealing with, but that is a privilege. I've had to maintain situational awareness that I'm not speaking to an even more diversified audience with a much more volatile emotional range. And I'd say that has been a really big challenge, but it's also been really fun. Like yesterday's issue of THE LATEST I talked about weird food and combinations and stuff. Like the other night for dinner, I had this fantastic 2015 red Bordeaux from France and I paired it with an Oscar Meyer baloney sandwich and I started getting all of these funny emails back from people. One guy was like, "The only reason I was able to build a spreadsheet last night was because I took a break and stood over the sink and ate cold pizza." I think good advice for this is to just be honest. Everybody's kind of blindly feeling around the dark room for a light switch right now, but the only way you're going to get through it is just being aware of who your audience is. Be cognizant of the emotional state they might be in, but don't let that restrict you from a place of fear. Let that give you freedom in terms of the stories you're telling because I think people are really looking for people to be honest. I'd say that's one of the big impacts that this pandemic has had on our newsletter. I was already being really honest. I was already really doing a lot of these things, but it's made me a much more creative storyteller in terms of where I find stories and it's also made me, I think, a much more empathetic storyteller. It's made me more human, more open, more personal. Whereas I think the knee jerk reaction might otherwise be to restrict, pullback, be more corporate. What Liz says you should know about starting an email newsletter right now Kathleen: if somebody is listening to this and they're thinking, well, I might want to try either starting a newsletter or revamping my newsletter and taking a different approach, if you had to give somebody advice on, if you were starting a newsletter now, what, what would you tell them? Liz: I think it's important to have a very clear idea about the why behind the newsletter. Why are you making this choice? Is it because your current email marketing isn't working? Is it like us, where you have so many different communications? We need to bring that together and there's a new opportunity to do it better. Really understand your why. I would say that's the first step. Then be very clear about what your goals are. I think that if you're going to go into this, like, "we need to check the box, we need to do a newsletter," then what I'm talking about is not for you. In fact, I'd say probably in a year or so, that kind of email newsletter stuff I don't think is going to really survive. It'll be there. People will open it, but it's never going to drive the brand awareness that you want. It's never going to create that community. It's never going to make people initially have that reflexive "I have a question about this. I should go to them after that." I would say when you're building out what goes in your newsletter, you need to put out of your mind, your priorities. You need to say, "What is it that, if I were my ideal buyer, what would make me go, 'Oh wow' every time I open that newsletter?" -- that's what you want. You want to create that moment where somebody opens it up and it's a present like on Christmas morning and they say, "My gosh, they got this just for me!" That's what you want to do and it's going to look different. You know, you may not have the crazy personal letter or like, I think one time I made like condolence cards for marketer's failing email campaigns and stuff. Like I get really weird in mine. Just make it personal, tell a story, you know, make it so people understand that there's a human behind what you're doing and then just commit to it and be willing to try different things. Be wrong about images. You know, you're going to have to fight a lot of your own instincts. You're going to have to do a lot of testing, you're going to try things, they're going to work, they're going to not work and that's okay, but be consistent. Kathleen: Yeah, and just keep doing it. Check out THE LATEST Kathleen: If somebody wants to check out THE LATEST or subscribe to it, what should they do? Liz: Just go to impactbnd.com and if you scroll down, you'll see a little bar that says THE LATEST. You could see the latest issue and then there's a big button that says "Subscribe to THE LATEST" and you'll get me -- actually me -- in your inbox three days a week. Kathleen: You can scroll through so many past issues of it, unlike many newsletters which only exists in your inbox. I think the cool thing about what you guys do is you can go back and read prior issues on the website, which is really nice. So you can try before you buy if you want. Liz: Yeah, absolutely. I mean if you follow me on LinkedIn, my username is Liz clam. Every time a new issue of THE LATEST comes out I share the web version of it, which is, you know, it's user friendly to look at.  Kathleen's two questions Kathleen: All good things must come to an end, but we're not quite done yet. I have two questions that I always ask all of my guests and now it is your turn to answer. The first one being, we talk a lot about inbound marketing on this podcast. Is there a particular company or individual that you think is really like the shining example of doing inbound marketing?  Liz: That's a great question. And the funny part is, is that I always knew these questions were coming, but I'm still racking my brain about this. I think my answer probably would have been different had we had this about a month ago before everything happened or I guess more than a month ago at this point. I've been spending a lot of time on LinkedIn recently as I think a lot of people in our space are. And I have to say, I have been blown away by three people who our names we're all familiar with. Marcus Sheridan and Ann Handley they started doing this live series about being trapped at home and talking about the most pressing questions, concerns, and fears that everybody was having now that we're all in this new reality and I just thought that was a really fascinating and new way to do inbound in a real time, human way. Kathleen: That's really cool. Liz: There's also a guy named Chris Carolan and he is a member of our content manager peer group. I'll make sure to get a link for him so you can put it in the show notes. He is in the manufacturing space and the stuff that he has been doing recently has been, I don't think he realizes what he's doing. He is a little pioneer of inbound and also now virtual selling. So doing sales demos. There's this whole idea that as a sales person, you need to be in front of a person in order to sell to them. He's doing virtual sales demos, still closing deals, and he's also creating insanely good content about it. He's probably one of my favorite people to follow on LinkedIn and I'm not even in manufacturing.  Kathleen: That sounds like me and beer. Liz: Exactly. I will never build anything but I will follow him forever. Kathleen: Yes, exactly. Awesome. Well I will put the link in the show notes for those people. Second question. The biggest pain point I always hear from marketers is that digital marketing is just changing so quickly that it's like drinking from a fire hose, trying to keep up with everything. How do you personally stay up to date and keep yourself educated about all things digital marketing? Liz: I mean, I almost have a cheat answer. I'm the editorial director at IMPACT, so I have to read pretty much everything that we publish. And it's across video, sales, and marketing. It's across HubSpot marketing technology, developing your strategy. And we also have a whole section devoted to just news reactions, which contextualizes the latest digital sales and marketing news. So by virtue of my role, I know I'm a little bit spoiled in that I have to stay up to date. But here's what I will say. I use Feedly. I've never gotten over the demise of Google reader. I think it was the biggest mistake Google ever made was getting rid of that. But Feedly is now the devil I know and I've used it to create digital marketing news and publishing newsfeeds for me. So I follow SEO Journal, Marketing Land, Search Engine Land, Forbes CMO Network, Digiday, all of these different things. And then on the publisher side, it's like, What's New in Publishing, Poynter, things like that. I just go in there and scan. Even if you're just scanning headlines, you don't have to sit there and be like, I'm going to take three hours out of my busy day and I'm going to read all these articles. I just skim and I look, I just try to stay abreast of what is happening. There is no secret sauce, no silver bullet to staying up to date. You need to come up with a process and a schedule and you stick to it. Kathleen: But I want to say, I mean you guys create THE LATEST as a way for people to stay up to date, so you can subscribe to THE LATEST and piggyback off of all the efforts of the folks at IMPACT who are trying to summarize the news every day for you. Liz: Thank you for shamelessly self promoting me so I didn't have to. How to connect with Liz Kathleen: All right, well now we really are coming to the end. If somebody does want to ask you a question or reach out to you or connect with you online, what's the best way for them to do that? Liz: So the best way for you to do that is to find me on LinkedIn. My name is Liz Morehead, L I Z M O O R E H E A D. And if you like pictures of beer and cats and the occasional Connecticut state park, you can find me on Instagram at @whatlizsaid. Also, fun fact, if you go to impactbnd.com and type the word "genius" in the search bar, you will be brought to every article I have ever written. Kathleen: That is amazing. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that just to see it work. You know what to do next... Kathleen: All right, well, thank you so much for joining me, Liz. If you are listening and you liked what you heard here -- and how could you not because Liz is amazing -- or you learned something new, which again, how could you not because Liz is amazing, apparently she's a genius -- head to Apple podcasts and please leave the podcast a five star review. That is how we get in front of new people and they find a find the podcast and hear and learn from amazing experts like Liz. If you know someone else who is doing kickass inbound marketing, tweet me @workmommywork, because I would love to make them my next guest. That's it for this week. Thank you so much for joining me, finally, Liz. Liz: I know, I know. Talk to you again soon Kathleen.

Sometimes we got to check in and realize that now is not forever. That where you are at mentally and physically is not a permanent. What you are going through is not your fate. You will grow, to will fight, you will win. Beause that's who you are. You're a fighter! Keep going and realize you're ok. You're ok to be you. You're ok to have your own back. You're ok to love you... You are stronger than you give yourself credit for. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Let's Talk about Physician Burnout... On this week's episode of the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry I sat down with Dr. Nicole Washington (For the Second Time - check out episode 62 to talk about a very serious topic of Physician Burnout. It is one that affects physicians at all levels of training and no one is immune. If you think this is some new topic, Dr. Nicole wants you to think hard about saying that is your final answer. We talk about the history of burnout, common symptoms associated with physician burn out and why our medical system may be to blame. This was an amazing conversation as we got to talk about what physicians need to do TODAY, if they want to prevent becoming the next victim of burnout. Text LUNCHLEARNPOD to 44222 to join the mailing list. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and share the episode with a friend or family member. Listen on Apple Podcast, Google Play, Stitcher, Soundcloud, iHeartRadio, Spotify Sponsors: Lunch and Learn Community Online Store (code Empower10) Pierre Medical Consulting (If you are looking to expand your social reach and make your process automated then Pierre Medical Consulting is for you) Dr. Pierre's Resources - These are some of the tools I use to become successful using social media My Amazon Store - Check out all of the book recommendations you heard in the episode Links/Resources: www.drnicolepsych.com Twitter Instagram Facebook LinkedIn Social Links: Join the lunch and learn community – https://www.drberrypierre.com/joinlunchlearnpod Follow the podcast on Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/lunchlearnpod Follow the podcast on twitter – http://www.twitter.com/lunchlearnpod – use the hashtag #LunchLearnPod if you have any questions, comments or requests for the podcast For More Episodes of the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry Podcasts https://www.drberrypierre.com/lunchlearnpodcast/ If you are looking to help the show out Leave a Five Star Review on Apple Podcast because your ratings and reviews are what is going to make this show so much better Share a screenshot of the podcast episode on all of your favorite social media outlets & tag me or add the hashtag.#lunchlearnpod If you are looking to help the show out Leave a Five Star Review on Apple Podcast because your ratings and reviews are what is going to make this show so much better Share a screenshot of the podcast episode on all of your favorite social media outlets & tag me or add the hashtag.#lunchlearnpod Download Episode 124 Transcript Episode 124 Transcript... Introduction Dr. Berry: And welcome to another episode of the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry. I'm your host, Dr. Berry Pierre, your favorite Board Certified Internist. Founder of drberrypierre.com as well as a CEO of Pierre Medical Consulting. Helping you empower yourself for better health with the number one podcast for patient advocacy, education and empowerment. This week we bring you a repeat guest with Dr. Nicole Washington who is Board Certified Psychiatrist who focuses and specializes in a treatment of high performing individuals and helps provide face to face services in the state of Oklahoma. But she also does some psychiatric services at Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Tennessee. So she's pretty much where you need to go and where you need to find her. And I bring her on the podcast this week to talk about a very important topic and I want to especially the listenership to understand that a lot of times we talk about the mental health and focused on the mental health and that focusing on the patient. But now we have to focus on, well the person who's actually giving the advice, the physician. And unless you've been under a rock, you've probably heard the term Physician Burnout. Whether you read it, where you saw it in a blog, where you listened to it on a podcast and we're going to be doing a nice little dive into the psyche of physician burnout. Why it happens, where it happens, when it happens, and how you can actually deal with it. So again, this is an amazing episode. I was glad that she, I must've did something right because she came back for another go around for another talking with us. Again, if you don't remember, she was actually on Episode 62 of us. Can you know the link drberrypierre.com/LLP062 if you want to check out that episode. So check that episode out. But after you do checking this episode out about physician burnout, and this is going to be the first of a series of episodes with different physicians and colleagues just talking about what physician burnout means to them and their personal experiences. So like always, if you have not, and this may be your first time. But if you have not subscribed to a podcast, make sure you subscribe to the podcast whether it be Apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Overcast. We're pretty much there where every podcast outlets are. Go ahead and subscribe to the podcast. Leave me a review wherever you can as well too. Just let us know how we're doing. Let Dr. Nicole know how she's doing well on this amazing episode. I know you guys are in for a treat. So like always, you guys have a great and blessed day. And again, I'm going to see you on the next amazing episode here on the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry. Episode Dr. Berry: Alright, Lunch and Learn community. Just heard another amazing introduction on a guess who one is kind of funny because not only is she a repeat guest but she was on episode 62 which she is a repeat guest 62 episodes later. So ladies and gentlemen, take the time to give a warm welcome back to Nicole for again blessing our podcast audience with a very significant topic that especially if you do a googling or you just watch TV. It's getting so much more I guess fanfare these days. Again, Dr. Nicole thank you for joining us on the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry. Dr. Nicole Washington: Thank you for having me. Dr. Berry: So we had your bio. We read your bio out. I got a lot of people where my listeners who like to skip the bio, go right to the main episode. So even if someone did read your bio, what is something that they may not be able to know about you that just happens to not be in your bio? Tell us something about yourself. Dr. Nicole Washington: I am an advocate for mainly people who just don't consume services on a regular basis. So whether we're talking about people with severe mental illness like schizophrenia. We’re talking about people of color who have all kinds of barriers about accessing services or even professionals. Because I think a lot of people think that because you are a doctor or a lawyer or whatever you are, that you've achieved that space. So what do you have to be stressed about? What do you have in need? What could possibly be going on with you that could be interfering with your mental health? You're making good money. You got a good family. You live in a nice house. People have a hard time with that. Dr. Berry: Trying to coping with that reality. What was so funny, especially when you say that, I see that happen more often, especially the cases of suicide, right? Especially witnesses like a celebrity suicide, death and everyone's almost like, oh my God, I can't believe that happened. How did it happen? Why did, it's like, it's almost a shock because people feel once you've meet a certain level of credibility or statute and for some reason those same things that happen to you when you're not at that status can happen to someone else. Dr. Nicole Washington: Yeah. And it happen that you make or where you live or any of those things. Dr. Berry: So I want to talk today about a very important topic. I teased it in the introduction, about Physician Burnout. And it's a phrase now, which interestingly enough, it almost has its own like ICD-10 code now. Because it has gotten such fanfare. But of course being on the front lines, as a physician, as a practicing physician, I really wanted to delve into these, especially these next few episodes on our series, just what is it? Who is experiencing it? Where did it come from? You being in the introduction, which again, I'm so thankful for. I would definitely like to start from there. Let’s talk about physician burnout. And just in general, what is it? What is that term we're hearing all of a sudden now? Dr. Nicole Washington: So the term burnout, even though it seems like it's become very sexy here in the last year. So it is a term that's actually been around since the early to mid-seventies. There was a book called Burnout: The High Cost of High Achievement that was written in 1974. From that book is where this term burnout came from. Herbert Freudenberger was the author's name. So he defined burnout as the extinction of motivation or incentive. Especially where one's devotion to a cause or relationship fails to produce the desired results. (Okay. Alright). I must say that again, extinction of motivation or incentive, especially where one's devotion to a cause or relationship fails to produce the desired results. And that is burnout. So you were once very motivated. You had a lot of incentive to do to be devoted to your field. You got a medical school. You had all the motivation and incentive in the world. You wanna help everybody. And you start to lose that motivation and you start to lose that incentive and then because you failed to get the results that you want. Dr. Berry: Oh, that’s deep. Remember Lunch and Learn community anytime a guest mentioned a book or anything, we'll make sure it is in the show notes so you can read that as well. When we talk about, especially in a sense from the physician standpoint, what does that even look like? A physician who's unfortunately losing their sense of self, I guess? Dr. Nicole Washington: When you start to experience burnout, it comes in different ways. So there's physical symptoms of burnout. You may have headaches or GI issues, muscle aches. You may notice tension, neck, shoulders. Sometimes people are emotionally exhausted. So you listen to everybody's stuff all day. Everybody needs you. Everybody’s pulling on you when you're burnt out. You just don't handle that as well. So you're emotionally drained and when you're emotionally drained, it takes away from your personal life. So it's then not just your day to day. It interferes with your ability to be empathic with your patients. If you're emotionally drained from people pulling on you and then it also affects you when you get home because you can't be a good friend, wife, husband, mother. When you just are drained, you can't take anything. Dr. Berry: That's very interesting point because I think a lot of times, especially when we talk about the physician burnout, I think a lot of times people think that it only, it starts when you clock in and it stops when you clock out. So as I loved that you had touched on it, that even outside of your work space, people are affected or your world just gets affected from what you're experiencing within the workspace. Dr. Nicole Washington: Yeah that's true. And then also with burnout, you can feel disconnected from your job. So you ended up having just this increasing sense of frustration and cynicism. So you just find yourself getting frustrated with patients about stuff or staff and making negative comments. You dread even getting up and going into work in the morning. Some people just go through the motions. They feel numb. And they have a hard time connecting with their patients in that way. That we did, which is for most of us the reason that we went into medicine because we liked that connection with people in that being able to help people and when you're burned out from your job, it's hard for you to remember why you loved it so much. Dr. Berry: Wow. That is a powerful words. especially in in the sense of a physician who tends to deal with, and I know you work with a lot of high level professionals, so in the case of a physician who tends to deal with that scenario where people are asking, asking, asking. I don't want to say taking, but again there's saying like, hey, let me give you my emotional burden. Sometimes let me give you the physical burden and please help me get this off of me. When you have a physician who that's really their job to deal with that, when do these issues start festering up? Is this something that 10 years down the line, 22 years down the line? When should physician actually should start being concerned about something like this? Dr. Nicole Washington: In med school, before med school. (Wow, way before). Yes it should happen in medical school. You should learn how to handle it because there are some of us who have really high stress jobs but then always lead to burnout. So it may be, for some people it is a reflection of how well they manage the stress that they're under. So if we learn how to set good boundaries with our careers. If we learn how to do great self-care and I mean real self-care, not like a spa day once a month. Because that's great. I mean, who doesn't love a good spot day? But real self-care. Consistent care about making sure that you're nurturing everything that you need to function well. So if we can teach that early, I think we do a better job of handling just the everyday stress that comes with our careers because of stress. Dr. Berry: Especially if you're a medical student having to learn to deal with, I guess what you're saying is the reality. The reality that yes, you're going to be in a stressful job. Yes, people are going to push and pull at you, but you have to be ready for it. Is there things that work better than others when you're first in that beginning process of trying to say like, okay, yeah, I think I do need to deal with something that's eventually going to come about? Dr. Nicole Washington: One of the problems that interferes with us in medicine, and I can't speak to other industries, but medicine for sure, we have a little bit of a disconnect. I guess we have a lot of a disconnect between what we are taught to teach other people to do for themselves and what we are allowed to do for ourselves. Dr. Berry: Oh, I like this. I like the direction we're going right now. Dr. Nicole Washington: I think it's our field that needs a revamp of how we look at our role and how we look at what we do. I mean, I can recall interviewing for residents, after residency, for jobs. And I interviewed with the CEO of a facility and he was going, you can make this much and then if work this many weekends you can make this much extra. And then if you take extra call you can make this much extra. And I said, if I don't have to work weekends, I can probably be okay with not making that extra money. I feel like that's not, I'm good financially. That is enough money. I don't need to keep chasing. I'd prefer to spend time with my family. And he said, well, I just don't know. These young doctors, kind of joking, but kind of not. You younger doctors, the old doctors would work 60, 80 hours a week plus, and they work every weekend. And I said, yeah. And they were all irritable and burnt out and their families hated them. The kids didn't like it. A lot of problems came with that. So I think the expectation has always been that you give 100%, the medicine and then you just figure it out where the rest of your life fits in. Dr. Berry: Wow. What I love about that because it's such a, I mean I'm a program director so I work with residents and I'll sometimes hear other attendings, these young doctors just they don't want to work as hard anymore. I understand especially if you're not in Madison, right? Our regulated work week hours is making sure that my residents don't go over 80 hours and I'm pretty sure some of y'all like 80 hours? So yes, they can go over 70 and be okay. That's how we typically look at it when you're in a residency. Again, I don't know these other industries. But in, I want to say the real world, it shouldn't be that way. So I definitely agree that medicine has definitely skewed our way of thinking. And unfortunately the teachers, the one who were supposed to be passing down good skills, good knowledge. Because they're still relying on that old ways, they do downplay the efforts of newer and younger physicians. Because newer, young physicians aren't about that life. They don't want to have to work a hundred plus hours just to please somebody. Dr. Nicole Washington: And I think that's great for them. I mean I think that's fantastic. Thinking about even I used to work in an academic setting and how difficult for a medical student to say, I know this is my third year in psychiatry rotation Dr. Washington, but my sister's getting married in Arizona, can I go to my sister's wedding? And I would say, absolutely go to your sister's wedding because I think that kind of thing is important and part of self-care is nurturing relationships outside of your career and being available for your family. But I also have heard other attendings and other departments say, oh they want us to go to their best friend's wedding. And I thought, well why not? I would want to go to my best friend's wedding. Dr. Berry: Right. If you weren't in this field, it would seem common sense. Of course you want to attend that wedding. But in our field is like, huh. They don't want to stay for 12 hours taking notes. Dr. Nicole Washington: Because to ask if they could go to a family reunion. Yes. They have the audacity to ask if they could go to a family reunion. They should go to their family reunion. So those are the kinds of things. And even simple stuff like how many doctors do you know who make regular annual exam appointments or take care of their own things because they have the patient's scheduled and it's an inconvenience and they have to fit. It's just so much that goes into Madison that you end up totally losing and putting everybody else before your own basic needs. Dr. Berry: Do you find the physicians who tend to err on that side where they're really gung-ho when it comes to medicine, they really do a lot of work in that field tend to have these same types of traits where the burnout comes a little bit earlier? Dr. Nicole Washington: I think a lot of it is just based on who you are and just your priorities and how you manage stress. I know doctors who work tons of hours, but they do so well at setting boundaries when they're not at work. And they exercise regularly and they take care of themselves. And they seem to do pretty well. But there are those of us who are not doing as great a job of managing our stress well and setting limits and boundaries. So I think a lot of it is personal characteristics that play a part. Dr. Berry: Especially with burnout, especially with our system of medicine. And we touched a little bit on it, how it is almost status quo to overwork yourself. And you almost seem like your outlay when you don't want to. What is it about just our system in and of itself that I guess takes away the fire that a pre, we'll even go down to our pre-medical student, right? That pre-medical students who all they could think about as one of the save lives. You know the personal statements, right? Take care of people, take care of people, take care of people. And then sometimes they're not even getting out of school before they're starting to say, I don't know. I don't know if this is what I really want to do. What is it about our system just in general that continues to fester that? Dr. Nicole Washington: Yeah, it seems like we do a really good job of just beating people down in general. We just crush everybody's spirits up front. I mean it's hard. I definitely know people and med student, being in academics and medical students who by the end of med school didn't even know if they wanted to even practice. And I have seen, a handful of students not go on to residencies because they said this four years of medical school took me down. I don't think my mental health, I don't think I can handle this as a career. This environment is so cut throat. So we talk about burnout on one end because just the job itself, just always having people lean on you and just the pressure of everybody's looking at you and then you have the Internet and anybody can make comments about you on the Internet. You can't defend them because you know. There's all these things that just come with, even if the job is going well, but then you add in the negative cultural stuff and it just takes them down. I look at it a little bit like I'm not making light of anybody who is abused and going through an abusive situation. But I think if I have a person standing in front of me who is dealing with significant abuse, whether it be verbal, physical, whatever. And then in my treatment with them, I only focus on them and coping skills and let me give you an anti-depressant and let's work on your coping skills. Well, yeah, that person needs good coping skills. We all do. But I need to be focused on this some toxic environment that they're in that is abusive to them. Not telling the lady who's abused. Well, we just need to work on your coping skills if you just had better coping skills. How about you do a spa day once a month? How about you make sure you turn your emails off at night? That's not going to change the fact that that environment is so toxic and some of our work environments are toxic. Not every environment in medicine is, but some of our work environments are so toxic and almost abusive to the people that work in them that talking about the regular burnout stuff, about self-care and all that, it's a moot point. Because I can go to spa days every day, but it's not going to change the fact, in this toxic work environment. Dr. Berry: I love that. Especially because I'm hearing it. And I'm thinking about, as a program director, I, being in the graduate medical education side, even now when I tell you that the burnout has gotten so, such a, and I don't wanna say popular, but because more people are talking about it, what's been happening now is this push on wellness. And I think it's so funny the push on wellness like, oh, we got to make them well. We gotta make sure doing real well. We gotta make sure you're getting sleep because it seems like no one really wants to talk about what, hey, your system is causing this, right? So, yeah, you can have a thousand different wellness efforts, but if you, if you don't have a thousand fixes to your system, especially. And again, I can talk candidly because I'm in GME, right? If you don't have a thousand fixes to your system from that aspect of itself, it doesn't matter how many wellness retreats they go to. It doesn't matter how much sleep you give up. It doesn't matter how much hours they work because they're not happy. I guess that's really the crux of it. So I love that aspect because sometimes I think that's, and again, it's easy, I think when you're not in the zone, right? Quote unquote you're not in the club, right? When you're not in the club, it may be easy to focus on. I'm like, oh well, you know, they're just not coping well. Right. Oh, they got so much money, what they worried about? And I love how you talk about like, no, no, we gotta look at this system itself. And I think that's something that really people don't really talk about when we talk about burnout. Because most of the burnout focuses on the physician. Why isn't the physician happy? Why isn't the physician deal, they got all the money, why can't they just cope how they need to cope. What did a quote unquote sad about? But I'd love that aspect of it and I can only imagine it. Like I said, I'm in GME. I used to be in private practice I guess in private practice stories as well too, they gonna see where that goes. Dr. Nicole Washington: Absolutely. My time in academics was very interesting because I do think that's where you make change. We make change with creating systems for our trainees so that when they get out and get into leadership systems, they will demand basically. I think a lot of our trainees, you know, millennials and people give millennials a hard time and all the millennials don't want to work, all that. I get it. I cannot ever blame somebody for saying I don't want to work 80 hours a week. I get it. I don't want to work 50 hours a week. How about that? If I don't want to work, I give you 40 that sounds good. I'll give you 40. Dr. Berry: Can I go back and forth? I've thought 40 was the norm. Dr. Nicole Washington: I can't blame younger physicians for having those expectations. And I think the culture will shift hopefully as we have these younger physicians taking over leadership hopeful that we will see changes that really changed systems and not necessarily, like you say, I focus on physician wellness and 15 minutes once a month in a lounge. Dr. Berry: Say hi and then keep moving. What's usually, especially because when we were talking about medical students at first too with the burnout aspect, what are they learning? What are they learning that's already giving them that idea? Oh this is probably gonna be that rough. And I think it goes back to the expectations that they had. Could someone argue like, well, Dr. Nicole, maybe they should change the expectations. Dr. Nicole Washington: I do think that's part of it. I think when you go into any situation with unrealistic expectations, it can be difficult. But we also still very much having medicine, even at the medical school level. You have your gunners and you have this culture of kill or be killed. And there still may not be this collegiate relationship among the students because they're all vying for, I need to do better than you because I want this spot. And then you create, now we have students coming in who have the pressure of knowing that we're no longer at a place when you and I were in med school, when there were spots to scramble into and there were extra residency spots that went unfilled. And so we knew we can probably find a place somewhere. It may not be, you think, okay well might not be my number one or two, I could probably find spot somewhere. But these students have the additional pressure of am I even going to be able to find a residency spot? So you hear all of that, so there's that stress from day one and the culture at our medical schools is still very old school. It's still very kill or be killed and it's still very, very competitive. Dr. Berry: You touched on it because I didn't even think about that how competitive it was when you are, I didn't even think of, I forgot about how competitive you had to be a and I hate to say you had to be it, but you had to be when you are premed and you are in those undergrads and you studying to get, you studying those MCAT four questions because in your mind you felt like if I missed this one question, that person next to me may get the spot that I want. And you are right, I think a lot of us forget and I don't want to say forget cause maybe we're never encouraged to do so, but I think a lot of us never turn off like, oh hey by the way guys, we're here now. We’re in the school so we probably don't need to fight because again I went to NSU com, they changed the name. But in NSU com and we had 200 plus in our class. But still, even with that 200 plus, there are some, like you said, there's some people who they kept in themselves, they stayed by themselves. They didn't want anything unnecessary do with the majority of population who might been more, collegial and just kinda like buddy-buddy and together because we were like, we felt like, hey, we were already here. We don't need to work hard, let's work together. So, and then I think that process starts right over again when it's time for getting on, getting residency interviews and getting residency spots and then that process, when you become a third year resident, you're doing it all. So yeah, we do that even in premed. Dr. Nicole Washington: Yeah. And has met so many students, the medical students are concerned about not having enough residency spots to fill into. Dr. Berry: Can we show our, we're building a new medical school everywhere you turn, but… Dr. Nicole Washington: And we're not creating new residency spots to match the number of students they were turning out. So somebody who's going to be left without a spot. So then that creates even more competition. Dr. Berry: Yeah, wow. I didn't even think about it. Oh yeah. Okay. So our system, the way it goes, it's going in a direction where the spotlight is now kinda highland and like, hey, something is wrong. If you had to focus on and we've talked about different levels, if you had the focus on different levels of weights to correct, would you be more on the after their physician side and working in the medical system? Or would you be during the medical school aspect of it or even in the premed aspect to say like, hey, this is some of the reality. You're getting into, so please be prepared. Dr. Nicole Washington: I think I would hit the trainees, I would hit med students and residents. So I think for medical students, one of the things is, and I mean you could think back to your training. I know most med schools haven't changed. We don't do a lot of talking about the business of medicine and that side of medicine and we talk a lot about treating patients and we talk about, this is what you should do and this is what evidence says you should do and we need that foundation. I'm not saying we don't, but then as a student you don't have a good feel for what is the business side of medicine. What is the reality of what I'm about to jump into? What does it mean I want to do family medicine? What does that mean? What does that mean for me? Does that mean I'm going to see patients there in 15 minutes and they going to have less as long as the arm and is that what that means? Am I going to constantly feel like I'm not making a different, what is that going to look like for me? And I think we don't do a good job of pairings students with necessarily mentors who actually are out practicing in the fields they think they're interested in for them to really get a feel for, okay this is what it's really like. But somebody who's not going to scare you and say get out while you can. Somebody who’s gotta tell you the really bad things. But these are the really good things and this is why I keep doing it and this is why I love it still. You need balanced people to give them realistic expectations and to learn a little bit about the business of medicine. For residents, I think the focus should be on just life and just living. What does your life look like? Because I think you're laying in residency a foundation of how I'm going to practice for the rest of my career. So I think they should focus on not only making sure they get the knowledge they need and get the patients numbers and I get all that, but how do you live life? How do you nurture your personal life in addition to your career? Because you have to have balance and the people that don't have balance are in trouble. They need balance and to learn that as a resident because that's really hard after for three, four or five years, depending on your specialty. You literally cut off our relationships with people you love and care about and you don't talk to your best friends and your family and you don't hardly go to church and get all fat because don't work out. These things that all of a sudden you're on a 10 day and it's like, okay, go figure it out. Go figure out how be a normal person again. (How to reconnect). Yeah, go reconnect with people you've ignored for five years. No, it'll be fine. I mean you just have to I think help them and help them too with the expectations of what it's like to practice in the community. I trained in a program that we didn't have our own university system so we had to, we did all of our rotations mostly in community systems. And so we learned a lot about how that worked in reality but people I know who worked in closed systems, it was a false sense of what it's really like when you're out having to deal with managed care and having to deal with community based systems. And it just takes a lot of adjusting and getting used to and people think well this is not what I signed up for. This is not how I thought it would be because we don't train the residents a lot in the business part of medicine and how to function outside of resident. Dr. Berry: What I loved especially because we mentioned the business part of medicine. I've seen people, I think I saw the meme the other day where they talked about just the growth of administrators versus the growth of physicians in healthcare, especially in regards to salaries. Because again, when we talk about physician, we don't think money is evil over here. We like money too. And they talked about just the amount of costs as that's going towards the administration aspect, the business of medicine. But then you see the growth of physicians, not even a sliver of the mountain and I 100% agree teaching the business at multiple different levels will go so much further. Because I think sometimes a lot of times of, I don't wanna say sometimes but I don't want to say a lot of times, but sometimes the financial remuneration that they were expecting isn't there because they're not seeing that many patients. So you alluded to the 15 minute and I was once, I always like talking about the 15 minute because a lot of times people think, well my physician doesn't care about me. They try to get me in and out and I promise you is not that physician care about you, is just that they are in a system that unfortunately rewards seeing more people. And if I have to, if I need to maximize my hour that I'm seeing, I'm going to try to see at least four. So I say 15 minutes where I'm really thinking 10 because I'm hoping I can get it in and out your room in five minutes because I did outpatient medicine. Honestly we had full disclosure, we had a person who came to our office who timed everything we did in a day. So they would time how long it took a person to come to the front desk, sign in and when they sign in how long it took them to get to the back from my inmate to see him. And then how long it took from my MA to see him from an MA put them in a room. And when they may put it in the room, how long it took for me to go to there and then for me to get out of there and then for never go to the front office and then for me to finish the note. They time every single thing to the point where they even recommended switching, like how the room was set up because they're like Dr. Pierre if your chairs on the opposite side of the door and you got across your patient, I know it's crazy, right? If you had across your patient, they may ask you another question, that may take a couple of minutes. So you imagine that a couple of minutes times 50 patients, right? You could have seen 10 more. So I'll just like wow. So and when we talked about the business, there are people who really focus on a business aspect of medicine unfortunately at the demise of the physician and at the demise of the patient themselves. Dr. Nicole Washington: Absolutely. And I think the business and for the students and the residents, I think so many of us are made to feel guilty about being concerned about the money. And so they're labeled as not caring and we get labeled as being money hungry and all about the money. And they just want to turn more patients out so they make more money. They don't care about us. And that's not true. But I think in any of us, no matter what you do, you want to make what you can make and you want to be able to make for your industry what is a good living. And I think a lot of us are made to feel guilty in medicine. We shouldn't care about how much we make because we should just do it. And I think people have a false, so for students and residents I think is helpful to make that a little more normal or of conversation and understand that that's part of it. This is your career and that will play a huge part in your satisfaction in your career and your burnout. I mean that will play a huge part in all of that. Dr. Berry: I was reading some article that talked about how the businesses, the businesses at hand, hospitals, health administrations, because they know our love for the patient, right? Because when we talk about physician burnout, yes, the physician loses, but the patient ultimately loses as well. So when we talk about this, our love and care for wanting to take care of people, sometimes they use that against us and that's where this talk of all that doctor cares about his money comes from, it usually comes from people who are making money off the doctor. And they're like, well, you shouldn't be focused on that. And, and they know that because we love our patients, we care for our patients. We'll go the extra mile for our patients. We’ll spend extra time for our patients. We'll stay longer. We'll come in earlier. We'll do all these things that are unfortunately detrimental to us because of the goal of taking care of our own. Dr. Nicole Washington: We will not spend time with our families in the evening because we're charting from the day of the people we saw because we didn't have time to see all the people we needed to see, give them the care that we felt was really good care and chart at the same time. Dr. Berry: First of all, amazing episodes. Before I let you go though, is there any, especially for, let's say you've got a physician right now who thinks like, hey, you know what? I think I may be burning out and I think I feel like I've read enough articles, I listened to enough podcasts. I've seen enough videos. I think I may be ready. What do you tell them? Especially because again, you tend to deal with so many more high level professionals. What do you tell them? What can you say at this point? Dr. Nicole Washington: So I always call it crispy. For my own self, when I say oh, I'm feeling a little crisp. A feeling things are getting a little hard. I'm hard and on the outside. I need to do something. So the first thing is just being okay with it. Recognizing that you're human and recognizing what your signs are and what you need to do. I think I recommend that people take their vacation regularly. I think that helps. I worked at a job once where I had 330 something hours of PTO racked up because I never took leave. Because it painful for me to take leave because I would either pay for it on the front end or back end. Because I was either going to have to see extra patients before I left or when I came back. So I just didn't take leave. So 300 plus hours, that's insane. Somebody should've said, girl, you better take leave and take care of yourself. So I would say make sure you force yourself to take your vacation regularly. Schedule time off, even if you don't go out of town and doing things fancy, just take some time to reset. So I recommend doing that for prevention and maintenance kind of stuff. But if you feel that you are getting there, I think you have to be very intentional about recognizing your burnout sides because mine may not be yours. I know mine are, my personal one is I get a little snippy with the people in my house and normally I'm not. And so when I, the people in my house, my husband will say, hey, hey, hey now you know, I didn't do anything to you. And I go, oh my God, you're right. That's how I know when I'm getting to that point. And so when I am getting to that point, I take extra steps to do things during the day to pull back to give me chances to reach ours. I go outside and walk around. I make sure I take lunch away from the building. I do things, just little things to help me kind of decompress. I focus a lot more on my gratitude. Sometimes I get lax and I don't do my gratitude work like I shoot it. But at the end of it all, if that, if those little things don't work for you and go talk to somebody. Realizing that going to talk to somebody or doing therapy does not set you up for a lifetime of going to therapy. Dr. Berry: I think that's always people fear. If I got to see him one week, on my, I got to see him for the rest of my life. Dr. Nicole Washington: Yeah. And that's not true. I mean you can do brief therapists with people. I've seen physicians for very short periods of time. They had a bad outcome at work and they just needed to debrief through it is that we also don't do, which asks our burnout rate. You work with people. You lose patients, they die. You have to deal. Don't even get me started on people's secondary trauma associated with ER docs and child abuse pediatricians that are pediatricians and you just carry all that stuff. I mean that's a lot. Sometimes you just need to talk that stuff out with something and maybe that's once a month, maybe that's once every other month. Maybe that's just a standby on call. I had a bad case. I need to talk this out with you. But don't be afraid to link with a mental health person. It doesn't mean you have depression or bipolar and anxiety. It doesn't mean any of that. It just means you need a little help, which we all do from having. Dr. Berry: I agree. Before I let you go, I always like to spotlight our guests and make sure whatever they were doing, working on, the Lunch and Learn community can be privy too to try to help connect then. And like I said, we had you on episode 62. This podcast is definitely changed over the 62 episodes. We've definitely grown already 62 episodes. So we're so appreciative that you came back and touched out. And is there anything going on with Dr. Nicole that we should be looking out for. Any things you're going on, courses, books, whatever. Please let us know. Dr. Nicole Washington: Yeah, I guess since I have been on the show last, I have jumped into the podcast world and my podcast is called The C-Suite Confidant. So it is all about a c-suite executives, doctors, lawyers, high performing folks and the stresses they deal with, whether it be occupational, personal, and listeners have the ability to go to my site, drnicolepsych.com. And you can go to the podcast and you can leave me a question. So if you have a work issue or there's something going on and you go, I want to know what the psychiatrist thinks about this that's going on. And you can leave a voice message on the website and I will respond to people's questions on the podcast. Dr. Berry: I love that. Okay. Alright. And remember links we'll definitely be in the show note because that's a very interesting thing. I actually, I need like hop on your podcast so we can talk about the life of an internist program director and the stress they got. Let's make that, I'm putting it out on air right now so we can make that happen. (Absolutely). Especially sometimes you got to say it out loud, right? Beause when we talk about affirmation, right? You keep an affirmation inside so you don't try to disappoint yourself. But as long as you, if it's blurted out of there and now you got a whole bunch more people disappoint and you don't want to disappoint nobody. (Absolutely. Absolutely). And last question, how is what you're doing right now helping others, especially other physicians like really empower themselves to take better control of their health? Dr. Nicole Washington: I am all about us just taking our life back and taking our mental health into our own hands. I think we have just for so long worked really hard to pretend like we didn't have issues because how can we help people and have our own issues and that is super flawed thinking. But I just work through my practice, I work with physicians who are having untreated mental health disorders. I mean you mentioned physician suicide earlier, we think we lose about a physician a day in this country to suicide. But those are just the ones we know about. And those are just the ones that we lose. What about the ones of us who are out here suffering and depressed and anxious and every day they think, I wish I wouldn't wake up tomorrow. And those are the ones, because like you said earlier, it's not just about us, it's about the care we give to patients. And if you're impaired, you can't give the care to other people. It affects your patient care. So through my practice, I work with doctors in seven states now, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Louisiana, Texas, Georgia, Louisiana, Oklahoma. And I can work with them on addressing and a previously not dealt with mental health issues. Dr. Berry: Love it. What's the website again so people know how to find you? Where can they find you in any social media outlets Dr. Nicole Washington: I am on every social media platform at @drnicolepsych and at the website drnicolepsych.com and there's podcast, clinical services information there and so all you can find everything you need to know about what I have going on through that site. Dr. Berry: Dr. Nicole thank you for really enlightening the podcast audience to the topic that is very serious. Again, I know it's getting a lot of fanfare now but it's because it is extremely important and patients, especially those who are listening don't think that is just effecting. Because again, these physicians who are burning out, burnt out, still going to work. And they're still taking care of your mom, your dad, your grandpa, your grandma. So again, do not think that this is just a physician only problem. Please. Thank you for joining the podcast again. Dr. Nicole Washington: Thank you for having me.   Download the MP3 Audio file, listen to the episode however you like.  

Join our growing entrepreneur community on Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/139597470073188/ Got any questions? Ask me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/AleksanderVitkinPage/ Check out my free business training: www.businessmentor.com Hey, it’s Aleksander. In this podcast, I’m going to share with you how I’ve just spent 10 years selling to complete strangers often times on the internet.I started offline, I just went to people’s offices,sometimes I just walked straight in and I said,you guys need a marketer.And I went from doing that to doing everything online and basically selling to complete strangers who have never met me in real life and selling high ticket offers to them on the internet, okay? So how I did the whole process myself from A to Z, from lead generation all the way to the close, all the way to the payment I’m gonna share with you. In terms of lead generation, ’cause everyone here, I know what you guys want, funnels. Give me funnels. Look, it’s not a popular opinion, but funnels are not that complicated. The lead source is not very important if you know how to convert people, okay? If you know how to convert people, you can convert almost anything. Now I’m not claiming that I can convert almost anything. But I can convert a lot. I can convert fairly freaking cold leads to buy within a few days of finding out about me. To buy from me on the phone, I can do that, okay? So that’s what I’m gonna share with you. And where you get the leads, it can be Upwork, it can be LinkedIn, it can be YouTube, it can be Facebook.It’s kind of secondary. If they’re looking for something related to what you’re selling, that’s as warm as they need to be basically. So let’s start with the beginning. People want to be treated like people. It sounds kind of obvious,but let me tell you, marketers don’t fucking understand this. Or let me tell you in a different way. Marketers who don’t make any money don’t understand this. When you’re dealing with humans,they want to deal with a human and they want you to deal with them as if you were their friend, as if you have their best interest in mind. Because marketers, if you go look at some Facebook Groups, I’m not gonna name Facebook Groups, but if you go look at some famous marketing Facebook Groups, it’s how I made this, and how I made that,and da da da, right? So the buyers, they don’t care about that. The buyers, they care about themselves and they care about how you treat them like a human, and how you look at your personal situation and how you help them,and how you help them make decisions as well. Beause people don’t know how to make decisions. It’s like they meet some stranger on the internet, it’s,who the hell is this guy? Why should I trust this person? So first of all, need to have a service that actually gets results. You can build that, anyone can build that, right? But if you’re not interested in the service that’s gonna get results, don’t watch this video because I don’t want to teach you. That’s some weird evil shit, so I’m not into that. I’m into services that get results. So if you have that, then we can work with this. We can get you some sales. So let’s talk about converting. The first thing is proof. What I have been focused on lately is as many types of proof as possible. Just as many types of proof as possible. Just to name a few, video testimonials,text testimonials, authoritative figures, lots of content that proves that I know what I’m talking about ’cause people can pretty much just get results just from free content and so on and so forth. So as much proof and also value as possible. Up front, before anyone buys anything, they have seen lots and lots of proof.If someone hasn’t seen lots and lots of proof, suddenly it’s much harder to sell to them. So you don’t want that.

How can what we know about attachment and the power of our emotions, create deeper intimacy and resolve conflicts with your partner? In today’s episode you’re going to learn about a particular kind of conversation that you can have with your partner that can change everything. This week, our guest is Sue Johnson, author of  Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love, and the founding director of the International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy. In Hold Me Tight, Dr. Johnson shares her groundbreaking and remarkably successful program for creating stronger, more secure relationships and she’s going to share some of her wisdom on that topic with you today. As always, I’m looking forward to your thoughts on this episode and what revelations and questions it creates for you. Please join us in the Relationship Alive Community on Facebook to chat about it! Also, please check out our first three episodes with Sue Johnson – Episode 100: Attraction – How to Sustain It and How to Revive It – with John Gottman and Sue Johnson, Episode 82: How Safety Leads to Better Sex – Sue Johnson, and Episode 27: Breaking Free from Your Patterns of Conflict with Sue Johnson. Sponsors: Along with our amazing listener supporters (you know who you are - thank you!), this week's episode is being sponsored an amazing company with a special offer for you. Our first sponsor today is Audible. Audible has the largest selection of audiobooks on the planet and now, with Audible Originals, the selection has gotten even better with custom content made for members. As a special offer, Audible wants to give you a free 30 day trial and 1 free audiobook. Go to Audible.com/relationship or text RELATIONSHIP to 500500 to get started. Our second sponsor is one of my wife Chloe’s favorite online clothing retailers, ModCloth. With the year wrapping up, it’s time to put a bow on 2018 and...think about new outfits, and the new you! Whether you’re still craving cozy sweaters or you’re ready to start stocking up for spring, ModCloth is your go-to. To get 15 percent off your purchase of $100 or more, go to modcloth.com and enter code ALIVE at checkout. This offer is valid for one time use only and expires on March 3rd, 2019. Resources: Check out Sue Johnson's Hold Me Tight Online course Visit Sue Johnson’s website to learn more about her work. Pick up your copy of Sue Johnson’s book, Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love. FREE Relationship Communication Secrets Guide - perfect help for handling conflict and shifting the codependent patterns in your relationship Guide to Understanding Your Needs (and Your Partner's Needs) in Your Relationship (ALSO FREE) Visit www.neilsattin.com/sue3 to download the transcript, or text “PASSION” to 33444 and follow the instructions to download the transcript to this episode with Julie Henderson. Amazing intro/outro music graciously provided courtesy of: The Railsplitters - Check them Out Transcript: Neil Sattin: Hello and welcome, to another episode of Relationship Alive. This is your host, Neil Sattin. We've spoken a lot on this show about attachment, and the way that attachment influences how we operate in our lives and in our relationships. And I wanted to bring back one of the masters of showing us how to use what we know about attachment in relationship to the show, to talk about her new online program, and also to answer some questions from you, because we had some people in the Facebook group chime in with questions for this illustrious guest, who has been with us several times before. Her name is Sue Johnson. You probably know her as the creator of Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy or EFT, which is how we'll refer to it in this episode. She was here in Episode 27, talking about how to break free from patterns of conflict. She was here in Episode 82, talking about how creating safety in your relationship leads to better sex. And we had the double hitter in Episode 100, with her and John Gotman, both talking about how to sustain and revive attraction in your relationship. Neil Sattin: Today, we're going to focus on Hold Me Tight, which is one of Sue's breakthrough books that explains how couples can take this journey, these several conversations that they can have, that lead them into deeper intimacy both in terms of understanding themselves in relationship, also how to work through conflict, forgiveness, sex, you name it, it's there in the book. And this has all been rolled out recently in an online program called Hold Me Tight Online, we're going to talk more about that. Sue also has a book coming out right around the beginning of 2019, on attachment theory in practice. And this is using emotionally focused therapy with individuals and families as well as couples. So, we may touch on that a little bit, and hopefully we'll also get to have Sue back to chat when that book comes out. Neil Sattin: I think that's enough from me. In the meantime, if you want to download a transcript of this episode, please visit neilsattin.com/sue3, so that's S-U-E, and then the number three. Or as always, you can text the word Passion to the number 33444 and follow the instructions to get the transcript for this episode and our other episodes. Neil Sattin: Also, if you are interested in the online program that Sue is going to be talking about, you can visit neilsattin.com/holdmetight, and that will take you to a page where you can find out more about Sue Johnson's Hold me Tight Online program. Sue, thank you so much for sitting through that long introduction and it's such a pleasure to have you here again with us on Relationship Alive. Sue Johnson: Oh, it's always nice to be with you. Neil Sattin: Well, we have a lot to talk about today, and we'll do our best to be succinct. And I also want to encourage you listening that we're not going to go over all the finer points of what we've already talked about, those other episodes are there for you to listen to. But Sue, maybe we could start by just talking about what is emotionally focused therapy, what makes it unique from other ways that people might be used to working with therapists or understanding themselves. Sue Johnson: Emotionally Focused Therapy, as the title suggests, it basically works from the premise that the most powerful thing in a relationship is the emotional music that's playing. The emotional music is what structures a relationship, it's what organizes a relationship, defines, leads the partners to dance in a particular way with each other. So it's sort of dedicated to the idea that, if you want to understand relationships, and if you want to shape your relationship intentionally, whether to repair it or whether to just simply keep it strong, it's very important to understand the emotion that's going on when you dance with your partner. It's important to be able to deal with that emotion in a way that pulls your partner towards you. It's important to understand the impact you have on your partner. So EFT, really has focused on making emotion the couple's and the therapist's friend, and shown therapists and couples how to understand that emotion, how to deal positively with emotion, and how to use emotion to feel more connected with your partner. Sue Johnson: And I think the fact that we know how to use emotion, and we honor emotion in our work with couples, is one of the reasons why... The other special thing about EFT, is that we have a fantastic amount of research on outcome. We have over 20 studies, positive outcome studies, which makes us unique in the field of couple therapy. We're the gold standard of research in couples therapy. We do not have a problem with relapse in our research, which is pretty amazing, really. It always surprises me every time we do a study and we find no evidence of relapse, because all the sort of elephant in the room in couples therapy is that even if you can create change with a couple, you see them in a month's time or in six months time and they've kind of relapsed, they've gone back to being distressed. And that's not the case in our therapy. Sue Johnson: It's unique in that it's based on research, in terms of intervention. We've been doing this for 35 years now. It's unique in the way it deals with the most potent thing in the room, which is emotion. But in the end, the real thing that I think makes EFT different is that it's not based on somebody's idea about what love is or what relationships are all about. It's based on hundreds and hundreds of studies of adult bonding. It's based on a science of love. And so we have a map to what matters in relationships, what goes wrong, and exactly what you have to do to put it right. And that means that the EFT therapist is on target. We expect to create change, we expect our partners to grow, we expect our couples relationships to look not only a little happier, but more secure and be more stable at the end of therapy. Sue Johnson: Obviously I'm biased here, because I'm talking about my own work. I'm talking about 35 years of research and clinical work. But the truth is that we're the only approach to couple and family therapy that's based on a real science of relationships, and that science is attachment and bonding. And I think also, because of that science, in this model... The model suggests that together we're much more powerful than we are individually, and it values and honors connection between people. And so EFT practitioners and ICEEFT, the International Center for Excellence in EFT, which is our not-for-profit organization; basically, the headquarters are here in Canada. We've created communities all over the world. I think we have about 66 right now, affiliated with us to support therapists and health professionals to learn EFT, to get together and support each other, to help each other grow, to help therapists in those communities contribute to relationship education. Sue Johnson: We believe in creating community and I think that's something special about EFT. We do that wherever we go. The latest community that looks like it's going to take off is in Iran. Neil Sattin: Wow. Sue Johnson: And that's fascinating. Because of course, attachment science is about who we are as human beings. Attachment science applies to all of us, regardless of tribe, religion, political persuasion, race, gender. Attachment science, basically, is based on biology, and it tells us who we are as human beings, what our most basic needs are. So that's a bit of a mouthful, but that's what's special about EFT. [laughter] Neil Sattin: Right. Sue, I asked you for the short version. Come on. Sue Johnson: I'm sorry, I'm sorry. [chuckle] Sue Johnson: Okay, well, that's very hard, Neil. You know how passionate I am about what I do and how successful we are, so how can I... I'm sorry, that's the shortest I can manage, okay? Neil Sattin: No, that's great. And one thing that I really appreciate about the experience that you offer couples who are going through EFT, is that it literally does bring them along on an experience that allows them to feel each other in a different way. To feel each other's emotions in a different context, and to have that experience of getting through situations that are really tender, or challenging, or triggering and get to the other side in a way that is really constructive for their relationship and for their bonding. Sue Johnson: Yes. And we're talking about therapy here, but I know that later in the program we're going to talk about Hold Me Tight. Neil Sattin: Yes. Sue Johnson: The Hold Me Tight educational program is based on my book Hold Me Tight. And I put that relational program together. There's groups all over the countries, and all these communities run by therapists, or even people who aren't therapists. Pastors, anyone can actually buy the program and run the group, a Hold Me Tight group. And what always blows my mind when I go and do one of these groups, I think the biggest one I've ever done was with 100 couples at a time in San Francisco. And what always blows my mind is, people come up to you in the groups... Usually I do them over a weekend. And they go through the conversations that we teach them in the book. And people come up to you and they say things like, "Well, we just came cause we were curious. We don't even have any real huge issues in our relationship. And I thought that our relationship was pretty good, but this group experience has taken our relationship into places I never even knew existed." Sue Johnson: I just had one of these beautiful ones last week. This person sent me an email: "We didn't even know that we could have this kind of closeness and this kind of emotional connection. And we feel like it's changed how we'll be with each other in the future, so thank you." And I think what they're talking about is the profound, profound effect of being able to help people move into profound, bonding, conversations. They are the conversations... This is biologically prepared, powerful, experience. These are the conversations that our nervous system is wired to resonate to. These are the conversations that our brain says, "Yes, this is safe, and this is close, and this is what I want and need. This is what gives me the ability to stand up in the world and be strong." And people resonate with them. They are powerful, powerful experiences. And that's why we don't get relapse. Because you're brain... If you know how to have these bonding conversations, you remember them. They're not just something you put aside and say, "Oh, that was interesting but I don't think about it anymore." Sue Johnson: Your whole nervous system zings with the memory of them. And once you've had these experiences, your brain wants you to go back there. So bonding experiences are... We remember them all our lives. We remember the moments when we were vulnerable and our father turned and held us and said something to us. We remember that all our lives, we hold on to it. We go back to it when we're unhappy and sad. We go back to it with a thrill of joy. These experiences are core to what we need as human beings. So when you help people move into them in therapy or in an educational group, or even online together in the privacy of their own home, there's something very profound about that, and truly growth producing for individuals and for couples about that. And attachment science has shown us how to get there, how to... If we really understand who we are as human beings, of course we can craft powerful, transformative, experiences. Right? And that's the thing that keeps me passionate about this work. I think it keeps... EFT is passionate in general. Neil Sattin: And I want to take our listeners on this journey, a little bit, today. We'll give them a taste of this kind of experience. But before we do, I'm curious about how do you get when someone isn't along for the ride? [chuckle] Neil Sattin: And this is often the case in a couple, right? Where one person hears Sue Johnson on Relationship Alive and says, "We gotta find an EFT therapist, or we gotta buy this book Hold Me Tight." Or whatever it is, right? And the other person is maybe just like, "Yeah, I don't buy that therapy stuff." Or, "Sounds really like unhealthy co-dependence." When people come at it with their negative bias about it, or maybe they're just stonewalling and they're shut down to the influence of their partner at this stage in their relationship. How do you help enlist the partner in actually wanting, or hopefully, inviting them to participate in something like this? Sue Johnson: Oh, well that happens quite a lot. Even when people come for therapy sometimes, they're kind of being dragged there. Neil Sattin: Right. Sue Johnson: You can tell they're waiting... They're in the room with their teeth gritted, and they're... [chuckle] They're just wanting to wait for you to stop talking so they can explain how they've got to leave now, that's how you feel. What we do in EFT is what we always do. We start where people are. It's an incredible mistake from an EFT point of view to start telling people to be different. You just become dangerous when you do that, and they'll protect themselves against you. So, we start where we are. And I can give... For an example, I just did a session with an an Inuit couple, and we started with the fact that to sit and talk to somebody like me is definitely not part of Inuit male culture. And we talked about the fact that from his point of view the very best way of dealing with any problem was to go hunting. [chuckle] Neil Sattin: Yeah. Sue Johnson: And I talked about that with him. I didn't explain therapy. That's the wrong channel. He's not interested in getting information from me, he's not even interested in it. So we talked about hunting, and we talked about what that did for him, and how when he hunted he felt competent. And he was out in a bitter environment but he was somehow in charge. And we talked about how strange it was for him to even think about sitting and talking about his emotions with someone like me, or reading the Hold Me Tight book. And as I joined with him, and listened to him, and had him teach me about how he dealt with his emotions, engaged other people, dealt with his needs for closeness, how he dealt with his vulnerability, which is... You can't get out of those things, they are universal, right? Unless you're a lizard or something, you have to be actively engaged with those three things. As we sat and talked about it he became more open. And I said, "Alright, well it sounds like your hunting has saved your life. It sounds like your hunting has really done a lot for you. And I think it's wonderful that you've been able to do that. And you're right, I can't offer you that experience. So would you like to talk to... Are you curious at all? And maybe I can help you feel some of the same kind of sure... " Sue Johnson: Cause he talked in words like "sureness" and "ground under his feet". He used these images. So I said, "Well, maybe I could help you find some of that sense of sureness and ground under your feet, when you're talking to your lady and you see that she's disappointed with you, which I'm hearing is one of the moments where you decide to go hunting." [chuckle] Sue Johnson: And I'd listen to him, he'd listen to me. He experienced me as safe. I wasn't telling him how to be. And so he said, "Yes that would be interesting." And he starts to look me in the eye and he starts to look up at me more, and he starts to... He's suddenly engaged. And we begin. We begin with what would he like to change in his relationship and what is happening to him in those moments in the relationship? We begin with his pain, we begin with the dilemmas that he would like a solution to, and we go slowly because in his culture that's the way it works. You speak slowly and you deal with things at a slow pace. I'm sorry, I'm getting interruption here, I forgot to turn off my phone it'll stop in a minute. Neil Sattin: It's okay. Sue Johnson: So we go slowly. And gradually he comes, he becomes curious. So you start where people are, you validate their uncertainty, their reluctance. If you think about it just in very human terms, the last thing you want to do if you are uncertain and vulnerable, is to go to talk to some strange professional person about that. You're worried about being shamed, you're worried about them telling you that there is something wrong with you, you're worried about what they are going to tell you about their relationship. You don't feel safe. Neil Sattin: Right. And of course what's challenging about these conversations when they happen just between partners in a relationship, is that they are so often very quickly triggering conversations. Sue Johnson: That's right. That's right. The partner hears, "Well, you don't even care enough about our relationship to go and talk to somebody about it, so that just proves what a creep you are." And people get stuck there. But what we are talking about is also another reason why I went to all the trouble to try and create the Hold Me Tight program, educational program. Because I assume that even though couple therapy is becoming a bit more normative, there are a huge number of people who would rather have their feet roasted in an oven than come to couple therapy, right? And they won't come. So I said, "Okay, then maybe they'd come to a group put on by their pastor in their church. Or, maybe they'd come to a group put on in the local hall with 10 other couples." And then it went to, "No, there's a whole bunch of people who won't come to that either." [chuckle] Beause in our culture, we hide our vulnerability or our uncertainty. And so I went, "Okay, well then there is a whole bunch of people, maybe they'd do an online program that's friendly and fun, and they do it in their own homes where they feel safe and private." So then of course that leaves us putting all the energy into creating an online. Sue Johnson: And I think what we are talking about here is the EFT commitment. Well, I'll just make it personal, my commitment. The commitment in this model, and if you are an attachment theorist, is not just to create a very good model, research it, and teach people about it. Which is big enough. We've been doing that for 35 years. The commitment is that as a psychological approach, that we have something to offer society and that we can help society learn to honor and value relationships, shape better relationships. That's what we're trying to do. So therapy, education. I think the main issue here that we're up against, where the person asked the question, is that our society, our culture, has not seen love relationships as something that are understandable, are shapeable, that you can shape, that you can learn to create, that you can nurture deliberately with intention. We don't talk about love like that. We say you fall in, you fall out. And we've basically had a very narrow mistaken view of romantic love relationships, and I think who we are as human beings. So people, they really don't see... They not only, "I'm not sure a therapist can help or a group can help." They really don't see love as something that you can craft and shape and understand. And we're trying to change that. We're trying to have an impact on that. Neil Sattin: Yeah, and I think that's one reason why we resonate, you and I, so much is that that's definitely part of my mission and Relationship Alive's mission in the world as well. To affect that transformation. Because that is definitely a big deal, that there are a lot of people who don't quite understand that you can actually adjust things in ways that are actually helpful. Sadly, I think a lot of people have this story that they know of a couple that tried therapy and it just blew up their marriage or that sort of thing. It's just one positive experience at a time, I think, and the way that that ripples out in to the world. That people get the sense of, "Oh actually we know a lot more about how to do this than we did 20 years ago." And that's why we are having this conversation. Sue Johnson: Right. And that's the message we keep trying to get out there. And you know it is so interesting, the news is always focused on bad news. That's what the news wants to report. But I always say I don't really understand, it's beyond me why at some point, it hasn't been all over the front of the New York Times, that we now have a science of romantic love, of love period. That we now understand it. We have an incredible theory and science about what it's all about, that attachment started off with looking at the bonding between mother and child, and now it's grown. In the last 15 years it's been applied to adult relationships, and it really has so much to say about who we are and what we need to thrive and survive, and how we are relational beings, and how to create good loving relationships. And surely, this is revolutionary. Surely this is at least as important as understanding DNA, I think so. Neil Sattin: It's at least page two, if not the front page. Sue Johnson: I think it's the headline. I think it is much more important than us putting all this energy into going in rockets to the stars. Why don't we learn to become powerful, bonded, connected, cooperating human beings on this planet? Maybe we wouldn't need to go to the stars. [chuckle] Neil Sattin: Yeah, I hear ya, I totally hear you there. And this makes me wonder too, because there needs... I want to befriend to that person or persons who decide what goes on the front page of the New York Times. And if I meet that person I'll put in a good word for you, Sue. Sue Johnson: For sure, okay. Neil Sattin: And I am thinking that often what brings light on a particular subject is not how amazing it is, although sometimes that is true. But often it's the controversy that accompanies it. And that makes me wonder for you, your own perspective on what I think some people do still perceive as a controversy between attachment theory in relationships and how important it is to understand the science of bonding, and differentiation, and people learning to stand on their own two feet, and taking responsibility for themselves. And the interplay of those things. Yeah. So go ahead. Sue Johnson: Well, basically I think we in psychology have a huge responsibility here. Because we didn't know enough and so we set those things up. We set up being a strong individual and acknowledging your need for others as dichotomies. We set them up like they're on opposite sides of a long line. Like they're opposites. And of course they're not. That is a mistaken way of looking at it. All the research, and I'm talking about thousands of studies now. All the research since about 1960 points to the fact that the bottomline is the more securely connected to others you are, the more sure you are of yourself, the more... If you like, the more securely connected you are, the more articulated, coherent, and positive, your sense of self is. So, you find out who you are, you differentiate with others, not from others. If you look at the differentiation literature, it almost implies that there is a point in time where you just decide to look in the mirror and define yourself and tell yourself you're great, and that you can self soothe and you can do all this for yourself. This is nonsense, this is not who we are. We never get to that point. Sue Johnson: And the only people who look in the mirror, and totally define themselves and tell themselves they're wonderful and don't need other people, we call them psychopaths. And they are not particularly known for being wonderful members of society or particularly happy. It's a mistake we made because we didn't have the big picture. We just saw a little foot of the elephant that said that our needs, if they are expressed in negative ways, can get us into trouble. Our needs for others can get us into trouble, And indeed, that's true. But that's what we saw. So in family therapy for example, we focused on issues like enmeshment. And that's so interesting because we don't do that when we work with families in EFT. We focus on how people deal with their anxiety, and we help them move into that anxiety and hold it and regulate it, and be able to express that anxiety in ways that are not cohesive to other people, and not demeaning for themselves. And ways that pull the other people close. And they grow, and the relationships grow. That's what we do and we do it all the time. Sue Johnson: We don't find enmeshment or co-dependency particularly useful concepts. We just see it that people are stuck being anxious about the safety of their relationships. And when you're anxious, you either get all upset and try to yell and scream and demand and control things, or you tend to shut down and numb out. And neither of them are useful. They don't get you what you need. I think what I'm saying is, it's a much more integrated and rounded out and complete picture of differentiation and individuation and self soothing that you get from taking the whole picture of attachment and bonding in context. It's the little child who knows the mother will come if he calls, who goes out and believes that he can run down the slide, and who manages his distress if he finds that maybe he falls off the slide. He knows that if he calls his mum will come, he's in a safe universe where he feels loved and held, and his mother has come a number of times. So he's learned that distress is manageable and that he can manage it, and that he can call for another. He's internalized that sense of safety in the world. And he will grow up with a stronger sense of self and a stronger ability to go out into the world and take risks. Sue Johnson: This isn't a theory, there's thousands of studies on this now, this isn't a theory. Securely attached people who know how to trust others and reach for others, and who believe that others will be there for them, consistently have a better self-image, they are more able to take risks, they're more able to face the world, they're more resilient. They're basically, if you like, more differentiated. So this dichotomy is a false one, and it's really about the old theories of human functioning which are kind of in boxes. We've never had the whole picture coming up against the new approach to looking at human beings, which is attachment. And it's really the conflict between the old and the new there, and there doesn't have to be a conflict at all is what I'm saying. Neil Sattin: Right. I appreciate that. That you've, I think, shown very clearly how they include each other. That one comes with the other. And as soon as you split them apart that's when they start, either one, starts to become a little dysfunctional. Sue Johnson: I think on emotional level it really isn't about that. I think on an emotional level, it's about the fact that we all know that if we need another, that introduces a level of vulnerability. And I think, and especially in our society, we don't want to talk about that vulnerability. We want to believe that we're invulnerable. And society says you're supposed to be able to soothe yourself, deal with everything, live life at 50 miles an hour, have everything. So we want to believe we're invulnerable. And what attachment really says is, "That's not the way to real strength." Real strength is to understand where you're vulnerable. Understand the essence of your vulnerability, which is also a beautiful thing in human beings. Understand their need for closeness, the way they be able to tune into others, and you're own need for closeness, and accept that vulnerability. And then know how to deal with it positively. That is really strength, not the denial of vulnerability." Neil Sattin: Yeah. And this makes me think of the Hold Me Tight conversation. Sue Johnson: Yep. Neil Sattin: And I love how in our very first conversation where we talked about changing your conflict patterns, we talked a lot about discovering your demon dialogues, and the first three conversations that are part of the overall Hold Me Tight sequence. Sue Johnson: Yes. Neil Sattin: But then I'm thinking of the fulcrum, really, of Hold Me Tight sitting in the middle. So could we talk for a moment about what is the, 'the', Hold Me Tight conversation that happens and why is that so important? Sue Johnson: Well, what happens in a Hold Me Tight conversation is you have already... If you're helping a couple create one, it doesn't matter whether you're doing it in therapy or in an educational group or in an online program. Before you ask people to go into a Hold Me Tight conversation, you have helped them create a certain safety and sense of trust in their relationship. Because you cannot do a Hold Me Tight conversation while you are vigilant for danger, waiting for a negative pattern, like some sort of... Waiting to deal with an attack from your partner, or just waiting for your partner to let you down. When you're on guard, you can't move into a Hold Me Tight conversation. So you have to have a certain sense of safety first, and we've learned to take you there in EFT, and all the various forms of EFT. But once you have that, really what a Hold Me Tight conversation does is it moves people gradually into the three elements that we know are key to a bonding conversation. Sue Johnson: What defines the safety of a bond in a relationship is how emotionally accessible, responsive, and engaged you are. A-R-E; Accessible, Responsive, and Engaged. And I always relate it to, that the key question in a lot of relationships is, "Are you there for me?" A-R-E. Are you accessible? Are you open? Are you responsive to me? Will you tune into me? Will you move towards me when I call? Am I important enough that you'll tune into me and pay attention to me? Do you care about my needs? Will you engage me? Will you come and meet me on the dance floor? Maybe struggle even if I'm struggling with me? Are you committed to really being with me in a dance, even we are caught in a negative dance? Hold Me Tight conversations really create that emotional openness, that ability to send messages to each other that evoke empathy and caring, help the other person respond, that help us see that vulnerability in our partner and respond with what they need. And help us stay engaged even when that engagement gets hard. And it's really about being able to talk about... In the end, it's a conversation about your fears. And we all have the same fears in relationships, we're all terrified of rejection and abandonment. Sue Johnson: Those things are wired in, it doesn't say... It's nothing to do with personality strength or anything, it's to do with the fact that we're bonding animals, and abandonment and rejection are danger cues to our mammalian brain. They're life threatening, literally. We're born so vulnerable, when our brain is being formed, we know how to take our next breath, that if we are totally rejected or abandoned and left, we die. We know we're at risk. And we never lose that sense. So this vulnerability is wired in, and we're all afraid of rejection and abandonment, so we have these fears. And how we deal with these fears really has a lot to do with how we end up engaging others. And then it's not... But it's not just about how we deal with our fears, it's about whether we can actually know how, or have had the experience of being able to actually pinpoint our needs for connection, comfort, support, caring. Our needs... Just to share our reality to find out how valid it is. That's such a human need. Sue Johnson: To be able to share our needs, pinpoint them, and share them in a way that our partner can hear them and pulls our partner close to us. In the end, a bonding conversation is about sharing your vulnerabilities, your fears, and your needs in a way that helps your partner respond and come close. And helps you and them become accessible, responsive, and engaged on an emotional level. And that is the essence of bonding. And powerful conversations that can change the way you see yourself, the way you see other people, the way you experience your world. Neil Sattin: So this conversation that's about talking about your fears, sharing your needs and your vulnerabilities with your partner. And I love how you... The important thing comes at the end there, which is, in a way that invites your partner closer. Sue Johnson: Yeah. Neil Sattin: And I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about what allows that to happen versus... 'Cause I think some people might hear that and think, "Oh god, my partner's already so needy and vulnerable. They're needy all the time. So I want them to be more needy? How's that going to work?" Sue Johnson: No, it's not about being more needy. It's about being able to hold on to your emotional balance and own your needs, and then ask for them to be met. And that is very different from what most of us see as the norm in relationships. Which is, "I expect my... " For most of us it's like, "I expect my partner... If my partner loves me, my partner already knows my needs." That's a huge myth in relationships. And what we want to do is we want our partner to respond to those needs without us having to actually show that we need. Because in our society we've been taught that showing that you need is somehow shameful or not okay, or it means you're immature, or whatever it means. It means you're not an independent adult, whatever that is. So most of us don't want to show our needs, and we don't quite know how to talk about them. And so then of course we're massively surprised that the message doesn't come across to our partner. [chuckle] Sue Johnson: It's quite humbling to write these books and do all these training tapes and do all these studies, and then talk to your own partner, or your own children, your own son, and hear yourself doing exactly the same things that we all do, and that couples do. You just hear yourself rather than turning and telling your partner that you are feeling upset by something and you would like to be reassured and comforted, you hear yourself turn and get accusatory or demanding or give advice or start telling your partner they should know better, having been married to you all these years, and read Hold Me Tight a few times. [chuckle] Sue Johnson: They should know better and they should be more supportive right now. Which of course I'm asking for support in a way where I have a hammer in my hand and so my partner just looks at the hammer and backs off. We get stuck in these dances because we're not tuning into our own emotional music or our partners. We don't make it easy often for our partner to see what we really need, and then when we don't get what we need, we're not very good at keeping our emotional balance and dealing with that. We get very agitated and attack or criticize, or we shut down and numb out. And neither of those things work. It's what a good science does, is it tells you how to look at basic phenomena in the world and understand them and how they work. Sue Johnson: And attachment science tells us how we work emotionally, and how relationships work. And giving advice to your partner, telling your partner what to do, explaining to your partner that they're somehow inadequate, [laughter] that doesn't work. That might be more comfortable for us than pausing for a minute, taking a breath, getting our emotional balance and saying, "What is happening with me, why am I getting so agitated here?" Then realizing that we are off balance, we're on our back foot, and we need someone to reassure us or just calm us for a moment. And being able to slow things down... And that's a lot of it actually, that emotion is fast and sometimes it's overwhelming for us and we either numb it out or we get carried away with it. Sue Johnson: Being able to keep your balance and slow things down and say, "Oh, I'm finding that very difficult, getting this letter that is telling me that I'm maybe not going to be considered for this promotion. I was pretending it didn't matter to me but in fact I'm finding it very difficult indeed. And what I really need is to be able to tell my partner somehow I feel kind of small right now because I expected to get an interview immediately, and I expected everyone to be delighted to interview me. And I'm feeling pretty small and I just need some support and reassurance." That's not what occurs to us. We get irritable or... So there's lots of ways not to connect, unfortunately. There's lots. And we do them anyway, even when we sort of know lots of information in our prefrontal cortex, we still get stuck. Neil Sattin: Right, because that part of our brain is turned off when we're in those moments of distress. And I'm wondering, for you, especially because you so graciously pointed out that you may have moments where you don't act quite by the book, What are your... Sue Johnson: Of course. Neil Sattin: What are your best ways, what are your favorite go-tos in your relationship for regrouping when things have gone off the rails a little bit? And I'm looking for your specific ways you bring yourself back into balance, ways you take responsibility for what just happened and corral the interaction back into a more generative space? Sue Johnson: It's interesting because basically I tune into all the things I've learned in EFT, but I can't... That takes a while. So if you ask me what my fast route out of that is, I'm usually able to see the few minutes of interaction, and I'm able to see the negative pattern, that I'm not actually asking for what I need. I'm usually able to see it. I should be able to do this after watching thousands of couples and all kinds of research studies. And so I'm able to see. My vision expands, if you like, from the little tiny piece of interaction that I just had or my feeling of frustration that I'm feeling. I listen to what I just said to my partner and I'm able to hear it in a broader context or see, " Wait a minute, that doesn't work, this is not the dance I want to be in." So I somehow have to have a sense of that. That I'm somehow getting stuck in some sort of narrow place that isn't going where I want to go, which is to feel safer, sounder, more connected, reassured. Somehow I know I'm going in the wrong direction. Sue Johnson: And then one way of thinking about that I've been thinking about lately, and I've written about it in my new book that's coming out in January, which is a professional book. Is I change channel. I change channel from just coping with the emotion and somehow putting it out to my partner in a way that I'm just putting it out and I'm not actually thinking about how to really connect with him with that emotion. But I change channel. And usually what that means is, I change into listening to my emotion differently, and being able to stay with the softer feelings. And I think that's what people do in general when they can do these things. They move from somehow lecturing their partner or complaining or pointing out issues or just saying a few things and hoping their partner are going to guess. Sue Johnson: They move into being able to name their emotions and to say... Or describe them in very simple ways. Like, "I feel small," or, "I feel uncertain right now," or. "for some reason I'm feeling really uncomfortable, maybe even a bit scared, and I don't quite know why." They trust themselves enough, they trust their partner enough, that they can go into those softer feelings. And when they do, when they move into that emotional space, emotion just... It's like the picture evolves. It's like what you're scared of becomes clearer, what you need becomes clearer. And when you turn and change channel into that deeper more open emotion, you give different signals. It's just natural if you stay there. Saying to someone, "For some reason that conversation I had with that person left me feeling really, really, frazzled and uncomfortable, and even a bit scared and I don't know why." That is an invitation to empathy and connection. That's completely different from, "I've had a bad day and you're not helping. I thought you were going to cook supper. And what I hope is underneath all my bad temper, you're going to see that I really need some help and comfort. But unfortunately you don't." [chuckle] "You just see that I'm dangerous and you avoid me." Right? Neil Sattin: Right. Which is exactly what you don't need in that moment. Sue Johnson: Yeah. We are not wired to deal with our vulnerability by ourselves. We can do it if we have to, for short periods of time. But we're not wired, and it's not the most efficient and effective way of dealing with our human vulnerabilities. It's not the strongest or best way to deal with our human vulnerabilities. We're wired, we're social bonding animals. We're wired to connect with other people. We're stronger together. Neil Sattin: What I hear you saying too is that, by changing the channel, you're basically going from the channel that's all about, "I'm having this emotion and I'm expressing it on you." To the channel of, "I'm realizing that I'm having this emotion. And if I wanted to connect with my partner in this moment, and around the fact that this is how I'm feeling, how would I do that?" Which invites maybe a totally different course of action in that moment. Sue Johnson: Yeah. But I don't think it's as deliberate as you're making it sound here. Usually in the first instance, people are being reactive. They're actually coping with softer emotions by shutting down or being very... Just giving facts. Or getting angry and becoming demanding. They're actually... Those are coping devices, really. The real core emotion underneath is not spoken, and so then the partner doesn't see it and doesn't see the need that that core emotion speaks to. There's a lot of conversation about this too. There's all kinds of conversations in our field about how empathy, and how empathy is a skill and you have to teach empathy skills, you have to train for it, I'm sorry, I don't think so. Sue Johnson: Empathy is right into us, it's there. What we have to do is understand what blocks it. And the main thing that blocks it is, I can't be empathic to my partner if I'm too busy dealing with my own overwhelming emotions. If most of the glucose going to my brain is dealing with my own discomfort, fear, uncertainty, I don't have any room to tune into my partner's emotions. I don't think we teach empathy, we model empathy, I guess. In Hold Me Tight groups and in the online program, people will see models of couples interacting with empathy and connection, but in the end, it's really about what blocks it, how you put out your message that blocks your partner's natural empathy, or how you can talk to your partner in a way that evokes that empathy. People are naturally empathetic and responsive, so in the EFT we just understand the blocks. And we help people dance in a way that those blocks don't come up or to see beyond those blocks. I guess that sounds a bit abstract but I think it's clear. Neil Sattin: Yeah, and I think that's getting at the heart of the question that I asked you a few minutes ago, around how do you have the Hold Me Tight conversation? A conversation where you're able to tell your partner about your vulnerabilities and your fears and your needs, without it coming across as being a demand or being needy, that it comes out of that place of being aware of your feelings and seeking, I think you've said it a couple times now, the softer emotions that are underneath the things that are on the surface. Sue Johnson: Yes. And I think the other thing about that is, a big part of EFT is it's a lot easier to do that if you grasp those emotions, and you have the normalized and validated, and you don't see those emotions as somehow proof that you are somehow not strong enough. Or that you're somehow not mature enough or that there is something wrong with you. A lot of EFT is validating, honoring, and holding people's emotions. Walking, setting up experiences where they walk into those emotions gradually, and at the same time are safe in that experience because they are given a framework where those emotions are understood, honored, validated. And our society hasn't been very good at that. We don't teach kids in schools about their own emotions or about the impact they have on other kids, and how to have safe conversations. We don't teach that. It's insane, we teach kids trigonometry but we don't teach kids what I just said, and so that's nutty. There are thousands of couples out there in the world. Sue Johnson: I'm just going to give a talk, public talk, in a few weeks in Toronto in December, called "What Every Couple Needs To Know", at the big Museum in Toronto. And I really believe that this stuff is what every couple needs to know. There are thousands of couples out there who have no way of understanding the dances they're caught in. No way of understanding even their own needs. You say to people, "What do you need?" And they say, "I need her to stop nagging." Or, "I need the conflicts to stop." Or, "I need... " These kinds of... "I need my partner to have more communication skills." These are huge. They don't know how to really go to the core of what they need and what they want. And we have taught people to be ashamed of them. So, a big part of EFT is we help people understand their own emotional lives, their own... The terrain of emotion. And who we are as bonding animals. And when you can accept those needs, when you can accept that we're all human beings who need comfort and security, and life is so huge. We all need to put our hand out in the dark and call, "Are you there?" And have a reassuring hand come and meet ours. And when we can do that, we can deal with the dark. And that's just the human condition. Neil Sattin: That makes me think too that that must be how EFT approaches couples where one partner or another has a deeper trauma history. Sue Johnson: Absolutely, that's right. And I think EFT is particularly suited to helping traumatized couples, traumatized individuals. Well, in fact what's interesting is we're talking about Hold Me Tight educational groups, that's only been around for a while. And this is what happens in EFT. Things have sprung up. There's now a Hold Me Tight educational group called, "Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go", for teens and their parents. There's a Hold Me Tight educational group based on the Christian version of the book Hold Me Tight, which is called, "Created For Connection." Which looks at how Christian beliefs fit in with attachment science and the link between those two. There's a Hold Me Tight educational group for in medical settings, which is very interesting. The biggest one we've just done, which we've just got a huge grant for, in Canada, is the Big Heart Institute back in Ottawa has asked us to adapt the program, and I hope one day we'll adapt the online program for this, too. Adapt the program for couples we're dealing with where one person's had a heart attack, because the research says that the best predictor of whether you'll have another heart attack, is not the severity of the first heart attack or even the damage done to the heart, it's the quality of your most intimate relationship. Sue Johnson: And so the cardiologist actually read this research. [chuckle] Sue Johnson: And said, "Oh, we're a relational human beings." "Ah, relationships really impact health." "Ah, we better get this crazy lady in and she can adapt her educational program to cardiac patients." So we did that. It's called, "Healing Hearts Together", and the preliminary data on it says it's great, really works. I ran a few of those groups and they blew my mind, they were wonderful. So everybody needs to know this, and the uses of creating this knowledge about what matters in love and how love works and how to repair it and keep it, has infinite, infinite usefulness. Whether it's in therapy, in educational groups, and for sure, we've got to take this stuff online. The Hold Me Tight Online was a huge project. Took us four years and oceans of grief and work. And there was a number of times when I really thought, "What on earth am I doing this for?" But you have to do it. If you feel that we all need this, and that we... This is sort of very basic information for us thriving and surviving. We have to make it accessible for people and so many things are online now. Neil Sattin: Yeah. And having gone through the course online, I can say that it's clear how much effort that you put in and how you tried to address different learning styles and give people lots of different examples, and make it entertaining at times. Sue Johnson: Yes. [chuckle] We even have cartoons, which at first, when my colleague said, "We need a cartoon couple." I said, "No, no, no, no, no." But yeah, we've got cartoons and we've got music and we've got images, and we've got me giving chats and other experts giving chats, and we've got exercises that we tailor to you. It was a lot of work. But hopefully, the couples... The idea is that it's accessible to everybody, then. What I would like, which is a complete silly dream, but... Oh no, it's actually not a silly dream. What I would like is for our western governments, the government of Canada, for example, to say, "Okay, Sue, we'd like to make the Hold Me Tight Online educational program available to all couples in Canada, or everyone who's just gotten married or something. We'll make it incredibly cheap. Will you help us do that?" And I say, "Of course." And I was just going to tell you that's impossible, and I forgot that actually a much simpler version, not at all the online program we've got now, but a much, much simpler, pared-down version. The government of Finland, has actually just helped my Finnish colleagues make their version of Hold Me Tight Online, a very simple version of it, available to almost all Finnish couples, which blows my mind. Neil Sattin: Wow. Sue Johnson: But they've done that because they believe that stable loving relationships and stable loving families, create stable, caring, positive, thriving societies. And of course, they're right about that. That's the way to do it. So. Yeah. Why am I talking about this? I don't know. [chuckle] Sue Johnson: Hold Me Tight online was a lot of work, but at this point I'm quite proud of it. And I'm glad that you enjoyed it and that you found it very... We wanted to make it fun. We made it for the people who would never dream of coming for therapy or even reading my book or even going to a group. So we thought, "Well then, we better make it fun because these people are used to having fun online." We did our best. I think it's pretty good. It's just like everything we do, we're very pleased with it for about a year and then we find ways that we could have done it better. This is kind of classic. I know that I'm going to feel the same way about my book, my therapy book that is coming out in January, which is EFT For Individuals, Couples, and Families. But it's really a book all about attachment. I know that I'll be pleased for about a week, and then I'll read it, and by next Summer I'll have found all the ways that I could have done it better. [chuckle] Neil Sattin: Well, fortunately, that ensures new editions or new books or new versions, and new conversations for the podcast. So I feel totally fine about that, that you're... Sue Johnson: Do you? Neil Sattin: Yeah. That you'll be constantly improving. Sue, you've been so generous with your time and wisdom. And I do want to ensure that everyone has the links so that... They will be, of course, available on the page for this episode which is Neilsattin.com/Sue3. And then you can also, if you're interested in the Hold Me Tight online program, you can visit Neilsattin.com/holdmetight and that will take you to a page where you can find out more about the program. Sue, I'm wondering if we can... I have just two quick questions for you. Sue Johnson: Sure. Neil Sattin: They can be quick or not, it's up to you, But if they're quick it's totally fine. The first was another take on when I asked you what are your favorite ways of coming back when your conversations have gone off the rails, and you brought up changing the channel. Often, because we're such astute observers of our partners, it happens that we notice that our partner is totally triggered about something. Sue Johnson: Yes. Neil Sattin: And so I'm wondering, when you notice, "Oh, my husband is... He's triggered right now." What do you like to do in order to help bridge the gap in that moment? Sue Johnson: That's a nice question. I think the best guide to this is what we naturally do with beings where the vulnerability is not so hidden, I.e. Children and dogs. [chuckle] Sue Johnson: If you watch people with little kids, or you watch people with dogs, which I find fascinating, okay? They naturally, if they see vulnerability, if you watch them they slow down, they lower their voice, they lean in, they give more attention, they give a focused kind of attention, they might ask a question or they might reach with their hand. You know? It's fascinating to me... Let's just take dogs, if you watch dogs. I remember sitting in a Starbucks, I can't remember why I was doing this, years ago. And watching all the people look on their cellphones, and all the people completely avoid contact, and was thinking, "Goodness, me. This society, we're becoming lonelier and lonelier." And then I sat and watched and there was a line of dogs tied up outside the Starbucks on these posts, right? So they're all sitting there, it's a Saturday morning. So you watch all these people come out with their... They've looked to their phones the whole time, they're carrying things, and they're busy and distracted, and it's a busy street so they've got to stop, right? And they look down, and it was so fascinating to me how many people looked down, and if the dog looked back, particularly if the dog was kind of small and didn't look very happy. [chuckle] Sue Johnson: These distracted, distant, disconnected people would... I couldn't hear what they were saying, which I think helped actually, because... You would think. I remember watching this man who put his coffee down, and leaned down, and talked to this dog. He was obviously comforting the dog, you know? Like, "Oh you're waiting for your master, you don't want to be here." Then he reached out and patted the dog on the head. He gave the dog more focused, soft, slow, connected attention than he'd given anyone in the Starbucks for whenever, right? Neil Sattin: Right. Sue Johnson: So we know how to do it. It's a question of tuning in and giving it. Unfortunately, sometimes we're not very balanced so we'll turn and say, "What the hell's wrong with you?" [chuckle] Neil Sattin: Right, right. That's why I love the way that you put it. Cause I'm so used to saying you see your partner and they're triggered, but I love your articulation of when you see vulnerability. Because that is what you're really seeing in that moment, is your partner in a vulnerable space. And if you know that your partner is the kind of person who, when they're vulnerable, needs space, is there an adjustment that you make to how you would respond to that? Would you just give them space and then revisit? Or is there a way to bring it out that doesn't... Sue Johnson: No, I'd reach and then give them space. Neil Sattin: Got it. Sue Johnson: I'd reach to say, "I'm saying I am accessible, I am here, I see you. But I'm not demanding that you turn to me right now. I see you, and I see that sometimes you need time when you're in this space. So I'm just seeing you and I'm here." That's a very powerful thing to do. Good parenting is that. Good parenting, parents know their kids style. And they do that. They say, I've seen people do it in therapy when they start to really mend their relationship. They say, "Well, I understand this is hard for you to talk about, and I see that and maybe when I was your age I couldn't talk about these things at all, and I just want you to know that I'm going to be here. And I see how hard it is for you and I want to help you. And I'm right here when you want to turn around and talk." This is amazing. This is an amazing invitation, right? And people can do that, they really can. They can offer each other that kind of space and that kind of empathy. I take account of your style of response. But for me to do that, I have to be feeling pretty safe. Otherwise, I'm busy dealing with my emotions about the fact that you don't talk about anything and that leaves me alone. And if I'm stuck there, I'm not going to be able to accommodate you. I have to have my own balance, if I'm dancing, before I can accommodate to you in that way. Neil Sattin: Right, right. Yeah. And so that brings us full circle to how we take care of ourselves when we recognize that we're in distress and take responsibility for how we're feeling in the moment. Sue Johnson: Yes. Neil Sattin: Yeah. Sue Johnson: And I think a lot of it is, many of us are dealing with relationships which happen very fast in a busy world where there's lots of demands on us. And I think the central issue is that many of us don't even know what's possible. We've never even seen the kind of relationships that we talk about in these programs, and in EFT and therapy, where people can diffuse conflicts, stand together against a negative pattern, find a way to be accessible, responsive and engaged. People haven't even seen it. They've see a bit of it in Hollywood, which is usually infused with sexual infatuation. They've seen little moments of it, which I think is great. Okay? I think that's great. Right? One of the ways movies and books have always civilized us, right? In some ways. But they don't really know how to get there. So, lots of times we're trying to create relationships where we really don't have a model of what's possible at all. And that's why I hope therapists who like EFT will maybe think about running Hold Me Tight groups, will maybe try the online program themselves and tell their clients about it, or tell their communities about it. Because so many of us don't even know what is possible in our relationships. Sue Johnson: We haven't even seen that these conversations can happen. And when we know that, the world changes. Our sense of what is possible with other people changes. This is a huge thing. Right? Neil Sattin: It's true. And I've definitely seen that in my own connection as well, as it's evolved through our patterns of conflict and beyond, which has been nice. And your work has definitely been helpful for us as well, so I'm so appreciative of that. Sue, my last question... And you talk about dance a lot, and... Sue Johnson: Yeah. Well, that's because I dance Tango, that's why. Neil Sattin: Yes. And I think we've even talked about it on the show before cause my partner, Chloe, and I do dance as well. But I'm wondering, for someone who's listening and they're like, "This all sounds great and amazing and I want to try, and it also sounds a little heavy, a little intense." What do you recommend for people in terms of keeping things light? And are there actual ways that you incorporate lightness and play and fun into how you work with people? Sue Johnson: Well, sure. Neil Sattin: Yeah. Sue Johnson: Well, I do couples therapy because it's more fun and more interesting than anything else, personally. And when I run Hold Me Tight groups, I think it's fun. I certainly hope our online program's fun or we've completely failed. It doesn't have to be heavy all the time. Learning can be fun, it can be intriguing, fascinating, surprising... Neil Sattin: But you know, when couples feel like, "Ah, we're so stuck and it's going to take all this work." And there's some truth to that, right? It's going to take some work for them to shift their patterns. And yet, yeah, I think it's more about... Sue Johnson: Discovery. If you're feeling... I think it all boils down to a sense of safety. My sense is couples come to see me and in the first few sessions it's not fun at all, because they're scared and they're worried. When they start to relax with me and we can play, and we can look at the dances they have, and we can look at how normal they are, and we can play with them and share them, and we can look at how stuck they got, and see how silly it is in some ways. EFT is not always heavy at all. We have a lot of laughter. And people not launch themselves into these huge heavy conversations. They're very gradual, and we make safety as they do it. So, yeah, it's not all heavy. It's you take it at your own speed. And for sure, people find it intriguing. Sue Johnson: The dropout rate in EFT is really low. In our studies and clinically in practice, the way people report to us, people stay. Sure it's heavy sometimes, but people stay because they're learning so much. And it's an amazing journey, they're learning about themselves, they're learning about their partner. And there's a huge amount of fun in there. Neil Sattin: Yeah, and you're reminding me that some of... Honestly, some of the funniest moments, I think, in my relationship, are when we... After we've recognized a pattern, which is one of the early things that you suggest couples do, is how they identify what are the patterns that they typically end up in patterns of conflict. And then when you're able to see it happening, and you're able to have those moments of like, "Look at us, we're doing that thing, that... " Sue Johnson: Yes. Neil Sattin: "We're just doing it again." And it can be hysterical. Chloe and I will be in the middle of it. And we'll just break out laughing, from a place of pretty intense conflict when we have those moments of, "Oh yeah, that's us just doing that thing again." Sue Johnson: That's right. It's like I can think of a dance analogy. You can be dancing with a partner who you trust a lot. And the partner tries a very tricky move. I can think of one where my teacher who's a fantastic dancer tried a very tricky move. And I sort of got half way through the move, where he was going, and then I got my high heel caught in the hem of my pants. [chuckle] Sue Johnson: And as we both nearly fell down flat. Okay, we nearly

EPISODE 69 OF LIFE WITH A DASH GAMING This week we play catch up and talk about mmovies we've seen recently. Beause there's been a ton of goodies lately. We talk about Logan, Beauty and the Beast, Power Rangers, and we take some time to talk about the new Justice Leaugue and Spider-Man Homecoming trailers too. Write in to the show! Email: lwadpod@gmail.com Twitter: @lwadpod Also rate and review us on iTunes!

Introduction On October 31, 1517, history was changed forever when Martin Luther took the Ninety-Five Theses and nailed them to the door of the Wittenberg Castle. He saw a problem in the way the medieval Catholic church was addressing salvation. He was incensed by the preaching of a friar named Tetzel who was preaching indulgences and misleading people, concerning what it is that saves our souls from sins. He was moved by it, by zeal for the glory of God and by concern for souls. And so, being an academic, he wanted to debate about it. So he wrote out these Ninety-Five Theses and nailed them to the door of the Wittenberg Castle and thus began the Reformation. Very important beginning, but I'm interested in how the Ninety-Five Theses themselves begin. The first thesis said this: “Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when he said ‘repent,’ he willed that the whole life of believers should be one of repentance.” What kind of revivals would come in this church or even in evangelical churches across America if we read and understood the import of those words? That you, as a child of God, should spend your whole life in repentance. Now, the beginning of the Reformation was important, but even more important was the beginning of Jesus' preaching ministry. Jesus began his preaching ministry with the exact same conviction. Matthew 4:17, “From that time on, Jesus began to preach ‘Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” He called on the people of God to repent from their sins. The very thing that John the Baptist had been doing, same message. My yearning today is that this sermon would be a call from almighty God to you, the people of God, to repent. And me too. To repent earnestly, to turn away from sin, hating it as we have never hated it before. Motivated as never before to be conformed to the image of Christ, in purity and holiness. To fight against the influences of the devil and the world, as they call to our indwelling sin to commit acts of sin, to yield to temptation that we would fight as never before, and grow in holiness. I'm calling on you and on me, the Spirit is calling on us to repent from sin. To be serious about sin, to take it seriously and to mortify it, to put it to death. Now last time I began by looking at a parallel passage, Romans 7. In Romans 7, these ideas that are in just seed form here in Colossians 3 are more fully developed. There Paul said, “I do not understand what I do, for what I want to do I do not do.” What does that mean? He wants to be holy, he wants to have a good quiet time, he wants to share his faith, he wants to say no to wickedness and ungodliness, he wants to be a Christlike, kind loving person in all circumstances, he wants to put a guard over his mouth, and never say anything that would defile his soul or hurt others. He wants all of this, he has great ambitions for holiness, but he says, “What I want to do, I do not do.” Conversely, what I hate, now that's what I do. I don't understand myself. The very thing I hate, I do. Why? Well he says, as it is, “It is no longer I who do it but it is sin living in me that does it.” So we began with this despicable enemy. This vile thing. How do we picture it within us? Sin living in me, in my body. How much do I yearn to have it out? “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” There's my hope. This is a hopeful sermon. We will be filled with righteousness if we're in Christ. But right now is a time of hungering and thirsting for that filling. Of yearning for it, and repentance. Therefore, Paul calls on us in verse five, Colossians 3 to warfare. “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature,” put it to death. “Sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry,” put it to death. “Anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language from your lips and lying,” put them to death, all of them, and all the others besides. Now the context here in Colossians 3 is the full flowering of what Christ has done for us. We have been made complete in Christ. We have been given gospel completeness. Jesus came. He who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. He came and entered the world, he took on a human body. So therefore the physical universe is not evil as the Colossian heretics were teaching. It's not evil, or else Jesus would never have taken it on. He took on a human body. In human flesh, there was the fullness of deity. He suffered on a cross and died that we might have full freedom from sin but the Colossian heretics are saying that's not enough, that's not enough. You've got to have human philosophy. Gotta understand things, a kind of secret wisdom coming from man. You've gotta have that secret philosophy. And you've got to have Jewish legalism, coupled with that asceticism, the harsh treatment of the body. All the Jewish rules and regulations, leading to a harsh treatment of the body. And to kind of lift it up into the spiritual realms, you can have the worship of angels, mysticism, this concoction of heresy, is what was afflicting the Colossian church. Paul says these things lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence, they don't work, they don't sanctify us and they sure don't save us from our sins. Instead, the work of Christ does, and he gives us a different vision of life in Colossians 3:1-17, a vision of a happy, healthy, fruitful Christian life. You wanna be happy, you wanna be healthy, you wanna be fruitful as a Christian, then immerse yourself in the practical wisdom of Colossians 3:1-17. It begins with a heavenly mindset, Colossians 3:1-4, “Set your minds on things above, set your hearts on things above, not on earthly things, for you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” And because of that, put sin to death. Because of where you're going. Because of how glorious it's gonna be, because of the fact there'll be no sin there. You'll be stripped of it forever and how delighted will you be at that time, because of that, because Christ is your life, because he's coming back to judge the earth, because of all of these things that put it to death, put sin to death, that's the context. Vigorous Warfare Against Sin (vs. 5-9) Steely-Eyed Killers of Sin And so I said last time that you're to be a steely-eyed killer of sin, show it no pity, hunt it down and assassinate it, show it no mercy. And John Owen, in his classic On the Mortification, or the killing, of Sin, he said, “You need to be killing sin or sin will be killing you,” it's that simple. And I said last time that happiness and fruitfulness is impossible without warfare. You can't go to heaven on a flowery bed of ease, it's impossible. If you're on a flowery bed of ease right now you are deceived, you need to wake up and you need to fight sin. It's impossible to go to heaven that way, it's through much difficulty that we enter heaven. Understanding the Enemy Outside the Walls And this is part of the difficulty. Part of it is persecution through faithfulness and witness, the part of it is this internal battle that we must fight, a part of our salvation. And so I said we have to understand who we're fighting, we have to understand Satan, how clever he is, how relentless, how powerful, how vicious, and we have to understand the world system that he has crafted. A masterpiece of wickedness crafted to entice us and to lure us constantly, lure us toward sin. The pull, like a magnet, like an overpowering magnetic attraction pulled all the way, away from God, away from holiness, away from purity toward defiling things and wickedness, like a magnetic attraction. Understanding the Body … and the Enemy Within the Walls Well, you don't have to be a physicist, you don't have to be an engineer, to know magnets don't attract wood, they attract iron, they attract something and there's something inside us that is attracted to all that. Isn't that disgusting? There's something in me that likes it, that's attracted to it. So I've likened it to having like chunks of iron or iron filings that I kind of eat and take into myself, and then the pull gets stronger and it's harder to resist, and they come out, like one at a time with a tweezer. And so, it's so important that we not immerse ourselves in evil things, the enemy outside calls to the enemy within and the two of them do business at moments of temptation and we sin, and that's the battle. And therefore we have to understand our body, our body created originally in the image of God, nothing wrong with any biological function, sexual, digestive, any of the functions God created, these things are good. God made them that way, there's nothing wrong with that, there's nothing wrong with the human body, per se. But there's something wrong with the body of sin. There's something wrong with the body of death, and that's what these bodies are called: body of sin, body of death. That's what we have and why? Because of history. First of all, Adam's history. He sinned for us and we got from him a position before God and a nature. We were born with a nature of bent towards sin and as soon as we understand the law, we sin. As soon as we understand it, it happens. You parents know what I'm talking about, you've seen it happen. You were there at that moment, you were there twice because it happened to you when you were a child. And we understand sin, and look at verse 7, Colossians 3:7, “In these sins, sexual immorality, lusts, impurity, evil desires, greed. In these things you used to walk in the life you once lived.” That's how you used to live, you have a history with this. You programmed your body how to sin, you programmed your brain. Understanding Salvation So we have to understand this, we have to understand the body, and I said we also have to understand salvation. If you don't understand salvation, you won't know where mortification or putting sin to death fits in, you'll get it wrong, you'll make a mistake. And so there are three main parts to salvation: Justification, sanctification, glorification. Justification, at that moment by simple faith in Christ, by looking to Jesus crucified for you, His blood shed on the cross for you, trusting in that as your only righteousness. The exchange there: he taking your defilement on himself and suffering under the wrath of God, and him giving to you a gift, an immeasurable gift, an infinite gift of perfect righteousness, that is justification. And if you're a Christian today, that's already happened for you and nothing can reverse it. And God sees you today holy and blameless in Christ, perfect in position, nothing can change that. Nothing can move you from your secure position in justification, but that's not the end of the story now, is it? What you are in position, you need to become in practice, you need to start acting like Jesus more and more and more, and he was perfect. And you must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. You must be like Jesus in every area. And the battle is a cooperative effort between the believer and the Holy Spirit. You work together. “If you,” Romans 8:13, “by the Spirit put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.” You have to do it by the Spirit. Cooperation. And in that lies a struggle because some of you aren't cooperating very well. And neither am I from time to time. And this is a call on us to step up and put sin to death. It's our responsibility as justified Christians to be sanctified and to grow. Progressively grow more and more to be like Jesus. Then the third step: glorification. God takes over again. Just as he did in justification, he'll do it again in glorification. And instantaneously, all sin will be removed from you. Completely. And you will end up holy and blameless. Physically, mentally, morally, emotionally, spiritually, your body and your soul, or your heart, will be pure as Christ. And you will dwell in that state forever. That's the whole salvation plan. By the way, we are calling “Come, Oh, Come Emmanuel.” That's what he came to do. And he will not stop until it's done for all of his children. Naming the Battlefields Now, we have to get specific. Last time, we named the battlefield sins of perverted love, lust, sexual immorality. Sins of broken relationships, anger, rage, malice, slander. We talked about those in detail last time. This is what's besetting us. And friends, this is an immensely truncated list. There's far more sins than just these. They're just suggestive of the kind of things we fight. What Is at Stake And what's at stake? Colossians 3:6, “Because of these things, the wrath of God is coming.” The wrath of God. I heard a sermon this past week. Don Whitney preached an incredible sermon, wrote a book on spiritual disciplines, and I heard him preach on hell. Very few of us actually hear sermons, expositions, on hell. And it left me so grateful, so grateful for Jesus that I had been rescued from what I deserved. He focused on one verse, Matthew 25:41, what the judge of all the earth will say to the goats, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” One verse tells you what you need to know about hell. I'm tempted to just preach that sermon because it was so good. Terrifying Warning But hell is real. Hell is terrifying. It's eternal. It's powerful. And Jesus warned us, more than any person in history, Jesus warned us from hell. No other prophet or apostle spoke as much about hell as Jesus did. But Jesus rescues us from the coming wrath. Praise God. Praise God. 1 Thessalonians 1:10, “Jesus rescues us from the coming wrath.” He is doing it right now through this sermon. He is rescuing you from the coming wrath. And he'll keep on rescuing you until he will finally rescue you on the Day of Judgment from the coming wrath. The rescue is present and the wrath is future. And the rescue is going on right now, and it will continue until the day you die. And then He will finally rescue you, and there'll be no more threat. Forever. That's what's at stake. Practical Guidelines for Killing Sin How do we do it? This is where we get practical. And here I just lean on a brother in Christ who's been dead for centuries. His name is John Owen. And he wrote a book called Mortification of Sin. And you may have noticed, when you came in, these books. God wants you, I think, to have this book and to read it. And so I've made 200 of them available for free. The price is right, okay? They're at the entrance, or I guess, now exits of the sanctuary. Back there, side tables, inside there's 200 of them. There's more than 200 people here. So there's a little psychology going on here. A little competition, alright? But I'll say this. If you want one at the end of this day, and didn't get one, I'll see to it you get one, alright? So I bought 200 of them. They're available. Along with that is a paper I wrote when I was in seminary. Now, I'm not saying this is any great thing, but this is like the CliffsNotes version, okay. To this, it's basically a summary of his arguments. Don't do this instead of this, okay. Do this to help you with this. But you can get all these pages down, and you can skip if you want to all the introductory stuff about Owen, the history and all that, and just go to the summary of what he wrote. And from this, I got what you're about to hear in my sermon. So this is a thin stream of this, and this is a thin extract of this. So I would just urge you to go to this, and be convicted, and to be strengthened. Get it. You're all gonna be out of here quickly, and go grab them. But as I said, if you don't, if you want one and didn't get one, let me know. Call the office. Talk to me. Well, don't talk to me at the end, I won't remember. I won't know what you said to me. But email or whatever, and say, “I wanted to get one, didn't get one.” We'll order some more. But it would be a tragedy for this book to sit in stacks on the table as you guys are walking by it. That makes no sense. Even if you have a copy at home, take another one so you can give it to somebody who might need it. Come to Christ Practical advice. First step. This is where I ended last time. Come to Christ. Come to Christ. You have no business fighting sin if you're not a Christian. You know why? You can't put sin to death because sin's already put you to death. You're dead spiritually. Dead in your transgressions and sins, Ephesians 2, in which you used to live. So you can't fight it. You're already killed. And only Jesus can give you life. Come to Christ. And he will give you life. And part of that life will be mortification. So if you're here today, and you don't know whether you're saved, you have never trusted in Christ, then the rest you can get to by and by, but you come and look to Jesus. Look to him dead on the cross. His blood shed for you. Think, “He is my righteousness. He's my only hope for escape from hell. I must have Christ,” and look to him and then the mortification can begin. Come to Christ. We talked about that last time. Determine to Fight this Vicious Battle Every Day Secondly, to you Christians, determine to fight this vicious battle every day. Make it your business every day to get up and mortify the deeds of the flesh. John Owen put it this way, “There's not a day but sin foils or is foiled, prevails or is prevailed upon and it will be whilst we live in this world.” In another place he likened it, as I've said many times, to a wrestling match with a poisonous viper. Imagine you've got this snake by the head and it's hissing and it's strong and all that. And it's a battle to the death. You can't get halfway through and just, “I'm tired,” just put it down and try to walk away. It's not gonna let you go. You don't take a poisonous viper to bed with you. You don't coddle it like a pet. You don't feed it. You kill it. Be killing sin or sin will be killing you. You gotta get up every day and determine to fight this vicious battle. You don't get any days off. Sin's not gonna take any days off. By the way, the day you think you're taking a day off from sin, sin's winning. It's already deceived you. Rely on the Holy Spirit, Not on Fleshly Means Next, rely on the Holy Spirit, not on fleshly means. We already saw in Colossians 2 that harsh treatment of the body and all kinds of stuff lacks any value in restraining sensual indulgence. That will not work. And all of our steps in mortification, all they do is set the stage for the Spirit to kill the sin. He has the power to do it. And so all of these things are somewhat like Elijah in his battle with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. And they're up there and all of the sacrifice, all is ready, but the fire's gotta fall from heaven and so it is with mortification. Get everything ready and the Spirit will put the sin to death when you have done all the things he's commanded you to do. “If you, by the Spirit, put to death the misdeeds of the body.” So the Spirit acts somewhat like a weapon there. If you, by the Spirit, kill. And that's how it works. You must fight by the Holy Spirit. Be Cross-Centered Next, you must be cross-centered. Isaac Watts said, “When I survey the wondrous cross.” Every Sunday I look up at this big wooden cross up here over my head. I just look at it. I remind myself that Jesus died there. I think about it. I think about Jesus bleeding to death. Really that practically, that his blood was falling out of the wounds of his body, he was bleeding to death on the cross. I think about that. And I say to you that Christ's blood shed on the cross has sin-killing power in the minds and hearts of believers. Galatians 6:14, very important verse, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.” You come to the cross and the world's allure and temptations and enticements look to be the filthy things they are. It was those things that put Jesus to death. So be cross-centered, be much in meditation on Christ's death on the cross and sin will shrivel as the nasty thing that it is. There's another sense in being cross-centered, and that is that you must crucify sin. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, sin is not going to die while you live, it isn't. Sins can die. But sin is gonna be with you until the Lord glorifies you. And so the image I have is lust up on the cross, slowly bleeding to death, and begging me to take it down off the cross every day. And woe to me if I get those tongs and pull the nails out and let lust down and feed it and give it a break and give it some... So it regains its strength a little, give it a little water and wipe it... That's lust! It wants to kill me. So I have to put it on the cross. I have to crucify it. It's a slow lingering death. Remember how Pilate was surprised that Jesus had died so quickly. It's not a quick death, it's a slow one. So be cross-centered. Understand what Mortification Is Not and What It Is Next, understand what mortification is not and what it is. I've already touched on this briefly, but first of all, it is not to kill any particular sin completely for that cannot be in this life. There are other schools of thought on sanctification that say you can have that sin removed from you like a bad tooth. And so if you could find a pastor who'll do that kind of dental work on you and remove that bad tooth of lust or covetousness or anger or unforgiveness, you could just have all those bad teeth removed one after the other. It's not like that. And the reason you know is, can you imagine, what would you think if you met a man or a woman who said, “You know, I used to struggle with such and such. But I never need to worry about that again.” What would you say to that person? “If any man or woman thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall.” It's not over yet. So it's not killing one particular sin completely for that cannot be. Nor is it to allow sin to conceal itself and then to appear in a different costume. Oh, sin is tricky! You think you got lust down, but it's popping up in other areas. You don't do that anymore, but you do this instead. That's what it does. Nor is it to develop a quiet, thoughtful, peace-loving nature. Kind of like a monk in meditation. That's not mortification. And nor is it to divert a particularly annoying and troubling sin so that that sin pattern isn't so prevalent anymore. That's not it. Non-Christians can stop drinking, for example. They go to AA, they can stop drinking. They can divert certain things, but that's not mortification. And nor is it to conquer certain sins occasionally. Like, what's your batting average? That's not mortification. How are you doing? Three-quarters of the time, it used to be just two-thirds of the time, I say, no, but now I'm up to three quarters. Well, good brother, keep it going. That's not mortification. Well, what is it? It is a habitual weakening of sin's root as how a victim dies on the cross. Gradually, slowly losing power and influence over your soul. It is a constant fighting and contending against all indwelling sin, on all fronts. It involves both attack and defense. You go out after sin and cut off the things that it feeds on. You make no equipment or provision for providing for the lusts of the flesh. You don't have the equipment of it, it's out. You just go on attack, you go on a commando raid and get rid of things in your life. They're out. And also it's defensive. You're ready, you're ready, you're ready for the attack. Ready. It's coming. You know you're ready and your stand is both offensive and defensive. And it results in consistent success over individual temptations. Now, temptations you can kill. Individual occasions, you can kill. It comes to you, you see it, you know what's going on and you can say, “No! I won't. Not today. I will not do this.” You can do that. Resolve to Fight Sin on All Fronts It is a resolve to fight sin on all fronts. You're not gonna put the white flag up over any sin in your life. You're not gonna surrender, never, on any front. You're gonna fight all sin everywhere that it's found. Now, I say to you the Holy Spirit hasn't shown you everything. You can't handle the truth. It's not possible. Imagine if your eyes were open, you were to see how far you are from Jesus. It's overwhelming. You'd wanna die immediately. But if he has revealed some things to you, you must fight them on all fronts. Sin is evil, it is wicked. And God's work consists in universal obedience not just partial. Some people say, “I know this isn't right, but I'm really working on this right now.” It doesn't work. That's not mortification. Study the Lusts that Are Attacking You Next, study the lusts that are attacking you. Owen does a great job here on when a lust is particularly dangerous. And I can't go into the details but, basically, if it's survived lots of work on your part, lots of conviction, lots of occasion, times of weeping, people praying for you and all that and it's still around, be afraid. Be very afraid, it's a serious lust problem for you, whatever it may be. Serious habit. Take it seriously. Study also what the sin does to defeat you. I think too often, we just quickly confess and - No, no, no, break it down. What happened? You had a conflict with your spouse. You said you didn't wanna do that anymore, but here you did it again. Now, what happened? You walked in, he said this, she said that, this happened. What happened? What were you feeling? What was your motive? Where did pride creep in? Look for pride 'cause it's there. And just try to find out how sin got you. Study it. Don't just go on too quickly. Labor on Your Heart Labor on your heart next. What do I mean by this? Work on yourself to feel what you ought to feel about sin. Seriously, I think we go on too quickly. You've heard of easy believism? I think there's easy confessionalism. “Oh Lord, I confess in Jesus' name, amen. Thank You, Lord. I'm forgiven.” Don't do that. You've gotta slow down. James says, “Grieve, mourn, and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.” That is not a heaven verse is it? 'Cause there will be no more mourning in Heaven. That's a here and now verse. Why do you need to change your laughter to mourning? Because of sin. And so when you are convicted of sin take the time to mourn over it. Take the time to feel what the Holy Spirit felt when He was grieved over what you did. We go on too quickly. Labor on your heart and get a constant yearning and breathing after righteousness. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” If you don't hunger for it enough, then stimulate your hunger. Say, “Oh God, I yearn to be free in this area. I want it, oh Lord. Please.” And just turn up the knobs on it. It's like, “Woah, we're getting serious.” It is serious. It is very serious. And you just get hungry and thirsty for righteousness and God will give it to you. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” Crush Sin Early in the Battle Labor on your heart and crush sin early in the battle. You talk about the camel getting its nose in the tent. Pretty soon you have the whole camel family with you inside the tent. How did that happen? Well, you didn't get it early. You know, you talk about the root of bitterness that can defile a whole community, we didn't get it early, didn't nip it in the root before it had a chance to develop and now broken relationships. There's unforgiveness, there's all kinds of stuff going on. You've gotta get it early. So it is also with lust. Get it early in the battle. I think often of that classic movie, The Longest Day, and it begins with a quote by the German commander of the beaches there in Normandy, General Field Marshal Rommel. And what Rommel said is, “The world will be won or lost on the beaches.” Once the allies get a beachhead established in Normandy, they would break out and sweep across France and the world would be lost. And he said this, “The first 24 hours will be critical for both the allies and us. It will be the longest day.” Well, we've been in the longest day since we were justified. We're still fighting. And I think the principle is true, get it on the beaches before it has a chance to establish a beachhead. You know why? Beause sin doesn't establish boundaries. It doesn't stay put and once it comes into your life it just grows and grows and grows. It doubles and doubles again. It just keeps metastasizing. That's what it does. Deal Thoroughly with Sin in Confession and Repentance Deal thoroughly with sin and confession and repentance. Yes, 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and he will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” But don't go too quickly. Don't go too quickly. Confess your sin and deal thoroughly with it. Be Filled with the Spirit and All of His Graces And be filled with the Spirit and all of His graces. The best way to not eat illicit food is to be filled with legal and good food, alright? Fill yourselves with the Spirit. Fill yourselves with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. Fill yourself with Christ, and sin will lose its power over you. Be filled with the Spirit. Later in this same section we're gonna learn how to do that through the word of God. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, but just be filled with Christ. Be Optimistic in Christ And finally, be optimistic. Be optimistic. Romans 16, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” Isn't that sweet? There will come a day when all of your lusts and all of your angers and all of your malice and all the filthy language and the lying and all of the complaining and all of that sin will drop away from you forever. And therefore, any effort you make now will be effective through the Spirit. I love what John Owens says, “Christ's blood is the great sovereign remedy for sin-sick souls. Live in this and you will die a conqueror; yes, you will through the good providence of God live to see your lust dead at your feet.” A Call to Repentance Now I have given you practical advice on how to kill sin. I'm going to end where I began. I'm gonna call on you to repent. Because I don't sense that I or anyone I know in this church is doing this kind of stuff like they should, taking it seriously, fighting sin at this level. Now you might say, “Well, how would you know?” I don't know for sure, and I praise God for brothers and sisters that are, do it all the more. 'Cause those that are doing it, know they need to do it all the more anyway. But for all of us, let's repent. Let's get serious. Let's look at that list: Sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, greed, anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language, lying. That's just suggestive. Find the other lists and say, “Lord, am I doing these things? And if so, I'm ashamed. These are the very things that put you, Lord Jesus, on the cross. I hate them and I want them to be dead in my life too.” Repent and you will know the forgiveness and the joy and the freedom that comes through Christ.

Introduction: The Command to Fear I love history, and I like looking at some of the great moments in history and the great speeches. And on March 4th, 1933 one of the great speeches in the 20th century was given by Franklin Delano Roosevelt as he was inaugurated for the first of four terms as the 32nd President of the United States. At that time the United States was in the Great Depression, economics were really horrible. Our people living in places called "Hoovervilles" like little slums that all the jobless people that had to put up. And it was really a bleak time in our history. And within the first two minutes of his inaugural address FDR said one of his most famous lines he said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Now, he was saying that, because it had been fear that had promoted the tumbling and the crash of the stock market as one person after another out of fear sought to dump their stocks and it was fear that caused runs on banks, and caused banks to close. And shortly after his inaugural he shut down the banks for four days to stop that from going on so that there could be a writing and a sense of confidence so that America could make progress economically. But I began just meditating on that expression. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. And here in the passage we're looking at today we're commanded to fear. It says do not be arrogant but fear. And it's a deep subject, and it occurred to me that in this present day and age, which so denigrates the fear of the Lord that even among evangelical circles, we are thought to be and taught to be completely free from all fear concerning God, this command to fear strikes us as anomalous, as strange, as odd. Why would we be commanded to fear? It occurs to me that the fear of the Lord almost everywhere in scripture is openly and clearly proclaimed as a great blessing and a great protection. So I think it may be the case that the only thing we have to fear in this day and age is not fearing the Lord enough, but that if we do fear him properly we have nothing else to fear. And that's the message that I want to preach on today. You know at key moments in redemptive history, God sought to produce fear in his own people. I think about the time that David was bringing the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem, and they had contrary to scripture, loaded the Ark of the Covenant onto an ox cart, they had been commanded in the law to carry it by acacia wood pole sliding it through the loops on the sides of the golden Ark, where was the presence of the Lord and the Lord would meet with his people. It represented the presence of God to the people of God. And they were bringing it into Jerusalem, the City of David, and David is celebrating with all of his might and he's singing and praising, it's a happy and festive occasion. And suddenly the oxen stumbled and the cart started to lose its balance and the Ark started fall off the cart and Uzzah reached for it and grabbed it and was immediately struck dead and there was a shock effect. The celebration ended and it says there very plainly, David was afraid of the Lord that day. That's exactly what God was trying to promote. He was clearly seeking fear of the Lord in his own people at that moment. He could have done a number of things but he waited because they had handled the Ark in putting it on, but he waited for that crescendo moment to strike Uzzah dead and produce the fear of the Lord in his own people. I think also about the occasion, after Jesus' death and resurrection and ascension in the early church when the Spirit of the Lord was just moving so powerfully through the church and people were selling lands and properties and bringing the money and giving it to the apostles and they were distributed to anyone as they had need. Then a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira sold the piece of property and brought some of it and put it at the apostles' feet. Peter asked, "Is this the amount you got for the land?" And Ananias lied. And immediately he was struck dead as Peter said, "How could you test the Spirit of God?" And the reaction was the same then as it was in the time of David. Great fear seized all who heard about these events. I think to myself, what is the role of fear in the Christian life? It's commanded of us here in this text, look in chapter 11 where it says, in verse 20, "The branches were broken off because of unbelief and you stand by faith, do not be arrogant." The NIV gives us, "But be afraid." A simpler translation would be just the command, "do not be arrogant but fear." I. The Reality of Warnings in the Christian Life And so therefore, I think we have here a warning to Christians, it's a warning to Christians. And so I think it's necessary for us to try to understand the role, the reality of warnings in the Christian life. What are we to do with these warnings? Now, first of all, that this passage is a warning was clear from the treatment we gave last week. The Lord is speaking to gentile Christians, and he's urging them not to be arrogant or to boast over Jews who have not believed in Christ. The overall context of Romans 9 through 11 as we've discussed is the remarkable success of the Gospel among gentiles and the equally remarkable failure of the Gospel among Jews. Many, many gentiles believing in Christ, coming into the church, very few Jews were. And Paul is dealing with that in Romans 9 through 11. Now in verse 13 of our chapter if you can look at it he says there, "I am talking to you gentiles." He's speaking to the gentiles, he's addressing them and he wants them to understand some things, but most of all he wants them not to be proud as we discussed last week. Look at verses 17-18, there it says, "Do not boast over those branches." verse 20, "Do not be arrogant but fear." verse 25 and 26, "I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery brothers, so that you may not be conceited. Do not boast, do not be arrogant that you may not be conceited." Clearly, Paul's concern is the issue of spiritual arrogance and pride. This is a warning concerning the danger of spiritual pride. Now, clearly Paul desires the gentile Christians, to understand their situation in the grace of God and to have the same attitude toward unbelieving Jews that he does like in Romans 9, where he says, "I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish." In Romans 10, he says, "Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved." so he's warning them from spiritual pride. He's also warning them to spiritual perseverance in the faith, he wants them to keep on going in the Christian life. Look again at verse 19-20, he says, "You will say then branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in. Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief." Listen, and "you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant but be afraid." You stand by faith. You continue to stand in Christ by a continuing work of faith in your soul and so he is urging them to persevere in the faith. Look again at verse 22, "Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God. Sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you who believe provided that you continue in his kindness, otherwise you also will be broken off." Do you see again an urging to persevere in the Christian life? To keep moving on, to keep growing and going in the Christian life. It's also a warning of spiritual disaster. Verse 21, he says, "If God did not spare the natural branches he will not spare you either." And in verse 22, he threatens that they will be cut off if they don't continue in God's kindness. The clear implication is that being cut off means being separated from Christ even eternally. And so in Matthew 7, Jesus said some of the most terrifying things he ever taught us, "Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles? Then I will tell them plainly. I never knew you, away from me you evildoers." Away from me is the moment of cutting off. You will be cut off from Christ. That's when Jesus says, "Away from me, you evildoers." what a dreadful thing. So therefore, the threat is the most dire imaginable, eternally cut off from Christ. In my opinion the summary warning is this, you stand by faith, gentiles. So don't be arrogant but fear and make progress in the Christian life. That's what he's telling them here in Romans 11. Now it brings us to this issue of the reality of warnings in the Christian life. There are many warnings to Christians in the Bible. Romans 11:17-22 is not the only warning given to Christians. Jesus warned, for example, in the Sermon on the Mount. He says, "You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery, but I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye cause you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away, it is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell." Jesus there is teaching his disciples very clearly at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, his disciples sat down and began to teach them saying. Why is he threatening them with hell if they should lust? Why the warning? And then again, the book of Hebrews which we already quoted a little bit this morning in worship service is really nothing but a large warning to Christians. Do not drift away from Christ, Hebrews 2:1, through the neglect of the Gospel. Do not turn away from Christ to a sinful unbelieving heart in chapter 3, do not fall away in chapter 6. It culminates in Hebrews 10:26-27, "If we deliberately keep on sinning after we've received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left but only a fearful expectation of judgement and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God." You might think "I'm a Christian, why do I have to read this kind of thing?" I'm troubled by these words. Why do I have to hear these warnings? And then Paul himself does it directly to the Corinthians in 1st Corinthians 9, he says he beats his body and makes it a slave, he's going to run like an athlete, he's going to finish the race so that after he's preached to others he wouldn't be disqualified from the prize and then he goes on into a warning about what happened with the Jews in the Old Testament. And he draws a very striking parallel between the Jews in the Old Testament, how God dealt with them, and the Christians in the new. He says that the Jews all experienced something like baptism, when they passed through the Red Sea in Moses. And they all kind of partook in something like the Lord's Supper, when they ate the manna and when they drank the water that flowed from the rock which was Christ. He's clearly using new covenant language, to talk to gentile Christians, and to give them a warning, and this is what he says in 1st Corinthians 10:5 and following he says, "Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, their bodies were scattered all over the desert. Now, these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were. As it is written. The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry. We should not commit sexual immorality as some of them did. And in one day, 23,000 of them died. We should not test the Lord as some of them did and were killed by snakes, and do not grumble, as some of them did and were killed by the destroying angel. These things happened to them [to the Jews] as examples and were written down as warnings for us." Listen to that phrase brothers and sisters, warnings for us. Paul includes himself in that. Christians need to heed spiritual warnings. They're written down as warnings for us on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. "So if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall." Key Issue: True vs. False Branches Clearly, Paul is going through the Old Testament, looking at things from that and applying it to Christians, applying it to New Testament people for their benefit. There are therefore many dire warnings given to Christians in the Bible. Now, the key issue here, in my opinion, if we can go to the analogy that Paul uses in Romans 11, of the olive tree. The issue is true versus false branches. I believe you can be in some sense, attached to the olive tree. The olive tree represents the people of God and the development of redemptive history, the people of God. You can in some sense be attached and not really of the tree. You can be in the tree but not of the tree. You could be duct-taped on for example. You could be nailed on or stapled on, you could be put on with hot melt glue, you could be attached in all kinds of ways, but receiving none of the nourishing sap that flows from the tree into you. You can be a false branch. And I believe that the unbelieving Jews that were stripped off were not genuine Jews. They were not genuinely connected to the olive tree as proven by the fact that they rejected Christ. And so what he's saying is, just as there were fake Jews that were stripped off of their own olive tree, so there can be fake wild gentile branches taped or connected in some way to the tree without really being of the tree. And he's saying, "Watch out." The ultimate issue is by their fruits you will know them. A branch that is truly grafted into the tree, produces fruit in keeping with the nature of the tree. And therefore if you are grafted into this olive tree, following the analogy, you will produce olives. You'll produce the fruit that God intends in the living Christian life. So there we have clearly the reality of warnings in the Christian life. II. The Resistance to Warnings in the Christian Life Now secondly, we see the resistance to warnings in the Christian life. Maybe you're already feeling it rising in your own heart as you listen to me. Do I really need to hear this sermon on the fear of the Lord? Do I really need to take seriously the warning of the Book of Hebrews? Do I really have to listen to the Sermon on the Mount and the warnings against lust and gouging out the eye and cutting off the hand? Do I have to take that seriously? And so there may be a resistance to warnings coming up. Sometimes the resistance comes from the idea of the doctrine once saved, always saved. You think to yourself, the Scripture teaches that a true believer in Christ can never lose their salvation. So if you know yourself to be a true believer in Christ, you don't need to heed any warnings ever again, that's the mentality. It comes from this idea of once saved, always saved. Now, I believe with all my heart that the eternal security of the believer in Christ is one of the crown jewels of the doctrines of grace. It's a delightful thing to meditate on. It's beautiful to know that the Lord knows how to finish the salvation work in me and in you, isn't it? And Paul has labored already many times in Romans to give us that, a strong assurance. Listen to Romans 5:9-10, there it says, "Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him. For if when we were God's enemies we were reconciled to him through the death of his son, how much more having been reconciled shall we be saved by his life." What is Paul laboring to do in Romans 5:9-10? But give us a solid assurance that Jesus, dead Jesus, justifies us, living interceding active Jesus, will finish the saving work in us. It's a beautiful thing, isn't it? And then again in Romans 8:1, which by the way, just about every time I teach on the fear of the Lord or on the need that we have as Christians to heed warnings, somebody quotes Romans 8:1, so I'll quote it for you. Beause you may be want to quote to me, it says in Romans 8:1, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." "For those who live according to the Spirit…" he says later… You got to keep reading, you can't just stop at the end of verse 1. For those who live according to the Spirit, put sin to death by the power of the Spirit. That's a whole argument that he gives there. But I'll say it, I cling to that verse. I am delighted that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And then there's Romans 8:29-30, "For those God foreknew he predestined to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the first born among many brothers. And those he predestined he also called, and those he called he also justified, and those he justified he also glorified." Nobody gets lost. That's where your once saved, always saved comes from. And also in Romans 8:38-39, "I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus." Amen and amen. Crescendo and cymbal crash. It is a fantastic doctrine and a beautiful one that we can embrace. And it's not just taught in Romans, Jesus taught it in John 6, "This is the will of him who sent me. That I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day, for my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son will have eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day." So, what percentage of those that the Father gives to Jesus does he lose? The answer is mathematically zero. And what percentage does he save on the final day? 100%. Isn't that delightful and isn't your assurance flowing from these promises. Or this one in John 10:27-30, "My sheep hear my voice, I know them and they follow me, I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. No one can snatch them out of my hand, my father who has given them to me, is greater than all, no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one." Isn't that beautiful? The Trinity, the power of the Father, the Power of the son dedicated to finishing the saving work in you, nobody can snatch you out of their hand. And so the doctrine that a true Christian can never ever lose his or her salvation, never be lost to Christ, never be condemned for sin is one of the great jewels of the Gospel and it is absolutely true. But if this is true you may ask, why do we need to heed warnings like this? Why do we need to be told to fear? Why are we told these warnings? If there's no condemnation for those in Christ, why do we have to listen to Christ's warnings about hell in connection with lust? If nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ why do we have to hear about the possibility that we gentiles will be stripped off the olive tree if we arrogantly boast over Jews? Why do we have to be told to continue in Christ, to keep believing, keep trusting, keep obeying, keep walking with him, if he has already promised that He'll lose none of all that the Father has given Him? That's the resistance to the warnings. Secondly, there is, I believe, a failure to distinguish between godly and ungodly fear. There is a godly fear and there is an ungodly fear, and we must make a distinction. This passage commands us to fear. Verse 20. "Do not be arrogant but fear," it says. Many other passages tell us what a wonderful thing is the fear of the Lord. For example, Proverbs 1 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline." Psalm 19:9 says, "The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever." You know what, some evangelicals will say the fear of the Lord is pure, enduring until you pray the sinner's prayer, then you don't need it anymore. How can that be? It must be that the fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. Forever it's pure, forever it's beneficial to us. In Proverbs 14:27, "The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life turning a man from the snares of death." It protects us, it keeps us safe, it's a fountain of life, the fear of the Lord. Isaiah gave a prophecy about the messiah, the branch of Jesse who is Christ. It says in Isaiah 11:3, "He will delight in the fear of the Lord." He'll delight in it. This is not just in the Old Testament, friends. It says in Philippians 2:12 that we should continue to work out our salvation with what? Fear and trembling. That's in the New Testament. Paul is telling us to do that. 1 Peter 1:17, "Since you call on a father who judges each man's work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear." You're told to live here in this world in fear. But other passages seem to cast some doubts on this issue of fear. For example, in Romans 8:15 we're told this, "You did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, 'Abba, Father.'" So in other words, if you're adopted you don't need to fear anymore, so people think. In verse 15. There is a kind of slavery to fear that Paul has in mind there that you're not to fall back into. But then they say, "Well then there must be no fear of the Lord that's appropriate for an adopted child of God." That is false. And even more pointedly in 1 John 4:18, it says this, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear." Because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears has not been made perfect in love. And so they think that fear therefore has nothing to do with love and nothing to do with the Christian life. Unless you go through all the Old Testament, especially book of Proverbs where it extols the virtues of the fear of the Lord and say, "Well that's not for me anymore, I've come to Christ." I don't think it's so. Therefore I think we have to distinguish between godly fear and ungodly fear. This is how I do it. Godly fear is based on God's truth, on His nature, and His word. Ungodly truth is based on falsehood about God and His word, it's based on unbelief. So godly fear is based on truth and says this: God is holy, He hates sin, if I sin, God may well strike out at me and discipline me. If I harden my heart in sins deceitfulness, it may well be that I was never a Christian at all. I don't want to go there, I don't want to find out what that's like. I fear that outcome, I fear sin, I fear God's holy reaction to my sin. God did not spare the Jews when they rejected Christ. He'll not spare me either if I turn away from Christ. That's what godly fear sounds like. Ungodly fear, however, is based on falsehood and says something like this, "God is fickle, and capricious, he is mean and demanding. I have to be a slave on his plantation or he'll send me to hell. I have to watch every step I make or he'll smack me. I have to keep on cranking out the good works to please him or he may become irrationally outraged at me and throw me into hell." Or perhaps something like this, "God's promises sound so true and I do believe them, and I do believe that Jesus is the son of God and died for me, but I don't know that God can keep me, I don't know that I might just sin so much he'll grow tired of me and throw me out. I might still wind up in hell even though I do believe the promises of the Gospel. God may abandon me, or his promises may not be true for me even if they're true for everybody else." That's ungodly fear, and it has to do with wrath and punishment that's contrary to the promises of the Gospel. We have to distinguish there for between godly fear and ungodly fear. III. The Role of Warnings in the Christian Life Is it right for a Christian to fear that if we sin, God may discipline us in some very unpleasant ways? I think it is. Is it right for a Christian who comes to church every week, who's here week after week, but then lurches off into some established pattern of sin, embraces that pattern of sin, stops going to church, and for decades never comes back, is it right for them to fear hell? I think it is. And so we've seen the resistance to warnings in the Christian life. What is the role then of warnings in the Christian life? Warnings Reveal True vs. False Branches Well as I've said, warnings reveal the difference between true and false branches. Friends, there would be no need for warnings in the Christian life if we were already done being saved. If we're already there, we don't need the warnings. But we're not safe yet. And frankly, there's the issue of true and false branches. Just because someone hangs around the church for decades or is active in the church's programs does not mean that they're genuinely alive spiritually. The warnings here reveal the possibility that people may be self-deceived. Ultimately then, the true believers produce fruit in keeping with repentance, as John the Baptist said. Jesus put it this way in Matthew seven, "By their fruit, you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown to the fire. Thus by their fruit, you will recognize them." Jesus put it this way in John 15, "I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener, he cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit." And you say, "In me," does that mean you can lose your salvation? Like I said, the branches can be connected but not truly of the vine, as proven by the fruit. And there is no fruit. And so cut off and thrown into the fire. Therefore, this issue reveals the fact that we can be self-deceived. We can actually be going to church for a long time and not truly be born again. Warnings Reveal Spiritual Arrogance Secondly, warnings reveal spiritual arrogance. Friends, one of the key issues in the Christian life is, what do you do with a healthy spiritual warning? I think this sermon will bring you to a fork in the road. You listen to this, and if you excuse yourself from all warnings, I would urge you to be afraid for your soul. One of the essences of true saving faith is it takes these kinds of warning seriously, it takes them to heart. We humble ourselves, we go to Christ, we go to the Cross, we do business with God. When we feel pricked in our conscience we want to have it dealt with, and so we go to the cross. But a spiritually arrogant people thinks that he or she is exempt from all warnings. They blow them off, they don't take them seriously, they think they can dabble in sin and it won't affect them, they think they've served God enough and they built up enough capital in God's account so they can spend some of it on sin. It is not so. And so, therefore, concerning warnings, true believers need them, true believers heed them, and true believers avoid what they threaten. False believers excuse themselves from them, do not heed them, and ultimately fulfill them. So what you do with a warning in the Christian life ends up becoming determinative about what is the nature of your faith. Warnings Produce Godly Fear, and Fear Keeps Us from Sin Do you fear the Lord or not? Now, in my opinion, on this issue of fear, there's no better verse than Exodus 20:20. Would you turn there in your Bibles and look with me at Exodus 20:20. I told you there were a number of times that God sought to produce fear in his people and Exodus 20:20 is one of them. Exodus 20:18, this is the time of the giving of the Ten Commandments. And no one can do fear like God can. It always amazes me, these unbelievers that have "no fear" on their bumper stickers. Alright? "No Fear," or "Ain't Sceered" something like that. And I think to myself, "The Lord is able to make you scared. He's able to make you fear. And frankly it's evidence of great grace when he does." But here God was able to make a whole nation of maybe two million Israelites tremble so much that Moses said in Hebrews 12, his words are recorded, "I am trembling with fear." Moses was terrified. And how did he do it? Well, he warned the Israelites ahead of time, if anyone goes up in the mountain, they'll be killed. He says, "Put a barrier at the base of the mountain so no one can go up." And then he descends in a dark thick cloud with thunder and lightning, and with a trumpet call, and with the voice of God, and with an earthquake. And before long, everybody is trembling and thinking today is their final day on earth. They are terrified, God is making them afraid. But this is what the Lord says about it. This is interesting. Exodus 20:18-20 says, "When the people saw the thunder and lightning, and heard the trumpet, and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, 'Speak to yourself for we will listen, but do not have God speak to us or we will die.'" Now, look at 20:20. "Moses said to the people, 'Do not fear.'" Isn't that interesting? He says, "Do not be afraid, God has come to test you so that the fear of God will be with you." Isn't that interesting. Do not fear if the fear of God is with you. He says, "Do not be afraid, God has come to test you so that the fear of God will be with you, to keep you from sinning." That's the purpose of the fear of the Lord. Is sin still a threat in your life? Is it still a threat in your life? If so, you need the fear of the Lord. It keeps you from sin. And therefore, I went back to FDR's words, "Do not fear, if you fear." And therefore, the only thing you have to fear is if you don't fear the Lord. Because if you don't fear the Lord, then all of the punishments are opened up for you. All of them are available, even hell itself. But if you fear the Lord, that's the beginning of the wisdom that is essential to the Christian life. And it continues with you the rest of your Christian life. The real danger, you may say in the Christian life is not that Jesus is going to abandon me. Isn't your real fear that you'll abandoned him? Don't you know that the Lord keeps His promises. The question is, are you going to keep your side of it. Isn't that your concern? Isn't it your fear that at some point you will turn away from Christ? You know he won't turn away from you but maybe you'll love... You'll sin your way out of his love. Maybe that's what you fear. But in Jeremiah 32:40, this is the essence of the new covenant. In Jeremiah 32:40 it says, "I will make an everlasting covenant with them, I will never stop doing good to them." I will not turn away from doing good to my people. Listen. "And I will inspire them to fear me so that they will never turn away from me." That is salvation, friends. God has promised to work in the hearts of his own people, his sons and daughters, to make them sufficiently fear Him, that they will never turn away from him into sin. And so the fear of the Lord and the warnings that produce it are essential to our Salvation. We already sang earlier in Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. It says, "Oh to grace, how great a debtor, daily I'm constrained to be. Let thy goodness, like a fetter, like a chain, bind my wandering heart to thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Here is my heart, Oh, take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above." That's an honest person saying, "I am still a sinner, and there's still danger in my life. Oh, by the fear of God, keep me safe, keep me close, bind me." Warnings Essential to Standing in Faith And therefore, the warnings are essential to standing in faith. He says in verse 20. Go back to Romans 11:20. It says "branches were broken off because of unbelief. And you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant but fear." Friends, we are making our way now as aliens and strangers in hostile territory, and we're not done with the journey. Some time ago I read a book about a downed airman in the Vietnam War and what it took to get him back to safety. And what was really fascinating about this is this guy was in hiding, it took two weeks for him to get back out of enemy territory and helicopter pilots and other pilots were radioing him. He was never speaking back to them or else they could find out where he was, but they were radioing him saying, "There are enemy soldiers on your right. You can go straight now for 100 yards and then you need to hide in that cops of trees over there", etcetera. They were seeing the big picture and giving him warnings and those warnings were essential to his escape and deliverance back to safety. So it is with scripture. It sees the big picture and it warns you when you're turning left or turning right to keep in the straight and narrow and keep walking with Christ. Do not excuse yourself from the warnings that are essential to finishing your salvation journey. IV. The Relief of Warnings in the Christian Life We've seen the reality of warnings, we've seen the possible resistance to warnings in the Christian life. We've talked about the role of warnings. What about the relief of warnings? How do we get relief? Remember John Newton put it this way in Amazing Grace, "Twas grace that taught my heart to" what? Fear. "And grace my fears relieved." I believe that that's a cycle that goes on the rest of your Christian life. This is how I think it works. God's grace gives us warnings in the Bible, the Holy Spirit presses them close to us and warns us of specific dangers connected to how we're living right now. We repent, we heed the warnings. We do a course correction and continue then to make progress in the faith. The Spirit assures us that we are God's children, he's pleased with us, our fears are relieved until the next new danger comes. And so in this way fear and the warnings that produce the godly fear are essential to finishing our journey through enemy territory until we're safe and sound. In the text Paul gives us two ways to relieve fear in the text. Consider & Continue First consider and second continue. First in verse 22, "Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God. Sternness to those who fail but kindness to you." The word consider means literally see, look at it, gaze it. In a moment, we're going to, at the end of the Lord's Supper, sing, "When I survey the wondrous cross." Survey two aspects of God. What are the two things were told the survey here? The goodness and the severity of God. So many of us want a Santa Clause view of God, we like the goodness part. Consider therefore the goodness of God period. But that's not what the verse says. The verse says have a twin consideration. There are some types of folks that consider only the severity of God and they miss the goodness of God. There needs to be a balance in our meditation on God, we need to consider the goodness of God, his kindness, his grace to us in Christ, the fact that He never treats us as our sins deserve, the fact that he's like a loving father of the prodigal son welcoming us back any time we repent and come to him. We need to consider the soft gentle grace and love of God. But we also need to consider the severity of God. His terrifying wrath against sin. We need to stimulate our fear of God's holy wrath and His sharp fatherly discipline. Why would you want to be disciplined by a God who controls every atom in your body and every circumstance of your life and who says everything is fair game when it comes to making you holy? Fear the discipline of God and don't sin. We need to consider it, we need to consider what God did when... What David felt when God struck Uzzah down. What the church felt when an Ananias and Sapphira died. We need to fear what God did to the natural branches when he stripped them off because they didn't believe in Jesus. We need to consider the severity of God. Secondly, we need to continue. It says in verse 22, "Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God. Sternness for those who fell, but kindness to you provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you also will be cut off." Continue means keep going. Keep walking by faith. Keep repenting from sin, keep praying and seeking the face of the Lord, keep reading the Bible, keep going to church, keep witnessing, keep giving your ties and offerings, keep on living the Christian life, and the warnings will only be an encouragement to you, and they will not cause you fear. V. Application 1) Take all Biblical warnings seriously What application do we take from this? Well, first, please take all Biblical warnings serious. Don't excuse yourself from any of them. Just because you believe once saved, always saved doesn't mean you're exempt from heeding God's warnings. Consider that the warnings are essential to God's finishing his good work in your life. Consider that you are prone to wander from God through sin, through the weakness of the flesh. Take every warning seriously and bring it to Christ, let Him assure you by His Spirit, that there's presently no danger in that issue. If not then, if he says there is danger, then repent, turn away from sin. And then maintain constant vigilance over that area of sin. 2) Learn to be humble about the power of sin Secondly, learn to be totally humble about the grievous power of sin. When you see someone else fall into sin, do not gloat, do not boast, do not feel superior, do not feel smug, and don't excuse yourself from the matter. Rather learn to say, "There but for the grace of God go I, and probably will go I, except that God's grace works fear in me right now." Fear. Don't excuse yourself from any matter. Jonathan Edwards in his resolutions said This, "Resolved to act in all respects both speaking and doing as if nobody is as vile as I am. And as if I had committed the same sins or had the same infirmities or failings as others. And that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God." Where then is boasting over other sinners? It's impossible. Be totally humble about the sins of others. I yearn for First Baptist Church to be a deeply broken and contrite and humble church over the matter of sin. Only then will we be good evangelists and good counselors to one another. 3) Learn to meditate on all that God is Thirdly, learn to meditate on all that God is. Learn to consider his goodness and learn to consider his severity, not just one or the other. Fourthly, stand by faith, moment by moment. Continue to feed your faith with the word of God. Stand by faith. Don't say, "I've done enough, I can now coast in my Christian life. I have achieved, I've arrived, I don't have anything more to do." Evangelize, fifthly, as a humble and broken hearted sinner, not like a self righteous Pharisee. And if I can speak a word to you parents. Parent like this, goodness and severity. Not just goodness, not just severity. That's how God parents us. There are some parents that are on the permissive side and want only a sweet and loving relationship with their children, and so they avoid the severity side. There are others that embrace the severity side, but omit loving general kindness toward their children. And I've said to my own children many times, I wish that God would give me an angel right now and tell me the amount of goodness and severity you need. Okay? 'Cause I'm happy to do either one. Happy to do the goodness, happy to do the severity, whatever it takes. But both of them are ingredients in good parenting just like they are in God's dealing with us. 4) Test yourself to see if you are in the faith And finally, can I ask you to test yourself to see if you're in the faith? We're about to come to the Lord's Supper. I'd like you to take some time and pray while I come down. And while the elements are being passed out, take the opportunities to pray. Ask yourself if you're a Christian, ask yourself if you're born again, and if you're not, don't take the Lord's Supper. This is for believers who have testified to their faith through baptism. But if you're in some kind of sin, I'd urge you not to take the Lord's Supper, but use it as an opportunity for humiliation and for repentance. And making it right perhaps with somebody, or dealing with the sin issue in your life. But don't imagine that the Lord's Supper is for sinless perfect people, it isn't. God came to give his son, his son gave his blood that we might be cleansed of all sin. So let's close now with prayer, and then we'll come to the Lord's Supper.

I. Introduction: The Quest for the Holy Grail Isn't it great to be a Christian? Isn't it great to be saved by grace? Aren't you glad that you are saved by a free gift and not by some great achievement you have to earn? And the text talks about that today, a righteousness that is by law, contrasted with the righteousness that is by faith. And I started thinking about the great things that people would be willing to achieve to save their souls. What great thing would you be willing to do to save your soul? I was thinking about that when I came across a story found in the New York Times, November 2001, and I was just amazed by this, listen to this, the story goes like this, "The snows had scarcely melted last June, when 24-year-old Joama and her three male cousins, yak herders in the remote mountains of Northern Tibet, embarked on the most sublime journey of their lives. Their departure was not marked by any ceremony. "We just started out," she recalled. The four began mumbling mantras and raised their hands to heaven. They dropped to their knees and flung their bodies forward, fully prone against the damp earth, then they stood up, took three small steps forward, and repeated the entire sequence." "For more than five months now, they have prostrated themselves this way, all day every day, inch-worming their way to Lhasa and its holy sites. They slowly made their way through more than 100 miles of some of the world's harshest terrain, starting from above 14,000 feet, and then followed a highway 200 more miles into Lhasa. They reached the city in early November. These days, they are inching their way along busy sidewalks in the city as they follow the three hallowed circuits around the Jokhang Temple, the holiest site in Tibetan Buddhism, in advance of praying at its inner shrines. Only here, it seems safe to say, could such a roadside spectacle attract little notice. Thousands of Tibetans undertake similar pilgrimages each year, not to mention the far greater numbers who reach holy sites by bus, tractor or ordinary treks of weeks or months." What great thing would you do to save your soul? These people are willing to throw themselves on the ground for months and months, inching their way forward to save their souls. Religions around the world have an amazing, an astonishing array of answers to this question. Frankly, the more costly, the more fascinating, the more difficult and the more bizarre, the better. In Islam, Muslims are commanded, once in their lifetime to make a pilgrimage to Mecca and many do so at great cost. In Hinduism, people make extraordinary efforts to travel to the River Ganges, one of the holy rivers of Hinduism, to wash in its supposedly holy waters. We had a testimony a couple of Sunday evenings ago from Timothy, who told us a heartbreaking story of a Hindu woman who drowned her infant to atone for her sins. She came to faith in Christ and then wept and said, "Why couldn't you have come here a day earlier?" Because it was the day before she had done that. Medieval Europeans, under the superstitious system of medieval Catholicism, made long pilgrimages to Rome and crawled up the staircase of Pilate on their knees, uttering prayers on every step, in an effort to save their souls. Also, during this time, the dark ages of Europe, a legend arose concerning the Holy Grail, which was the cup that Jesus supposedly drank from at the Last Supper. And the Knights of the Round Table went out on a quest to find this Holy Grail, because if you drank from it, you could have eternal life. And they were willing to basically spend their entire lives in this quest for the Holy Grail. What great thing would you be willing to do to save your soul? Now, this theme is touched on in 2 Kings, interestingly, when a pagan military commander named Naaman desired to be healed from leprosy. He was urged by his Jewish slave girl to go see the prophet Elisha, Elisha told him to wash seven times in the Jordan River and he would be healed. At this point Naaman became irate. He said, "The rivers back in my home country are better than this one," and then his helpers came and said this interesting thing to him. "If the prophet had told you to do some great thing, you would have done it." That's the aspect of the human soul I'm latching on to here today. If we could save our souls by doing some great thing, we would do it. Suppose salvation were a scavenger hunt of incredible achievement. Suppose immortality awaited anyone who did each of the following tasks: Suppose you had to climb a sacred mount in Tibet and pick a pink and white flower that blossomed there once every seven years, and then after that, you had to go and gather a vile of water from the Nile River and bring it to an Aborigine in the Australian Outback for him to drink, and then you had to rescue an orphan from the street of Calcutta and get them enrolled in a private school, and then you had to earn $10,000 by making something with your own hands and giving it to the poor, and then, finally, you had to go up to the Arctic and cut a block of ice from a glacier and transport it, without melting, down to the South Pole. Would you do it? Aren't you glad you don't have to? Praise God that salvation is not a scavenger hunt of astonishing achievements that God looks to see on your resume at the end of life, and sees if you are righteous enough to enter. But instead, we have a righteousness that is ours simply by faith, and that's exactly what Paul is talking about here in Romans 10:5-10. "Moses describes in this way, the righteousness that is by law: 'the man who does these things will live by them.' But the righteousness that is by faith says, 'Do not say in your heart, "who will ascend into the heavens?" That is, to bring Christ down, or, "Who will descend into the deep?" That is, to bring Christ up from the dead.' But what does it say? 'The Word is near you, it is in your mouth and in your heart,' the word of faith that we are proclaiming: that if you confess with your mouth 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with the heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with the mouth that you confess and are saved." II. Righteousness By Law: What Seems Possible is Impossible (verse 5) And so we have two different kinds of righteousness here in the text. We have a righteousness that is by law and we have a righteousness that is by faith. Now first, this righteousness that is by law, I describe it this way: What seems possible is actually impossible. Look what Moses said in verse five, "Moses describes in this way, the righteousness that is by law, 'the man who does these things will live by them.'" Well, what are these things? They're precepts of the law, the rules and regulations that God gave through Moses. If you do these things, you live by them. Well, live by them doesn't just mean live your life by them, it doesn't just mean pattern your lifestyle or organize your life by means of these laws. What does it mean? It means you will live eternally by them, you will go to heaven by them eternally. Leviticus 18:5, the Lord said, through Moses, "Keep my decrees and laws, for the man who obeys them will live by them; I am the Lord." But history proved that no human being, other than Christ, no human being could fully obey the law. Peter, in the council in Jerusalem, in Acts 15, said, "Why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?" None of them could bear the yoke of the law. They couldn't do it, and so it seemed possible, but it actually was impossible. First Problem: Obedience Must be Perfect Why? Well, the first problem is, your obedience must be perfect, must be comprehensive and perfect. God intends that all of his law be kept. In James 2:10-11 says, "Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point, is guilty of breaking all of it. For he who said, 'Do not commit adultery,' also said, 'Do not murder.' If you do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you've become a law breaker." So you have to keep the whole law. Well, how often do you have to keep the whole law? Well, you have to keep it all the time. That's the second aspect of this problem. You have to keep all of the law, all of the time. It says in Galatians 3:10, "All who rely on observing the law are under a curse; for it is written, "Cursed is everyone [listen] who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the law." So you can't have your good days and your bad days under the law, it's impossible. Not and be saved by it. God intends heart obedience to the law, so you have to keep all the law, you have to keep it all the time, and you have to keep it from the heart, not just external regulations and ceremonies, you have to keep it from the heart. It says in Deuteronomy 6:5-6, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength," and then he says, "These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts." It's a heart obedience. For example, in the 10 Commandments, he required that the Israelites not covet. He said, "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, you shall not covet your neighbor's house, or his property, or his manservant or maidservant, or anything that belongs to your neighbor." Now, one of the things about making a law is, that it has to be enforceable. I'm telling you, No Congress, no state legislature, no parliament will ever make a law against coveting. You know why? Because they can't enforce it. "Oh, you were coveting, I saw it right there. 30 days in jail." How can we read hearts and minds? But God can, and so he put it in his law. It's invasive, it invades your heart and your mind. It says, "You shall not think these thoughts, you shall not set your desire on it," says in Deuteronomy, "Anything that belongs to your neighbor." Only God can enforce that law. It's a heart obedience. Second Problem: Extra Credit Impossible The second problem, as we've mentioned before, is that extra credit is impossible and unavailable. You can't get a 105% on the test and then take that 5% and put it toward your bad day. Is it possible, on any given day, to do more than this? Love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. Can you do more than that on any given day? So there is no extra credit possible. Third Problem: No Atonement for Past Sins And thirdly, there's no therefore atonement for past sins, you can't use present righteousness to atone for past sins. Imagine a criminal standing in front of a judge, saying, "I know I committed murder, I admit it, but from now on, I won't murder anybody." "Oh, well, great! Go home. I am so glad to hear that, from now on, you will not break the law." No judge will say that. We can't use future obedience to pay for past disobedience. We are stuck, and therefore, there can be no salvation by the law. Now Jewish legalists, like the scribes of Pharisees, set up a system of human traditions, and they lowered the standards of the law, and they figured that God would be gracious to cover the rest, and figured that, by the law, they had righteousness. This is the very problem that Jesus had with them. And what ends up happening when you do that, is it leads you to either hypocrisy or despair. Hypocrisy, in that you lower the standard and think you've met it, and then put up the front that you really are righteous and you don't need a savior. That's what the Pharisees did. Or it leads to despair. Or, along the road to despair, insecurity, perhaps? Like the rich, young ruler, remember him? Rich, young ruler comes to Jesus and says, you remember the question he asked at the... Upfront? "What good thing must I do to inherit eternal life?" That's the question before, it's right at the beginning of this sermon. "What good thing must I achieve to inherit eternal life?" Do you remember what Jesus did with him? He handed him the law first. He said, "What do you read? What about the commandments? Have you obeyed the commandments?" He said "Yes," and he listed, Jesus listed five of them, and two of them were, "Honor your father and mother," and "love your neighbor as yourself." I tell you that positive commands are harder than negative ones. It's harder to honor than not to dishonor. It is harder to love than not hate. You have to be active, you have to be out doing things, it's an energetic life. And do you remember what the rich young ruler said? He said, "All these I have kept from my childhood," and yet he came to Jesus, didn't he? You know why he came to Jesus? Beause he's insecure. He's not sure he's going to heaven. He's insecure, and so he says, "What good thing must I do to get eternal life?" Because he's not sure yet. And so, that whole life does not work. The insecurity. And it's built into the system. Recently, we saw a movie about the 1980th Olympic hockey team, and it's called Miracle, it's a great movie, we enjoyed watching it. And the coach in it, Herb Brooks, a true story, Herb Brooks was a tough, tough man, tough coach, he was a whip-cracker. And after the initial tryout, he already had knew the players that he wanted for his first 25. He sat them down and he said "I'll be your coach, but I won't be your friend." Whoa! Alright. Well, decidedly, he's not going to be their friend, and he said, "There are 25 of you sitting here, 20 of you will go to the Olympics. If you give 99%, you'll make my job very easy." And what is he doing? He's holding the ultimate prize over them as a motivator, so that he's driving them by it. That is the righteousness that is by the law. Another illustration is a story that Christie and I have enjoyed, is Anne of Green Gables. And this young orphan girl comes to live with a family that didn't want her there, hoping to get a boy to help with the chores and then, instead, they get a girl. And she's a handful, to say the least. And so she lives there under probation, she's on trial. Not really adopted. Maybe someday she'll be adopted, but she's on trial, and she just can't seem to ever do the right thing, she just goes from one trouble to the next. Do you wanna live before God like that? Maybe some day you'll be adopted, if you're good enough? That's the righteousness that is by the law. And thanks be to God, I don't stand before you today and none of you Christians who have trusted in Christ stand before God in that kind of righteousness. Amen. We stand before God in a righteousness that is a gift, a righteousness that is by faith. III. Righteousness By Faith: What Seems Impossible Has Been Accomplished Already (verses 6-7) That's the second part, and this is what Paul says in verses 6 and 7, "The righteousness that is by faith says, 'Do not say in your heart, "Who will ascend into heaven?" That is, to bring Christ down. Or, "Who will descend into the deep?" That is, to bring Christ up from the dead.'" Now, the righteousness that is by faith is exactly the opposite. What seems impossible has actually already been achieved. Now these two commands, these two kinds of life are contrasted. You've got the life of righteousness by works, or by law, and then that is by faith, by grace, by gift. They're contrasted here. And there are two key verses that support them in the Old Testament. Leviticus 18:5, "The man who obeys them will live by them." That's Leviticus 18:5. Then you've got Habakkuk 2:4, "The righteous will live by faith." The two are mutually exclusive, you can't have both. They're at odds with each other, they're opposite. It says in Galatians 3:12, "The law is not based on faith. On the contrary, the man who does these things will live by them." They're two different ways of approaching salvation. From the very beginning of Romans, Paul has been commending the righteousness that comes by faith. He says "I'm not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the Gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is from faith, for faith. Just as it is written, the righteous will live by faith." There's a righteousness that is by faith. It's a simple gift of God, that's what he's been preaching all through the Book of Romans. Now, Paul decides to talk about what's impossible for man. He says, "Do not say in your heart, "Go up the heavens, go up to the heavens and get it."" Or, "Go down to the depths," these are impossible things, it's the language of impossibility. Now he's reaching for Deuteronomy 30, in which Moses was talking about the law, and there in the law, in Deuteronomy 30, it says this, verse 11 and following, "Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It's not up in the heavens, so that you have to ask, 'Who will ascended into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us, so we may obey it?' Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, 'Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?' No, the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you may obey it." Now, Moses was saying, "You Jews didn't have to go up to heaven, scaling heavenly Olympus to get the 10 Commandments, to get the law, God has come down to where you are and has given you the law. You didn't have to go any great distance, God brought it right to you." But notice what Paul is doing here; he takes this Deuteronomy verse and he applies it to Christ. You see, the law came down and was right there, but it was in their face, it wasn't in their heart, it hadn't transformed them, it couldn't save them, it gave them no life. So actually, though the written code was near them, it wasn't in them. But Paul is talking about a word from God, that is Christ, the Living Word, who is more than just near you, he is in you. And so he takes it and mixes in Christ into the Deuteronomy quote. "The righteousness that is by faith says, 'Do not say in your heart, "Who will ascend into heaven?" That is, to bring Christ down. Or, "Who will descend into deep?" That is, to bring Christ up from the dead.'" You see how he mixes in the Gospel with the law. These were impossible things, but what is impossible for us has actually been achieved by Jesus. Christ has done it. Christ has given us a perfect achievement. Now listen, if you wanted to try to persuade Jesus to come to the earth, first of all, you couldn't get where he lives. He says, "I live in a high and holy place, a high and lofty place." You can't get there. Man tried by building a tower of Babel to scale to the heavens, couldn't make it. You can't get there, and if he were not inclined to come to the earth, you could not have persuaded him to do it. He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. You couldn't have done it. Two Central Doctrines: Incarnation and Resurrection It was impossible for you, but what was impossible for you, Christ has done. He has come down from Heaven to Earth, that's the doctrine of the incarnation. In the fullness of time. He was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man, he came down from Heaven to Earth. He says this again and again, "I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but to do the will of Him who sent me, and this is the will of whom he sent me, that I shall lose none of all that He has given me, but raise them up at the last day." That's why Jesus came down, he came down. And the second doctrine that is to bring Christ up from the dead is the resurrection. We could not have made Christ be incarnate and we could not have made him rise from the dead. What is impossible for us, however, Christ has achieved. By the way, these are the very two doctrines that Paul says are essential to your salvation, that if we confess with our mouths Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead we will be saved. When you confess with your mouth Jesus that is Jesus of Nazareth, the human being, he's actually Lord, he is God, you're confessing the incarnation. That Jesus is God will talk more about this next time I preach on Romans. It's the doctrine of the incarnation, you must believe it that Jesus is God, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead. These are the two doctrines, that he gives to us. And therefore Christian salvation, is essentially simple. IV. The Simplicity of Salvation Look what he says in verse 8 and 9. He says you don't have to ascend into the heavens, you don't have to go down to the depths. "What does it say? 'The word is near you. It's in your mouth and in your heart,' that is the word of faith that we are proclaiming. That if you confess with your mouth 'Jesus is Lord' and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." The simplicity of salvation. Now listen our salvation was immensely difficult for Jesus. Immensely costly to him. Don't ever say that salvation was free. It's free for you but for him it was costly. But he's paid that price so that we wouldn't have to. Our salvation cost him everything he had. He stood day after day under the full weight of the devil's temptations. And under the full weight of the Law of Moses and bore it all perfectly never sinned, and even more on the cross, when he was nailed to the cross and He shed His blood, He bore our sins in His body on the tree, so salvation was immensely difficult for Christ. But for us, it is simple. We're not on a scavenger hunt of righteousness where you have to go day after day and seek your own justification day after day, seeking to do something that will be righteous enough for you to go to heaven. You don't have to do that, you don't have to go on a pilgrimage kneeling up the stairs of Pilate muttering a prayer every step. You don't have to do what they're doing in Lhasa. So, taking months and months to travel, inches at a time to some shrine. You don't have to go to some filthy river in India and bathe in it, so that you can be cleansed and reduce your karma or whatever it is they believe. No single righteous work or deed or action is justifiable in God's sight, it is not our righteousness. Now, many good works flow from saving faith. We'll talk about that, God willing, next time. And so there's a whole righteous life that flows but none of those justify us. We stand in Christ's achievement and therefore for us justification is simple. You believe in Christ and that's all. Paul is stressing here, therefore the incredible simplicity of salvation, just as Jesus did. There's a day in Matthew 18, it's recorded a day when the disciples came to him and they were arguing about which was the greatest in the kingdom. I'm always amazed at what the disciples had done to think they were even in the running. Do you ever wonder that? I mean they're arguing about which of them was the greatest. They were just fishermen and tax collectors and other things, they were just ordinary people. But after a couple of years with Jesus, they started thinking very highly of themselves. And so they're having an argument about which was the greatest. And Jesus, it says, calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them, and said, "Truly I say to you, [unless you are converted] unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven." That's incredible, the astounding range of the Gospel. We just got done with what I would think is one of the hardest chapters in the entire Bible to understand, Romans 9. The depths of it is so amazing that Paul himself says in Romans 11, "O the depth of the riches, the wisdom, and the knowledge of God, how unsearchable His judgments and His paths beyond tracing out who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been His counselor," the deep things of God, and they are deep. But here, we have the simplicity of God. That if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you'll be saved. It's a simple Gospel that we preach with incomprehensible depths behind it. It is so simple a child could understand it, frankly, it's so simple Jesus said that unless you become like a child, you'll never accept it. It is that simple. The Word is near you, that's what he says. God is bringing salvation right to you. Right to where you live, right to your heart, right to your mouth. He's come down from Heaven to do it. That's what he is doing. Right to where you live, right to this room today, he's bringing it right to you. You don't have to travel to him, he's seeking you and he's bringing the Word right to where you live. Now later in this chapter, he will advocate, why preachers need to go because they're going to fulfill that very thing. The preacher will go to bring the Word of God, right to where those folks live but he's bringing it right to where you live. Emmanuel, it means God with us. John's version of this is so beautiful. John 1:1, it says "In the beginning was... " What? "The Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Verse 14, "The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us, and we beheld his glory, glory, the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth." Jesus took on a human body and just brought the word salvation, right to us. God is proclaiming a word of faith to the human race and that Word is Jesus, that is the word he's saying, he is Hebrews 1, God's final Word to the human race, it is Jesus Christ, the word of faith that we are proclaiming. V. Why God Made Salvation Simple Now, why did God make salvation simple? Next time we're going to talk God willing, about these great verses, verses 9-10, "If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." There's a lot in there friends, and God willing when I get back from vacation, we'll talk some more about it. It's going to be an incredible time. Saving faith is deep and these verses are deep, we're going to talk more about it. But there's an essential simplicity here. And I want to ask a question, why did God make it so simple? I think there are two reasons I want to consider with you. First to destroy all human pride. Suppose God had given you that scavenger hunt of righteousness. God Made Salvation Simple to Destroy Human Pride Suppose you had gone to the ends of the earth for righteousness. And suppose you'd achieved it. Do you know what you'd spend eternity doing? Boasting in your achievement or comparing stories. "How did you get that block of ice from the North Pole to the South Pole?" "Well, this is what I did, wasn't I clever?" "How did you get that vile of Nile River water down to the aborigine in the Outback?" And we'd be boasting at each other. God doesn't want it, he doesn't want it. And so to cut the root out of all human boasting, to destroy pride in knowing deep thoughts. To destroy pride in achieving great achievements. Instead, he made a salvation like this in which he does all the impossible things and we do the simple thing. We just believe in Him, and we just trust in Him. The message of the cross destroys all boasting, it says in 1 Corinthians 1:18-19 "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. For it is written I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate." And again, it says in 1 Corinthians 1:29-31, "So that no one may boast before Him, therefore, as it is written, let him who boasts, boast in the Lord." God Made Salvation Simple to Save All Kinds of Sinners The second reason he made salvation simple is to save all kinds of sinners. To save all kinds of sinners. Friends, most of the people in the world are simple people. Most of the people in the world are basic thinkers. Simple people. God knows that they're not going to spend lots and lots of hours doing the deepest theological pondering. They will live simply, they will eat simply they will love simply, they will work simply and they will die simply and they'll be buried simply and within three generations, no one will know where they are buried or what that marker is except God. And so God wanted to save simple people. As a matter of fact, God delights in saving simple people. And so it says in 1 Corinthians 1, the fuller passage, it says, "Brothers think of what you were when you were called not many of you were wise, not many were influential, not many were of noble birth, but God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong, he chose the lowly things of the world and the despised things, and the things that are not, to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus." Ponder that. "It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us, wisdom from God, that is our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore as it is written, 'Let him who boast, boast in the Lord.'" Having chosen many simple, humble, folk to be his own, he crafted a saving message they could understand just as they are and then published it abroad to the ends of the earth, that's what he's doing. VI. Application Now, application for us. First of all, friends, your quest for self-righteousness ends here, drop it. God doesn't honor it, it's not possible. It seems possible but it isn't, so drop it, rather simply humbly come to the cross of Jesus Christ, simply humbly say that is my righteousness. His death atoned for all of my transgressions, his righteous life has become my righteousness simply by faith. Don't despise the simplicity of the Gospel. It's right here, in two verses, don't despise it. He's made it so simple a child can understand it. Don't despise that. And along with that may I urge you, preach the Gospel to children, share the gospel with your own young children, and if you're grown share them with somebody else's young children. Little children, you don't have to work to get them to be like little children, older people, you have to work on them. Like Jesus' disciples. He said, "Unless you turn and convert and become like little children," the little children are already there. They're teachable, they're leadable, they're ready to believe. Share the gospel with children. Conversely, don't despise the complexity of Christianity because this very same one who gave us a simple Gospel gave us a deep Gospel and you'll be the rest of your life pondering it's depths. Ponder away, but realize you are saved the moment you believe this simple message that Jesus died for me. Close with me in prayer.

Introduction: The Disintegrating Power of Sin, The Perfect Unity of Heaven We are looking this morning at Philippians 2:1-4, at the Christian unity that’s essential to the Gospel advance. Now, on December 2nd, 1942, President Roosevelt received this cryptic message, “The Italian navigator has landed in the New World.” Of course, that hearkens back to Christopher Columbus, but that’s not what the message meant. What it meant was that Italian physicist Enrico Fermi had been able to pull off the first controlled nuclear reaction at the University of Chicago. Now, this whole project had come about as a result of a letter from Albert Einstein talking about the incredible, powerful weapons that were just around the corner in physics, in the research of physics, atomic weapons, which were unknown before, the possibility was enlightened by the Theory of Relativity and other things at the beginning of the 20th century, and Einstein felt the responsibility to write to President Roosevelt. And so the research was done. Now, the controlled nuclear reaction, what we call a chain reaction, fusion, was the breaking apart of atoms that God had put together, releasing little particles that cause other atoms to break apart and release more little particles with the tremendous release of energy, in line with the famous formula E=mc2, the energy that was released was sufficient to destroy an entire city. And so it did less than three years later, when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, an entire city disintegrated because of this power. Now, my wife and I, and our two children that were born at the time we lived in Japan,visited the Museum of Peace and the Atomic Museum in Hiroshima. It’s really quite striking to walk through there as an American, I can assure you, and it’s very sobering, and to see the monument to eternal peace that’s set up there and to see photographs of the power of the atomic weapon. But as terrible as the consequences were of that weapon, of the atomic blast, the disintegrating power of sin has proved far greater. Sin, in a kind of a chain reaction started in the Garden of Eden with Adam, has been working its disintegrating way through human history ever since. It’s been affecting relationships ever since. It’s been destroying things, and any of you who are old enough and have been alive long enough to feel the disintegrating power of sin, you know what I’m talking about, it affects everything you do, it affects every relationship. Everything that it seems God has put together, sin works to disintegrate. I. Christian Unity: The Gospel Adorned Now, the great glory of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of integration, of unity, is far greater than the sin power of disintegration. Amen and amen. And God is putting back together and making even more glorious a universe, something that we can’t even imagine, which has been blown to bits through sin. Jesus Christ is doing that. Therefore the only true power for unity is not the United Nations, which was started in 1945 with the hope that there would never again be war on the earth. There have been 118 since then. Astonishing, millions and millions of people dying in those 118 conflicts since the beginning of the United Nations and the monument of peace at Hiroshima, however moving, has had no power to transform the hearts of people, none whatsoever, but the Gospel of Jesus Christ does. And therefore, the church of Jesus Christ and the Gospel that we preach is the only true power of unity in the human race, the only true power of unity in this dis-unified universe rocked by sin, and it will succeed. In the end there will be a glorious unity in Heaven. We can’t even imagine it. In the meantime, our practical daily expressions of unity, one with another, are essential to the advance of the Gospel. They’re essential, however imperfect, they are essential to finishing the task that Christ has given us of taking the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Our practical daily unity, Christian unity and love adorns the Gospel and makes it look beautiful and makes it look attractive. In the end, perfect unity is the purpose of the Gospel. The perfect unity of the Trinity- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is the pattern for Christian unity. Before the universe was created God existed and has existed, eternally will exist in three persons: Father, Son and Spirit. The three persons of the Trinity existed in perfect harmony. That means they never once had a different way of looking at things. Think about that. They never once had a disagreement. In matters of principle or strategy, never, and they never will. They see everything alike. There’s not a shade or shadow of disagreement, Father, Son, and Spirit. Not one, never has been, never will be, and they had no need. Father, Son and Spirit, they did not create the universe out of need, but rather as an expression of their perfect relationship, one to another. And so the unity that is reflected in the Trinity was also reflected in the creation. When God spoke over it after all of the ordering and arranging that had been done and said it was very good. And so it was, the universe was beautiful. But then came sin, the destructive, dis-unifying power of sin entered in. Now, it started not with man, but with the devil. And I think it’s right to ascribe such passages as Isaiah 14 to his devilish ambition. We’ll talk more about that, God willing, next time that I preach. But I think it was the devil spoken of in Isaiah 14, when it says, “You said in your hearts, I will ascend to heaven. I will raise my throne above the stars of God. I will sit enthroned in the mount of assembly on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds. I will make myself like the Most High.” That’s devilish ambition, isn’t it? And he sold us on it. “You will be like God, if you eat that fruit.” And so we became ambitious and sin entered the world and has been blowing to bits things ever since. Disunity and conflict soon characterized every human relationship. First, Cain killed his brother Abel out of jealousy. And it wasn’t long before every familial relationship and every relationship at all, husband and wife, parent and child, neighbor to neighbor, nation to nation was affected by this power, this dis-unifying power of sin and strife has been spreading through the world ever since, and it continues to this very day. Now, Christ’s redeeming work is to bring all things together under one head. That’s what it says in Ephesians. Ephesians 1:10, it says that the Gospel in all of its power will be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment. Has that happened yet? No. The times have not been perfected yet. But this is the goal. This is what we’re working toward, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment, to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head. That is Christ. Speaking specifically of the saving work of Christ and dying for sinners, in John chapter 11, it says there that in verse 51 and 52, Jesus would die for the Jewish nation. And not only for that nation, but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. That’s the Gospel work, to take the scattered children of God and bring them together and make them one. You see the unifying power of the Gospel, and therefore perfect unity is patterned after the Trinity itself. The power of Christ’s prayer in John 17 Now, I want you to put your finger in Philippians 2, yes, we will get to it. Be patient, we’ll be there. But just take your finger or a pen, put it in Philippians 2 and go over to John Chapter 17. I’ve referred to this before, but I just really want you to see it right on the page. I have come to believe that this theme of unity, of Christian unity, is bigger than I ever thought it was. Very, very big. It is the goal of the Gospel. It’s the goal of the saving work of Jesus Christ. It’s one way to state his ultimate final goal, that God would be glorified in our perfect community centered around him. And look what it says in John 17:11, he’s praying. Now, this is, what we call Jesus’s high priestly prayer. This is the longest prayer of Jesus recorded in the Bible. And it has special interest to me, because I’ve said before and I’ll say again, theologically, I believe it is impossible for Jesus to ask for anything he doesn’t get. Let me say that again. It is theologically impossible for Jesus to ask outside the will of his Father. I can’t imagine that. And so therefore, I kind of get a pen and just go through John 17 and say, “Okay, you’ll get that. Yes, you’ll get that too. You’ll get it all.” “Father, I want those whom you have given me to be with me where I am and to see my glory.” He’ll get it. He’s going to get it all. Does that mean he’s going to get unity too? It’s in the prayer. Look at John 17:11, speaking of those that were alive in his own generation, his own Apostles, he says, “Father, Holy Father,” John 17:11, “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name. The name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.” Do you see that? He wants his own disciples, his apostles, that are around him there to be protected from the devil and from all the attacks, so that they can continue on in their faith in Christ and not fall away, that they might be one as he and the Father are one. Their unity patterned after the Trinity, Father, Son and Spirit. Now, look down at verse 20 and 21. Now he extends his prayer out beyond those of his own time there who were sitting around him at the Last Supper, I think, extending it out to all people, all believers of all time. He said, “My prayer,” in verse 20, “Is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message that all of them may be one, Father. Just as you are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us so that the world may believe that you sent me.” So you see the unity there is patterned after the Trinity, that our unity would be like theirs. Now, I have heard such sad exegesis on this. “Oh, isn’t it sad that Jesus doesn’t get what he asked for? Now, come on, there are so many denominations we just can’t get along. And Jesus didn’t get what he prayed for, all of those generations of disunited Christians and he didn’t get what he asked for.” Oh, that is so false. Of course, he got what he asked for. He knew what he was praying for. All of those who are truly Christians then are perfectly united now in heaven, are they not? But what I want to tell you, though, is that Jesus’ view is beyond just final perfect unity in heaven. The reason I know that is the outcome of unity. Look what he says again in verse 21, “Father, just as you are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us so that the world may believe that you sent me.” That is powerful, isn’t it? Now, keep going. Look in verse 22 and 23, “I have given them the glory that you gave me that they may be one as we are one.” Again and again, do you see it? The Trinity is the pattern of unity, nothing less. “That they may be one as we are one, I in them, and you in me, may they be brought to complete unity, to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” Oh, wow. I’m tempted to just preach on John 17 right now. Well, we’re just looking at it briefly. We’ll go another time but here’s the point, do you see that there is an earthly impact to a process of unification that goes on, which I call sanctification? As we grow more and more like Jesus, as we put to death our sin nature, as we put to death our own feeble and earthly understandings of various texts of the Bible, as we more and more understand the truth as it’s been given to us here, we will be more and more one, one with another. We will not disagree with each other about anything. Little by little, as that gets more and more, however imperfectly reflected here on this earth, it has a great power for evangelizing a lost world. A great power for that. And this is what he has in mind, he wants perfect unity. Now, we will not be perfect in this world. We will not, but we can strive for perfect unity as the scripture defines it here again and again, “As the Father and the Son are one, so may we also be one.” In our striving for a perfect unity, the world will sit up and take notice. And you know why? Beause the world doesn’t have anything like it. I don’t care how many resolutions are passed by the United Nations or how many peace monuments there will be built, they can’t do it, because they just essentially disagree with each other and are essentially selfish. And so are we, and therefore, only as the transforming power of the Gospel, through the power of the Holy Spirit takes us over, and as we submit our minds to the Word of God and begin to think like he thinks, then little by little there’s a unity that starts to grow up. “By this will all men know, that you are my disciples if you love one another.” There’s a deep love that has a power for unity. Back to Philippians Now, go back to Philippians 2. The Philippians had a problem with unity. Now, we’ve talked about there being these two great journeys, the internal journey of holiness, so that we become more and more like Christ; the external, a journey of worldwide evangelization. Well, both of those are greatly hindered by selfishness, selfish ambition, factions, dissensions, arguments, and all those kinds of carnal things. And the Philippians had it, they had it, sadly. Even though this was clearly one of Paul’s favorite congregations, he loved them, this is a tender letter that he writes to them, a great deal of love and affection for them, they had a problem. They had a kind of a tumor at the heart of their fellowship, they had disunity. I think that this entire section from Philippians 1:27, in which he urges them to conduct themselves in a manner worthy of the Gospel, 1:27 on to the end of Chapter 2:18, that whole section is about unity. The whole thing. And I think they had a problem with unity. In 1:27-30 he says, “I will know that you stand firm in one Spirit contending as one man for the faith of the Gospel.” This is what we talked about last time. He’s concerned about their unity. Now, here in these verses 2:1-4, clearly he’s just straight out urging them and commanding them to be one with each other, to be united. And so also we see in verses 14-16 of chapter 2. 2:14 and following, he says, “Do everything without complaining or arguing.” They were complaining and they were arguing. Now, I know that you have no problems like that, but this church at least had problems with complaining and arguing. And in effect, the two journeys, the internal journey of working out your salvation with fear and trembling, growth and holiness, together with the external mission of holding out the word of life as you shine like stars in the universe, can’t be done if you’re arguing and complaining. So cut it out, that’s what he was saying. He’s saying, “You can’t grow in holiness and you cannot evangelize if you’re arguing and complaining with each other.” You can’t, so they’re having a problem. And also in chapter 4:2, we have these two ladies that we’ve talked about before and will talk about again, Euodia and Syntyche. And it says in 4:2, “I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to agree with each other in the Lord.” So they’re having trouble. There’s a faction there, there’s division, there’s problems. Now, disunity was a constant problem. It’s constantly a problem for human beings, but it’s a problem for the church. It’s always been. The Apostles were always arguing with each other, they really were. You’d think that they would love each other and get along, but it’s so embarrassing when Jesus is right there in the boat and they’re arguing about who forgot to bring the bread. And they’re hiding it from Jesus, because they know in their hearts, their conscience testifying against them, that arguing is sin. So they’re going to kind of turn their back on Jesus and go, “Da da da da. Jude, your turn to buy.” “Well, I got it last time.” And Jesus is off there praying or whatever he was doing and he says, “What are you talking about?” And they were ashamed because they were arguing. The greatest topic for arguing and conflict was which of them was the greatest. They hit that one again and again. A terrible thing. When James and John’s mother asks that her sons may sit at the right and the other left of Jesus in his Kingdom, the other 10 were indignant and very upset. They had selfish ambition, and then there are dissensions, and it happened. Where is the end of the conflict? Well, you think, “Okay, well, maybe after the cross and after the Holy Spirit, it will all end.” Did it? No, it didn’t. They continued to argue, even after that. Acts chapter 6, there was a dispute about the Greek-speaking widows and the daily distribution of food. We believe deacons and the whole servant structure got set up there. And then Acts 11, a dispute about whether Peter should have gone into a Gentile’s house. And Acts 15, a big argument about circumcision. Again and again, they were arguing in Acts. In almost every church you can mention, Galatians 5:15, it says, “If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you’ll be destroyed by each other.” That doesn’t sound good, does it? Whatever your exegesis is, that isn’t good, they’re biting each other, arguing. And Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 1:11, “My brothers, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you.” You’re bickering with each other. And then 1 Corinthians 3:3, “You are still carnal or worldly for since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?” You should be better than this. 2 Corinthians 12:20, he says, “I’m afraid that when I come, I may not find you as I want you to be and you may not find me as you want me to be. For I fear there may be quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, faction, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder.” There was terrible strife and conflict in the Corinthian church. But then there’s Paul himself, who just couldn’t get along with Barnabas over the issue of John Mark. And they had such a bitter dispute that they parted company, and that was it. And Paul was wrong. So it’s easier to preach it than it is to practice it, apparently. Very, very difficult, the strife and disunity that comes in through sin. And then there’s church history, did it end with the end of the New Testament? No. Bitter conflicts, divisions, startings of whole denominations and churches right across the street from each other, as a result of this kind of strife and conflict. Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli on the issue of the Lord’s Supper, bitter dispute over that. The meal that should unite became a source of conflict and division. Two of the greatest men from church history, George Whitfield and John Wesley, bitter dispute over predestination. Some harsh things happened, they just couldn’t get along on that. And around the world today, still, conflicts. Now, we know the causes of disunity, the cause is sin. And they come at us in a lot of different ways, but James 3:16 says, “Where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder...” interesting word, “and every evil practice.” It’s the atomization of the world, blown to bits by sin. Disorder comes in when you have selfish ambition. Things that were together, that were harmonious, that were one, get blown apart because of selfish ambition. Sin comes in and destroys things, what’s the cost? Well, it’s difficult to stand there like a star shining in the universe as you hold out the word of life to a lost generation if meanwhile you’re bickering back and forth in the church. And how tough was it for the Philippians in that they were being persecuted? And when you’re being persecuted outside in the world by the non-Christians, and that’s something that’s not going to go away, the more faithful you are in preaching the Gospel, the more it’s going to happen. What do you need, you need a united church, essentially united, not perfectly united, but a united church so that you can lick your wounds, you can be restored, you can be renewed. That’s what the church is for, not that this would be an even worse place of dissensions and trouble and arguing and conflict, never. This is the place where you come in and get recharged, you can go back out and face a pagan world. They needed unity and so Paul is pleading with them, he’s appealing with them. II. Paul’s Appeal for Unity And so he says, verse 1, “If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from His love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit but in humility, consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests but also to the interests of others.” Now, he’s making an appeal here for unity, do you see that? A. First basis for Paul’s appeal He’s making a very strong appeal, and what is the basis of his appeal? On what is he building his appeal? A theological basis: unity in Christ. He says it right from the start here, in verse 1, “If you have any encouragement from being...” the NIV gives us, “united in Christ.” That’s not there in the Greek, but the theological concept is certainly there. “If you have any encouragement from being in Christ…” And anyone who knows anything about Paul’s theology realizes how significant the phrase “in Christ” is. That means to be a Christian but it means so much more than a shallow understanding of being a Christian. It means to be perfectly united spiritually with Christ. His death on the cross is your death. His resurrection, your resurrection. His powerful resurrected life in you. And the idea is that if you are united with Christ, I want to tell you, he is united with many other people too. You’re not his only child. And so therefore to be united with Christ, to be in Christ, means to be united with Christians all over the world, that we are one with another because we are united in Christ. And so our union with Christ spiritually, is the theological foundation of appeal to unity. Because we are one with Christ, we are truly one with another. Absolutely. B. Second basis for Paul’s appeal So, he makes a theological basis, but he also gives us an experiential basis. They have a rich experience of the Gospel’s blessings at this point. He says, “If you have any encouragements, in Christ, if you have any comfort in His love, if you have any fellowship with the Spirit, if you have any tenderness and compassion…” This is an appeal to the good things they’ve already feasted on from being Christians. You’ve experienced these good things, haven’t you? Haven’t you experienced these things? And so we could really translate, “if you have any encouragement,” really, you could translate it a little bit better, “since there is so much of,” not translate it, but understand it. “Since there is so much encouragement from being united with Christ. Since there is so much tenderness and consolation in his love. And since there is so much fellowship with the Spirit and so much tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like minded.” You see that experiential basis, and he goes through those things. Encouragement in Christ is the same word from which we get the Paraclete, the Comforter, it’s to have the comforts of being in Christ through the Holy Spirit, I believe. And then he uses the word “consolation,” really, the idea of, if you were deeply grieving and you had a dear friend who understood the situation well, they could come and put their arm around you and console you, and you would be comforted, you would be comforted, “consolation from his love”. The fact that Jesus loves you is a great consolation, isn’t it? And since you have so much of that, he says, and since you have such a perfect fellowship, a Koinonia, a sharing together in the Spirit, and since you have so much tenderness and compassion from Christ. Alright, so that’s the experiential basis. C. Third basis for Paul’s appeal He’s given them a theological basis, because you’re in Christ, you should be one. He says, since you’ve feasted so much on the Gospel, experiential basis, part two, and then thirdly he makes a personal appeal, a personal basis. “Please, make my joy complete, by being like minded.” I have a joy, Paul is saying, I really do, I have a joy that I described in Philippians 1, joy in my chains, joy in Christ, joy in suffering. But let me tell you, my joy would be so much greater, if you would stop arguing with each other. Please make my joy complete by being like minded. So, that’s a three-fold basis of his appeal here. D. The goal of Paul’s appeal Now what is the goal or nature of his appeal? He says, verse 2, “Make my joy complete by being like minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.” This is unity, and it’s not a superficial unity. Not a superficial or surface unity. This is a deep unity of mind and heart. It goes right to what you really think, what you really believe, what you really love. You have those things in common. Be like minded, he says, have the same love, be one in spirit and purpose. Jot this down on your outline if you’re taking notes, 1 Corinthians 1:10, there is a great definition of unity, and as we’ve gone through struggles as a church, this church, to try to understand true biblical unity, 1 Corinthians 1:10 became just a beacon to me of what it means for a church to be united. 1 Corinthians 1:10 says, “perfectly united in mind and thought”. That’s where we’re heading, folks, the Father and the Son are that way, aren’t they? Perfectly united in mind and thought, no disagreements. They don’t look at anything from different ways. Perfectly united in mind and thought, that is the goal. We will not reach it in this life, as we have our deep-seated convictions that are wrong. It happens, we are absolutely convinced and you’re absolutely wrong and you’ll find out, later. And I’m absolutely convinced about some things that are wrong. I was telling that to my kids and they said, “Well, why don’t you change, then?” I said, “Well,” I said, “I don’t know what they are. If I knew what they are I’d change them today with the Lord’s help.” But all of us are absolutely convinced about things that are wrong, all of us. And so then we will not be perfectly united in mind and thought, but it is a goal and we should be striving for it. That’s the unity that Paul has in mind here. Now, the focus is on the mind, isn’t it? It’s on the way we think. Everything follows this organ up here, this incredibly complex brain. The pinnacle of God’s physical creation is the human brain, immensely complex. You will not ever understand your own brain, you won’t. And he wants you to be perfectly united in the way you think, to think alike. Now, how can that be? Well, I think it happens as under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, with the theological transformation already occurring, we’re already in Christ, we’re new creations in Christ, we submit this brain constantly to the Bible. We just say, “Teach me, I’m sure I’m wrong about some things, I want to learn.” And by the Spirit, we just little by little start to see strongholds of misunderstanding get overturned, all of us are doing that, and as that happens we’re all moving toward a beautiful unity of mind, as we submit to the scripture under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. There is an agreeing, “I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to agree with each other in the Lord.” Don’t just paper it over and not talk about it anymore. That’s not what he asks for. I appeal that you would agree, work on it until you do agree. “Do nothing,” Philippians 2:3, “from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, consider others better than yourselves.” This is going on in the mind, and therefore the only hope for true unity is the renewing of the mind in the pattern of Christ. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” It’s a battle for the mind, brothers and sisters. The big difference between a Christian and a non-Christian in their intrinsic nature, not in the way God sees them theologically, their position, that we can talk about, but I mean in who they really are. It has to do with how they think. It’s the big difference between a Christian and a non-Christian. “Those who live according to the flesh have their mind set on what the flesh desires, and those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their mind set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of the flesh is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.” Now, if you’re a Christian, your mind should be, and it is in many ways, controlled by the Spirit. That’s the basis of the possibility of true unity. E. The practical steps in fulfilling the appeal Now, what are the practical steps he gives in fulfilling the appeal? First, he gives them negatively things not to do. “Do nothing,” he says, “out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.” Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Now, selfish ambition is a desire for one’s own things, your own plans, your own goals, your own agenda, your own way of doing it. It’s pure selfishness. Also a desire for advancing your own position of power. That’s selfish ambition, just like the devil, and we’ll talk about that more next time. There’s a story about a godly monk who had gone out in the desert to fast and pray and grow in godliness and holiness and fight temptation and just conquer the flesh. And he was out there and was doing very well, very well, until the devil tempted him with this thought. And he whispered in his ear, “I just thought you should know your brother has become bishop of Alexandria.” And immediately his heart was filled with jealousy and he was frustrated, “Why not me? I’ve been at it longer than him. I’m a better preacher and I can...” and just it started to consume, that jealousy, selfish ambition, “Why should he get that honor? That was for me. I’m wasting my time out here in this cave. I should get back, play the political game.” Selfish ambition. And vain conceit is vainglory, “I just want you to know what I’ve done for you. I want you to honor me. I want to you to put a plaque up for me or I want you to have... I want some honor, some earthly thing for me so that I could...” Now, nobody would ever just come right out and say that, but isn’t it in there? That vainglory, that conceit, wanting to be recognized, wanting to be esteemed for who you are and what you’ve done. Just that someone would know how good you are. It’s vainglory and it’s the seat of dissensions and factions. So, that’s negatively, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.” Positively, be humble. “Consider others better than yourselves.” Seek the things of others. Again, the focus is on the mind. Two wonderful illustrations of this First, again, from Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, the second half, Christiana and her fellow travelers have come to the Interpreter’s House and they are clothed each one with beautiful linen garments and they look so radiant and they look so beautiful. And Bunyan writes this way, “It was fine linen, white and clean. When the women were thus adorned, they seemed to be a terror one to the other, for that they could not see the glory each one had in herself, which they could see in the other. Now therefore they began to esteem each other better than themselves. ‘For you are fairer than I am,’ said one, and, ‘Oh, you are more comely than I am,’ said the other. The children also stood amazed to see into what fashion they were brought.” Isn’t that striking? The more you know yourself, the better you know yourself to be the chief of all sinners, no one could sin more than you. Paul thought so. He said, “I am the least of all God’s people and I am the greatest of all sinners.” Do you think he was just posturing? I think he really believed it, because he was so well acquainted with his own wickedness. Meanwhile, the brothers and sisters in Christ were looking really good to him. They were role models, something to be esteemed, something to be patterned after. He loved them and just held them in honor. I think that’s what Paul’s saying here, “Consider others really to be better than you.” George Whitfield Another illustration, again from George Whitfield. I told you of the conflict he had with Wesley over predestination. It was bitter and difficult, because Whitfield had started preaching out in the fields, he had started field preaching, and had gathered a wonderful congregation of people to come listen to him preach. He went on a mission trip to America and entrusted that congregation in the field to Wesley. Wesley began to preach against Whitfield’s view of predestination and turned their hearts against Whitfield. Bitterness and problems, very public in ad hominem attacks, and it was difficult and it got difficult and it continued to be that way. And it hurt their relationship, as you could well imagine. At one point somebody asked Whitfield, “Do you think you’ll see John Wesley in Heaven?” He said, “No, I don’t.” “Really?” He said, “No, he’ll be so close to the throne and I’ll be so far away that I will not see him.” Now, if you read his journals and you read his letters, you realize that was not merely posturing on his part. He was genuinely a broken and humble man. And that’s what he felt. Now, I actually think he’s wrong. I think we’re all going to see each other in heaven. There’s going to be a perfect unity there. But I understand his point. The point is that this is a godly man, John Wesley, and he’s serving the Lord. Humility, “a gentle answer turns away wrath.” That’s the way to getting two brothers to be friends again. Humility, consider others. And then he also says, “Think of others’ needs ahead of your own.” Use your time, your energy, your money, your abilities, your gifts totally at the service of others. Set your minds on what they need and what you need, like in Les Miserables when the thief, Jean Valjean, steals silver from the godly bishop. And he’s caught and brought back and the bishop is thinking at that moment, “What does he need?” Not, “What do I need?” “He needs forgiveness from Christ. He needs those candlesticks more than I do.” It’s a way of thinking, “What are your needs?” not, “What’s my need?” That’s the recipe for perfect unity. III. Applications Now, what applications can we take from this? First, can I urge you to not be deceived by fake counterfeit unity? Saccharin. I’m not speaking against saccharin, the little pink stuff in the packets, okay? Saccharin was invented about, oh, 100 years ago, maybe more, and became popular around World War I. It’s a sugar substitute. I did some research, apparently it does not in the end cause cancer in people, that keep on using it. The fact of the matter is, saccharin has become in writing and in prose kind of a symbol for a fake sweetness. You know what I’m talking? A saccharin smile. A fake love. Well, there can be saccharin unity too. Well, if unity never gets farther than the following, you know it’s fake unity: First, for example, if Christ, the Bible, spiritual things are hardly ever mentioned, and the churches’ fellowships are mentioned only by form, (for example, prayer before meal,) you’ve got fake unity. Second, if there’s superficial affection, back slapping, jokes, flattery, sweet greetings, fake interest in conversations, but meanwhile secret jealousy when any member has an advantage, that’s fake unity. Third, if there are merely shallow discussions, such as weather, sports, current events, or even worse, gossip and slander when you get together, that’s fake unity. It’s counterfeit, it’s saccharin. It’s not the real thing. Fourth, a superficial activity calendar, in which none of the works have anything to do with the Kingdom of Heaven. They’re all about social times and eating and fun and entertainment, but there’s no genuine focus on Christ and on his work, that’s fake unity. Fifth, when there is, a low level of sacrifice for those in need within the body, you have fake unity. When people will sign a card or go to the viewing at a funeral, but they will not sit and grieve, when there are actual financial needs but there’s no sacrifice to meet them, among the body as a whole, it’s a sign of fake unity. Sixth, avoidance of hard, theological topics for the sake of the fake unity. Sweep it under the rug, don’t talk about it. Yes, we bitterly disagree, but that’s okay, we just won’t talk about it anymore. Oh, what an inroad to false doctrine the devil has. A huge tool for pouring false doctrine into a church, this fake unity. It’s an enemy of the Gospel and avoidance of anything unpleasant that might ruin the party. Wouldn’t want to do that. Seventh, therefore, also, any other disagreements. Not doctrinal but of any sort are quickly papered over, never discussed again but meanwhile there’s a root of bitterness growing up. There’s no genuine forgiveness. Eighth, heart characteristics of fake unity are really pride, self-centeredness, selfish ambitions, hostility and a keeping of a record of wrongs. Therefore, genuine unity is the mirror opposite: First, Christ, the Bible, spiritual things are central to everything. A mutual love for Christ is the center of the unity; were it not for Christ, we would know we would have little in common with some of the members of our church. But as a result, we love each other deeply. We’re talking about people from different racial backgrounds, different economic backgrounds. And we think, “How did we get to be such friends?” And the answer is, Christ has brought us together. And isn’t it beautiful? It’s a delightful thing. Second, heartfelt love, genuine, sincere love for their brothers and sisters. A deep desire for whatever may benefit them the most, a true delight in being together. I look forward to Sunday morning. I look forward to being with you. I like singing with you, better than I like singing alone. And if you heard me sing alone you’d know why. I like how you sing. And I like to sing together with you. Thirdly, discussions are heartfelt, deep and God-centered. We want to know the depths of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God, his unsearchable judgments. Fourth, the activities are centered around Christ and his Kingdom. Fifth, there’s a high level of sacrifice for those in need within the group. Like Christ willing to leave a place of comfort and come down and suffer on a cross, so we also are willing not to be comfortable so that somebody who’s discomforted by life can be brought to greater comfort. That’s true unity. Sixth, an actual love and attraction for hard theological questions. Roll up your sleeves, let’s get the Bible, let’s love each other and let’s pray it through until we do understand and we do agree. And if everybody checks their egos at the door and says, “I’m sure I’m wrong about some part of this and probably right about some things and you also are in that same condition, let’s put it together and find out what the Lord is saying.” Seventh, when there is disagreement, it gets worked on through humility and prayer and genuine forgiveness, not papered over. Eighth, heart characteristics, love for God, love for neighbor as self, humility, selflessness, a servant heart. Deep thirst for perfect unity in mind and thought. Arriving at the same kind of heart unity enjoyed by the Trinity. That’s our goal. Will you pray with me for that in this church? For a genuine unity that adorns the Gospel? Will you search your own heart and ask if there’s any brother or sister in this fellowship that you’re out of fellowship with, that you’re feeling hard feelings toward. If anybody’s popping in your mind right now, it could be that the Spirit is speaking to you, that you need to pray through and bring reconciliation there. A final word to those of you who, there may be in our midst some who don’t know Jesus as your Lord and Savior. You can’t do any of these without being first united to Christ through faith. Come to Christ, let him be your substitute to take away the wrath of God, which you deserve for sin. Let him make you one, perfectly one, with this marvelous, this beautiful body of Christ.

I. Sinai’s Bondage, Calvary’s Freedom I would like to ask, if you would, that you take your Bibles and open to Romans chapter 7. You've already heard it read earlier, but now we have a chance to look at it a little more carefully. As we turn to Romans 7, we're turning to a most remarkable chapter in the Book of Romans, a chapter that is, in some cases, greatly controverted. People have different opinions and views about what it's teaching. But the topic is clear, and the topic is the relationship of the law to the Christian. The limits and the purpose of the law in the Christian life, and that's what we're facing. But what is this law, the Law of Moses that we are facing? It was given on a dreadful day so long ago at Mount Sinai. The description's given in Exodus 19. It says there, "On the morning of the third day, there was thunder and lightning with a thick cloud over the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently, and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. Then Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him. The Lord descended to the top of Mount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain, and so Moses went up." That is the description of the day that the law was given, and what a dreadful scene it was. It says in Hebrews chapter 12 that Moses was so afraid that he shook with fear. He trembled with fear though he was a righteous man. And the thing that's so difficult perhaps for us to understand in redemptive history is we see God moving His people out with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm out of Egypt, out of bondage, an act of grace and goodness, and brings them through the Red Sea and destroys all their enemies and then gently and carefully provides for them in the desert. God moving and saving His people… Why this? Why does He bring them to Sinai and give them this law? What is the purpose of the Law of Moses? We know that God doesn't speak lightly, He doesn't revoke His words. And so, how does the law relate to us today as Christians? Jesus said, "Heaven and earth would pass away, but not the smallest letter or the least stroke of a pen would, by any means, pass away from the law until everything was fulfilled." That's how serious the law was to Jesus Christ. And so, it really is in the Cross of Jesus Christ, in the life and the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, that we as Christians come to understand the law. Because there was another dreadful day, not just that one at Sinai, but another one, the one at Mount Calvary, where Jesus gave His life for us. It was the law that killed Him. It was the Law of God that put Him to death. Jesus died under the penalty, under the curse of the law that we might have eternal life. II. Context: A Very Famous Chapter! How Are We to Understand the Law? Now, as we come to Romans, we're trying to understand this teaching of justification by faith, apart from the law. We are made right with God. We stand before God holy and blameless in His sight, simply because of faith in Jesus Christ and the righteousness that has been given us through that faith. An accomplishment of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, completely apart from works of the law. It's a free gift of God's grace. It says at the end of Romans chapter 5 that the law came in alongside, or the law was added, "so that the trespass might increase, but where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." So we have the triumph, the ultimate triumph of grace in the life of a believer in Jesus Christ. But what is this law that was brought in alongside? What is the purpose of the law? What are the limits of the law for a Christian? How shall we understand this timeless law that was given to us? Now, as we look at Romans 7 and look across it, we're going to come into some rough waters. It's going to be difficult to understand. The whole second half of Romans 7 is one of the most controversial texts in all the Bible. When Paul as the apostle speaking there and saying, "I don't understand what I do. I'm a slave to this law of sin inside me, and I wrestle, and I struggle, and I fight with sin." Every one of us as a true Christian, can resonate with that, can't we? We can say, "Yes, I feel that struggle within me. My reach exceeds my grasp. I see more clearly the holiness of God that He expects in my life, but I just can't live up to it, and so I wrestle with it. And in my mind, I delight in the law of God, but I can't seem to live up to it." We can say that, but what did Paul mean by saying it? Was Paul speaking as an unbeliever before he was a Christian, or was he speaking as a believer? And we are not even going to settle that or even touch on it today; I'm just telling you what's coming. But it's the topic of how the law relates to the Christian. How shall we understand these things? And then even deeper, the question is, if the law produces death in us, is the law evil? Is it an enemy? Is it something vicious? Or is it good and holy and righteous? How shall we understand the law itself, and why did God give it, and how shall we live accordingly? So Paul is dealing with this struggle. He's dealing with this issue, and he's dealing with it very personally from self, because everywhere he went, there were zealous Jews that pursued him and attacked him saying he was overthrowing the Law of Moses. That he was teaching false doctrines, because God had given us this law and as Jews, we had constantly gotten into trouble by disobeying the law. That's why we were exiled to Babylon in the first place, and now we've come back, and we're trying our best to follow this law. We're trying to walk in it and we're trying to live according to it. We know we don't do it the way we should, but we're supposed to try and walk, aren't we? And along comes this apostle, Paul, telling us of this whole new, it seems, faith that doesn't line up with our understanding of the law. Paul is uprooting and overturning the Law of Moses. Now, this was a very big issue, wasn't it? If you look at the life of Jesus Christ, were there not many attacks made on Him in the line of what is lawful and what is not? They would come and they would ask Jesus, "Is it lawful for you to heal on the Sabbath?" And Jesus would have to answer this question. "Is it lawful for your disciples to not wash their hands before they eat?" And Jesus would have to answer that question. "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?" And Jesus would have to answer that question. Jesus was dealing with people, the Jews who were very concerned about the laws, specifically the Scribes and the Pharisees, very concerned about matters of the law to the point that they would give a tenth of their spices, counting out the mint and the dill and the cumin, the leaves, and count them out. That's how careful they were about the law. And along comes Jesus, and He's got to say in the Sermon on the Mount, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law. I have not come to abolish, but to fulfill. Until Heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter or least stroke of a pen will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished." Jesus had to say that, because they were misunderstanding Him. And so they also misunderstood Paul. Attacks on Paul and His Doctrine In Acts 21:27-28, it says, "Some Jews from the province of Asia saw Paul at the temple. They stirred up the whole crowd and seized him, shouting, 'Men of Israel, help us. This is the man who teaches all men everywhere against our people and against our law and against this place,'" the temple. So that was the charge against Paul, that he was overthrowing the law, and it was on that charge that he was arrested and eventually brought to Rome. And so Paul has to deal with this. And as you look at his doctrine, it almost seems that he's open to that charge, isn't it? If you look through the first five chapters of Romans, you begin to see a certain pattern in the way that Paul deals with the law. I already mentioned Romans 5:20 in which he says that the law was laid on aside, it was added so that the trespass might increase. So, it seems almost like he's saying it's some additional thing. Seems to be undermining the law there. In Romans 3:28, he says very plainly, "We maintain that a man is justified by faith, apart from observing the law." So the law doesn't do anything to get you saved. When it comes to justification, it's not works of the law that justifies you. Earlier, he said, "By the law will no one be justified." Nobody is going to be justified by the law. And then in Romans 4, Paul proves that Abraham was justified while he was still uncircumcised. His circumcision, the symbol of law-keeping, represented in Abraham a submission to the law, but it came later. But Paul proves that Abraham was justified while he was still uncircumcised. The law literally had nothing to do with his justification. And yet Paul says in Romans 3:31, "Do we then nullify the law by this faith? Not at all, rather, we uphold the law." How can this be? How, Paul, can you say that you uphold the law when you're saying all of these other things about it? And that is the question that Paul is seeking to address in Romans 7. Now, we've already seen in Romans chapter 6 that he's dealing with the question about justification by faith, remember that. The idea is if we're saved by grace, if works of the law have nothing to do with our justification, then doesn't it logically follow that we can live any way we want? This past week, I had the opportunity to speak with a church member and somebody that he knew who needed salvation. And as we had a discussion and we were talking about things and explaining the Gospel, and this is a person who is well familiar with Christianity, but as we had that opportunity, he came to understand justification by grace, through faith and Jesus Christ alone, apart from works of the law. And you know what said? He said to me, "Well, if what you're saying is true, doesn't that mean we can live any way we want?" I felt such happiness in my heart, I said, "I know we're on the right track! We're not teaching a morality here. We're not teaching a bunch of good works. We're teaching something we receive humbly by faith as a gift." So we're on the right track, but it needs to be answered, doesn't it? We've all seen people who claim things and they claim to be Christians and they live any way they please, and our nation is rife with it. We're struggling with it, aren't we? We're supposed to be a Christian nation and look. So we're wrestling with it, and so Paul has to be deal with it. Not Under the Law, Not Lawless Lives Either And the beauty of the Gospel is that, yes, the question is raised naturally from the doctrine, but the doctrine also answers the question, too. Because it's not simply forgiveness of sins that we receive from God, isn't it? Is it not eternal life we get from Him? And as we receive this full-blooded gift of eternal life, it really is a complete union with Jesus Christ by faith. We are united with Him in His death. We are also united with Him in his resurrection. And that answers everything, doesn't it? He says, "We can't go on sinning, we died to sin. How can we live in it any longer?" And he says also, most provocatively in 6:14, you can look at there. He says, "Sin shall not be your master, because you're not under law but under grace." Wow, what a statement. We're not under law? We're not under law anymore? Doesn't that lead to the same conclusion? We can run amok. There's no law over us anymore, we can live any way we choose. Well, the answer is in the second half, say, "No, actually you're going to show who your master is by how you live," and he talks about this, "Wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life," but there's still the question about the law hanging out there, isn't it? How can it be that if we're not under law, we're not going to live lawless lives? It doesn't seem to make any sense. III. ‘Till Death Do You Part: The Law’s Jurisdiction Limited By Death (verses 1-3) And so he needs to explain that, and that's what he's doing here in Romans 7. And he does it initially here with this analogy of marriage. He brings up this analogy of marriage. In effect, he's saying, the principle is this, that you are under law only as long as you live. But the moment you die, you're free from the requirements or the jurisdiction of the law. And he uses the marriage analogy to teach that. In effect, he's saying, "'til death do you part," right? And so we're kind of united to the law until we die. And when we die, we're free from the jurisdiction of the law. Look at verse 1, Romans 7:1. He says, "Do you not know, brothers, from speaking to men who know the law, that the law has authority over men only as long as he lives?" It's beautiful how he continues to teach sanctification the same way. Look at the first few words of this chapter, what does it say? "Do you not know?" How does Paul work on sanctification? Through the mind, through doctrine, applied by the power of the Holy Spirit. He's changing, he's working on your thinking. And he's drawing, in this case, something that we all know, that the law has jurisdiction over living people, not dead people. Makes sense, doesn't it? It has jurisdiction over the living, not over the dead. So he's speaking to an audience who knows the law, we don't know whether at this point, he's saying, "Now you as Romans, you're famous throughout the world for your knowledge of the law. You are law-keepers, you are law-abiders, and you know Roman law," or he could be speaking to Roman Jewish Christians at this point, and he's speaking of the Law of Moses, we don't really know. But he's speaking of a general principle about law that only has authority or jurisdiction over the living, not over the dead. The Jurisdiction of the Law Now the Greek here says... Or the original language says, "to lord it over," The law has jurisdiction over, or "lords it over, "only the living, not the dead." What is the nature of the laws lording it over? What is the nature of its jurisdiction? Well, there is maybe two senses of it. One is the authority to rule behavior, to guide you in your daily life, the way you live your life every day. And also the authority to condemn misbehavior. In other words, it enjoins that you should do these things and not do these things. And then there are penalties, there are covenant curses that come for disobedience. It has an authority to condemn misbehavior. James 2:10 says, "Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it." So the law has the authority to stand over us and judge us. And ultimately, if you take that out to its extreme, the law has the authority to condemn you eternally and send you to Hell. It is the law that stands on Judgment Day against us. If its precepts and if our transgressions in reference to the law are not dealt with, we will be condemned by the law. And so the law stands opposed to us, it seems, and against us and threatens us with eternal harm. Now, the principle that the law stands in jurisdiction over only living makes sense. You remember at the time of the assassination of President Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald was apprehended for that and all the signs of law pointed toward him, that he's the one that did it, right? But you remember what happened in the intervening days, he was being held for trial and Jack Ruby came in and shot him dead. And that explains why there was never a trial in the case of the assassination of President Kennedy. Because the law stands over and judges only the living. Once the person's dead, there's nothing more a law can do. Case closed, he's dead. But why does Paul reach for marriage as an illustration of this point? Well, marriage is a legally binding covenant. Look what he says in verse 2 and 3, "For example," and that's what he's giving us, an example, the illustration of marriage, "by law, a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man." Now, Paul is not, here, giving us a treatise on marriage per se, but he does hold up marriage as a lasting, 'til-death-do-you-part, binding covenant. Other than death, the only way to get out of marriage is sin. You look in all the scriptures and you find that that's true, the only way to end a marriage is sin. A partner abandons one or commits adultery or something like... But that's the only way to end a marriage other than death. But death is a sinless way to end a marriage. And so, the two, the couple, are bound together as long as they're alive, but as soon as they die, that covenant is ended. And that's what he's getting at, death terminates the relationship to the law. Prior to death, there was a certain restriction by the law. After death, no restriction in this matter, and the woman is free to remarry. IV. The Principle Applied Spiritually: Death to Law, Marriage to Christ (verses 4) So then he applies the principle spiritually in verse 4. Look at it, it says, "So also," or in the same way, "my brothers, you die to the law through the body of Christ that you might belong to another, to Him who is raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God." This is an amazing thing. And this is only the first week we're going to be looking at these verses. Beause in effect, he brings over the marriage analogy and applies it to us spiritually. We were, in effect, married to the law. There was a convenantly binding relationship between us and the law. In reference to the Jews, certainly. The Jews were convenantly bound together to that law. They had promised that they would obey. They had covenant submission ceremonies in which they promised they would submit and they would obey. They're bound to the law. Okay. But one of those partners has died, and it isn't the law, is it? It's very interesting how he changes it. In the one sense, you've got the woman and the husband. If the husband dies, she's free to remarry. But we can't say that the law died, can we? The law is going to last to the end. To Judgment Day, the law will stand. So who is it that died? We did. We died. And we rose again. So we're able to remarry. It's the law, isn't it? There's nothing like it in all history. We can never say a woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives, but if she dies, she's free to remarry if she's resurrected from the dead. But that's in effect what's going on here. We were bound to the law until we died. And when did we die? When we had faith in Jesus Christ. We trusted in Jesus Christ, and at that moment, we died to the law. Isn't that wonderful? Through the body of Jesus Christ. You Died to the Law Now what does this mean, that we died to the law? Well, you look at the historical doctrines. "We died to the law through the body of Christ in order that we might belong to another, to Him who is raised from the dead." Look at all the doctrine there. Where did Christ's body come from? From the incarnation. He took on a human body that He might walk under the law. We'll talk about that more in a minute. But then He died. The crucifixion is in view here, and also His resurrection in view. These historical doctrines are the foundation of the way we live our lives now, and they answer the question of how we will relate to the law. Our union with Christ means that we're dead to the law. Free forever from its condemnation. Now, how does Christ's body produce our death to the law? Let's try to understand this. One of the things I fear, as we are explaining the Gospel, that we see in the cross of Jesus Christ the love of God, but not the justice of God. But both the love of God and the justice of God are equally displayed in the cross of Jesus Christ. We could say God loved us in such a way or to such an extent that He did not want us to go to Hell but sent His son to die in our place, and all of that would be true. God, therefore, was displaying His love and that He was saving us from going to Hell and bringing us into Heaven. And that is true. But we could also say God loved His law so much that He had His son die under His wrath rather than simply to allow sinners into Heaven with the laws just as undealt with. That's how much He loved his law. He would rather have His son die under His wrath than let us sin and the law's demands not being met. Our God is a good judge, is He not? Think, if you will, of a judge in some district court somewhere, who is known far and wide as a good man. He's a very good man, very kindly, kind of like a kindly grandfather type. And every criminal brought to the bar of his justice, he sends them home free with a bag of cookies, because he's a loving man, and he does not want them to have to suffer in prison. They have families. They have, well, friends at least, who will love them. And so every criminal, every murderer, every rapist, every thief who's brought before him, he sends them home with a gift and with love. Now we might call him a good man, but would we call him a good judge? How long do you think he'd last as a judge? Longer now than 50 years ago, maybe. I think he'd be pulled because he's not a good judge. Isn't it shocking how we think of God that way on Judgment Day? Isn't that scary? That God is that kind of a judge? All of the law's demands unmet and yet, "Come on in. Enjoy the feast, have a good time in Heaven." How can this be? No, He must uphold His law. And so He sends His son. And what does it say of Jesus? He was born under the law. Galatians 4:4 and 5, "When the time had fully come, God sent His son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under those under the law, that we might receive the full rights of sons." Jesus, born under the law, and He perfectly obeyed the law. Every jot and tittle, every little command and every big one, He obeyed it all perfectly. Perfect righteousness rendered. Active righteousness rendered to God. And by the way, it's that active righteousness of Jesus Christ that saves you. Because all of that righteousness is put together in a beautiful robe of righteousness and laid on your shoulders the moment you trust in Christ. And on the basis of that, you're justified, declared not guilty. But that active righteousness is a submission to the law, wasn't it? Did He not submit to the law every day of His life? He's a law-abiding Jew. But then finally, He received the guilt of the sins of all of His people, for everyone from all history who'd ever trust in Him in faith. He became, it says, "a curse for us." It says in Galatians 3, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.'" This was the very stumbling block that Paul could not get past. He said, "How can somebody under a curse be God's anointed Messiah? It's impossible." But then he understood substitution, that Jesus was under a curse for us, because we're the ones that broke the law. And so the same curse, namely, cursed is everyone who does not continue to do every single little thing in the law. We're under a curse, too, aren't we? And Jesus came and took our curse away. You can't be saved by law-abiding. Your righteousness will not save you. You cannot perfectly obey the law of God. Have any of you ever coveted? Really wanted something that wasn't yours? Have any of you dishonored your parents? Maybe you're through with that phase and now you render perfect honor and obedience to your parents. But we cannot stand up before the law of God, can we? And Jesus came and took our curse away from us. And all of this so that God could be just and also justify of those who have faith in Jesus. It says in Colossians 2, "When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code with its regulations that was against us and that stood opposed to us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross." Praise God for that. The law of God, with all of its regulations, stood opposed to us, and He dealt with the wrath of God, the penalty that we deserve for breaking that law, by dying on a cross. Oh, the goodness and the love and the mercy of Jesus Christ. And God did it, it says in Romans 3, "that He might be both at the same time just and also justifier of those who have faith in Jesus Christ." He is fair, He is just and you go to Heaven. Isn't that beautiful? Praise God for that. God is absolutely zealous that not one word of His law fall to the ground undealt with, but He dealt with it through His son. The value, the infinite value, of the blood of Jesus Christ, and that all of the regulations were met there. So What Does “Dead to the Law” Mean? So then, brothers and sisters, what then does dead to the law mean? What does it mean that we die to the law? Well, first, what it does not mean is that we don't care anymore about the law. Jesus said in Matthew 5:19, "Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of Heaven. But whoever practices and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of Heaven." So we're not just dispensing with the law, we don't think about it anymore. Paul upholds the law. Romans 3:31, he says, "Do we nullify the law by this faith? Not at all. Rather, we uphold the law." And in Romans 13, he's going to say this, "Let no debt remain outstanding except the continuing debt to love one another. For he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, 'Do not commit adultery,' 'Do not murder,' 'Do not steal,' 'Do not covet,' and whatever other commandment there may be are summed up in this one rule: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' Love does no harm to its neighbor, therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law." And he's writing that to Christians. He expects that you will walk in that way. And so what happens is legality is removed, and what gets put in its place? Love. Love for God, and love for neighbor, and love perfectly fulfills the law. So, dead to the law doesn't mean we have no concern whatsoever about the law. Think about the 10 Commandments, can we have as many gods as we like now? Are we free to make idols now? Can we dishonor our parents now? Can we murder and steal now? Can we lie under oath now? Can we covet as much as we like? That's negative. How about positively? We don't have to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, do we? We don't have to love our neighbor as ourself, do we? Obviously, dead to the law doesn't mean that the law has evaporated. Well, what does it mean, then? Well, what it means is that what was once external, a demand, is now a desire. What was an external demand is now the desire of our heart. We want to do these things. God has written His laws on our heart. Hebrews 8:10, "'This is the covenant I'll make with the house of Israel after that time,' declares the Lord. 'I'll put My laws in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people.'" God has written His law on your heart if you're a Christian. That's what it means to be united with Christ, dead to sin and alive to God. He's written His law in your heart, He's given you a new heart. We're going to talk more about that in future weeks. But what does it mean to be dead to the law? Well, it means that we're dead to the law as condemner. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The law will not condemn you and send you to Hell, because all of its righteous requirements have been fully met through Jesus Christ. It also means that we're dead to the law as a manner and way of life and a way of serving God. Look at chapter 7 verse 6, the same section we're in right now. It says in 7:6, "We serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code." V. A New Life: Married to Christ (verse 4) We're in a whole new way of relating to God now. It's the life of the Spirit, and the best analogy that Paul can think of right here at this moment is the same one he was using a minute ago, the analogy of marriage. Marriage. Look again at verse 4, he says, "So my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ that you might belong to another, to Him who is raised from the dead in order that we might bear fruit for God." What does that say? That you might belong to Jesus. That He is the lover of your soul. He's your heavenly spouse. We're part of the bride of Christ. We're going to talk about this fully next time, it's such a huge theme that we can't just deal with it quickly. But we have a whole new way of relating to God. We're alive to God now. And marriage is a great analogy but a love relationship, a binding covenant to a living Savior, Jesus Christ. And the fruit of that union is good works for God, a whole new way of serving God by the power of the Spirit. It's a whole new life, a whole new way of obeying the law. Verse 6, "We serve, [that is, we bring forth good fruit], in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code." VI. Application: Has This Happened to You?? What kind of application can we take out of this? I just want to ask you a simple question. Has this happened to you? This is Christianity, this is what it means to be a Christian. Has this happened to you? Do you know yourself to be dead to the law, dead to sin, but alive to God in a whole new way in Jesus Christ by the power of the Spirit? Not merely brushing up on some rough spots in your character, improving some morality in your life, or adding some good habits like church attendance or committee service? And those are good habits, by the way. But not merely removing some bad habits and adding some good things? Not at all, but a death and a resurrection. A radical transformation so stunning could only be likened to dying and being raised to new life. Have you died and then resurrected through faith in Jesus Christ? And do you have a new relationship to God and to the law? Perhaps you previously saw God as a stern taskmaster who could never forgive you of all your sins. You've done too much to be forgiven. But now you understand that all of the law's requirements have been met through the blood of Christ. Or perhaps, you underestimated the law and never really thought about it that much, didn't matter to you, now you see that God upholds His law perfectly and fulfills it in Jesus Christ. A whole new relationship to the law. Now you feel like it's written on your heart, and you yearn to do God's will, you want to love Him every moment of your life. And you yearn to love your neighbor as yourself. It's a whole new relationship to the law. Has this happened to you? And do you also see in yourself a whole new purpose in life, bearing fruit for God? Previously, you lived perhaps for yourself, for your lust and your own evil pleasures, your own desire. You orchestrated your life around your own things and your own desires and drives. And now you realize that God has a purpose for your life, and that is that you bear fruit for God, every day. And do you see also a new power in your life? Previously, you were powerless before the sins of your life, but now you realize you're dead to sin, and through the power of the Holy Spirit, you can say no to ungodliness. Do you see a new power in your life? Has this happened to you? And if so, rejoice and be glad. And yes, we're going to struggle with sin. We'll get to that second half of Roman 7, it's coming. Yes, we struggle with sin, but rejoice that you're dead to the law. You're not under the law anymore; you're serving in a whole new way. But if this has not happened to you, don't let today pass. Don't let the sun go down today. Don't harden your heart if today you hear His voice. Come to faith in Jesus Christ. Let Him be the husband of your soul, let Him be the lover of your soul. Let His blood stand in the place at judgment and take away all of the wrath that you deserve for your sin, and let Him give you His righteousness, sufficient for all the law's demands. Won't you close with me in prayer? I'd like to ask that you just take a moment and reflect on the things we've talked about, and then we'll pray. Oh, heavenly Father, if we had been at the foot of Mount Sinai and saw all that You did there that day, we would certainly have trembled with fear. God, You gave us the law that day, and because of who we naturally are, we die under that law. The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. And so what was good and holy and righteous became death for us. And there's nothing wrong with Your law, it couldn't have been written better; it's just that we needed a savior, and you gave Him to us in Jesus Christ. Oh, what a perfect man He was. How He lived in beautiful righteousness every day, loving You, heavenly Father, with every fiber of His being. He would rather die than disobey You. He loved You so much and loved You every moment. All of His thoughts and passions only directed at every moment toward Your pleasure and toward Your will. And He loved His neighbors as Himself. Every moment, other sinners... Someone would come and say, "My servant is sick," and He would stand up and say, "I will go and heal him." He loved His neighbor fully as Himself, ultimately, to the point of dying and laying down His life that His neighbors, His brothers and sisters, those who were one flesh with Him through faith, Lord, that they would have eternal life. Perfect obedience. In the name of that obedience, I can even address You now as a "Father." Father, I pray for any in this room here today who have not trusted in You, who have no living principle of the Holy Spirit within them, are not bearing fruit for life but rather only for death, that they would repent today and trust in You, Lord Jesus. And for those of us who know that we are saved, that we have eternal life but still grieve over the sin in our lives, that we might understand how full and complete and free we are in reference to the law, and that we might "serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code." We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

A World Engulfed in Evil and Sin Romans Chapter 5, we're continuing our study in Romans. And this morning, we're going to be focusing in on Chapter 5:12-14. Now obviously, you know that this past week, Timothy McVeigh was executed for his cold-hearted bombing of the office building in Oklahoma City and I think many of you were following that in the newspapers and concerned about that. The act was heinous enough, but just as stunning (at least to me personally) was McVeigh's coldness of heart is lack of remorse, lack of sadness in any way for the things that he'd done. 168 people were dead and 19 children and all he could do is call the victims of his crime collateral damage. There was just a deadness to his soul that just brought chills to me. And so deep were the issues of evil that McVeigh brought to our national attention that Newsweek ran a cover article that a church member gave to me to read, May 21st and the title of the article was Evil: What Makes People Go Wrong. So asking a question of origins of evil. What is it that makes somebody do something like this? The article had some comments I thought that were very incisive. One of the articles, (there are three or four articles together), one of them had this to say about McVeigh: "We want to see Timothy McVeigh, somehow as evil incarnate, as Satan, as depravity in human form. He has willfully and gratuitously inflicted harm on others, the very definition of an evil act, through a cold cruel calculation untouched by compassion. There's a reason we need to view McVeigh this way, it allows us to place him in a category labeled evil with a capital E, but also more importantly labeled, ‘not us.’" People want to say, "You see. That's him. There's just something about him that's intrinsically different from me. I would never do something like that." The idea that the enormity of McVeigh's act in the yawning hole in his soul where human compassion should lie, set him worlds apart from us. And then the article goes on to ask "or did it?" Did it? And the burden of the text today is to show that there is an intrinsic unity to the human race even in terms of sin and death that is so deep and so compelling as to necessitate a salvation that only Jesus could provide. One expert quoted in this article said the capacity for evil is a human universal. There is a continuum of evil of course ranging from trivial evils like cutting someone off in traffic, to greater evils like acts of prejudice to massive evils like those perpetrated by serial killers, but within us all there are the roots of evil. So what is the origin of sin? What is the origin of evil within the human heart? The article said all religions turn to myths in order to account for the origins of evil. Now here Newsweek went amiss I believe. It said that all religions turn to myths in order to account for the origins of evil: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all looked to the myth of Eden. Where evil enters the world through the disobedience of Adam and Eve, humanity's primal parents. The myth of Eden. Brothers and sisters, if Eden is a myth so is Jesus Christ. Because Paul links the two together. Adam and Christ in Romans Chapter 5. And Adam is a type or an example of Jesus Christ. And there's something that happened in Adam that finds its parallel in Christ. Linked with this whole discussion of the origin of evil is the origin and the universality of death. A fate that faces everyone from the greatest to the least, from the most wicked killer like Timothy McVeigh to the tiny little infant carried out of the wreckage… You remember that photo, the fireman carrying that little one. And how can it be that all of us are subject to this death penalty. 18th century poet Thomas Gray wrote these haunting lines in a poem called Elegy in a country courtyard. "The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power. And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, awaits alike the inevitable hour. The paths of glory lead but to the grave." How can it be that sin and death are universal? How is it that the banker in Tokyo and the chimney sweep in London and the humble rice farming peasant in Thailand and the pastor in Durham North Carolina are all subject to the same penalty namely death. How did sin and death come to have universal sway over the human race? Why is it that every single human culture, in every time in history has had to wrestle with the sin of its own people? To make laws to deal with this. And why is it that all people innocent and guilty alike are subject to death? These things are addressed in the passage that we're facing today, Romans Chapter 5:12-21. Now we're going to focus on Verse 12-14, but in order to understand the larger context I'm going to read all the way to Verse 21. Look if you will and read along with me beginning at Verse 12. "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned. For before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come. But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man's sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous. The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." I. The Rake or the Shovel? (From John Piper) Now, I have preached many sermons here, but I have never preached such a meaty passage as we're facing today. This is meat. It's very, very difficult to understand properly the connection between us and Adam, and the relationship between Adam and Christ. But Paul seems to think it's important. And therefore, I'm going to urge you to dig deep into the Scripture. John Piper said, "You know with the Scripture, you can either work with a rake or with the shovel. With the rake, you go across the surface, and you get leaves. With a shovel, you dig, and you might get gold." So if you're going to go across Romans Chapter 5:12-21, with the rake, you're going to get very little. You have to think and follow what Paul is saying. Now, Paul has a major point and some minor points. The major point that Paul makes is a comparison between Adam and Jesus Christ. There is some kind of an analogy being drawn here between Adam and Christ. So we're supposed to see something in Adam, and then translate it over to what happened in Christ. Basically, there are three issues that Paul is dealing with here. Number one, the obedience of Christ is parallel to, but vastly superior to the disobedience of Adam. Secondly, the righteousness imputed or credited to the account of those who are in Christ is parallel to but vastly superior to the unrighteousness and condemnation credited to us in Adam. And thirdly, the life which comes to us who are in Christ through that imputed, that gift of righteousness is parallel, but vastly superior to the death that comes to those who are in Adam through credited sin. That's what Paul is saying here. If you're going to understand those three things, you get Romans 5:12-21. II. Questions of Context Let's try to understand this in context. Where are we? Big picture. We're in the Book of Romans. What is the purpose of the Book of Romans? To tell us what the gospel is. Brothers and sisters, there are many false gospels out there. I could give you false gospels, and they will resonate with you, and you will sound... It will sound familiar, pulling yourself up by your boot straps, trying to be the best person you can be, all those kind of thing. That is not Christian faith. The gospel is something entirely different. If you want to understand the gospel, you got to go to the Book of Romans, and understand it. Paul says in Romans 1:16, "I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes." For in the gospel, a righteousness from God comes to all who believe. A righteousness that is from faith to faith. And then from Romans' middle of Chapter 1 up through middle of Chapter 3, he explains why all of us, every single one, Jew and Gentile, every single person who has ever lived needs that gift of righteousness or we will not survive Judgment Day. Everyone of us needs to be declared not guilty as a result of the blood of Jesus Christ. There is no other salvation. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There is no one righteous. No, not one. There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away. They have together become worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one, Romans Chapter 3. But then right in the middle of Chapter 3 comes the gospel. Substitutionary atonement. Jesus Christ stands in our place, and he takes the penalty of our sin. He dies in our place. And through faith in his blood, we can be acquitted. We can be declared not guilty before God on Judgment Day. That is the gospel. And then in Chapter 4, we got the picture of Abraham standing out under the stars, and God makes a promise. Point up at the stars, so shall your offspring be. Abraham believes God. And at the moment he believes, he's declared not guilty. Simple faith. He didn't do anything righteous. This is a God who justifies wicked people, a God who justifies the ungodly simply by faith and a promise. The promise now is the promise of eternal life in Jesus Christ, not the promise that our offspring will be as numerous as the stars, but rather that we will live forever through faith in Jesus Christ. And all you need to do is simply believe that message, and you will be saved. And then as we've seen over the last three or four sermons in Romans 5:1-11, there is that assurance of salvation. If you have been justified by faith, most certainly, you will finish the journey. You will complete the life of faith, and you will go to heaven. There is an assurance. And now as Paul finishes up his whole treatment on justification by faith alone apart from works of the law, we're going to look at Adam and Christ. And what a way to finish. Why does he bring us into the depths that he does, why into the deep waters? Because there's something he wants us to understand about justification. The Parallels and Differences Between Adam and Christ In Chapter 6, 7, and 8, we're going to be talking about sanctification, how you grow in holiness as a disciple of Jesus Christ. But we're going to finish with justification by considering Adam and Christ. So that's where we are in context. Now, if you look at Verse 14 of the section we're going to focus on today, it says Adam is a type or a pattern of him who is to come, Christ. Adam is a pattern of Christ. There's something in Adam that teaches us something about Christ. And then throughout the section that we read verse 12, it says, "Just as sin enter the world through one man." But who is that one man? It's Adam. Verse 15, "The many died by the trespass of the one man." Who is the one man? It's Adam. Verse 16, "The judgment followed one sin…" The sin of Adam and brought condemnation. Verse 17, "For if by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man." We're focusing on this one man, Adam. And so also, we focus on Christ in verse 15, "God's grace, and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many." And then in Verse 17 it says, that we will "reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ." You see the parallel set up here between Adam and Christ. There is some kind of an analogy. And we're comparing the two so that we can learn about our salvation. In summary, in verse 18-19 it says, "Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous." There's the full parallel that we get. But there's also differences between Adam and Christ. And this Scripture also desires, not just to draw a parallel but to show that there's a difference between Adam and Christ, key difference. In verse 15 it says, "The gift is not like the trespass." Again, he says the same thing in the next verse, not like. So there's a similarity, but there's a difference between Adam and Christ. We're going to talk more about that next week. We must come to see just how superior Jesus Christ is. And, yes, sin and death are universal as a result of the solidarity, the oneness of the human race in God's mind that we all died in Adam but the salvation we get in Jesus Christ is so much greater than anything we were cursed with in Adam. The final bottom line of Romans 5:12-21 is what a great savior we have in Jesus Christ and what a great salvation that God has provided for us simply by faith. III. How Sin and Death Entered the World Now the issue here of how sin and death entered the world as I said, is not the major issue. The major issue is that we might understand justification by faith. But how did sin and death enter the world? Look at verse 12, "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came or spread to all men, because all sinned." Now you know the history of Adam and Eve, Garden of Eden. Brothers and sisters, this is not a myth. I don't care how much you read it in Newsweek, it just isn't true. I know that's hard to believe that not everything in Newsweek is true. But it's true that not everything is true in Newsweek. Adam and Eve are not a myth. And you could see now how if Adam's a myth then we must say Christ is a myth because there's a definite connection being drawn here between Adam and Christ. Now you know what happened, God placed Adam in the garden, and he said, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For when you eat of it, you shall surely die." And so from the very beginning, God has married together sin and death. The wages of sin is what? Death. There's no question about it, there's a connection between sin and death right from the beginning. It was re-established in the minds of the Jews over and over, with every sacrifice, every animal sacrifice. The wages of sin is death, the wages of sin is death. We see it over and over. But right from the start, God united together sin and death by telling Adam, "If you eat from that tree, you will die." And so Adam was being tested. Eve joined him later in the accounts, and you know the story. The serpent tempted Eve and she was deceived and she ate, she gave the fruit to her husband and he ate. But sin entered through Adam, very significant. Eve isn't even mentioned in Romans Chapter 5, because Adam was our representative at the tree. He was our head. And it was through him that sin came to the whole human race. Adam had a perfect purity in the world beforehand. There was a satanic rebellion in the spiritual realms. We know that before the fall in Eden, because it was… Satan attempted… And he had already fallen. So he was in rebellion from the beginning, he was a liar and a killer from the beginning. And he was basically, I believe on a recruiting mission at the garden of Eden. He was going to recruit the human race (Satan was), into his rebellion against God, and he was successful in that recruiting. And we have been recruited, and we are born into Satan's kingdom, we are born into the kingdom of darkness and at some point we have to be rescued and transferred into the kingdom of light. But we are born into that kingdom of darkness and the recruiting happened at the very start. And it says in Romans 5:12, "Sin entered the world." It is so important that you understand it, it does not say sins entered the world. Sins are a result of sin. We all have many sins but we're not talking about sins here, we're talking about the principle, the power of sin. And that entered the world. It's like a king, sin reigned in death it says. There's a sovereign power almost of sin that cannot be broken except by Jesus Christ. And so that principle of sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin. Now as we talk about death, what kind of death are we referring to? Scripture refers to three. There is a spiritual death, there is a physical death, and there is an eternal death. Spiritual death happened for Adam the moment he ate, he died spiritually. That means he died to God. He died in his relationship with God. This is referred to in Ephesians 2:1, "But as for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live." You were dead while you lived. Living dead. This is the spiritual death and all of us who are not born again, all of us who have not come to faith in Christ, we are spiritually dead. And that happened to Adam that day, the moment he ate. Physical death happened next, for Adam much later. He died when he was over 900 years old, but it came later. And then eternal death, in hell. Matthew 10:28, Jesus said, "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him." And so you see the three kinds of death that we're subject to as a result of sin. Spiritual death, a broken relationship with God. Physical death, which comes later and we're all of us under that death penalty. And then eternal death, in hell. The very thing that I believe the gospel of Jesus Christ came to save us from. And it says that death spread to all. Now, brothers and sisters, I don't understand this. You've heard of the human genome project? Where they're sifting over all the genes. You think they're going to find a sin gene somewhere? I don't think so. I don't understand this. This is mystery to me, but death spread. Sin and death spread through the whole human race. It says, "In this way, death spread and sin spread." In what way? In the way of Adam's one transgression. In this way, it spread to everybody. This is underscored in the steady drone in Genesis Chapter 5, that genealogy chapter. "Altogether Adam lived 930 years and then he died." Genesis 5:8. "Altogether Seth lived 912 years, and then he died." Genesis 5:11. "Altogether Enosh lived 905 years, and then he died." 5:14, "Altogether Kenan lived 910 years and then he died." And it's been going on, hasn't it, ever since. It goes on around us all the time and every single one of us is subject to this death penalty. If the Lord does not return in our lifetime, everyone sitting in this room today will die someday. Universal death penalty “In Adam” And according to Romans 5, it's because we were united somehow with Adam. That's a teaching of this text. And this death penalty comes to all who are in Adam, but there's a new race, isn't there? A new race of human beings, those who are in Christ. And there's only two of those categories. Everyone is either in Adam or they're in Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:22, it says, "For as in Adam all die, so in Christ will all be made alive." Praise God for that. Praise God that there's a new Adam, a new head to the human race and by faith in him we can be transferred and miss the eternal punishment of death. Now, at the end of Verse 12, look at it. It says, "Therefore just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men…" What does it say? "Because all sinned." You can circle those words. Those are the most important words to interpret properly in the entire section. If you interpret it wrong, you'll get... I believe Christianity wrong. What does it mean that we all sinned in Adam? There's two possibilities. Either we all sinned like Adam sinned or we all sinned somehow through some spiritual union with Adam. In other words that his sin became our sin, one or the other. Now, the first case, we all sinned like Adam, meaning we heard a command from God, we understood the command from God and rebelled against the command of God. Well, that's true but I don't think that's what Paul's talking about here. And if you trace it out, you will understand the gospel wrongly. How is it? Okay, just as through one man sin entered the world and death through sin and this way death came to all men because all committed individual acts of unrighteousness. So also life entered the world through one man and righteousness through him and in this way, righteousness came to everybody who committed the similar acts of righteousness that Jesus commits. In other words, if you do the righteous things Jesus does, you'll get saved. Is that the gospel? That is salvation by works, folks. And it's a burden none of us will be able to bear. We cannot save ourselves by good works, by righteous deeds. So because all sinned, means something else. It means we sinned through union with Adam and so also through union with Christ, we have a righteousness that doesn't belong to us either. You see how it works? That's the gospel. We get our righteousness as alien from us just as we got a condemnation that was alien to us as well. Now, I know that this is what Paul is saying because he interrupts his own thought. And maybe he didn't even notice it. Verse 12, "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned. For before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses." IV. Death’s Reign Universal Because “All Sinned” (verses 13-14) What did he do? Stop and think. Therefore, just as, dot, dot, dot... What are you waiting for? So, also, right? Just as, so also. Well, he finishes it in verses 18 and 19, but he's got all these verses in the middle to explain what he means. And why does he stop? Because he's afraid that you will not understand what it means when he said, "because all sinned." You're going to think it's because I lied, or because I didn't obey my mom and dad, or because I commit this or that sin. That is not what he's saying here. That's the fruit that comes out of the nature, but that's not what he's saying here. So he interrupts himself and he talks about sin from Adam to Moses. What happened from Adam to Moses? Well, sin was in the world, but it's not taking into account when there is no Law. There was no law. Adam and Eve had a specific law in the garden, didn't they? "You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil..." Was there a specific law from God after that, until the Law of Moses? No. And yet, there was sin in the world, wasn't there? In the very next chapter, in Genesis 4. Remember what happens? God spoke to Cain. When Cain was all upset at his brother, you remember that? And he said to Cain, "why are you angry? …If you do right, will you not be accepted?" And then he said, "Now, Cain, I want to give you a warning. "Sin is crouching at your door… You must master it." Did Cain master that sin? No. The sin mastered Cain and he killed his brother. But sin is in the world, just not imputed, it's not taken into account where there is no law. But then he goes even deeper and he says that its true even more over those who had not sinned after the likeness of the offense of Adam. In verse 14, Who is it? Who is it in all human history who did not, or has not, or could not sin in the way that Adam did? Well, obviously Jesus, but he's not in view here. Is there a category of human beings that could not hear, understand a law from God and disobey it? I think so. Infants. Babies, right? They didn't understand. They haven't gotten the law yet. Paul says in Romans 7, "Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the law came, sin sprang to life and I died." So the little ones, they die, don't they? Do you ever feel there's a sense of tragedy there? Here are these innocent babies and they die. In our country, with abortion, they're dying in the womb. They couldn't possibly have heard a law or command of God. And yet they die, they're under that death penalty. And why is it? Beause they're human. They're mortal. The word mortal literally means subject to death. And why? Because they're united with Adam. That is the text. That's what he's saying. Now, that might not be a big issue for us. But let me tell you something. For most of human history, infant mortality has been a horrendously huge factor, hasn't it? Think about it. What are the infant mortality rates in the Third World? Before medicine came in and... You're talking one third, perhaps, of all babies being born, or more. I don't even know what the statistics would be, maybe even more, dying in infancy. And they never once heard a command from God and disobeyed it in the way that Adam did. And yet they were subject to death. And according to this, it's because they're human. They died in Adam. V. Adam a Type of Christ And then the final thing in our verse. It says in verse 14, Adam, who was a pattern or a type of the one to come. This is the main idea. Adam was a type or a pattern of Christ. Now, why does he include this now? It's so that we understand the gospel. All of us, in some deep and profound way, we're united with Adam. When you talk about this with others, they say it's unfair. I don't understand how I could be held accountable for something done thousands of years before I was born. I was talking to one of my kids and the child said, "This isn't fair." Kids are very attuned to what's fair or not. You know what I'm talking about? What is or isn't fair. This doesn't seem fair. So I grant the point, I don't say I understand this, I'm just telling you it's what Romans says. It doesn't seem fair. I said to this individual, I said, "Do you hope to go to heaven someday?" "Oh, yeah." "Do you have a sense of personal sin that you've done wrong things?" "Yeah." "Well, how do you think that God's going to let a sinner like you into heaven?" "Well, because Jesus died for me." "I want to ask you a question. Were you there when they crucified your Lord? Were you there when they laid him on the tree? Were you there?" God is intensely fair, and very consistent. Because the very same thing he did with Adam, he's doing with Christ, isn't he? Very same thing. And just as we got a condemnation and a judgment that wasn't ours, we get a righteousness that's not ours. And it cuts off all boasting, doesn't it? It's just a gift. And you know what else it does? It encourages anyone anytime to repent and trust Christ. Because God justifies ungodly people. He does it all the time. It doesn't matter who you are, even if you've committed a heinous act, you can still be justified through faith in Christ. Because it is not based on your works of righteousness. And that's the burden of what Paul's trying to say here. VI. Astounding Implications Now, what are the implications of this? Well, there's amazing implications. The first, I already hinted at, is that Adam is our original head and our representative. It is Father's Day, and I think it's important for fathers to understand how God has established men in a specific role. It was Eve chronologically who sinned first. Chronologically. But she's not even mentioned here, and nor is she mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15. It is Adam's sin that brought us down. And in the same way, men bear a special burden of responsibility. Sometimes very poorly, but they bear it, and God holds us accountable for what's happening in our families, in our homes, in our society and Church. We also see the solidarity of the human race. Every single human being is one in this way. We're all one in Adam. There's no master race, but all of us fell when Adam sinned. And we're going to talk more about Original Sin and human nature. Why it is that 6 billion people in the face of the earth, as soon as they understand right from wrong, they do wrong without fail. This also says something, I think, in terms of Father's Day. Babies, they don't come into the family innocent and pure like you think. They come into the world needing to be trained and brought to the gospel. And fathers, I just want to challenge you. Will you please evangelize your children? Bring them to faith. Or your grandchildren, because they need the gospel. There's other points and I'm not going to make them now, we're going to talk about them. I think it's very hard for Americans as individuals to accept the solidarity. I think Arabs or other tribal type, they understand this. One can represent the group. We have a hard time with this. We're used to rugged individuals and get your axe and go out and chop down some trees and build a house for yourself. We need to understand exactly what God has said, the justice of God. We've discussed the universal gospel… Understand that this same gospel travels to the ends of the Earth because it is one race, one sin, all of us one in Adam. So there is one savior, one gospel. This is not a tribal deity, Jesus Christ, but it's a God for the entire world. And humility? Does this humble you to recognize that you, there's nothing you can do about being born in Adam? And so our salvation comes as a free gift through Jesus Christ, let it humble you. And as we go now into a time of celebrating the Lord's Supper, praise the Lord and give thanks for such a great salvation. Realize the security of justification by faith in Christ alone. You didn't do any acts of righteousness coming to Christ, you just simply trusted him. And as you look around the room and there's other brothers and sisters in Christ celebrating the Lord's Supper, realize that this is our unity now. We're in Christ, every last one of us and as we partake of the bread and the blood symbolically, it represents an incredibly unity. One body through faith in Jesus Christ. Please close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for the time that we've had to begin to look at this. I thank you that God willing, that you will give us more time to understand this. But Father I thank you, for the depths of the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable his judgments and his paths beyond tracing out. Father, we do thank you for your goodness and I pray that now as we celebrate the Lord's Supper, that you would be with us. Help us to understand your word and to understand the gospel and more than anything to give thanks for this great salvation represented through the body and the blood of Jesus Christ. We pray it in his name. Amen.

I. Review: Making the Case for the Gospel Please open your scriptures this morning to Romans Chapter 3. We'll be looking at verses 9-18. Paul is completing his work of laying out before every single person on the face of the earth, their need for grace in Christ. And if I were to lead any searcher, anybody who's thinking about Christianity that's struggling with the issue of whether they are sinful or whether they really need this grace, or lead them anywhere would be at the verses we're going to look at today. It couldn't be clearer. Now last week's verses are among the most complicated and difficult to follow. There is nothing complicated and difficult to follow in these verses. It is plain what God is saying to us in Romans 3:9-18, that every single last one of us is a sinner and need of God's grace. Now as we look at these verses, I'm mindful of the responsibility that I have as a minister of the Gospel to avoid ministerial malpractice. Now we live in a city of medicine, and many of you are even involved in that and you know the danger of malpractice. Malpractice occurs when a physician fails to give the treatment that he or she knows is needed, or through negligence, or through a variety of things that the patient dies or is not healed when they could have been. And as I think about these passages and this Scripture in particular, I think about the incredible temptation to sugarcoat the truth. Kind of make it palatable, make it comfortable, make it easy to read. But in order to do that, I have to rewrite the verses I'm going to preach on today, because there's nothing comfortable about this doctrine. There's nothing comfortable about total depravity. But I'm mindful of the fact that someday, I'm going to have to present this sermon to Jesus Christ. I'm going to have to give it to Him and say, "Was I faithful to these verses?" And furthermore, I believe that all scripture is useful for our healing, for our transformation, and perhaps none more than this because it tells us the truth. Now imagine if you would, a doctor who was tired, it's the end of the day, it was Friday, maybe looking forward to a long weekend. And he have one more case and he got the report on that case and looked through it and there was no question about it. The report on the woman he was about to see was dire. The report came back and she had cancer, and she was going to need the most extensive chemotherapy, the full treatment. He also knew that this woman tended to be emotional, tended to shriek and scream and get upset at things. He just happened to know this about her, and she was sitting out there in his room waiting for him. And he said, "Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Why do I have to bring this message?" So he goes in there and he says in his heart, he says, "I'm just not going to do it. I'm just not going to do it. I've seen this scene too many times. It's been played too many times. I'm not going to do it." And so he comes in there and she says, "Doctor, tell me. What's the matter with me? Why have I been in such pain? Why am I feeling the way I'm feeling? Why am I lacking energy? What's going on?" And he says, "The problem is you're not getting enough vitamins in your diet. You're basically healthy, but you need some more vitamins in your diet. You need some more variety, some more green vegetables, some more exercise. Give it six months, it's going to take a while, but give it six months and you'll be fine. Come back and see me in six months." What would you think of a doctor like that? Well, I know what a malpractice board would think about a doctor like that. The person didn't tell the truth. Now, let's look at it spiritually. Did Jesus ever do that? Did He ever look at you and say, "You're basically all right. You just need a few life adjustments and then you'll be fine." Did the Apostle Paul do that? I don't think so. But there is a category of minister that will do that. Jeremiah described it in Jeremiah 6:13-14. This is what he said, "Prophets and priests alike all practice deceit. They dress the wound of my people lightly." They dress the wound of my people lightly. That means they put a bandaid on cancer. And putting a bandaid on cancer does nothing. Actually hastens death because then the person doesn't seek the treatment they really need. "They dress the wound of my people lightly. Peace, peace they say when there is no peace." But there is peace, brothers and sisters. There is peace. The peace is available through faith in Jesus Christ, but it's not available unless you believe the message that I'm about to preach, namely that you need it, that you need it. Listen to these words from the apostle Paul, "What should we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all, for we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. As it is written, there is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God, that all have turned away. They have together become worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves, their tongues practice deceit, the poison of vipers is on their lips, their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood. Ruin and misery mark their ways and the way of peace, they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes." II. The Universality of Sin: Paul Completes His Case Paul concludes his case with a couple of questions. What shall we conclude then as we've been through Romans 1 and Romans 2 and now we're in Romans 3, what should we conclude then? What have we found? And then he ask another question. Are we any better? Now, who's the "we" he's talking about here? We Jews, perhaps? Paul's a Jew. Maybe he's thinking about himself as a Jew. We Christians, is he saying that? Are we Christians any better? We apostles? I don't really know, but I know this. We includes Paul. And Paul knows what he's about to say. Don't you hate a self-righteous preacher who's not under his own message? But Paul saw that he was under his own message, "I'm a sinner like I'm about to describe to you. This is me. It's true of me too." I don't really need to decide who the "we" is, because the answer already is no. Regardless of who the "we" is, the answer is no. We are not any better. There's no "we" that's any better. There's no grouping of people whether national, or racial, or linguistic, or religious that's any better. There is no "we" that's any better. If better means not needing the grace of God available through Jesus Christ. There is no "we" like that. We are not any better. We have already made the charge Paul says, that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. Now, what is this charge that he's making? There's a judicial word that he brings out here. It's a charge as in a court of law. You get the same picture in Matthew 27:37, crucifixion scene, and it says, "Above Jesus' head they placed a written charge against him." And this was the common manner in crucifixion. They would write the charge out and put it over their head so the passers by could see why this man was on the cross. Now, what could they put for Jesus other than this man, this is the King of the Jews? Beause he had done no sin, committed no evil, nor was any deceit found in his mouth. But what charge is Paul putting over our head? "Under sin" he says. It's over us. Every single one of us. We're all alike, all under sin, Jews and gentiles alike. Now what is under sin mean? It gives a sense of bondage, doesn't it? A sense of compulsion. Now, I tell you this, I have never met anyone who didn't mind admitting that they sinned from time to time. Everybody will say that, quickly followed by such phrases as, "Well, we're all sinful. We're only human," this kind of thing. "We're only human." These are the minimizing statements that we bring in. "Everybody sins. Nobody's perfect," this kind of thing. So everybody will admit that they commit sin, but nobody wants to admit that they're under sin. That's a different matter. It's a matter of slavery, a matter of bondage and compulsion. We will say, "We have free will, and can stop anytime we choose." Stop then. Stop. Stop sinning. Can you do it? Do you have free will in this matter of sin? Any of you who have been living long enough to know that you need to drop your stones when Jesus said, "He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone," was the oldest people that dropped the sin first, you know, you can't stop, because you don't have free will in this matter. Turns out that your will is a slave to your nature. Your will is a slave to who you are. It's lackey that just acts out who you are in your heart and your character. And this is a kind of offensive message that Jesus preached to the Jews you remember, when Jesus talked about slavery to the Jews, and they said in John 8, "We've never been slaves to anyone," they said, do you remember? And do you remember what Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin, but if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed." Who wants to be free indeed here? I want to be free indeed. I want the Son to make me free indeed, truly free from sin. And in order for that to happen, I need to hear this message fully. I need to hear how bad it is or else I will not be free indeed. I'll be lying to myself. I'll be dealing with the problem slightly or lightly. Everyone who sins is a slave to sin. So if the Son sets you free, you'll be free indeed. So set us free Lord Jesus. III. Human Character Apart From Grace: Scripture Diagnoses the Sinful Heart And you know what his instrumentality is? It's scripture. Look at the very next thing that Paul says, "As it is written." You can just underline that in your Bible. As it is written. As you get close to scripture, you start to see yourself properly. You need to get close to the word of God. The further you drift away from the Bible, the more you feel that you're basically a good person. The further you get away from the words of the Scripture, the more that you feel that, "I'm alright. You know what? Yeah, occasionally, I do things, but I'm not that bad." But when you get into the Scripture, it tells you the truth. It's not going to do malpractice, son. It's going to tell you the truth. As it is written. In this way James in Chapter 1 of James likens the law to a mirror. As we look into the perfect law that gives freedom, we see a good reflection of ourselves. It's accurate. It looks like what we really look like. And we need to be told the truth. There was a Scottish man a little while ago walking through a park in Scotland. He was carrying his Bible in a leather carrying case. And that was the days when those Instamatic cameras and the Polaroid cameras were popular where you can get a picture out immediately, and it turned out that his Bible looked like one of those carrying cases for those cameras and some of the boys came up, they were playing and they said, "Take a picture of us, take a picture." So they stood next to one another like they were posing for a portrait, while all he had with him was a Bible. So being creative, and being like spirit filled man of God, he opened up his Bible to Romans 3:9-18 and said, "I already have your picture, it's right here." And he read Romans 3:9-18, and he used it as an opportunity to preach the Gospel. This is a portrait of us. It's a portrait of you and me. It's not pretty though, is it? All I can tell you is that this is where you start with the Gospel of God's graces, it's not where you finish. This is the beginning point, and it isn't pretty, it's ugly. Here the Apostle Paul cites five Psalms and one reading from Isaiah. Five Psalms and one reading from Isaiah. Now, all of it put together gives a clear picture of humanity and no one escapes the string of verses. Psalm 14:1-3 says, "There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away they've together become worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one." That's Psalm 14:1-3. Psalm 5:9 testifies this way, "They're throats are open graves, their tongues practice deceit." And then Paul reaches out for Psalm 140:3, "The poison of vipers is on their lips." And then he pulls in Psalm 10:7, "Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." And then he reaches for a word from Isaiah 59:7-8, "They're feet are swift to shed blood, ruin in mystery, mark their ways in the way of peace, they do not know." And then to conclude, he pulls in Psalm 36:1, "There is no fear of God before their eyes." So it's the montage of Scriptures that he's putting together here. And he puts together a united portrait of humanity but it also gives us a problem. There's an interpreters problem in here. And maybe you didn't see it, what you have to do is go back and read these verses in context in the old testament. And as you do you begin to notice something that Paul left out and it could get to troubling you. Let's take Psalm 14 for example. Psalm 14:1 it says, "There is no one righteous, not even one." But then, later on it says in versea 4-5, "Will evil doers never learn? Those who devour my people as men eat bread. God is present in the company of the righteous." And you left that out, Paul. It seems Paul you're just lifting verses out of context and you're neglecting things that don't prove your point. Anybody can do that. Prove texting, put something together the way you want. You're trying to prove Paul that everyone is unrighteous. Well, I disagree. Right here in verse 5 of Psalm 14 that talks about God present in the company of the righteous. And there's all kinds of Psalms and Proverbs like that. There's the righteous and the wicked, the righteous and the wicked, all over the place in the old testament. Job was a righteous man. So what it this, "There is no one righteous, not even one"? There's a problem here. What is the solution? Well first of all, let's understand who we're talking about. Did the apostle Paul not know his Scripture? Did he not know Psalm 14? Of course, he did. Of course he knew that there was the righteous and the wicked. The question then comes where do the righteous come from? How did they get to be righteous? And he already answered that back in Romans 1:16-17, "I'm not ashamed of the Gospel, because in the Gospel there's the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, first for the Jew then for the Gentile. For in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. A righteousness that is from faith to faith, just as it is written. The righteous will live by faith." So we could ask Paul, "Well, Paul, you've got a righteous person in your writing here. There's a righteous person who's living by faith." He's aware of the righteous and the wicked. But what he would say is they didn't start that way. They didn't start righteous, they started wicked. Well, he gets to it in Romans four Verse Three. In Romans 4:3 it says, "Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness." It was a gift. Abraham, this righteous Jew needed a gift of righteousness or he wouldn't be righteous. It was credited to him as a gift. And then even better. These five Psalms, who wrote them? All five Psalms, they all come from the same author, who is it? It's David. David wrote them. Now David, are you righteous? Are you righteous, David? Well, depends what you mean. It depends what you mean. For Psalm 32 says this, "Blessed is the man who's transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him, and in whose spirit is no deceit." David's talking about a blessedness that comes as a gift. The forgiveness of sins. And it comes to the man and to the woman in whose spirit is no trickery, no deceit. Well, what are you going to deceive yourself about? That you don't need this grace, that you don't need this forgiveness, that you don't need the gift of righteousness. And then at the end of Psalm 32 he says, "Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous. Sing all you who are upright in hearts." See, he's got the righteous right there in Psalm 32. They didn't start that way though, did they? The beginning of the Psalm, they're looking for forgiveness from sin. By the end of the Psalm, they're righteous. Is there a contradiction here? Not at all. Not all. 'Cause there is a righteousness available. It's just not available naturally. You're not going to find it by looking within. The answer isn't there, it comes as a gift. Problem resolved. Because David said in Psalm 5:7, "But I, by your great mercy will come into your house." Is that precious to you? "But I, by your great mercy will come into your house." There is a righteousness available, and an invitation right into the very presence of God, right into His house, but it's only by His mercy, His great mercy. And who is it that needs great mercy? Great sinners. Sinners like here in verses 9-18. Also notice the centrality of God in all this. When people say, "I'm basically a good person." You know what they mean by that? They tend to look at it this way. "Well, I give money to charity. I help people, I speak kindly to people. I treat people well, I look after my mother. I deal with people well, I speak to my neighbor when I go and get the mail. I'm not one of those people that's gruff and walks away from them. And I'm certainly not like those people you read about in the newspaper that do those awful things. I've never done any of those awful things." Do you notice what's happening in that whole discussion? It's all horizontal. It's all human to human, human to human, human to human. Even if it were all true it's still all horizontal and it isn't all true, by the way. But it's all horizontal, what about God? Where does He fit into that? He's at the beginning and the end here. Right at the start, it says, "There's no one righteous, not even one, there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God." That's what it means to be righteous, that's what it means to understand. It means to seek God, to want Him above all things. That's the start of the list. What about the finish? There is no fear of God before their eyes. The real problem with sin is that it ruptures your relationship with God. Its the vertical that's in view here, and then the horizontal. Not to say the horizontal isn't important, but it's the vertical that's in view and that's what sin ruptures beyond repair. If God doesn't fix it, it can't be fixed. The Doctrine of Total Depravity We are not basically a good person. We do not love God with all of our heart and our soul, and our mind, and our strength. And that is called in theological language, total depravity. Total depravity. Now it's not a pretty term but it's not a pretty thing. We shouldn't have pretty terms for ugly things. Total depravity describes accurately the natural human heart. Now the word "total" means every person in every area, that's what the word "total" means. "Depravity" means wicked, wickedness, twisted-ness, perversion. Total depravity. Every person in every area. Not in every single action, that's not what I'm saying, but I'm saying there's no bastion in you. There's no part of you that's free from sin. Are your emotions free from sin? Are they pure and pristine? Or do they have a twist to them? How about your mind? Maybe your mind is a citadel of purity and uprightness, is it true? How about your heart, your will? Is there any part of you not touch by sin? Total is its touch. Depravity of Character And what about every person? Well verse 10 it says, "No not one." Verse 12 it says "No not one." Does anyone escape? No. Paul includes himself. Remember he say, "We've already made the charge that we alike are all under sin. We are not any better. Everybody's under it." What kind of depravity is he discussing here? Well, depravity of character, depravity of conversation, depravity of conduct. That's pretty total, isn't it? It covers everything. Lets start with the character, depravity of character he says "There is no one righteous. No, not one." What that mean is on Judgement Day, you will not have the very thing that God will ask you for, namely righteousness. You will have none to give. Its not available. You will not find it in yourself. If it doesn't come from another source you will not have it. There's is no one righteous, no, not one. Now realize that God's righteousness is the foundation of his throne. It is the scepter of his kingdom and he will not allow you into heaven without it. And he's saying, "You don't have it, it doesn't belong to you." Depravity of Mind And then there's the depravity of mind, depraved minds, it says, "There is no one who understands." Understands what? Understands God. Naturally no one understands God. Paul put it this way in 1 Corinthians, chapter 1, he says, "Since through the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not know God. God was pleased through the foolishness of preaching to save him who had believe." What that says is you can't search out God by technological means, by philosophy, by thinking, you won't find Him because you don't understand and you never will unless God gives you the understanding. All our technological knowledge will avail us nothing at all on the great day because we haven't understood God. And that's so tragic isn't it? God sent his son Jesus Christ, and Jesus at the end of his life, he prayed the night before he was crucified and this is what came from his heart. It was a cry and he said in John 17:25, "Righteous Father, the world has not known you." The world doesn't know you God. And to God the son that's a tragedy. All that horizontal stuff is thrown out the window because we don't know God, we don't understand Him, we don't know who He is. Depraved minds. Depravity of Desire Depraved desires. It says, "No one who seeks God." What do you seek? It's the thing you want. What do you really want? Write it down. What do you really want in life? Is God on the list? If God's on the list you're already a child of grace. Because no one seeks God naturally. If you want God today you're already been moved on by grace. It's already happening in you. Because naturally you don't want God. You don't want anything to do with God. No one seeks God. Do you understand how important this is, theologically? Do you understand how important this statement is, "No one seeks God naturally." Well I'll show you, Jeremiah 29:13 says, "You will seek me and find me, when you look for me with all your heart." But Jeremiah, no one's looking. No one's looking, okay? Isaiah 55:6 what a great chapter, "Seek the Lord while He may be found." But Isaiah, no one is seeking. They're not looking. No one. No, not one. It's very important. But what are they seeking? They're seeking something else. It isn't God that they're seeking. Philippians 3:19 says, "Their God is their stomach and their glory is in their shame." What does it mean that, "Your God is your stomach"? It means your earthly appetites, you're seeking something here on Earth. That's what you're seeking, something Earth bound, or you're seeking an idol. Some false construction of your own imagination, that's what you're seeking. But it isn't God. Depraved desire is also depraved response to God. When God confronts you through his prophet through His word, when God confronts you, you turn away. Verse 12: "All have turned away." All have turned away. The word is usually used of an army which comes and is confronted with a greater army and turns in terror and runs from the field. It means, to avoid at all cost, like you would if you were walking along and saw a viper on the road, you would turn and avoid it at all cost. That's what the word means in the Greek. And what it means, if we do that with God, when we're confronted with God, we avoid at all costs. We don't want to hear. We don't want to know. We avoid God at all cost. That's our natural habitat. And because of that, we have depraved value. They have together become worthless. Worthless. Now, misery loves company. They do it together. They do it all together and together they become worthless. What is worthless mean? That kinda hurts a little bit. I've always thought of myself as worth a lot. Well, I know that we're worth a lot. We're created in an image of God. God sent His son to die on the cross for us. The precious blood of Christ is what redeemed us. But this verse still says worthless. We need to understand what that means. There's a picture in Jeremiah's ministry. God commanded Jeremiah, "Go buy a brand new linen belt, a clean white linen belt. And I want you to take that belt and use it to hold your tunic in, use it for awhile." And then, after he'd used it for awhile, he commanded him to take off the linen belt and go down by the river and dig a hole near the river in the mud and put the linen belt down there and cover it up and leave it there for awhile. Now, when I was getting ready to preach, I prepared my sermons in advance so that I can do these kinds of things. I was thinking of doing it with a necktie and wearing the necktie today. What would it look like, a necktie dug in the ground and filled in with dirt for four or five weeks? Well, that's about what the linen belt look like when Jeremiah was commanded to dig it up. And this is what God says about that linen belt. These wicked people who refused to listen to my words, who follow the stubbornness of their hearts and go after other Gods to serve, and worship them will be like this belt, completely useless. What are you going to use a belt like that for? Falling apart, rotten and muddy. That's what I think of when I think of this word worthless. Now remember we don't stay there but this is where we start. Depravity of Deeds God created us for a purpose and everyday we turn away from that purpose. Depraved action is also. Verse 12: "There is no one who does good, not even one." Now wait a minute, Paul. I do good things all the time. I do them all the time. You reach in your pocket and you bring out your bobbles with your muddy hands and you say, "See. Look, here's all my good things. Hold on to them for judgement day and produce them then. Use them for your sin to explain yourself to God." Will he accept them? Will they be valuable and precious to him on that day? There is no one who does good. No, not one." It's a shocking assessment to people who help old ladies across the street and give to UNICEF and other things. It's a shocking assessment. There's no one who does good, not even one. There was a time in Jesus' ministry when someone came up to him and said, "Good teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?" That's the double good question. Good teacher and good thing. Okay. "Good teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?" Jesus picked up on the word "good". He said, "Why do you ask me about what is good?" Or, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone." Did you hear what Jesus just said? "No one is good but God alone." Well, no one is good but God alone and me. I'm basically a good person. No, Jesus didn't say that. He said, "No one is good but God alone." Jesus said, "I didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." "It's not the healthy who need the doctor but the sick. I'm the physician of the soul. If you need a physician, come to me. But if you're healthy, don't bother, don't come. You don't need me." No one is good but God alone. Depraved actions come from a depraved heart. "Make a tree good," said Jesus, "And its fruit will be good. Make a tree bad, and its fruit will be bad. For a tree is known by its fruit." Depraved character. Depravity of Speech In verse 12-14, he talks about depraved conversation. "Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues, they keep on deceiving." There's a continual deceiving here. "The poison of vipers is under their lips and their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." Do you see the death in this verse? Death, death, death. Graves, deceit, poison, cursing, death when you open your mouth and speak. Now what does it mean when it says, their throat is an open grave. Well, what would it be like in Palestine if you buried Lazarus and came back four days later but you never did close up the tomb. Just been open the whole time. What a stench would come. "Their throat is an open grave." says Paul. What comes out of there, it isn't good. And deceit and poison is under their lips is the literal translation. The poison of viper is under the lips. What this is talking about is that secret damage that the lips do, gossip, slander, character assassination, the secret things. And then the picture is of a vile serpent. Can you tame a serpent? There's a story recently of a boy who saw a baby rattle snake just coming out of an egg and he figured he'd take it home for a pet. Now of course the full grown rattle snake you don't want to mess with. But maybe if you take it home just out of the egg and treat it real nice, feed it well, care for it, it can be a good pet. And so, he did and he cared for it, and took care of it and I don't know what he did. I don't want to know what he did with that snake. But I know this, at one point he came to the cage and it had escaped. By this point, it was much larger, and he looked around for it, and he heard the faint rattling and it was behind the couch and he reached down to get it. What do you think happened when he reached down to get it? Well, it bit him. Oh, I know what it was, it didn't recognize that it was his hand. If it had only known it was the hand of the one who had cared for it all that time. You can't tame a snake. You can't change its basic nature. James 3:8, "No man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil full of deadly poison." That's the tongue. Would you like to have a transcript of everything you've said in the last month? Just to sit and read it. Just look at the things you've said. Bring out a highlighter and highlight the things that glorified God and those things that didn't tend toward God's glory. It's hard to tame the tongue, isn't it? So there's that deceit, the poison under the lips. And then, there's cursing and bitterness, which is the open attack, the verbal barrage, open hatred, the full guns blazing. So you've got the secret approach, gossip and slander then you've got the open attack. And knowing we all do this, it's so tragic because that's not what the tongue is for. The tongue is for praising God. And instead, we curse. And therefore, the tongue becomes a major source of our judgment. Jesus says, "I tell you that man will have to give an account on judgment day for every careless word that they have spoken. For by your words, you will be acquitted and by your words, you will be condemned." The tongue. Depravity of conversation, Depravity of Conduct Finally, depravity of conduct, verse 15-17. "Their feet are swift to shed blood. Ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace, they do not know." Now, feet traveling on a path relates to lifestyle. It's your everyday life, how you carry yourself, your conduct, the journey you travel. What are your feet doing? Christianity, early on, was called the way. Probably after Jesus saying, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life," etcetera. And so, there's a journey marked before. But what journey are you traveling naturally? Where are you heading? And it says here, "The feet are eager and zealous to kill." "Oh now, here I've got you, Paul. I've never killed anybody. I've never killed anybody." Now I have two answers to that. First of all, why haven't you killed anybody? Is it because you never wanted to? And if you did want to, what stopped you? Well, there's this little thing called the law and police, and electric chairs, prison, those kinds of things. Why is it when all those things are removed in a time of anarchy, murder goes right up? It's because people finally have a chance to do the thing they wanted to do all along. They say, "I'm not like that." Okay, well Jesus dealt with that in the sermon on the mount. What is the root of murder? Anger. And he says that anger itself is enough to condemn someone. Feet are swift to shed blood. And then it says, "Ruin and misery mark their ways." The word "ruin" means shattering. If you can imagine a beautiful piece of pottery like a Chinese vase. Okay, it's not a vase, it's a vase, very valuable. And you take that and you throw it down on a marble floor. Shattered. That's what this word means. They're ruin and misery, shattering and misery is characteristic of their way. It's a shattered life. Do you see what sin does to a life? What does sin do to a life? It shatters it. Sin is your biggest enemy. It shatters your life. And it says, "Misery marks the way." Ask somebody who's strung out on dope, "Are you happy? Do you enjoy your life?" "No, my life is miserable. It hurts. And I'd give anything to come out of it." Ruin and misery marks their ways. And the way of peace, they do not know. Peace is totally foreign to them. "The wicked," says Isaiah in Isaiah 57, "are like tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast out mire and mud. There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked." They don't know how to have peace with themselves. They don't know how to have peace with their neighbors and they certainly don't know how to have peace with God. And the root of the whole thing, there is no fear of God before their eyes, verse 18. No fear of consequences, no judgment day. They don't think about it. That's a picture of total depravity. Depravity in character, depravity in conversation, depravity in conduct, total. And it's true of everyone. There is no one righteous, no, not one. We're all under the same thing. Paul was under it. He said, "We, all of us alike are all under sin." IV. The Staggering Implications Of This Doctrine Well, what are the implications of this doctrine? Well, they're staggering. Absolutely staggering. First of all, there is no such thing as native righteousness. There's nothing inside you to present on judgment day. It's not there. You will look in vain for it. You must forsake looking because you will not find it. You need a righteousness that comes from another place. You need the righteousness, which God bought through the blood of Jesus Christ. You need to put it on and stand in it on judgment day. You need to stop looking for your own righteousness and realize that if you want it, if you're hungry for it, if you're thirsty for that righteousness, even that's not coming from yourself. The wanting wasn't there either, was it? There is no one who seeks God. So if you want it, if you're yearning for it, if you're hungry for the righteousness, which only God can give, guess what? Grace is already at work in you. No one suddenly decides to follow Jesus. They had years to do that and they never did it. Jesus said this in John 6:44, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, draws him," and he will come. That also means that every Godward impulse in us, every Godward impulse has come from grace. Any word which is pleasing to God, any action which is pleasing to God, anything at all that comes that is pleasing to God came from his grace. Another implication, "Where then is boasting?" It is out the door. It's gone forever. We don't boast in anything we do. But instead we say with the apostle Paul with joy in our hearts we say, "By the grace of God I am what I am." Can you say that? "By the grace of God I am what I am. By the grace of God I love His word. By the grace of God I love to pray. By the grace of God I want to go to heaven and see him forever and ever. By the grace of God and by the grace of God alone I will be saved. There's no other solution there's no other salvation." Read these verses for yourself. When you're saved, when you're saved by grace and someone else isn't and you're looking over that person, and you're looking at yourself, and you're trying to decide what's the difference. Was it anything in you that made you different than that other person? Anything at all? Is there any difference? There is no difference. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Now I want to do something that's not in this passage. I've been waiting for this moment this entire sermon. I'd like you to take your pen if you would and on the back of my sermon outline I have each of these phrases here. And what I'm going to do to finish up today is I'm going to give you a Bible verse, a Bible verse which reverses each of these statements and shows that each one of them is reverse by the Gospel of Grace in the life of a Christian. Everyone of them. V. The Great Reversal of the Gospel So we have total depravity but we also have total salvation from the depravity. The first one says, "There is no one righteous. No, not one." What shall we put under that? Write "Romans 3:21" or you could write "Romans 1:17." Romans 3:21. "But now, a righteousness from God apart from law has been made known. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe." Romans 3:21. Alright, how about this one? "There is no one who understands." Romans 15:21 says, Romans 15:21, "Those who were not told about 'em will see and those who have not heard will understand." You could also write Luke 24:45. "Then he opened their minds so that they could understand the scriptures." Isn't that great? Alright, how about this one, "There is no one who seeks God." What did Jesus say? Mathew 5:6, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be satisfied." Where does the hunger come from? Where does the thirst come from? God puts it there. For also Hebrews 11:6. Hebrews 11:6, "Without faith it is impossible to please God because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him." Where does that come? It comes by faith. Alright, all have turned away. Turning away from God is a mark of rebellion right? Jews and Gentiles alike have turned away from God. Well, here's the Jew verse, 2 Corinthians 3:16, "But whenever anyone turns to the Lord the veil is removed." So there's the Jewish people turning to Jesus Christ. Alright we need a Gentile verse. 1 Thessalonians 1:9, "They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God." You've got the Jewish verse and the Gentile verse, both have turned to God. Alright, how about this? "They have together become worthless." That word that stung so much. Alright. Now Revelation 3:4, Revelation 3:4, "They will walk with me dressed in white for they are worthy." They are worthy. Who? People who believe in Jesus. "There is no one who does good. Not even one?" Ephesians 2:10, "we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus…" to do what? Good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. "Their throats are open graves, their tongues practice deceit, the poison of vipers is on their lips, their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." Take them all together and write over it Proverbs 10:11. "The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life." Isn't that great? We've got death over here, now the mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life. "Their feet are swift to shed blood." Bloody feet. Won't you rather have beautiful feet? Romans 10:15, "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news." Those are gospel proclaimers. All of a sudden instead of going to kill you're going to bring eternal life. Shattering in misery mark their ways. The brokenness of sin, what does Jesus say? Luke 4:18, "The Lord has sent me to bind up the broken hearted." Can Jesus do that? Can he take all those broken pieces and put them back together? The Lord has sent me to do it. I can bind up the broken hearted. Luke 4:18. "The way of peace they do not know." They don't know the way. They don't know the way. John 14:4, "You know the way, to where I'm going." John 14:6, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." you do know the way and his name is Jesus Christ. And then finally, "There is no fear of God before their eyes." 2 Corinthians 7:1. It says that Christians are perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Do you see the total reversal of our total depravity? All of it available through faith in Jesus Christ. Let's close in prayer.

I. Brief Review We're going to continue our series Boldness and Faithfulness in the Gospel. Last week I set before you the image of the acorn. I'm sure you remember that. Maybe some of you have driven over some acorns that popped under your tires this morning and got you to thinking about multiplication discipleship ministry. Who knows? But I think this is what we're all about. This is what God has called us to, to make disciples for Jesus Christ. And I believe that 2 Timothy 2 is probably the greatest chapter in all scripture for giving practical guidelines as to how this is to be done. That verse that I refer to is in verse 2 about multiplication ministry. And then we saw last week that Paul used six metaphors, six illustrations to help the man of God, Timothy, to understand what this ministry was to be and what kind of man could carry it out. Remember we saw the good soldier of Christ Jesus and we saw the disciplined athlete running after a prize? We also saw the hardworking farmer, all of these combined to show total dedication for the purpose of a goal. Now the goal was to make disciples for Jesus Christ, multiplication ministry. In the second half of the chapter, we're going to see three more illustrations, three more metaphors. We're going to see an approved craftsman who properly handles scripture. We're going to see a clean vessel who properly handles temptation. And we're going to see the Lord's servant who properly handles opposition. As we understand these three aspects of ministry and as we put them into practice, we're going to see disciples multiplied here. We're going to see them grow up in their faith. We're going to see them go out and lead others to Christ. So attend carefully the verses 14-26 as we see what I think is a master craftsman finishing the training of a young apprentice Timothy. Starting at Verse 14: "Keep reminding them of these things. Warn them before God against quarreling about words. It is of no value and only ruins those who listen. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. Avoid godless chatter because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly. Their teaching will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus who have wandered away from the truth. They say that the resurrection has already taken place and they destroy the faith of some. Nevertheless, God's solid foundation stands firm sealed with this inscription: The Lord knows those who are his. And everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness. In a large house, there are articles not only of gold and silver but also of wood and clay. Some are for noble purposes and some for common use. If a man cleanses himself from the latter, he'll be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the master and prepared to do any good work. Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments because you know they produce quarrels and the Lord's servant must not quarrel. Instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him, he must gently instruct in the hope that God will grant them repentance, leading them to a knowledge of the truth and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the Devil who has taken them captive to do his will." II. An Approved Craftsman: Properly Handling Scripture (vs. 14-18) Now I bet you're wondering how in the world I can get through all that truth in about half an hour. I'm not really sure I can. I can't exhaust scripture. It's impossible. But I do want to draw out these three images that Paul uses beginning with the approved craftsman in verses 14-18. And in Verse 15 we see, I think, a key charge to the whole ministry. It all begins, is carried out, and ends with a proper handling of scripture, all of it. And it really goes to the reason that scripture was given. Why was scripture given to us? Well, I'm going to get to it in a couple of weeks. In 2 Timothy 3, it shows the purpose of scripture. In 2 Timothy 3:15, it says scripture is given to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. It's the scripture that leads you to faith in Christ. But it's not it. The scripture says also that all scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. Do you see win, build and send right in there? The scripture wins people to Christ. It trains them up from infancy in their spiritual nurture up to full maturity, and the scripture sends them out in a life of a pattern of good works to build the church. All of it begins and ends with scripture. Therefore, if Timothy is going to have a fruitful multiplication ministry, he has to handle scripture properly. And so Verse 15, "Do your best," says Paul, "to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman, a craftsman who doesn't need to be ashamed but who correctly handles the word of truth." Word of truth is the scripture, the scripture. The image that pops in my mind here is of a medieval trade guild. Back in the Middle Ages, if somebody wanted to learn a trade, they would present themselves to a craftsman, a master in the trade. Maybe they wanted to learn how to make furniture. So they'd go to the master furniture builder and they'd say, "Will you train me? I'll be an apprentice under you." And the person would live with this master and they'd live together, they'd work together, and there'd be an imparting of wisdom and knowledge in the trade. As the time went on, he would become what was known as a journeyman, and he'd go around in the vicinity and sell some of his tools, his furniture. But when he was ready and his training was complete, he would present to the guild, which is like a union, a group of skilled craftsmen what was known as a masterpiece. That was his test. And if he passed the test, if it was good quality workmanship, then he could become a member of the guild. Paul's saying to do the same thing with scripture. Handle it properly. Deal with it skillfully. There's an awful lot of bad teaching of scripture out there, isn't there? Some of you have heard it. It's scattershot. It's not true to the text, and it does nothing to build the church. A friend of mine, a pastor in Washington DC, calls it "spiritual junk food." That's not what builds the church. It's the word of God properly handled that builds the church. And so he challenges Timothy. He says, "Be skilled. Do your best." The image is of hard work, there's no shortcut. There's no shortcut to learning the scripture properly and thoroughly. You just have to read it and absorb it and meditate on it, memorize it. "Train yourself in it Timothy so that you can deal with it properly." Paul uses a fascinating word here when it says in the NIV, "Correctly handles the word of truth." I love the original language in the Greek. It's cutting it straight, cutting it accurately. Perhaps some of you women have made garments. You have sewed dresses or supplies. Suppose you follow a pattern and decide to cut way off to the side and then come back to the line? What's going to happen when you try to join those pieces together? It looks terrible. The seam is off. I know because I made a quilt with my wife in Japan. She instructed me how to do it and we worked it, but some of the hardest thing we did was cutting that fabric straight over a long line. And if we veered or something, we couldn't use that piece of fabric. This is the way it is with the word of God. Now perhaps some of you know that Paul himself was a tentmaker, and I think he's taking from some of his own experience about cutting perhaps early in his apprenticeship as a tentmaker, he cut it crooked. They said, "No, you've got to cut the word of God straight to make it fit together accurately." "Handle the word of God properly." Now the picture I get here is it says, "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved." The idea is that, "you're going to do all this work, Timothy. Your work with the scripture is going to be done in the presence of God." And so in Verse 14, he says, keep reminding them of these things, "Warn them," what does he say? "Warn them before God against quarreling over words." It's part of your job, Timothy, to do your work in front of God and to bring the people of God right up into the presence of God. That's part of your job. It's up to you, Timothy, to remind the people that some day, very soon, each one of them is going to stand before God and give an account for their whole lives. That's your job, Timothy. Warn them and prepare them. Get them ready and do your work, your handling of scripture before God. Turn over to chapter four verse one. In 4:1, the beginning of the final chapter, what does he say? "In the presence of God," do you see that? "In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge." Do you see that? He's reminding. Paul is doing this very thing. He's reminding Timothy that he's living his life out right in the presence of God, and he's reminding him of the fact that Jesus Christ someday is going to return from heaven as the judge of all the earth. So, Timothy, your work as a proper handler of the word of God is to remind people that they live their lives out every moment in front of God. It's a powerful image, isn't it? Now at Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, where I just finished my PhD degree, over the main entrance to the oldest building in there, inscribed in stone, in the granite above that door, there is written in Greek, the end of 2 Timothy 2:15, rightly cutting or rightly handling the word of truth. Well, that's very appropriate, isn't it, in a seminary. That's where people learn how to handle the word of God accurately. Unfortunately, for many years at Southern Seminary, pastors were turned out who did not rightly handle the word of truth. And there are churches all over the country now, Southern Baptist churches, who are suffering as a result because the word of God isn't handled properly. They don't treat it as though it's inspired by God, but rather something to be picked over and selected and preached however one sees fit. Timothy, you can't do that. If you're going to multiply this church through the preaching in my word, preach it accurately, preach it accurately. And so that's what he says. Part of that though is the dealing with words positively. The words that you speak are to build up the church, not to tear it down. And so he uses three negative words here in reference to how you're not supposed to use words. In Verse 14, he talks about quarreling over words. Don't quarrel over words. And then in Verse 16, he talks about godless chatter. Isn't that interesting? Babbling. Empty godless babbling. And then in Verse 17 and 18, even more seriously, open heresy, false doctrine. Those three things must never be part of an accurate handling of the word of God. In Verse 14, quarreling over words is that kind of picking over minutia, over small little details that aren't even in the text. It's like Jesus talked about the Pharisees. And what did he say? He said, "You strain out a gnat and you swallow a camel." What an image. You're working over these tiny little details and you miss the whole point to the passage. In the Middle Ages, there were scholastic theologians who would argue as you remember over how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. What a waste of time. And they would marshal their arguments and they'd cut it so fine and none of it was even in the text. And then in Verse 16 it talks about godless chatter. This is even more serious. This is talking about a kind of a profane theological speculation or even joking about holy things. That's not supposed to be part of any of your ministry, Timothy. Those same scholastic theologians would argue over the power of God. They would say things like, "Is God powerful enough to make a rock so big that he couldn't lift it?" Isn't that foolish? Or how about this? They argued over the power of God in this way, "Could God have become incarnate as a donkey or a pumpkin and still redeem the world?" Isn't that useless? And they'd spend hours debating over these things. Martin Luther's Reformation in turn was turning away from that. That's not the word of God. That's empty babbling. Well, according to Verse 16, what happens if you indulge in this kind of poor handling of scripture, those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly. Are you saying to me that there is a connection between how someone handles the scripture and what kind of life they live? Absolutely. Bad doctrine leads to bad living. And if you're a Christian and you're living poorly, if we had time, we could trace it back to bad thinking about God and about yourself. Good teaching, doctrinal teaching from the scripture leads to holy living. That's a connection made here. And why is it? It's because the word of God has been given for this very purpose. 1 Peter 2:2 says, "Like newborn babies, you are to crave pure spiritual milk," or we could say the pure milk of the word, "so that by it, you may grow up in your salvation now that you have tasted that the Lord is good." It's the word of God that causes a young Christian to grow to maturity. Saturate your minds in it. Immerse yourselves in it. It's for the mature too. If you're spiritually mature, you can move onto the meat, the deep things of scripture. There's enough here for a lifetime. Rightly Handling Scripture in the Face of False Doctrine He says to Timothy, "Handle it properly, but all the more in the face of false doctrine." It's one thing to be quibbling and arguing over little things, but how much worse to be openly denying something that scripture teaches? And Hymenaeus and Philetus were doing exactly that. They were denying that there was going to be a resurrection. Can you imagine? They said the resurrection has already taken place spiritually, kind of inside us. There's not going to be any resurrection at the end of the world. Wouldn't that destroy your faith? What's the point? If there's no resurrection, what's the point? Why go to church? Why try to lead a godly life if all you're going to do is end up in a grave with no hope beyond the grave? There is no point. And so, Hymenaeus and Philetus, they have wandered off from that straight path that should have been cut, should have been cut in the word of God, but they wandered off. I'm reminded of that commercial of, I don't know who it is that sells that 4 x 4, and this little kid, when he was young, he couldn't stay inside the lines coloring. Remember that commercial? And he enjoyed going any and every which way. The teacher would say, "Now stay inside the lines." He didn't want to drive inside the lines. He wanted a 4 x 4 so he could drive out anywhere he wanted to go. Remember that commercial that you can get from here to there anywhere he wants to go, over the rivers and through the forest and all this kind of thing? The rest of us, we have to drive on the road. But I'm exciting. I can go anywhere I want. Well, that's what Hymenaeus and Philetus thought. They could wander off. They could drive anywhere they wanted and get anywhere they wanted. Paul says they wandered away from the truth. They're off the path. And even worse, it's not just them, they're leading people off the path, false teachers coming in, leading people away from godly doctrine. Paul likens their teaching to the spread of gangrene. Now I don't know that much about gangrene. I think it comes because there's poor circulation and the cells aren't getting what they need. But I know this, it can spread. There's a poison in the body and it can spread. And it was spreading, said Paul, and it will spread. Their teaching will spread like gangrene. At this point, though, Paul thinks it's so important that Timothy not lose his focus. Said Timothy, "Even though it will spread, even though people like Hymenaeus and Philetus have come along and wandered away from the truth, nevertheless, God's solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: 'the Lord knows those who are truly his.'" A true disciple of Jesus Christ is not going to wander away from the path. Didn't Jesus say this in John 10? "My sheep, hear my voice. I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they shall never perish." They will not follow the voice of another. They're not going to wander off. Jesus said, "I give them eternal life and no one can snatch them out of my hand." Is that beautiful? If you're a Christian today, you're totally secure. You can't wander away from the path. It's impossible. And so that's what he said. There's a solid foundation here and it's sealed with an inscription that God has written with his own hand. If you are a Christian, I know you. I've been knowing you before time and again. Remember chapter 1? Before the beginning of time, God gave grace in Christ Jesus. Yet there's a flipside to it, isn't there? "The Lord knows those who are his," and what's the other side? "Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness." We have an obligation to walk as holy Christian people. It doesn't stop the moment we become a Christian as though that's somehow the end. That's just the beginning. That's what being born again is all about. It's the beginning of a new life. It's the beginning of a life that can be lived for God in holiness and righteousness. It's a new life. "Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness," and that leads us very neatly to the second illustration. III. A Clean Vessel: Properly Handling Temptation (vs. 19-23) A clean vessel properly handling temptation. Look in verses 20 and following. "In a large house, there are articles not only of gold and silver but also of wood and clay. Some are for noble purposes and some for common use." Now the overriding principle here is very clear. God does his work through holy people. And Timothy, if you want to be an instrument for God, to multiply his church, Timothy, you must be holy. You must be pure and righteous. And why is it? It's because the master of that house is holy and pure, and if you want to be in that house, you need to be like the master. Habakkuk 1:13 says, "Your eyes are too pure to look on evil. You cannot tolerate wrong." That's what God is like. God is pure and holy, and if we want to serve him, we also must be pure and holy. We must be free of all sin, striving for holiness. Now, I was talking to some doctors who are in our church and I said I'm a little intimidated to use medical analogies and illustrations here in the city of medicine, but I'm going to venture forth and use one anyway. I was reading about in the book published by Time, Life. I don't know if you've seen it, the 100 most significant events and the 100 most significant people of the last thousand years. Have you seen that book? It's really fascinating. The fifth most significant event in the last 1000 years occurred in the middle of the 1800s and it had to do with surgical procedures. And I don't know if you know this, but if you went in for surgery in the 1850s or '60s, they would use surgical scalpels and cutting devices that had not been cleaned. They'd just been used on other people and they'd just used them on you. And as a result, 45%-50% of people who went under the knife, who went in for surgery, died after their operations from infection. And no one could figure it out. They didn't know why. But then Louis Pasteur began to study with his microscope or microscope about tiny microorganisms called bacteria. Now we all know about the germ theory, don't we? What would happen if you were in the medical profession if you used a scalpel that hadn't been properly cleaned and then the patient died of post-operative sepsis? Then what would happen? Well, you'd be sued. That's what would happen. But now we know about germs. And just as a surgeon will not reach for a scalpel that has bacteria on it, it's going to be totally cleansed, so also God will not reach for an unholy vessel to accomplish his ends. We must be holy and we must be pure. There is a preparation that must go on. In Verse 21, it says, "If a man cleanses himself from the latter, he'll be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the master, prepared to do any good work." The Twofold Method of Cleansing Now in your house, you probably have your everyday dishes, perhaps even your Tupperware, but then you have your fine stuff. You bring it out for special occasions. If you want to be the Limoges china, you know that gold plate in God's house, you have to be holy and pure. That's what he's saying. Cleanse yourself. So you say, "Okay, how do I do it?" Well, Timothy says very plainly in Verse 22, it's a two-fold strategy. Flee and pursue. Do you see that? Look at verse 22, Flee and pursue. Flee the evil desires of youth. Pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace. Not just one, not just the other, both. And how does it work? What happens is as you walk through life, you see certain sin patterns in your life. You see things in your life that aren't the way that you know them that they should be. You're reading the scripture and you see that something is wrong. And then you begin to educate yourself. Something causes you to sin. And what does Jesus say? "If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away." You remember that? You begin to get an education as to what kind of things lead you into sin. And when you see those things, you are to flee. You're to run away. Perfect illustration of this in the Old Testament was Joseph. Remember? Potiphar's wife coming after him day after day? I never knew whether she was very attractive or not. So we don't know how much of a temptation this was. Maybe she was ugly. I really don't know. So it was no temptation whatsoever. But perhaps she was very attractive. Either way, he gives us a pattern of how we are to behave in temptation. We run away. No matter what happens, Jesus said, "Lead us not into temptation." Temptation's an enemy of a servant of the Lord. You should fear it. You should fear sin. But it's not enough just to run away. You have to be running towards something. You have to know what you're shooting for. Paul said, "I don't run aimlessly. I don't box aimlessly. I have a purpose. My purpose is to be like Jesus." And so, you'll read in scripture and you find out what Jesus is like. You saturate your mind. You fix your thoughts on Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith. You pursue after him. Pursue after the righteousness that only he can give and become like him. Make it your life business to be as much like Jesus as you can be. Be growing in it. Am I talking about sinless perfection? No. That can't happen here in this life. Absolutely not. But God will use you as you're putting sin to death in your life. As he sees that you make a determination that you will not sin but you're going to stand firm against it, he'll use you. Flee and pursue. It's just that plain. IV. The Lord’s Servant: Properly Handling Opposition (vs. 23-26) And if we do that, we'll be an instrument for holy use, ready to serve him in every way. But if you do this, if you saturate your mind in scripture as an approved craftsman properly handling scripture, and as you step out in faith and you're putting sin to death, and you're whole and you're ready, what's going to happen to you? You've made yourself a marked man, or a marked woman. Satan is going to come after you and he's going to bring opposition into your life. Expect it. Beause along comes opposition and we get the third image, the Lord's servant. In Verse 23, it says, "Don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not quarrel." Now what does this mean, foolish and stupid arguments? It's a very sharp language, isn't it? We've told our kids don't use the word "stupid," alright? It's a bad word. But here it is right here in the Bible. The point is it's ignorant. It's untrained. These are arguments and quarrels that people who don't know the scripture, who are not thoroughly trained to bring against the man of God as he steps out of faith to lead his people. Timothy, expect opposition. But don't get into arguments with these people. Don't get into strife and conflict. The Lord's servant must never quarrel or argue in this way. Now, the image the Lord servant, or we could say the servant of the Lord, comes from Isaiah. And it's a beautiful picture of Jesus Christ, isn't it? In Isaiah 42, the servant of Lord is gentle. He's so gentle that he doesn't break off a bruised reed. He's so gentle that he doesn't snuff out a smoldering wick. In Isaiah 50, the servant of the Lord is so humble and so meek that he won't turn his face away from those that are spitting at him or want to pull his beard. He won't hide his back from those who want to beat him. That's the humility of the servant of the Lord. And in Isaiah 53, that great chapter, the servant of the Lord is so meek that he's willing to be led like a lamb to the slaughter and never once open his mouth. That's the way the servant of the Lord should be when people oppose him and stand firm against him. Instead of arguing, instead of quarreling, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach and not resentful. Kind to everyone means consistently Christ-like no matter what the people are like. Why should I trade in my walk with God because somebody else is ignorant or unstable or having a bad day. There's no reason for me to check in my kindness at that moment. I can still be filled with the Lord. And I must be able to teach. Verse 15 says I'm to be a skilled craftsmen with the word. That's the moment to bring it forward and to begin to teach people, bringing them up out of ignorance so they can see what God's doing. But more than anything, he must not be resentful. The teacher of the Lord, the teacher, the servant of the Lord, must not have this long record of wrongs. Do you know in this passage there are covered the two major reasons that people leave the ministry? They are immorality and conflicts with people in the church. And in this passage, there is strong words to Timothy and to people who want to serve the Lord how they can resist these two temptations. The whole key is understanding what Satan is doing to oppose the work of God. The fascinating thing is that God uses people to accomplish his ends. Satan uses people too, people who don't understand the scriptures and who stepped forward to oppose the man of God. The Lord's servant must see that those people, their mind has been changed in some regard. They've been taken captive by Satan to do his will and that they need to come to their senses. At this moment, Timothy, you should be gently instructing them through the word of God and praying that God would grant them repentance, leading them to a knowledge of the truth. V. Summary of 2 Timothy 2 Now in 2 Timothy 2, we've seen strong and clear principles, how the man of God and the woman of God who wants to serve him can be involved in multiplication ministry. Multiplication ministry, winning people to Christ, building them up in their faith and sending them out to make disciples, takes total dedication, the total dedication of a soldier, of an athlete or a hardworking farmer. But it's a dedication that begins with a preparation. The Lord's servant has to be an approved craftsman who handles the word of God properly. It has to be a holy vessel clean and pure from all sin and has to handle opposition in a godly, gentle, loving way with patience and steadfastness. As First Baptist becomes more and more characterized by these principles, we're going to see more and more people come to faith in Christ. It's God's way. And if we see these kind of people, 2 Timothy 2 people multiplied in these pews, we're going to see more and more people walking these aisles wanting to be baptized, wanting to grow and be part of what God's doing here. Now it's my prayer that perhaps even this morning, there may be somebody here who doesn't yet know Jesus. I'm praying and I have prayed this week that God would grant you repentance, leading you to a knowledge of the truth, that you would see in Jesus Christ the only atoning sacrifice for your sins and that by putting your faith in him, you may have eternal life. There is no other way. There is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved than Jesus Christ.