S2 EP 1: Why Did Jesus Start Here

Welcome to the Thirst with Hunger podcast with Pastor Sandy Edwards, where we destroy every obstacle that hinders people from knowing God. Here, you'll be challenged, encouraged, and equipped to pursue his presence, walk in truth, and live with bold faith. Let's dive in.

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Thirst with Hunger podcast. I am so excited about this next portion of our podcast here at Thirst with Hunger for many reasons, and one of those reasons is because now is the time where I can finally really get into sharing the vision behind our ministry, what we're called to do, and just provide some biblical basis and of course context behind why this ministry is dedicated to helping you destroy every obstacle that hinders you from knowing God. In May of last year, As I was on sabbatical and just resting and recovering from a major surgery and just sitting my heart before the Lord, I was in therapy and dealing with some things that were going on in my heart that God really wanted to seal the deal on. And in that time of me sitting still, God really began to minister to my heart about my calling and my purpose and I had to repent for boxing myself into one thing because I had it set in my heart that I was going to lead worship for the rest of my life, and I was content just doing that, to be honest with you. And the Lord really began to deal with my heart and asked me to give him a yes about pastoring, and I wanted to avoid that at all costs because To be honest, over the years I've become a person who doesn't really like to be around a lot of people as much as I used to anymore. And it's not that I hate people and don't like them, it's just that I've become more introverted, I will say, throughout the years. And I didn't think that was ever going to be a part of my personality. And I've been praying against self-sabotage because what I will tend to do is I'll start, you know, wanting to be around people and doing all the things that God called me to do, and then I just reach within myself and I'm just like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, there's no way that it can be this, there's no way that it can be that. And one of the things that my therapist addressed with me is she asked me a really good question. Why is it that you second-guess everything that God tells you? Like, why do you second-guess? What is that about? And I came to my own conclusion about this through prayer and just reading God's word, is that when you have been on the other end of abuse of any kind or trauma of any kind, it makes you doubt God's voice. It makes you doubt—

Mm-hmm.

The things that you know inwardly that God has spoken to you. It makes you doubt and question everything because you feel like you don't have any authority or a voice. And so God really began to really work and minister to my heart about standing in the authority that he's given me and not questioning, not second-guessing, not changing everything just because somebody don't like me or whatever the case. God really began to with my heart. And I finally understand now that God really does love me like deep. He loves me like that, okay? And I don't apologize for that. And I feel so much freedom in just moving now, how God is using me and wants to use me, because I'm not boggled down with the opinions of man. I'm not boggled down with the opinions of my family. I'm not second-guessing nothing that God— says to me anymore. Now, that doesn't mean that I don't still have to pray against self-sabotage, because I do. That is one of the things that I have to pray against constantly. Okay, constantly, because it was a pattern of my life for so long. And so I have to constantly keep myself in a place of remembering what the Lord said. Where did he say to go, Sandy? What is he saying for your life, Sandy? And trusting and standing in that. And that has come with me also having to shed beliefs and the idea that me standing in my brilliance will be seen as me being prideful. But one of the things that I am really learning and really taking hold to is that I am allowed to be brilliant. You who are listening to this podcast, you are allowed to be gifted and brilliant. Nothing is wrong with you being gifted and brilliant. God is just asking for us to submit that brilliance and that creativity. Mm-hmm. To him, that's all. And if we're gonna give glory to God, and he made us in his image, why wouldn't he want us to be brilliant? Why wouldn't he want us to be wise? Why wouldn't he want us to be amazing? Like, why wouldn't he? And so much of our upbringing, especially in church, we're taught to you just walk low and you look like a slave. You act like a slave. You talk like a slave. You talk. Too low, you— all the things. And the reason that we do is because we've been conditioned to believe that I need to prove how saved I am, so I'm just not gonna be brilliant, and I'ma just act like and constantly confess over myself that I don't know nothing. And it's like, no, God is just asking you to submit that brilliance and that creativity to him. And that's what I've had to learn how to do, right? And that used to be really uncomfortable for me because I used to be like, you know what? Like, God, like— and I, and I told my husband a couple days ago, I said to him, you know what, I am too powerful and too anointed to be sitting over here scared to say what God has given me to say and what God has given me to pour out, you know. And so I don't apologize for who I am, and I understand that that may be off-putting for some people, but This ain't that type of party where I people please no more. This ain't that type of party where I care about the opinions of men before I decide to do what it is that God called me to do. This is not that type of party, okay? I'm so thankful for what God spent an entire year doing in my heart and in my life. This is something that no one will ever be able to take away from you once you fully realize who you really are in God and how deeply loved loved you are by him, that's something nobody can take away from you. And as long as I live until Jesus returns, okay, I plan to spend the rest of my life equipping other people to destroy those same obstacles because it is hindering them from knowing God. Now, our next couple of episodes here on the Thirst with Hunger podcast are going to be about the Sermon on the Mount. And the reason that we're going all the way back to Matthew and talking about the Sermon on the Mount is because usually when we are taught this, it's very Sunday school-ish. You know, when we were kids, you know, the Beatitudes and things like that. But I'm really gonna go deep over the next 10 episodes about Why this is one of the most important sermons that Jesus ever taught the disciples. It is one of the most important sermons that he ever taught the disciples. And so we're going to read Matthew chapter 5, and we're going to start at verse 1. Okay, and verse 1 says, seeing the crowds He went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. So as I've said in the previous episodes, when we read scripture, we really need to pay attention to everything that is in the scriptures, right? Not just the parts that we are familiar with. Pay attention to how the words are written. It says, seeing the crowds, he He is Jesus. Went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. His disciples. Okay, and so the very next verse, verse 1, says, and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. And in some translations it says filled. So before Jesus begins to preach to them, right before any of this, Jesus saw the crowds and he pulled his disciples among himself. He didn't tell them to go out there where the crowd was. He pulled them among himself. And he saw them, and he moved, and he went up a mountain. He sat down, and he began to teach them. And so he didn't stand over them, he didn't perform, he sat with them and began to teach them, to teach them. And all of the things that Jesus began to teach had everything to do with character and the The way that we move and act and respond in this life. What Jesus said first was— had nothing to do with miracles. It was not a promise for personal prosperity. He talked about the soul. He talked about what kind of person you are on the inside. He talked about what that cost you and what it would become. He said that this is not a small choice, right? And that this is a declaration of what he believed is the core principles that God has called us to walk in, in our soul. In our soul. So I find it not strange that the very first sermon that Jesus presents to those who follow him Had everything to do with our soul. And your soul is your mind, your will, and your emotions. Your mind, your will, and your emotions. Again, he opened with things that have to do with soul, which is directly connected to our character, is our mind, will, and emotions. Jesus understood because again, his whole focus was you cannot fix the outside until something changes on the inside. And his whole point was the focus and center point of repentance. It was repentance. And repentance is genuine turning away from sin towards God, and it is what our soul, which is our mind, will, and emotions, was actually built to respond to. Everything else outside of repentance only addresses symptoms. Repentance gets to the root. Again, everything else outside of repentance addresses the symptoms of our experiences in our human soul. Repentance Repentance gets to the root. And I know that that's not a popular thing to say because we would rather talk about healing than repentance. We would rather talk about that and our wounds than taking accountability for our wrong choices. And we would rather talk about how painful something is than the need to repent to be brought out of it. And so God's not dismissing— like, Jesus isn't dismissing our wounds. He's saying that they are very real. He isn't dismissing our pain. He's saying that it is very real. But he's also saying that sin is real. And so a person in their mind, will, and emotions that will not take accountability for their sin cannot be transformed. And this is where we get the term behavior modification, because if you're not repenting, all you're doing is modifying and controlling behaviors. Repentance is the thing that does more than modify behaviors. It uproots and guts out the sin in our lives. Okay, so the Sermon on the Mount is not a character development plan. It is Jesus describing what it means to really be a follower of Christ. And connected to that, these things address our character. So if we're trying to address character issues or things that are happening in our soul without using the, the outline that Jesus gives in the Beatitudes, then all we're doing is modifying behaviors. And this isn't about self-help. This is about seeking the Lord. This is about repentance. And I know that that word is being so diluted these days because no one wants to hear you need to repent. But the truth is, if Jesus was walking among you and I, sitting in our room, in our houses, and all those things today, Yes, he would sit with us. Yes, he would give us grace. Yes, he will be merciful, but he would also lead us into repentance. And so repentance is not a quick I'm sorry. Repentance has nothing to do with your intentions, because here's the thing about intentions: intentions can be good and evil. Or good or evil. So that means that our intentions are not always led by God. What we intended to do may not have been led by God. These are things that could come out of and be birthed out of our flesh. And because it can be birthed out of our flesh, and because our intentions can be good or evil, we still need to repent. Even if we had every intent to do something right, the grace comes in the repentance. The mercy comes in the repentance. We still got to repent even though God is gracious. We still got to repent even though God is merciful. So the Beatitudes. This Sermon on the Mount are all about the fruits that come from repentance. And that changes everything about how you read the Sermon on the Mount. Most people never get to the place where they truly allow the Lord To deal with the depths of their woundedness. And it's not because they're bad people. It's not because we are bad people. It's because repentance has been reduced to something cheap. You sit under teachers who tell you, yeah, it's okay, it's gonna be okay, it's okay. It's not okay if it's sin. We need to repent for the sin. We're gonna be okay, but we're only gonna be okay in Jesus, right? And so you sit under teachers who teach you that, okay, being emotional is the same as repenting. No, you actually have to repent and renounce and come out of agreement. Real true repentance is gonna cost you. It's gonna require you to stop defending yourself. It's gonna require you to stop trying to explain and reason with sin. And it's gonna cost you to stop pointing at what everybody else has done to you and using that as an excuse for why you're doing what you're doing. It requires you to stand before God and tell him the truth. Not the— not the truth that you sanitize. And put on airs in front of people to make it seem like you so spiritual. Not the version where you are mostly a victim, but I'm talking about the actual truth. And yes, that is hard. And most of us, if we're honest, we spend a lot of years avoiding it. And so we carry things we have never brought before God, and we make other people responsible for patterns That we never took the time to pray about and trace back to a source of when we first started it. We dress up sin as personality. It's just who I am. It's not who you are. Jesus did not die on the cross for you to be your best self. That doesn't even exist. There is no scripture where Jesus ever told one of his followers to be their best self. Your heart needs to be full of repentance daily. It's not about being your best anything. There's no best self. There's no good in you aside from God. There is no good in you without God, and without God there is no good. So this edited version that we put on That hinders us from experiencing these Beatitudes flowing in and out of our life and relationally with others. This, this, I'm trying to prove how saved I am, so let me show people how much of a victim I am. No, you gotta stop avoiding that and actually admit what it is. If we're dressing our sin up as a personality, as a trauma response, saying just how I am, We're never gonna get to the place where God can truly work on the innermost depths of our heart. And then we wonder why, right? The same things keep happening, why the same reactions keep surfacing, why we feel hollow in places we expected to feel full. That's what unrepented sin does to the soul. It does not stay quiet. It accumulates. It spreads. And the longer that you don't name the sin, the longer you don't confess the sin, the more it's going to begin to shape and take over everything in your life, including your character, including how you respond to people, including your day-in and day-out encounters with even people who work at the bank and all of this stuff. You will find that your heart will begin to shape your life. Guard your heart, for from it flows the issues of life. One of the ways that we guard our hearts is by repenting for what's in our heart that isn't like God. God gave us the answer in the scriptures. Second Corinthians seven. And 10 tells us that repentance is not punishment. It's not God making you sorry. It is the door. That scripture talks about how godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted. Godly sorrow, not shame, right, that paralyzes you, not self-hatred. That keeps you circling around the same cycle for years, not guilt that makes you feel so depleted and so helpless that you feel like it's impossible to change. Godly sorrow, Godly sorrow leads us to repentance. It turns everything around. It makes room for the Holy Spirit to do only what he can do. And so our perception about repentance has to shift to it being a gift. When we're repenting, it's not that our soul is so broken and it's crawling as this helpless victim towards God. It's our soul recognizing our need for God and our consistent need for him. And Jesus is not teaching the Beatitudes so that people can try to be perfect in the eyes of man, but perfect in the eyes of God, which means to be whole and to be complete. Perfection to God When Jesus said, "Be perfect as my Father is perfect," has nothing to do with you getting everything right. What that means biblically is to be whole and complete, lacking nothing. That's what perfection means to God. And if Jesus didn't think that these things were obtainable, he would have never taught it. If we couldn't walk in it. He would've never taught it. And it is good for us to run out of our own solutions to problems. It's good for us to see that we cannot improve ourselves, right? That we cannot rely on ourselves to improve ourselves. It's good for us to come to the end of ourselves and realize that I have done all the things. I've tried all the self-help tools, and I downloaded all the self-help guides, and I emptied my mind. Because let's talk about that for a minute, you know. There's all this New Age nonsense that's out here these days talking about empty your mind, empty your mind. The Bible does not tell me to empty my mind of everything. What the Bible tells me is to set my mind on things above. It gives me a command on what to think about— whatsoever things are good and pure and all the other stuff that it lists for me to think about. I don't need to be emptying my mind, right? And there's so many of us who are Christians that are taking on these Philosophies, these new thoughts, and following new thought leaders who teach us to do things that are not biblical. And then we're wondering why we're constantly confused or under the spirit of fear, and we're in confusion and don't hear from God. And then we go take that same confusion and confuse other people. But you would not be confused if you would follow The word of God. Follow instructions. One thing I spend a lot of my time doing now that my kids are getting older and more independent, I spend a lot of my time saying, follow instructions. What were my instructions? What did I ask for you to do? And 9 times out of 10, these kids, I'm telling you, most of the time they cannot Repeat back to me what I asked them to do. So I have to ask them 50 million times. Please make sure you pick your socks up off the floor. You took them off. You can walk them to the hamper and put them in in the basket. You can put them in there.

You can.

You can put. The clothes that you just took off inside the hamper. The hamper is right there, right? So even simple instructions like that we don't follow when it comes to God. And God, in all of his mercy and grace— But it just goes to show that we have an issue just understanding and receiving the simplicity of God's instructions. If we follow his instructions, he promised us that life follows obedience. He promised us that rewards follow our obedience. There are benefits to being obedient to God that you don't get to experience when you are disobedient. There's curses that come upon your life when you are disobedient to God, and some of us aren't being Willfully disobedient to God in the sense of we're not sitting here, you know, backbiting and gossiping and all the stuff, but then when it comes to how we think, we're not making our thoughts obey Christ, which is what we're supposed to do. That was a command too. So if we're not following God's commands, that means we're being disobedient to God even in our thought life. Again, your soul is your mind, will, and emotions. God gave your soul an assignment. Why do you think that David spends a lot of his time commanding his soul to praise God? Because he understood God gave my soul an assignment, and I have full authority, full capacity to command my soul today to praise the Lord. And commanding my soul to praise the It doesn't mean that my circumstance changes. It just means that I trust the Lord over my circumstances. I trust the Lord over what I'm experiencing. It doesn't mean I'm not going to be honest about what I'm going through. It doesn't mean that I'm not going to be real and truthful and transparent and vulnerable to the people that God has sent into my life for me to trust with that vulnerability. It just means that I'm Not finna pretend. And even still, I'm gonna stand here and command my soul to praise the Lord. And praise does not mean that the situation changes overnight. What praise means is that over my circumstances, I begin to thank God that he knows everything that I don't. And I begin to thank God that he sees further than I do. And He has his reasons. Because the truth is, God does not serve our reasons. We serve his. Our life serves his reasons, not ours. And we can try to put God in this box and, and take him out when we want to, and he's not going to fit in your box. He's not. He's not going to fit in your box. He's not going to fit in your box. So Jesus is not teaching the Beatitudes to the disciples because he thinks that they have it all together. He's teaching it to them because he knows that they will need this staple, this foundation, As they are dealing with people, as they are ministering to people, as they are living their life, they're going to need this solid foundation. He's showing them what happens when you live a life fully surrendered to God. And fully surrendered doesn't mean I'm not human, right? Fully surrendered means I bring my humanity to God and I surrender my humanity to the Lord. And I repent for anything that's in my humanity that is an obstacle between me and God. Some of us are not offended with other people as much as we keep placing emphasis on other people. Some of us are really upset and offended with God, if we're being honest. Some of us are upset because God did not answer our prayers when we wanted him to answer them. We're upset because God didn't come through how we demanded. Him to come through. Some of us are upset because in prayer we raised our fist and we grew angry with God, and we're just like, I don't understand. I'm over here being faithful and serving you, and I done done this for all these years, and I just don't understand how you haven't done this for me. And the truth is, God is sitting on the other end of your offense with him, your anger with him, Your bitterness and your resentment towards him, and he's just like, I hear you and I want you to come sit with me. But some of us don't know God that way, because instead of us being honest that we're really upset with God because he did not answer our prayers like we thought he should, instead of us being honest, We start externalizing the issue to other people and we start projecting onto other people. And then when we see other people in peace or we see other people experiencing joy, we develop this desire in our hearts and start coveting what they have, not realizing that God is just like, I have so much available to you, so many things I want to show you. Understanding I want to give you if you will just lean in with me in the heart day by day, not trying to take on a whole mountain in a day. But if you will just lean in with me day by day, cry if you got to, complain if you got to, to the Lord, talk to him about what's going on, all these things. If you would just lean in with him, that's what the Lord says to us. If you will just lean in with me. In all that you are experiencing in your soul, I have a lot to give you. The deliverance is not always God making your circumstances go away. Sometimes the deliverance is in you developing a deeper relationship with the Lord. I'm going to say that again. Sometimes The deliverance and the healing and the wholeness that the Lord brings into your life is not him taking away those circumstances that have been plaguing you. Sometimes the deliverance is in him giving you another level of understanding about who he is as your Father. And that's just as good as him changing the circumstances that are surrounding your life. But we have to learn to trust the Lord with all of our heart, even in the hard. Even in the hard, trust in the Lord and stop going to people who we know don't have strength in the Lord, who we know don't have the ability to pray for us, and they teach us to be more carnal than we are spiritual. They teach you to just be in your flesh all of the time. And God is not saying that he can't address the heart issues that are going on in your life. What God is saying is that I will be with you in it. And part of God being with us in it is giving us understanding, giving us peace, and giving us joy. And one of the things I made it my business and my prayer that I've always prayed to God is, God, give me so much peace to where I am not rattled by any of my personal circumstances so that I can pray and be available to care for others. It is not to say that my own circumstances don't matter, but one thing I've worked really hard to partner with the Lord to do by the help of his spirit and by the help of professionals also is developing such a deep level of inner peace that I can be available even if my life isn't going really well. That's what contentment is. Contentment looks like Practicing every day, being grateful for the life that God has given you, even with all of the circumstances that are happening. God is not saying that contentment dismisses the circumstances. What he's saying is, can you be content with me while you're waiting? Can you be content with me while I lead you through the valley of the shadow of death? Can you be content with me? While I lead you through the wilderness. Because here's the truth, no matter what position we are in life, we are loved, deeply cared for by our Father. There's no scenario where we are not deeply loved and cared for by God. In grief, we are deeply loved and cared for. So Jesus didn't start with preaching about miracles and personal prosperity and selfish ambitions that we chase. He addressed these things within our heart that cause us to be separated from God, and he's teaching them that this is how you are blessed. And so If repentance is needed, then repent. Allow God to have the real version of you, not the edited one, not the one— the face that you put on for everybody, not the wounds that you use to prove how saved you are. And we're gonna get more into that in another episode in this series, but The first beatitude, which is, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. That one's going to cost you your pride, and it will also set you free.

Thank you for listening to the Thirst With Hunger podcast. We truly appreciate you joining us on this journey. Your support makes it all possible. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our channel, hit the like button, and leave a comment below with your thoughts.