When You’re Tired of Trying to Change, with Kevin DeYoung and Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth

Are you a new year’s resolution drop out? Discover how you can find the strength to truly change in this episode of Grounded, featuring special guests Kevin DeYoung and Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

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Episode Notes

• Nancy’s advice for Bible journaling 
• “Leaning into Grace for Self-Control” video 
• Savor & Share card set 

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Erin Davis: Good morning it is January 30. I've got a question for you. Are you a New Year's resolution drop out? We're gonna tell you why that might actually be good news. I'm Erin Davis, and you are watching or listening to Grounded.

Portia Collins: And I'm Portia Collins. Grounded is a weekly videocast and podcast from Revive Our Hearts. We are here to give you two of our favorite things: hope and perspective.

Erin: Hope and perspective every single week. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's noticed that January can feel like one giant joke and everyone is in on it. Every time a new year begins, we all decide collectively we are going to get healthy. We are going to study our Bibles more. We're gonna read this giant stack of books. We're gonna get organized. And then, do we follow through? 

So, be honest, did you make a New Year's resolution this year? That would have just been 30 days ago. All the experts tell us that's how long it takes for us to change. If you did make a resolution, tell us about it in the chat. Did you make a resolution for 2023?

Portia: Okay, so you and Dannah have messed with me about this, because I never say I'm making a resolution. But I always say that I am resolving to do. In my mind my mind, if I don't call it a resolution, then I'm not gonna mess it up. Well, listen, that doesn't work. Okay, the things that I have resolved to do, they're not panning out too well. One of the things you know, I have a real issue with drinking sodas, particularly Coca-Cola, which is like the worst of the worst.

Erin: Lots of sugar in there.

Portia: Yes! And so, at the beginning of the year, I was like, yeah, I'm gonna cut back. First I started off and I was like, “I'm just not going to drink me any cokes for the month of January.” 

Erin: Cold turkey.

Portia: Yeah. That didn't work. And then I was like, “Okay, well, I'm gonna cut back. You know, maybe just one, one here and there.” Yeah. Last night, as I was drinking a 20-ounce Coca-Cola, I was like, “Lord, I got to do better. It’s so hard.”

Erin: Alright, you’re a resolution drop out. 

Portia: Yes, I didn't even want to say that. I'm, like, scared to share my resolutions. And I'm sure many, many of you are, because we kind of already know that we're going to break them.

Erin: That's a January feels like a giant joke. Because that's the punchline. We all make resolutions, and we all know resolutions fail. And for the most part, experts would say that almost none of us keep those resolutions. It's kind of crazy if you think about it. 

So, we're going to talk through in this episode, that desire to change that all of us seem to have—Christian or non-Christian. We all seem to have something within us that wants to be transformed, and that doesn't just happen with a new year. As you're watching, it's the start of a new week. I know I'm not the only one who faces Monday morning with optimism sky high, only to get to get to the weekend and discover, “Ah, shoot. I'm the same old Erin. I didn't want to be, but I am.” 

So, I'm going to repeat that in this last episode of Grounded, we're going to discover where the strength to actually change comes from.

Portia: Yes, and I'm looking forward to it. I'm also looking forward to the fact that Kevin DeYoung is back. 

Erin: Woop woop. I’m trying to be quiet so I don't bust people's eardrums, but I am excited.

Portia: I'm very excited. He's gonna tell us why being a follower of Jesus doesn't mean that you have to change the world or be an expert on everything. But spiritual failure can feel miserable pretty much all of the time. Okay, so for all the resolution dropouts, or the people who resolve to do things and don't do them, this episode is for you.

Erin: That's most of us. So, we count on you to share every episode of Grounded. We don't know who you know, we don't know your friends who maybe have already crashed and burned and their resolution to change things. So hit that share button. If you're not already subscribed to the Revive Our Hearts, YouTube channel, go ahead and do that, then you'll get a little notification every time we're on. And so, you do your thing. We're going to do what we do in every episode, which is share good news. So, take it away, Portia.

Portia: Well, you know, I love to do it. I love to bring you the good news. Here is today's happy headline, check this out, get the screenshot. Now, as you looking at it, spiritual openness is on the rise. Just track with me because I know that sounds a little funny. But a new study from Barna Research Group . . . You've probably heard of them. They do a lot of faith-based studies. They found that three-quarters of adults want to grow spiritually. Here's the headline right here: “Spiritual Openness is on the Rise in America.”

All right, there it is. Anytime you see that word unprecedented, you already know what's going on. So, three-quarters of adults want to grow spiritually. And more than 40% of adults say that they are more open to God. It's where we get the spiritual openness. 

All right, they're more open than what they were before the pandemic. And more than two-thirds of people who were surveyed by Barna Group said that they believe in God, only 9% of Americans said that they don't believe in a higher power. Now, I know that we can have a tendency to view statistics with skepticism. 

But think of it this way: behind every number is a person. People are longing for real, lasting change. And you're open to the idea that it is actually possible to change because of God's work in their lives. A hunger for God is increasing, not decreasing, especially amid these years of so much disruption and chaos and craziness. And so when you flip on the news, you are going to hear words like polarizing or controversy or divided. That's all very real. But the story behind the story is that as our faith in the systems of the world declined, our openness, our spiritual openness to the things of God seems to be increasing. 

The head of the Barna Group, which is the organization that did this study said, “Across every generation, we see an unprecedented desire to grow spiritually, a belief in a spiritual / supernatural dimension, and a belief in God or a higher power.” 

Listen, guys, hearts are open to the One who can change hearts change, minds change, governments, change our world. And guess what? Those open hearts, that's the good news, Erin. 

Erin: That is good news, Portia. I see that to be true. I do a weekly Bible study at my house. I have five or six women coming in who have never been in a Bible study before, but they are hungry, so we celebrate that opportunity. 

Well, it's time to get grounded with God's people. As we told you, Kevin DeYoung is our guest in this episode. If you don't know Kevin, you're gonna love hearing from him. He's a pastor. He's a best-selling author. He's a dad of nine. And he's always welcome to join us on Grounded. He has a new book that's not coming out until August. But we wanted to talk about it this month as we're talking about redeeming self-help and thinking about change. So, we're gonna get the inside scoop, right here on Grounded. Welcome back, Kevin.

Kevin DeYoung: So good to be with you. Thanks for having me.

Erin: Well, I'm going to start with a story. I promise, I'm gonna let you do most of the talking. But as I was thinking about this conversation, this story came to mind. I was visiting with a widow not long ago. She told me that the night before her husband died in his sleep there in his sixties, he turned to her and said, “Do you think I've done enough?” He was talking about his walk with the Lord. Had he done enough for Jesus and the Church? And she said that to me, of course, with tears in her eyes, because she wanted them to have assurance that he had done enough to please the Lord. 

So as a pastor, do you find that many of us are plagued by that kind of lingering fear that we can never do enough?

Kevin: Yeah, I've encountered that many times. I could tell a story, many years ago now. But my own grandmother, lifelong Christian, lifelong churchgoer, was dying of cancer. She passed away a number of years ago, but she was talking to me. I sort of had to put on my pastor hat, not the grandson anymore. She said almost those same things—have I been a good enough person? And I tried to say, “Grandma, you know that that's not our ultimate hope. That's not our answer.” But, “Have I gone to church enough?” 

Yeah, people who intellectually might have the right ideas up there, they still come back to that question. I think of the movie (I haven't actually sat down to see it). But it's played on an infinite loop in my house, The Greatest Showmen. In the song “Never Enough” I think is like a lot of us as Christians. I know that's not what the song is actually about. But you know, we can feel that whatever I do, it's never enough for God. Maybe He lets me into heaven, sort of sneaks me in the back door. Okay, Jesus, but still our day to day lives feel like that He's never happy. He's never pleased. We just ought to feel miserable, because that's what good Christians do.

Erin: Yeah. I think you're totally right. I've experienced it. I've often said on Grounded that discouragement is the sin ditch that I will wake up and drive myself up into every single day. It's just where I go, where my heart tends to go. I can be very discouraged about feeling like I can't please God or make Him proud. 

You got a new book coming out this summer. The title is Impossible Christianity. I want to read the subtitle. It's a long one, and a good one: Why Following Jesus Does Not Mean You Have to Change the World, Be an Expert in Everything, Accept Spiritual Failure, and Feel Miserable Pretty Much All the Time.

So, books start as ideas. Was there a problem that needed solved in your own life or the life of somebody you love? Where does this idea for impossible Christianity come from for you?

Kevin: That's a great question. I look at the books that I've written over the years . . . Somebody told me years ago, every author only has one book. Now, I hope there's more than one thing I have to say. But you can look at different authors, and they come back to different themes. As I reflected on it, a lot of my books have been about this theme—just do something was about the will of God, following God does not have to be impossible. It doesn't have to be mysterious, regular people can be in God's will. You don't have to kill yourself trying to follow God. 

So, I just think I've written a lot of books, and I'm sure it comes out of my own strong sense of obligation or type A or needing to do everything or feeling like so many things are incumbent upon me and my own sense of inadequacy. 

So, I've written this book. As you said, it comes out later in the year. So, if you'll have me on again, I'd love to come on and remind people of it when it gets closer. But the title, Impossible Christianity, is important not to misunderstand. I think there's a lot of books out there and a lot of Christian voices that are telling people, “Hey, you're anxious. Your house is a mess. Don't worry, you're a failure. God loves failures.” 

That's not exactly what my book is saying, though there's some truth in that. In a grand sense, what I'm actually saying is something different. Namely, we don't have to just label ourselves as failures. In fact, the Bible never describes Christian discipleship as just getting used to being a loser and being a failure. Of course, we don't earn our salvation. Of course, we never justify ourselves. But there are some dozen times in the New Testament that the language is used as a seeing God. I think we only relate to God as a judge. That's one way, and that's true. That's biblical. But if we only relate to God as a judge, then you're either in or you're out. You're guilty; you're innocent. I'm going to heaven; I'm sort of a criminal. All right, that's one way. 

But we also need to relate to God as a Father. And as a Father, He loves us. We can please Him, even though it's imperfect, even though what we do is never quintessentially good in all of its parts. You know, theologians have said for a long time that our works are not perfectly good, but they can be truly good. I think that's important for us as Christians, lest we feel like the measure of being a mature Christian is to feel like a spiritual failure and make myself feel miserable all the time. God doesn't mean for us to live that way. 

Erin: Yeah. I love that. That's so good. I think I've often said that. Both self-hatred and kind of being puffed up. Those are both versions of pride, because they're both focusing on yourself. And so, I don't think God intends us to be walking around squashed all the time.

Kevin: That’s right. 

Erin: And thinking like Eeyore, “Oh man, I'm never going to please the Lord.” That just doesn't feel like walking in victory. Does it feel like an abundant life that Jesus promised? There's this thing that happens in my house every week. I have this group of women that gather my living room for women's Bible study. And man, they’re so earnest. I mean, they want to be good wives, they want to be good moms, they want to be good friends, they want to be good daughters. And when they read the Bible, it happens every week, the first thing they want to do is apply it. They think it's always talking about how they're not getting it right. 

So, they have this concept. And I say they, it's me too. We have this constant nagging sense that we can't get it right. So how do we live humbly, without living defeated? Where is that sweet spot in the middle?

Kevin: Well, we need to be honest with what the Bible says. We know these passages, but you think of the Great Commission that Jesus said, we're supposed to teach people to obey everything that He's commanded. And some of us live our lives as if Jesus had a little asterisk there and said, “Ha ha ha, but of course none of you can obey anything that I've commanded.” Paul will write to the Romans, and he'll boast of their obedience is known to all. 

So, we need to have a category as you said. Obedience to God that's not meritorious, that's not self-justifying, that's not perfect. But it's true, is pleasing, and is faithful to God. So, use the parent’s analogy again, because God is our heavenly Father. So, if I'm a father, and if I tell my kids to clean their room . . . Now, if I told my teenage daughter, I wouldn't have to, because her room is immaculate already. But my sons . . .

Erin: Oh man. Can I trade her in for my teenage son, because his isn’t clean! 

Kevin: My 15-year-old daughter cracks the whip. But if I tell my son to clean his room, and he does it promptly, cheerfully, and 20 minutes later, says, “Dad, I'm done. I cleaned my room.” And I go up there and I see there's some papers not quite stacked. There's a few things shoved in the wrong place. And his bed isn't made as well as I could, well, maybe better than I could but not as well as mom could. Am I going to come up and say, “Son, this is, this is terrible. Your bed corners are off. This box isn't in the right place. These hangers are backwards.” No, if he's cheerful and prompt and trying to please me, I'm going to say son, “I'm so happy, thank you.” 

Some of us relate to God, our heavenly Father as if He's only some stern taskmaster who can never be pleased. He's austere. He's peevish, and there's no possible category for obedience to God. 

I've preached on this before, and I've had people who've been Christians for years come up, sometimes men and women, sometimes with tears, who say, “Why have I never heard this? Why have I never thought of this?” We understand, yes, I sin. I'm a failure. I need God's grace to go to heaven. But somehow, we think, man, but when it comes to my everyday life before heaven, I just have to get used to being a screw up all the time, and I'm never really going to please God. 

Erin: God’s just putting up with me, right? 

Kevin: Yeah.

Erin: Like, God’s just putting up with me, He’s just tolerating me.

Kevin: Yeah, that's right. So, and part of the problem, I'll admit, really can fall on pastors. I am a pastor. But say I'm preaching prayer, evangelism, giving. I mean, one of those things, those are the three things probably people in the pews go, “Oh we should, but let's go to the beach this week. Pastor is doing another sermon on gifting or evangelism.” A pastor I know how to preach say on prayer so that every person in the congregation feels guilty for not praying. If you're on your deathbed someday and you think of all the Netflix you watched, will you regret that you didn't pray more? Surely you will.

Erin: That’s what my pastor calls a “squirmon.”

Kevin: Yeah. And it's good to make us squirm. But here's the problem. I'll say this to my congregation if I'm preaching on prayer, I'll say, “Some of you are being obedient in this area. Some of you are faithful in prayer, praise God. Many of you I know to be prayer warriors. So, can we pray more? Yes. Does God want to stir us up? Yes. But I want you to hear this sermon and know that some of you have permission to find yourself obedient in this area.” 

I think many pastors, we don't mean to, but instinctively, we feel like it's a good sermon if everyone feels like a failure. 

Well, no. And that's not helpful for us spiritually. It means when we come to other sins, we just train our people to feel low level conviction of sin, where they never really repent and never really change. So when you come to a sin that’s wow, you're in danger of, maybe you're not a Christian with this sin in your life. People don't hear it anymore, because they've just been been trained over the years that I never do anything right, and I always feel a low level sense of failure.

Erin: Yeah. I mean, you're so right. You're taking responsibility for pastors. I'm going to add those of us who do things like Grounded, podcasts write books. Part of why I wanted to have you on is because we've done an episode on your food eating habits. We've done an episode on exercise. You've done an episode on your Bible study habits, that a woman could listen to Grounded every week and go, Oh, but now this was this week, I'm supposed to overhaul my food. This week. I'm supposed to overhaul my exercise this week. I'm supposed to overhaul my Bible study. And the amount of inertia required for us to transform ourselves, which is it possible every week? It's just too much. 

So, as we were talking about these things this month, I wanted to balance it with some gospel truth. You said that there's a misconception that we need 40 hours in the day just to be good Christians. I often joke that I asked the Lord for 25 hours a day, He doesn't ever give it to me, because the next day I'd asked for 26, the next day I’d ask for 27. 

Kevin: Right. 

Erin: But where does that feeling come from? You mentioned pastors, maybe some of our teachers like myself, but that sense that we need to do more, and we don't have time to do what God's given us, is that an internal thing?

Kevin: It's internal, but it's also related to the age in which we live. I'm sure these are deep spiritual issues that people have always felt. And yet, there is something unique in our time. Life is objectively better than it's ever been in so many ways. We have more wealth; we have more conveniences. But with that, it's objectively more complicated than it used to be. You can look back and say, how did John Calvin write so much by candlelight, and had no computer? True. He also didn't have emails. He didn't have to navigate phone trees. He didn't have to do insurance. He didn't have to get his car inspected. So, we have a complicated life. 

And with the connections we have through the digital revolution, we have what one author is called the infinite extensibility of guilt. Meaning, when you can see what's happening almost everywhere in the world, or at least the illusion of it, you can be connected to people everywhere in the world. It's not like for most of human history where you have a circle of a few hundred people in your town, and the farthest you can go is how far a horse can take you, and you had to wait for the newspaper to come. 

Now we know of human suffering everywhere in the world, we know of problems everywhere in the world. And that gives to us a sense . . . Sometimes people put it on us. “What are you doing to alleviate suffering?” In Bangladesh, what are you doing about this flood here? What are you doing about intractable systemic problems in our own society? And of course, some people will will feel a particular call to certain areas. But when it gets loaded on everyone, “Hey, Mom, after you finish packing the snacks for school and doing lunch and changing some diapers and preparing for your Bible study and getting ready to sing on the praise team and doing the laundry and going to the store and getting the old chain once you do all of that, could you solve hunger and human trafficking for us?” That these are burdens that no human is meant to bear.

Erin: So true, I feel that we've done episodes here about just the influx of information. I think it does kind of pick at our desire to change or to be better. Put on your pastor hat for us. You've already been wearing it, but put it on. The gospel does the transforming work of salvation. I think we know that it's grace alone by faith alone, Jesus who does that work. But then there's the sanctification piece. 

So how does the gospel help us change on an ongoing basis, even in these really practical areas that we're talking about? Maybe you do need to eat healthier so that you can feel better and serve your family. Maybe you do need to reevaluate how much time you're spending in the Word. Maybe it's any number of things. How does the gospel help us daily with those less than they're not salvation? They're those daily things, right? Or we need God to change us.

Kevin: And that's a good way of putting it, because we don't want the message of either the book I've written or this episode here to be, “Hey, relax, nothing in your life needs to change. All your habits are great.” No, that's not what God means to do. 2 Corinthians 3 says that we're transformed from one degree of glory to the next. And so, a couple of things. 

One is what you alluded to, just to realize that the gospel is A to Z. It's for all of Christian life. It's not that God says, I save you by the gospel, and now the rest of your life, just put your nose to the grindstone. Now, sanctification is different than justification, and we cooperate in sanctification. Paul says, “I thank God, I worked harder than all of you.” 2 Peter talks about making efforts. So, we do have to work hard; we do have to make effort. 

But it's a gospel-infused effort. Paul says, “But not I yet God who works within me.” So, He works by His promises; He works by His Word. And one of the things that helps us change is it's not enough to just hear God say, “Don’t do this, be like this.” We need to fight pleasure, with pleasure, we need to have a greater affection, joy. 

So, sanctification by faith doesn't mean we don't put effort, but it means we believe these promises. So, for example, one that I always come back to in my life is Matthew 5:8 from the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

So, you struggling with some some kind of impurity in your life, one of the ways to change and to fight that is to believe, “I want to see God, and seeing God in this life in the next life is going to be better than this impure thing that I want to look at that or this impure thing I want to do— whether it's impurity with your eyes or your stomach or whatever.” We need to fight pleasure with pleasure. God means to change us. 

And when we believe that holiness is not actually possible, we just give up. Sometimes we tell people that's the pinnacle of spiritual maturity, to realize your failure for your whole life and just give up. No, God, no one is more invested in your spiritual growth. He means to change you, and He can change you, and He wants to change you. 

Sometimes, praise God, we take great leaps forward, but usually it's that imperceptible one degree of glory after another. 

So often I have to tell myself and I tell our church, you know, don't measure your change by days or by hours or even by weeks. You know, “Okay, Tuesday am I holier than I was Monday.” Well, Mondays are a bad day. So maybe you're holier than Monday. But am I holier this week? No, you need to look over months, and you need to look over the years. You need to ask people, this is a community project. This is something that we need the body of Christ to help us with, and the body of Christ to reflect what's really going on. Because it's almost inevitably true that the closer any of us get to God, the more we see our sin. 

So, we're often not a good judge of whether we're growing. Because when you're 20 years old, you think you've made it, “I hardly have any sanctification left.” And then you learn more about God. And that shows you more about yourself. By the time you're middle aged, or whatever, you realize, “Okay, I'm never going to really be entirely the person that I want to be.” And it's not that you haven't grown. It's that you've seen more of God. You've seen more of those. You know what you thought were the mountain peaks in the Appalachians. You actually have the Rockies and you have the Himalayas, and there's more and more to God and to His glory. So, we really need other people around us to say, “You know what, Kevin, when I pull down the fruit of your life and I take a bite, there's more joy there. There's more gentleness; there's more self-control than there was six months ago or or two years ago.” That's the sort of growth that's often imperceptible, and we need other people to help us see it, and stir us up and pushes us along.

Erin: It's so good. That women's group that I mentioned, we were studying Galatians, which is supposed to be the man. It's a page of proclamation for Christian week we were talking about like, we know we can earn it, but we're not getting it right. And at one point we did exactly that. I said, “Okay, we've had this conversation several weeks in a row. Can you look back and see where God has caused growth? Are you more gracious with your children? Do you have a greater desire for His Word? Are you more eager to get to church on a Sunday morning because you want to feast on the Word? Then we can all say to each other, ‘Yes, I see that in you. Yes, that's true.’” That's a conversation I don't hear a lot of Christians having. I'd encourage you Grounded sisters to have.

Okay, Kevin, there's a woman listening. We're gonna land the plane. There's a woman listening, and she's still discouraged. She wanted to be different by now, she wanted to keep her resolutions, she wanted to be a better version of herself, and she just can't seem to get there. Where would you point to in God's Word to find some hope today?

Kevin: Oh, there's lots of places. I guess one place that jumps to mind is when Jesus tells the parable of the talents. Now don't get mixed up. There is the English word talent. Not exactly what the New Testaments means. Their talent was a unit of money in that parable. But the talent really represents, we might say, opportunity, ministry opportunity. 

And Jesus tells a story. A man has one talent and has five talents or 10, or depending on the gospel, one or two or five. I think I'd say to this woman, or anyone, many of us feel like that man who had one talent, and what's the safest thing to do? Bury it in the ground. Don't mess up. Don't fail. 

And we might think, well, that person at least their caution was good, and they didn't lose it. And we might think that God would say, “Well, good job, you didn't mess it up. You didn't lose it.” But Jesus says just the opposite. He says, “What? Look at the one who invested and he got five more, or got 10 more.” It comes down to, here's the point that Jesus makes for us, the one who buried his talent did not have the right view of his master. And when we don't have a right view of God, when we think He's just waiting for us, just trigger fingers just waiting for us to fail, just hopeless, then we just go and whatever opportunities we have, whatever effort we might want to make, we just bury it. And we say, “I'm not going to screw up. I'm going to get to the end of my life. I'm going to say, ‘Look, I didn't ruin it.’” 

And a lot of us think that would be a pretty good way to go about life. And Jesus says just the opposite. 

So, it means we got to take risks, not risk to go sin, of course, but risks in how we relate to people in being honest with our sin and coming before God and believing that He says, “Well done good and faithful servant.” 

Now, we hear that funerals and other places. But there's nothing in that parable to suggest that's only what missionaries get or maybe pastors get. No, that's supposed to be the life of the faithful, ordinary Christian, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” And it doesn't mean that that man with the two or the five talents did everything perfectly, of course not. But it means that he did what he could with what God had given to him or to her. And in that, he was faithful. 

Understand that God means to bless us. I don't know what your church or the listeners of your church have at the end of their service. But in Presbyterian tradition, we always end with a benediction, with a blessing. I'll extend my arms, which I sort of feel like I'm giving the congregation a hug. But I'm also God's blessing coming down upon you. And at least in our churches, with tradition, a lot of people standing there in the future will hold their arms open like this as if to receive the blessing that God wants to give. 

So, I'll end the sermon usually by saying, “The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you His peace.” God means to bless us. He turns His face toward us, to shine upon us. 

And that's essential if we are going to change for the sister out there who's discouraged that she's not the sort of person, the sort of Christian that she wanted to be. Children will try to please a parent for a time out of just fear and loathing and anticipation of judgment. But it will be much better in the long run to serve that parent because, “Mom and Dad loved me so much. They've given everything to me, and it breaks my heart when I disappoint them, and I want to do whatever I can to show my gratitude and to please them.” That's how we ought to relate to our heavenly Father.

Erin: I love that take away, discouraged women, that the Lord is pleased. You are in Christ, you have HIS righteousness on you. It reminds me of something I do with my sons. Sometimes if they have a big basketball game or a big test, I'll have them right on their hand in NTL—nothing to lose. I'll tell them, “Hey, no matter how you do, my love's not on the line. Jesus's love's not on the line. Your daddy's love’s not on the line. Your values are not on the line, so you got nothing to lose. Just enjoy it.” And what a liberating way that is to live and to embrace the Christian life. One last question, Kevin, did you make a New Year's resolution?

Kevin: I did. I like to make New Year's resolutions. They don't always stick. So, I guess this is why I've had to make it many years in a row. But my New Year's resolution for several years now has been to be more faithful in memorizing Scripture. And like a lot of your listeners with resolutions, I go gangbusters for four or five weeks. Then I gotta remember all these verses I just did the last few weeks. 

So, I'm doing okay, but I'm only in the first month and just trying to take small steps. And I can relate to a what Portia said, man, I'm even worse than coke. I like Mountain Dew. Coke is classy compared to Mountain Dew. 

Erin: I gave Mountain Dew up in the seventh grade. So, we're behind you. 

Kevin: I know. 

Erin: The Lord is behind you; He will equip you. Thanks for being on Grounded. We really do love having you here. How can women find out more about you, your writing, and your new book?

Kevin: The best way is go to KevinDeYoung.org. I got a new website, and it just the stuff I write, my podcast. Nooks will be up there KevinDeYoung.org. You won't miss anything that way.

Erin: It's great. I spent a good amount of time poking around there in preparation for this episode. We're gonna hold you to that, we're gonna have you back when your book comes out and continue the conversation. Thanks again. 

Kevin: Great. Thank you. 

Erin: Well, we promised you at the top of this episode that we have a surprise guest. We like to do surprises big on Grounded. So here she is. Portia is going to join me for this segment. We've got Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth in the Grounded studio. Welcome back to Grounded Nancy, it's been a while.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Thank you. It has been a while, and I'm so thrilled to just have this opportunity today. I loved hearing Pastor Kevin DeYoung. Wow, that was so rich. It makes me so eager for his book to come out later this year. But what a pastoral, wise, grace-filled, a Christ-centered word for our tired, plodding hearts. I needed that. Thank you so much for having him on.

Erin: We're talking about resolutions in this episode in the context of the fact that it's very hard for us to keep them. But you made a resolution five years ago, and I want you to tell our Grounded friends about it. What did you decide you were going to do?

Nancy: Now, some resolutions take longer than others to do. They're not actually 365. I had no idea where this was taking me. So, there I was with a new translation that had come out—Christian Standard Bible. I was wanting to read through it and just get familiar with it. I also had never journaled through the Bible. Before I had journaled parts of the Bible. I'm always writing when I'm reading the Bible and making observations and looking for implications and applications, kind of in that order. And so, I've done a lot of that, but I've never gone straight through the Bible. A precious friend of mine gave me a brand new, it was brand new then, it is now totally falling apart. I've got it in my hands. The covers have fallen off. But it was a journaling Bible. It's called a note taking Bible. It has the text of Scripture, no study notes, but just wide margins with lines on each page, that is space where you can write. 

So, on January 1, 2018, I opened to Genesis 1. I love reading through the Bible, and I didn't know what to write. It's like, “Okay, I've got this Bible . . .” I was kind of daunted by the blank space. The first resolution I made was, “I'm not writing this for anybody else. I'm not writing this to publish,” because I'm a writer. It's easy to make your study time, your devotional time, always into something for somebody else. But I was looking to the Lord to just feed my own heart. 

I just started writing observations about the text, what does it say? What does it mean? Sometimes writing prayers, sometimes writing questions of this. He started Genesis . . . you get a lot of questions. You get to Leviticus, you have even more questions. I would just go paragraph by paragraph, chapter by chapter, book by book, and I started to get into a rhythm. I had no idea how long it would take. I decided there's a picture.

Erin: Those notes, you write tiny. I would say like you have a pretty small handwriting, and you filled those pages. 

Nancy: I fill pages and actually hundreds more, because I ran out of just a blank paper. So that pen, it's like a 39 cent Bic pen. It's my favorite for doing this because it writes real tiny. The pen is blue, the highlighter is pink. And those were the two tools. I went through quite a few pens and highlighters. 

But I just said, “I'm not gonna hurry.” And I didn't. Sometimes I've read through the Bible in a year or multiple times in a year. I think there's a real benefit to that kind of bigger, overarching view. But for this I just said, “I want to soak in each passage. However long it takes.” I didn't say I’ve got to finish a chapter in a day or, you know, this passage this day. I just went till I was done for that day and moved on the next day. 

I didn't get every single day. I would date these. If you'd go through, there were some days I missed doing the journaling. It ended up taking five years, two years in the Old Testament, which is twice as long as the New Testament, and three years in the New Testament. Because I just got on a roll. This is so precious. I spent weeks in Romans chapter 12. I think I wrote like 1,000 words. 

And by the way, nobody but me could read those words. Except, there's a sweet young friend, who I've known since she was born. Her name is Karia. I've known her dad since he was a child. They're part of the ministry we serve with. Karia was 16 at the time, and I said, “Karia, I'd like somebody to transcribe these notes I'm taking. Would you be interested in that?”

Erin: It helps that she has young eyes, right? 

Nancy: It helped that she has young eyes, and I was paying her. And she said, “I'd like to do that.” Well, she had no idea that this would end up being 700,000 handwritten words. But five years later, she's now 21, she has been through the Bible with me. We've done this together. We've kind of grown up in the Word together. 

We're the only ones who've read these words. It's been a really sweet thing of pouring into her life. Over these years I would take a picture, similar to the one you just saw, but focusing on the column. I would do a screenshot on my phone and text it to her, and she blows them up. She's been sitting at her laptop as a side job for these five years. 

It's been a way of investing in her life. I didn't write it for her. I didn't write it for you or anybody else. I wrote it just to process God dealing with my own mind and heart as I was going through the word, and it has been such a precious, precious . . . This has been my sweet spot. I guess my number one sweet spot is being married to Robert Wolgemuth and the time we are together is precious to me. But next to that . . .

Erin: And he has been cheering you on through this five-year journey. He is so excited for you. 

Portia: I've texted you a couple of times, because you've inspired me. This is something that I want to do. In fact, two years ago for Mother's Day, Mikhail got me a Scripture journal set. It's like the Scriptures on one side and blank pages on the other, and I've never written one of them. He's like, “I got these things and you're not gonna use them?” I’m going to use them. I do plan to use them because I want to journal through the Bible. But it can be very intimidating, especially in light of today's episode where we're talking about wanting to change and making those resolutions to do things, and being afraid that we're not going to go through with it. 

And so, I guess I want to ask you, how did you keep going? I'm sure there were days when you were probably tired or very busy. What kept you consistent with keeping instilled with this goal?

Nancy: Well, first of all, I didn't put myself under the pressure of . . . I'm a firstborn type A. I can be very, “You got to do this; you’ve got to do it.” I wanted this to be a sweet time with the Lord. 

And so, there were weeks when I didn't journal at all. We came to a True Woman week, I mean, intake of the Word into my heart every day in some way. But some days, it was just while I'm getting ready, I'm listening to an audio Bible. So, I didn't journal every day. I would say the fact that Karia was behind me transcribing, if that hadn't been the case, I might not have finished. I don't know, it was just the fact that she was ready for more was something that helped me. 

But I would say to somebody, I've been writing about it for 50 years. So that was not a new thing. But the going through the whole Bible, that's a huge undertaking, not just to read the Bible, but to write something meaningful about every chapter. 

A lot of women have asked me, how can I get started on this? We will do a Revive Our Hearts series in the next months or so about just some tips and things that have been helpful to me. In fact, I've got an Instagram post, that's some tips to get you started. You might want to put a link to that in the notes to today's episode. But I would suggest to somebody, don't start with saying, “I'm going to do the whole Bible.” Maybe take the book of Philippians, or a short book, 1 Peter or a gospel and say, “Let me start there.” 

And then also, I've been called a perfectionist. I don't know if that's true or not, but I do like things right. I'm an editor. I like to get things right. I don't like mistakes in writing. But I had to get over that when it came to journaling. There are lots of scratching out. I mean, with a pen, you can't edit like you can on the keyboard. And so that's okay, it's not pretty. Some pages are really messy. There's some holes, times where I thought I was saying something correct. And then I came to later in that book of the Bible, and I found out I didn't have that right at all. So, I'd go back and scratch it out and put an insert and say, “Karia, you put this paragraph back where I had that paragraph.” 

So, it's not about polished writing. I just said, “I'm not writing this to publish. I'm writing this to process the Scripture with the Lord.” So, I'm writing it prayerfully, thoughtfully. I don't know if I have as many questions as answers, but I have lots of questions and things where I just go, “I don't really get this. I'm not sure why this is here.” 

I've been reading the Bible since I was probably five, and I am almost 65. Many, many, many, many times all through the Scripture, but I still, and I expect this will be true till I see Jesus face to face . . . He is the Word. He is going to be the answer to all my questions about the Scripture. And if I understood it all, I would be God. And I am not God. 

So, I am happy to live with mystery and perplexity and things I don't get. But Proverbs says it's the honor of a king to search out a matter. It's the glory of God to conceal a matter. They're things like I've spent the last . . . Since August, I think, I’ve been journaling through the book of Revelation. I just finished this a few weeks ago. 

So, it was August, September, October, November, December five months in the book of Revelation. And you know, that's got a lot of mystery in it. We know it's got mystery, and that's okay. God has revealed what He wants us to know. Our minds are feeble and weak and small and sinful. And so, we have to wrestle with it. We have to grapple with it. 

But I understand things better from that book now that I just spent five months soaking in it. But the next time I go through Revelation, I'll get new and fresh and different things about it. That's the role of the Holy Spirit, to help us understand. But we still have to come with humility and say, “Lord, thank You that You get this. And thank You that You're revealing piece by piece, what it means, helping me understand it better. But I'm going to keep searching, keep seeking, keep looking for gold, keep reading, letting the Word wash my heart.” 

You talked with Kevin DeYoung about the transforming power of the Holy Spirit of God, the grace of God, but it's also the Word of God as it's infused into our hearts, like an IV into our bodies, it's making us healthier. It's making us more whole. It's changing how we think. It's changing our perspective on everything. And so, if we spend our lives soaking in social media, and I spend plenty of time, too much time in social media, we're going to end up conflicted and confused and angry and perplexed.

Erin: Anxious.

Nancy: . . . thinking wrong, anxious, depressed. And so, we have to see through the grid to have a deeper soaking in the Word of God, the wisdom of God, the grace of God, the perspective of God. How incredible it has been to me during the last few years of COVID and cancer and medical challenges with Robert and the world, like, it's on fire. It's crazy elections, all of that. Underpinning all of that, in my heart, has been this daily, most days, soaking in, steeping . . . I'm a hot tea person in the morning. I put my tea bag in that hot water. I let it steep; I'm getting ready to do that right after this conversation. It soaks in there, and it fuses the water with whatever it is from that tea that I want to put into my system. Steeping in the Word of God is something that infuses our hearts, our minds, our souls with wisdom and grace and perspective. I need it every day. 

And so, journaling has helped me to concentrate better not to be so distracted. I am the queen of distractibility. I'm kind of with my pen and my writing teasing out the meaning of a passage. It's helped me to interact better with the Scripture and more deeply. It's been so, so rich for my soul.

Erin: I can't see the comments, but I know my Grounded sisters. They are going to say, “Can we have Nancy come to an episode on Bible journaling?” So, we'll work on that. But you're affirming a lot of things we've been talking about all month. You've talked about having other Christians around you as you resolve to do something. That's been Karia and Robert for you. You've talked about knowing your why. We've talked about how you’ve got to know what you're really doing this for. Your why was originally just to delight in the Lord and know His Word. It wasn't for other people, but God has put the things into motion for those to turn into a big new project. Your journaling notes are going to become a part of a devotional study Bible from Lifeway and Holman Bible publishers. What a huge undertaking that is. 

How can we pray for you in that because it's going to take, I don't think it's going to take five more years, but it's going to take a lot more time to turn this into that devotional study Bible. How can we pray?

Nancy: Yeah, it could take five more years, but we don't have five more years. So, I did not write this to be published. So, some friends, the editors of that Lifeway Bible are taking those 700,000 words, which is almost as long as the actual Bible itself, and they're reducing it, distilling it, making it make sense and working with me. This is my number one job for the next year. Now, this isn't going to replace my time of steeping in the Word. 

In fact, as we're speaking, I am waiting for a document that has their suggested notes on Genesis and Exodus. Then I dig into it, start into it and edit . . . So, I'm working with that team. And if we want it to minister, that Bible, it's not going to be like a final answer to anybody. 

It's not going to be, it's not a theological, I mean, I hope it's theologically sound. But I've never been to seminary. I hope to take women by the hand and say, “Let's walk together through the Word of God. I'm going to show you some glimpses, just some things along the way that the Lord has blessed me with as I've studied these passages. But I want you to get into the Word and do this yourself.” So it's not going to be like if you have this Bible, this devotional study Bible, you don't need another Bible. 

No, this is just we're friends on a journey together to get into God's Word and get God's Word into us. 

So yes, please pray. This is now heavy lifting over this next year. We're saying no to almost everything else on my schedule so that I can be available to work on that project and the editors at Lifeway needed. We just named Dave and Lawrence are the two men I'm working most closely with, who are taking those journal notes and they're doing a first pass draft, and then it comes back to me. We're going back and forth. And, you know, the Lord needs to give us a rhythm. We're just getting started in this, but a year from now is when, Lord willing, we pray that that project will be complete. 

And then you say, well, well, I have the Bible. No, once the document is complete, then it's another 18 months before in the production process. So, Lord willing, this will be released if the Lord enables the fall of 2025. And that sounds like so far away to you, to me . . .

Erin: It will be here like that. 

Nancy: Yes it will. 

Erin: My Grounded sisters are gonna be mad at me because Kevin's book you can't get it quite yet. You're gonna have to wait for that. And I know you're gonna want this devotional study, but you can't get it. Yeah, you're gonna have to wait for that. But no, these things are coming. And Nancy, I just do want to take a moment and pray for you. Because apart from the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, you will not be able to complete the task that He has in front of you and everybody else working on it. 

So, Kevin mentioned this, this is actually something we do on Grounded pretty often. If you can, and you're watching or listening, go ahead, put your hands forward towards Nancy. I'm going to pray. Nancy, I'd love if you just read us a snippet from your journals as our way of saying goodbye to you. 

So here we go: Jesus, You are the Word, the Word who became flesh and walked among us. And we want to know You more. Nancy has just shared with us how that's possible through Your Word, and she's given us excitement to run to the Word for ourselves. So, we praise You for that. And I pray for her God. You've promised that You will meet every need she has out of Your riches and glory. So out of your storehouse, give her energy. Out of Your storehouse, give her clarity. Out of Your storehouse, give her bandwidth. Out of Your storehouse, give her and the entire team wisdom and whatever else there they will need in this year where they're concentrating on this. 

And Lord, we pray that ultimately, this project would hit its mark, which is women's hearts, and that many, many millions of women would fall in love with and be transformed through Your Word as a result of the loaves and fishes they're bringing here Lord. We love You. We want to see you glorified through this Bible project. It's in Your name we pray, amen. 

Nancy, you want to read us just a snippet of your notes?

Nancy: Yeah, in fact, as I was listening to Kevin, I was thinking about the last paragraph I wrote in my journal about the last verse of Revelation. So Revelation 22:21, says, “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with everyone. Amen.” 

So, here's what I wrote about that verse. 

“How we all need this promised grace of God every day; it is for everyone. It’s what the verse says, “For all who humble themselves to receive His provision for their need. The closing verse of the New Testament is heavens answer to the curse, found in the last verse of the Old Testament Malachi 4:6, the grace of God has come to earth in the person of Christ, bringing salvation for all who repent and believe, overcoming sins, the dreadful curse. How great is our God, we worship you. May we walk in that grace through every step of our pilgrimage on this planet, until we see you face to face. Amen and amen.”

So let me do what Kevin just said he does for his congregation and you just prayed for me. Let me pray a blessing over you. And I just hug you, love you, bless you. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with everyone, every Grounded sister this day, all that is needed. Grace be to you, amen and amen.

Erin: Amen.

Portia: Amen, amen.

Erin: Thank you for being with us, Nancy, what a treat. And please do come back soon to teach us how to Bible journal. I know people are gonna want to learn that from you.

Nancy: Thank you, Erin, Portia. I love you so much.

Erin: Love you too. 

Portia: Well, I feel super . . .

Erin: It ain’t Grounded if we're not crying.

Portia: Man, I like I held it together. But I kind of wanted to boohoo. Oh, I feel so encouraged. And this is what we're going for. And so, we're gonna keep beating it in guys. Well, raise your hand if you've ever beaten yourself up for not having enough self-control. 

Erin: Two hands.

Portia: I've got a mental image of women raising their hands up all over the world. You know, when we make resolution beginning of the year, or other times, dependent on our own strength to change or to resist something, that resolution will fall. All right, it'll fall through every time. But Mary Kassian, one of my favorite people, she is going to give us a quick reminder that self-control is actually a gift of the Spirit. Here's Mary.

Mary Kassian: When I was assigned self-control, I thought, Oh no, because I don't have enough self-control to talk about self-control. But that's a good thing, because it's all founded in grace. We're all in process. I can testify to the fact that I have more self-control as an older woman than I had as a younger woman in various areas of my life. And so, the Lord does the work in our spirits and in our lives. It's God's good work. And I also can say that when I lean in and am seeking to walk a life that is controlled by the Spirit of God, that self-control is a fruit of the Spirit, and that is a gift that God gives me. When I am distracted and forget about those things, self-control becomes much more of an issue.

Portia: Hmm, well, Kevin has already gotten us grounded in God's Word. And so, he and Nancy, both of them mentioned something that I'd like for us to spend the next few moments kind of zooming in on. They specifically talked about the gospel infusion, or how our work is a gospel-infused effort. We've heard that word “infusion” a lot of times. I think that that word lays a great foundation for where we are headed in our Bibles today. 

So, turn with me to Philippians, the second chapter, we're going to pick up at verse 12. We're going to read 12 and 13. It says, “Therefore my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good purpose.” 

Now, at initial glance, Paul's command for believers to work out their salvation with fear and trembling, sounds a little bit like do more, try harder. But Paul's words here are a reminder to the Philippians and to us who we claim to be in Christ, that should be evident or seen in our actions and attitudes as believers. Okay, so he's making a point here, but wrapped up in this bold admonishment is also a bit of beautiful hope. 

In verse 13, Paul reminds us that it is God who is working in us to both to will and to work according to His purpose. And so, this is a twofold promise that underscores the fact that God does not abandon us in His callings for us. 

All right, specifically, in verse 13, Paul is illustrating that God operates in the life of the believer in two very distinct ways, in our wills and our work, in Christ, our desires are changed. By the power of the Holy Spirit, God actually places new, godly desires in us. He is the one at the helm of transforming our minds and our hearts to want the very things that He wants. And not only that, but God's Spirit in the believer is also an ever-flowing fountain of strength. By God's power, we are able to carry out godly work for His good pleasure. 

So you see, Paul's words here are far from legalistic platitudes. He is showing us that it is God's work in us. It is God's work. It is by the power of the Holy Spirit that we are able to live, to desire the things of God, and to work that out. And so, I pray that you will rest in that truth, and that you will trust that the good work that God has begun in you will be brought to completion by him for our good and for His glory, amen.

Erin: Amen. We've been doing a lot of “amening” in this episode. I hope that if you've been with us through this whole journey through January that you are excited to see God transform you in the year ahead, but that you are leaning hard on the power of His Spirit to do the work, His Word to do the work, His people to do the work. We don't want anybody facing the rest of the year discouraged. 

It's a little silly for me to say that we're gonna give you some tools now because I feel like we have just been loading tools into your tool belt. But we do always want to give you the good stuff. I didn't want you to miss out on this little set of cards. They're called Savor and Share. And today is the last day that you can get them for a gift of any amount when you give to Revive Our Hearts. 

In fact, we sold out already. There's more on the way, but I wanted to pull a couple of them out. What they have is a category and then a Scripture on the other side. These remind me of the things we've been talking about. He satisfies when you're not satisfied with your own progress. And there's a verse there from John 6 about facing discouragement. There's a verse there from Joshua 1. You are loved when you feel like maybe Jesus doesn't love me today because of my inability to keep some commitment. And when you need to be reminded of your why, there's a passage there from Matthew 5. 

So, there's 52 passages Why 52? Well, there's 52 weeks in this year that we're still in the beginning of, so head to ReviveOurHearts.com. There's a big button in the middle of that page that says get the cards. Today's the last day you can get them for a gift of any amount. I always want to be the friend that tells you the good stuff. So again, Savor and Share, and that's what we want you to do. We want you to savor and share who God is and what His Word teaches as He does the work of changing you from the inside out this year. 

What an episode P. I mean, from top to bottom, I just feel like I learned so, so much. I'm leaving encouraged. How about you?

Portia: Definitely encouraged. I was just sitting here thinking that I really want to go read my Bible. I want to go study. It doesn't feel like that burden of trying to change, but it's really like savoring my time with the Lord. So yeah, I am.

Erin: That's the Grounded feeling we want you to have: that you can be grounded in who God is and what He's called you to do. And you can face your week with your chin high and your eyes on Jesus. So, hope you're feeling that too at the end of this episode.

Portia: Absolutely. Well, next Monday, can you believe it's the month of February?

Erin: No, I cannot. 

Portia: I already know in a way I can't because I feel like January feels like the longest month ever.

Erin: I always say February is the longest shortest because it's got the shortest amount of days but the weather, it can feel long. 

Portia: Yeah. Well, we are coming back with some more good stuff. We know that February is kind of seen as the love month, so we want you to go ahead and start priming your mind. Got a lot of good stuff coming right you.

Erin: Yep, married, single, whatever your relationship status, we're gonna have something for you in the month ahead—another lineup of stellar guests. 

Portia: Let's wake up together with hope next week on Grounded.

Erin: Grounded audio is powered by Skype. Grounded as a production of Revive Our Hearts calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ. 

 

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