Deeper Daily Podcast- March 18, 2026

0:00Hello my friends and welcome back to the Deeper Daily Podcast. It's the 18th day of March, middle of the week, reminder, no midweek Bible study, so there will not be a concerning Jesus drop. However, I am actively working on the concerning Jesus book. And so we have, we are deep enough into it that it's gonna happen. And I am just, I'll keep bouncing updates off of you here in there. But I hope you're looking forward to that. I've been getting some excitement from people that want, particularly those first several chapters, where we talk about how to read the Old Testament and why we're given sanction to read it that way by Jesus and by the New Testament writers. That's gonna be valuable stuff. And I'm reiterate, or I'm sorry, I'm, it's reinforced in me as I've been working on it that that how important that is.

1:01So that's coming. Also tomorrow, I will tell you about the big sermon. We're gonna break down for you as we head into the next week. All right. For today, however, I want to deal with this last passage before there's a shift in tone. There's most certainly the most famous thing from 1 Thessalonians 4. Actually, the most famous thing from 1 Thessalonians is coming up, beginning in the 13th verse in a passage that runs through the end of the chapter. And then the next chapter starts and you could argue and what's it matter, but you could argue that the chapter should start at verse 13 of this chapter, because it's the same theme as you're going to chapter 5. So for the big bulk of 4 and 5, especially 5, is the whole coming of the Lord passage, which has been reinterpreted and reimagined a whole different way in the last 170 years than it ever was prior to that. And that's, of course, the scripture that gives people rapture theology, which leads to one

2:04domino after the other in some literal futurist eschatological framework. Now, I've given you a hint that I don't believe that. I don't adhere to to an understanding of this that is a literal b leads to a theology that makes Jesus look nothing like he did when he left. And that's where this has been hijacked. That's coming up, but I'll tell you right now it's not going to happen until we're done airing this next sermon. So if you've been looking forward to that portion from 1 Thessalonians 4, you'll have to wait, because I want to deal with 9 to 12 today. And I'm going to read them straight through 9, 10, 11, and 12. And I want to deal with it contextually and then share what this passage has meant to me, because this one has been impactful far more impactful to me than anything he says about the coming of the Lord. This is the passage. Now concerning love of the brothers and

3:04sisters, you do not need to have anyone right to you. For you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another. And indeed, you do love all the brothers and sisters throughout Macedonia. But we urge you beloved to do so more and more, to aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands as we directed you so that you may behave properly toward outsiders and be dependent on no one. Well, the first part of it seems pretty straightforward. I don't really need to write you guys. You're doing a good job loving each other. I hope you keep it up. You're doing so now. I urge you to do it more and more. But when you get to verse 11, that was a verse that found me at a very important moment in my life. And I'm talking about probably 13 years ago. I was in the pastorate in Missouri, church doing great, growing, ministries on fire. We're building the ministry

4:09and more and more and more is about building and building and building and growing and growing and growing. And I can feel something beginning to wear at me. It was right around that time I had a real spiritual awareness of Jesus' statement that we can't carry new wine and old wine skins. And I believed with everything in me that I was carrying the new wine of the new covenant. I don't mean I was the first. I mean, I was finally getting to carry it. But I felt like in a lot of ways I was carrying it in an old wine skin doing things the same old way because we always felt like they had to be that way. And knew that that wasn't a recipe for the future. I couldn't continue on that. And in that hour, 1st Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 11 happened. And here's how I remembered. I don't have my new King James in front of me, but I read it so many times. I'm going to be close. A spark to live a quiet life

5:14minding your own business, working with your hands. And I realized that Paul's working with your hands is literal. I mean, get involved in something. Like do something to take your time rather than meddling in others affairs, be busy. But it was those first two, aspire to live a quiet life minding your own business. And a friend of mine in ministry, John Shakespeare, on that time told me the interpretation of this that he had dressed on to that really made a difference in me at the time was make it your aspiration to have no aspiration. That in the world of aspirational living where everyone has a dream and a goal and they're driven to get there, make it your aspiration to live free from the weight of aspiration. And I remember that made such an impact on me, that text, such an impact on me,

6:20that it became my prayer. Lord, I want to aspire to be quiet, not aspire to be a star, because I had worked, I thought, was working towards being something, building something, and aspire to be what you would have me to be. And of course, we left our pastor and we moved and I went full time in a ministry of I tenant ministry. And I remember even in that, once it started to turn, and there were times I was in places that I would not have went before, or either had time to go before, or wouldn't have wanted to go before, whining a little bit. And I remember having another watershed moment, a few years later, where the father spoke to me and said, do you want to be famous or effective? And I was reminded that I had been praying, 1st Thessalonians chapter 4, verse 11, that I wanted to aspire to live a quiet life in my own business. So father, I'd much rather be effective. And I've settled on that now. It's been a decade. And I've settled on, it's okay for me

7:27to aspire to live a quiet life, mine my own business. When I do this, what I'm doing for you, this is working with my own hands. This is me doing my thing and letting others do their thing. I'm not trying to be anybody else's ministry. I'm not everybody's cup of tea. The church that we've forming in Ermo, South Carolina. I love it. I love everything about it, but I can promise you, it is not everybody's cup of tea. It's not the way everybody wants to do church. That's fine. I'm aspiring to live the life that he has given me to live and where that blesses and enriches and encourages. Well, that to me is everything. The last verse, verse 12, so that you may behave properly toward outsiders and be dependent on no one. And that's the point. I want to live a life in which I behave properly to those who don't know the Lord, but I'm not dependent on their opinion of me. And I know I'm dependent on you

8:34making this ministry happen with your gifts and your donations. But at the end of the day, not really, because the Father always finds someone else that says, I want to hear that. And that's how we have survived. And so the dependencies on him. And I pray today that you'll have a revelation of this aspire to live a quiet life, minding your own business, working with your hands. All right, tomorrow we begin the sermon break down. I got a bunch of stuff to say about it. Check it out. God bless.