Welcome to the Lansdale Life Church podcast.
If you're seeking a closer relationship with Jesus Christ, this podcast is for you.
Thank you for joining us today.
All right, we're going to get started here.
Can you guys hear me, George? You can hear me back there? Okay.
Thanks again for coming out. We had a great turnout here today.
And today our speaker is going to be Joshua Owens.
And Joshua grew up in Doylestown area, lives in Lansdale right now.
And his main job, he's a UPS store manager in Bluebell and can be found on his side
gig here at White Jasmine Thai right here in Lansdale.
Joshua has been actively attending Lansdale Life since September.
He has an interesting story about how he got here.
I don't know if he'll share that here this morning or not.
And Joshua is working with Zach Bonner to help head up our brand new softball team.
So have we had a game yet?
The first game is tomorrow or May 5th?
May 5th, okay.
All right, and so anybody else here on the softball team? No? All right.
So Josh has two broadcast series that he's doing. One is called The Long Story.
And these are fascinating historical accounts,
biblical events and characters that he talks about.
I got to hear about his story about Vesuvius and Pompeii.
It was very, very interesting. I really enjoyed it.
And then his other podcast series is called Heart Lessons.
And this is about relationships, faith,
and he's going to be throwing some personal testimonies in there too over time.
The one I got to hear in this Heart Lessons series is about breakups.
And that was very interesting.
What I like as I was listening to these podcasts is Joshua puts a lot of details in there.
He does a good, thorough job on his podcast.
And he's also humble and shares his own personal experiences.
So I found it very interesting.
So let's give it up here for Joshua Owens.
Good morning, brothers.
Happy Saturday, everyone.
I hope everyone's having a great Saturday.
Thank you, Doug, for the introduction.
You know, I don't know what I would do without men like Doug or Pastor Chris
or any of you guys in this room.
I'm so blessed to be a part of this church now.
Lanzell Life Church has been one of the best congregations
I've ever been blessed to be a part of.
And I've been a part of quite a few, you know,
when I was born into a Lutheran family, baptized as a Lutheran.
My mom's second husband was Catholic.
So I had a lot of his views growing up as a young Christian as well.
My grandparents and my stepdad, you know,
they had conflicting viewpoints with the difference in denominations
and that kind of stretched me thin as a kid.
Plus there was people in my family who were atheist and I had their viewpoints.
So there was a lot of mixed viewpoints as a kid.
But the thing I learned from both my grandparents and my stepdad
was that Christ was king.
But I didn't really know how to form a relationship with him.
And that started to change in sixth grade.
We moved to a place called Danborough, Pennsylvania,
which eventually became Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
And I met a woman.
Her name was Kathleen and she invited me to her church.
And that was the Community of Christ.
So I was there at the Community of Christ
and I really had a touching moment where I started to connect with God.
So I started to go to the church more and more
than I started to attend their youth groups and their church camps.
And in ninth grade, I was baptized by my own choice again to accept Christ.
And until then, I kept going to the Community of Christ.
The only issue was that as it was so far away,
I would have to go all the way to New Hope.
And since COVID, the congregation sort of split up a little bit.
So it was very infrequent.
And I knew that I needed to find a congregation here closer to home here in Lansdale.
So I had a plan to go out to first Friday and to find a church.
For those of you that don't know what first Friday is, first Friday,
they meet the first Friday of every month from May through November.
And our church goes out there to try to be fishers of men and women
to be able to bring people to the Lord.
And I knew that.
I knew that churches were going out there.
So I had a plan to go out and find a new congregation.
But that plan got set aside because when I was going out there,
I got a text from a friend.
He says, I have a tent out here.
I need help.
Can you come help me?
So I was like, yeah, I'll come help you.
And so I did.
And then I got too busy and never got to go out and find a church that night.
And when I did go out that night, I met someone and I ended up befriending her.
And then we ended up having a relationship.
And it was almost like I completely forgot about that goal.
You know, the enemy sometimes has ways to distract us.
And that's exactly what happened that night.
I didn't let my yeses be yeses.
I got distracted and dove right into a relationship
and totally forgot about my goal to not still be a Christian
who is lonely in his room trying to connect with God.
I knew that I needed brotherhood.
I knew that I needed congregation.
But instead, I focused on a relationship that wasn't even really God-based.
The woman herself wasn't a Christian.
She came from a Christian family.
It was super important to her family that she become a Christian again.
And I had it be super important to me.
I really wanted to bring her to the Lord, but it didn't really work out.
The relationship started to dwindle.
And I remember praying to God.
I said, God, let me know if this is for me.
Let me know what I need to do next.
About three hours later, we broke up.
And we never spoke again.
Then a couple days later, my car finally took its final breath
and stopped working.
And I had to get rid of it.
So weeks later, I'm on the September bus to work.
I'm broken.
I'm like, I don't know how to fix my car.
I'm newly single.
I don't really know what to do.
I was sad and depressed morning after morning, just trying to figure things out.
And one morning, I'm focusing on this family I see on the bus all the time.
And when they leave, I see a little blue card sitting on the floor of the bus.
At first, I think it's a Pokemon card that one of the kids dropped.
So I was like, let me go grab this card.
I'm going to give it to them next time I see them on the bus.
So I go to leave off the bus, pick up the card.
It's a Landzell Life Church business card.
And I take it into work.
I look it up.
I see the great website.
I see a video of Pastor Chris and Jill.
And I'm like, this looks like a great church.
They have Bible studies on Wednesdays.
Look at all these events that they do.
I was like, I think I want to go to this church.
It's also on 4th Street.
But I live on 2nd Street, two streets down.
I've never even known it was here because all the places I travel
were all the other opposite directions from this church.
I've never been down this way.
So I was like, let me go check it out.
But I'm going to come to Bible study
because that seems like it's going to be more intimate.
I might not be so overwhelmed on a Sunday.
So I do.
I go to the Bible study.
And I'm not sitting in the chair for more than 5 to 10 seconds.
I get a tap on my shoulder and I look up and it's,
Pastor Chris, I'm like, there's that guy from the video.
And safe to say, it was a wrap from there.
I remember John was teaching that night on the book
in Numbers and it really captivated me.
And I've been coming to church here,
men's breakfast, cell groups since.
Like Doug said, we're starting a softball team
for anyone who wants to come out to softball.
We could definitely use you there to just come cheer us on
or if you want to come play.
I mean, there's a bunch of age groups here in this church,
but the softball team doesn't discriminate by age groups either.
I think our pitcher is probably 65 years, 66 years old
and he's still out there crushing it.
So I'm really excited about that as well.
But I just wanted to lead off with exactly how I found the church,
but just to also say that I'm super thankful
to have met all of you brothers here
and have you guys help shepherd me back to the Lord.
So today though, I want to talk about the wilderness
and it's not as a metaphor,
not as a poetic symbol for hard times,
but I mean the real wilderness.
The forest, the mountains, the deserts,
the rivers and the valleys,
the places where the noise just all fades away,
the places where there's no crowds, there's no traffic,
there's no constant notifications buzzing in your pocket.
Just silence, just the wind moving through the trees,
water over rocks, stars in the sky.
And throughout history and throughout the entire Bible,
one thing's clear that God meets us men in the wilderness.
And before we even talk about the wilderness,
we have to understand something deeper.
The wilderness belongs to God first.
Genesis tells us that in the beginning,
God created the heavens and the earth.
He shaped the mountains.
He carved valleys.
He separated seas from land.
And after each act of creation, he said it was good.
Psalm chapter 95 verse 4 and 5 says,
in his hand are the depths of the earth.
The mountain peaks belong to him.
The sea is his, for he made it.
Nature is not random.
It is not empty.
It is not just scenery.
It is the craftsmanship of God.
Romans chapter 1 verse 20 says,
for since the creation of the world,
God's invisible qualities,
his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen,
being understood from what has been made.
So that means creation itself is preaching.
The mountains preach strength.
The oceans preach power.
The forest preach order and design.
And the sky preaches infinity.
And when men step into these places
and become silent and they become still,
they start to hear what creation has been saying all along.
Psalm chapter 46 verse 10 says,
be still and know that I am God.
God.
One of the greatest examples of this in the Bible is Moses.
See, Moses was not always a shepherd in the desert.
He grew up in a palace in Egypt.
He had wealth and education.
He had everything the world at that time had to offer.
But then we know that story after a violent incident.
Moses flees Egypt.
He becomes a fugitive.
And for 40 years, he lives there.
40 years watching sheep.
40 years just in the desert.
And then one day something strange happens.
He sees a bush on fire, but it's not burning.
So he approaches it.
And then God speaks.
The book of Exodus chapter 3 verse 4 says,
when the Lord saw that he had gone over to look,
God called him from within the bush.
God didn't call Moses when he was in the palace.
God waited to call to Moses once he was in the wilderness.
And that moment in the desert changed history
because that shepherd would go on to confront Pharaoh
and lead an entire nation out of slavery.
Another powerful moment happens with Jacob.
You know, Jacob spends most of his life running from his problems.
And these are problems that he caused himself
taking the birthright from his brother, Esau.
And then he fools Isaac into giving him the blessing.
And Esau's rightably pretty angry and starts to,
once Jacob dead, so Jacob flees.
And he's running and God sends him dreams and says,
don't worry, I'll bring you back.
And for another 20 years, he's out there and starts a family
and then has another dream that he should go back
and face his problems.
And one night he does that.
It's just him at night in the book of Genesis chapter 32 verse 24 says,
so Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.
And we know that that man was now ordinary man.
That was God.
Jacob wrestled all night long with God.
And when the son arose, God changed his name to Israel.
And not only did he change his name that day,
Jacob walked away with a limp
because sometimes the wilderness leaves marks on us.
But those marks remind us that we encountered God.
Another example is David.
Before becoming king,
David spent much of his life outdoors as a shepherd.
He lived in the hills and in the wilderness watching over sheeps.
He fought lions.
He fought bears out there.
He learned courage.
So when he later faces Goliath in first Samuel chapter 17 verse 37,
it says the Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion
and the paw of the bear will rescue me from this Philistine.
David already knew something, but God did too.
That's how God had that relationship with David
to know that he was more meant to become king than Saul.
But David also trusted that relationship in God
to know that he would protect him.
Protect him and the sheep when he was younger
and then when he would go on to face Goliath
and go on to become king.
He had that relationship with God
and that was all started in the wilderness.
Another story in the wilderness is one
we've all probably heard about
if you've come to Bible studies on Wednesday.
We did the book of Numbers.
Now we're on the book of Joshua.
And it's the story of the entire nation.
After leaving Egypt, they don't immediately go
to the Promised Land.
They wander for about 40 years.
Now that may sound like punishment,
but God explains something important
in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 8 verse 2.
It says, remember how the Lord your God
led you all the way in the wilderness these 40 years
to humble and to test you
in order to know what was in your heart.
The wilderness reveals what's inside a man.
It reveals our faith.
It reveals our weakness.
It reveals whether we truly trust God.
The next person in the Bible I want to talk about,
it's one of my favorite stories of the Bible.
Since I was a young kid,
I always really loved thunderstorms.
So when I grew up, I went to college to study storms
and now I photograph them
and sort of storm chase, if you will.
I've just always been fascinated
by storms.
So that brings us to the story of Job.
He's a man who loses everything.
We see that God points him out to say that,
look how great this man is
and how he follows me.
And Satan says, well, he only does that
because you give him everything.
Take all that away
and he's not going to follow you anymore.
So God does that and Job loses his health.
Job loses his wealth.
And after all the suffering,
Job is finally getting a little bit fed up with God.
He starts telling, asking God all these questions
and God responds not with excuses,
but as a whirlwind, as a storm.
In Job 38 verse one, it says,
the Lord then answered Job out of the whirlwind
and God begins to speak,
not by explaining the pain,
but revealing the power and creation.
It says, where were you
when I laid the earth's foundation?
Who shut up the sea behind the doors?
Have you entered the storehouses of the snow?
God points Job back to nature,
back to creation,
back to the wilderness,
back to things Job cannot control
because sometimes the answer to our suffering
is not understanding everything.
It's remembering who created everything.
God speaks through storms.
God speaks through wind.
God speaks through the natural world that he formed.
And Job's response after this
is not any more questions,
but he immediately becomes humble
and then he ends up getting everything back
that he once lost.
Another powerful wilderness story
comes from Elijah.
You know, Elijah defeats the prophets of Baal
and who Queen Jezebel once him killed
and he flees and runs into the wilderness.
He's running and then God stops him
and makes him take a nap under a tree
and eats.
I saw a joke about that online
that says sometimes all God wants us to do
is eat and take a nap.
And that's true,
especially when we're stressed out
like Elijah was.
You know, he's discouraged and afraid
and for 40 days he's traveling
and he finally gets to Mount Horeb
and he's hiding inside a cave
and God comes to him again there
and says, come outside.
I'm about to pass by.
And first there's a powerful wind
and rocks are falling
and you'd think God would be there
just like he was in the wind with Job
but he's not there.
And then there's an earthquake
but God's still not there.
And then there's a fire
and maybe he's there
because he came to Moses in a fire
but he's not there either.
Then God whispers to Elijah.
And that's important
because all these other stories
I've talked about where he shows up
a little, not aggressively,
but in a fire or in a storm.
Sometimes he doesn't need to.
Sometimes he's more gentle.
Sometimes he does reach out
and let you know that you can rest
and that you can eat
and he comes to you in a whisper.
It's not always loud.
Sometimes you just have to be
still enough and quiet enough
to know that God's whispering to you.
Another man who spent much
of his life in the wilderness
was John the Baptist.
John lived in the desert.
We know this.
The Bible says that he wore
clothing made out of camel hair,
that he ate locusts and wild honey.
People actually traveled
into the wilderness
just to hear him preach
just to get baptized by him.
And it was John the Baptist
who prepared the way for Jesus.
He was the messenger
who announced the Messiah
and he lived in the wilderness.
And then finally,
there's the example of Jesus.
Before starting his ministry,
he goes into the wilderness
for 40 days.
40 days fasting and praying.
He faced temptation.
In the Gospel of Matthew,
chapter four, verse one,
it says,
then Jesus was led by the spirit
into the wilderness
to be tempted by the devil.
The spirit led him there.
The wilderness was his preparation.
And we see even after this,
there was many times
that it said that Jesus
would wake up early
and go out into the wilderness
to pray or go into a garden
or away from other people
just to pray.
There's something about
wild places
that changes a man.
When you stand
in the wilderness long enough,
something begins
to shift inside you.
Your thoughts slow down.
Your prayers become more honest.
Your perspective changes.
Isaiah chapter 40, verse 12 says,
who has measured the waters
in the hollow of his hand?
Or with the breath of his hand
marked off the heavens?
Psalm 19.1 says,
the heavens declare
the glory of God.
The skies proclaim
the work of his hands.
And when you stand
under a sky full of stars
far away from the city lights,
it is difficult
not to think about God.
But here's something
we're thinking about.
Modern men rarely
experience the wilderness anymore.
We live surrounded by technology
and screens
and notifications,
noise.
Our phones buzz
every few minutes.
We scroll endlessly.
Our minds are never quiet.
But the men in the Bible
stepped away from that.
They went where things
were quiet.
Where they could pray.
Where they could think.
Where they could listen.
And maybe one reason
many men feel lost today
is because we've lost
those places.
We have lost the silence.
We have lost the wilderness.
And thousands of years ago,
we see that in the Bible
where God would meet
with these people.
But that's not anything old
that still happens today.
Even within the last thousand years,
there's people that I've
read about through history
since I do, like Doug said,
have my own podcast
called The Long Story
where I talk about
a lot of historical figures
and I try to base it all
on their faith as well
as much as I can.
And the first time we see this
is with George Washington.
You know, George Washington
is only 11 years old
in 1743
and his father Augustine
passes away.
And then everything that
Augustine has is left
to George's older brother,
Lawrence.
That's from Augustine's
first marriage.
He's the oldest
so he gets everything.
He even gets all the money.
So there's no more money
left for George
to get the same education
that Lawrence got.
So George is forced
to kind of find his own way
and he does that.
He runs out
into the Shenandoah Valley
and starts to become
a surveyor
and out there
as just a young boy
at maybe 14 years old
or so by then,
he's learning how to hunt,
he's learning how to fish,
he's learning how to
just survive out there
in nature on his own.
And that would shape
George's life forever.
It would lead him to become
the leader that he was
throughout the American Revolution.
The other example
that I know of this is
with also Abraham Lincoln.
He grows up in the wilderness
just in a cabin out there
in Illinois
and he loses his mother
in 1818, Nancy Hanks.
And then what his father does next
is could be seen as
neglect abuse nowadays
or anything like that,
but what he does is
actually pretty smart
and cunning for the time
because you can't survive
out there in the wilderness
back then in the early 1800s
without having a full family.
His father Thomas couldn't
be the father
and then also be the mother
and take care of the household
and he knew that.
So he made a difficult decision
but he did it anyway
and in 1819 he leaves
and he goes out
to find another wife.
And he's gone for months.
So at this time Lincoln's
probably about 10 or 11
and his sister's only a couple years older
but so they're out there
learning how to pretty much
fend for themselves for a while
there in the wilderness
and that both shapes
both of their lives
but Lincoln especially.
And then later on that year
Thomas does come back
with Lincoln's new stepmother
Sarah Bush Johnson
and she also has a great impact
on Lincoln's life
but the wilderness
totally shaped his life completely.
Now both of these men
did have relationships with God.
You know George Washington
was a part of a church.
There's transcripts of him
speaking about Jesus sometimes
a lot about God
and he does quote the Bible.
Lincoln quoted the Bible a lot.
Unfortunately there's never
really much talk about Jesus.
He has a lot of scrutiny
about religion.
But he did seem to believe in God
and quoted God and the Bible
quite frequently.
But unlike these two men
there is another man in history
who is fairly Christian
and he let those beliefs lead him
in his ways throughout his life.
And this is Theodore Roosevelt.
He was a part of a movement
in Christianity
that was called muscular Christianity
and that believed that men
could find strength through faith.
And Theodore Roosevelt
actually genuinely believed this
because Roosevelt's not born strong.
No he was born with severe asthma.
He was born really small and weak
and he was sick all the time.
He would have asthma attacks
that were so bad
his family would take him
outside of the house
just to try to help him
breathe fresh air.
Back then they didn't have
albuterol so they were doing
all these natural ways
to try to fix it.
And one of these ways
that I still even use today
with my asthma
is just to drink straight black coffee
as a stimulant.
And he did even up in his presidency
Theodore Roosevelt would drink
up to 25 cups of black coffee a day.
Like I said he was small,
weak and constantly ill
but when he was young
his father told him something
that shaped his life forever.
He said you have the mind
but you must build the body
and Roosevelt took this seriously.
He begins lifting weights.
He begins boxing.
He hikes.
He pushes himself relentlessly.
But you can get as strong
as you want as masculine
as you want on the outside
but there's still ways
that the world can break you.
And this happens to Theodore
in 1884 on Valentine's Day
of that year.
He loses his wife Alice.
She passes away
due to childbirth complications
from giving birth
just a couple days earlier
to his daughter
who's also named Alice.
But on the exact same day
his mother, Martha Roosevelt
also dies from typhoid fever.
And this really, really
made Theodore Roosevelt depressed.
He even writes about in his journal
he says the light
has gone out of my life.
And after this he leaves New York.
He goes into the wilderness
into the Dakota Territory.
He lives there as a rancher.
He rides across frozen plains.
He works cattle.
He hunts far away from the city life
that he grew up in
that he was used to.
He let the wilderness rebuild him.
It gave him strength.
It gave him clarity.
And it forges the man
that he would become.
You know he moves home
in the late 1880s after this.
He becomes a police commissioner.
He becomes governor.
He leads the Rough Riders.
And then we know from there
he becomes the President
of the United States.
Theodore Roosevelt truly believed
in Christ's ability
to change his life.
And he truly believed
that there was ways to do it.
Whether it was muscular Christianity
or whether it was retreating
into the wild to reshape
the life that he had.
The life that was broken
when he lost
two very important people to him.
And there's also a season
in my life when I stepped
into the wilderness.
It was four years ago
when I was first living
here in Lansdale.
I was a general manager
for a different company.
And that company sold to another one.
And I ended up losing my job
because they didn't need me anymore.
They already had a general manager.
So I lost my job.
My mother at the time got cancer.
Was she beat?
God bless that.
That he was able
to save her from that.
But at the time
I was going through that.
I was going through losing my job.
I was dealing
through a rough friendship
that I was trying to handle.
And it was a lot
for me to try to handle.
And I didn't know what else to do.
So I decided to think back
on these stories of men
finding God in the wilderness.
And I decided to do the same thing.
After all, I wasn't working.
So I had a little bit of free time.
And I decided to do that.
I ran out into the wilderness.
And I camped
for a couple weeks.
I was on the Appalachian Trail
for a little while.
Then for a little while
I was right off
the Perky Omen Trail.
A little bit closer here to home.
And I was focusing on
reading the Bible.
Staying up and praying.
Just trying to better myself.
Going on late night hikes
and prayer walks.
Just trying to do whatever I could
to just try to stay as close
to God as possible.
And when I'm out there,
there's the one night
I'm there and I'm camping at night.
I have my campfire going
and I just got done eating.
And I'm looking down the hill
and I see a little flashlight
bobbing up and down in the distance
heading up the hill at me.
And I'm still just watching it.
And then eventually the light
is almost like it's pointing directly at me.
And then it shuts off.
But the moon's pretty bright that day.
And I can still see the figure
or whatever's walking
even though they turned their light off.
Walking through the side of the hill
up towards the west.
And I just was like,
okay, well, someone's probably out there.
That's okay.
And then later on,
I end up having to go down towards that way
because I know that there's bathrooms
and I probably would usually just go outside.
But in this case, I can't.
I have to go to the little bathrooms
down below and I'm headed there
towards the bathroom.
And when I get closer,
I end up seeing a small campfire
and there's someone sitting there
and I have to at least walk past them
within 20 or 30 feet.
And all I hear is a small mumble
of, am I in trouble?
And I'm like, are you in trouble?
That's what I thought they said,
that they were in trouble.
I said, are you in trouble?
They're like, no, am I in trouble?
I said, no, you're not in trouble.
Why would you be in trouble?
And they're like, well,
this is private property
sometimes over here with the camp.
And usually when they're running it,
they kick me out of here.
They won't let me stay here.
And I was like, well,
I'm the only one here that I know of.
Maybe I'm not supposed to be here.
But it ended up being a homeless woman
who went there and stayed in that area
and she would go to these campgrounds.
And we hung out that whole entire night.
I gave her some of my leftover food
and some water and we just talked a lot.
And we did talk about faith
and we talked about God
and I talked to her about
what I was going through in my life
at that time
and how I really just needed
to get away from it all.
And she reminded me that I was blessed.
She reminded me that I was blessed,
that I even just had a home to go back to.
That at that moment that, yeah,
my mother might have been sick
and a couple other people in my family
that I was dealing with,
but I still had them at that moment.
And I'm not there experiencing them
at that time if I'm out here running away.
And it reminded me of the story of Jacob
when Jacob's out there
trying to run from his problems.
You know, God even lets him go out there for a while.
He lets him reshape his life.
And then he does come to him and say,
it's time to come home.
And that's sort of what I thought about
that night after I talked with her,
that I'm out here trying to reshape,
trying to be a better guy
and have these plans to be a better Christian.
But there's also problems
that I need to go home
and I need to face.
And that was really important to me
because I went out there
looking for a message from God,
looking to be able to talk to God.
And I ended up maybe meeting a messenger from him
or a message that he sent me
in a very unique way.
So now after my venture in the wilderness,
you know, any time that I realize
that I maybe am going further from God,
I try to retreat back out there.
I try to go on a hike.
I try to walk in prayer walk
and experience God in any way possible.
You know, the wilderness is still there.
The mountains still stand.
The forest are still there.
Rivers still run.
And sometimes the best thing
that a man can do is step away
from the noise of the world
and go into those places to pray,
to think, to listen.
Because throughout scripture
and throughout history,
the wilderness has always been a place
where men meet God,
where God speaks most clearly
when the world grows quiet.
But here's the truth.
The wilderness is not just a place of struggle.
It's a place of shaping.
It's where God forms identity.
It's where he builds strength.
It's where he removes noise.
It's where he teaches dependence.
And maybe there's some reasons
why men feel lost today.
It's not because God is absent.
It's because we are absent
from the places where he shows up.
From the places where we can hear him.
So maybe the call is simple.
Let's step away from the noise.
Step into silence.
Step into creation.
Step into stillness.
Because the same God who spoke
fire to Moses,
spoke through a storm to Job,
who wrestled with Jacob in the night.
The same God who led Jesus
into the wilderness
is still speaking today.
And sometimes he speaks most clearly
when everything else goes quiet.
And that's pretty much all I had written
to speak to you guys about today,
about the wilderness and my experience
and guys in the Bible and history.
But I didn't know if anyone else
had any stories about themselves
maybe finding God in the wilderness
that maybe they wanted to share with anyone.
I'll leave it up to you guys.
I know it's a lot quicker than
I planned this beach to be.
I wanted it to be a little bit longer,
but moved faster than I thought I did.
I think it's a little nervous up here.
Yeah, I'll just jump in.
Yeah.
Joshua, that is great.
That is fascinating.
And I want to give guys
a chance to respond here as well.
But just thinking it
in your more recent wilderness
of the breakup, the car breaking down,
God pursued you by that kid
dropping the Lancel Life Card,
going out seeking God
and out in the wilderness
and meeting a homeless person
that helped you to think about
coming home sort of,
coming facing your challenges.
And that's the goodness of God.
And I love that idea of
getting in the wilderness
so we can hear God,
getting in a quiet place.
But let's just pray
and then we'll open it up
for some questions
and maybe somebody sharing a story.
Lord God, I just thank you.
Thank you for Joshua.
And he's articulate
and he's very interesting to listen to
and he's focused on you.
And I just thank you for that.
And I pray you continue to bless Joshua
in his thoughtful pursuit of you.
This is a, that he would reach many people
for you, Christ,
in his pursuit of you.
And I just thank you.
Thank you for working in his life.
And thank you for just blessing
the rest of our time here.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.
Yeah.
So if anybody maybe has a story,
or, and then we could give,
let people ask some questions too.
Yeah, sure.
Wow, that really touched me, Josh.
I mean, when you hear my story,
you may be able to understand why.
Well, I'm here in Lansdale.
I never heard of Lansdale before.
And it all stems from the fact
that right now I'm going through
what my wife's counselor calls
a therapeutic separation.
For 34 years,
I worked in a level one trauma center.
Doing CAT scans and X-rays.
And I worked for probably
a good 30 of them.
I probably put in 50 to 60 hours a week.
I would work 12,
or I'd call it 6 p.m.
to 6 8, 6 30 a.m.
Six days a week.
And because of that,
I retired last year.
And my wife and I had kind of
grown apart a lot
because we weren't around each other too much.
It's like 20 years ago,
in order to get ahead,
I always learned,
I used to drink alcohol.
And I learned from my father that
the way to get ahead
is to kind of schmooze your bosses.
And I did.
I would go out with my boss
all the time after work.
And sometimes I'd come home drunk.
And it didn't go too well with my wife.
And that was 20 years ago.
But in the meantime,
I tried to,
after the last time,
I came home that way.
And I didn't even remember
what happened or anything.
And I had to get somebody
to take me home in a cab.
It wasn't a good thing.
But at that night,
I decided that's it no more.
And I quit drinking.
And that was 20 years ago.
And when I retired,
all those things still stuck with my wife.
She remembers every bad thing I ever did,
every bad thing I ever said.
And so we had quite a few arguments,
and she would have things
which she called triggers.
So she said,
well, I said,
we need to see counselors.
Well, I've been to seven counselors already,
seven marriage counselors.
I went to a marriage intensive
in Elizabethtown here in Pennsylvania.
And none of that seemed to work.
So I said,
I'm not going to another counselor.
Why don't you go see a counselor?
Because she had a pretty tough childhood
and an upbringing.
And so I thought,
maybe the problems with her,
I've done everything I can.
I think I don't know.
So her counselor said,
well, you need to have
a therapeutic separation.
Why don't you have him leave her?
So we decided,
and not my choice,
because I fought it tooth and nail.
I was like,
this is my home.
I'm not going anyplace.
I worked all these years
to pay for this house.
Now I'm going to enjoy it.
And finally,
it got so bad,
I prayed about it.
And Lord said,
you need to leave.
So I said,
okay, I told her,
I will go away.
I don't know where.
So where am I going to go?
I looked at apartments.
Now I'm not going to move out
for a long time.
I want to come back.
Where can I go for
two or three months?
So hotel extended stay
is too expensive.
Doesn't fit my budget.
Let me,
how about Airbnb?
So I looked at Airbnb's
and where am I going to go?
Well, I have a friend
in Doyle's town.
Maybe I'll go around there.
But Doyle's town is expensive.
So I couldn't find anything.
Let me find something
in my budget.
So here's one
in this little town
called Lansdale.
I never heard of Lansdale before.
This was back in December.
So I got the apartment
in Lansdale and I said,
well, if I go there,
I'm going to have to find a church.
Where am I going to go?
So I looked at all the churches
in Lansdale.
I investigated.
I looked at different
YouTube videos and stuff.
And I saw this guy PB
from Georgia Stinks.
I was like,
oh, this is interesting.
This guy's pretty cool.
And I started listening
to Pastor Chris's sermons too.
And I say, huh?
I saw pictures
of men's breakfast like this
with all the guys.
I said, this is what I need.
I need some men to be around
and to hear their stories and stuff.
And so I decided
I was going to go
to Lansdale Life Church.
And turns out it's only about
10 minutes from my apartment.
I can walk back and forth.
I said, this is great.
I'm just going to plug myself
into everything I can.
And this was the first week of March.
So I decided
also at the same time,
I always wanted to write a book
and now I'm retired.
So I thought I would try
to write a book.
And this is where it comes in
because the book that I titled
was going to be called
The Wilderness.
And I already started
taking all kinds of notes.
And I said, Lansdale's
My Wilderness.
And it's not like the woods
or Montana or anything like that.
This is urban setting.
But it's My Wilderness.
Because I spend a lot of time
walking around,
going to all the parks.
I walk every day.
I spend a lot of time
in my apartment writing.
And so to come here today
and hear your wilderness story,
it's just like almost like God
putting his stamp of approval on this.
And this is what he wanted me to do.
And I thank you for that.
So, I was only going to be here
three months.
But my wife said,
you know, I love you again.
You're the love of my life.
Why don't you make it
only two months?
So I said, okay,
I'll make it two months.
I called my host and I said,
oh, listen,
I'm going to only stay here
two months now.
So, I was actually,
my last day was supposed to be
on Thursday.
But two weeks ago,
for some reason,
we were texting back and forth.
And I don't know what happened.
I don't think I did anything.
But I thought,
oh, I must have done something
to offend her
because she's not talking to me anymore.
And so I wrote,
I said, what's going on?
You're not communicating with me.
Should I stay another month?
And she goes,
what do you want?
And I texted back,
no, what do you want me to do?
And she said,
stay another month.
So I was like,
oh, I don't know what happened.
And then she didn't talk to me again
for another week after that.
Finally, she started talking.
And I called my,
I said,
Lord, what do you want me to do?
If you want me to stay,
I'll call my host.
And if he didn't book it
for the month of May,
then I'll stay.
But if he's booked it to somebody,
I'll go home.
So what's it going to be?
So I called my host,
and he said,
no, it's open.
So I guess I'm staying another month.
So then she finally communicates to me
and says,
when are you coming home?
And I said,
well, you told me to stay another month.
So now I'm here until the end of May.
And I said,
can I ask you,
what did I do to offend you?
I'm sorry if I did anything.
And she said,
no, I had a dream.
And you were saying a lot
of bad things to me in my dream.
And they triggered some things.
So I was like,
there's nothing I can do about that.
So I guess the Lord wanted me
to stay here another month.
And he must still have
some work for me to do.
And I liken it kind of like to Joseph.
Joseph was in prison,
not that I'm in prison or anything.
It's more like a wilderness.
But just the fact that
he had to stay there.
He couldn't figure out
why he was there in that prison.
But the Lord was working on him
until he figured out
what the Lord wanted to do,
until he put things in his way
to get him out of that.
And so I still got a long way to go.
And I hope the next 36 weeks
or so that I'm here.
I'm going to improve even more.
And I've already seen
a lot of improvements in myself.
It's all because of you guys.
Thank you.
Yeah, Rocky.
Yeah, what's up, Rocky?
No, there's no touch.
I woke up the next morning
and she was gone.
Because there's a lake right there.
And I think that.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, she was already a believer
by the time that I talked to her.
I think she brought up God first
because I didn't even bring up God yet.
I just asked her if she wanted food.
And she was,
God bless you and things to me like that.
And then that's when we started talking
about God.
So, yeah.
But I never got to really talk to her.
Like I said, I woke up the next day
and they were gone.
Yeah, yeah.
Thanks.
Yeah.
Thanks for your testimony too, Charlie.
That was really good.
We're all glad that you're here.
Yeah, yeah, no, we're all glad that you're here.
We're all rooting for you too.
And I like that you brought up Joseph
because, you know, he had to be patient
through things that he's going through.
It sounds like you're being patient.
And he also says in that story
that things that were bad that happened,
God turned them to good.
So that's what God's doing with you too,
it sounds like.
So I'm really rooting for you.
I think we all are here.
But we're glad to have you here, Charlie.
For sure.
Anyone else have a wilderness story
or question or anything?
Yeah, thanks, Roger.
You know, that's really cool.
I'm glad that you are able
to have that sort of relationship
with your son-in-laws.
It sounds like it's a really good bond
that you guys have for sure.
Thank you.
Thanks for sharing.
Thank you.
Yeah, like they said there,
you don't have to go too far away.
It's Green Lane Park right over here.
If all of you guys live here
in Montgomery County,
I think they give you like half off
if you live here in the county.
It's only like 20 or 30 dollars to stay there.
And you can access the Perkeoman Trail
from Green Lane.
There's lakes there and stuff as well.
So you don't have to go too far.
Even here in Lansdale,
there's walking paths and stuff
that once you're in there,
you can kind of feel the spirit of God
just kind of close out
this world around us.
But yeah, no, thank you
for sharing that testimony,
especially the view in the oil field.
That's really, really great.
Yeah, I think it's the 9th Street Station too.
I think that's what it's called.
Because there's Lansdale,
there's 9th Street,
and then there's the,
I forget the other station here in Lansdale.
But I think it is 9th Street Station.
But yeah, I know where you're at.
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, it's all a hand come up over.
Yeah, okay.
All right.
Well, that sounds great.
Yeah, no, that sounds like something
we should run past.
Yeah, yeah.
I know I look that much like that,
Josh, I guess.
Yeah.
But no, yeah,
that sounds like a great idea.
We could run that past Pastor Chris
and all these other guys
and get us guys out there.
Maybe have a little wilderness venture,
men's retreat, I guess, if you will.
That would be great.
I think we would all kind of bond
from that even more.
It was like I said earlier in my speech,
this is a great group of brothers.
It's something that I definitely like to see.
Because even at my old church
with the Community of Christ too,
that was one of the biggest issues
that I also had was
the people that I grew up with
that were my age,
I get older now and see them on Facebook.
And there's a lot of them
who've just denounced the Lord completely.
And I kind of felt like Elijah
in the story of Elijah then too
when he tells God, he goes,
am I the only one left?
And God says, no,
I have about 7000 more people.
And that's kind of what he showed me
when he brought me here to the church
because I didn't think
that I had anyone left.
All the people I grew up with
that were my age
didn't really seem to follow anymore.
And then I was in the young adult group
there at the Community of Christ
where I would help shepherd
people even younger than me,
probably my sister's age.
And we could get through
to a couple of them,
but a lot of the other ones
were still kind of challenging
what you'd say,
or they'd speak lowly of religion.
They'd think that people of religion
were mean to them
or mean to their friends
who kind of grew up
if they were in LGBTQ
or anything like that.
And I'm like, well, we love everybody.
I shouldn't get that confused.
We're supposed to love everyone.
And yeah, maybe there's some people
that are harsh with it,
but that doesn't reflect
what the message
we're trying to send here.
You just got to come out
and kind of listen to God's message.
But it was hard to get through to them.
So I really thought
that I was the only one.
That was half the reason
why I was being a lonely Christian.
Anyways, and just like
he said about Reb Dev,
that was one of the first sermons
that I came here to see.
And that was one of his things
that he talked about
was how important it was
to find a congregation.
And I remember actually crying
when he was speaking about this
because it resonated with me so much
because of how important it was
that I finally found this congregation
when I came here
and saw the branch of,
I would say generations of people,
the older men
and then the middle-aged men
and then the men my age
and even younger.
It's a really great spectrum
of people here based on age.
And I really like to see that.
It really made me feel like
I'm not alone
and that there's other men here.
And that's definitely
one of the big reasons
why I also started
the softball team with Zach
because I got here
and I was like,
there's a lot of young men here.
I think we're ready to go
and start a softball team.
And like I said,
I can't wait to keep
furthering my relationship with God
but also furthering my relationship
with all you guys.
And doing a men's retreat
into the wilderness
actually sounds like a perfect idea.
So we should do that.
Anyone else?
Yeah, man.
You want to come up or?
Yeah, sweet.
Josh, it's so nice to meet you.
My name is Leo.
And I'm going to connect
a lot of points
from my testimony to yours
and what you shared today.
And for those of you who know me,
it's probably no secret
that I'm an extrovert, right?
I love conversations
and relationships
and I love being around people.
But probably what most of you
don't know is that growing up,
ever since I was as young
as I can remember,
I've also always been
a hopeless romantic
and always enjoyed stories
of the hero saving the princess.
I always had these dreams
of becoming an exemplary husband
and father and things like that.
And I'm 28 now
and I'm still as single as they come.
So when COVID happened,
I had actually just got back
from a year in Vietnam
doing missions work
and I was on a tear
through the whole country,
just city to city.
I was with my friends
and we were doing
missions training programs.
We were doing prayer nights,
healing nights, sharing testimonies,
going out evangelizing,
praying for people,
seeing people get healed,
seeing demons get cast out.
Just a lot of the miracles of the acts
and just the Holy Spirit
moving like fire
through the country.
And actually since that year,
Vietnam has experienced
its very first missions revival
in its Protestant churches history
where they've been sending out
dozens of Vietnamese missionaries
for the first time ever
every year since 2019
to other countries as missionaries.
But when I got back here in 2020
and COVID happened,
I got stuck here in America
because all travel shut down
and I was actually really confused
and upset at first with God
because I had been serving him
as a missionary probably for about...
Six years at that point.
And I thought I was gonna go back
to Vietnam that year
to be like a long-term missionary there
and what ended up happening
is I got stuck here
and at first I was like,
God, what the heck are you doing?
Why are you pulling out the rug
from under me?
And very quickly he showed me
that my worth,
I was placing my worth in my work
and results as a missionary
in the activity of missions
and I was really treating
like that calling
with this idolatrous attitude
that I was putting my worth in there
and I was seeing that
if I was useful to God
then I would be valuable to God
and he showed me
that I had this agenda
that if I did good things for him
that he would do good things for me
and so it was very transactional
and I didn't realize it at first
but just through great mentors
actually right here in this body
God showed me that
and he and actually like you know
he posed like
I received this question
on my heart from the Holy Spirit
like Leo, if you are unable
to do any of these things for me
am I enough for you?
And that really shot down
like every idol I had at that point
including marriage
even the idea of marriage
because we often you know
I think like the wilderness
is a place where our needs
are not getting met
where our physical needs
our relational needs
our spiritual needs
are not getting met right?
And in that place
all we have to fall back on
and we still have that choice
whether to fall back on him
all that we have to fall back on
we're posed with that choice
do we fall back on God right?
Or do we fall flat on our face you know
like we always have this
no matter how dire
our circumstances
or our weaknesses
become in this life
we always have a choice
whether we turn to God
or we turn away from him right?
I think in the wilderness
is that place
where everything else
gets ripped away
to the point where
we now can only turn to God
or turn away from him right?
Where you know there's that
there's this saying
we don't realize God is all we need
until God is all we have right?
And so like when I got back
throughout COVID
God taught me a bit
about responsibility
I started working part-time
and then I went back to college
at age 23 for nursing
and he really taught me
to slow down in that time
and I you know like
a lot of a lot of revival
happens in someone in
first in the heart
in the wilderness
it doesn't happen like
you know like we were
when I was serving in Vietnam
we were constantly praying
for you know like revival
in the in the church right?
In the people groups
in the congregations
but actually what God taught me
throughout COVID
is that revival actually begins
in the heart of God's people
he led me back to his word
he led me back to himself
and he actually showed me
Leo it's more it's more important
who you're becoming
than what you're doing
and most importantly
Romans 8 29 right?
We're predestined to be
conformed to the image of his son
so that he might be
the firstborn among many brothers
and so God's destiny for us
is that we become like him right?
And so who we're becoming in Christ
we can only know that
by getting to know Christ
and God really showed me
recently too like that
it matters especially
as this world gets darker
and darker
we know the world is getting darker
because God prophesied in his word
and we see it playing out
in the current events
you know it's going at a rate faster
than human history has ever seen
the world is getting darker
but as that happens
more of God's word gets fulfilled
and we have to be able to recognize that
and counter intuitively
be reassured by that
because our foundation
is not what's happening
but it's God's word right?
And so like
as God's word gets fulfilled
God proves himself
as the faithful one right?
As the intentional one
as the all-knowing
the all-powerful one
the one who's in control
and in charge right?
Even though things seem
to be getting chaotic
but if he already knew
what happened in advance
like an author of a novel
right?
He has a plan right?
And so it's so much
it's so important
especially for Christians
to know who God is
not what he's doing right?
What he's doing is changing
all the time
what he's done in my life
has changed all the time
from when I first took my
first missions training program
I went and served in Turkey
for a year and then in Vietnam
for a year after that
and then I went to nursing school
for years like
we change like our seasons
of life change right?
And God changes
what he's doing too
but what does the Bible mean
when it says God doesn't change
like Jesus Christ is the same
yesterday today and forever right?
It means who he is
his character doesn't change
and that's what the Bible
reveals to us
the Bible the content
of the Bible is often
about what God is doing right?
Like from Genesis to Revelation
what he's doing
has changed all the time
he's not making light anymore
he's not putting the stars
in place anymore
he's not splitting the Red Sea
anymore right?
He's not coming down
on 120 disciples
with flames of fire
with tongues of fire anymore right?
What he's doing
will change all the time
and what he's doing in our lives
are going to change
all the time too
but who he is never changes
his character never changes
and so as we read the Bible
as we study the Bible
the most important thing
we have to look for
who is God in this?
How is he revealing
his character right?
And again and again again
every single story
prophecy narrative poem
in the Bible
reveals a God
who is loving
who is caring
who is faithful
right?
Who is intentional
who is personal
who's also universal
who's powerful
who's in charge
right?
Who's in control
who's good right?
Who is you know like
and he's loving
and he wants to know us
through that love relationship
and you know like
I went through a really rough breakup
the roughest one of my life
just two years ago
and since then I like
my personality has changed a lot
actually like
through that relationship
through that breakup
I once again turn to God
like when I felt the rug
get pulled out under me
about traveling
I felt it again
when the relationship
like crashed and burned basically
and it wasn't my choice
for the relationship to end
it was you know
the other one's choice
and in that time
I really sought God
through the wilderness
I started to
literally like
just to save myself
from spiraling
into depression
and self-pity
I started to go out
to places of nature
parks
hiking trails
nature reserves
my favorite place
is only a 40-minute drive
and it's actually right here
on it's actually right down
on the other end of Welsh road
it's called
a penny pack ecological reserve
it's only a 35-minute drive
from this building
but it's like rolling grass hills
and there's like horses
and cottages in the distance
I feel like I'm the Lord of the Rings
when I'm there
it's like it's magical
I feel like I'm in the Shire
and I go there
and like
I would come upon these places
like these little clearings
in the woods
or this stream bed
with like a little rock
that's perfect for sitting on
and I would experience
this God who is romantic
like this God who like
I got this one moment there
I got this feeling
that God had been waiting
from the beginning of creation
for the past
however many thousand years
to meet Leo
in that place
and in that moment
that's romantic
and I started to experience
a God who wants to know me
on that level
right where he like
he became my faithful friend
companion
and he began to fulfill
all the relational needs
that I was seeking
through a worldly relationship
with a with a
I mean it was a sister in Christ
you know
but like
I started to experience
this God that was
you know
who knows me
and loves me deeper
than any person
uh
let alone spouse
ever will
and ever is able to know me
he knows me
like he knows us
from beginning to end
inside and out
he knows us better
than anybody in the world
because he created us right
and not only that
but like
true love
is when someone
sees you completely
right
and accepts you completely
and that's God alone
right
and that love is like
literally like
it's revolutionary
it's like
it's the most powerful force
in the universe right
love can overcome
it can conquer anything
and I'm I'm learning
and getting to know
that God
right
and I'm experiencing
that God who just like
loves me
like language is not enough
it's insufficient
to capture
like how deep
and how intense
and how amazing
that love is
and just how powerful
that love is
like that love
literally overcame
death for us
and gave us eternal life
right
and like that
like God
God
he exhibits many emotions right
and so like we see in the Bible
God has grieved
he has regretted
sometimes he's angry
right
he's a very just God
right
but God is not made up
of these emotions right
what is the substance
of his makeup
God is love
love
and especially as men
it's so important for us
to know this God
who loves us
because we can only love
others as we are loved
we can only give what we have
and the more
we get to know
this God who loves us
the more
we are loved by God
and it's so important to like
especially as men
to learn to be his bride
as a church right
because we can only love
our brides
as we are loved by God
as his bride
right
and so as we you know
like that
the love that God has
for his church
he has chosen
that picture
of a bride and groom
to portray
like the most clear relationship
between him and his church
right
and that's how he wants to love
each and every one of us
as men really
is you know
like the more we
we experience
and know
and learn
how to be loved by God
the better
we can love others
and serve others
yeah so
thanks for letting me share man
yeah
and thanks so much
for sharing Josh
yeah thanks for that Leo
yeah you're definitely right
God is pretty romantic
we can see that
in the wilderness as well
if you ever
look at a sunset
or the mountains
or anything
you can see that
he's definitely
knows how to make beauty
and he does want
what's best for us
so yeah
let's bow our heads and pray
Lord I
thank you again
for this group of men here
this great brotherhood
that we have
we're also blessed
to have each other
we also thank you
just for the opportunity
to be able to talk
about the wilderness
and and have all these men
share that
their personal stories
to help us realize
that even in the most
troublesome times of our lives
you still speak to us
you still reach out to us
and sometimes it may be
through a storm
sometimes it may be
through a fire
sometimes it may be pretty loud
but other times
it may be quiet
we do need rest
we do need silence
we need to be still
whether we're quiet
and here together
just meeting as men
in this congregation
or we're out in the wilderness
directly trying
to connect with you
Lord we're so blessed
to just be able to have
the opportunity
to have this relationship
with you
to be your sons
and we can't wait
to the day
that we actually
get to see
this next world
you have in store for us
and how beautiful
that world
really is
so Lord again
to thank you
for all the men
here in this congregation
we are super blessed
and we thank you
for everything
in your name
we pray
Amen
Thanks for joining us
at Lansdale Life Church
as we praise God
and discuss his word
don't forget to join us
for worship lives
Sunday mornings
at 10 a.m. eastern
on YouTube
be blessed
and have a great day