Your Story Matters: The Power of a Christian Testimony
FULL TRANSCRIPT
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He's just a regular guy with a cool job that God loves for some reason. Welcome to The Steve Marston Show, a daily journey in learning how to live more like Jesus, conversations with those that God is working through, and dad jokes. It's the most unique show you'll hear today. Now, here's Steve. Okay, welcome aboard. It's The Steve Marston Show. Thank you for being here.
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Especially for those of you that are listening on radio, we're so thrilled to be with you every single afternoon on 99.5 The Word in Little Rock, as well as AM 630 The Word in San Antonio. So incredibly grateful for all of you that listen every single day and make us a part of your daily routine. The rest of you I know are joining us by way of podcast or maybe
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you're listening to the YouTube page, or maybe you're hanging out at SteveMarsdenShow.com, whatever your story, thank you for letting us entertain you and hopefully be able to bring you some things that will draw you closer to Jesus. And I wanted to get started today with something that has really spoke to me over the last couple of days, and that is the power of our testimony. You know, the Bible is full of stories.
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of how our stories of faith matter. Because when you start to think about how you share your faith, this is the easiest, best, and most effective way for you to do so. Because we could all, you know, have seminary degrees or knowing all these apologetic things, which again, we try to bring you those
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answers in different ways, in different forms, to be able to handle some of the why questions that might pop up from discussions with people. But really, the thing that's going to matter to people, whether they be your family members or maybe your co-workers, anyone who asks you about your faith, they want to know the why and the what.
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that has changed you. And to be able to tell your story is the, like I say, most effective way of being able to do that. look, there are some people, and you and I both have heard their stories, they were saved from the absolute worst things in humanity. You know, I can think of an evangelist that used to come to our church a lot, and I mean, he...
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had five or six different stepfathers. He was abused in every kind of way throughout his growing up. He thought about suicide at a young age, like 10 years old. He was an alcoholic at some point in his early teens. then as he got to be an older teenager, one of his
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friends at school invited him to church and he didn't know anything about church, never been to church and all of sudden God gloriously saved him and then now here we are so many years later and he's been using his gifts and his life to reach others with Jesus by primarily telling his story. Now I listen to that and you listen to stories similar and you think, well my story is nowhere near that way.
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Of course, people are going to pay attention when that guy talks because, wow, what a testimony. But never underestimate what you have been through and what God has saved you from because we're all on level ground when it comes to that. And look, my story is not some kind of spectacular edge of your seat kind of thing either. I I was a kid of about 12 years old, you know.
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And honestly, even before that, I don't remember a time where I didn't know who Jesus was. And I didn't know what He did or came to do and all of that. I have had that knowledge literally all of my life. But it wasn't until I was 12 years old that it started to become personal to me. And all of a sudden, that wonderful scripture in John chapter 3 wasn't that
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God just loved the whole world, but that God loved me, and that He gave His only begotten Son that if I would believe in Him, that I wouldn't have to perish, but I could have eternal life. That made all the difference in the world. And I'm sure your situation is somewhere in between that evangelist that I know and mine, but it's still so worth telling.
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because people need to hear and see the difference that Jesus has made and continues to make in your life. Because they want to know about hope and peace and purpose because as a lost person, they don't have it. And if you are exuding Jesus, you're also exuding peace and purpose and joy that they are craving in their lives. So learn to be able to tell your story.
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and be able to do it in a way that's succinct and just is telling how Jesus moved and acted through your life and how you have never been the same since. Here's another case in point. I was just minding my own business, scrolling through my social media like I usually do, and I came across this post on X from John Root, and he posted this video
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of a young man named Hank Brown who is the quarterback for the Iowa Hawkeyes. He was asked, was young Mr. Brown, about the tattoo of the word axe, chapter 20, verse 24, on his arm. Listen to his answer. This has given me the task of testifying the good news of God's grace. And what that, you know, actually my entire family actually got that verse, besides my youngest brother, he's a little too young, but.
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My entire family got that verse tattooed on us at, you know, it's different spots. But ultimately what that verse means to me is it starts with however I consider my own life worth nothing to me. And I think just that mentality of like, hey, as a leader for this team, like I want to be a servant leader. I want to, you know, grow with these guys and show these guys that I care about them, like on the field, but also off the field. And then, you know, at the end of the verse,
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It says my only aim is to testify to the good news of God's grace. And so that's what I believe. Like my purpose and my aim in this life is to tell others about the good news of God's grace, which is the fact that God sent his son to die on the cross and for our sins, like we deserve to be on the cross and pay that penalty. But he was a substitute for us. And so to know that he was a substitute and now he extends the gift of grace that
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All we have to do is accept it. It's powerful and I want everyone to know that gift. And so ultimately that's my purpose and that's why I have that on my on my bicep. Does that young man get it or what? That is Iowa Hawkeyes quarterback Hank Brown just talking about Jesus and telling his story. And it's such a good reminder for us. I think that whatever situation we're in.
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that we can just tell our story and be able to rest in the fact that God can take what seems like maybe an uninteresting or unspectacular kind of testimony of how He saved you and I and use it in the lives of others to really change their lives. So guess the major takeaway is that we not be afraid to just tell our story because I know so many times
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we get into situations where we feel like we want to say something, maybe God is leading us to say something to someone, again, whether it's someone close to us or maybe even a complete stranger, and we're fumbling for the words. like, what do we talk about? What am I going to say? Because I certainly don't want to ruin anything, but I do want to share the hope that I have. Well, I think the answer is just tell your story. You'll be amazed at how God can use it. In fact,
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Coming up in a little while, my son Tyler from 1189 YouTube channel is going to join us and we're going to see that example played out in the life of the Apostle Paul of all people. In just one chapter, Paul talks about his testimony three different times to three different audiences. So we'll get into that as we move along the program here today. But coming up, we'll have another new segment that we have launched just a couple of weeks ago.
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called Christian Explain Yourself. We'll get into that next. It's the Steve Marston Show. Stay put.
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back on the Steve Marston show. Thank you for listening. It's where faith and fun are both taken seriously. And on Thursdays we do this little feature we call Christian Explain Yourself because especially for our radio audience, research tells us that we have somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 % at any one time of the listeners listening to the radio stations are not believers. They are people
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who for whatever reason find the radio to be a safe space, to be able to listen to what's being taught and what's being said, and to be able to feel like there's a judgment-free zone kind of thing, and to be able to kind of learn on their own about what the faith says without having to really do much more than just listen. And that's cool, and it's so wonderful to have
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you listening, if that fits your description, let me just say welcome. Same thing if you're just tooling around the internet and you've somehow, someway stumbled across this as a podcast. Grateful that you're listening and you're always welcome to listen, to hear what we have to say about the different things concerning our faith. But I think this segment is also good for those of us that are believers to be able to explain
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in more detail why we do some of the things we do. So we call it, again, Christian Explain Yourself. And I think one of the questions sometimes we get as Christians, and sometimes I think even believers kind of wrestle with this sometimes, is if salvation is free, meaning what God did on the cross is free and open to everyone and
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It comes without any strings. All it is is just taking by faith what Jesus did on the cross, and that automatically makes you right with Him, not only in this life, but in the life to come. If all of that is free, then why does Christianity kind of cost you your whole life? Why do you have to start going to church and start being a
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there every time that it's seeming like the doors are open and why do you start giving your money and why do you start doing all of these other things? And I think especially for the answer to the church question would be this. Imagine, if you will, as a believer, those of you that are followers of Jesus, imagine in your life if
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God hadn't created a church, hadn't created a time for us to just kind of stop and take inventory of our lives and to be able to worship Him. You know, if we didn't have that, would we ever do it as believers? I'm probably thinking no. mean, think about how busy and difficult our life is and being able to
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on our own stop and do that? No, I don't think we would. And when you look at Scripture, church is a thing that God Himself created. It's not something that we thought would be a good idea. It's definitely not man-made. It's God-designed. And as a matter of fact, God in the Bible tells us explicitly that we are not
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to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. Because there is something special when believers come together to worship. And another reason why do you have to go to church is the fact that the church is not really a building. The church is the believers that make up that particular congregation. Because here's what the Bible says happens
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when people go from unsaved to salvation, and that is the Holy Spirit comes and lives inside of us. So no longer is there a need for a temple, meaning a structured building, but the Bible says we are now the temples of God because the Holy Spirit dwells in us. That's a proof that we have been saved. So when all of us as temples
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of the Holy Spirit gather, that's something incredible happens. And we hear the word preached and we're in His presence. It's just something that you can only call a move of God, something God ordained because when you do experience it, it is truly worshipful. And that's what God has designed us to do is to worship Him. And again, He...
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was the one that came out and put together this whole idea of having a church. Now, I know that there are people coming up and as we're taping this, hunting season is on the horizon. I think this weekend starts the hunting season. And I know a lot of people will say, well, you know what, I love God and I love being out in His nature and I can worship God just as easily.
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and just as well from a deer stand as I can in a church pew. Is that true? Absolutely it's true. Surely you can. However, I think the more pertinent question is, do you? If you are in a deer stand, are you worshiping God? Or if you are at your home, are you worshiping God? And again,
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I can't answer those questions for you. That's something you're going to have to wrestle with and deal with yourself. But those questions also have to be taken in light of this. The church is incredibly important to God because after all, Jesus died for the church. So when we start kicking around these ideas of, I don't have to go to church to be a Christian, absolutely not. You don't.
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Salvation, as we've already established, is 100 % free and it's not based on your behavior before or after coming to Christ. You are saved because God is so good. And it's like we always say, it's Him holding on to us and not us holding on to Him. However, if God thought so much about the church as a whole,
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Shouldn't we consider it important as well? If he were to die for it, I think we ought to be willing to attend it and be there. And again, I know about church hurt and I know that people have been rude and mean and done some despicable things, but guess what? Those were just people doing those things. Don't miss God because of people. Be in church. It's important.
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as a Christian to grow in your faith and to worship the one who saved you. Thank you for listening. It's the Steve Marston Show, the Christian radio show and podcast that actually matters. It's great to be with you as always and on most Thursdays, not hard and fast rule, but just about every Thursday. I like to welcome in my son Tyler, who is the content creator of 1189. It's a YouTube channel.
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And it's a free online Bible commentary. Now, most of us are familiar with a lot of these different things that are online that kind of give you overbook, overviews of the different books of the Bible. But what Tyler does is takes each chapter and sometimes almost verse by verse and breaks it down for you in video. And it's a lot of fun and it's very educational and it will really help you out. And Tyler, it's always great to have you here, man. Yeah, it's good to be back.
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Alright, well let's dive into the latest 1189 video. You've been in the book of Acts, and as we're taping this, yesterday Acts chapter 26 dropped. Yeah, Acts 26 came out yesterday, and so yeah, I've got two more after this, and then we will be done with the book of Acts. But yeah, in Acts chapter 26, Paul is kind of in the middle of this
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uh... trial this whole fiasco uh... that kind of blew up and so he's basically being tossed around from place to place to to ruler to ruler uh... he's giving a defense of his faith and he's he's telling these people why he does what he doesn't and it's really comes comes out clearly here in acts twenty six because he's standing before king agrippa who's the judaic king of the kind of roman occupied uh... puppet government that that the romans have set up so
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Basically, the story goes, the governor is Festus. He's trying to figure out what to do with Paul. And Paul appeals to be tried in the court of Caesar, which means they're going to send him to Rome to stand before the emperor. But Festus doesn't know what to tell Caesar about Paul. And so he's trying to figure out more information. He knows that Agrippa has a little bit more knowledge than he does in regards to the Hebrew scriptures.
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the Jewish way of life and all these things. So he invites Agrippa to come hear Paul speak. And so what we get in Acts 26 is Paul's defense before Festus and Agrippa. And really what it is, is it's his testimony. And he tells the story for a third time in the book of Acts. We hear the story of how he was traveling to Damascus on his way to attack and persecute Christians. And he met the resurrected Lord Jesus on the road.
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And that made him completely rethink and recontextualize everything he thought he knew about God. When he realized that Jesus really was the Messiah, that he really did rise from the dead, it changed his entire world perspective. And that is why he does what he does. That's why he travels around preaching the good news of Jesus and trying to get people to understand that Jesus' reign is right now and through him.
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you can be reconciled to God the Father. Yeah, it's such the good news, and it's also a practical application, I think, for us, because when you think about how Paul is answering people, whether it be kings or whether it be just people out on the street, the way he talks about his faith is by simply telling his story. Now, obviously his story is so much bigger and dynamic than probably most of the people listening and
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to this podcast, but it's still his story and our story, though maybe not as, you know, bells and whistles and exciting, still matters. Yeah, exactly. I think that's one thing we can really take away from this chapter is the power of our testimony and the power of our stories, because, you know, not everyone is going to have an apologetics degree.
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you know, when people ask you why you believe what you believe. And most of the time when people are asking that question, that's not what they're asking, right? don't... people are not convinced by philosophical debates a lot of the times. When people come to faith in Christ, it's because something has happened to them inside them. They've seen God work out in some sort of way. And so
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What I think is important about that is when people ask us why we believe what we believe, we could, of course, sit down and have a systematic conversation with them about it. But what they really want to know is what happened to you? What has God done in your life? What has Jesus done in your life? How is your life better because of knowing Jesus? And that is such a... That's what Paul is doing. And I think that's such an interesting point that you bring up, because when you think about and you do a little research,
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into the first century kind of religious leaders that were there, that were the ultimate ones that persecuted Jesus, know, the Pharisees, Sadducees, the Herodians, all of those type people. That's the kind of arguments that they would make. They were more philosophical. They were never kind of personal stories. Therefore, when Jesus came along and Jesus started really talking about personal things and being more real and authentic and not only that, but also authoritative,
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it really just rocked their whole world. Nobody had ever heard anything like it. Yeah, I mean, I think that's exactly what Paul experienced, right? I mean, he says in this chapter that he was raised as a Pharisee. You know, he did his studying in Jerusalem, and the reason he persecuted Christians was because he thought they were blasphemers. He thought they were wrong, you know, until he actually met Jesus.
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You it's not just that one day, every, you know, it's not just one day he was studying and he said, Oh, look, actually this, you know, this small passage in Isaiah is actually really coincides with, know, what happened. Paul met Jesus and from that moment, everything changed. So in, you know, again, I don't think we all have had visual meetings of Jesus like Paul has, but we have all met Jesus.
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We claim to be Christians. We've met Him. We've experienced Him through the pages of Scripture, through His Spirit working in other believers. We've met Him. What has He done for us? How has He moved in our lives? And the sooner we get better at telling that story and get comfortable with telling what Jesus has done for us, the more I think that that's going to resonate with unbelievers, with lost people in our own communities, and really just make the name of Jesus known.
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My son Tyler is our guest here on the Steve Marston show. We've brought him on to talk about 1189, which is his free YouTube channel. It's an online Bible commentary where he breaks down every chapter of the Bible, and it's absolutely free. It's a tremendous, tremendous resource. But I want to touch on something you just said there, and I don't want to get off too far in a rabbit trail on this, but deconstructing faith. You you hear that term a lot these days.
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And that is something that I always push back against very hard because just what you were saying, know, Paul experienced Jesus. If you were truly saved, you have experienced Jesus. And there's no way to be able to turn back and say, oh, no, you know, what I was doing, I was saved one time, but really I'm not anymore. And I just don't believe in this stuff anymore. That is not the truth.
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Once you've it's like saying to someone who has been to Disneyland. Well, you've never been to Disneyland Well, yeah, I have I've experienced it. I've been there. I rode the rides I did all the stuff you can't convince me otherwise just because you For some reason don't like Disneyland. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a really good point. I think a lot of people who Go through deconstruction or something. I think there's there's one really
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One, obviously, really, really bad implication of that, but one that's really helpful, too. I think on the one hand, you have people who just were probably never safe to begin with, who haven't met Jesus, and they've been raised their entire life being told that they have, and they, you know, walk away from it. And I think that is on the one hand. On the other hand, I think sometimes it's really helpful to actually think about
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why we believe what we believe. Like, you know, when we're talking about the dangers of deconstruction and watching out for that, it's not that we're against questions. You know, I mean, even Paul in this chapter, right? He believes one thing, but he has an experience that makes him question everything he thought he knew. Right. And it leads him to the truth. Yeah. Right. That's the important part. When we ask questions faithfully, wanting to find out the truth,
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Jesus will reveal himself and he will reveal himself as the truth. I really do believe that. Our buddy Brady Weldon calls it the difference between deconstruction and reconstruction. You know, there's a difference there, and I really appreciate that. By the way, we talked about that with Brady on one of the episodes, so you can go back in the archives and listen to it if you'd like, because it was a really interesting conversation. But let's get back to what the matter is at hand here, Acts chapter 26.
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Paul again is literally defending his life here in front of these different kings, and this one happens to be Agrippa. And again, like you were saying, they didn't know exactly what to do with Paul, and Paul knows that going back to Jerusalem, that is the ultimate like death sentence. Now, maybe going to Rome probably favors that too, but at least
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he would rather appeal to something that he might have a little bit of a chance at versus none at all, right? Yeah, for sure. And I think that's another thing that really comes out, especially in this chapter. It's really interesting. I have said that we hear Paul's testimony three different times, and each time it's a little bit different, which is kind of fun in comparing those iterations. And in this one in particular, Jesus has a little bit more of an extended monologue, I guess you might call it.
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when he's talking to Paul and he tells him what his plan is for him, his purpose is for him. And he says how he's going to bear witness to the things that Jesus has already shown him and the things he's going to show him in the future. So what does that mean? Well, I think it means Jesus has a plan for Paul's life, that this was always part of the plan. And what that means is Paul can rest steady knowing that his future is secure, that Jesus really is in control of whatever is going to come his way.
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in the future. Yeah, and so whether it means, you know, Jesus has also appeared to him and told him that he's going to go to Rome. And through, you know, through all of these persecutions, through these imprisonments, through the shipwreck that's coming in the next chapter, all of it could be really jarring. All of it could be really a path to say, Oh, wait, did I really?
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believe in Jesus, did I get something wrong? Like, why is this happening to me? But Paul can rest in that promise from Jesus that he has a plan, you know, and he knows what the plan is. Paul is going, all Paul has to do is bear witness to Jesus in every circumstance he finds himself in. And as we see through that book of Acts, that's exactly what he does. And you and I have talked about this before, too, but God does the same thing with us.
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You know, whenever we're in a hard time, a hard thing that we can't seem to find our way out of, God will give us those little things to just reassure us. It may not be something spectacular, but it's just that little kind of pat on the shoulder, kind of like grasp of the hand, hey, I've got you, you're going to be fine. And it may just be for a moment, but it gives you that peace and that joy and that, okay, God's got it. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
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That's a promise we ourselves can hang our hats on that God is in control, that Jesus does have a plan for our lives. And he knows what we're going to be going through. He knows how what has already happened to us is set up for the future, whatever's coming our way. I was just thinking earlier this week about when I married my wife, Jesse, a few years ago.
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We got married in November of 2022. We were set to graduate from college in 2023 and we didn't have any plans. You know, we didn't know where we were going to go. Right now we live in a small town in Southeast Missouri named called Dexter. We didn't. We couldn't have pointed out Dexter, Missouri on a map. You know when we got married, but we made that covenant to each other. We made that commitment to each other that wherever we end up going, we're going to do it together and we're going to be a family throughout all of that. And I think.
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There's something really similar in our relationship with God. Of course, it's one sided, right? God knows where we're going to be going and we don't. But that's part of the covenant. That's part of the commitment to Him is that, God, wherever you lead me, I'm going to follow you. I'm going to be your son. I'm going to be your disciple. wherever that takes me, whether it's three hours away or halfway around the world, God, I'm yours and I'm going to follow you.
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My son Tyler is my guest here on the Steve Marston show. We're talking about his YouTube channel 1189, and I would love for you to check it out because it is really top-notch and well done. It's video breakdowns of every single chapter of the Bible, and it's a work in progress. He's not finished with it all just yet, but it is really, really good, and it is definitely, I think, worth your time to check out. So...
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Let's, we got about two minutes remaining here, Tyler. Let's go through what's coming next for 1189, and then tell everyone how they can connect and stay abreast when you release another video. Yeah, for sure. So coming up next, we'll have the last two chapters in Acts 27 and 28. that is, 27 is one of the most thrilling chapters in the whole Bible. Yeah, it is. This huge story of the shipwreck.
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And it's really exciting, but there's also a really a lot of good meaty stuff in it about how Paul still continues to be an example for Christ, even in the midst of the literal shipwreck, how he's sharing and encouraging even the people on the boat who aren't believers. He is is acting as a fantastic model of Christ, even in the middle of the storm. So that's awesome. And then so that'll be coming up. The way you can find that is by subscribing to the channel.
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on YouTube at 1189. You can search, type out those words. And yeah, we do a video breakdown for every chapter of the Bible. Right now we're wrapping up the book of Acts. But we've already got videos made for every chapter of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, and Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and very soon to be Acts. So if you're in any of those books of the Bible right now and you
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Want a little bit of commentary want some sort of you're asking some questions and you need a breakdown That the channel serves as a free resource for you. However, you want to use it if you want to use it as a daily Quiet time reading, know, you could do that too. All I want it to be is just a resource for people to understand scripture better and
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understand what they're reading just a little bit better. And let's underline it again. It's all free. No clickbait, no paywalls. It's just Bible resources for you to help you out and grow in your faith. Tyler, man, I love you, and we'll check in again with you real soon, okay? All right, sounds good. Love you, too.
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Steve Marston's show rolls on. I can't thank you enough for listening. I really am humbled and thankful that you are part of what we're doing here. Discipleship has never been more fun. Time to check out some of the stories that you may have missed. I came across this headline on the ChristianPost.com and it really kind of stopped me in my tracks. It says, half of younger churchgoers
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say that culture change makes some biblical truth obsolete. Oh boy, let's look at this. Protestant churchgoers in the U.S. increasingly willing to reject some biblical truth with young adult attendees under 30 most likely to say that some of those truths are becoming obsolete. That's according to a recent research survey from LifeWay Research.
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In the report, Lifeway highlighted a survey of 1,200 US Protestants who attend church at least once a month. This was conducted earlier this month with the sampling error of about two to three percentage points, making it about a 95 % confidence level. So they actually did the scientific thing in their research, and they've come to the point where the answers should be about 95 % right, according to...
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the way they set things up. Okay, so here's how it broke down. 28 % agreed with the statement that as culture changes, some biblical truths become obsolete. And that's up from in 2019. Younger churchgoers were the more than likely to agree that culture change makes some truths in the Bible obsolete. Among respondents 18 to 25, 54 % agreed with that statement.
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Whereas if you compare it to those ages 50 to 64, it's only 19%. Brad Hill is chief partner of the research group that did this study, and he says, it's very encouraging to see more people, especially young adults, turning to the Bible. But this rise in interest also challenges church leaders to go deeper, turning curiosity and engagement into opportunities to help people live.
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what they read. In an age when AI and tools are providing answers to life's biggest questions, it's imperative that churches cultivate and dig deeper and help set some durable biblical engagement habits. I couldn't agree with more. I think we tend to a lot of times, especially if we're talking to younger people, whether it be in high school or college age, we tend to just be so surface level.
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I mean honestly, I shouldn't just say that. I think we tend to be so surface level in all of our churches a lot of times, no matter the age group. I think we're just so content with knowing the basics when there's a treasure trove of things we can learn when we decide to go a layer or two deeper, when we commit ourselves to saying, God, you know what? I want more.
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out of this whole Christian experience and what I'm getting right now. If that's the prayer of your heart, let me tell you, on the authority of God's Word, He loves that prayer. I think He looks at that as like, yes, they're finally getting it, and just kind of rubs His hands together in anticipation. I don't know if He does that for real, but I like to imagine that He does, because that is just what it's all about. Being closer to Jesus now than you were
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six months ago. And the only way to do that is to be willing and to want to dive deeper into the things of God. Okay, let's see what else is going on. A story you may have missed. Oh, this comes from a guy that's been on the program a couple of times. His name is Matthew West, a legendary CCM artist. I think Matthew can be called legendary now, right? I mean, he has been around for a while and his music has influenced a lot of people.
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He's got a new album called Jesus is King and it's challenging the culture of self-empowerment. When Matthew West went in to begin his latest album, the report says, he had this question, who is Jesus really? And the answer came, Jesus is King, a brand new 12 track album that's gonna be released here at the end of the month.
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And the album is a declaration of faith and examination of what it means to surrender control in a culture that's seemingly and increasingly centered on self-determination. Here's a quote from Matthew. He says, I've been a Christian a long time. I have a preacher's kid. I gave my life to Christ at the age of 13. I made a renewal commitment of my faith as a freshman in college, like once again, just kind of declaring what I want to do. And that's follow Jesus.
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He says, a follower of Christ, I think we see surrender to a king in a different light. I think a lot of times people equate acknowledging a higher authority with imprisonment or loss of freedom. But as a Christ follower, what I've discovered is that when I surrender my life to the higher authority, I find freedom, not imprisonment. I find true strength and true power and not weakness. That's such a great point.
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Boy, he's right on with that. He also says, you watch a movie, you see a king that rules with an iron fist. You see a king that's separated from his people. But, as I read my Bible, I read about a humble king. And that's what we have, a good king. We have a king who doesn't keep us at arm's length. And then he goes on to say, the more vulnerable and honest I'm being in my songwriting, the more somebody else is likely to hear a song and go, oh.
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I'm not the only one, me too. He says that's scary but it's necessary. I do hope that as I've made records for a long time now I've gotten more comfortable with wrestling with and living in that fear of being vulnerable, leaning into it and knowing that it has a greater chance to touch somebody's life. It's very cool. Again, Matthew West's new album hits on September 25th. Again, it's called Jesus is King. Look for it wherever.
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you can download your music. And then this story just blew me away. It's about a missionary who was held in captivity for six years. His name is Jeff Woodke. He said, I lost my religion, but I found my faith. He went through some horrible things over his six years as imprisonment. It started in October of 2016 when he was in the country of Niger.
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and didn't get home until March of 23 to see his wife and now his grown children and now he has two grandchildren. He said he never got mad at God because he said God didn't take me hostage. He didn't want me to be a hostage. He didn't keep me in change. He didn't beat me. He didn't cripple me. He didn't hurt me. He didn't hurt my family. People did those things and they were all choices that people made for good, not evil. You can check out Woodke's recounting of his kidnapping.
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in a new book called All the Way Home, the incredible true story of an American aid worker's harrowing seven years as an Al Qaeda hostage. Wow.
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Here at the Steve Marston Show, we are serious about.
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The dad joke of the day comes to us from the home office in McRae, Arkansas. What do you call a belt made of watches? What do you call a belt made of watches? A waste of time.
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What was? Oh, the punchline was aggressive? Well, maybe it was. Maybe it was. I'll take full responsibility for that. Punchlines should never be aggressive. Welcome back. It's the Steve Varshton Show. Thankful that you are here with me today. And again, want to let you know that we redid our YouTube page, really from the ground up. And we are...
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having more and more people subscribe to the channel, which is awesome. And when we hit a plateau of 200, not a plateau, but just hit the number 250, I hope it's not the plateau, that we will have a celebration prize just to say thank you to everybody being a part of the program. We've got a John MacArthur study Bible. It is in calf skin and it is beautiful. It's the complete Bible, of course, with all of...
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the late Dr. MacArthur's study notes from Genesis to Revelation. Because I know somebody asked me about, well, we know John MacArthur did all of that major commentary series on the New Testament. Does he have notes on the Old Testament? The answer is yes. It's not, of course, as in-depth as his volumes and volumes and volumes and volumes on the New Testament. But yes, study notes for every chapter of the Bible.
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and it is a beautiful, like I say, volume. So we'll be giving that away once we hit 250 subscribers. I'll keep you posted as we move through and get closer to that number. And again, I know that number's not huge, but it is. We're just starting out and wanna have attainable goals. I think that's the perfect way to describe it there. Okay, Faith Between Your Ears is the segment we do every single day. We take a...
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Bible verse on Monday and we try to memorize it throughout the week and we are doing Isaiah chapter 53 verse 5 which says, and I'm going to try to do it from memory here myself without looking at the notes, he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, and the chastisement that brought us peace was upon him and with his wounds we are healed. How did I do?
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Yeah, I did okay. Yeah, okay, I got the chastisement part kind of backwards, but it still works. See, that's the beauty of faith between your ears. It's not so much having it memorized word for word, but knowing what the words mean and being able to rest in the confidence and the assurance of that. And of course, Isaiah 53 prophesying about Jesus coming and dying as a suffering servant.
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is such an incredible description of what he went through there in that whole chapter. And it was written like 800 years before Christ came to earth. All right, we're out of time for today. We like to leave you with a little call to action. We call it Your Next Step. So after listening to today's program, I think your next step is to think about your testimony, kind of get it honed down and be able
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to tell it to people in a conversational, fun way that will lead them to Jesus. Back on the radio tomorrow at 3 o'clock. I'll be hanging out at SteveMarsdenShow.com. then, adios.
