Speaker 1: 0:02

Hey, good morning guys. Welcome back to the Certain Success Podcast. Matt and Joe here and today we're going to rock your world, rock your theology, maybe, and we're going to talk about the Bible, God's living word, the Bible, God's living word, and we're going to talk about the one true living God who still speaks, and what's the relationship between those things? And for me, I, you know I was, I was raised Catholic and you know the the the Bible was exalted and you know the Bible was exalted, but there wasn't a lot of conversation about God actually speaking to me personally, other than what I might derive through the word, and that's changed a lot. It's changed a lot in my heart and I know it has for Joe too. And, um, we're calling this episode Birmingham, and you'll find out why here as we unpack it. But, but, but, Joe, I want to hear, I want to hear your thoughts, uh, about just the whole conversation about the word versus God himself. God, himself.

Speaker 2: 1:24

Man, it seems like each day we go a little bit deeper. So it's like we were talking about earlier. There are so many unopened Bibles across the world that sit on people's desks. They might even be put in a position of, you know, kind of showing it off as as part of their decor. You know, it might be something that's an heirloom, it has meaning, but it's not ever opened.

Speaker 2: 1:56

And the Bible for me and again, I was raised Catholic too there wasn't. There wasn't a lot of emphasis on the Bible, catholic too, there wasn't a lot of emphasis on the Bible and, for all of our's, about the word itself. And, and for me, I worship Jesus and the foundation of, of our Christianity or for me, is the word of God. Without the word of God, I have nothing to look at, I have nothing to go back and make reference to. I don't worship the book, I worship a living God, and our living God is always in action and we are created in God's image and he wants us to be inaction. He doesn't want a lukewarm believer, he wants someone that is fervent and and chasing him. And so I, just as a kid, the Bible wasn't, it wasn't exposed to me.

Speaker 1: 3:23

Yeah, you know, I also. You know, when I grew up, there were Bibles in our house but they were not getting opened. And while I'm certain that there were some devout Christians around me in our church and the, maybe the priests and stuff, and you know, who knows? I'm sure there were, but I didn't know them. And who knows? I'm sure there were, but I didn't know them and there was nothing that was attracting me toward what seemed like devout faith in Jesus. It was all about kneeling and standing, as I like to say, and exalting. It seemed like they were exalting this book, which it's, the book. It should be elevated.

Speaker 1: 4:12

it's god's word, but it isn't god himself, it's just pointing at god and um, and you know, like we were talking about earlier, just how much words matter the way, the way we describe it to people, uh, the relationship that I'm describing and our posture matters.

Speaker 1: 4:36

And, like I was saying about the, the priests of my childhood, I think maybe they actually really were worshiping jesus, that maybe their I hope their faith was completely genuine, but the, the religiosity of of it all, like to me as a child, what I saw was, oh, they're worshiping this book, he's, you know, kissing this book and like making a big pomp and circumstance out of reading said book and turning it into something that just could not compute to my childlike brain at all. So all I saw was like a bunch of people in a room smoking incense, you know, worshiping a book, you know, and that set me down a really a really godless path for a long part of my early life, you know, in my, in my twenties, I was pretty sure there was no God, because I'd never saw any evidence from anybody's witness in my upbringing of anything more than worshiping this book. So now I think that, after two decades of personal relationship with the one true, living God who actually speaks and is, and I realize that, oh, this book is critically important and is a reference and is a guidepost to say, well, is this thing that I'm thinking about really from God? Well, let's see, is it consistent with this book? I'm not trying to take anything away from the authority of scripture at all, but I think this distinction is so important and I think that think that, frankly, I think most people that are listening to this maybe don't understand or have not heard what we're talking about before. Um, what do you think about that?

Speaker 2: 6:38

yeah, you don't know, um, when you're, when you're in your own little community of believers and you see the same thing over and over again. As an altar boy growing up, I served a lot of morning masses before school even started. But Catholicism to me was the foundation of my Christianity, it was the beginning, it was the root of it, and I wouldn't trade those days for nothing. That was, that was. That was really, uh, watching the, the stress of my parents get six kids ready for church every sunday.

Speaker 1: 7:18

you know everybody's pissed off in the car and you better straighten up when you get in there sharing one bathroom, six kids sharing one bathroom, and oh, my gosh I went to school with kids, that they families that had eight kids in their family, uh, so I'm not complaining about that.

Speaker 2: 7:33

Um, I actually, you know, you see the president give uh, lifetime awards to people. I think parents that had to get kids ready for school and church every week. There should be an award for that, but we survived. It was the reverence that I had in church and what my parents taught us, you know, and and that we were in, we were in God's house and we just there was a, there was a level of respect. Um, we didn't come from a perfect family. We were, we were broken, just like the next family, but it was the foundation of of going to this community school, this catholic school, for all those years, with a lot of the same kids. And we see each other on facebook. We'll say hi to each other now and then, but you, the difference between the child and the student that I was in high school to the man that I am today isn't about the kneeling, the standing, the miscellates that they gave you in church and what you read from each Sunday In that repeat performance. Almost every Sunday, you can expect the same thing. You can expect the same family to walk in late, you can expect everything to seem to be the same every Sunday.

Speaker 2: 9:14

What I have enjoyed since moving on from the Catholic Church is the variety of Christ, is the. I didn't know that before. You read a scripture and it changes you. It changes the way you look at someone or something, and I just don't think there was an emphasis on that growing up as a kid. One of the things that I love talking about and I shared with you the other day is the one song that sticks in my head as a kid is you know, they will know, we are Christians by our love. I learned that in the Catholic faith and that is the number one commandment of God's word. And so if that's your foundation, and so if that's your foundation, it's okay. What's after that, now that the foundation's laid and your pillars are with me and share something that moved in your heart and how, how that all played out with me, and I think that would be something that would, if you share that, that kind of that tees up the rest of the Birmingham story.

Speaker 1: 10:39

Well, I think you know to kind of close that first chapter of this conversation about our upbringing, and that I think that I grew up in a world where the religion that I was witnessing and that I was participating in put God in a little box of like this is who he is and how he acts. And you said that it was the same every week. It was like, okay, well, as a child I experienced that week in and week out, week in and week out. Oh God, is that God? Is that exercise in this room? And the kneeling and the standing and the incense, and like that's God.

Speaker 1: 11:24

And now fast forward, decades later, you and I have both experienced God and realized how big he is and how much more he is than that. That that's just one little piece of what God is and how he shows up. And but to fast forward to Birmingham, what we're talking about here is an experience that Joe and I had together in Birmingham, where we invited God to show up in a private prayer time together and expected him to do something remarkable and surprise us. And surprise us, he did. And it's the foundation of everything that we're talking about here and all the work that Joe and everybody in the world to experience, because everything else, all the business and the whatever, all the stuff of the world fades quickly. There's a song like that, you know, when God shows up and blows your mind, that nothing, nothing's the same after that.

Speaker 1: 12:42

And so for us, not that it was the only time God's ever done that, but it was a remarkable moment in our relationship, joe and mine, and so we talk about it all the time of like the birmingham experience and like bringing people back to that and, um, you know, I, I think it's it. It's. You know your personal experience and I don't know that the detail is going to matter, that. You know it's not going to impact anybody the way it's. You know your personal experience and I don't know that the detail is going to matter, that you know it's not going to impact anybody the way it impacted you, joe, because you were the one there experiencing it. This was more joe experiencing it than me, but I was. It was weird because I was watching it happen and it was undeniable what I was watching and that was just like freaking me out to watch it happen, and I feel like all this is just getting lost and nobody knows what the hell we're talking about all right.

Speaker 2: 13:30

So so, yeah, let's go. So, uh, in a matter of moments, matt's like, hey, let's, let's go, let's go to christ, let's go to God in prayer. And he says, but let me get some music on. And I'm like, okay, and guys, never in my life, you know, and I'm 60 years of age with this guy having a business meeting who I love and respect, how many of you can say that you've ended a business meeting with a prayer song, a worship song and prayer? So Matt was coming at me and saying, hey, let's, let's, let's finish off today with a worship song. And he, he turned on Holy spirit, which is, uh, was, in this case, was Francesca Battistelli, another good Italian. It's got more vowels than you, matt.

Speaker 2: 14:27

And as soon as that song started, I closed my eyes and I went into a quiet place with the Lord, and, as if it was the beginning of a movie that you had anticipated going to and you're sitting down, the room is dark All of a sudden, along with the music of Holy Spirit playing quite visibly. On my left side of me, as I'm walking on the beach, is the shoreline, I can hear birds, and in front of me Christ is walking and he's in a white robe and he's now going from a walk to kind of a steady, slow jog and I can hear him laughing, and so I start picking up my pace to catch him. And this music is playing behind me and everything that I'm sharing with you right now is as real as I can possibly explain it to you without sounding totally out there Again. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. And then, as I'm getting closer to Christ, he turns around, probably still about 20 yards away from me, and he turns around and he looks at me with a big smile and he says what is it that you want? And then he turned around and kept his jaw going and laughing, not at me, but with pure joy. There was laughter coming from him. Then I'm still chasing him and he turns around and this time he stops and he looks at me and he says everything that you have ever wanted is right here. And I immediately knew and this is where Matt's visibly watching the tears roll off of my face what Christ was saying is I'm the one you should be chasing.

Speaker 2: 16:56

My wife, throughout our marriage, has said when will the kids and I be enough? And Christ was saying the same thing to me Everything you've ever wanted is right here, but yet you keep chasing everything else. And then he turned around again and he started running towards his right. Now he's heading towards the homes that are looking over this coastline and he starts running up these wooden stairs and I'm right behind him and as I'm coming up the stairs I see these, these lights, white lights that are dangling from like a pergola of a back porch, of a of a home, and it's like a craftsman home. If I can, if I can even get into detail, this home is a craftsman style home and it's near evening time.

Speaker 2: 17:59

And when I get up to the top of the stairs, there is every one of my past family that has already stepped over into this internal realm with Christ. My parents are there, my aunts and uncles, those that I have loved. I'm seeing them in their younger, physical, healthier bodies and they're clapping as I'm coming up the stairs. And they're clapping as I'm coming up the stairs and my dad grabs me and mom is right with him and my dad grabs me and grabs the back of my head. He says I'm so proud of you and you know, that's something I really always wanted to hear from my dad and it wasn't often that he said it, but when he said it it was so impactful in my life, especially as a young father raising kids you wanted to hear your dad say, hey, you're doing all right, you're hanging tough.

Speaker 2: 19:22

And as soon as he said that, christ got my attention again. He said, hey, come here. He's reaching his hand out to grab my hand. He wanted to pull me to the other side of the deck to show me something. And so I'm seeing the faces of my relatives, I'm walking past them and I get to the other side of the deck and he shows me another deck of people that are on another home pergola, with lights and people out there enjoying themselves. And he says you know who they are. And I said no, he said they're here because of you. And, um, that's when the song was coming to an end and Matt's kind of nudging my my leg going hey, joe, joe, you know, cause that song is four minutes long, if not longer.

Speaker 1: 20:17

But it felt like it probably felt like an hour of experience.

Speaker 2: 20:21

It was an amazing experience and there isn't anything that I can say to anyone that's listening to this call. It's not something you just manufacture in your head and say, hey, I guess I'm going to have this thought today. This was as real as if I was there and Christ had come and said hey, we need to have this chat. And it's an important chat because for your entire life you've chased the wrong thing. Yes, I know you love me and I know you do a quiet time. Joe, I know that you're writing a book, I know that you share with other people your faith, but in reality, you still don't put me first. You still chase the concerns of your life how much money is in your account? Is the house payment taken care of? Is the car payments taken care of?

Speaker 1: 21:14

All of that and when you're standing on that deck with Jesus, the thought of the bills and the RV repair and all that stuff. I don't think those thoughts were prominent, right?

Speaker 1: 21:28

It's like everything disappears, yeah, and so let's pull it back, right pull it back conversation of you know, for me, and I think for so many christians we were, we've been taught that god is only this book and it's like no, the book is just to point you at the birmingham experience, point you at the birmingham experience and to give you guideposts to understand that experience. And when you read the stories in the scripture about the experiences of those people that are in the scripture and the experiences they had with the one true living god, that's when it's like, oh, like they had birmingham experiences, right, and and you know, and for me, I mean, I I've I can't remember them all now in recent years, but I've had those same kinds of experiences. But I want to talk about one which was a dream, and I don't know if I I really don't know, joe, if I told you about this, but I had a dream, and I don't know if I, I really don't know, joe, if I told you about this, but I had a dream where, all of a sudden, I was at a party in a big house and I and I it's funny because they're that's the only similarity to your story but I was at a party in a big house, I think it was my house, and I was in the basement and all of a sudden I was flying through this basement from room to room and there was something going on with flipping the light switches, but I don't know what that was. But I realized at some point I'm not flying, I'm being propelled, something is carrying me at a rapid pace and I was afraid and I wanted to stop and so I like planted my feet and turned and I was able to stop myself. I planted my feet and turned and then there were just like lightning bolts in entering my body and and I like screamed or yelled, like oh, but like it was like a power kind of yell, not like a scared yell, like all the power in the world. And unfortunately I it turns out that I did that yelling in the physical world as well Scared my wife to death. She thought I was having a heart attack.

Speaker 1: 24:01

It's about six months ago and um, yada, yada I mean there's so many more details to that story. But I knew when I woke up that my god basically said to me when I was waking, like that was the power of the holy spirit. And can I explain that to anyone? Absolutely not, like there's no way that I can articulate it in any way that would mean anything to anybody. That was just god, that was just for me. Looks like birmingham was just for you and and that's the God we worship and our alignment together and our work with clients and all of it is all wrapped around that centerpiece of all this business stuff and the stuff of the world. We got to go do it, let's go do it, let's make business and money and all that stuff, but like none of it matters except in the context of Birmingham.

Speaker 2: 25:12

Right, and that's, and that's. That's exactly right. And I and I even share this as uh as as I do some additional writing that my birmingham experience is going to be different for every human. They're going to have different emotions. It may be a different song, it may be quiet, it may be just sitting still, it might be just going to the beach and getting a chair and sitting there and looking at the water and enjoying what God created. And again, I couldn't manufacture that. And since then, you know, crisis come back to that beach for me a few more times and that's probably another podcast. But, um, I now am putting the puzzle pieces together of what he wants and, and most importantly, what he wants is us to chase him? That's what he wants. Is us to chase him? That's what he wants. Chase him and to the point where now we're in cadence with him and you know, you know it's like, do we ever catch him?

Speaker 1: 26:35

no, no, no. And and this idea of 10,000 levels to you know. Coming back to the scriptures, um, I keep finding a newness to you know, like, pick one simple scripture that you've heard a million times, that you seek first the kingdom. Like I have considered that like a life verse for decades, and but in recent years, like there's, there's always, there's a new layer, there's a new level of like oh, that's what that means. And or or, there's another level of what that means for me, and it's not a head level knowing, it's a heart level, knowing, and that's where the word comes alive. When you're like oh, I feel what that means in a way that I didn't feel it before, feel what that means in a way that I didn't feel it before. You know, and um, and so, man, I'm so glad we got this out. Joe was like Whoa, we were like we got to talk about this.

Speaker 2: 27:52

I know and you know, and I think about it out loud. Listen, if your kids came home from school let's say they're going to a private school, christian school and they came home and said, yeah, we had a speaker come in today and talk about his encounter with Christ on a beach, you know I'd be calling the school saying, you know what loony tune did you have talking to my kid today? And the thing is is I even realized that some of it just sounds out there, and that's OK, that's OK. There's so much about the word of God just sounds out there, and that's okay, that's okay. There's so much about the Word of God that seems out there.

Speaker 2: 28:24

There's so much about the relationship that each of us have with Christ that's out there that it doesn't make sense for someone else and it's not meant to make sense for someone else. It's our relationship with Christ, it's our walk with Christ and he wants us to pursue him and, like you just said, we can't catch him right until we do catch him. And that's our eternal glory when we get to heaven and that's when he wraps us up in his arms and I'm I'm telling you guys, I have felt that love of knowing that that's what's coming and, um, we want you guys to experience the same thing, will you?

Speaker 1: 29:12

I don't know well, but to me I'm glad you're kind of going to the same place I was about to go in terms of Well, to me I'm glad you're kind of going to the same place I was about to go in terms of sort of the punchline, if you're listening to this, and that is that, that experience that Joe and I are talking about, it's right there. It's not work to get there, it's just like willingness, openness, belief, like I'm asking God to show up and speak to me in this moment, and like it's 10 seconds to Birmingham. It's 10 seconds to that experience if you're open to it and you invite it in. And you know, I mean, yeah, there's some like method and all that stuff to it. Well, I guess we talked about that for a second.

Speaker 1: 29:58

You know, like the, the, the failure of birmingham was the fact that the whole drive over there and the whole day leading up to the experience that joe had was, like me wrestling in my humanity with the fact that I knew I wanted him to have this experience and I like, wanted to like do all the things right and like set it up so that it happened, and like you know the hocus pocus of it and you know how clearly I failed at all of that. I mean, god showed up anyway and did everything that he did, and nothing that I did mattered except for, I mean, I did want it to happen and I did create the space for it to happen, and but there's nothing else that I did except show up, and there's nothing else that Joe did except show up and you showed up in in.

Speaker 2: 30:47

What did you get to do? You showed up and you watched it happen. And that's what Christ wants for us. He wants us to show up and watch him happen.

Speaker 1: 30:56

Yeah, and it's, and it's so much more. I mean, you know your own experience with crisis is the coolest thing in the world, but the next best thing is to watch someone else experience something that you know is the most insanely genuine experience of Christ ever, and you're like watching it going.

Speaker 2: 31:16

And you guys didn't see a man's face, but his jaw was open and he says you're just watching God. And you guys didn't see uh matt's face, but his jaw was open and he says you're just watching god and you're just in awe and uh, that's a good. That's probably a good place to kind of wrap it up. Man is, yeah, the from the. From the beginning of this conversation we talked about. The foundation of our walk in christianity started in the catholic. It started with this book, the Bible. It started with the power of the Word of God and that book became a living piece of our lives through diving into His Word and learning to live His Word. And we don't worship a Bible, we worship a loving, living God who came and saved us from our sin, and we dig it. It's hard at times but we love it and we look forward to the end result and that's glory with him.

Speaker 1: 32:18

Amen, bro Y'all. Thank you for listening to the Certain Success Podcast. We'll see you back here again soon. See you, joe.