Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to the Love Justice Podcast where we hear from different voices who are joining us in the fight against modern day slavery.
Please welcome today's guest, Tim Knipp. Tim is joined by our host, Hannah Munn and the founder and CEO of Love Justice, John Molyneux.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: Well, Tim, welcome to the Love justice podcast. It's great to have you with us this morning and if I'm not mistaken, you and John have quite an interesting story and you yourself have a really integral piece in the history of Love Justice. So let's just start off by introducing listeners to who you are and how you know John and how you guys ended up in Nepal together in the very beginning.
[00:00:46] Speaker A: Yeah, well, goodness. John and I know each other from our days at Taylor University.
Goofing around there, playing, watching John organize to tackle football leagues and giant capture the flag games and, and then when we, when we were graduating, there's a group of us, Mike, you know, he serves with Love justice and others who, yeah, we were trying to figure out what to do after graduation. We were praying about it and talking about it. We had the sense of wanting to go, wanting to see more of the world. And Mike, through kind of some serendipitous conversations, just had Nepal put on his, I think actually through meeting a waiter in like Lincoln, Nebraska. And so he said, hey, why don't we, why don't we go to Kathmanu, Nepal? We. It started off, I remember Mike and I sitting in the Taylor Library, just Google not Googling. It was yahooing Nepal Christian missionary and just trying to figure out how we could serve over there. And everybody said what, what can you guys do? Are you engineers? Are you doctors?
And, and we're like no, we're just, we're just excited recent college grads. And we found someone, Scott, who, who had a, had some connections over there with Kumar. And we just, the kind of doors opened up for us to go serve. We invited John along and he came with enthusiasm and, and quickly. I mean I remember we started working with kids. Their lives kind of revolved around the streets of Tamel Kathmand.
John was, I, he was just like Uncle John from day one. He just like his heart, the way his heart opened up to these kids who were selling trinkets and running hustles in Kamadu. Like, I mean John, you share about it. I just remember like there's like you were just, you just cared so much about these kids from day one.
[00:02:50] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean I, I, I was a late addition, honestly Tim and, and the other four guys had all studied together at Jerusalem University College where they had these amazed. These just amazing life changing experiences. They still, those stories.
It was just still a really big part of all of their lives and it was very culture shaping for that trip and by extension Love justice. But, but I was a late edition fifth wheel that and Tim and I knew each other at Taylor but not much you know. And so but they really welcomed me into, into to join that trip and we worked with street children. We ended up helping Word made flesh start a drop in center and just had our hearts broke.
The situation of street children and, and yeah, I mean it was.
These young kids are.
In those days there was a lot of street kids in Kathmandu. There's not as many anymore but you know, they would be forced to take or sell drug by bosses. They end up getting thrown in jail all the time. They'd get beaten up by police. They're kind of the scorn of society and of course their children living on the street. So it was just a, it was just a heartbreaking thing for us. And then boy, I mean it was our friend Mike.
He actually met a man during that trip who had a vision to start a home. And two years later, after Mike had been talking to his church in Lincoln, Nebraska, Mike called me up and said hey, I'm going back to Nepal. Do you want to join? And out of that return trip is how Love justice was born.
But I'll say, I mean the five of us that went on that original trip still get together and you know, Tim is we, we sometimes say we actually all kind of just know that Tim is the best of us in a lot of ways. He's really just a intentional wise person.
He, he does something that really well to this day he, he kind of has. It's a ministry of calling his friends I think, I think that's probably how you see it right Tim and, and he just stays in touch with people really well and so every month or so on a random drive home or Tim will call me or I'll call him and we, we. He stays in to that way. He's also the author of one of the most successful multi year carefrontations of me in which he first. He really, he really helped me to see some stuff.
So yeah, really glad to have you on the podcast Tim and yeah, just blessed to be here.
[00:05:19] Speaker A: Oh man. Yeah, no, it's fun, it's fun to, fun to talk here and it is, it's. It's really incredible when you think about.
Yeah, we were you know, just being whatever we were, you know, 22 year olds, 23 year olds, just like full of idealism and kind of naivete and the fact that, you know, we kind of just hurled ourselves into this part of the world with so much like so much pain and poverty and, and thankfully, you know, I think like God used that and really started something that we could have never imagined.
And it's really, I guess, yeah, it's humbling and incredible to see what Love justice has become out of that season of life.
[00:06:14] Speaker B: Tim, I think if you could share a little bit about, you know, what was life like for you after that trip and how did that lead to where you're currently at now and what are you up to now?
[00:06:26] Speaker A: Oh my goodness.
Yeah, that trip, that trip changed my life in.
Yeah, in so many ways. I mean one, you know, like it for, you know, these friendships that John was talking about with John and Mike and Brian and Andy, these guys on the trip, like those became lifelong friends, but also, I mean, you know, particularly, you know, the, the type of work Love justice does.
The.
You know, I remember being in, you know, a friend we made over there, Ben, who served with Ward May Flesh. I remember being in his living room and him sitting us down and saying, hey, tonight we're just gonna go over all the times that.
All the times God's heart for the. The poor shows up in, in the scriptures. And we just spent, I couldn't even tell you, hour and a half just reading scripture after scripture after scripture. And we're doing that. You know, we're like, we, we were, we were young guys, we, we had seen some of the world but you know, a lot of us had kind of grown up in pretty, pretty stable, safe places in the Midwest. And here we are in one of the poorest countries in the world and, and working with these kids that John talked about. I remember invite, you know, a young, like a 8, 9 year old guy, Gopal, who one day he invited us to see his, where he stayed. And it was just, it was mandu, just an abandoned building, the lower level. And him and him and a couple friends just had a corner kind of these cinder block walls. And he, you know, he had, he had his blanket, he had his cardboard, he had his trinkets. And this was like he was proudly showing off his home to us. And he had left, you know, like a lot of, you know, I'm grateful, John, to hear just how it's shifted into Mel these days. But back then for a lot of kids, the, their situation in their rural village was, was was just so tenuous that they, they would, you know, seeking a better life. And here, you know, here you are, you're 22, you've kind of had a, you know, a really a well paved path in life. And you're talking to this, you know, this eight year old kid that you've got to know your heart goes out to him. And he's just, you know, he's just vulnerable and on the street. And I think for me like God's heart for the vulnerable, God's heart for, for those without resources around the world, just even understanding more what poverty means, not just economic, but all the different way people can lack resources.
It was really not just intellectually shaping but like emotionally just how I, how I felt about the world and how I understood God's, what God was up to in the world.
And yeah, so it's, it's shaped how I think about ministry. I'm a, I'm a lead pastor in Bellingham watching right now. It shapes how I think about ministry. It shaped how Christy and I think about our lives.
You know, seeking to, you know, both be generous, seeking to, you know, just seek simplicity. I mean even Chris Christie came over for part of that time and, and her heart being broken for those kids. It ended up leading her to do a master's in counseling so she could work with. With kids just feeling like she didn't have all the tools she needed to help address the kind of relational emotional needs in kids lives. And so yeah, it, it shaped us in pro. And probably some ways that are. Were like in frankly like guilt.
Probably some ways that I needed to even let go of. I rem.
Christy and I got, we got engaged right after being. We got engaged over there and then came home. We're getting ready to get married and we're trying to put our wedding registry together.
And I was just like, you know, she's like, how many. You know, let's register for plates. And I'm like, we will register for two plates. This is like, I was just, I was just. With these kids, we do not need more than two plates. We will register for two towels. Like we can't have just two towels. And like we each need one. You each need a fork. We don't. We only need one knife. We can share the night, you know, and it's just like this kind of this intense like oh my goodness, with such need in the world, how can we. The. All the things that we can hoard, you know, and we, we have to leave radically generous. And I think some of that I've had to work through in healthier ways. But I.
But I do. I want.
You know, even when I'm living in. I don't want the comfort of North America to trick me into free forgetting about my friends in other parts of the world and what. The way I live, how that can be for benefit or harm to them. Yeah.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: John, you're chomping at the bit to say something.
[00:11:19] Speaker C: Yeah, I thought of something that I've never said out loud, which. Which, you know, Tim, what I think was, for me, maybe the biggest takeaway from that trip was. Yeah, I. I remember being with the kids and. And trying to, like, really be in it with them and with their. But then at a. Having a sense of, like, you can't, like. Because they know. And I know if anything really bad happens, I can just get on a plane and fly home and get whatever I. You know, and. And this sense of, like, it made me. I kind of got to see myself through their eyes and my privilege through their. Their eyes and just kind of know that, like. And at that time, when I'm. We're 22, trying to figure out no idea what we want to do with our life, but we're also under this pressure of, like, you got to figure it out. You got to make a career. You got to make a life for yourself. And I just left. Left with a sense of, like, no matter what happens to me, I'm. I'm okay. My. I'm so blessed that I don't have to worry about, you know, And. And so I think that that is one of the ways that my mindset shifted that to kind of put me into a mindset where I was open to the idea of just going to DePaul two years later, where I wasn't super worried about what I was going to do. Do with my life, and just feeling like no matter. Yeah. No, no. I can never step outside of my privilege, and that's a blessing, you know, But. And. But it. It wasn't that it created a lot of guilt for me, necessarily, but more that it. It created freedom for me because I. I just realized I didn't need to be anxious about my career, how I'm going to live, because. Because I just knew no matter what, that it was going to be okay.
[00:12:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, that's. I mean, I think that's a fantastic. Yeah, that's a great way to.
To respond to that and handle that, and I'm glad you responded that way because it led to the path to where you are Today, that's a really good thing. Yeah.
[00:13:08] Speaker B: Tim, I imagine that one of the scriptures that you had read in Nepal with Ben was Isaiah 58.
And in Isaiah 58, it opens with religious people seeking God and fasting. Yet he says that he's not listening.
You know, as we continue going into this conversation about love in action, can you help unpack for us what's going on in this passage and why their worship was rejected?
[00:13:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I'll do. Yes. I mean, you know, scripture is so like, you know, I think people have said scripture is like, shallow enough for a child to wade in, but deep enough for elephant to swim in like that. You know, I think.
I think Mo, you know, we could just read Isaiah 58. And it's really clear, just off the bat that it's, you know, he says, hey, you're fasting, you're doing these religious actions, but you're not actually treating.
You're not, you know, you're exploiting your workers, you're not caring for the poor. So this is. I, like, I reject this. That's not what I want. I want you to. I want you to.
The language he uses to loose the chains of injustice, to set the oppressed free, to share your food with the hungry, to provide for the poor wanderer, to see the naked and clothe them.
And so I think.
I think all of us can read that and get it right away that there's ways that religiosity, if untethered from ethics, if untethered from care for those on the margins, that goes wrong and that's rejected by God, you know, but then I. You can also, like, Isaiah is a. A beautiful and wonderful and complex book.
And I think you can. You can dive a lot deeper into it. And just you, you know, in the whole context of Isaiah, God's heart for his people to be a light to the nations, a light to the world. This theme that comes up kind of from the beginning of Isaiah to the end of Isaiah and comes up in this passage and how throughout God is saying, hey, worship and ethics have to go hand in hand. They can'. Be. They can't be separated from one another.
God's saying about the way the people have failed and how that, you know, in the middle of Isaiah, it leads them to go into exile. And then eventually God's saying how he's going to bring them back from exile, how he's going to restore them, and how it's not just through their own willpower, but there's going to be this, this servant Figure this, you know, in the beginning it, like Isaiah 9, it talks about this Davidic figure. In Isaiah, the 40, 50 chapters talks about the servant figure. At the end of the book, it's this anointed prophet figure. And I think you can hold those all together. There's this figure who's going to come and do this restoration of the people of God that they can actually become the light shining people who hold worship and ethics together in the way that God always intended.
And so yeah, I think you can read it just, you kind of just zoom in on Isaiah 58 and see the heart for all God's people in all times and places. But then also you zoom out and read it in the whole context of Isaiah and what God is doing to create a certain kind of people, to be a light to the world.
[00:16:35] Speaker B: Yeah, Tim, this next question might be putting you on the spot a little bit, but you already alluded to the text making a powerful turn.
When God defines the fast that he has chosen, the loosening the chains, the setting the oppressed feet free, sharing food with the hungry.
In light of your trip and how transformative it was for you personally and then also the group, how have you kind of reconciled that in your own life of how you show up for the poor, Whether that's in the church context, in, in your personal context, how have you worked out what that true fasting that Isaiah 58 calls for in your own life?
[00:17:23] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I mean it's a great, it's a great question.
I would say it's not, you know, in a sense it's not, you know, it's not.
I have a friend who somebody at times asked me the question, hey, is this a problem to be solved or attention to be managed?
And I would say that in my life has been attention to be managed because I don't, you know, to, to, to, to live in, you know, you know, middle class America, aware of the incredible need both, you know, in our country and around the world. Like it's that, like I feel, it's, it's a, it's a tension that I feel like I continually live within a good way, like to, to, to be reminded of that by God. So some, some things that's meant for me is I remember, you know, again when John and I were first there, there's a kind of an older mentor figure. His name was Silas. And he, before we headed home, he was kind of preparing us to head back. And one of the things he said to us was basically the gist of it was, hey, don't go home believing that you have to be in Nepal to care for those who are poor and on the margins. Like, there are people who are on the margins in any community, everywhere and wherever you find yourself, look for them and seek them out to care for them. And so I think, you know, Christy and I have tried to be aware of whatever community we find ourselves in.
Who are those on the margin in our community and how can we be involved in their lives?
I think just our own personal finances. I think that's a big thing, is what does it look like, like to arrange our finances in a way that we would feel that honor God's heart for people everywhere. And so what does it mean to live simply? What does it mean to try to practice radical generosity that's been a conversation throughout our lives. And then to live, I would say, globally minded, to continue to be aware of friends like Love justice and others who are doing this really good work around the world and just asking ourselves, how can we be involved? How can we be supportive? How can we be aware?
I think those are some things.
But I also, you know, throughout my life, I continue to feel challenged. Like, I'll come back to texts like this and just hear God's heart and. And I'll feel challenged and new.
And I think, and I hope, I think that's a good thing.
[00:20:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. That the tension that you referenced earlier, I think allowing that tension to have space in your life is one of the ways that we can allow Isaiah 58 to permeate our lives and our. Our hearts. Because I wonder if there are people out there that just don't want that tension because it feels uncomfortable. It invokes maybe or stokes maybe some of those feelings of guilt. And it takes time and intention and prayer to wrestle with that. And it's just easier, I think, in a lot of ways to just not even allow for the tension. And it's in the tension that I think God really. Yeah. Can stoke and stir some things up.
I'm going to do a very Midwest, Midwestern thing here. Tim, was the Silas that you referenced, was that Silas West?
Okay, so a really cool little piece of information that John, I don't even know if, you know, Silas was one of the pastors at the church that I went to in Omaha before I joined Love Justice.
And I remember speaking of that tension, I remember it was Christmas. They probably could not tell you who I was. Like, I was very much in the backgrounds of this church in Omaha. And I remember he got up on stage and started talking about Nepal and I just started weeping because I was probably a year out from my Vision Team trip with Tiny Hands and John. And I think again, that tension, it was so overwhelming. I was just. I remember we had just gone out for Christmas.
I think my parents had given me a hundred dollars to go to the mall and pick out whatever I wanted for Christmas, which was really exciting. But for me it was really overwhelming because for the first time, the hundred dollars was a lot more than it ever was because of the tensions and remembering of like how much a hundred dollars would go, how far it would go in Nepal. And then I end up in church and they're talking about Nepal and I'm crying and his wife notices me and we start talking about Nepal and she was just like, like listening to, to my heart into that tension. She was just a listening ear to that. So, yeah, I, I love the west and hearing about their experiences in Nepal. And I think it's really cool, all the little strands along the way that lead to what has just been, I think the story of, of Love justice, which I think is, is a good pivot to this next question, which is that, you know, John, all of these scriptures about injustice have meant a huge part to the formation of Love justice. But Isaiah 58 has been probably the most informative scripture in our organization. Can you share with us what drew you to it originally and how it's become a part of our organizational DNA?
[00:22:59] Speaker C: Yeah, well, and to be honest, I don't, I don't even remember that. That time that Ben sat us down and perhaps it was on the part of the. After I had left, but.
[00:23:08] Speaker A: Well, I don't know. I mean, John, you were often like off doing your own thing.
Yeah. And John's like, I'm good, guys. I got another plan for this.
[00:23:15] Speaker C: That's on brand.
[00:23:16] Speaker B: That's on brand for John.
[00:23:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:19] Speaker C: But I mean, I would have been living. I mean, so I looked into my email and, and looked at the first time that I. In my old Yahoo email that I was using back in those days, which is how I kind of remember things from those days. And, and the first time I, I found anything mention it was in.
So I'd have been living in Nepal at that time, thinking about the world's greatest injustices and being pretty heartbroken over it. And, and that, that was a time when, where I was. There have been times in my life and that was one of them where I was reading the scriptures a decent amount and, and I, I think I just stumbled upon it just reading through the Scriptures. And, and yeah, I reference it in this document and, and I from 2006, it's about text on our website. And, and I'm basically, I put this reference to.
And I gave directions like put this reference in an inconspicuous repeating place on the website. Isaiah 58, 6:12. And it was kind of like a thread that ran through everything we were trying to do, you know, because we were trying to get churches and Christians both in Nepal where we're trying to work through local Christians and in the US we're trying to raise money to care more about the least of these.
And honestly, more than anything else, it's not like I learned those things from Isaiah 58 per se. It's that Isaiah 58 resounds so powerfully with what. What I, the moral law that's in my heart.
You know, like, even if it, even if it had never been written that we should do that, God wrote that on our hearts that we, that we should help the poorest around us and, and around the world.
So it's since just become. I mean, you know, it's, it was. It's a scripture that we've referenced frequently and it's sort of become.
We've come to understand a significant part of our identity as calling the church to love justice, you know, and sort of. And really proclaiming the message of Isaiah 58 both through to the Christians and churches we're working with in the field that do our work that either that form a subcommittee to oversee our work or our staff members who, who monitor and intercept victims of trafficking.
You know, we, we want to speak this message that God will unleash breakthrough blessing for his church when we reach the neediest with effective love and action.
[00:25:30] Speaker A: Action.
[00:25:30] Speaker C: And it's so simple and it's so obvious, but there's pieces of that that it's really easy to miss. Like effective love in action. Actually being able to have an impact their lives is a really key part of that.
And those, those blessings and those promises of, of Isaiah 58 are just really powerful. And we're, we're sort of seeing ourselves as now. And, and I know you're part of these conversations as we've, we've gone through a period that's been where we have sacrificed many of us and, and, and I don't want to say very much about that or that we've sacrificed much because of how much more we've been blessed by it and, and how little that sacrifice seemed seems in hindsight, we've been overwhelmingly blessed by it. But, but we, we do see ourselves as sort of wanting to walk in those, those promises. And they're, they're sparkling, wonderful magical promises that Hannah, you know, that we're talking about put them up on our wall. You know, the always he'll satisfy your need a sun scorched land.
Your light will rise in the darkness and your darkness will, will. Your night will become like the noon day.
You'll be like a well watered garden, like a spring whose water never fail. And then the most weirdest and most wonderful of all, which just happened to be on the back wall of the church I found you all, Hannah, going to here in South Africa when I got here, that your people will rebuild ancient ruins. You will raise up the age old foundations. You'll be called repairer of broken walls, restore of streets with dwellings.
[00:27:03] Speaker B: Yeah. And Tim, I'm so curious, from a maybe pastoral background, when you hear promises like that, why do you think the pursuit of justice is so cli. Is so closely tied to not just those promises, but also to renewal and restoration?
[00:27:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, that's. I mean that's an interesting question.
You know, so in the first instance, I think, you know, kind of, you know, anytime you're dealing with any text like what did it mean then and there? What does it mean here and now and what does it mean then and there? You know, this is, you know, this is written to God's people after they've literally gone into exile in Babylon and they've, you know, a group of them have literally come home.
But the nation is that, you know, the, the walls are broken down. It's not that, you know, some of the promises they expected to see the great new exodus, the great day of salvation of Yahweh, haven't taken place. Like the land is still suffering. And so there's this sense in kind of the latter part of Isaiah, Isaiah 56, 66 of like these, these promises of salvation are still on the horizon.
They're still to come. This new Exodus, this God's day of salvation is still coming.
And, and so this is part of, you know, in this latter part of Isaiah, one of the things that God is doing is continuing to cast this vision before his people of holding together worship and ethics and this ethical. What does it look like to be the covenant people who emulate the character of God in the world and are God's light people to the nations.
And God's saying, hey, that this is the kind of thing that you'll be doing when my new Exodus, my day of Salvation arrives.
Jesus then picks this up. You know, in John and I, we, we had this, we had a long and kind of, we have a long ongoing conversation about Luke 4 and how, you know, Jesus in Luke 4. His, it's Jesus's, his inaugural address, his mission statement at the, at the synagogue in Nazareth. He pulls on Isaiah 61, which is, which is kind of the lynchpin of this whole last section of Isaiah. And then actually, actually Jesus strategically pulls in one line from Isaiah 58, Isaiah 58, 6 and saying, hey, in me these long awaited promises of restoration are occurring. I am creating the kind of people that God said he's always wanted to create. The kind of people who hold right worship of God with right ethical living with how you, you know, right care for the, for the brokenhearted, the poor, those who are oppressed, those who are imprisoned. I'm creating that kind of people. The people, people who walk with me and through me. This light then will go out to the world. And so, you know, Hannah, your question is why, why does, why does restoration, why does God link restoration with this kind of, this kind of right care for the vulnerable?
And you know, I think the mistake would be to think it's overly mechanical, you know, that I don't, I, you know, one of the great temptations is always to treat God as, you know, I press the right buttons and pull the right levers and God will do, you know, and so it's not mechanical in the sense of like, why, you know, I sent my, did this thing for someone who has less than me, where's my blessing?
But it's, it's the, you know, in Jesus movement. This is the, this is what it looks like to live in line with the heart of God. And when we are living in line with the heart of God both individually and in a community that's pursuing this life, that's what it means to be blessed. We'll find like a kind of a blessing, a spaciousness, a knowing, you know, I remember the, I remember that first trip, John. I remember walking through the streets of Tamel and having a conversation just about, you know, what we wanted to do with our lives and where we were going. And I remember a conversation and I remember saying something along the lines of, for the first time in my life, I feel like I am exactly where God wants me to be.
When we were spending time with those kids and we had, you know, we're just, we, you know, we had two nickels to rub together. We're all crammed in this little cement block room and, you know, just getting sick left and right. And there's no sense of, you know, it wasn't me. We weren't being blessed in some kind of monetary sense or like, hey, you know, but this sense of, this sense of just like I, I am right where God desires me to be. And there is a, There's a. Yeah, I guess the, you know, the religious word is blessing. There's kind of a. A joy, a peace, a contentment, a right. Orderedness about life that came with that. And I think, I think that, I think that promise continues to be extended by Jesus, by the Spirit, through his people to today. Yeah. And I want, I want people in my church, I want people in North America to, To find themselves saying that more and more. And I, And I, you know, I really think, I think people know the kind of, the, the kind of. The consumeristic, materialistic kind of chasing, Chasing the next thing doesn't bring that kind of deep blood, that sense of man. I am exactly where God wants me to be. And I do believe Jesus invitation through things like Luke 4 pulling Isaiah 61:58 continues to offer that.
[00:32:57] Speaker B: Yeah, there's so much in Tim's response, John, that like we could even have, you know, our own hour conversation about any one of those things that he just talked about.
And what I think I'm thinking about, hearing Tim talk about is that the worldview of justice is such a glimpse of actually the holistic justice that I think God really desires, not just for the poor and the vulnerable, but also for people like us and not to make it about us.
I don't want to take away from the emphasis on the poor and the vulnerable and the orphan and the widow, but his sense of justice is so much more than we could probably ever possibly imagine.
And.
Yeah, so I think that's like, very mysterious to think about and very deep to think about too.
At the same time, there are these promises, and you've already alluded to them, Tim, these. And John, too, you as well, alluded to these promises.
And John, I'd love to hear you talk to us a little bit more about the many places in scripture where we've been asked to sacrifice that was followed by a promise. And maybe to take it one step deeper, why is it so important for us to keep those promises at the forefront of this fight, both from people who are in it, in the field, people who are giving to it, people who are wrestling with that tension.
Why is it important to keep going through that for. For the end of that promise?
[00:34:42] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, There's. There's clearly several places in scripture where God. God asks us to give up something and makes a promise.
And there's one in particular that I can speak to.
Jesus says whoever leaves home or family or fields for the sake of the gospel will receive. I think it says 100 times what he left in this age and the age to come, and with it, persecutions. And what I'd say about that is having done that, man, did I ever find that promise to be true? Like. Like, yes, there were persecution there. There were some things that were hard that we went through that in hindsight, even judging by this life, are nothing. Look as if. As if they're nothing, you know, like, I have been blessed in a worldly way in this world in terms of my family, in terms of the community that we have, in terms of my job and the meaning that that's behind that and, and how much that means to me and how, how, how great that is and how happy it makes me. And I mean, it's honestly filled me with a sense of the same thing that you talked about, Tim. Like, I remember that when I first. I remember when I first started, of justice, tiny hands in those days, feeling this sense of. For the first time in my life, I was doing the thing I was created to do and just feeling blessed in that, you know, and, and so, so I, I just. It makes me think, now that's one promise like that. And, and where I have just found God to be so faithful and true to his word. And there's all these others. Like there's in Malachi where God says to bring the full tithe into storehouse. I think it's the one place where he says, test me. He says, I'll open up the windows of heaven.
You know, Matthew 6, where he says, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these other things will be added to you, so forget those other things. And I found him to be true in that as well. And that was part of what I learned.
What I mentioned earlier through that trip in Nepal is like, I saw my life and my privilege and blessedness through the eyes of the street kids we were working with. And it made me say to myself, I never have to worry about where I'm going to stay or what I'm going to eat or how much money I'm going to make. That is, that is just not an issue because I saw that these kids who had nothing, and even in that, they, they were, of course, it was so hard for them, but you could see joy and you could, you could see if only they, if, if it weren't for the addictions that were wrecking their lives, you know, they would, they would have hope in life. And, and so I just, I, I kind of real. I. Part of what my journey was is I had to give all that up and at least the thought about what I was going to do and what my career is going to be and what kind of house I'm going to have and how much money I was going to make.
So, you know, I think of scriptures like those who so with interiors shall reap with songs of joy, I think, you know, and then ultimately you think about Abraham.
He's asked to give something up, you know, something precious to him is his son for something better. But then, and this is, I think, what, how God is. And then, and then you get to, he gets to keep the thing that he gave up, but he had to give it up, you know, and that's how, how it is when, when God says seek first the kingdom of his righteousness and these other things will be given to you as well.
You, you get those other things, but you kind of have to put them aside in order to seek that. And so it's kind of, there's an element of like we give up our cake, but then we get to eat the cake and it's even better and we get something else much better than cake.
So. But there's all these, but I mean these are hard scriptures that are scary for all of us. You know, like I think of what Jesus said to the rich and ruler. He tells him to sell all you have and give to the poor.
And that's where I was thinking about that scripture, Tim, when you're talking about solutions and, and tension.
Well, it's a solution if you do that.
If you don't, you, you, you and me and everyone, almost all of our listeners most likely are going to have to live in that tension that, that just like the rich young ruler, he, he went away very sad, you know, and ultimately like lose your life to find it. It, you know, like it's just, it's like the all encompassing give it up to get it, you know, and, and that's sort of the nature of all these promises. And, and they all feel really scary and they all feel really daunting and we kind of don't want to do it. But my experience of, of with the, the promise for whoever leaves home and field has me just like really asking the question, what if they really are all true? True and of course they really are all true. We believe they really are all true.
But if, if, you know, like, do we believe it enough to jump out into that scary place where, where it might maybe hurts a little bit or where there's not something to catch us? And, and I think ultimately that is what God asks all of us to do. None of us are doing it. And certainly there's many ways that I don't do that.
But, but it, it.
My experiences have me trusting God and wanting to grow in that and, and really begin to really believe God and act in accordance with that.
[00:39:50] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And that's just one of the, the scriptures that's connected with that promise that obviously you, John, can speak very candidly to. That's one that I resonate with the most as well.
I, I'd be curious, Tim, if, and if. No worries if there's not one that comes off the top of your head. But I Im imagine that there's other scriptures with that sacrifice and promise that might resonate with you, having not, you know, been overseas and in that space, but more like called to serve the church and to cultivate the church. Is there one that, that you feel like resonates with you.
[00:40:33] Speaker A: A scripture about sacrifice and promise?
[00:40:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:40:36] Speaker A: That resonates with. Am I. Is that the question?
[00:40:39] Speaker B: Yeah. And no worries if not. I, I know I'm putting you on the spot.
[00:40:43] Speaker A: No, it's all right.
Yeah. I mean, probably not quite in the same, like in the same intensity as, as John was speaking to. I can understand, you know, when you literally move away from your family and friends, it makes that, it makes those words of Jesus, you know, come into, come into great clarity.
Right. And I, and I, and I very much appreciate that. You know, I think, I think every, I think every follower of Jesus who's, who's attempting to kind of really lean in their faith, you know, that the, the pro, the kind of foundational promise of if you, if you lose your life for me, you'll find life.
I think we find that to be true over and over again. And that's the, you know, that's the daily.
Yeah. Both being a pastor and also just being a, being a human being, being a husband, being a dad, being a friend. Like you know, a thousand times a day I'm, I'm faced with a choice between myself or laying that down, you know, for, you know, the care of others around me. And over and over again when I make that, I do find life in that. So I find that promise to be repeatedly true.
[00:41:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And for our listeners, I think I would just encourage them of like, dig into the scriptures for yourself and like, let that sit with you and allow, I think the Lord to speak to you in that. Because I, I wonder if one of the reasons why it's so hard is because we live, we live in the world.
We live in the world and we're constantly fighting our desire for comfort, our desire for materialism in a lot of ways. And, and that are. Those are some of the easy surface level things, things that are like, give that up to, to come to this. And I think that can be very foreign and very countercultural. And that's what, Yeah, I think that's the tension that we battle with when we pursue those scriptures and also the tension that those promises might not, we might not fully understand or know them on this side of heaven. And that is not a popular response. I, I think especially in, in a culture of immediacy and getting things now. And I think there is that we have to really stand our ground in those promises, not really fully understanding them in their entirety until we really, really get to heaven.
So as we, as we bring this conversation to a close. Tim, I'm curious if the Western church were to take Isaiah 58 seriously, the love in action idea, not just as a social cause, but as a core part of discipleship of what it means to follow Jesus, what might begin to change in our communities? Can you cast a vision for that?
[00:43:36] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness, yeah. I mean, my heart for the church in North America would be, I would love, you know, and I, and I certainly, you know, I think it's really unfair to say that it's not happening at all. Like, I, like I see followers of Jesus all over seeking to live this out.
I think that, you know, a few things I would say I can imagine local churches, local communities doing a better and better job of seeing those immediately around them who are the widow, the orphan, the foreigner, the poor, the vulnerable in their immediate community. And then, I mean, one of the great, one of the powers of the church is that it's, you know, it's just right, you know, it's right in local community. I think churches excel at caring for those in their immediate circle. And so I think groups of Christians seeing those in their immediate neighborhoods and then doing things collectively to care for them. I think that, I think I would see that, I think church, I would love to see the church increasingly captured by the vision of Isaiah 58, of Luke 4, of this, this of holding together worship and ethics that scripture does from Genesis, the Revelation, and my heart would be to that it actually helps us escape some of the, the polarizations of, of, of faith and politics in North America today. So often, I mean even the term justice, like I think in a lot of churches that can quickly, that can quickly, people can quickly default to categories given to us by our contemporary culture. And I, I, I want to see the church more and more.
You know, what, what two buckets does this fit in in kind of the modern political discourse, but like what is the biblical vision for us that like that's where we start. And so churches thinking biblically that way and yeah, communities being globally minded, it's so easy to just be.
Yeah. And I think, you know, even, you know, Hannah, you talking about your time as well. I know John and I, our time over there, like it just you, it just you help see that the world's bigger. And you know, when I think about our local church, I want to, I want to develop globally minded, a globally minded Christian community.
To, to see ourselves part of a global church and to, to know what our brothers and sisters all around the world, what they're facing and how we can be supportive and how, how can we share in that. And so yeah, I would love to see the church in North America continue to be, to see the vulnerable in their local communities and act towards them, to characterize their faith in biblical terms, not the categories given by modern culture. And to see themselves part of a global community and with all the awareness that comes from that, that would be my heart for the church.
[00:46:35] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks Tim. That's really powerful. And John, I think, you know, as we've been having conversations for season two, I think a really big theme is just talking about injustice and mobilizing the church. Like you said, like calling the church to love justice.
And I, yeah, I think it, you know, you're really passionate about that, John, and you're really passionate about it not being just Love Justice International. You're passionate about people loving justice in general and finding the most impactful ways, allowing scripture to mobilize them, allowing that brokenhearted anointing to mobilize the church.
And as you know, we, we wrap up our conversation today.
What's one encouragement that you'd give someone listening who wants their faith to be more action oriented, more like Isaiah 58, but doesn't know where to begin?
[00:47:28] Speaker C: Well, I mean, I'd say anyways, listen to this podcast has already begun. You know, they've gotten as far as, I mean, here you are. And so I, during this time, during this podcast that you've been listening, I wonder if some possible action that seemed a little hard and scary came to mind for you.
And I can't say that everything, of course, that pops into every person's head is from God, but if it's about giving things up to make a difference in the lives of the least of these, we've already heard from God on that type of thing, and his answer is, yes, do that.
And so I think when you do, you'll find yourself feeling a little bit like. Tim mentioned that. That. That he felt when he was in Nepal, where he just felt the sense of, like, he's right. Where for the first time in his life, he felt like he's where God wants to be. And I don't even remember that, Tim. But. But it's. I know that that is a blessedness that you can't buy and you can't create and you can't, you know, and it's better than anything you can buy or. Or create yourself.
So that there, you know, so whatever that thing is for you, you know, there's these moments in our lives when God sets something before us to do, and those moments are like. They're like a crossroads. We may never be back here in this moment.
And for you, whatever that is, you may never be back in that moment. And I just want to encourage you to say yes to the God whose promises are true and whose blessings are far more valuable than anything that we could give up.
[00:48:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, you guys could have gone to Nepal and came home and never thought twice about it, to be honest.
And now look at where you both are and the tensions that you both are feeling in very different ways. And I think that's maybe something I'm sitting with at the end of this, is we all have those tensions.
And I think those tensions are really good. And I think that those tensions are an indicator that we are listening to.
I think we're listening to the promises and. And the words of God in scripture and also living not in eternity. And that is a really, I think, healthy place to be, is just continuing to press into those tensions, continuing to live in the midst of them, continuing to wrestle with them, instead of, you know, being brought down by them or discouraged by them or, like, wanting to fix them or wanting to. To be at complete peace and comfort. I think it's okay to be in that. In that space of tension, and it's actually really encouraging. And so what does it look like to flip the script of a positive association with that tension versus maybe A.
Not in. Tim, I'm not saying in any way that you had a negative association with tension. I'm just thinking about our listeners and just how tension might be seen as a negative thing. I think it actually can be a really powerful thing that can lead us to that love in action.
[00:50:26] Speaker C: And as long as the world is broken, love will always be. And have tension.
[00:50:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:50:31] Speaker C: You know, like a mother. Because they look, she loves her child. If the child is hurting or going astray or at risk, the mother feels tension and should. And it's not. But. But I want to say like, that the pain of brokenheartedness over injustice, it's not painful or it. It is, but it isn't. I want to say, like, there's a sense in which I would rather. I would. I don't know how to. How to. I don't want to say this wrong, but there's. There's like a joy in. In that is.
There's a. There's a sorrow. Brokenheartedness. I think that is more joyful than joy itself, even though it's not joy.
And it's very dissimilar to that. But it's love.
And that. That love is a blessed. It's the blessedness of God. It's the blessedness of Christ.
[00:51:20] Speaker B: There's a psalm that you quote quite frequently, John. Whatever you sow, in tears you reap. Enjoy.
[00:51:27] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:51:28] Speaker B: Which I think is very pertinent to this.
Well, guys, thank you for this really great conversation this morning. Tim, it was good to have you. And like I said, I feel like we could go on and on and on about unpacking Isaiah 58, but I'm glad for the ways that you helped us unpack it this morning. And John, really. Yeah. Thankful for just your heart about mobilizing the church and really expectant and hopeful that these conversations are going to do that. Just that. So thanks for being really generous with your time, guys.
[00:51:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Thank you. I just. John, Hannah, it's great to meet you.
And John, great to see you, man. And I do just. I am so proud of the work you all are part of.
I just makes me.
Brings delight to my heart knowing that love, justice exists.
And I'm just proud to know you and proud to call you friends and. And I just. On behalf of one person, Bellingham, Washington, thank you.
[00:52:29] Speaker B: And on behalf of all that we seek to serve, thanks for letting John go on that trip. I think an invitation was very generous way of describing that because John has basically said he forced his way onto that trip.
[00:52:44] Speaker C: We. I asked him. Why did. The other day. Why did you. Why did you let me. Because Tim knew. Knew me in some ways the least out of. Out of everyone. And. And. And I think the others were very. And. And I was like, why did you say yes? And he was kind of like, you know, he was like, you know, we knew John was a bit of a big personality and. And. But. But he's like, I trusted the relationships that we had. You said something like that, Tim. It was. It was. It was great. And it was. It was a testament to a. Your character and be you guys. Relationships and the culture you guys built in during your time at juc.
[00:53:15] Speaker A: Well, I'm glad we did. I'm glad we said yes.
[00:53:17] Speaker B: Well, and I think that one of your guys's reunion trips need to actually be in South Africa at the new program hq, because that would be a really cool full circle moment. So you guys just love it. Make that.
[00:53:28] Speaker C: That'll happen at some point.
[00:53:30] Speaker A: There's been. There's been rumbling.
[00:53:33] Speaker B: Yeah. All right, well, thanks, guys.
[00:53:35] Speaker C: Let's catch up soon. Good to see you.
[00:53:37] Speaker A: All right, sounds good.
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