Episode 7: John 15:18-16:4a Glorious witness with Jen Oshman

6 Mar

We're thrilled to be joined by Jen Oshman today as we consider our next chunk in John's gospel, and specifically what it looks like to heed Jesus' warning that his disciples will be hated in this world. Jen has been in women’s ministry for over two decades on three continents. She’s the author of Enough About Me, Cultural Counterfeits, and It’s Good to be a Girl. She’s the Director of Women’s Ministry in her local church, pursuing her Masters of Theological Studies, and the mother of four daughters.

1. How does this passage shape your view of persecution?
2. What stuck out for you from the conversation?
3. How are you challenged to pray, and live in light of this part of John's gospel?
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The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
Felicity: You're listening to the Two Sisters and a Cup of Tea podcast, the Bible Study podcast for everyday life. We're here for a 20 minute burst of Bible chat over a cup of tea and an English-style biscuit as we make our way through a Bible book over the course of the season and drive it to our hearts. And this season we're revisiting John's Gospel as we get stuck into chapters 12 through 17 together. Whether you've been listening for a while or have just found us, we're so pleased you're here.
Sarah: Friends, we're thrilled to be talking with the author and Bible teacher, Jen Oshman, today as we get into the next chunk of John's Gospel. This conversation was gold and we can't wait for you to listen. Before we get there though, we're grateful for the continued partnership with 10ofthose.com and especially when it comes to reading books for different seasons of life. Today I want to share three books with you that transcend all seasons as they're about the Lord's call on our lives to welcome and offer hospitality as Christ has welcomed us. Neighbourhoods Reimagined by Chris and Elizabeth McKinney, Extraordinary Hospitality by Carolyn Lacey, and Welcome by our guest today, Jen Oshman, are all excellent books helping us to think about what it looks like to welcome wherever the Lord has placed us. We're not talking fancy hospitality here, we're talking about the everyday reality of getting alongside others, opening our hearts and, where possible, our homes, trusting the Lord to use our endeavours to love and serve those around us with the love we've been shown by Christ. All three books are so worth a read. Head to tenofthose.com to grab a copy of one or all three today.
Felicity: Welcome to Two Sisters and a Cup of Tea. My name is Felicity, I'm in the States. I have my sister here in the UK as ever, but this week we're just delighted to have Jen Oshman with us. Jen is our friend who lives in Colorado. She's written a number of books. She's a Bible teacher. She's an all-around good human who we're just delighted to have on the podcast. She's even brought her own cup of tea. I mean, she's just like stepped up the game here. So, Jen, welcome.
Jen: Thanks for having me and thanks for giving me a really good reason to get out the China and the tea my friend sent from Australia I'm loving it. So you're on to something here
Sarah: I love that you've even got China in your cupboard and not just China Jen, you just showed us your saucer. So if you can just lift that up to the camera so we can see that again because who comes with a saucer as well? It's just brilliant.
Jen: Well, I lived, yes, yes, yes. I lived in Japan, you know, so we enjoyed our English tea and English tea shops in Japan, which is where this is from.
Sarah: Any biscuit action with that as well.
Jen: No biscuits, some kind of dry pancakes that I made about an hour ago that I don't really want to eat anymore. I don't think that counts.
Felicity: Yeah, it's not in the right category. It has to bring joy while you sip your tea.
Jen: No. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the dry pancake's not doing that.
Felicity: Yeah. Well, thank you for joining us as we continue in our walkthrough of John's gospel and we're continuing to eavesdrop on Jesus' last words to his disciples. And in our verse today, he's got this important warning for them to hear. He's been equipping them, preparing them, comforting them as his imminent departure comes about. And the warning here is that of being hated by the world and facing hostility for being a Christian. And before we read our verses, which we will do in a few minutes, Jen, could you tell us something of what it's been like for you to face hostility as a Christian over the years?
Jen: Yeah, now of course the hostility I have faced is nothing like what Jesus is describing, nothing like what was happening in the first century. I mean, we're obviously talking there violence and death and persecution. So I would, I'm not even remotely close to the same category. But my life has been one that's been marked by, rejection even feels like a strong word, but definitely being on the margins or sort of outcast from the circles that I grew up in, from what was expected of me. So when I surrendered to the Lord in college and felt called to the mission field, and to marrying my husband who was in seminary at a very young age, we got married at 20 and 23. Everything about that entire scenario went against the grain of what was expected. And our loved ones were embarrassed. They were sure it would fail. They asked us not to tell extended family that we were going to be missionaries. They begged us not to go. They thought that we were, you know, sort of ruining our lives and throwing it all away with this young marriage and this call to missions. So it really didn't make sense in my family and you know, back when you're 20, your your loved ones saying what you're doing is really stupid and you're really foolish and you're throwing it all away. And please don't tell the rest of the family. That feels really heavy. It is not hostility or persecution, but it is a rejection that kind of shapes you pretty deeply. And so then as we were missionaries and served in Japan and the Czech Republic, those are two extremely secular nations, where less than one half of 5 % are people who are evangelical Christians. And so we face a lot of I would just say, aloofness, like people would say to us, you know, oh, your husband's a pastor, like, that's, that's a job. That's a career. That's, that's weird, our kids faced definitely questioning and mockery in school, some bullying for belonging to the Christian family. And then as we've been back in the States and I've chosen, been led by the Lord, to write on some controversial topics, to write about cultural trends and things that are happening in the world, the world has definitely called me out, whether that's online, sometimes in person, sometimes in my own family for being, you know, quote unquote, ‘hateful’, for taking a stand on different life issues and moral issues. And then sometimes the church, know, sometimes if I write with too much nuance or too much grace or extend empathy, then even sometimes my brothers and sisters in the church say, you know, you're being foolish, you're wrong. So more than like hostility, I would say it would be a lot of harsh criticism that I've had to be willing to say I'm going to go ahead and embrace the criticism as part of the higher call from the Lord.
Felicity: Yeah, that's so good to hear the range of that. It doesn't look like just one particular thing. So how long were you missionaries for, you and your husband? Because you've been in the States for a while. You're based in Colorado now, but how long were you internationally?
Jen: Yeah, we were overseas for 15 years and so and we've been back in the US for the last 10.
Felicity: Okay, and you see your kids very much grew up on the mission field.
Jen: Yes, yes, they were born and shaped their largely. And then when we came to the US, of course, they were weird again. So it's kind of been, yeah, I guess I've had to embrace being okay with being really strange in the circles that we are a part of. And and letting my kids be seen as odd and loving them and shepherding them through some bullying and being outcast and not fitting in wherever they've been.
Sarah: That's really, really hard, it? And the of sense of just the weary, the wearying nature of all those different kind of things at play there. That's big stuff. Even as you say, it's not the persecution that a lot of brothers and sisters are facing and it's not what we're talking about in the first century, but like the kind of ongoing nature of what it looks like. Well, let's get into our verses for today, because I'm looking forward to kind of shaping our conversation as well. Let me read our verses. So today we're looking at chapter 15 of John's Gospel and we're starting at verse 18 and we'll be heading into chapter 16 verse 4.
If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you, a servant is not greater than his master.If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my father as well. If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, as it is they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my father.But this is to fulfil what is written in their law. They hated me without reason. When the Advocate comes, whom I'll send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.All this I have told you so that you will not fall away. They will put you out of the synagogue. In fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. I have told you this so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about them.
Felicity: Thank you, Sarah. So Jen, even as we're just kind of just hearing those verses, what strikes you about the nature of the hostility that's described here as we dig into what Jesus is saying. Anything jump out?
Jen: I mean, it's extreme, right? He Jesus is saying if they kill if they come for me, they're coming for you. If they're violent toward me, they'll be violent toward you. If they kill me, they'll kill you. So there's no there's no sugarcoating it. He's he's being very honest about the context and the setting that they're in. And he is he's giving a warning to his followers, this is going to cost you everything that it's possibly going to cost you everything. And yet it's not a surprise. It was foretold centuries before it like this is part of the plan. It doesn't take him off guard. And so I think it's sweet as he knew this was coming. He prepares his followers. This is coming. And yet it is a lot. It is violent. It is scary. I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of a Christian, an early Christian who didn't have the benefit of looking back on centuries of martyrs. What would that have been like?
Sarah: And it is in the context of, you we've just had the kind of the vine and the branches and the bearing fruit and that all sounds lovely in some kind of way, doesn't it? And it's like a really helpful metaphor. then suddenly he's into, this is actually what it's going to look like as you bear fruit. This is the nature of what's going to happen. And it's a kind of, it's a jarring kind of turn of events, isn't it? As he kind of lays out the reality of bearing fruit for his name.
Jen: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When I think of John 15, I think of the vine and the branch. I think of abide in me. You can do nothing apart from me. You know, I think of just the tender first part of John 15, which, praise God, that is there and proceeds this. But how quickly I have swept this one sort of under the rug this half of the chapter and been like, oh, you know, this doesn't feel nearly as practical as the first part of Chapter 15. And yet he says, if you follow me, this is what's coming.
Felicity: He seems to say that again and again, he? Like, just as what has been for me will be for you. And we've been talking as we've been going through these chapters just about the topsy-turvy nature of what God's glory really is. What is glorious? What is the right spot to be in? And this description sounds like a spot I would not want to be in. And yet, as we follow Jesus, as we follow the pattern of the cross, so this is exactly the spot to be in. Which is a hard thing isn't it? Because that is like, you say, don't really want to hear this.
Jen: Yeah, I think our flesh and our culture just tells us over and over to flee suffering, to go with the flow, to stick with the crowd, stay where it's safe. So it has to be a conscious decision, a willingness to do something very different and to go against the grain, go against what your own flesh is crying out and go against what your own culture or family is telling you to do. So it's very counterintuitive.
Sarah: And I think what I love in these verses though is that Jesus prepares them, that he's so gracious as need to prepare them. But we have the kind of pincer movement of the world and also like those in the synagogue, those who are religious, persecuting them, don't we? So we have in verse 25, fulfill what is written in their law. So those who are kind of, you know, have the law, those who know the scriptures, those who profess to know God, actually he's saying, no, these are the ones that are gonna hate you. These are the ones who hate you and also they say they know God, but actually they hate my father because they hate me. And just that kind of, as you were describing a little bit before about the attention of different ways of hostility being seen, here we have it again clearly laid out for us, don't we, in the kind of, yeah, what that's gonna look like.
Jen: I can't imagine the pressure of going against your religious leaders. That for me is so uncomfortable. But for this to be the first time in history where they're upsetting the Jewish law and saying there's a new way, there's a new covenant, I think I would have been in the camp of really second guessing myself, wondering if I, is this for real? Jesus hasn't resurrected yet, as a fall in this moment, you know? And so what was that like to be one of the first to say, I'm all in?
Felicity: And to really trust that all that Jesus has been saying, this word, that this little band, it's such a small band of people in this room hearing these things that they would then have the confidence, as you say, not to second guess themselves, and to hold out the words that contains these kind of things in there. Yeah.
Sarah: But isn't that exactly why then at the beginning of chapter 16, he's like, well, end of chapter 15, he's like, this is why the spirit of truth is coming. He's the one who testifies and you will testify, but like you're not doing anything that he is not going to be doing through you. And that is such a comfort, isn't it? That is so, so good that they're not on their own. And as we kind of bring it back to us as well, we're not on our own in that. So ge's preparing them, he equips them, as we've kind of been seeing all the way through these chapters. Jen, what do you think it looks like for us to make this a more natural part of our discipleship conversations with new believers and ongoing believers in terms of just the preparing and equipping to face hostility and face suffering because of Jesus's name? And what's at stake if we don't do that, do you think?
Jen: Oh gosh, I think there's a lot at stake and I think. I think that we are coming off of maybe a couple generations where the norm and of course, this is a broad generalization, but typically, especially in Western churches and here in the United States, less so in Europe, less so in other places where persecution is very real. But at least here in the US where we tend to hear in the church, you know, come follow Jesus. It's going to be great. He has a wonderful plan for your life. It's going to improve your marriage. It's going to help you with your kids. It's going to, you know, and it can come across as sort of a your best life now message or just a self-help message or how to live better. And I think that has been, again, a generalization, but pretty pervasive across churches in the United States, at least. And so I do think that we have lost, we've in some ways taken the Lord's name in vain by assigning to him that which he didn't say or giving him a message that he never gave because the message of Jesus has always been, if you're going to follow after me, then take up your cross, die to yourself. That is on every page of the Gospels. And yet how often do we really talk about that? How often do we really proclaim that from our pulpits, say it in our Bible studies, rehearse it in discipleship relationships, remind ourselves what cross can I bear today? Where can I die today? Where can I suffer today so that Jesus's name might be lifted high? And so you know, I think, you know, we could get into a whole number of reasons on church history over the last hundred years and why that has been. But I think we have to be honest and just say, especially as American Christians, here's what we've kind of given into. How can we reverse that and proclaim the true gospel that is costly. And yet that in that death, there is life in that, you know, carrying the cross is the deepest, greatest joy that's available. If we don't do that, one, we risk proclaiming a false gospel. And two, I think we water down the need for evangelism and missions. We just think, well, you know, I've got this good life plan. My neighbour doesn't. It's too bad. But I don't want to apply pressure. don't want them to have to suffer a critique or hostility. So I'm going to keep this to myself because that's awkward. That's probably what's happening more than anything across this country is I'm just going to keep this to myself because it's awkward.
Felicity: Hmm. And that's so true that, I think that's so true that we've just almost swallowed the idea that the Christian life is just a part of normal life. I don't need to be that different to my neighbours, to the people at the school gate, whoever it may be. I think, yeah. And so how do we how do we talk about this more? And I think as I think, how do I bring this into conversations? How do I make sure that we're in our women's ministry at church, that this is a part of the normal understanding of what it is to be a Christian? And it must be that the more we look on Jesus, the more we see and really see Him and hear Him and have Him front and centre, then that becomes less of a possibility because there's no doubt as to what he says and what he does and even in these verses when he says, whoever hates me hates my father as well, really just the clarity of if you know Jesus, you know God. If you don't know Jesus, you don't know God. And it's so black and white in that, isn't it? Rather than if you have a good life and you're kind of vaguely moral and you're kind of doing okay, then you're okay. But no, no, it's all about Jesus. Where do you sit in relation to him? That in itself will bring up a slight awkwardness as well. I don't know whether you feel that sometimes. I'm at the school gate chatting to the moms. I feel myself hesitating to say the word Jesus. I follow Jesus because I know that that is not in their minds. I say Christian and they're thinking, that's lovely. Jesus, that's a bit more intense.
Jen: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I feel that conviction as you say that and as I was preparing for this, I fall into the very same trap. mean, I have made the decision to be willing to be publicly known as somebody who follows Jesus. You couldn't look at my website or any of my social media and not know that it's clear. And yet in the interpersonal relationships I have in my neighbourhood, know, my smaller community where nobody's looking at my online presence, am I willing to make those one on one conversations awkward? I let the listener hear that I'm not doing this perfectly and I feel convicted even as we talk about it. But to answer the question, Sarah, that you had of, know, how do we how do we get back to it? I think it's in line with what Felicity said we have to be on the pages of scripture. And as Christians especially obsessed with the life of Jesus and his words and just, I think inductive study and going through expositionally like one verse at a time and really sitting in this is how we transform the way we think about it. But then even I think maybe in our small groups and in our churches, normalizing sacrifice.
Sarah: Yeah. And normalizing suffering as well, that is a natural part of the Christian life because actually in here, beginning in chapter 16, all this I've told you so that you will not fall away and actually preparing them that there's gonna be a hard time ahead. And actually in just that kind of discipleship conversation of like, we really want you to follow Jesus here. I can't tell you the blessing that comes with following Jesus, but we also need to tell you that being a Christian is hard. Like the life of a Christian is no easy, easy path. Like it's a narrow path and you're gonna get flack and this is what it's gonna feel like sometimes and we don't know what the Lord has for you in that. And just kind of being clear in that as we talk with people and I'm reminded of people that I'm having those kind of conversations with at the moment and actually not sugar-coating. Yeah, as you say, not kind of falling into that trap because we want to prepare people well so they will stand firm and they don't kind of flee at the first sign of things getting a bit kind of awkward or hard. We want them to go, no, I want to dig in because Jesus told me this is going to be the way. But yeah, as you say, it takes courage to kind of walk along that road, doesn't it? And kind of step into those conversations rather than just kind of shirk them.
Felicity: Yeah. And the conviction that it's that, yes, Jesus has told us this, but not only that, Jesus has given us all that we need. Like we have the Spirit, we have God the Father, we can speak to Him. That we hear in these chapters again, like it's not just that Jesus is going to ask on our behalf, like we can speak to the Father ourselves and we have the Spirit and we have the sufficiency of the Word. Like we have all that we need. It's not that we're just kind of go do this thing, this hard thing, and the conviction of that as well.
Jen: Yeah, I think it's interesting, you we you don't know what you don't know if you haven't stepped into it. Right. So as believers, we often say about our unbelieving friends, like they just haven't tasted and seen yet the sweetness of the Lord's communion with the Lord community with the Saints. But I think we could stretch that out and even apply it to ourselves. Have we tasted the sweetness of the communion with the spirit? And the tenderness of the Holy Spirit and the way that he ministers to us when we give up something for the glory of Christ, when we say, you know, I'm going to choose to share the gospel here because it's better than my comfort on my on my block with my neighbours and experiencing the blessing and the love and the tenderness and the ministry of the spirit in us when we do that. Right. Like everybody listening and you guys to like, know that feeling, we've been there before and yet we avoid it again because our flesh is quick to go back but you know we our belief would increase as we practice it more.
Sarah: Yeah. And that reminds me of the Paul in Philippians where he says, I want to share in the sufferings. It's that kind of language, isn't it? But actually like, there's blessing to be found there as we are more united with Christ in what he suffered. And that's kind of Christ's kind of, well, it's just what he's saying all the way through these chapters that actually blessing is found as you follow me in this path. Joy is found and yeah, that you will bear much fruit as you testify. But yeah, it's a costly thing to do, isn't it? So as we're kind of saying at the beginning, Jen, for many of us, this isn't our everyday reality to feel the heat of hostility like we're seeing here for the apostles specifically, but also kind of first century Christians. But for millions of Christians around the world, this is their everyday reality. And I wonder, as someone who's had experience on the mission field but generally has a heart for continued kind of international mission, could you give us just some practical examples of what it looks like to stand with our persecuted brothers and sisters across the world who are facing this kind of hostility?
Jen: Yeah, absolutely. I love this question. And it's a good one for me to think about because along with the rest of my brothers and sisters who are living in a very busy culture and a very busy context, I am easily swept away by the urgency of my day, the things I need to get done, deadlines, submissions, whatever I've got going on. So I want to be the first to confess that this can be bumped down the list of my priorities. And I hate that. And I don't want that to be true. So I think one of the main ways to keep this a priority in our lives is to maintain that visibility. We just need to be remembering having the persecuted church before us. So maybe it's an app on your phone, like Operation World is an app, or the Joshua Project, it's a Voice of the Martyrs, you know, a website and apps, something on social media where we're just daily remembering, looking at photos, scrolling, remembering the testimony of our brothers and sisters around the world, that's gotta be front and center. maybe subscribing to the Voice of the Martyrs magazine and keeping that on your coffee table or keeping it next to the dinner table. And as a family, just read an article and pray once a week or every day, I just think visibility. we're not, if we don't keep it in front of us, we never have to see it and we never have to deal with it. We don't have to confront it, but it is true. Just to share a really quick story that happened to me just in November. I was speaking at a church in Montreal and in one of my messages I mentioned the persecution of the church around the world. Just kind of it was part of a bigger illustration and I mentioned the Christians in Nigeria who are being murdered for their faith and suffering and from the crowd a woman stood up and said, yes and amen, don't forget Nigeria. And she came up to me after my message and she told me, we arrived in Montreal in 2018, we fled Nigeria because my daughter was one of the school girls who refused to submit to Boko Haram. And she would not renounce Christ and she was burned. She was stoned, stoned and burned to death as an 18 year old girl. And then she said, a few months later, my mother was stoned and burned to death. And so we fled, my husband and myself, and they have a few more children. We fled in 2018. And with tears streaming down her face, she said, thank you for not forgetting Nigeria. I was absolutely distraught after talking with her and I prayed with her and you know that I had the benefit of looking in her eyes and hearing from her mouth the cost of following Christ. She lost her daughter and she lost her mom. But it's true that every picture on the pages of Voice of the Martyr, the pictures that we're looking at, you know, they're coming out of Iran right now. These are real people with real children and real stories and we're just quick to forget because it's so uncomfortable. And we feel like I can't do anything. So let me rush to that second part of the answer. We can pray. And that is not a cliche or trite answer. Even if you and I were in Nigeria, we wouldn't restrain Boko Haram with our bare hands. Even if we were local to it, we don't have power. But we have prayer, and our God has power plead with him in prayer for just the perseverance of these saints, that evil would be restrained, that these believers would be comforted in the midst of their suffering. I think prayer is one of truly one of our most powerful responses, our most powerful response. We have the ear of the God who is sovereign over all. And he hears us and he moves, you know, he moves with the prayers of the saints. And so that is a conviction for myself and one I just want to urge the church to do. Let's remember, keep it visible, and let's pray. And then there's going to be times where you have the opportunity to give to support financially and sometimes maybe visit. There might be opportunities where you get to visit. And so, yeah, I think that it is a struggle to remember, but we must because like this precious woman from Nigeria, these stories are real. These are our brothers and sisters.
Sarah: And even in that, we choose to remember, gosh all of that is just so powerful Jen, but as we choose to pray and to commit ourselves to praying, the very act of doing that then instils in us the reality of what Jesus is saying here, doesn't it? And I think it emboldens us because we're like, again, it's visible for us and it's on our heart and we're thinking and we're praying and we're talking about it and it just that that then overflows into conversations doesn't it with others as to shall we just stop and pray for our brothers and sisters and to make that more normal in our Bible study settings in the coffee time whatever it is like as we meet up for lunch just to kind of have that on our lips and yeah.
Felicity: Which in turn then disciples in the reality of the gospel, it kind of is just shrinking that gap between our busy Western life and what it's actually with brothers and sisters in this same gospel, we follow the same Jesus. And I'm not expecting a Nigerian experience, but am I expecting discomfort? Am I expecting a social rejection of some description? Am I expecting that it's not so easy? Because if I'm not, and not that we're to seek out suffering is it, just it's a good check isn't it? Am I willing to stand for Jesus while these people in Nigeria, in Iran, wherever are. I feel, even as we're having this conversation, I feel convicted in that of my need to stand for this gospel, this Jesus.
Jen: Yeah, that's so good. It is a cycle, isn't it? We become what we behold, you know, what we're meditating on. Our thoughts matter where we spend our time matters. It shapes us. And again, we have the help of the spirit as Jesus, you know, Jesus wasn't like, hey, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get it together. Church. He was like, I will not leave you as orphans. The spirit's coming. I'm going to walk with you through this. You won't be left to your own devices. And so he is our helper. And this as we are formed into his image and do what he asks we are going to experience deeper joy and live more on mission for him, which is so good. So, you know, we are we are convicted. And yet I hope also that the listener is compelled or motivated, excited. You know, OK, what if what if I laid down my Starbucks money and started subscribing to Voice of the Martyrs and started praying daily for Christians in these places? You know, what if I added to my quiet time a little visit to Joshua project website and prayed for a new people group every morning. You know these are like let's try it and see how the Lord moves.
Sarah: Yeah, yeah, so helpful. Jen, would you pray for us as we close? Thank you.
Jen: I would love to. God in heaven, we thank you for your word. Even the passages that stop us in our tracks and take our breath away, Lord, as we look at the second half of John 15, I think we're all quick to ask, have I have I had to put these verses into practice? Have I experienced some kind of sacrifice and suffering where I've had to really cling to Jesus and remember that he hasn't forsaken me, but there is a deeper joy in following after him and carrying the cross that he has asked me, Lord. God, would you would you just remind us of what is true on the pages of your word? Would you help us to just be saturated by the truth of Jesus's life and remember what is really true about him and about our faith and our call? And Holy Spirit, would you help us? Would you move us? Would you compel us? God, whatever your will is, we want to be inside it. We want to be doing it. We want to be obedient, Lord. God, we believe, but help our unbelief. And Lord. Our hearts cry out on behalf of this woman from Nigeria and so many more, the Christians in Iran, other underground churches around the world, I think of North Korea and China and different places, Lord in the Middle East, where Christians are fearful, where they're losing family, where they are afraid for their very lives, God, oh Holy Spirit, you're with them. Would you move? Would you speak to them? Would you bolster their faith? Would you give them a joy that is impossible to explain? That's beyond a peace beyond comprehension. God minister to them, help them to persevere to the very end. Lord Jesus, may we not lose sight of your face and your call. You're coming again, Lord. The new heavens and the new earth are coming. Help us to be busy about your business until that day. In your name, amen.
Felicity: Amen. Well, Jen, thank you so much. Wow, there's just such riches to even just begin to think about and pray about being part of the conversation, you can grab all of Jen's books at 10ofthose.com and I highly recommend just the way that Jen engages with the world through her writing, just as much as through conversations and Bible teaching. So do go and check that out and we will be back, just Sarah and me, not Jen sadly, with her cup and saucer. She's gonna be, maybe it'll become a Friday habit, Jen, just a cup and saucer kind of tipple, you know, with your tea.
Jen: Maybe so, maybe so.
Felicity: But Sarah and I will be back on Friday for the next installment of John's Gospel. And we'll see you then.
Sarah: See you then, bye bye! This episode has been sponsored by tenofthose.com
Listener testimonial: Hi, my name is Katie and I'm a mum of three living in the Cotswolds in the UK. I love listening to the Two Sisters and a Cup of Tea podcast. I love the giggles on it and I love the Bible truth that they discuss and how they seek to apply it in their lives. I find that really helpful. I've used it just for my own quiet times, and I've been studying a particular book, that they've covered. I've used it in
my mum's Bible study group, and encouraged others in the group to listen along
when it's again matched the book that we're studying together and I've also
used it with friends to read the Bible 1 to 1 together in a quite a non-threatening way. We'd listen to the podcast and then, look at the passage ourselves and use their questions that they have on the show notes to help us in that. So very grateful for the podcast. Thanks for all you do.