The Sojo Show
The Sojo Show makes Bible Study fun with spontaneous conversations between Arabah Joy and Jen Evangelista. Together we discover how the study of God's Word can impact our everyday lives.
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The Sojo Show
The Secret to Trusting God Through Life’s Ups and Downs
In this episode, we dive into the comforting truth of God’s unchanging nature. Join us as we explore how His faithfulness provides stability in life’s chaos, share personal stories of His steadfast care, and offer a simple practice to help you recognize His hand in your everyday life. Tune in for encouragement and a fresh perspective on the beauty of trusting an unshakable God.
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Welcome to the Sojo Show with Jen and AJ, where you'll dig deep into God's Word alongside two imperfect, frequently ineloquent women, as we discover fresh ways to walk out God's truth together. Welcome to the Sojo Show, welcome back. We are so glad that you're with us and we are in your ears. Today. This is Jen and I am here with AJ and we are talking about attributes of God today. But before we do that, aj thought of an interesting question that we could kind of ask each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did, because we're going to talk about something today that is a little bit different or we have a different term for it, Maybe that's a better way of saying it and it just kind of made me think about all the things in Christianity. Yeah, the things in Christianity that we use, like some of the words and language we use that we don't use anywhere else. So this is a question for you and if I, if my answer is the same, I'll let you know. So what is one word that you use in Christian talk that you don't use anywhere else?
Speaker 1:Um, okay, so the when you first said that the word that I came up with was, in fact, propitiation, and is that the word?
Speaker 2:you came up with too. Yes, that's mine too. That is totally mine.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, and because it is such an interesting word and it is such a great word, but it's a word that I've never heard in the English language, other than in relationship to the gospel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think a close second for me would be the word sanctification, because that's really not something we use outside of Christian talk either.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that seems so common that you I didn't really have really thought about that, um, but yeah, you're right. Sanctification make it more like Christ. So propitiation we're. We're leaving people hanging that don't know what the word is so we, we need to define all the words today.
Speaker 2:Is that what we're saying? Well, let's just at least define that one.
Speaker 1:Everybody. I think everybody understands sanctification. So justification, salvation, uh, sanctification, so justification, salvation, sanctification is basically our walk, if you want to think of it like that, our becoming more like Christ, and then glorification is when one day we will see him face to face, and so those are like the three aspects of salvation, if you will. And so that word, I think it's relatively common to most believers. Propitiation may not be a word that's super common.
Speaker 2:So and this is not our topic at all, but give us a five second definition or I will. Okay, well, my five second and yours would be different, but my five second definition would be a wrath absorber. Propitiation is kind of like God becomes the, or Jesus becomes the sponge for God's wrath that is poured out against sin, because that has to happen, right. His justice demands punishment and Jesus is the propitiation for our sin, which means he is the one who takes that our sin, which means he is the one who takes that wrath of God and absorbs it. So that's my visual. I know it's not like an official definition of the word propitiation, but that to me has helped me understand it, just in visual terms, and that's interesting because my thought, my five-second definition, is another visual, but I think of it as like the great exchange.
Speaker 1:It's like when Christ takes God's wrath on our behalf yes, our sin, he does absorb it and then he exchanges it for his righteousness. So we not only have our sin taken, but we are given the righteousness of God. So it's the great exchange that happens on the cross. The bottom line is, it is what is happening on the cross at Calvary by Christ, because of what God has done in sending him, and so it's a great word.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I just have to say this because this is actually quite funny. So I just looked it up really quickly to see, like, what the official definition is, and it says propitiation is the act of propitiating. So there you go. So, ladies and gentlemen, there's your definition.
Speaker 1:What does it say? Propitiating is. Now I want to know.
Speaker 2:Well, it says the act of appeasing the wrath and conciliating the favor of an offended person. So that's good.
Speaker 1:Okay, so wrath favor the whole thing. We got it. We got it, excellent, all right. So why did we? Why did this even come up, though? Is because we are discussing two attributes of God, one of which and they're both very, very intertwined, just like all the attributes that we've talked about are. You know, last week we talked about love and how that is just kind of part of everything. Sovereignty is part of everything. Holiness is all part of everything. It's all wrapped at all. It's who God is.
Speaker 1:It's hard to even wrap our brains around the fact that God is all these things, but the two characteristics we're thinking about specifically, definitely I'm very thankful that they go together, because one is faithfulness, which I think we all have a general idea of what that is that we could talk about a little bit, but the second one and this is where this conversation came into play as far as the words is immutability. It's God's immutability. So that word is a word that you may not be familiar with, and it is actually a theological concept, okay, and it really just basically means that God doesn't change. It's just His unchanging nature. He is unchangeable in character, in essence, in everything he is constant and unchangeable, and so I love that, and I especially love it in relationship to faithfulness right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just want to say too that you know, when you think about immutable and being unchangeable, it's not that he he doesn't change I mean definitely he doesn't, but it's that he can't.
Speaker 1:No, he, he is unchanged. That is that's part of who he is.
Speaker 2:He is not, that's part of who he is. He is not Right, he's not capable of changing. So I mean, we're capable of a lot of change, you know, in our disposition and different things and in our character even. But God is not because he's already perfect. He's already perfect, so it's impossible for him to change. It's impossible for him to love more, it's impossible for him to love less, it's impossible for him to be more holy, it's impossible for him to be less holy, like it is impossible for him to change, and all of these attributes that we are looking at. And that's really encouraging for us because we can, when we approach God, relying on that character, that whatever aspect of his character that we need to be relying on, we can be sure that he's not going to just like give it and then take it back, and give it and take it back, or his response would be different today than it was yesterday. That's impossible for him to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is not a characteristic that we are thinking about, but it comes to my mind when I think about immutability, and that is impassibility and I have often struggled with that. Meaning, basically, he his not, but he's not able to experience emotional change. It's part of his immutability, but it has to do with like emotions, like he does not. He does not suffer, he does not he, he is not apathetic. He still has this divine he's, he's I heard somebody describe it as he is maximally alive, and and and, and I found this the example that was given a long time ago to me on this, and I may get it wrong honestly, because it's been a little while, but when you think about how our emotional states and and like it, when we're in crisis, and we're in crisis, if we are depending on someone who's just as subject to crisis and to emotional turmoil as we are, as the created, I mean that would be, it just wouldn't be as an effective of a rescuer, a sailor.
Speaker 1:But God is not that. God is, he is, he just is. That is His character, and so he doesn't wash back and forth with the waves, he is steady, he is steadfast, his steadfast love. We talked about that, and so I think this immutability, this impassibility we talked about that and so I think this immutability, this impassibility, it's such a characteristic that we cannot understand, because of how fragile we are. How fragile we are, but I don't want to serve a God who is just as fragile as I am. I don't want to serve a God who can change, who can decide, who can go back, can go back on his word, who can, who, who can't stand firm in a crisis, who I can't rely on as my rock.
Speaker 1:And I don't yeah.
Speaker 2:I I like how you brought up the impassibility too, because, like some people, like you mentioned, some people that we can go to are going to be steadfast for us, you know, but others they may fly off the handle and, like you said, if you, if you're not sure which response you're going to get, it's really hard to be able to go to that kind of person.
Speaker 2:And a lot of times we can think, well, god's heard from me too many times, you know no-transcript, doubtful of his affections towards us, and so we hold things back. Um, and so, like our, we project those things that we see in other people on God and we talked about this either last week or the week before and we have to, I have to make a conscious choice not to do that. You know, like no, god isn't that way. He's not going to respond the way others would in this situation. You know he, he is, he can handle it. You know he can handle it, no matter the depth, no matter how awful it is, whatever it is I'm taking to him, he can handle it, he can handle my junk and he can handle the weight of the world, and so I can be confident taking those things to him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and, and you know we think about these things and these can be kind of heavy theological concepts to some extent, and we believe them. But as we live life and everyone who's listening to our voices knows you've lived some life and as you live life, when you are faced with that suffering, that trial, that is when the rubber meets the road, so to speak, and you need that impassibility and that immutability. You need that mighty fortress that is your God, right? We say these things and we have to say these things in the good times, and we have to remind ourselves of these things in the good times, because when the trials hit, if we haven't times, because when the trials hit, if we haven't constantly reminded ourselves over and over and over again, then it's easy to forget. And we can trust Him because he will not, he will not change, and we forget. We forget that. So it's important to be reminded. That's why we're doing this whole series. We know these characteristics of God, but how often do we forget them when we're in the valley?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think too, culture kind of encourages us to forget them, because culture oftentimes says well, you know the God of the Old Testament is not the God of the New Testament and you know it's irrelevant, like all of that is irrelevant because you know we live in a different New Testament and you know it's irrelevant, like all of that is irrelevant because you know we live in a different society today, and so it's like everything is trying to tell us that God has changed his mind on different things because time has changed and because culture has changed, and that just simply is not true. So this is another reason why we have to know God's word and then know him through his word and understand the biblical description of who God is, because it can so easily be tested by the winds of culture.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well and don't? We want our cake and want to eat it too. We want the God, the holy God, the God that is powerful, the God that will answer our prayers and the God that will heal and the God that will redeem. We want that God, but yet we kind of I don't know about the God who is just and who is, you know, wrathful and who cannot tolerate sin. I mean, right Culture holds on to this good, loving God. Well, god would never do this because he's so loving. Well, that's all part of who he is.
Speaker 1:And next week we're going to dive a little bit deeper into some of those things. The justice of God, and we have to take it all and we have to be so very thankful of it all, number one, but we have to just adore and honor and stand in awe of it, all of all of it. We can't pick and choose, like culture likes to do. We cannot pick and choose. God is God and it's the same God that Abraham and Isaac and Moses and Ruth and Peter and Paul. It's the same God from the beginning of time to one day when we stand before him and there is no more. It is the same immutable God, and praise God for that. Praise him for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if we wanted him to be something different, he would not be God, you know like he would lose his Godness. And so like for us to want something different or to want him to be different in our day and age now than he was, you know, 2000, 5000 years ago, like we. Why, why would we want that?
Speaker 1:So, yeah, well, when we hold on to that too, then, thinking about the next characteristic, when we hold on to that, he cannot change. All the other characteristics are so much more powerful, right? So, even the ones we've already talked about His mercy, his love, his sovereignty, his holiness none of that will change. It has not and it will not change. Well, today we're talking a little bit about His faithfulness, and how blessed are we that His faithfulness, which is His what's a good definition? His promise-keeping aspect, his ability to keep His promise, to keep His words, his faithfulness will also never change. It's not wishy-washy like humans are. We break promises all the time to each other, even within the church, because we're imperfect. God is perfect and will never, will never, fall back on His faithfulness.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is one of those things you know. And also it says great is His faithfulness. You know, his faithfulness is one of those bedrock characteristics that if, if it weren't there, it's kind of like it's love. I mean, if it weren't there, we would all be like just consumed because we are so unfaithful, even when we want to be faithful, even when our hearts want to keep our promises and keep our intentions and do the right thing, like we, still our human, our humanness prevents us, like we have limitations that prevent us from doing what our hearts even desire to do. And Paul talks about that in Romans 7,. You know, like our faithful, our ability and capacity for faithfulness is limited, but his is not, and that is how we can get back up again, again and again, time after time. It's because his faithfulness that encourages us and strengthens us to keep persevering and keep running our race and keep saying yes to him after we've fallen. So that is just, it's just so important to our ability to obey Him and be His follower.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So we recently in Sojo Academy have gone through the Old Testament. We've done a little Old Testament survey in pointing through the Old Testament and where we see Christ and how we can see the entire canon of Scripture. And you cannot study or read the Old Testament without and getting a big picture of the Old Testament without seeing this characteristic of faithfulness, right, how his people failed and he was faithful and then they failed again and then he was faithful again and you know, it's just, I mean how exhausting he must have been. But he was not exhausted because he cannot tire, right? So how do we wrap our brains around this? Because we have a human experience.
Speaker 1:So the faithfulness there that he showed to his people through Exodus, through the entire Old Testament, he also shows to us today and that goes back to mercy and grace. I mean that's a grace, right? We don't deserve that. I don't deserve His faithfulness. But yet he's chosen to give it to me to be faithful. And he's promised to see me through. He's promised that all things work together for my good and His glory. He's promised me that one day I'll see Him face to face. Because I'm trusting in Him, I'm trusting in His work on the cross. I know these things and I can put my flag in the ground because of these things and no matter what kind of shifting sand is happening under my feet and guys, I have a lot of shifting sand under my feet right now, no matter what's going on. I may feel like I'm floundering. You may feel like you're floundering, but you can trust in the foundation. You may feel the sand shifting, but the foundation is strong and it is sure and he is faithful to his word and it will not change.
Speaker 2:I think that's really just to make it personal. I think it's really powerful when we think how, in what ways, we are relying on his faithfulness in our lives. I think it just puts a little bit of meat on the bones and helps us to understand and recognize his faithfulness in our lives. I know, for me personally, one of the ways that I see his faithfulness is in my utter failures and just in in things that you know. I set, kind of like what I was talking about earlier. I set these intentions. I'm like, okay, lord, I'm going to do this and I'm going to, I'm going to put this aside because it's not benefiting me in my walk with you. And then two weeks later I'll be like, oh well, was it really that bad? You know, and before I know it, like I'm spending more time scrolling this thing that I said I was not going to do that anymore.
Speaker 2:You know, and and just remember you mean, that's a small example, but just remembering, okay, he's, he's faithful to me and he is, he's faithful to forgive me and to cleanse me of all unrighteousness.
Speaker 2:So he's not only there saying, okay, I'm, I'm forgiving you again for that, but like he, he removes it, he, he washes me clean of that and he gives me a new heart Like he's. He's faithful to do that time after time after time and when I think about that and really just adore him for that, that is what motivates me to then do what I need to do. It's his faithfulness towards me that motivates me. But if I don't take the time to really recognize that in my life and think about it and meditate on it, meditate on his character and how he has demonstrated that to me in my lives, then I'm missing out on the blessing of that. I'm missing out on the motivation that thinking about that and recognizing it gives. So to me it's really important to like personalize these characteristics of God and recognize them in my own life, because that is powerful, that is transformative, really, when we give it the space that it needs.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, and even when we do forget and when we are faithless. In 2 Timothy it says that when we are faithless, he is still faithful.
Speaker 2:And sometimes we are.
Speaker 1:Oftentimes I am.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's in those moments where we need to remember His faithfulness the most that we tend to sometimes even fall away and be less faithful to the disciplines that we know that are going to get us through. And remembering, like you said, remembering the times in our own lives. This is why keeping journals is so important. Keep your prayer journal. Go back when you're in this period where you feel like you're questioning everything and you even maybe question God's faithfulness. You know, because we're human and we do that. If that happens, go back to the Bible yes, the Old Testament, the New Testament. Go back to the Word, 100% first, but then go back to your own life.
Speaker 1:Like AJ said, go back and remember where he got you through a very difficult situation, a circumstance, whatever it might look like, and you now maybe you're on the other side of it, or maybe you never got to the other side of it, but he's walking with you in it. Right? Because God doesn't always promise that we're going to come out of every circumstance smelling like roses. That's not His promise. His promise is not that we're not going to suffer, right, in fact, it's the opposite, and it's not that we're going to. You know that every prayer is going to be answered to our satisfaction as humans, but it is that he will never leave us or forsake us, and that means when you're walking in that circumstance, you can trust that.
Speaker 1:And so document that right and I'm preaching to myself, because the last thing you want to do is go back and remember you know other things when you're in the middle of something. But that's important. It's important. So if you are in a sweet period of your life right now, we all have things we can be grateful for. Write them down and remind your heart of them over and over and over again. Remind your heart that that is God. And even when you don't feel it, because your human emotions are all awry and crazy and you're grieving and you're hurting and someone's wronged you or you're sick or whatever it is, in that holy, sovereign, loving, merciful, immutable, faithful God.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's a great word to end on, and if you are someone who is in a position right now where your faith feels obliterated and you're not sure even where to go with that, you can rest in the fact that God is faithful to you, even when you can't muster enough faith to trust him. And I have been there and I think maybe I'll be there again. It's not a good place to be, it's it's it's. It does not feel good at all, um, but he is faithful and that's where we have to. Ultimately, our hope, our security and our rest has to find its peace in him. You know, our faith is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness, and that righteousness includes his faithfulness, his promises that he will not revoke and give up on and his immutable character. And we're safe. We are safe in him we're safe.
Speaker 1:We are safe in him. And lean in to him, to his word and to a community of believers who will remind you of that. Don't isolate. When you get those moments, lean in, lean in and let him love you. Yeah, okay, all right, gosh, it seemed a little heavier than I thought it was going to be.
Speaker 2:Sorry, we we ended on a maybe a little somber note, but I think it's a good note. It's a hopeful note because we do have. We do have a savior. That's that's his name. He is a rescuer, he is a savior. That means that we need him to be and that's okay.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes. So these were good things to think about for me today and hopefully, if you're listening to us, it will inspire you to look up. You know we could look up 20, I don't know way more than that. 200 probably verses about his faithfulness in the Bible and his immutability. So I guess our challenge, like it has been the last couple of weeks, is to go to his word. Go to his word. See what it says about these characteristics of God. Dig deeper in it. If you want to dig deeper, we're studying these in Sojo Academy. We'd love to have you. But regardless, remember them, remember them and trust them. Yes, all right, and we will see you next week.
Speaker 2:Yes, we will be back next week with something else. I don't know what it is yet, but it'll be something.
Speaker 1:It is our last podcast on characteristics of God and I'm trying to remember them. One is just. Anyway, we'll get it. We'll get it. We'll be here. Listen to us. Yes, we'll be sure to be back. We'll be live next week. All right, we hope that you have a great day, whatever day you're listening, and we'll see you then. Bye, everybody, bye. Thank you for listening to the Sojo Show. We are so grateful that you did and we're so thankful for the opportunity to spread the good news of the gospel in such a fun and unique way. If you enjoyed the show, we'd love it if you would leave us a rating or review wherever you're listening to this podcast or subscribe to the show. Also, tell your friends. That's the number one way we get people finding out about who we are, and we really appreciate you sharing the Sojo Show. We'll be back every Monday digging into the truth of God's word, sharing, laughing, glorifying God and all that we do, and hopefully encouraging women from all over the world in the truth of the gospel. Talk to you, then.
