Vaughn Forest Weekly Message Podcast

Welcome to the 100th episode of the Other Six Podcast! Thank you to everyone who has tuned in along the way to make this incredible milestone possible. Here is a question: have you ever had a bad habit in your life that you have tried to break? Most of us have. Maybe it was to stop drinking too much caffeine. Maybe you weren’t going to bed on time and always woke up tired in the morning. Or maybe it was something even more difficult. Bad habits can be tough to get rid of, but what about developing good habits in your life? That can often be just as challenging. Perhaps you are tying to get into a good exercise and diet routine, or maybe you are trying to find more time to spend with your family each day. Whatever it is, good habits take time to develop. What about the habit of reading God’s Word? Many of us want to spend time with the Lord each day, but so much of the time our Bible reading is the first thing to go when life gets busy. So how do we develop the good habit of engaging with Scripture on a daily

It’s hard to know who to trust these days. Between A.I., fake news, scammers, and a lack of credible sources of information, it can honestly be incredibly easy to fall into a pattern of skepticism in our lives. And while a healthy dose of being skeptical is good (Anyone want to buy a bridge? I am selling one!) it can lead to bitterness and an overflow of negativity in our lives. In our culture, the Bible is often the subject of high doses of skepticism. It’s a book that claims to be the inspired Word of God to humanity…that’s a big claim! And yet, there are big facts backing up that claim. So if the Bible is God’s message to us, then what does that mean for our lives? What are we expected to know about God’s Word and do with God’s Word? Join Pastors Jim, Chad, and Matt for a discussion on being skeptical in our culture today, the authority of the Bible in our lives, and the overall message of this amazing collection of books known as the Bible.

When you think about it, the entirety of what Christians believe is based on what is written in the Bible. It’s our ultimate authority, our ultimate truth, and our ultimate message from the Lord. Whenever we gage if something is trustworthy or not, it’s Scripture that we appeal to in order to determine if something is from God or not. But is it trustworthy? Do the copies of the Bible that we read today remain true to what was originally written? How can we even know the answer to that question? If the Bible is a collection of books written over 1500 years by so many different authors that we don’t even have the original copies of, how can we truly trust it? Join Pastors Jim, Chad, and Matt for a conversation on the reliability of the Bible, how we can have faith that it is truly the Word of God, and the overwhelming evidence of the miracle of Scripture.

As we begin our journey into the Bible, the first question that we must stop and ask is “how can we know that this is the Word of God?” It’s a great question. To say that God speaks to us and does so through this book known as the Bible is a pretty audacious claim, so is it true? As Christians, we say we believe every word of Scripture is given to us by God, but what does that really mean? And how did it happen? Was there a heavenly tape recorder or did God just tell the authors of Scripture to “jot this down real quick”? Join Pastors Jim, Chad, and Matt for a discussion on divine inspiration in the writing of God’s message to all of mankind in the form of the Bible.

For the past six weeks, we have been on a journey together of looking at how we are to interact with one another in God’s family. We have talked about loving one another, honoring one another, praying for one another, and more. These “one another” actions are the things in God’s family that we are expected to do, the way we invest in one another. But what about the things we are not supposed to do? Think about your own family. Your family probably has rules and expectations, and some of those include negative actions that you are not to do. In the same way, in God’s family, there are things we are not to do in order to protect the family of God from the enemy. So what are those things? What are the negative “one anothers” that protect? Join Pastors Jim, Chad, and Matt for a discussion on the No-No’s of God’s family as our One Anothers message series wraps up but the One Another Life continues on.

Honor is an interesting concept when you think about it. We have heard since we were little that we are to “honor your father and mother.” The word honor also brings to mind a courtroom with a judge and someone saying “yes, your honor.” But what does that word really mean? Is it just showing them respect? Or maybe holding them in high esteem? What does it truly look like to honor someone? And what about the folks who are difficult to honor? How are we supposed to treat them? The Bible makes it clear: honor is a big deal to God. So if we are to live a life that shows honor to people, what does God’s Word say about how we are to carry that out? Join Pastors Jim, Chad, and Matt for a conversation on what honor is, how to honor those who seem unhonorable, and some practical ways to show honor to those around you as we continue to live out the One Another life.

The importance of prayer in the life of the believer cannot be overstated. Again and again in the Bible we see accounts of people praying to the Lord and seeing amazing things happen. Through prayer, armies are defeated, the blind see, the lame walk, and the dead are brought back to life. Prayer is quite literally the way we talk to God and one of the ways that God speaks to us. In God’s family, we are commanded to pray for one another, with all kinds of requests and on all kinds of occasions. But what about when we pray and we don’t see results? What about praying in the tough times when we just don’t feel like it? How can we lean on the power of prayer when God feels far away? And how can we open up to others about what is going on in our lives when it could be embarrassing or shameful? Join Pastors Jim, Chad, and Matt for a conversation on the importance of prayer and how we can utilize prayer in God’s family as we live out the One Another life that the Lord has called us to.

At some point in everyone’s life, we have all struggled with being accepted or rejected. Maybe in elementary school you were picked last for dodgeball. Maybe in middle school you were made fun of. Maybe in high school you were left out of the group. Maybe as an adult you were pushed aside or dismissed as not important enough to consider. The truth is, no matter who you are or where you are from, rejection has at some point come to call on you. In God’s family, however, we are called to accept one another. Even so, people have still experienced a lack of acceptance from those in the church. That can be especially painful. Then there is the world around us. Our culture is constantly screaming “accept me the way I am!“, so is that what we are supposed to do? Blind acceptance no matter what? But how can we accept those who are living a lifestyle contrary to what the Bible says? The Bible makes it clear that acceptance is so important, but how do we practically and faithfully live out a one another lifestyle of ac

There is really nothing that everyone in the entire world can agree on, but the closest statement that might find universal acceptance is that life is tough. Did we hear an “amen” there through the screen? The burdens of life can be so difficult to deal with. Truthfully, for many, it seems like those burdens get tougher every day. We carry so many burdens in our lives like our finances, relationships, job concerns, marriage, health…the list goes on and on. But are these things meant to be burdens? And are we meant to carry them alone? Or does God have a better plan for us to help us when we face the burdens of this life? The truth is that God has given us His family as a way for us to bear one another’s burdens and to help each other in our times of need. But how do we access that? Join Pastors Jim, Chad, and Matt for a conversation on the burdens of this life and how God has designed us to be in relationship with one another to help ease the weights of life that so many of us carry.

When it comes to the concept of love, there is no shortage of stories, songs, poems, movies, books, and more throughout all of human history that attempt to convey what it truly means to love someone. Even so, love, for some people, can be difficult to define. We know it when we experience it. We also know what it means to be unloved, to feel like we are isolated or alone or even hurt by those that we expected to feel love from. In Scripture, Jesus says that the world will know that we are followers of Him by the way that we love. Jesus is the perfect picture of true love, and we are called to be imitators of Him. So how do we do that? How do we, as imperfect people, love other imperfect people perfectly like Jesus did? Is that even possible? Join Pastors Jim, Chad, and Matt for a discussion on how to love like Jesus and how we are called to love one another in the family of God.