JY: Welcome to GearTalk, a podcast on biblical theology. Today we have bad news. Our summer of stories is over. We also have very good news. Jason DeRouchie is back after a summer break, although when you hear what he did this summer, it won’t sound like much of a break. Today, Tom and Jason, talk about Sovereign Joy. It’s the name of a church plant Jason is involved with, but the name means a lot more than just that.

TK: Welcome to GearTalk. I’m Tom, and today we have not a special guest because he’s back where he belongs. Finally back—Jason DeRouchie. Good to hear your voice.

JD: Good to be back, Tom. Delightful summer—the Lord was very kind. So glad to be back with our listeners and with you.

TK: You weren’t that disconnected because you listened all summer, and these are your people who were speaking, weren’t they?

JD: Oh, that was sweet, Tom, to have the summer of stories. So many of my students that I’ve been investing in, many of them that are the closest to me at this time in my ministry, getting to share. And I benefited from each one. I think I learned something from every podcast. It was a joy to see them actively engaging in ministry of the Word, in sharing through this medium.

TK: Agreed. I can think of specific things right now that I really loved in each one. What else did you do? You were really looking to have some time this summer for projects, but also family and some other things. Can you give us a little window on your summer?

JD: Oh, God was kind in so many ways. I had some goals. There were a couple books that I had been working on for a while, just making abridgments to some big books that I had made, making some small books out of the big ones. I was able to complete two.

TK: People will like that.

JD: I was able to make two small books, finalize two small books that I really believe are going to serve a broader audience than some of my big books. First one is Enjoying Jesus’s Bible: The Old Testament for Christians and the second, A Short Guide to Understanding and Applying the Old Testament. It was a joy that God gave me the windows I needed and the blessing from the publishers to pursue these smaller projects.

And another element—family. I’ve become the legal guardian of my brother, and so it’s just a joy that my brother Edward, who is fifty, has come to live in our town. God didn’t give him a fully working body, and yet all the joy of the Lord that is in him and the blessing that he is to all of us. Though he has some mental disabilities, he is such a treasure made in the image of God and such a gift to our family. It was time for him to have a new context, and he is flourishing, and we praise the Lord for that.

One of the reasons he’s flourishing is because of the third big thing, and that is that God has really shown us himself birthing a new church—Sovereign Joy Baptist Church of Liberty, Missouri. Ed gets to be a part of that community, as does the rest of my family. Just a blessing to see God starting this. We’ve had four or five summer gatherings with potential folks who are praying about being part of our core team. We’re hoping to launch early this fall, gathering on Sundays and Wednesdays.

And I just have to say as a shepherd, one of the future elders of this flock, it’s just been a blessing to see my own heart rising as a pastor for them. They’re such precious people, and already individuals are pouring out their lives, investing in this work with their time, with resources, and with their own lives—just sharing their lives with one another. It’s been a great blessing to see Sovereign Joy Baptist Church becoming a reality with the help of the Lord. And we pray that it would honor him and truly have an impact in our region of Kansas City. So those are three biggies, Tom.

TK: Three biggies, and one of the people who was on our summer stories two times, he’s a big part of this, right?

JD: He sure is. Charles is a dear brother, a former student, and now our lead pastor at Sovereign Joy, having served for ten years as an associate pastor in a church here in Kansas City, The Road Church—they’re our sending church, and they are sending him so well and being such a support to our new little growing flock and the work that God is doing with Sovereign Joy.

So God has called Charles and his wife Deborah, their four boys, to be a part of this work and indeed to pilot this ship. And it’s been a treasure to have one of my former students, now one of my dear friends, to partner alongside of as fellow pastors and to be able to follow his lead in this new work that Christ is building.

TK: Before we get there, Jason, just want you to reflect for a second on the value it is for you as a professor who has the gifting and opportunity to write, to also be a big part of a local church. Why is that? Or how would you say that shapes your writings?

JD: Oh boy. Well, it shapes all of my ministry. I, as a professor, don’t see myself on the front lines. Pastors of local churches are on the front lines. I am support staff. And yet those that I am training are future leaders in Christ’s church, men and women of the Word, specifically men who will be shepherds, elders, deacons in God’s church, women who will be shaping Bible studies and serving children and other ladies.

And it’s such a privilege for me to be a professor. But being on—entering back into the front lines of ministry as a shepherd, it really reminds me why I’m doing what I’m doing. It nurtures humility because I’m seeing the need for dependence at every turn. Jesus is the only one who can build his church. The gates of hell will not prevail against his power, his strength, his name, and he’s the one who is greater who is in us than he who is in the world. And so I’m just being reminded weekly of my desperate need for God’s help. And that’s a good place to be for a professor, being reminded of that neediness.

And as was the case for my earlier years of ministry when I also served as a pastor, what it does is it just ever keeps the people that I’m wanting to serve in my writing—it keeps those faces right in front of me. I’m not just writing for an abstract “the church at large.” I’m writing for specific individuals that the people I love, the people that I’m shepherding would be able to receive from what I’m writing. And having names and stories and testimonies of God’s faithfulness and journeys through suffering, where a big God has proven himself faithful once again, is such a gift to a writer.

It’s letting what I do not be in the abstract, but these are real people with real needs. And I’m wanting to shepherd them. And so when I put my fingers to the keyboard, I pray that what I’m writing will have tangible applicability, that it will be clear and filled with the life-giving truths of the gospel, and that they’re truths that are not abstract but that are being lived out every day as I serve others and also as I simply operate as a church member. Before I’m a pastor, I’m a church member. I’m one with them, and just getting to worship in this community is such a gift.

Even the fact that it’s a church plant in our own actual neighborhood community, Liberty, Missouri, is such a joy to see God starting something fresh in a city that, even since we moved here five years ago, has exploded all the more in size—thousands of people moving to this area and not enough churches being planted. And we pray that this church with fresh pastors and a fresh flock would indeed have an impact in this region of Kansas City.

TK: So the plan today, Jason—we talked about a little bit—is just to talk a little bit about the church and the name and the model and the mission. The name “Sovereign Joy”—where did that come from? Sovereign Joy Baptist Church. What does it mean? How does this name reflect what you are hoping the church reflects?

JD: I love the name. I know that it’s part of my DNA. There’s no question that those that are familiar with the evangelical church broadly, and even my story, will see something in that name. It’s Charles’s story, too—Charles Ackman, the lead pastor. Both of us have our roots in what has classically been called Christian hedonism, this conviction that we glorify God most when he satisfies us most.

TK: Can you back up one second? Because most of us don’t use the word “hedonist” very often, or we don’t think of it positively at all, but you just used it.

JD: And historically that’s been a problem to some, but we’re talking about a Christian hedonism. Hedonism is about pleasure, pursuing pleasure. And yet this is a Christian hedonism, so it’s about pursuing pleasure in God.

So we have a God that does not tell us “stop seeking delight.” No, he made our souls to take pleasure. And yet so often—I mean for most of the world, most of the world is so quickly and too easily satisfied. They seek pleasure in money, in power, in prestige, in sex. They seek pleasure, ultimate pleasure, in things that ultimately do not satisfy the soul. The soul was made for God.

And by “sovereign joy,” we’re talking about two sides of a coin: both God’s joy as God and his joy in his people, and then also our joy ultimately in him. So our motto: “pursuing pleasure in God as his treasure.” And I want to unpack that a little bit today. But the idea that we are the treasured possession of the sovereign of the universe, that he has made his church his precious value above all other peoples on the planet, that he has set his affection in a special way on his bride like a husband does his wife—the ultimate husband of reality, the God who’s created all things has created a people for himself. And he takes pleasure in us ultimately through Jesus.

And to find this bridegroom is to find the one who is more valuable, more precious, more glorious than anything the world has to offer. To win an NBA or NFL championship is something to bring excitement for a moment, and then you’ve got a new season and then you’ve got to defend your crown, and most likely you’ll end up losing it. Someone who wins a gold medal in the Olympics—this has been a goal for their entire lives. Yet very few Olympians are over thirty-five years old, and they have all the rest of their life to live. If the Olympics are the end, what’s next?

TK: Right, right.

JD: Can it get any better? And God says yes, it can. In his presence is fullness of joy. At his right hand are pleasures forevermore. Oh, to know this God. And it’s the idea of Jesus’s words—well, I’m going to go there. But this idea of him just urging his people: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger. Whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” He’s talking about a spiritual satisfaction.

To go to the right kind of cistern, not an empty cracked cistern that holds no water, but a living well that is never ending. And I’m not talking about a fake kind of happiness. I’m talking about a kind of satisfaction that even when all hell breaks loose and the darkness of suffering enters upon life, that you have a sure foundation, a deep-seated rest knowing that your God is still in control, that he is still for you in Jesus, and that one day the darkness will lift because our God is in control of all tomorrows, and he is for us 100 percent in Jesus—that’s the kind of deep-seated satisfaction I’m talking about.

So a God who loves us with an everlasting love, who through Jesus is 100 percent for us—all the power in heaven and earth working for his people so that we have a God who, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and justified—because of what Christ has done in paying our penalty. In satisfying God’s wrath now, he can pour his compassion our way. Steadfast love can be ours in full measure.

And that is the greatest affirmation that we could have on this planet. Even if the closest relatives to us, and even if our nearest friend betrays us, we have a God who says, “You are mine,” and we are able to say back to him, “I am yours. I am your treasure.” The whole body of Christ as the treasure of God—our motto “pursuing pleasure in God as his”—that’s what the church is. The treasure of God. We are his treasure, and he is ours.

So “Sovereign Joy” is going from those two directions: God’s joy in his people and our joy in him. He is our ultimate gain. And so we’re praying that we can see a people shaped who will learn to pursue their ultimate joy in God in times of plenty and in times of want, that their ultimate satisfaction comes in honoring him, in valuing what he values, in hating what he hates, in cherishing what he cherishes—that that is our ultimate delight. We glorify God most when he satisfies us most.

And so we want to make a satisfied people at Sovereign Joy Baptist Church—satisfied in all that God is for us in Jesus Christ. That’s our prayer. And I say that fully recognizing this is a deeply hard world. And yet it is this bedrock hope that we could have a God who is for us, a God who is not caught off guard by the deepest of afflictions in this world, who operates as the overseer of all things.

And when suffering comes, he’s still on the throne, and he is still for us. No purpose of his is being thwarted in this moment of weakness and challenge and pain. Not one ounce of this universe has been set free from his ultimate control. Because of that, if Satan is not thwarting his purpose in the midst of my deep, deep suffering, I have hope that when God says “enough,” it will be enough. When he says, “Let that light shine into the darkness,” the darkness will not overcome it.

He is ultimately sovereign and therefore ultimately happy in all of his purposes. Great joy is directed toward the people that he is saving for his glory. And Sovereign Joy is just one local manifestation of a global work that we’re excited to be a part of.

TK: Jason, do you feel like what you just talked about—that would have been your understanding of God in the church years back?

JD: Well, I know that it wasn’t my understanding of God in the church before 2005.

TK: What happened?

JD: Well, God brought us to a church, a community of people that had been influenced by God’s Word in such a way that they had been given through that word bedrock truth that readied them for suffering. And out of such a context of believing in such a big God, they found joy, and it motivated this church to be a church on mission to the neighborhoods and the nations. And where all of a sudden the missionaries were heroes not because their lives were great, but because they were modeling a surrender and an ultimate living hope to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.

And they saw the gospel as precious. And so to be a part of a church that was filled with senders and with goers that cherished the true gospel of Jesus Christ—that there is good news here, good news that satisfies even amidst the hardest contexts on the planet and the most difficult suffering scenarios one can imagine. To be a part of that community changed our lives.

And so in many respects, though I’ve been saved, I believe truly, since I was five years old, which takes me back to a forty-six-year walk with Jesus, even in that context, in so many ways for my wife and myself, and it’s in the testimony of all three of my older kids, it was in that setting of a local church that we were awakened to the pure gospel, the beauty of Christ, God’s heart for the nations, and the significance of recognizing the absolute bigness of God and the hope that that brings if that God is for us.

So I haven’t always embraced this kind of understanding of God and his church, but I’m so glad that the Lord has shown me himself and let us taste and see that he is good.

TK: The idea of sovereign joy, where you’d say—I actually, it’s a reality we’re talking about, not something that is just like a “it’s waiting for me in heaven” sort of thing. But right now, God is taking joy and pleasure in his people, and we are taking joy and pleasure in him right now, today, even in the midst of dark and broken world.

I feel like so often we are like engines that you give to a little kid—like where we live, you get snowmobiles or something for a child and they have governors on them that can’t go over a certain speed, so they always go really slow. And we almost feel like in our Christianity, we—it would be wrong to pursue pleasure, when in fact that’s what we were created for. We were created to see and enjoy God. And it’s almost like the governors get taken off as we—God, you made us for this. You made me to enjoy you and find satisfaction in you and in what you’re doing and in your people.

JD: And I just want to stress, this is not just like an abstract walking in the spiritual. This is absolutely tangible. If you have a God who creates the sunshine—I mean, we couldn’t operate without light. And everywhere we go, every taste we have, every experience, every ball thrown or kicked, every football game enjoyed, every race run, every book written, every song sung in the light—if we pause and let ourselves not just delight in the experience but recognize it was made possible because there’s light, I’m not walking in the dark. And that light is pervading every part of life, and Jesus is that light of life.

He’s upholding even our light by the word of his power. When things were created, there was only light, wasn’t yet the sun until Day 4, showing that even plants can be sustained by the ultimate light of God. He doesn’t need the sun and one day the sun will be no more and yet light will continue through the light of the Son and of the Father. The light of God is influencing everything, and so the call is to be able to delight in God when we enjoy a hot fudge sundae or enjoy our granddaughter or grandson—to let that moment of joy elevate one octave to the point of praise, recognizing that God is the great giver. And all that we have, we have received. Every breath itself is an opportunity to delight in God because he’s the one who is granting that we live or that we die. He’s in charge of it all, and so it’s in that context that we have countless opportunities with every breath of our day, with every morning seeing a new sunrise, with every walk with our spouse, delight in our kids, enjoying a Chipotle burrito—whatever it might be. We have opportunity to delight in the one we were created to delight in. Every gift becomes a means of moving us to the creator. And then when we experience the suffering, we have another opportunity to magnify the greatness of God as our helper. When we simply cry out and say “God, I need you”—in that moment, praise is happening. In that moment, we are doing what we were created to do, recognizing our need in his absolute sufficiency. He is glorified as the helper and we are the one who receive the help. So both in contexts of plenty and in deep contexts of want, the call is “find your satisfaction in the Lord.” And that’s our prayer—that we can be those kinds of people and see created increasingly. I pray that our church could be the kind of church where our lives were changed, that this church could be an outpost for that same type of life-transforming encounter with the living God, where people can taste and see that he is good at all times, even in the dark ones.

TK: I was going to ask you, Jason—I think for a lot of us, we might say, “I can see that, but I don’t live like that.” That I feel like I’m always finding some—I wish—I wish I was around the next bend, I wish something else had been changed, like whatever it might be—this situation needs to be changed in order for me to find joy, I need to get to this goal or when this happens then—” What would you say for, I think, lots of people that if we said “I find myself, even though I know and trust the Lord to some measure, always dissatisfied”? What’s your response to that?

JD: Oh, Tom, I would not be telling the truth if I too didn’t struggle to be satisfied in God. An illustration that I had given long ago—my wife picked up on it and she says it often now to our kids— “Don’t look at the kneecaps of the giants.” That’s what Israel was doing when they went into the promised land. Great bounty all around, the provision of God, the promise of victory, and all they could see was the kneecaps rather than stepping back—back out of the shadow and remember there is a greater sun—

TK: Hmm.

JD: That is casting this shadow, and he’s in charge. I think of Second Corinthians, chapter 3, verse 18, where now that God has given us eyes to see him—Satan would love for us to think we’re still blind, but we can’t see his glory—but it says, “We all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to the next.” The challenge for us is to step back and see the glory. If you were in an old shed, something often happens when you’re in a shed and it’s daylight outside: the door swings shut, and yet there’s a crack in that aluminum roof that’s all rusted through. And what you see is a beam of light. And we don’t notice the light—usually, we’re just walking around—unless it’s shooting itself in our eyes while we’re trying to drive. We don’t even think about the light, and yet it’s everywhere, making our very existence possible. But in a dark room all of a sudden that beam of light shooting through the shed roof, it’s like we’re reminded of the light, that there’s actually shape here, and if we could just let our eyes follow that beam of light up to its source more often, our hearts would be reminded God’s in charge. It’s not as dark as it feels and through Jesus, he is for me. Reminding ourselves of what is true can help us not fall prey to despondency. Reminding ourselves he is a treasure. And the world is selling me lies, and my soul will be most satisfied if I value what he values, say no to what he calls me to say no to, follow the timing that he has supplied. Reminding ourselves of what is true is like letting our eyes follow that beam of light in the tool shed up to its source, and just reveling in the reality and gift of light. Beholding the glory of the Lord, that’s the context where we are transformed more into his likeness. And it can happen both in times of plenty and in times of want.

I think of Paul at the end of Philippians where he simply lays out that he has learned this secret, as it were, in whatever situation to be content because in all things he knows God is the one who strengthens him. He remembers God. That’s his key. He remembers God as the ultimate supplier and is the ultimate source. When he has all the food that he needs, God is the great giver and it allows him to walk in joy in God, and when he finds himself in hunger, he remembers all supply will come from God and he will not give me greater temptation than I can handle. He has not left me. What he has said. He has not left me and he will carry me all the way to my gray hairs and to my dying breath. We remind ourselves of what is true. And in doing so, what are we doing? We’re following that beam of light up to its source. And if everything looks like light around us, we pause and remember he’s still the great giver, and there’s only one source and, “God, let me be grateful, grateful in the moments with these grandkids, grateful in the moments with a wife who is still with me, grateful in the job he supplied.” And when an early death comes through miscarriage, or when cancer strikes and spouse is gone and bed is empty, or when all of a sudden we’re let go from our job, the ultimate source of our sustaining joy has not changed at all.

TK: Hmm.

JD: And the great supplier who was carrying us when all was bright is still there to carry us all night. That’s the kind of bedrock truth we need to just be nurturing in our souls, and it comes through, I think, daily time in the Word, a community of faith to remind us how to pursue God faithfully and rightly. A community of faith, daily time in the Word—and what are we doing? We’re just calling ourselves keep looking up that beam of light, looking up to that beam of light, seeing the source and letting our delight in a green pepper pizza—which is one of my favorites—green pepper pizza, letting that delight go up one octave to the point of praise. And when I find myself so burdened by my own sinfulness, by my own continual struggles to live by my schedule, being in control rather than letting life be in control of me and the despondency that comes in my own soul in the midst of that type of challenge, I just need to pause and remind myself of what is true, remind myself that there will be fresh mercy at dawn, and that I have a God who is already 100% for me, and therefore all authority in heaven on earth is working on my behalf. And I can rest.

TK: That’s really helpful. And it’s reality. None of this is based on trite sayings or slogans. I did—some of you know, but I’ve done some long, long runs, some ultramarathon sort of things, and one year I did—I did a run with a guy, and I didn’t do it with him, we happened to run together for a little while. But he took out—he took out every 5 miles he took a new saying out and the same was something he’d written that was supposed to encourage him, but ultimately the sayings that he took out didn’t have any power to change anything in him.

TK: Hmm.

TK: And what we’re talking about here is something that is real and true and saying this actually is the light and it’s what we have as believers. To peel our eyes off the kneecaps, though, can be hard. And if you’re all alone, it’s extremely hard.

JD: And the face that’s above the kneecaps is scary, and the arms are strong, and the devil is a liar. And he’s seeking to steal, kill and destroy—steal our joy, kill our hope, destroy our lives, and yet greater is he who is in us than he who is in the world.

TK: Yeah. And we’re not talking about then a little saying when I—when I would get fearful of something that I would pull out of a little baggie like this man had and say, “OK, this is going to be my saying for the next mile”—like a little mantra of some sort. It’s something far deeper than—it’s saying no, this is what’s real and true. I have a God who is really for me and who has called me for his purposes and—and we’re going to hear this right next week, Jason. He has joy in his people. I am not constantly being looked at by him as something that he regrets, someone he regrets having in his family. But he takes delight.

JD: Amazing. He takes delight.

TK: Yeah.

TK: Yeah.

TK: Well, what are we going to do next week? We got a couple messages we’re going to listen to the next couple weeks. What’s the plan next week?

JD: Our hope is to take some weeks, Tom, to meditate on the purpose of the church, a theology of God’s church and do it from an angle of some of the teaching and thinking that I’ve been putting in along with my partner Charles on Sovereign Joy Baptist Church and what God has called us to do and to be. And so my hope is that you and I are going to be able to meditate on some of the big that applies to all while also hearing some of the distinctives of our own little church plant. But meditating on God’s love for his church and the church’s love for God—sovereign joy, the Sovereign’s joy in his people. And that is where his treasure and our joy or pleasure in him. So what we’ve got is I’m going to want to meditate a little bit on our mission statement as a church, I’m going to want to overview our six key strategies for fulfilling our mission. But within that, I’m going to let us listen to two 15-to-20 minute messages that I gave to our people this summer—one on God’s joy in his pursuit of shaping a people for himself and one on our pursuit of pleasure in God. And then you and I are going to get to reflect on those messages. That’s where we are heading—to just consider the love of God for his church and the church’s absolute security and satisfaction in the one who is making us who we are.

TK: I look forward to it, Jason. And again, welcome, welcome back. It is good to be with you.

JD: Delight to be with you, Tom.

TK: Alright, alright. Blessings all. Thanks for listening. Encourage—I would just say encourage your friends, believers, pastors to listen these next—these next weeks. I believe this will be a blessing and a help.

JY: Thank you for joining us for GearTalk. For resources related to biblical theology, visit handstotheplow.org or jasonderouchie.com.