Beauty from Ashes: How Brokenness Invites God’s Presence

Jim Lovelady  00:03

Welcome to Grace at the Fray, a podcast that explores the many dimensions of God’s grace that we find at the frayed edges of life. Come explore how God’s grace works to renew your life and send you on mission in His Kingdom. Hello, beloved, welcome to Grace at the Fray. What are you doing right now? You driving, walking the treadmill, maybe working at your desk or washing dishes or some other chore, maybe you’re sitting on a plane, or maybe you’re maybe you’re laying in bed trying to cure your insomnia. Hey, that hurts a little bit, but at least I’m glad I can help a bit whatever you’re doing right now. What do you think you would do if Jesus suddenly showed up right next to you? What would you say? How would it change the moment? How would it change what you’re doing right now? The technical term for when God shows up is the word theophany. Anytime there’s a manifestation of God, some special movement of the Spirit, an appearance of Jesus, it’s a theophany. Some of my favorites in the Bible are like Moses reckoning with God, with the burning bush. Saul’s dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus, the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and their joyful realization at the revealing of Jesus and the breaking of the bread. Elijah and the revealing of God in a whisper, all of these theophanies brought about a certain kind of repentance. Right? The word repentance may bring to mind the image of a parent at a playground separating two fighting children and yelling at them like now you say sorry to him, and now you say sorry to him. But repentance is much bigger than realizing that you’re wrong and merely saying I’m sorry, but it’s no less than that, but it’s definitely way bigger. At Serge, we talk about different kinds of repentance. There are these watershed, dramatic moments where God shows up and there’s a drastic shift in the way that we think about everything. And then there are these seasons of our lives where there’s this thing that’s been characteristic of me for a long time, and in this season, God wants me to repent of that thing. And then there are the little moment by moment, daily realizations that we’ve been looking for life in other things and we want to come back and reengage with Jesus, the real source of life. When God shows up, there’s an automatic invitation to repentance. But have you ever thought about how your repentance is also an invitation for God to show up? You ever thought of it that way? It’s not meant to be coercive, as if we can really force God to do something like, if I repent, God will show up. It’s not that God shows up in unique and powerful ways when we repent. We call that revival. The next two episodes of Grace at the Fray are going to be about revival. This one is all about the close relationship between repentance and revival. My guest today is Hunter Dockery. Hunter works on Serge’s development team. He’s passionate about helping people get a glimpse into our missions work and see how to invest leadership skills and wisdom and financial resources into the various ministries of Serge all over the world. Well, he was in town recently, and he came back into the Serge studio to share stories from the mission field of how repentance has led to revival, and where the gospel of Jesus is bringing renewal, and how the restoration of God’s Kingdom is on the move. But it’s not just stories of how God is moving out there, God’s showing up in his life over and over again, and he wants it to happen over and over again, because he knows that that’s what we are made for. When God shows up, it changes us. So here’s some stories of what happens when God shows up.  The right Reverend, Hunter Dockery, welcome back, man.

Hunter Dockery  04:08

 Thank you, Jim.

Jim Lovelady  04:10

 I always love having you on because whenever you’re around, you tell these fantastic stories that by the end of it, like, well, maybe we’ll meet in the hallway or something. You’ll tell me a story. You’ll walk one way, I’ll walk the other way, and I’ll be like, I really believe this. I really believe in Jesus. So I always appreciate you coming on and telling me some stories that helped me believe. 

Hunter Dockery  04:33

Yeah. Well, they, they do the same for me, and that’s why I love them, and that’s why I’m, I’m like a, you know, Hound Dog going after stories, you know. And they’re everywhere. And if you’re curious, you can find them. Yeah, that’s what I love. 

Jim Lovelady  04:52

Yeah, and here you are, you’re you’re like, it’s like dispatches from, from the front lines of what Serge is doing in all these places, but all at the same time, you’re kind of this mediator between our donorship. You kind of remind me the Apostle Paul who’s raising money for all these churches. You know, you’re traveling around raising money, your main job with the company. 

Hunter Dockery  05:13

Yeah, it is my job with Serge yeah. And those people, they love what’s going on, and they want to be in. And so we open doors to welcome them in to what Serge is doing around the world. And they love to give, they’re generous, crazy, you know, it’s like, I’m not sure you should be doing that. And they go, I don’t care. I’m going to give away half my income, you know, or whatever, and and so the stories are are like, that’s what they want. They want to hear that their life has impact, that they’re a part of this, their their work in whatever they’re doing is having impact and what God is doing around the world. 

Jim Lovelady  06:03

I love that, so that when you see what the Lord’s doing, it makes you want to be more promiscuously generous. 

Hunter Dockery  06:08

Oh, yeah, no question. 

Jim Lovelady  06:09

Every time I go into Philly on days off, I’ll go to my favorite ramen place, shout out to Terakawa Ramen in Chinatown and and then I’ll just kind of walk around and see like, let the Lord show me, you know. And and I’ll just see poverty. And always someone, someone will ask for something, and I just notice how I am stingy, like that, you know. And it’s like the Spirit goes, hey, hey, your discernment doesn’t really count here. You don’t. You don’t have to worry about being discerning of, like, what this person’s gonna do with the money that you’re gonna give when you get to heaven. You’re not gonna be like, hey, hey, Jesus. I was really discerning with that guy on that one day when I went to Terakawa. I was super. Aren’t you proud of how wise I was and discerning of my money? And Jesus is like, I want you to be generous. Yeah, I’m gonna be generous. 

Hunter Dockery  07:02

Sort of like, you know, He has been with all of us. When I think about the generosity that I have been shown by Christ and by what the Spirit has done, and just the brokenness that He has repaired and restored, it’s just, it’s amazing, yeah, yeah. So we carry that. 

Jim Lovelady  07:25

Yeah, yeah. So tell me some stories. Somebody. Tell me some stories, dispatches from some of the the places around the world. 

Hunter Dockery  07:32

One of the places that I love watching are the church plants around a very large city in Europe. And they we have five different church plants going on in these places, and different ones are doing, you know, well, and some are struggling, and all this. But I’ll never forget being in so I love the big picture of how they’ve gone, you know, the trajectory 

Jim Lovelady  08:00

over the years. 

Hunter Dockery  08:01

Yeah, over the years. And this one is a relatively new one, but I remember the dreaming about going to a place and the hope for that place. And actually the description of this place is that it was kind of a dog. It was ugly. It’s an ugly place to live. And I’ll never forget one of our, one of the women who works there, saying, This place needs beauty. We have got to bring beauty to this place. And I was like, wow, what a… I mean, that’s so gospel, you know, because that’s what we do. We bring beautiful people. We need beautiful art. We need beautiful architecture. Yeah, that’s what people respond to. And, you know, I have artists in my family, and one of the things they say to me that they love thinking about is that what artists do is actually reach into the future, actually reach into heaven. And many of them don’t realize they’re doing that, and they’re bringing back pictures from there, and it’s beauty, yeah. And they’re saying, this is where we’re headed. And so that’s what they did, and in this in this town, and they began to start this church plant, and all of a sudden, I mean, they just recently, sort of particularized as a church or, you know became a church. 

Jim Lovelady  09:32

Made it official.

Hunter Dockery  09:33

And everybody was like, I’m joining. I’m joining. I’m joining. And so there’s this picture that I wish I could show everyone, of like 35 people joining on the day, and most of these people had been baptized as new believers, and have come from religious backgrounds that were a long way from from Jesus. Yeah, and they looked like it, they, they, you talked, you know, they just were. And it’s such an amazing picture of how the gospel is going out. It really in the name of beauty. And the gospel is beautiful. This free gospel is so beautiful as well. So I love that story. I just love watching this happen and how people are laying their lives down in hard, ugly places, and the Kingdom is coming in beauty and really restoring people’s joy and freedom. And here they all are, yeah, yeah. And there’s, there’s such beautiful stories. There’s another one from this particular area that was a young man had had come to Christ from a book table. You know, they just had a book table out on the street, and he had come and, what are you guys giving away or selling, or whatever they were doing. And he became interested and met these people. They our folks befriended him. The people at the book table who were going to this church befriended him. And he said, I want to believe what you believe. Your God’s my God. I want to become a believer. And so he did. And then they said, Well, what about your family? What’s going on with them, you know? And he said, Oh, well, they don’t know. And, and somebody said, Well, do you think maybe they ought to know, especially because he decided to be baptized, and he was really reticent to do that, but he invited all these folks to his house for a lunch or something, you know, a tea in the afternoon, and and lo and behold, his mother and father were there. This guy’s in his 30s, you know. So he’s a little older, but still living with his folks, and he announced at the table to all the people from his church. Oh, by the way, I’ve told my parents that I was going to be baptized. Now, you have to understand, in people coming from his background, that’s a that’s a loaded statement,  And so they were all like, what’s going to happen, right? Yeah, you know, how’s this going to go? He didn’t tell them until right then, you know, in the presence of 

Jim Lovelady  12:23

Everybody there.

Hunter Dockery  12:24

Yeah, everybody was there. 

Jim Lovelady  12:25

With all these members of the church there.

Hunter Dockery  12:26

Yeah, like, three or four or five different, you know, people. It wasn’t all of them, but, and so they all were kind of like, okay, so what’s going to happen? And, and the father said, we are very pleased. We’re so happy that that he has found friends and that he has been welcomed into a community of good people,  And the next thing that happened was the mother spoke up and said, and I am we are coming to the baptism, and I am going to bring lunch for the whole church. And I just love that story, because she is like, you have given me a gift, and I’m going to give you a gift. Wow. And these people weren’t confessing to be believers or anything. They were just thankful for the generosity and the love. 

Jim Lovelady  13:18

There’s a community that loves their son. 

Hunter Dockery  13:20

That’s right. So they’re giving back so good story, lots of stories like that going on and, you know, all around the world. But one of them that, again, the the longer view that, that I’ve been thinking about, is years ago, several years ago, I heard this story, and I’ve been watching the story unfold for a number of years. And at this point, the story is that there is a revival in this place where there has never been any known response to the gospel. 

Jim Lovelady  14:02

You mean right now there’s revival happening.

Hunter Dockery  14:02

Right now, that’s what’s happening. In fact, it there are things going on that are so crazy that, I mean, there are, the officials arrest people for being Christians. They beat them, they threaten them. They all kinds of things. People are dying because of their faith, but they’re people, but the just like the early church, people, more and more and more people are becoming That’s right, yeah.

Jim Lovelady  14:03

 Christian martyrs, yeah, yeah. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. 

Hunter Dockery  14:41

So at Christmas, Christmas was so exciting in this area, and there were so many gatherings, and there was so much noise and celebration that everyone was so worried. But all the folks who lived there, they didn’t care. They were so happy to remember the birth of their savior, Jesus Christ. You know, baptisms happen in secret because it’s against the law to be baptized. But one of the crazy stories was, there was there was one of the evangelists who’s killed subsequent to a baptism. They had 35 people that need to be baptized. He had baptized seven of them in secret, wow, a gang from the prevailing faith came killed him, and the first thing that happened was the new believers called the rest of the evangelists and said, When are you sending someone else? Because we need to identify publicly with Jesus, because we may be next. Now, I have watched this, and I’m like, I’m always trying to go, okay, what’s the key?  Because I want to be a part of something like that, and, and so I, I’ve been asking a lot of questions about the beginnings of this work, and the beginnings of this work were one of our folks went into this area. It’s a pretty remote area, and he began to work with a national someone from that place, and he knew lots of young men who were believers, and he was training them to be evangelists and church planters and that sort of thing. So he came along and helped, and he was bringing Serge’s, you know, DNA to this. And this guy loved all of that. And but our guy came in just to serve. So they would have these weeks, maybe twice a year where they would come and all these men, they’d be like 30 men, and they would fast and pray and go through teachings and all this. And it was a remarkable time. So he comes in, and he’s like, he’s like, talking to the leader about what they might do. Well one year, he says, I think we’re gonna do something on repentance, because you love repentance, and you love to talk about it, and and so I’ll start and then you take over after I finish, 15 minutes or something like that. So he says, great. And, and so the guy gets up there, and he’s, he looks around and says to all these, you know, young men, the really, the, I guess the best thing to do, and talking about repentance is just to do it. So I’m talking about repentance. Let’s do it. Just do it. So he said, I’m going to start. And so he told them something in his life that was kind of hard and a little embarrassing and and he spent the first 15 minutes telling them how he really felt like he needed the he needed the forgiveness of Jesus over his sin. And these guys were fairly shaken up by hearing this leader do that,

Jim Lovelady  18:03

Right? Well, well, so what do you that’s quite a predicament, right? Because you have someone who is respected as a spiritual leader, yeah. So they stand up there and they, essentially, from a certain perspective, quote, unquote, disqualify themselves in the story that they’re telling. If you can, like, okay, just hold on with me to the end of this story, when you will see that this is all. This is actually all about how Jesus saves me, yeah, and so, like, how did they respond? 

Hunter Dockery  18:35

So, what happened was that he stops and they pray for him. He says, You guys need to pray for me, because Jesus, I need Jesus to come and restore me and heal me. And I need this repentance to be ongoing in my life, you know all that. And then he said, Anyone else want to repent? 

Jim Lovelady  18:55

Anybody else want to try it?  

Hunter Dockery  18:56

Anybody else want to try it? And four hours later, they took a break. They just one after the other. And it was funny, because they got the leaders, got together and went, Oh my gosh, there’s a lot going on here that we had no idea about in people’s lives. But there was four hours of repentance, and they took a break. And I thought about that, I thought, I don’t think I’ve ever been in a meeting like that, a four hour long repentance. Yeah, well, they took a break, as I’m saying, and the Serge guy took him out in the garden of this place, and he got a pair of scissors or something, and took him out and he and he said, You know, I want to do some gardening and show you guys. Here’s some weeds. And he grabbed the weeds and he cut them off about halfway up, and he said, This is the way you handle weeds in your you know, garden. Just cut the tops off of them, you know. And, and, and they were laughing. They all them. And they said, Oh, the gardener is going to really be upset with you, because they’re just going. And, you know, grow back even stronger, right? And so that was, of course, his lead in to say, gentlemen, I know you have, you have repented, but you’ve repented of sins that are like the tops of weeds. You’re not really getting down to the roots. So they went back in for another three hours. And I asked the question of this guy is it possible that this is the origin story of the revival that occur is occurring presently, and it’s taken a long time, years to get to what where they are now. A lot of hard things, a lot of beautiful things. But could that be the leaders repenting is, I mean, I want to be a part of this so I so I’ve been thinking about that, and I love that story, and I and, you know, of course, Jack Miller, the founder of Serge, is the one who coined the phrase, you know, listen, if you’re training leaders, you have to understand that they’re the chief repenters. Yeah, they’re the first people to repent. They have the best stories. They tell them the most. There are the people that tell their story, those stories the most. They are. They’re leading in that. And so I think about that, and I think about just how we go forward with that, and some of the, some of the things I’ve thought about, and I think that I have found in my own life over the years, is that these, I mean, a revival story, like the one I just described, I don’t, I don’t know what else to call it, except a theophany. God showed up in a in a way more than I know he hears my prayers, and I know he’s with me and all of that, but no, in a different way that he has come and things are different now, and I long for that. I mean, I want that. I told a young pastor last week that if you don’t want repentance, then you don’t want a theophany. Because I don’t think that the I think 98% of theophanies happen in repentance. Yeah, yeah. I don’t know, you know, maybe a rainbow comes up, or, you know, or something happens, but most of the time it is when we are when we see our sin in ways that we have never seen it, and we we are broken, and we are asking God to do something.  Anybody else wanna try it.

Jim Lovelady  19:23

Yeah, yeah, that it is a God showed up.  It’s the normal way. Yeah, things you can’t I mean by definition, you can’t change. You know, you can’t become a different person. You can’t become a better person. You can’t improve your life until youchange direction. You know, I’m going to keep doing this same thing. I’m going to keep being this same person. I’m going to be keep thinking this the same way. Well, you’re not going to change. And so repentance is turning. Well, we’re not just turning anywhere. We’re actually turning to the only one who can actually bring real change, you know. And that’s, that’s the difference between, yeah, I should do some, what are you new year’s resolutions? Yeah, I should do some New Year’s. You know, that’s some January, late December, the week, the week after Christmas, before New Year’s. It’s like everyone’s got their best advice for what the year, the coming year, should be. It’s all advice, you know. But what you’re talking about in real repentance is I’m not just going to turn and start doing a new philosophy of life. I’m turning and I’m going to meet the God of the universe, who is going to catch me. Because it’s scary. It’s scary to admit you’re wrong. You can’t change until you admit you’re wrong, that the direction that I’ve been going in is wrong.  Okay well, what are you gonna do? Are you gonna keep doing that? Are you gonna admit that you’re wrong? I hate admitting that I’m wrong. I don’t like that. You come on my podcast. 

Hunter Dockery  24:20

Well, I guess I think it’s even more radical than you’ve described. I think I’m going headlong into toward hell and chaos. And I get, I get caught from behind. 

Jim Lovelady  24:35

He grabs you by the scruff of the neck. 

Hunter Dockery  24:36

He just, he does something that disrupts my life, and that and that, I I think I’m gonna die or something. I think I’m, you know, that it’s just it is so bad and and I have to stop, and I, I’m just, and it’s a kindness to me. So, I mean, I have those stories everywhere in my life, and they’re my favorite stories. 

Jim Lovelady  25:07

I want to pause this conversation and invite you to join us in prayer for the Serge field workers that we at the headquarters here in Philadelphia are praying for each week. We meet on Tuesday and Friday mornings to pray, and this week, we’re praying for, well, actually, all of our donors, if you’re financially supporting Serge in any way, we’re praying for you. And by the way, thank you so much for your generosity. Would you pray with me? Lord, we pray that You would bless these folks, give them joy in their work, in your Kingdom, and the pleasure of your joy as they follow you, give them wisdom and let your grace abound in their relationships with one another, with with family members and children and with the people they serve, heal all sicknesses, liberate the enslaved, protect them from the powers and principalities of darkness, and restore to them the joy of your salvation. Let Your Kingdom come and your will be done in these places and in their lives, just as it is in heaven. We pray in Your name. Amen. Now back to the conversation.  So what about the moment by moment, day by day, kind of functioning on the the level of mundane. You know, at the mundane level, at the daily level, at the brushing your teeth level, you’re you’re not kind of cognizant of, of how your propensity to run headlong into hell and make your bed there and hang out there is just part of it. So, like, what? How does Jesus grab you by the scruff of the neck in the mundane like, how does he wake you up and and open your eyes to what’s really happening? 

Hunter Dockery  26:56

Yeah, and that’s a great question, because I think that there are two different dynamics going on. I think I wake up in the morning and I’m watching to see what God will do in my life today, and I am aware of something. And sometimes, sometimes it happens. Both of these happen on this on the same day. Maybe sometimes they even happen in the same hour where he says, I need you to see a little something about yourself, something that you do to your wife or your friends or you know. So I’m going to expose the Holy Spirit is going to expose sin in your life. And your job is to go, oh man, I didn’t see that, you know. And I say to you, Jim, do you see that in me? I mean, how do you see that? And and then I repent of that. And then at the end of that, if it’s if you don’t go into a doom loop.

Jim Lovelady  27:51

 Yeah, self pity is, that is a temptress. 

Hunter Dockery  27:54

That’s the doom loop. You just, you stop right here. You go back to your sin and go up to repentance. And you, you fall, you don’t get to joy. Joy is when you know you’ve completed the work. You know, yeah, real repentance will lead to joy. Jack used to say to me, don’t repent for more than half an hour. And I’m like, what? Wallow well? Because you well, you either wallow or and you think you’re wallowing is a kind of payment. So you’re paying for your own sins. You’re crawling up on the cross and dying for your own sins. Because joy is the litmus test. Yeah. Do you experience joy at the end of that? And that brings you back to the center, yeah, toward living in the gospel of grace. The other thing he can do is to is give you ministry. You know, you wake up in the morning, your wife is in tears and you’re late. What do you do? Am I gonna say, Sweetheart, you know, hope it goes well that you know, are you gonna stop and say, what’s happening here? I don’t care if I’m late, it’ll, you know, the world will keep going. I’m going to talk to you and you either do that, you know, a lot of times there’s a lot of dying at that point. And to do that, and that’s what we’re called to do, die to ourselves, live for someone else and and whatever happens, there’s always joy at the end of that. I don’t, but you see, if you’re if you don’t get all that stuff, if the gospel is not at work in us, then going to sin is often like, No, I don’t think that’s true about me, you know. So you’re hiding and you’re blame shifting, and all this and repentance is, is just being defensive. And up and then up here is not there’s no joy in that. If you’ve been successful, there’s pride. But if you have not been successful, if somebody’s called you out anyway, then you’re depressed. So. And the same thing with ministry. Ministry is always about success and failure. How am I doing? Did I do okay? How was that sermon? You know, so awful. And so you’re doing it not You’re not dying to yourself. You’re just doing it in your own strength and again. There’s no joy, really. It’s all like, how did I do? What do you think of me? All that kind of rubbish. 

Jim Lovelady  30:26

Yeah. And we find ourselves asking ourselves that question, How did I do? How did I do? And we find ourselves asking other people that question, Hey, how did I do? How did I do? We never ask the question to Jesus, because the question is always going to lead back to certain kinds of repentance. Is that forced us to see those things, yeah, and we like you. I love how you talk about now, finish the process. Finish the process. Just keep going. Take it all the way to the end, and you will discover a God who has always loved you is not surprised and is calling you through that death into a joy set before you that you can’t even really imagine. We get tastes of it here and there that make us go, Okay, I’ll try again.  

Hunter Dockery  31:07

So to your question, that’s sort of daily stuff, but then there are things that are subliminal going on in us. There’s indwelling sin that we have made alliances with that I won’t touch you if you won’t embarrass me in public. 

Jim Lovelady  31:23

That’s right, that’s right, yeah, I’ll scratch your back, if you scratch mine.

Hunter Dockery  31:27

And so I, I know, for me, I mean, one of my latest sort of, I mean, I’ve been in this repentance for several years now, and that is just recognizing that I have this sort of mechanistic, you know, post modern view of the world and what’s going on, and I have, I’ve, I really live in disenchantment and with people, with how I view the future, with all of these things. And it has really shocked me. 

Jim Lovelady  32:10

You know Charles Taylor, the Catholic philosopher. He talks about the imminent frame, and he talks about how, in our post modern world, this is the first time in history of the world where it makes more sense to not believe that there is a God than it makes sense to be believe that there’s a God. And it’s hard for us kind of to imagine that there was a time where it just made more sense that that there was a God in control of things. And we, you know, we kind of look, we all, we can look with a little bit of disdain of the silliness of those pre scientific people who who, right, just never. But man, it’s in our music, the longing for the transcendent. It’s in our movies, longing for transcendence, longing for re-enchantment. We long for it, and we’ve, we’ve kind of destroyed it in our post modern world. So, yeah, I’m tracking with you. 

Hunter Dockery  32:59

Yeah, yeah. So I’m, I’m like, I’m getting inklings of this and beginning to sort of almost see it at the periphery of my heart and mind. And then theophanies begin to happen. And God is coming and saying, Would you believe this? And and some of it came with, with some of the things that were happening on the mission field, healings and things that I didn’t believe. I mean, I was like, did that really happen? I wish I’d been there, because I’m not sure I can believe. I can believe. I mean, it was Thomas right out of the gate, you know, if I’d been there, you know, and all that 

Jim Lovelady  33:47

If I could have touched that miracle. 

Hunter Dockery  33:48

Yeah, absolutely, if I’d just been there. But my friend who told me about it, had been there, you know, and it’s like, oh, man, it wasn’t enough. So that that’s a bigger repentance. It’s almost a deeper kind of, like, how do I live my life? I mean, and, and that’s one that I’m, I’ve been working on for years. I also was, I also when I was a pastor in a big fat church. And there were people, there were women gathering to pray for me. And you might think that was really a great thing, but it was because I had just grown so hard and crusty and kind of angry, and it just had this edge about me. 

Jim Lovelady  34:39

It was triage prayer for you. Because God showed up.  God showed up. 

Hunter Dockery  34:40

Yeah, we got it wasn’t the kind of like, isn’t it great the women are praying for you. It was not that. It was like the kind of prayer that goes, Oh crap, I’m in trouble. And sure enough, God sent a theophany, bam. Hit me so hard and scared me so bad. I saw so clearly what my heart was like. I mean, it’s, it’s an incredible story, and that that it was just like, I want you to see this about yourself. And I did. I saw it and and I was so shocked, but I knew that it was like, but even the moment right after I saw this, I mean, maybe I should just tell you, Okay, go ahead. Yeah, okay, tell me. I’ll tell you, um, because it’s an, I mean, I love telling a story because it’s like.  Yeah, I got one of those, you know? Yeah, that’s what I love, yeah. So I’m in this restaurant with a guy who had been on on a mission trip, and I’m debriefing his trip, and I’m watching him, and I’m talking and I’m, ha, this is it. I’m doing the the daily thing right there. And over his shoulder is an is a little family that walked in and they’re eating, and I can see them right over his shoulder, and they are, it’s lunch. They’re having a huge meal. It looks like a mother and a father and a son and a daughter, and they’re overweight, they’re ordering all this food, they don’t look very happy. And I, during this conversation, I’m judging them. I mean, I built a scenario in my head about them. And it’s subliminal, but it’s going on and, so we finish.

Jim Lovelady  36:40

While you are doing ministry. That’s right, yeah, yeah.

Hunter Dockery  36:44

Tell me, brother, how did you know? Man, it’s just so awful. And so we pay, we get up, and we’re headed to the airlock and right before he goes through the airlock to go to his his car, and right before I get that door, I hear my name called and I turn and it’s the family sitting in that booth. They called me over, and I walk over and I’m going, oh my gosh, what is happening? 

Jim Lovelady  37:14

They know your name 

Hunter Dockery  37:15

Yeah, and, and, and I go over there and they said, Oh, you don’t know us. You don’t remember us. We visited your church two weeks ago and heard you preach. We were sitting in the balcony. You couldn’t have seen us, but we just loved it. And then he reached across and said, This is my son. I want to introduce you to him and and we, we were at his church two weeks ago, and then I reach over, and this is his girlfriend sitting in the booth on the back, and she grabs my arm, my wrist, and pulls me down as I shake her hand and says, Thank you so much for your words. And I wish we’d lived here so that we could come. And at this point, you know, I’m going down, and the woman who the mother, who I judge so harshly, looks up at me with these this face of kindness. And I thought, if you knew who I was right now, you would say, Why would you think about us like that? And then I’m back to the husband, you know. And I thought, You guys better be careful, because I think the floor is going to open me open up. No, really, I did, man. I thought the floor was gonna open up and I was just gonna be swallowed up and, and so I got out of there is, you know, 

Jim Lovelady  38:49

I gotta get out of here. 

Hunter Dockery  38:50

Well, I mean, I was, it was, it was an appropriate moment, you know, to leave and, but I got to that air lock and I said and I stopped in the middle of that air lock, and I said, You have not left me. You didn’t leave me in my hardness of heart and the horrible chaos that I was bringing to the world in my head. And and so. And I knew that it was a it was a moment that if I if I failed to remember, curate, practice, I needed to learn how to tell the story. I needed to learn how to own it and have it be my glory. I mean, that’s a weird way of saying. But listen, if you’ve had a theophany, you better curate it, and you better tell it, and you better welcome it into your life and and so, you know that was that. That’s the process. That’s what we do, yeah, and I want more of them, not less. I don’t, I’m not glad that’s over. I want to keep it going. And so for me, it’s the the story of the missionary and the scissors and the seven hours. You know that that’s like, Yeah, let’s start more of those. You know? 

Jim Lovelady  40:26

Yeah, you start repenting, and God might show…not might. God starts to show up. 

Hunter Dockery  40:30

Well, I think that, yeah, I just want to agree with what he’s doing. It’s like coming down here in this little. What’s he going to do in the morning? And He says, You got some sin I want you to look at, and you can either go, I don’t think it was me, you know, or right, or whatever. You know, this is an opportunity, and you don’t know how big it’s going to grow or go and but if you’re afraid of that, if you’re afraid of meeting God, and you push it away or hide or whatever, you know, it’s like, I don’t, you know. 

Jim Lovelady  41:07

What are some of the things that make us afraid of meeting with God there? Because we are.

Hunter Dockery  41:11

you know, look, the subliminal enemy in our hearts is moralism. That’s the thing we secretly love more than almost anything. 

Jim Lovelady  41:25

Because we can hide behind that.

Hunter Dockery  41:27

 Well, we just believe that really, really, there’s not, you know, really, grace is real and it’s true, and that the blood of Christ paid for everything past, present, future. Really, there’s not once, some time in the future when I’ve done this one too many times and it’s over. And frankly, we just secretly love the thought that we can get better. Well, I don’t know. Maybe it’s even we can say the Holy Spirit’s helping us get better and better and better until we just kind of thankfully don’t have to do that pesky repenting anymore. But, you know, yeah, so, I mean, I think moralism is our mortal enemy and it’s subliminal. It works in us all the time and and we have to root it out and kill it as much as possible.

Jim Lovelady  42:31

 Yeah. So much of the work that we do at Serge is is helping people see where they are moralistic, where they are legalistic, and then help them begin to repent of that, so that they can start to experience a loving Heavenly Father who wants to free them from the religiosity that that we just love and bring us into the grace that we’re kind of like, hard to trust, hard to understand, hard to really believe that grace is the way the universe has been recreated to be like the death and resurrection of Jesus means grace is the reality. And we go, I don’t know. I’m used to just trying to figure out how I measure up. 

Hunter Dockery  43:16

Yeah, here’s how I think about it. I mean, everything you’ve said is beautiful, but mine’s a little rougher. I think it’s like the demoniac who gets healed. He was crazy and insane, and he gets healed, and he just says, I’m going with you, right, yeah. And Jesus says, No, you’re gonna stay here. Yeah, I want you to go do this. I want you to go whatever he happened, whatever he had to do to to get back in that community that he had been cast out of. Why Jesus didn’t take him with Him? I don’t understand, but, but that’s, but, you see. Repentance is the radical repentance or daily repentance, that we experience and that we love and we learn to not you know, avoid, but we learn to pursue. Is this thing of saying you’re making me a partner in this work that you’re doing to create worshiping communities around the world. You’re gonna you’re gonna take me with you, right? That’s what’s gonna happen here. You have done this to me. You’ve come to me, and you’re beautifying me. You’re making me into this person who is shockingly different with this crazy story. And with love for your mission, I’m with you. Let’s go. Yeah, and so you know that was Jack’s story. He preached that gospel so powerfully that he wasn’t, he didn’t go looking for missionaries. That’s what was so funny about Jack. He wasn’t out who’s, are there any missionaries here? He just, he just made them by preaching that gospel so powerfully. And this, this Christ who comes and welcomes us and changes us and and says, Come with me. Let’s go do something that is so powerful and other worldly that you can hardly imagine. 

Jim Lovelady  45:35

Yeah, yeah. It’s taking you… the more desperate than you realize, yeah, you know I’m, I am more desperate than I realize. I am more like the demoniac than I realize. I’m living in the tombs. I’m, I’ve made, you know, like you talk about being headlong, running headlong into hell, you know like making your home in the tombs is making your home in the realm of the dead and being satisfied just living in a cemetery. Yeah, you know, in the symbolism of the life that I when I wake up in the morning for. Okay, so here’s here’s me. Last couple days, I really it takes a couple times for my wife to say, Hey, I just want you to listen to me and not try and fix I realize that she’s been saying it a couple times frequently lately, you know, I just want you to listen to me. I don’t need you to fix this. You know, in in, you know, it’s the self-righteous like where it’s just like, oh, this is an easy fix, all right, just listen, you know, I’ll blah, blah, you know. And she’s like, she stops, cuts me off, you know. And, and it’s the frequency of lately that’s been happening, you know. And I’m like, Jesus, I don’t… slow me down. I don’t know what to do, you know. And that’s the the moralist goes, Oh, I know what I should do. I’m a pastor. I know what I should do. I should let my wife speak, you know, I should let my wife express how she feels about this scenario, and then I should speak whatever loving thing or whatever kind of whatever. And so I’ll just find myself in the in the blindly navigating this moralistic scenario where my wife doesn’t come away feeling loved, and but I do come away feeling like I’m doing the right thing. Look how good I am. Like, not only am I a good husband, but I’m also a good following love your love your wife. Like, the Lord is pleased with how I’ve loved my wife, right? And my wife has my good advice, you know? It’s like, oh my gosh. I mean, the tombs, you know, and what a mess. But when I come to the place of actually, I don’t know what to do. I I don’t know how, because following the shoulds, it’s just not working. There’s there’s no love, there’s no trust. And it seems like if I could genuinely love my wife, she would begin to trust me more. I think, I think that that might happen. I have some sort of hope on the other end of that, you know.

Hunter Dockery  48:08

Good and I hope you do.

Jim Lovelady  48:10

You know, and, and it’s like, okay, Jesus, I don’t know how to do this. Can you help? Help me do this? And the first step has been, you know, even in this conversation, kind of a reminder, Jesus is like, hey, you know how your wife has interrupted you a couple times before you make an ass of yourself. You’re welcome. Now, keep following. That’s the invasion of the Spirit. That’s just the Spirit. that’s that’s a theophany, you know, in in my mundane life, yeah, in the mundane moments where, okay, I’m not. There’s no neutral territory here. I’m either making participating in heaven on earth, or I’m participating in cemetery life, right? Hell? Yeah, it’s one or the other. 

Hunter Dockery  48:55

You know, this is what we’re called to do, is to say, come on. The gospel is so wonderful. And you can come to brokenness, and you can revel in it, because you have a powerful Christ who is welcoming you into his bosom, and to walk with him, you know. And to go with him, even the Garasene demoniac went with him, but, um, but just this encounter with Christ is so incredible, and I want it over and over, just like the disciples had to have it over and over again. It’s over and over and don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid of your weakness. Don’t be afraid of your struggles. Don’t be afraid of of of the work of the Holy Spirit to to reform and remake and just do this work that ends up being so beautiful in the end, just like the bringing of beauty to that city in in Europe, you know, that’s what we need, is more beauty in our lives, and in our in just our worlds, the what we bring to the world. Amen. I just love the picture of of it’s, I think that it just like the artist who reaches into heaven and brings back pieces of it, yeah, to show others. I mean, that’s really what our lives, what he is doing in our lives.

Jim Lovelady  50:36

 It is repentance is a work of art in our lives. Because this story that’s told goes from being chaos and destruction to something beautiful, yeah, you know. And so we’re just all these walking, you know? Why? Why has God not returned? Well, there’s there too many stories, too many beautiful stories. Yeah, of of renewal and restoration and reconciliation and beautiful stories to be told.  

Hunter Dockery  51:04

Well, I want more of them.  For me, yeah, I’m sorry. I’m jealous.

Jim Lovelady  51:10

So what do you say to we have missionaries listening to the podcast all over the world. We have pastors and we have congregants, and we have ministry leaders, and we have people who are thinking about going on the mission field. We have all these different kinds of people who are all listening to this, hear you talk about this, and it’s all kind of the same for everyone, wherever we are that we’re invited into, provided we’re invited back into the bosom of the Father. And so I don’t know, what would you say to all those folks? 

Hunter Dockery  51:45

Well, I would just say that Christ is on the move and he is everywhere, and open your eyes and ask to be included and ask people to pray for you. Ask pray for repentance. Pray for your own pray for other people’s just, just crazy stuff. Just pray that you would have a theophany. Yeah, yeah, God will show up, yeah. I mean, I, you know, you think about Peter in the boat, you know? And it’s, it’s like he just falls down in the fish. And, you know, there’s this theophany. Oh, that’s who you are. And we’re all, this is happening to all of us, and, and it’s not even a category in our heads, yeah, that it’s possible anymore, you know? And I just don’t want that. I want more. 

Jim Lovelady  52:48

Yeah, you want to be re-enchanted. Yep, you want to stay enchanted. 

Hunter Dockery  52:52

I mean that’s it. I want the song. I want to I want to have it singing loud, and, you know, I want it beautiful, and I want to learn how to sing it beautifully with my life. And I will tell you a crazy I don’t, I don’t really think people’s dreams are very interesting and maybe that’s me repenting, but I heard someone say other people’s dreams are boring.

Jim Lovelady  53:29

I was gonna say I got some cool dreams and you’re like, boring. 

Hunter Dockery  53:32

Well, I had, I had a dream just last week and the reason I remembered it is because I woke myself up at the end of the dream and I knew that I was in another place. I was it. I was beyond the curtain. I was in the restoration of all things. I was experiencing it. I was like in the great divorce. You know, I was on, I had been transported to heaven and saw the restoration. And it’s very short dream, so don’t get afraid here. And I walked up to a figure, it happened to look like a man, and as his voice, as his mouth opened, and his voice, I heard his voice. It was so beautiful that I burst into tears, and I woke myself up crying in my dream and and then I realized that’s where we’re headed. Yeah, the restoration is going to recreate us in such a way that when our mouth opens the words and the music and the life of the gospel is going to be so rich that we will be unrecognizable. But I now, but I believe also, that we’re practicing for that now, yeah, and we are, we are working toward that, and we have tastes of it in every day. We can have tastes of it. And we listen to other people and we hear, we hear it and others, and we say it to them, yeah, and we say, I saw that, I heard that, and I want to tell you what I heard in you, because we’re all headed for this place.

Jim Lovelady  55:30

Amen, that’s enough. I love that I I love that I can poke you and out just pours mystery of God. Amen. We talk a lot about the gospel DNA of our company here at Serge and the renewal team exists to keep the gospel DNA in our company just thriving and at the forefront of everything we do. And I love how conversations with Hunter always realign my heart with the gospel DNA of God’s grace and His love for us. So go to explore more of this. Go to serge.org/renewal and and see what that looks like in your own life. What happens when God shows up? Grace abounds. You know, I’m so I’m really annoyed by the bulletin boards that say things like, God’s coming back soon, look busy, or God’s returning soon, and he’s not happy. This is just fear based religiosity that encourages moralistic legalism, like just work harder, try harder, do better. The fruit of legalistic rule, following is the impression that we worship a God who is not victorious over sin and death and can only bring justice the way humans bring justice through violence and coercion, but we worship a God of grace who united justice and mercy when he trampled down death by his death and rose in victory, His perfect love casts out all fear. And it’s the kindness of God that leads to our repentance, and it’s repentance that leads to revival and the restoration of all things. Repentance is such a huge part of the way we at Serge, think about doing ministry, and I want to encourage you to explore the topic of repentance more for your own personal life and for the impact that it’ll have on your community, your community that is desperate to see God show up. So I’m going to leave a link in the show notes for a free e-book called Everyday Repentance. This one is fantastic, and send the link to all your friends and family and read through it together. Read through it with your small group, or your friends or your spouse. It’s a great resource, in tandem with a conversation that I had with Hunter today.Fixing a broken world starts with letting God’s grace begin fixing you right? Your own repentance is about God not being done with you. What does it mean when that extends to your family, to your community? What if God’s not done with your neighbors? What if God’s not done with your coworkers and your church family and in in all the things that are happening in your community, think about that, and you’ll start to dream dreams with hope, instead of resigning yourself to this is just the way things are in our world today. And frankly, when you look around, it’s discouraging. Things are not the way they should be, but, but that just shows that they’re destined for more. We are destined for more, and God is not done with us. But there’s an inevitable hope in the end of this. Do you have an imagination for the inevitable? Repentance latches on to the inevitable and brings it into the present until one day God will appear, the great day of the Lord, and His appearing will be magnificent. It’ll be more glorious than we could have ever imagined, but until that day, we walk by faith and experience God in both the dramatic watershed moments of repentance as well as the still small whisper moments in our lives, and each Theophany moves us outward to participate with him in making the world a better place. So ask him to show up and be ready to repent and rediscover the joy of your salvation. So Isaiah 61 gives a glorious picture of what it all looks like when God shows up. And I want to leave you with this imagery, because this is our destiny. It’s inevitable the glory of this is going to happen. So live in this hope. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My whole being shall exult in my God, For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation. He has covered me with a robe of righteousness as a bridegroom decks himself with the garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the earth brings forth, it shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up. So the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations. So as you go to participate in this reality, go with the blessing of the Lord. May the Lord bless you and keep you and make his face to smile down on you. May the Lord be gracious to you and turn his bright eyes to you and give you his peace in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God, life everlasting. Amen.

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