{"id":317182,"date":"2025-08-05T04:24:30","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T08:24:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/%series%\/how-redefining-christianity-leads-to-embracing-ordinary-faith-kevin-deyoung\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T04:24:31","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T08:24:31","slug":"how-redefining-christianity-leads-to-embracing-ordinary-faith-kevin-deyoung","status":"publish","type":"podcast","link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/familylife-today\/how-redefining-christianity-leads-to-embracing-ordinary-faith-kevin-deyoung\/","title":{"rendered":"How Redefining Christianity Leads to Embracing Ordinary Faith &#8211; Kevin DeYoung"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ever feel unable to meet Christian life demands? Author Kevin DeYoung explains that running the Christian race is filled with adventure\u2014chasing holiness, battling for purity, and finding the good news in the ordinary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Join Kevin DeYoung, author of &#8216;Impossible Christianity,&#8217; for insights on navigating guilt, pursuing devotion, and running the Christian race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47000,"featured_media":312569,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"https:\/\/traffic.omny.fm\/d\/clips\/cbd16f10-ac60-4f09-b4df-b15400ce35aa\/33aaac7e-3581-4e21-a3df-b154011ba58c\/f1f3f638-fd12-4a61-a762-b32501553c06\/audio.mp3","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"00:30:08","filesize":"27.62M","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":""},"categories":[2822,2866],"tags":[],"podcast_series":[],"cwp_profile":[3417],"series":[2101],"class_list":["post-317182","podcast","type-podcast","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-growing-in-your-faith","category-spiritual-disciplines-essentials-faith","cwp_profile-kevin-deyoung","series-familylife-today"],"acf":[],"episode_featured_image":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1001\/2025\/02\/image_bbee74.jpg?w=1024","episode_player_image":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1001\/2023\/02\/image-scaled.jpg","download_link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast-download\/317182\/how-redefining-christianity-leads-to-embracing-ordinary-faith-kevin-deyoung","player_link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast-player\/317182\/how-redefining-christianity-leads-to-embracing-ordinary-faith-kevin-deyoung","audio_player":null,"episode_data":{"playerMode":"light","subscribeUrls":{"apple_podcasts":{"key":"apple_podcasts","url":"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/familylife-today\/id212174303?mt=2&app=podcast","label":"Apple Podcasts","class":"apple_podcasts","icon":"apple-podcasts.png"},"google_podcasts":{"key":"google_podcasts","url":"","label":"Google Podcasts","class":"google_podcasts","icon":"google-podcasts.png"},"spotify":{"key":"spotify","url":"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/0j5UaKdQOHQCuo1bt0ebEm","label":"Spotify","class":"spotify","icon":"spotify.png"},"youtube":{"key":"youtube","url":"","label":"YouTube","class":"youtube","icon":"youtube.png"}},"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/feed\/podcast\/familylife-today","embedCode":"<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"cEVPUseBvy\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/familylife-today\/how-redefining-christianity-leads-to-embracing-ordinary-faith-kevin-deyoung\/\">How Redefining Christianity Leads to Embracing Ordinary Faith &#8211; Kevin DeYoung<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/familylife-today\/how-redefining-christianity-leads-to-embracing-ordinary-faith-kevin-deyoung\/embed\/#?secret=cEVPUseBvy\" width=\"500\" height=\"350\" title=\"&#8220;How Redefining Christianity Leads to Embracing Ordinary Faith &#8211; Kevin DeYoung&#8221; &#8212; FamilyLife\u00ae - A Cru Ministry\" data-secret=\"cEVPUseBvy\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\"><\/iframe><script>\n\/*! This file is auto-generated *\/\n!function(d,l){\"use strict\";l.querySelector&&d.addEventListener&&\"undefined\"!=typeof URL&&(d.wp=d.wp||{},d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage||(d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage=function(e){var t=e.data;if((t||t.secret||t.message||t.value)&&!\/[^a-zA-Z0-9]\/.test(t.secret)){for(var s,r,n,a=l.querySelectorAll('iframe[data-secret=\"'+t.secret+'\"]'),o=l.querySelectorAll('blockquote[data-secret=\"'+t.secret+'\"]'),c=new RegExp(\"^https?:$\",\"i\"),i=0;i<o.length;i++)o[i].style.display=\"none\";for(i=0;i<a.length;i++)s=a[i],e.source===s.contentWindow&&(s.removeAttribute(\"style\"),\"height\"===t.message?(1e3<(r=parseInt(t.value,10))?r=1e3:~~r<200&&(r=200),s.height=r):\"link\"===t.message&&(r=new URL(s.getAttribute(\"src\")),n=new URL(t.value),c.test(n.protocol))&&n.host===r.host&&l.activeElement===s&&(d.top.location.href=t.value))}},d.addEventListener(\"message\",d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage,!1),l.addEventListener(\"DOMContentLoaded\",function(){for(var e,t,s=l.querySelectorAll(\"iframe.wp-embedded-content\"),r=0;r<s.length;r++)(t=(e=s[r]).getAttribute(\"data-secret\"))||(t=Math.random().toString(36).substring(2,12),e.src+=\"#?secret=\"+t,e.setAttribute(\"data-secret\",t)),e.contentWindow.postMessage({message:\"ready\",secret:t},\"*\")},!1)))}(window,document);\n\/\/# sourceURL=https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-includes\/js\/wp-embed.min.js\n<\/script>\n"},"spectra_custom_meta":{"secondline_imported_guid":["f1f3f638-fd12-4a61-a762-b32501553c06"],"audio_file":["https:\/\/traffic.omny.fm\/d\/clips\/cbd16f10-ac60-4f09-b4df-b15400ce35aa\/33aaac7e-3581-4e21-a3df-b154011ba58c\/f1f3f638-fd12-4a61-a762-b32501553c06\/audio.mp3"],"duration":["00:30:08"],"filesize":["27.62M"],"_thumbnail_id":["312569"],"show_notes":["\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/revkevindeyoung\">Follow Kevin on Instagram<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/clearlyreformed.org\/\">Learn more about Kevin's ministry online<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Find Kevin's book \"<a href=\"https:\/\/clearlyreformed.org\/book\/impossible-christianity\/\">Impossible Christianity<\/a>\" on his website.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr>\n<ul>\n<li>Find resources from this podcast at <a href=\"https:\/\/shop.familylife.com\/product-category\/radio-resources\/\">shop.familylife.com<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/shop.familylife.com\/product-category\/past-radio-resources\/\">See resources from our past podcasts.<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Find more content and resources on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.familylife.com\/app\/\">FamilyLife's app<\/a>!<\/li>\n<li>Help others find FamilyLife. Leave a review on <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/familylife-today\/id212174303\">Apple Podcast<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/0j5UaKdQOHQCuo1bt0ebEm?si=d6dfa8d2415f4750\">Spotify<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Check out all the FamilyLife's podcasts on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.familylife.com\/familylife-podcast-network\/\">FamilyLife Podcast Network<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n"],"transcript_url":["https:\/\/transcript.familylife.com\/fl2025-08-05.pdf"],"transcript_content":["\nFamilyLife Today\u00ae with Dave and Ann Wilson; Podcast Transcript\r\n\r\nThis content has been generated by an artificial intelligence language model. While we strive for accuracy and quality, please note that the information provided will most likely not be entirely error-free or up-to-date. We recommend independently verifying the content with the originally-released audio. This transcript is provided for your personal use and general information purposes only. References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. We do not assume any responsibility or liability for the use or interpretation of this content.\r\n\r\nHow Redefining Christianity Leads to Embracing Ordinary Faith\r\n\r\nGuest:  Kevin DeYoung\r\n\r\nRelease Date:  August 5, 2025\r\n\r\nKevin:  I think if you ask somebody, \u201cTell me what your goal is in life,\u201d and you said, \u201cI would like to live a quiet and peaceful life, godly and dignified in every way,\u201d most college ministries are going to tell you [Buzzer] wrong.\r\n\r\nAnn:  I would probably have said, \u201cYou need to change the world.\u201d\r\n\r\nKevin:  Yeah, but who's to say that living that quiet, peaceful life, godly and dignified in every way, isn't a major influence in changing the world.\r\n\r\nDave: So I'm holding a little book in front of me that has a maze on the front.\r\n\r\nAnn:  Did you try to do the maze?\r\n\r\nDave:  Yeah. Last night I thought, \u201cI've just got to keep working at it.\u201d You can't get out. You can't even get in.\r\n\r\nKevin: That's right. \r\n\r\nDave:  Seriously, did you notice that? You can't get to the center, and you can't from the center get\u2014and the title of the book is Impossible Christianity. That's a great visual.\r\n\r\nAnn:  Yeah, it is.\r\n\r\nDave:  Because it feels like Christianity can be the same way.\r\n\r\nAnn:  I think a lot of people feel like that. \u201cI'm not going to pursue that. It's impossible. Nobody can live that life out.\u201d\r\n\r\nDave:  Yeah. Fortunately, we've got the author here, who will tell us what this all means. Kevin DeYoung, welcome back to FamilyLife Today.\r\n\r\nKevin:  Thanks. Great to be with you. And sorry about the maze, but that was purposeful.\r\n\r\nDave:  Was that your idea?\r\n\r\nKevin:  I don't know. I think probably someone at Crossway. They went through some different cover iterations and said, \u201cAh, that's great. A maze that has no way out, because that's not what Christianity is supposed to feel like.\u201d\r\n\r\nAnn:  Well, and the subtitle is Why Following Jesus Does Not Mean\u2014 \r\n\r\nDave:  Ready for this? Keep going.\r\n\r\nAnn:  Yeah\u2014You Have to Change the World, Be an Expert in Everything, Accept Spiritual Failure, and Feel Miserable Pretty Much All of the Time. What a great subtitle.\r\n\r\nDave:  Walk us through. I know you're going through this with your staff. When you start presenting this kind of stuff to your staff and other people\u2014\r\n\r\nAnn:  As a pastor.\r\n\r\nDave:  Yeah. \u2014as a pastor in North Carolina, what is the pushback?\r\n\r\nKevin:  Yeah. I would say two kinds of pushback. One is from the person or the kind of person who it just feels unsafe a little bit, just dangerous. Talking about\u2014maybe we'll get to it here\u2014talking about devotions or evangelism or don't let up, don't make this\u2014are we going to send people out in an antinomian direction? \r\n\r\nAnd then I think there's a concern sometimes related to that. Well, isn't the answer really to, shouldn't we be telling people to go attempt impossible things for God, to go out and give your life away? And so I try to be clear, this isn't a book telling people you no longer risk, or you don't have to carry a cross, or you never have big dreams. You never attempt great things for God. That's not the point of the book. \r\n\r\nThe point of the book is really thinking about ordinary Christian faithfulness. Is it possible to be obedient? Or when Jesus said in the great commission that we teach people to obey everything I commanded, He really didn't mean it. He really meant, \u201cHaha, you can't obey but just do your best and I know you'll fail, but I love you.\u201d That's not what He said. Jesus sure seemed to have a category of you can obey, not perfectly but truly. \r\n\r\nThink about the Sermon on the Mount. He ends with all of those contrasting pairs: good tree, bad tree and do you build your house on the rock or on the sand? The one who builds on the rock is the one who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice. So biblically, we need a category. There are people\u2014they're called Christians\u2014who hear God's word and put them into practice. And yet I think many of us instinctively recoil from that, like, \u201cThat doesn't sound very spiritual.\u201d\r\n\r\nDave:  Yeah, I mean it sounds like impossible Christianity is, this is my reality. It is impossible. I know when I came to Christ in college, I'll never forget one of my first ever\u2014I wasn't a Bible study guy. So now I'm in a Bible study and with the other guys on the football team, and I won't say his name, but I can remember\u2014I almost said his name, but he's probably not listening. But one of the guys\u2014I\u2019ll call him Joe\u2014comes in a Bible study and it was spring and one of the things we had just talked about was something that was very well known in Cru circles because Bill Bright wrote it in a book called Spiritual Breathing. Have you ever heard that? \r\n\r\nKevin:  Un huh. \r\n\r\nDave:  It's this idea, basically Bill was saying you confess or exhale the sin and inhale God's forgiveness. And so it's just the way to think about man when you sin, just confess it. You are forgiven; receive his forgiveness. \r\n\r\nAnd he came in\u2014Joe came in the Bible study. He goes, \u201cDude, have you walked around campus today?\u201d I'm like, \u201cYeah, why?\u201d He goes, \u201cGirls are wearing nothing. The sun's out. They're wearing nothing.\u201d He goes, \u201cI wasn't spiritual breathing, I was hyperventilating.\u201d That's what he said. And he was sort of trying to say, this is impossible, trying to be a pure man with my eyes as a college kid on a college campus, it felt impossible, but it isn't. It isn't on a college campus or anywhere. I'm not saying it isn't a struggle for whatever your temptation is, but what you're saying is that maze, you actually can get through that maze even though it feels like you'll never get there, right?\r\n\r\nKevin:  Yeah. And the maze, to be clear, is not earning our way to God, finding the right turn so that we get to heaven and God says, \u201cYes, your good deeds outweighed your bad and now you're in heaven.\u201d No, I would die for justification by faith alone. I believe in that and teach that with all my heart. But we're talking about, are we resigned that, \u201cOkay, you're justified, Jesus loves you, you're going to heaven, you're forgiven. Now, congratulations! Live the rest of your life. You're terrible at being a Christian.\u201d \r\n\r\n\u201cThat's just what it's going to be. You'll go to heaven, but you'll never be good at this thing called Christianity, so just get used to it.\u201d That's not the attitude or the mood at all in the New Testament, and so somehow, we've done that on ourselves, or to be honest, preachers can do that because we feel like people need to feel bad about everything all the time to the uttermost. \r\n\r\nAnd it's been really remarkable how many times, even just since the book came out or in talking about it, that people who have been Christians a long time will say, \u201cI've just been living with this burden, and somehow, I never felt like God could be pleased with me.\u201d And it's often very serious Christians. Some of the people like listening to this or watching this who really, really want to please God. They really want to live a life of faithfulness, and they just feel like it's never enough.\r\n\r\nAnn:  Are they weighed down with sin, with feeling like they can never attain it, and you're giving them the gospel of grace?\r\n\r\nKevin:  Yeah, so I think there's two categories. There's one, someone who maybe really is living with unconfessed sin, or they confess it, and they don't really know God's forgiveness. So there's that. Then there's also the person who has so defined obedience to mean, \u201cNo smidge of possible ill motivation in my heart, otherwise God, then God must just be\u2014A.W. Tozer once said, \u201cWe tend to view God as austere, peevish, and short,\u201d like He's just always mad at us. \r\n\r\nYou know the coach? You can never do anything to please him. And so one of the illustrations that always resonates with me, because I have a gaggle of kids\u2014\r\n\r\nAnn:  \u2014nine. \r\n\r\nKevin:  Yeah, you did this too. I have pictures that my kids draw for me and there's one\u2014I don't know how old she was when she drew it, five or something\u2014and my hand is in her hand, my daughter and I just get that. I don't say, \u201cI'm not blue. Look at my\u2014my face looks terrible. My head is as big as the rest of my body. You don't know how to draw a picture. This is terrible. This doesn't look like us at all.\u201d No, this is my daughter, out of love, who's given this picture from her heart, of me with my hand in hers. I say, \u201cThank you. You know what? I'm going to put this up right in my office. I love this picture.\u201d \r\n\r\nOr just yesterday before I came here, my 14-year-old went out to mow the lawn and we have a big yard.\r\n\r\nDave:  That's a good thing right there.\r\n\r\nKevin:  He's on the John Deere riding lawnmower, and he does a nice job. Now, does he do it as perfectly as I would, as well as I could? Maybe not, but I would be a terrible father if he came in\u2014he did it of his own, he did it cheerfully\u2014and I just said, \u201cPaul, you see that? You see the clumps all over?\u201d\u2014what he's doing\u2014\u201cThis is a terrible job.\u201d Now if anyone has that kind of father, or you are that sort of father, shame on you. \r\n\r\nBut then we think that God, whatever we do, God just tut-tuts, just points a finger, and it's never enough. He would never smile upon us like a good father. If we sinful fathers do that, surely God does when we give Him our heartfelt, sincere obedience.\r\n\r\nDave:  Now, do you feel like when you're saying Impossible Christianity, are you saying it is impossible, but it isn't? Here's what came to my mind, and maybe you've heard Tim Keller say this. Years ago, I remember him talking about preaching. I think I was at a conference and I'm putting together messages every week and I'm like, \u201cMan, I love the way Tim preaches.\u201d I went to an RTS class with Tim and just was blown away by his intellect. \r\n\r\nBut I remember him saying something like this, and I hope I'm getting this right, but he's like, \u201cEvery sermon that Tim Keller preaches,\u201d he said, \u201cI want to present \u2018This is the call of God in your life. Here's the text. Let's go through it. This is the high standard God calls us to.\u2019\u201d He goes, \u201cAnd most sermons end with, \u2018Okay, now go do it. Go out there and we'll see you next week.\u2019\u201d Have a whole week trying to reach that standard. \r\n\r\nHe goes, \u201cThat's the wrong way to preach. Cast God's standard from the Word of God. Before that sermon ends say this, \u2018You'll never do it. It's impossible. Don't even go home and try. You're not going to do it. But let me tell you, Jesus has done it. You can walk with him. He can empower you to do it, but if you go home and try harder, you're going to come back frustrated next week. And I'm going to give you the same sermon again.\u2019\u201d He said, \u201cEvery sermon should end with the gospel,\u201d which is basically, you can't, He did. He can do it in you if you'll let him. Something like that. Is that sort of resonate?\r\n\r\nKevin:  Sort of.\r\n\r\nAnn:  I was going to say, I partly for my heart.\r\n\r\nDave:  I'm sure I got it wrong.\r\n\r\nKevin:  No, and that might be right. So there's a lot there. Here's what I want to agree with in that, yes, if preaching just ends or is in its essence, \u201cHere's stuff you got to do; Ten Commandments, go out and do it.\u201d\r\n\r\nDave:  Try harder, yeah.\r\n\r\nKevin:  Try harder. That's not gospel preaching. \r\n\r\nBut what I want to say is yes, Christianity is impossible if by Christianity we mean perfectly obeying God's commands and earning His favor, impossible. Not impossible, however, if we mean by the gospel of Christ, through faith in Christ, by the spirit of Christ, I can have victory to become increasingly like Christ. That's possible. And to tell people to go out and make every effort toward that\u20142 Peter 1 is a biblical injunction\u2014provided we're not saying do it, self-will, your own strength. You're doing it according to the promises of God.\r\n\r\nDave:  And that's exactly what Tim was saying.\r\n\r\nKevin:  Yeah, right.\r\n\r\nDave:  You just said it much more clear.\r\n\r\nKevin:  No, I know. No, you put it in a way\u2014 \r\n\r\nDave:  I wanted to get you to clear it up.\r\n\r\nAnn:  Hey, before we continue our conversation, I just want to remind you that our vision at FamilyLife is every home, a godly home. And we need your help to get there. When you become a FamilyLife Partner, your monthly support makes that vision actually possible.\r\n\r\nDave:  And listen to this. If you join the FamilyLife Partner program, you'll get access to exclusive updates and events and the chance to join our partners only online community. But more than that, you'll be teaming up with us to change the future of families. So the question is, will you stand with us?\r\n\r\nAnn:  You can learn more and become a partner at FamilyLifeToday.com. Just click the donate button at the top. And again, that's FamilyLifeToday.com. \r\n\r\nOkay, let's get back to the conversation.\r\n\r\nDave:  So talk about\u2014you mentioned this in the book\u2014your devotional life, as it applies to this walk with Jesus.\r\n\r\nKevin:  So I try to hit some of these evangelical Christian staples, which are so important to us. So giving, sharing our faith, and devotional life, because those are the three that can feel like, the never enough. I say in the book, \u201cI've never actually seen The Greatest Showman\u2014 \r\n\r\nDave:  Never, never.\r\n\r\nKevin:  Never, but I know the song. \r\n\r\nDave:  It's a beautiful song.\r\n\r\nAnn:  You have a good voice.\r\n\r\nKevin:  Yeah, later. But that's what it can feel like. There are certain commands of the Bible, like, okay, \u201cDon't lust.\u201d That's really hard, but I don't have to put that in my calendar. It's just \u201cDon't do that.\u201d The virtues, the fruit of the Spirit\u2014I want to grow in love, joy, peace. And then there are other ones that feel like, \u201cWell, do I need 40 hours in the day to be a faithful Christian?\u201d \r\n\r\nWhenever we find ourselves saying, \u201cWell, I could obey Jesus if only I had 40 hours in the day.\u201d No, the problem isn\u2019t Jesus. The problem is we have not conceived of the Christian life in the right way. So with great fear and trepidation on those three things\u2014devotional life, evangelism, and generosity\u2014I try to put lots of caveats in the book, lest people say, \u201cThis is the best book ever. I don't have to read my Bible, I don\u2019t have to share my faith, I don't have to give anything away.\u201d I don't want that. \r\n\r\nAt the same time, I think a lot of Christians can feel like, \u201cI'm not crushing my Bible reading. I missed five days. Sharing my faith after all these years is still scary, and I am not a real extrovert, and I don't like talking to customer service, let alone telling people about Jesus. It's really hard! And boy, I tithe, but I do have two cars, and I took a vacation, and all of those things.\u201d \r\n\r\nWhere, if we actually look at what God says in His Word, many of those\u2014like when the disciples say, \u201cJesus, teach us to pray,\u201d He didn't say, \u201cHere's what time you have to get up. Here's how many minutes it is.\u201d He said, \u201cYeah, I'll teach you how to pray. God's your Father. He gives you everything. Here's what you ask for.\u201d He taught us the how, when we can be fixated on the how long, and the when, and all of those specifics. \r\n\r\nSo without negating those important elements, I do think some of us in the Christian life have taken these good Christian disciplines and habits of grace and because they can always be more\u2014\u201cYou're going to get to the end of your life in the hospital, and you're going to wish you had prayed more.\u201d Well, yeah. \u201cYou're going to wish you had shared your faith.\u201d Okay, well that's a kind of defeating way to live your life. \r\n\r\nWhat about, \u201cGod will work through you, imperfect though you are, throughout your whole life, if you'll give yourself to Him, and if you'll be faithful.\u201d And part of my burden as a pastor is, I think most of the people in my church are living a life that's honoring to Christ. Do they have sins? Yes. Do they need to grow? Yes. Should they do some more? Yes. But most of them, most of the time, I think, are living a life of obedience to Christ. And I don't know how many Christians hear that from their pastors. \r\n\r\nDave:  No, I don't think that's common at all.\r\n\r\nAnn:  Do you say that to them?\r\n\r\nKevin:  Yeah, I do. \r\n\r\nAnn:  That's cool. \r\n\r\nKevin:  I think it took me a while in ministry before I knew that people needed to hear that.\r\n\r\nAnn:  I mean, I'm thinking about if I hear that in comparison to like, \u201cMan, you guys are failing.\u201d If you feel like you're failing, you don't want to come back. But if you feel encouraged, like \u201cAm I? Wow, that's really encouraging. I want to be back.\u201d And I feel like Jesus is an encourager. So when you're talking specifically about your devotional life, what do you say to the people in your church or your nine kids? What are the things that you want them to know?\r\n\r\nKevin:  Well, I certainly am all for the things we've all been hopefully taught about reading your Bible, spending some time in prayer. And I'm a big believer that doing a little something consistently is better than doing big somethings inconsistently. So reduce the size rather than eliminate the habit. So if you only can do five minutes, we think, \u201cWhy even exercise today because my schedule got off?\u201d You know what? You could do pushups for ten minutes and you'd probably feel a lot better, and you're reinforcing that habit. It's the same thing with devotional time. \r\n\r\nSo I liken it to other relationships\u2014my relationship with Tricia, who came down on this trip with me, is out shopping somewhere, doing wonderful things all by herself. On the one hand, if my relationship with Tricia just consisted of, \u201cOkay, this 30 minutes in the morning, you and I are going to be talking, and if I don't do that, then our relationship is done for the day. If I do that, then I'm a good husband for the day.\u201d If it was just that kind of mech\u2014no, you got to breathe a little bit. \r\n\r\nOn the other hand, if I said, \u201cOh, let me tell you how much I love Tricia. I never want to hear from her. I don't ever want to spend time with her. I never talk to her,\u201d you\u2019d say, \u201cI'm not sure you do love her.\u201d So with God, I want to hear from Him in His Word\u2014that's where we hear from God\u2014and pray to Him and spend time. \r\n\r\nAnd in the context of corporate worship and others, we often hear this devotional thing, and we think, \u201cOh, that's just me and myself extemporaneous praying to God.\u201d No, it's church counts. Small group counts. We're talking about fostering the kind of life where you hear from God in His Word and speak to Him in prayer because you love Him and He loves you, and of course you want to have that relationship.\r\n\r\nAnn:  And it'd be interesting, too, because Dave and I, we work together, so we're with each other a lot.\r\n\r\nDave:  All-l-l-l-l-l the time.\r\n\r\nAnn:  A lot.\r\n\r\nKevin:  All the time.\r\n\r\nDave:  It's wonderful, and it's all-l-l-l-l the time.\r\n\r\nAnn:  But we don't wake up in the morning and have, even if it's a five-minute conversation or a fifty-minute conversation, I'm talking to him all throughout the day. And I think that's important for people to know with God. It's not just you have to pray right then. It's that you get to, but you can do it all day. I find myself praying all day long because He's with me, He's in me, and I\u2019m conversing with Him. As Paul said, \u201cPray without ceasing.\u201d \r\n\r\nAnd I think that's, especially, I'm thinking about Trisha, your wife with nine kids. She probably has hardly any time to herself. And so she's probably, as I learned as a young mom, \u201cI may not have that chunk of time, but I can listen to God's Word. I'll put the Bible in different places, but I can talk to Him any time, all day long, whenever, because He's always with me.\u201d\r\n\r\nKevin:  And we forget about all of the other ways that God means for us to be with Him. So in the New Testament, when Jesus, of course Jesus went off to pray privately, but when He talks about the disciples going out and praying, they're probably praying the Hallel Psalms in holy week. They're probably doing some set Jewish rituals. \r\n\r\nWe tend to think quiet time only counts if it's extemporaneous prayer. I couldn't read a prayer back to God. I couldn't sing a hymn as prayer to God. None of that counts. I couldn't it with other people. I often say, \u201cThink about it. You get up in the morning and if somebody says, \u2018Okay, ten minutes after you get up, you got a cup of coffee, I want you to give a really meaningful, excellent talk for twenty minutes. Go!\u2019 Who's ready to do that about anything?\u201d \r\n\r\nAnd yet, if we think, \u201cWell, that's devotional time. Okay, 20 minutes right now, go, talk to God.\u201d We're all going to need helps. I need helps. I'm going to need books to help me, and prayer books to help me, and hymns to help me. I'm going to need to write down some prayer cards, and I'm going to wander. Just forget about feeling guilty for your mind wandering. It will happen. \r\n\r\nJust when you come back, say, \u201cThank you, God. You brought me back.\u201d It's just going to happen. You're going to get distracted. Your mind's going to wander just like it does sometimes when Dave's talking to you, probably.\r\n\r\nAnn:  Yeah, yeah.\r\n\r\nDave:  Her mind never wanders. Not when I'm talking. I mean, you just mentioned guilt. Chapter 5; what a chapter title: \u201cThe Infinite Extensibility of Guilt.\u201d What does that mean?\r\n\r\nKevin:  So I get this from, and I mentioned this article from\u2014he's now at Hillsdale, actually a professor there, and it's talking about the way the world has shrunk. And because technology can connect us to everything everywhere. Think about Jesus telling the Good Samaritan. I preached on this a year or two ago. Again, I had a lady in the church, been a Christian a long time. She just said, \u201cOh, thank you. I've never heard the Good Samaritan that I didn't feel like just the worst guilt because\u201d\u2014\r\n\r\nDave:  \u2014because we're not.\r\n\r\nAnn:  \u2014because I'm not the Good Samaritan.\r\n\r\nKevin:  \u2014\"I'm not the good Samaritan.\u201d Again, I don't want to take away Jesus is calling us to be a neighbor to people in need, and yet it was a specific need at a specific moment, when he was the only person and the need was extreme, immediate, in his face, all of those things. Well, how do we live life when you can see now tsunami victims on the other side of the world? You know every time there's a mudslide, every time there's a fire, let alone the intractable problems in our own country. \r\n\r\nSo it can feel like, \u201cWell, yeah, you pray with your kids, and you take them to youth group, and you sing in the choir, and you give a tithe, but what are you doing about this?\u201d which tends to be the sort of problems that are the most difficult to solve, which is why they haven't been solved yet, and take an extreme amount of time and effort. \r\n\r\nAnd I'm not saying some people don't have that specific call on their life, but I don't know how to get at that. That's the infinite extensibility of guilt. Our world has the residual Christian impulse of guilt without the Christian mechanism to forgive and offer grace for that guilt. Go to Twitter, or X, lots of guilt, no way to be forgiven for your sins. \r\n\r\nDave:  Wow. That\u2019s so true.\r\n\r\nAnn:  Well, that kind of leads us into the last chapter, which is called \u201cA Quiet Life.\u201d I told Dave\u2014we were traveling, and I was looking\u2014I think we were in the Midwest, and there's just corn fields. \r\n\r\nKevin:  There's a lot of cornfields in the Midwest. \r\n\r\nAnn:  There are no houses except miles apart, and I have this thing in me, it's like \u201cI'm supposed to change the world.\u201d And I said to him, \u201cWhat would it have been like just to raise your kids?\u201d Just like \u201cWere they fulfilling the Great Commission?\u201d What's that quiet life? Is it okay to lead a quiet life?\r\n\r\nKevin:  So the verse, 1 Timothy 2, \u201cFirst of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, instructions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.\u201d So the Bible's a big book. This isn't the only thing it says about the Christian life, but it's one thing it says. And to your point, Ann, I think if you ask somebody, \u201cTell me what your goal is in life,\u201d and you said, \u201cI would like to live a quiet and peaceful life, godly and dignified in every way,\u201d most college ministries aren\u2019t going to tell you [Buzzer] \u201cWrong.\u201d\r\n\r\nAnn:  Oh, I would probably have said, \u201cYou need to change the world.\u201d\r\n\r\nKevin:  But who's to say that living that quiet, peaceful life, godly and dignified in every way, isn't a major influence in changing the world.\r\n\r\nAnn:  Yeah. What do you mean by that?\r\n\r\nKevin:  When I look at the Christian family that's loving their kids, providing a normal\u2014what we do for our kids that's most important is we're giving them what normal looks like. And if normal looks like mom and dad love each other, and I go to church, and there are Christians, and there's a Bible, and Jesus is King, and there's sins and lots of things, but that's normal, I want to say to people, \u201cThat's not what's wrong with the world.\u201d \r\n\r\nNow, is it true that those sorts of Christians, myself included, can be too comfortable and could say, \u201cI got a nice job. I got enough money. I got my family. We're good. I don't want to be bothered with your problems.\u201d Yes, there's the other side of it, but to raise those sorts of kids\u2014I think people are sometimes, as Christians, were too hard on ourselves. \u201cI didn't do anything.\u201d What do you mean you didn't do anything? You brought a meal every time somebody in the church needed one. You raised these kids to be good workers, good citizens, to be godly people. You loved your husband or your wife. You prayed all the time. This is a godly life, quiet and peaceful. \r\n\r\nI end the book that way because I at least want to offer to people: this, too, is a verse in the Bible. And we should not be ashamed that we might live a quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.\r\n\r\nDave:  Yeah. You mentioned Jeremiah 29:28. I mean, I'll read it. It says, \u201cBuild houses,\u201d God is saying this, \u201cBuild houses and settle down, plant gardens and eat what they produce.\u201d I mean, and many ministries would say, \u201cNo, no, no, no. That's not enough. You're not changing the world. It's a personality type. It's a temperament type.\u201d\r\n\r\nKevin:  And this is where\u2014you guys have traveled a lot, too, to know there is something about American evangelicalism that is not true, has not been true at all times in all places. And some of that is a strength. I go to other places and they're like, \u201cYou guys, just American evangelical, you just are entrepreneurial. You go after it; you get it done. You think of new ways, you build things, that's great. But there can be the danger of a kind of hyperactivity, that the good, real Christian is probably super-extroverted, talking to people all the time, lots of activity. And there are people quietly in our churches who just feel like, \u201cI don't fit in with that. I'm absolutely exhausted.\u201d It tends to be a church life of high degrees of activity and activism, and much good is done through that.\r\n\r\nDave:  Right.\r\n\r\nKevin:  And yet without this message to also be in the counterbalance, we run the risk of giving people a version of Christianity that they just feel like they can never achieve.\r\n\r\nDave:  I mean, as we wrap up, I mean, I think that's encouraging for a lot of listeners. \r\n\r\nAnn:  Oh, me too.\r\n\r\nDave:  It's like we're not saying be lazy. It's not that at all, but it's like\u2014\r\n\r\nAnn:  It gives them a chance to exhale.\r\n\r\nDave:  \u2014live a quiet life. Be diligent about what God called you to be. And it could be, build a house, plant a garden, influence your neighborhood through that medium.\r\n\r\nKevin:  Because, of course, Jeremiah 29, \u201cSeek the shalom of the city.\u201d We know that part, but how do you do it? Well, it's those earlier verses. This is what you're going to do to seek the peace of the city: settle down. You're going to have a garden; you're going to have a family. You're going to attend to the normal things of life because, and you're going to pray for the city because as the city goes, so will you. But as you go, so will the city. \r\n\r\nAnd if you're not healthy and you're not living this kind of life, then you're not going to be much good for anyone else around you. And you're going to be so worn out with this impossible version of Christianity, you're not actually living in the joy of the Lord, which is supposed to be our strength.\r\n\r\nDave:  And you know what I think God's saying to Kevin DeYoung right now\u2014is just my opinion. I think God's saying, \u201cKevin, go out on a date with your wife, Trisha, tonight.\u201d \r\n\r\nKevin:  I'll do that. \r\n\r\nDave:  \u201cDon't worry about the sermon this weekend. That'll be tomorrow.\u201d \r\n\r\nKevin:  I'll worry about that tomorrow. \r\n\r\nDave:  \u201cJust enjoy a good meal with your bride.\u201d\r\n\r\nKevin:  I'll be happy to follow. I'll take it as the Lord's command.\r\n\r\nAnn:  Thanks, Kevin.\r\n\r\nDave:  Yeah, that was awesome. \r\n\r\nAnn:  It's always great to be with you. \r\n\r\nHey, thanks for watching. If you liked this episode,\u2014\r\n\r\nDave:  You better like it.\r\n\r\nAnn:  \u2014just hit that \u201cLike\u201d button.\r\n\r\nDave:  And we'd like you to subscribe. So all you got to do is go down and hit the \u201cSubscribe\u201d\u2014I can't say the word, \u201csubscribe.\u201d Hit the \u201cSubscribe\u201d button. I don't think I can say this word!\r\n\r\nAnn:  Like and subscribe. \r\n\r\nDave:  Look at that; you say it so easy. Subscribe, there it goes.\r\n\r\nFamilyLife Today is a donor-supported production of FamilyLife\u00ae, a Cru\u00ae Ministry. \r\n\r\nHelping you pursue the relationships that matter most.\r\n\r\nIf you\u2019ve benefited from the FamilyLife Today transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs of producing them and making them available online?\r\n\r\nCopyright \u00a9 2025 FamilyLife. All rights reserved.\r\n\r\nwww.FamilyLife.com\n"],"_uag_css_file_name":["uag-css-317182.css"],"_uag_js_file_name":["uag-js-317182.js"]},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1001\/2025\/02\/image_bbee74.jpg",1024,1024,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Margaret","author_link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/author\/margaret-coylefamilylife-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Join Kevin DeYoung, author of 'Impossible Christianity,' for insights on navigating guilt, pursuing devotion, and running the Christian race.","meta_box":{"show_notes":"\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/revkevindeyoung\">Follow Kevin on Instagram<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/clearlyreformed.org\/\">Learn more about Kevin's ministry online<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Find Kevin's book \"<a href=\"https:\/\/clearlyreformed.org\/book\/impossible-christianity\/\">Impossible Christianity<\/a>\" on his website.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr>\n<ul>\n<li>Find resources from this podcast at <a href=\"https:\/\/shop.familylife.com\/product-category\/radio-resources\/\">shop.familylife.com<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/shop.familylife.com\/product-category\/past-radio-resources\/\">See resources from our past podcasts.<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Find more content and resources on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.familylife.com\/app\/\">FamilyLife's app<\/a>!<\/li>\n<li>Help others find FamilyLife. Leave a review on <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/familylife-today\/id212174303\">Apple Podcast<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/0j5UaKdQOHQCuo1bt0ebEm?si=d6dfa8d2415f4750\">Spotify<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Check out all the FamilyLife's podcasts on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.familylife.com\/familylife-podcast-network\/\">FamilyLife Podcast Network<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n","transcript_url":"https:\/\/transcript.familylife.com\/fl2025-08-05.pdf","transcript_content":"\nFamilyLife Today\u00ae with Dave and Ann Wilson; Podcast Transcript\r\n\r\nThis content has been generated by an artificial intelligence language model. While we strive for accuracy and quality, please note that the information provided will most likely not be entirely error-free or up-to-date. We recommend independently verifying the content with the originally-released audio. This transcript is provided for your personal use and general information purposes only. References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. We do not assume any responsibility or liability for the use or interpretation of this content.\r\n\r\nHow Redefining Christianity Leads to Embracing Ordinary Faith\r\n\r\nGuest:  Kevin DeYoung\r\n\r\nRelease Date:  August 5, 2025\r\n\r\nKevin:  I think if you ask somebody, \u201cTell me what your goal is in life,\u201d and you said, \u201cI would like to live a quiet and peaceful life, godly and dignified in every way,\u201d most college ministries are going to tell you [Buzzer] wrong.\r\n\r\nAnn:  I would probably have said, \u201cYou need to change the world.\u201d\r\n\r\nKevin:  Yeah, but who's to say that living that quiet, peaceful life, godly and dignified in every way, isn't a major influence in changing the world.\r\n\r\nDave: So I'm holding a little book in front of me that has a maze on the front.\r\n\r\nAnn:  Did you try to do the maze?\r\n\r\nDave:  Yeah. Last night I thought, \u201cI've just got to keep working at it.\u201d You can't get out. You can't even get in.\r\n\r\nKevin: That's right. \r\n\r\nDave:  Seriously, did you notice that? You can't get to the center, and you can't from the center get\u2014and the title of the book is Impossible Christianity. That's a great visual.\r\n\r\nAnn:  Yeah, it is.\r\n\r\nDave:  Because it feels like Christianity can be the same way.\r\n\r\nAnn:  I think a lot of people feel like that. \u201cI'm not going to pursue that. It's impossible. Nobody can live that life out.\u201d\r\n\r\nDave:  Yeah. Fortunately, we've got the author here, who will tell us what this all means. Kevin DeYoung, welcome back to FamilyLife Today.\r\n\r\nKevin:  Thanks. Great to be with you. And sorry about the maze, but that was purposeful.\r\n\r\nDave:  Was that your idea?\r\n\r\nKevin:  I don't know. I think probably someone at Crossway. They went through some different cover iterations and said, \u201cAh, that's great. A maze that has no way out, because that's not what Christianity is supposed to feel like.\u201d\r\n\r\nAnn:  Well, and the subtitle is Why Following Jesus Does Not Mean\u2014 \r\n\r\nDave:  Ready for this? Keep going.\r\n\r\nAnn:  Yeah\u2014You Have to Change the World, Be an Expert in Everything, Accept Spiritual Failure, and Feel Miserable Pretty Much All of the Time. What a great subtitle.\r\n\r\nDave:  Walk us through. I know you're going through this with your staff. When you start presenting this kind of stuff to your staff and other people\u2014\r\n\r\nAnn:  As a pastor.\r\n\r\nDave:  Yeah. \u2014as a pastor in North Carolina, what is the pushback?\r\n\r\nKevin:  Yeah. I would say two kinds of pushback. One is from the person or the kind of person who it just feels unsafe a little bit, just dangerous. Talking about\u2014maybe we'll get to it here\u2014talking about devotions or evangelism or don't let up, don't make this\u2014are we going to send people out in an antinomian direction? \r\n\r\nAnd then I think there's a concern sometimes related to that. Well, isn't the answer really to, shouldn't we be telling people to go attempt impossible things for God, to go out and give your life away? And so I try to be clear, this isn't a book telling people you no longer risk, or you don't have to carry a cross, or you never have big dreams. You never attempt great things for God. That's not the point of the book. \r\n\r\nThe point of the book is really thinking about ordinary Christian faithfulness. Is it possible to be obedient? Or when Jesus said in the great commission that we teach people to obey everything I commanded, He really didn't mean it. He really meant, \u201cHaha, you can't obey but just do your best and I know you'll fail, but I love you.\u201d That's not what He said. Jesus sure seemed to have a category of you can obey, not perfectly but truly. \r\n\r\nThink about the Sermon on the Mount. He ends with all of those contrasting pairs: good tree, bad tree and do you build your house on the rock or on the sand? The one who builds on the rock is the one who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice. So biblically, we need a category. There are people\u2014they're called Christians\u2014who hear God's word and put them into practice. And yet I think many of us instinctively recoil from that, like, \u201cThat doesn't sound very spiritual.\u201d\r\n\r\nDave:  Yeah, I mean it sounds like impossible Christianity is, this is my reality. It is impossible. I know when I came to Christ in college, I'll never forget one of my first ever\u2014I wasn't a Bible study guy. So now I'm in a Bible study and with the other guys on the football team, and I won't say his name, but I can remember\u2014I almost said his name, but he's probably not listening. But one of the guys\u2014I\u2019ll call him Joe\u2014comes in a Bible study and it was spring and one of the things we had just talked about was something that was very well known in Cru circles because Bill Bright wrote it in a book called Spiritual Breathing. Have you ever heard that? \r\n\r\nKevin:  Un huh. \r\n\r\nDave:  It's this idea, basically Bill was saying you confess or exhale the sin and inhale God's forgiveness. And so it's just the way to think about man when you sin, just confess it. You are forgiven; receive his forgiveness. \r\n\r\nAnd he came in\u2014Joe came in the Bible study. He goes, \u201cDude, have you walked around campus today?\u201d I'm like, \u201cYeah, why?\u201d He goes, \u201cGirls are wearing nothing. The sun's out. They're wearing nothing.\u201d He goes, \u201cI wasn't spiritual breathing, I was hyperventilating.\u201d That's what he said. And he was sort of trying to say, this is impossible, trying to be a pure man with my eyes as a college kid on a college campus, it felt impossible, but it isn't. It isn't on a college campus or anywhere. I'm not saying it isn't a struggle for whatever your temptation is, but what you're saying is that maze, you actually can get through that maze even though it feels like you'll never get there, right?\r\n\r\nKevin:  Yeah. And the maze, to be clear, is not earning our way to God, finding the right turn so that we get to heaven and God says, \u201cYes, your good deeds outweighed your bad and now you're in heaven.\u201d No, I would die for justification by faith alone. I believe in that and teach that with all my heart. But we're talking about, are we resigned that, \u201cOkay, you're justified, Jesus loves you, you're going to heaven, you're forgiven. Now, congratulations! Live the rest of your life. You're terrible at being a Christian.\u201d \r\n\r\n\u201cThat's just what it's going to be. You'll go to heaven, but you'll never be good at this thing called Christianity, so just get used to it.\u201d That's not the attitude or the mood at all in the New Testament, and so somehow, we've done that on ourselves, or to be honest, preachers can do that because we feel like people need to feel bad about everything all the time to the uttermost. \r\n\r\nAnd it's been really remarkable how many times, even just since the book came out or in talking about it, that people who have been Christians a long time will say, \u201cI've just been living with this burden, and somehow, I never felt like God could be pleased with me.\u201d And it's often very serious Christians. Some of the people like listening to this or watching this who really, really want to please God. They really want to live a life of faithfulness, and they just feel like it's never enough.\r\n\r\nAnn:  Are they weighed down with sin, with feeling like they can never attain it, and you're giving them the gospel of grace?\r\n\r\nKevin:  Yeah, so I think there's two categories. There's one, someone who maybe really is living with unconfessed sin, or they confess it, and they don't really know God's forgiveness. So there's that. Then there's also the person who has so defined obedience to mean, \u201cNo smidge of possible ill motivation in my heart, otherwise God, then God must just be\u2014A.W. Tozer once said, \u201cWe tend to view God as austere, peevish, and short,\u201d like He's just always mad at us. \r\n\r\nYou know the coach? You can never do anything to please him. And so one of the illustrations that always resonates with me, because I have a gaggle of kids\u2014\r\n\r\nAnn:  \u2014nine. \r\n\r\nKevin:  Yeah, you did this too. I have pictures that my kids draw for me and there's one\u2014I don't know how old she was when she drew it, five or something\u2014and my hand is in her hand, my daughter and I just get that. I don't say, \u201cI'm not blue. Look at my\u2014my face looks terrible. My head is as big as the rest of my body. You don't know how to draw a picture. This is terrible. This doesn't look like us at all.\u201d No, this is my daughter, out of love, who's given this picture from her heart, of me with my hand in hers. I say, \u201cThank you. You know what? I'm going to put this up right in my office. I love this picture.\u201d \r\n\r\nOr just yesterday before I came here, my 14-year-old went out to mow the lawn and we have a big yard.\r\n\r\nDave:  That's a good thing right there.\r\n\r\nKevin:  He's on the John Deere riding lawnmower, and he does a nice job. Now, does he do it as perfectly as I would, as well as I could? Maybe not, but I would be a terrible father if he came in\u2014he did it of his own, he did it cheerfully\u2014and I just said, \u201cPaul, you see that? You see the clumps all over?\u201d\u2014what he's doing\u2014\u201cThis is a terrible job.\u201d Now if anyone has that kind of father, or you are that sort of father, shame on you. \r\n\r\nBut then we think that God, whatever we do, God just tut-tuts, just points a finger, and it's never enough. He would never smile upon us like a good father. If we sinful fathers do that, surely God does when we give Him our heartfelt, sincere obedience.\r\n\r\nDave:  Now, do you feel like when you're saying Impossible Christianity, are you saying it is impossible, but it isn't? Here's what came to my mind, and maybe you've heard Tim Keller say this. Years ago, I remember him talking about preaching. I think I was at a conference and I'm putting together messages every week and I'm like, \u201cMan, I love the way Tim preaches.\u201d I went to an RTS class with Tim and just was blown away by his intellect. \r\n\r\nBut I remember him saying something like this, and I hope I'm getting this right, but he's like, \u201cEvery sermon that Tim Keller preaches,\u201d he said, \u201cI want to present \u2018This is the call of God in your life. Here's the text. Let's go through it. This is the high standard God calls us to.\u2019\u201d He goes, \u201cAnd most sermons end with, \u2018Okay, now go do it. Go out there and we'll see you next week.\u2019\u201d Have a whole week trying to reach that standard. \r\n\r\nHe goes, \u201cThat's the wrong way to preach. Cast God's standard from the Word of God. Before that sermon ends say this, \u2018You'll never do it. It's impossible. Don't even go home and try. You're not going to do it. But let me tell you, Jesus has done it. You can walk with him. He can empower you to do it, but if you go home and try harder, you're going to come back frustrated next week. And I'm going to give you the same sermon again.\u2019\u201d He said, \u201cEvery sermon should end with the gospel,\u201d which is basically, you can't, He did. He can do it in you if you'll let him. Something like that. Is that sort of resonate?\r\n\r\nKevin:  Sort of.\r\n\r\nAnn:  I was going to say, I partly for my heart.\r\n\r\nDave:  I'm sure I got it wrong.\r\n\r\nKevin:  No, and that might be right. So there's a lot there. Here's what I want to agree with in that, yes, if preaching just ends or is in its essence, \u201cHere's stuff you got to do; Ten Commandments, go out and do it.\u201d\r\n\r\nDave:  Try harder, yeah.\r\n\r\nKevin:  Try harder. That's not gospel preaching. \r\n\r\nBut what I want to say is yes, Christianity is impossible if by Christianity we mean perfectly obeying God's commands and earning His favor, impossible. Not impossible, however, if we mean by the gospel of Christ, through faith in Christ, by the spirit of Christ, I can have victory to become increasingly like Christ. That's possible. And to tell people to go out and make every effort toward that\u20142 Peter 1 is a biblical injunction\u2014provided we're not saying do it, self-will, your own strength. You're doing it according to the promises of God.\r\n\r\nDave:  And that's exactly what Tim was saying.\r\n\r\nKevin:  Yeah, right.\r\n\r\nDave:  You just said it much more clear.\r\n\r\nKevin:  No, I know. No, you put it in a way\u2014 \r\n\r\nDave:  I wanted to get you to clear it up.\r\n\r\nAnn:  Hey, before we continue our conversation, I just want to remind you that our vision at FamilyLife is every home, a godly home. And we need your help to get there. When you become a FamilyLife Partner, your monthly support makes that vision actually possible.\r\n\r\nDave:  And listen to this. If you join the FamilyLife Partner program, you'll get access to exclusive updates and events and the chance to join our partners only online community. But more than that, you'll be teaming up with us to change the future of families. So the question is, will you stand with us?\r\n\r\nAnn:  You can learn more and become a partner at FamilyLifeToday.com. Just click the donate button at the top. And again, that's FamilyLifeToday.com. \r\n\r\nOkay, let's get back to the conversation.\r\n\r\nDave:  So talk about\u2014you mentioned this in the book\u2014your devotional life, as it applies to this walk with Jesus.\r\n\r\nKevin:  So I try to hit some of these evangelical Christian staples, which are so important to us. So giving, sharing our faith, and devotional life, because those are the three that can feel like, the never enough. I say in the book, \u201cI've never actually seen The Greatest Showman\u2014 \r\n\r\nDave:  Never, never.\r\n\r\nKevin:  Never, but I know the song. \r\n\r\nDave:  It's a beautiful song.\r\n\r\nAnn:  You have a good voice.\r\n\r\nKevin:  Yeah, later. But that's what it can feel like. There are certain commands of the Bible, like, okay, \u201cDon't lust.\u201d That's really hard, but I don't have to put that in my calendar. It's just \u201cDon't do that.\u201d The virtues, the fruit of the Spirit\u2014I want to grow in love, joy, peace. And then there are other ones that feel like, \u201cWell, do I need 40 hours in the day to be a faithful Christian?\u201d \r\n\r\nWhenever we find ourselves saying, \u201cWell, I could obey Jesus if only I had 40 hours in the day.\u201d No, the problem isn\u2019t Jesus. The problem is we have not conceived of the Christian life in the right way. So with great fear and trepidation on those three things\u2014devotional life, evangelism, and generosity\u2014I try to put lots of caveats in the book, lest people say, \u201cThis is the best book ever. I don't have to read my Bible, I don\u2019t have to share my faith, I don't have to give anything away.\u201d I don't want that. \r\n\r\nAt the same time, I think a lot of Christians can feel like, \u201cI'm not crushing my Bible reading. I missed five days. Sharing my faith after all these years is still scary, and I am not a real extrovert, and I don't like talking to customer service, let alone telling people about Jesus. It's really hard! And boy, I tithe, but I do have two cars, and I took a vacation, and all of those things.\u201d \r\n\r\nWhere, if we actually look at what God says in His Word, many of those\u2014like when the disciples say, \u201cJesus, teach us to pray,\u201d He didn't say, \u201cHere's what time you have to get up. Here's how many minutes it is.\u201d He said, \u201cYeah, I'll teach you how to pray. God's your Father. He gives you everything. Here's what you ask for.\u201d He taught us the how, when we can be fixated on the how long, and the when, and all of those specifics. \r\n\r\nSo without negating those important elements, I do think some of us in the Christian life have taken these good Christian disciplines and habits of grace and because they can always be more\u2014\u201cYou're going to get to the end of your life in the hospital, and you're going to wish you had prayed more.\u201d Well, yeah. \u201cYou're going to wish you had shared your faith.\u201d Okay, well that's a kind of defeating way to live your life. \r\n\r\nWhat about, \u201cGod will work through you, imperfect though you are, throughout your whole life, if you'll give yourself to Him, and if you'll be faithful.\u201d And part of my burden as a pastor is, I think most of the people in my church are living a life that's honoring to Christ. Do they have sins? Yes. Do they need to grow? Yes. Should they do some more? Yes. But most of them, most of the time, I think, are living a life of obedience to Christ. And I don't know how many Christians hear that from their pastors. \r\n\r\nDave:  No, I don't think that's common at all.\r\n\r\nAnn:  Do you say that to them?\r\n\r\nKevin:  Yeah, I do. \r\n\r\nAnn:  That's cool. \r\n\r\nKevin:  I think it took me a while in ministry before I knew that people needed to hear that.\r\n\r\nAnn:  I mean, I'm thinking about if I hear that in comparison to like, \u201cMan, you guys are failing.\u201d If you feel like you're failing, you don't want to come back. But if you feel encouraged, like \u201cAm I? Wow, that's really encouraging. I want to be back.\u201d And I feel like Jesus is an encourager. So when you're talking specifically about your devotional life, what do you say to the people in your church or your nine kids? What are the things that you want them to know?\r\n\r\nKevin:  Well, I certainly am all for the things we've all been hopefully taught about reading your Bible, spending some time in prayer. And I'm a big believer that doing a little something consistently is better than doing big somethings inconsistently. So reduce the size rather than eliminate the habit. So if you only can do five minutes, we think, \u201cWhy even exercise today because my schedule got off?\u201d You know what? You could do pushups for ten minutes and you'd probably feel a lot better, and you're reinforcing that habit. It's the same thing with devotional time. \r\n\r\nSo I liken it to other relationships\u2014my relationship with Tricia, who came down on this trip with me, is out shopping somewhere, doing wonderful things all by herself. On the one hand, if my relationship with Tricia just consisted of, \u201cOkay, this 30 minutes in the morning, you and I are going to be talking, and if I don't do that, then our relationship is done for the day. If I do that, then I'm a good husband for the day.\u201d If it was just that kind of mech\u2014no, you got to breathe a little bit. \r\n\r\nOn the other hand, if I said, \u201cOh, let me tell you how much I love Tricia. I never want to hear from her. I don't ever want to spend time with her. I never talk to her,\u201d you\u2019d say, \u201cI'm not sure you do love her.\u201d So with God, I want to hear from Him in His Word\u2014that's where we hear from God\u2014and pray to Him and spend time. \r\n\r\nAnd in the context of corporate worship and others, we often hear this devotional thing, and we think, \u201cOh, that's just me and myself extemporaneous praying to God.\u201d No, it's church counts. Small group counts. We're talking about fostering the kind of life where you hear from God in His Word and speak to Him in prayer because you love Him and He loves you, and of course you want to have that relationship.\r\n\r\nAnn:  And it'd be interesting, too, because Dave and I, we work together, so we're with each other a lot.\r\n\r\nDave:  All-l-l-l-l-l the time.\r\n\r\nAnn:  A lot.\r\n\r\nKevin:  All the time.\r\n\r\nDave:  It's wonderful, and it's all-l-l-l-l the time.\r\n\r\nAnn:  But we don't wake up in the morning and have, even if it's a five-minute conversation or a fifty-minute conversation, I'm talking to him all throughout the day. And I think that's important for people to know with God. It's not just you have to pray right then. It's that you get to, but you can do it all day. I find myself praying all day long because He's with me, He's in me, and I\u2019m conversing with Him. As Paul said, \u201cPray without ceasing.\u201d \r\n\r\nAnd I think that's, especially, I'm thinking about Trisha, your wife with nine kids. She probably has hardly any time to herself. And so she's probably, as I learned as a young mom, \u201cI may not have that chunk of time, but I can listen to God's Word. I'll put the Bible in different places, but I can talk to Him any time, all day long, whenever, because He's always with me.\u201d\r\n\r\nKevin:  And we forget about all of the other ways that God means for us to be with Him. So in the New Testament, when Jesus, of course Jesus went off to pray privately, but when He talks about the disciples going out and praying, they're probably praying the Hallel Psalms in holy week. They're probably doing some set Jewish rituals. \r\n\r\nWe tend to think quiet time only counts if it's extemporaneous prayer. I couldn't read a prayer back to God. I couldn't sing a hymn as prayer to God. None of that counts. I couldn't it with other people. I often say, \u201cThink about it. You get up in the morning and if somebody says, \u2018Okay, ten minutes after you get up, you got a cup of coffee, I want you to give a really meaningful, excellent talk for twenty minutes. Go!\u2019 Who's ready to do that about anything?\u201d \r\n\r\nAnd yet, if we think, \u201cWell, that's devotional time. Okay, 20 minutes right now, go, talk to God.\u201d We're all going to need helps. I need helps. I'm going to need books to help me, and prayer books to help me, and hymns to help me. I'm going to need to write down some prayer cards, and I'm going to wander. Just forget about feeling guilty for your mind wandering. It will happen. \r\n\r\nJust when you come back, say, \u201cThank you, God. You brought me back.\u201d It's just going to happen. You're going to get distracted. Your mind's going to wander just like it does sometimes when Dave's talking to you, probably.\r\n\r\nAnn:  Yeah, yeah.\r\n\r\nDave:  Her mind never wanders. Not when I'm talking. I mean, you just mentioned guilt. Chapter 5; what a chapter title: \u201cThe Infinite Extensibility of Guilt.\u201d What does that mean?\r\n\r\nKevin:  So I get this from, and I mentioned this article from\u2014he's now at Hillsdale, actually a professor there, and it's talking about the way the world has shrunk. And because technology can connect us to everything everywhere. Think about Jesus telling the Good Samaritan. I preached on this a year or two ago. Again, I had a lady in the church, been a Christian a long time. She just said, \u201cOh, thank you. I've never heard the Good Samaritan that I didn't feel like just the worst guilt because\u201d\u2014\r\n\r\nDave:  \u2014because we're not.\r\n\r\nAnn:  \u2014because I'm not the Good Samaritan.\r\n\r\nKevin:  \u2014\"I'm not the good Samaritan.\u201d Again, I don't want to take away Jesus is calling us to be a neighbor to people in need, and yet it was a specific need at a specific moment, when he was the only person and the need was extreme, immediate, in his face, all of those things. Well, how do we live life when you can see now tsunami victims on the other side of the world? You know every time there's a mudslide, every time there's a fire, let alone the intractable problems in our own country. \r\n\r\nSo it can feel like, \u201cWell, yeah, you pray with your kids, and you take them to youth group, and you sing in the choir, and you give a tithe, but what are you doing about this?\u201d which tends to be the sort of problems that are the most difficult to solve, which is why they haven't been solved yet, and take an extreme amount of time and effort. \r\n\r\nAnd I'm not saying some people don't have that specific call on their life, but I don't know how to get at that. That's the infinite extensibility of guilt. Our world has the residual Christian impulse of guilt without the Christian mechanism to forgive and offer grace for that guilt. Go to Twitter, or X, lots of guilt, no way to be forgiven for your sins. \r\n\r\nDave:  Wow. That\u2019s so true.\r\n\r\nAnn:  Well, that kind of leads us into the last chapter, which is called \u201cA Quiet Life.\u201d I told Dave\u2014we were traveling, and I was looking\u2014I think we were in the Midwest, and there's just corn fields. \r\n\r\nKevin:  There's a lot of cornfields in the Midwest. \r\n\r\nAnn:  There are no houses except miles apart, and I have this thing in me, it's like \u201cI'm supposed to change the world.\u201d And I said to him, \u201cWhat would it have been like just to raise your kids?\u201d Just like \u201cWere they fulfilling the Great Commission?\u201d What's that quiet life? Is it okay to lead a quiet life?\r\n\r\nKevin:  So the verse, 1 Timothy 2, \u201cFirst of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, instructions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.\u201d So the Bible's a big book. This isn't the only thing it says about the Christian life, but it's one thing it says. And to your point, Ann, I think if you ask somebody, \u201cTell me what your goal is in life,\u201d and you said, \u201cI would like to live a quiet and peaceful life, godly and dignified in every way,\u201d most college ministries aren\u2019t going to tell you [Buzzer] \u201cWrong.\u201d\r\n\r\nAnn:  Oh, I would probably have said, \u201cYou need to change the world.\u201d\r\n\r\nKevin:  But who's to say that living that quiet, peaceful life, godly and dignified in every way, isn't a major influence in changing the world.\r\n\r\nAnn:  Yeah. What do you mean by that?\r\n\r\nKevin:  When I look at the Christian family that's loving their kids, providing a normal\u2014what we do for our kids that's most important is we're giving them what normal looks like. And if normal looks like mom and dad love each other, and I go to church, and there are Christians, and there's a Bible, and Jesus is King, and there's sins and lots of things, but that's normal, I want to say to people, \u201cThat's not what's wrong with the world.\u201d \r\n\r\nNow, is it true that those sorts of Christians, myself included, can be too comfortable and could say, \u201cI got a nice job. I got enough money. I got my family. We're good. I don't want to be bothered with your problems.\u201d Yes, there's the other side of it, but to raise those sorts of kids\u2014I think people are sometimes, as Christians, were too hard on ourselves. \u201cI didn't do anything.\u201d What do you mean you didn't do anything? You brought a meal every time somebody in the church needed one. You raised these kids to be good workers, good citizens, to be godly people. You loved your husband or your wife. You prayed all the time. This is a godly life, quiet and peaceful. \r\n\r\nI end the book that way because I at least want to offer to people: this, too, is a verse in the Bible. And we should not be ashamed that we might live a quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.\r\n\r\nDave:  Yeah. You mentioned Jeremiah 29:28. I mean, I'll read it. It says, \u201cBuild houses,\u201d God is saying this, \u201cBuild houses and settle down, plant gardens and eat what they produce.\u201d I mean, and many ministries would say, \u201cNo, no, no, no. That's not enough. You're not changing the world. It's a personality type. It's a temperament type.\u201d\r\n\r\nKevin:  And this is where\u2014you guys have traveled a lot, too, to know there is something about American evangelicalism that is not true, has not been true at all times in all places. And some of that is a strength. I go to other places and they're like, \u201cYou guys, just American evangelical, you just are entrepreneurial. You go after it; you get it done. You think of new ways, you build things, that's great. But there can be the danger of a kind of hyperactivity, that the good, real Christian is probably super-extroverted, talking to people all the time, lots of activity. And there are people quietly in our churches who just feel like, \u201cI don't fit in with that. I'm absolutely exhausted.\u201d It tends to be a church life of high degrees of activity and activism, and much good is done through that.\r\n\r\nDave:  Right.\r\n\r\nKevin:  And yet without this message to also be in the counterbalance, we run the risk of giving people a version of Christianity that they just feel like they can never achieve.\r\n\r\nDave:  I mean, as we wrap up, I mean, I think that's encouraging for a lot of listeners. \r\n\r\nAnn:  Oh, me too.\r\n\r\nDave:  It's like we're not saying be lazy. It's not that at all, but it's like\u2014\r\n\r\nAnn:  It gives them a chance to exhale.\r\n\r\nDave:  \u2014live a quiet life. Be diligent about what God called you to be. And it could be, build a house, plant a garden, influence your neighborhood through that medium.\r\n\r\nKevin:  Because, of course, Jeremiah 29, \u201cSeek the shalom of the city.\u201d We know that part, but how do you do it? Well, it's those earlier verses. This is what you're going to do to seek the peace of the city: settle down. You're going to have a garden; you're going to have a family. You're going to attend to the normal things of life because, and you're going to pray for the city because as the city goes, so will you. But as you go, so will the city. \r\n\r\nAnd if you're not healthy and you're not living this kind of life, then you're not going to be much good for anyone else around you. And you're going to be so worn out with this impossible version of Christianity, you're not actually living in the joy of the Lord, which is supposed to be our strength.\r\n\r\nDave:  And you know what I think God's saying to Kevin DeYoung right now\u2014is just my opinion. I think God's saying, \u201cKevin, go out on a date with your wife, Trisha, tonight.\u201d \r\n\r\nKevin:  I'll do that. \r\n\r\nDave:  \u201cDon't worry about the sermon this weekend. That'll be tomorrow.\u201d \r\n\r\nKevin:  I'll worry about that tomorrow. \r\n\r\nDave:  \u201cJust enjoy a good meal with your bride.\u201d\r\n\r\nKevin:  I'll be happy to follow. I'll take it as the Lord's command.\r\n\r\nAnn:  Thanks, Kevin.\r\n\r\nDave:  Yeah, that was awesome. \r\n\r\nAnn:  It's always great to be with you. \r\n\r\nHey, thanks for watching. If you liked this episode,\u2014\r\n\r\nDave:  You better like it.\r\n\r\nAnn:  \u2014just hit that \u201cLike\u201d button.\r\n\r\nDave:  And we'd like you to subscribe. So all you got to do is go down and hit the \u201cSubscribe\u201d\u2014I can't say the word, \u201csubscribe.\u201d Hit the \u201cSubscribe\u201d button. I don't think I can say this word!\r\n\r\nAnn:  Like and subscribe. \r\n\r\nDave:  Look at that; you say it so easy. Subscribe, there it goes.\r\n\r\nFamilyLife Today is a donor-supported production of FamilyLife\u00ae, a Cru\u00ae Ministry. \r\n\r\nHelping you pursue the relationships that matter most.\r\n\r\nIf you\u2019ve benefited from the FamilyLife Today transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs of producing them and making them available online?\r\n\r\nCopyright \u00a9 2025 FamilyLife. All rights reserved.\r\n\r\nwww.FamilyLife.com\n","theme_header_position":"","post_header_is_sticky":"","is_header_overlay":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/podcast\/317182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/podcast"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/podcast"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47000"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317182"},{"taxonomy":"podcast_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/podcast_series?post=317182"},{"taxonomy":"cwp_profile","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cwp_profile?post=317182"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=317182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}