Episode #022 Jeremy Fisher Interview

I'm excited to be with you today on this podcast, Truly Masterpiece with my friend Jeremy Fisher.

Hey. Thank you all for joining us today. And Jeremy, thank you for joining me today. So thrilled to have you here. Jeremy is a graduate of the Truly Masterpiece program.

He's another one of those stars. Jeremy is a teaching pastor at Community Life Church. I'll let him tell you a little bit more about himself.

I've invited Jeremy to be here, not so much because he's a graduate, but because of a message that he preached on Sunday that I know he couldn't have preached that several months ago, not like he did on Sunday. It was so good. I said, "Jeremy, you've got to share this with our group." So he was happy to do so. Again, Jeremy, thanks for joining us. And man, bring us up to date. 

Transcript

 Well, I'm excited to be with you today on this podcast, Truly Masterpiece podcast with my friend Jeremy Fisher.

 Hey. Thank you all for joining us today. And Jeremy, thank you for joining me today. So thrilled to have you here.

 Yeah, absolutely. So exciting.

 Well, Jeremy is a graduate of the Truly Masterpiece,

 Frankly. He's been through it. He's a graduate. He's another one of those stars. Jeremy is a teaching pastor at C Life Community Church. I'll let him tell you a little bit more about himself.

 But we're going to jump into it today. And I've invited Jeremy to be here, not so much because he's a graduate, but because of a message that he preached on Sunday that I know he couldn't have preached that several months ago, not like he did on Sunday. It was so good. I said, "Jeremy, you've got to share this with our group." So he was happy to do so. Again, Jeremy, thanks for joining us. And man, bring us up to date. We're in a series on Joseph called "Divine Perspective."

 And I want to get right into the message. What did you tell us on Sunday that was so helpful?

 Yeah.

 If you're familiar with the story, Joseph, seems like there's so many great moments within it that kind of comprise the entirety of the story.

 And where we were jumping into, I think we're in week five this past week.

 One thing that we've been focusing on is, again, the title of this divine perspective is just how do you see these different things

 from different levels?

 From where Joseph's at in real time as he's figuring out these different things in his life.

 Probably not all that exciting. Probably felt terrible. Probably really difficult to walk through lots of those things. But when you zoom out, and especially when you have some knowledge of the story and how it all unfolds,

 it kind of had to go that way.

 And so anyway, I remember on Sunday,

 one, I kept trying to figure out what's a way to invite people into this divine perspective to see things from a different point of view. And I started to think about what are things that people just generally have

 different viewpoints on,

 different perspectives on that may be kind of a fun dividing line for folks. And so I introed it by talking about roller coasters. Greg, are you a roller coaster fan? Do you like roller coasters?

 Oh, I used to be before I got old.

 Yeah, it seems like roller coasters are kind of a love it or hate it sort of deal. And years ago, I took my son, he was probably, I don't know, four or five years old. Probably not great parenting, throwing them on a roller coaster that soon. But I just decided I was going to do it. And I told him, I was like, we're going to go hands up on this thing, because that's the only way to truly ride a roller coaster.

 And so I gave him all this coaching beforehand, throw your hands up, yell at the top of your lungs on the drop. And he was so excited for it. But as soon as we got to the top of that drop, and he's looking down,

 the only thing that came out of him was just a like the blood curdling scream of fear, you know, and he's white knuckling as we're hitting this first drop. And it's funny, you know, when you look back on something like this, how two people can experience the very same thing and walk away with vastly different perspectives of what took place, you know, some folks would say, that was terrifying. That was awful. That was the worst.

 And then others would say, that's the best had a blast. You know, I didn't think twice about it. And that's kind of, it's a matter of perspective, you know, depending on how certain things go. And so we've been talking about this story of Joseph and how,

 depending on the perspective that you choose, there's a number of ways to view this story, especially if you kind of like insert yourself into it.

 How would you deal?

 How would you deal with being betrayed by people that cared for you? How would you deal with being falsely accused of something? How would you deal with having to forgive people that hurt you? How would you deal with, you know, all these different things along the way. And for Joseph,

 when you get to towards the end of his story,

 you see,

 he didn't choose unforgiveness. He didn't choose bitterness.

 But instead, he was so clear.

 What you meant for evil,

 God meant for good.

 And it's like, you can choose these perspectives here. You can focus on what happened because it happened. It's real, you know, nobody's denying the reality of this. It's painful. It was hard. It was difficult.

 But on the other end,

 don't you believe that God was in control? Don't you believe that God was doing something there? Don't you believe that God was shaping things the way they need to go?

 And so anyway, I really appreciate Joseph's willingness to look past the betrayal.

 Yeah.

 But what we really drilled down on on Sunday is,

 you know, he pretty much absolves his brothers of their guilt. And he says, don't beat yourself up for this. Don't be angry at yourself for this.

 You meant it. You sold me here, but God sent me here. You sold me, but God sent me.

 And again, I appreciate his willingness to look past like the bitterness and the pain and all that.

 Yeah, I think I was one line that you specifically in there and said he chose not to look at his brother's sin. Instead, he looked at God's sovereignty. That just hit me. That was so good. My whole family, we went out of church talking about it afterwards. That one line, how that just stuck with us. And I think about it from a perspective of the people that I deal with all the time. First myself, dealing with my own issues, looking at the family that I was raised in. And, you know, I would call it a redneck screwed up family. And my brother, listen, it's truly happened. My brother and I, we got called, the police were calling us all the time. They knew us by first name. And we were just kids living in a neighborhood, but we were country kids brought into a city place. And we were so loud, so rowdy.

 And so our neighbors called the police on us all the time. They hated us with a passion. And we talked about them. They don't know how to find. They're just a bunch of idiots, a bunch of city folks, whatever we said.

 And then years later, we fast forward. My brother and I have gotten saved. We've grown up. Our lives have been transformed. And one time we're together at Christmas and he looked at me and said, Craig, he said, remember how we used to hate our neighbors and thought they were so bad?

 And I said, yeah. And I knew what he was going to say. And he said, he said, what in our neighbors was it? Oh, no, it wasn't. It was us. When I look back on my past, I see how I was raised. I said, God, why couldn't you have? Why couldn't I have been born in this family? Why couldn't I have been born in that family? Why couldn't you have been so different? And that's the idea. I think you're communicating.

 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that is a total shift of perspective there. It's like, it's not them. It's us.

 Yeah.

 Really seeing these things from a different viewpoint. And what really creates some tension for me in that message,

 this is, again, what we

 spent so much time on this is I really can appreciate Joseph's assertion that it wasn't, they didn't need to beat themselves up, that it was God who sent him. But that creates some theological conundrums there. We don't have to get in the weeds of this, but is Joseph saying that God placed the desire for vengeance and the desire to hurt Joseph in their hearts? Is Joseph saying that God somehow caused Potiphar's wife to frame him for that crime? Is he saying that God is responsible for all of this? That's a difficult thing to wrap your head around. That God doesn't cause evil, but he uses it in his overarching grand plan. It's a really difficult, whole libraries have been written on that. You know, I don't know if I can answer every question regarding that, but God somehow in his sovereignty has the plan of the enemy baked into it and knowing the move that Satan will make piece by piece by piece by piece, layer by layer by layer. God knows what to do with it.

 I wrote down when you said that I wrote down James 1 13 through 14. So let no one say when he is tempted, I'm being tempted for God by God because God himself does not tempt anyone and he himself cannot be tempted by evil.

 And so that's a great passage. So no, he didn't, but he definitely used it. That's for sure.

 Yeah.

 Yeah. That's a, that's a difficult, that's a difficult thing to kind of wrap your mind around.

 but somehow in God's sovereignty, he sees the full picture, you know, and as we've, as I've lived my life,

 um, one thing that I,

 I'm sure you've done it along the way, older that I get, I will look back on certain seasons,

 painful seasons,

 and I'll see, oh, okay. You know, I understand why I had to go through some of the things that I've done. To get me where I'm at.

 And you know, we often say hindsight's 2020.

 I think about, I mean, even going through the, the TAM course for me, um,

 I on this end of it now can really see the way that God has used that and the way those puzzle pieces are kind of fitting together that what was something that I couldn't stand about myself and what was something that I was ashamed of and wasn't proud of. Now God is using what I went through mistakes I made. Now he's using it for his glory. And I look back on it and I'm like, man, I don't want to ever go through that again, but I, I see what God's doing with it. I understand that, but there is something also to be said here that I don't want to miss is that.

 You know, we look back in hindsight and we're like, yeah, hindsight is 2020. I knew I can see where God has worked it out. I can see what God's doing there, but that's not faith.

 You know, when you can see it and it makes sense, in fact, that's the opposite of faith, right?

 Faith is the substance of things hoped for. It's the evidence of things not seen.

 And that was kind of how we wrapped it up. This thought that like, you know, if you can look back on it all and it all makes perfect sense, that's great. That's wonderful. Give God glory for it. But what I would rather do is I'd rather get in the middle of the timeline and I'd rather start praising God for what he's going to do, knowing that he's always faithful. I don't need to see how it's going to work out. Like I don't need to see, I don't need to see the map when I know the guide is good, you know? I don't need to see how all this is going to work, where we're headed, what's happening.

 When I know that the person that's leading me is good,

 I can kind of, I mean, I think about my son on the roller coaster that day.

 When he finally, when we took that last turn and we hit that last drop, I remember looking over at him and he had peeled those little fingers off the bar and he put his hands in the air and he was yelling and he was smiling. And I don't think it's because he had a full view of, well, this is where the roller coaster is headed and this is where we're going to stop. And there's only two more loops. I think he did it because he knew who he was sitting next to.

 Like he knew, this is somebody I trust. This is somebody that I love. This is somebody that protects me. I don't have to like hold on for dear life here. He's got me. I'm right there with him. That's kind of the principle here is like, I don't need to see how this is all going to work out in Jesus name that's going to.

 And as long as I've got, if I've got him by my side,

 what do I have to be afraid of?

 You know, that's a great illustration, a great point, how you brought that together. I remember when you said that, like, yeah, that's the truth. And actually that's what made the most sense is because I think we go through life and we're trying to figure it out and we're not figuring it out and we never figure it out. And it stays a pain source. But the moment we let go of having to understand it all and begin to trust that the one we're going with is God,

 that he really is going to work this out for good. Whatever was meant for evil, he's going to mean for good. The moment we do that, that's when we begin to see just how wonderful our life is, the good things that he created us for. And he's going to transform all that junk that was in our life. I say all the time, God never wastes a hurt.

 Whatever you've been through, he's going to redeem that for good in the future. And that's what happened with me. I look back and I talk about my childhood, the pains, the things that I went through. The moment that I said, you know what, God, I didn't need to have been born in a different family. In fact, all of the things I'm doing today, I really couldn't do. Had you not brought me through what I had gone through. That's when life started making a lot of sense for me. Can you relate to that up to your own life? Can you share that part of your story? Is there something that fits here?

 100%. This is a very recent example, but I've got a worship leader that I served beside.

 It is unbelievable how talented this young man is.

 Has got every tool in the box in terms of leading people and gifting.

 But I've noticed, and I notice it because I've so seen it in myself along the way, that he does not a ton of...

 When there's conflict that's involved with personalities, when he's got to speak up, when he's got to have a hard conversation, he kind of peels back a little.

 You can just see that there's a lack of confidence. And there's a...

 It seems like the compass seems like a needle is just spinning like crazy. It doesn't really know what to do.

 I noticed this here a little while back, and I told him, I was like, "Listen, man. I'm not saying I've got this all figured out, but I'll just tell you what I've walked through here recently in terms of my own self-discovery and personhood and figuring out the ways that God has wired me.

 Mentioned the TAM stuff to him. I told him I walked through all this with a coach here recently.

 And what I'm kind of figuring out along the way is that God, he wired me with a super sensitive heart. He wired me to where I don't love conflict, to where I don't love having to do the verbal jousting with people and try to figure all that out. He wired me with a really sensitive heart. And somewhere along the way, I let that get kind of misinterpreted to where my internal compass will start spinning as well. And I'll let those dominant personalities kind of lead the way or I'll clam up and I won't know what to do. And I told him here recently, I was like, "I may have gone through all that for you."

 Like it may be just for us to have this conversation here that God moved all these little pieces around and made it to where we're having this conversation. And I feel like the door is kind of opening for him right now to see. Maybe God gave me a sensitive heart because I'm meant to lead people, but that doesn't mean that I need to shrink back when I feel like there's a dominant personality or there's somebody that disagrees with me. I don't have to peel back. I could set my internal compass on something and I can speak up about it without fear. There's in fact, one thing I kind of talked to him about here recently, and it was a brief conversation, but it's been such a theme for me is

 there is people always talk about how they want to live without fear. They want to live without fear. No fear, no fear, no fear.

 And I disagree a little bit. I think there is one thing to fear. I think you were meant to fear one thing. You were meant to fear God. And when you fear God, you don't fear anything else. You don't fear the opinions of man. Fear what the future may hold. You don't fear what your bank account lacks. You don't fear whatever.

 You name it. But when you don't fear God,

 you fear all of that. You fear man. You fear your bank account. You fear your boss. You fear your whatever.

 And so I just have felt like I may have gone through some of that

 to shed a light on others who are walking through that right now.

 Man, you are speaking my language.

 I tell everybody too that I have some fears, but they're healthy fears. I fear God. I fear jumping off the 10-story building if God didn't tell me to do it.

 So there's some healthy fears. That's what you're saying. Yeah. But at the same time, and I think of how I used to be, I used to fear the opinions of others,

 a fear of rejection, fear failing.

 All that has to do with how people perceive you. I fear all those things. And I can say by the grace of God, I don't fear any of those things.

 I care about how people perceive me because I love them,

 but not because I'm afraid of rejection. That's what I hear you saying. And that's the whole thing about coming back to this divine perspective.

 God made you.

 All that you went through, all that He did, and all your shortcomings, and I'm saying yours, not meaning you specifically, I'm talking about myself and anyone else, all of our shortcomings,

 they're all part of the picture. He made us his masterpiece. The moment we can accept that, again, by faith, not behinds, but by faith,

 it all starts to make sense. It all comes together. And then we can say to those people that hurt us, and right now I have a person that comes to my mind, been physically abused over and over and over as a child.

 And the moment they can say,

 "Gosh, I know you meant this for evil, but God meant it for good," then they can let that person go. Then they can begin to move on. Yeah.

 Use an illustration. Life is like a puzzle. Can you flesh that out just real quick for us?

 Well, if I remember right, I don't want to botch it here. But yeah, I mean, at least for me, the way I kind of view puzzles,

 when you see the box, you see how it looks beautiful, it looks great.

 You've got this picture in your mind. This is the way that it is supposed to be.

 But when you open that bad boy up, you shake those pieces out. What a mess, right?

 And it's like piece by piece, you're trying to figure out where all this fits. And there's some trial and error to this thing. It's like taking it apart, disassembly, reassembly, all this over and over and over until you've got

 what it is that it was intended to be here.

 It's difficult in the moment, when you're mid,

 you're halfway through the puzzle, and you look at it, you're like, this is not,

 I don't see it. You got a vision in my mind for the way that my life is supposed to look. It's supposed to be married by 28, two kids, a mortgage, I'm supposed to have this job, I'm supposed to be making X amount of money here.

 And I just kind of feel like sometimes God hears all those little desires of ours.

 And he just thinks that's cute. That's sweet. And he just takes it all and he just kind of shuffles it up. And it's like, you're going to hit certain things before you were ready for it. You're going to hit certain things later than you wanted. You may not make as much money as you wanted, but along the way, it's like when you zoom out, all these pieces coming together, it's like,

 oh no, this fits.

 Yeah.

 That this was the plan.

 So the divine perspective in that is, is we just, we might not be able to see the picture on the box yet or the perfectly fit together puzzle.

 What it says to me is that we've just can be uncomfortable with the tension now because we know God is putting together something really beautiful. And the sooner we can trust that, the sooner we can see that.

 Yeah.

 Actually doing.

 And you know, I got a glimpse of this this morning. This is silly, but I mean, you could probably check it right now if you wanted to, but on my socks, there's a like in a little embroidered logo on them. And when I was putting my socks on this morning, they were inside out. And if you look at the, the other side of those logos, it's a mess. Like it doesn't look anything like what the picture should be, you know?

 But again, it's just a matter of perspective. You flip that thing inside out and it's, that's exactly, that's it.

 And I think kind of, that's, you know, that's akin to what we're dealing with here is like from a certain, from the earthly human perspective. Gosh, I've been through so many things, have experienced so many failures, setbacks,

 shortcomings,

 consequences.

 And you wonder like, why?

 And sometimes it isn't until you zoom out that you can really see. And also, this is one thing I'll be teaching on this, this Sunday.

 Sometimes, this is a difficult thing, but you know, sometimes you don't go through things for you.

 Sometimes like Joseph, it's like, you sent me here, you sold me, but God sent me and it was to preserve a remnant.

 So it's like, my pain wasn't even for me, it was for them.

 You

 know, and so that's what I would say to people that are folks that are abused. You know, I grew up in a, in a household that was really difficult,

 some pretty terrible verbal abuse, you know, and it kind of shaped me to where that's probably why I ended up in the truly masterpiece course is like, I just received this messaging from a really young age that you're worthless. You're not worth it. You're trash. You're, you know, and so you start to believe those things along the way. And anyway, long story short, people that have gone through any kind of verbal abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse,

 and you believe some things, erroneous things about yourself and about the world around you.

 You know, I pray that people would find healing from that. And I think, you know, that's, that's certainly miraculous and beautiful and something that their lives will will benefit from. However,

 in God's economy,

 oftentimes pain and healing, I guess, it's not just for you,

 but that, that will be for somebody else.

 You know, that, that now, you know, you suffered abuse now when, like, as I grow up and I raised in a family, I got four kids now. I know the ways that I can talk to them versus the ways that will shatter their souls with my, with my speech. You know, I know the ways that I can love and care for them and be present for that. Like I learned what not to do, you know?

 And so because that healing took place in my life and I dealt with it, I'm able to, to give them something better than I had. And again, there's, I think there's probably more to be said about this. I mean, it's maybe a different podcast,

 but I don't want to send this down a rabbit trail here. But if you don't find healing for that, and if you don't deal with those things,

 then make no mistake.

 You still transfer something. You still give something to people. It's just instead, you don't give the whole healed product.

 You give them your pain, your brokenness. You know, you transfer that to your children. You transfer that to your friends. They've got to work around your mess.

 So yeah, that's a, that's something, sometimes your healing.

 That's what you went through. It wasn't just for you, but it's for somebody else.

 Yeah, that's a perfect place for us to start wrapping this up because I, I,

 I wrote a book called Shameless, the life you were born to love.

 I wrote that book because I wanted to give the healing side that I had experienced to my children, not just that God had healed me, but how he healed me and how they can be healed too.

 Because well, I grew up with parents who struggled with shame, though they couldn't, they wouldn't be able to tell you that's what they struggled with any more than I could tell you. That's what I was dealing with. Yeah, right. I was, and I grew up in that household and I grew up like the people in that household. So I learned that I, I'm not going to give away to my kids who I want them to think I am. I'm going to give away to my kids who I really am.

 Gosh, that's so good.

 So they struggle with that same thing and in different ways and different areas of their life. And so I wanted them to have that healing process. I wrote the book for them. And then I realized after getting to coach my children and see them all come to healing is now this is, this isn't just for me. And so I want to do all in this is just to say, hey, I did write a book. It's called Shameless the Life You Were Born to Love. You can get that on Amazon.

 It'll probably be published by the end of this week, maybe the first of next week. I think the Kindle is going to be available on the 7th, March the 7th, which I think is Friday. So that will be available for you. Go and buy it. Share it with your friends. Get the print copy when it comes out.

 And I'm praying about this. God willing, you know who I would like to do, Jeremy?

 And is write a follow-up book. And it's Shameless Parenting because I told my kids, I said, I wish I knew then what I know now. And so I want everybody to get this book, get healed, and then help them give something better to their kids.

 Yeah. And I don't want to really, I don't want to, I can't say it better than you did, but I can tell you just as somebody who got to experience this, for all the listeners here today, you got to go out and check this book out. It is truly transformative. And I think it's awesome because there are things that I learned that my son, one of my kids in particular, can repeat verbatim. And it came from Craig. And so I'm telling you,

 the

 legacy,

 the healing, what you will experience will be long lasting and it will be for so much more than just yourself.

 Jeremy, how can people keep up with you? How can they hear you on Sundays? What can they do?

 Yeah, come on. You can go to www.stylioc.com and you can see all our past messages on there. We're also going live every Sunday on Facebook, YouTube, and on our church website, 830, 10 and 1130 a.m. I think they also do a rebroadcast at 5 p.m. on the online channel. So feel free, check us out on YouTube. All the sermons are on there. We'd love to hear from y'all.

 Thank you for joining us today. You can always follow me at CraigWalkerCoaching.com.

 Occasionally, I'll even get online and do social media, though not very often.

 Truly a masterpiece on Facebook. Craig Walker Coaching on Instagram and LinkedIn. And YouTube. Thanks again for joining me. I hope you loved it and I hope God uses this to change your life. Until next time.