BROKEN BREAD WITH PASTOR KIM SHIBLEY // S04E07 (EPISODE 50)
How does God use our brokenness? More importantly, how did He use Christ’s on the cross? On our FIFTIETH EPISODE (woo!) we sit down with our very own Pastor Kim Shibley and he shares how, even deeply rooted in God’s grace, God uses a moment of (literal) brokenness to reveal a timeless, simple truth.
QUESTIONS WE TOUCH ON IN THIS EPISODE:
- What does it mean to deny yourself?
- What does it mean to take up your cross?
- What happens in your brokenness?
VERSES FROM BROKEN BREAD
John 6, John 6:34 – 37, Ephesians 2:8, John 19:30, 1 Peter 4:4, Jeremiah 18, Luke 9:62, Matthew 16:24, Isaiah 61:3, 2 Corinthians 5:21
QUOTES FROM BROKEN BREAD
“We have to trust him because he is not just our savior, but he’s also our creator. He’s not saving us from an evil creator. He’s our creator that saving us from ourselves.”
Michelle Watson, The Pantry Podcast, Broken Bread, S04E07.
“God’s gonna take me, God’s going to break me and God’s gonna rebuild me. And, and in that rebuilding is when I start to learn that humility that I need to move forward.”
Shea Watson, The Pantry Podcast, Broken Bread, S04E07.
“We get everything that matters. We get all spiritual things in heavenly places. The Bible says in Ephesians, God gives us thousands of promises, right. But Jesus says the key is that we would deny ourselves and take up your cross. In other words, dying to ourselves where it says, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, but not. I have Christ who lives in me and the life that I now live.”
Pastor Kim Shibley, The Pantry Podcast, Broken Bread, S04E07.
TRANSCRIPT
Michelle: Yeah. This episode is going to be really exciting because when we, when we came up with a title, it was this idea that, you know, Shea: Hey, I’m Shea.
Michelle: And I’m Michelle. And this is The Pantry Podcast and you’re listening to an episode from Season Four, Unnaturally Nourished, where we’re talking about how God nourishes us in ways that the world just can’t understand.
Shea: Shout-out to Warcry Network,
Michelle: The Christian Podcasters Association,
Shea: Eternity Ready Radio,
Michelle: And the Spark Collective. Check out ThePantryPodcast.com to support us by buying our awesome Merch, sending in prayer requests, and figuring out how you can connect with us and some of our awesome guests.
Shea: Hey man, it is our 50th episode. Come on. Let’s clap. Come on, come on, come on. How awesome is this that on our 50th episode, we have an awesome guest with us. Our topic broken bread, and really when I was thinking about broken bread, it took me right to Jesus.
Shea: Cause I mean, we’re in that season of naturally nourished. It’s a reflection on how we’re supposed to look to the heavens for our nourishment, how we’re supposed to get our strength from above. And it took me to John 6 and there’s some verses in there that really talk about the bread, you know, and how Jesus is our nourishment. You know, he just got finished feeding 5,000 people and people were chasing him, you know, but I don’t think it was necessarily after the right reason. They’d chase him all the way to Kaepernim, but they were looking for bread.
Shea: : I mean, he says was like, you’re looking to fill your bellies. You know, it’s like, you’re looking for this, this life source of bread, you know, from the, from the worldly aspect and Jesus was about to offer them something greater. He was about to offer them true bread, true life, a food that endures everlasting life. He’s going to offer them himself. It says in John 6:34 – 37, then they said to him, Lord, give us this bread. Always. And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger. And he who believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me yet. You do not believe. And all that the father gives me will come to me. And the one who comes to me, I will, by no means cast out. And I love that thought. I love that thought with the guests that we have tonight, that God will, by no means cast us out. He is our bread of life.
brokenness, God uses that to nourish us. And I love that you chose Jesus because that is the example. Everything else is just an illusion to that. That leads us there. And so for our 50th episode, we decided that it’s only natural to let everybody in and meet this person. I call him pasta, but he’s our pastor. Our pastor, pastor Kim Shibley who, if you’re wondering where we get our theology, where what the heck we come up with, sometimes he’s partially at fault for all you heresy hunters. Look him up for all you who send us great reviews, even keep sending them our way. But no, it’s, it’s an honor. Pastor Kim has been a pastor for 35 years. He speaks amazing French because that’s where he started his missions background. But now he is in Silver Spring, Maryland with us leading us. And how many years has it been? Pastor Kim?
Pastor Kim Shibley: Actually 15 years since we’ve been here. And then the church started at the end of 06
Pastor Kim Shibley: I went to Bible college from 79 to 82 and then from 82 to 86, I was in France. I was the assistant the whole time, but I had to study to be ordained. And I studied with another pastor, named Louis Rovitto. I worked in Springfield, Massachusetts for seven years where I became a believer. And then we decided to move down here to be with the greater Grace’s home base in Baltimore. When I started teaching at the Maryland Bible College clls in seminary, the leadership asked me to head up the outreach to silver spring. The leader had to kind of abruptly leave. And so what I had said to the elders of greater grace at the time was that I would do it if I could start a Sunday morning church, because that was a big deal for me because I was also working a full-time job at the time. But God has blessed us here in the DC area.
Shea: I really liked that because when you think about this now, okay, we’ve served in there the church for five years, right? And it was a mobile church. We didn’t have a church building. And this is one of the hardest working men that I’ve ever seen and have the grace that flows behind it. We love it. We love it. We love the fact that through this church we’ve learned the grace and finish work message that we’ve learned the importance of this bread of life.
Pastor Kim Shibley: Amen. It’s so interesting. You know, you mentioned grace in the finished work. I was a little bit sick as we know, and, the church was closed down for a couple of weeks, but then when we opened back up, I still couldn’t come back because I just wasn’t feeling good. And my wife was there, but I had been corresponding with a woman through the website that wanted to visit the church from Kensington, which is right next door to, where we are in DC. And she came with her husband and child and my wife, Casey met them. And then, you know, we correspond a little bit, I got an email from her today and she had been obviously reading our website where it says that we teach the Bible from a finished work perspective.
Pastor Kim Shibley: And I had the opportunity to respond to what cause she wanted to know what does it mean, finished work perspective. And I was able to respond. You know what that means basically for it is by grace, that you are saved in Ephesians 2:8 not of yourself, but of God. You know? And of course in John 19:30, where Jesus says it is finished and the word, the term it is finished is actually one word it’s called , it’s an, it’s an accounting term. Right. And you know what it simply means. It’s an accounting term. It’s not a Bible term, but Jesus says to tell us die. And it means paid in full. And that’s what the finished work is that we can do nothing of ourselves, and we can’t save ourselves. I love that. You know, people that kind of have that idea, Christians and many, do they have that idea that they can lose their salvation.
Pastor Kim Shibley: But the problem with losing or the idea of losing your salvation is that if, if you have to be the one that is responsible for losing your salvation, then you also have to be the one that has to maintain your salvation. Right? And that’s hard. Maintenance is not my thing. You know what I mean? It’s not my thing. And even though I can do it, I fail in it many times. And we see in 1 Peter 4:4 and I love this because it really answers the question of the finished work. It says to an inheritance, incorruptible and undefiled, this is a King James version. And that fate is not a way and listened to this reserved in heaven for you. And remember when we said that we have to maintain our salvation, look what it says here in verse five, who are kept by the power of God, kept by the power of God. And that’s what we love about the term that Shea mentioned finished work and grace, because the basis of our gospel message is grace, mercy love forgiveness.
Michelle: I think that’s one of the first signs. Like that’s one of the first breaks that we experienced as believers is this break that it is not up to me. And for some like me, that was a relief. I was like, Oh, wait, is that easy? Like, for me, it sounded easy and it’s not easy to give up the throne. We’ve discussed that with another greater grace pastor. But the, the big thing is for some, that’s a big blow to your pride. Wait, I’m a good person. And this break, that weight, that doesn’t matter one. I’m probably not, but two, it doesn’t matter. It’s up to someone else’s work and someone else that finished the work, like that’s the first break we have is it’s not up to me.
Shea: I like whenever you put your trust in that spiritual realm, like I can sit here in the world as much as I want. I did for years and decades say, I’m going to make something of myself. I’m going to be who I’m going to, who I’m going to make myself to be. And then I learned that I can’t. God’s gonna take me, God’s going to break me and God’s gonna rebuild me. And, and in that rebuilding is when I start to learn that humility that I need to move forward.
Pastor Kim Shibley: God does not call the equipped. He equips the called, you know, and we are called, we all have the same calling. We’re called to the gospel of Jesus Christ. We’re called to preach the gospel to all nations, right? In Jerusalem, Judea Sumeria, and the outermost parts of the world, the person who is, doing the, the presentation when you’re not, there is the same as the person cleaning the bathroom. All right. Or the same as the man preaching at the pulpit, we all have the same calling it’s to the gospel. The difference is that our job within the calling is different, right? Our job within the calling, but our calling is to Christ either way. And so I can say that God has called me to France, or that God has called me to India.
Pastor Kim Shibley: But in fact, God has called me to the gospel. And then the outcropping of what he has done inside of me through the finished work is that my expression of faith brings me to different places. It brings me to silver spring brings us the Tacoma Park doing outreach or silver spring downtown, or whatever the case may be. But this is, what’s so beautiful and freeing really about the fact that God has done all this for us. You know, it’s not that we have. And again, it’s good that we challenge ourselves. It’s good that we focus on whatever our job is in the ministry. Right. It’s good that we want to do it a hundred percent, you know, and we want to be very good at it, but that’s not how we find our value. Our value is in what Christ has done and what he has done inside of us, so that we actually have an incorruptible inheritance that’s undefiled, and that will never fade away. And that is reserved in heaven for me. And that it’s kept by the power of God. I love it.
Shea: We’re, we’re, we’re pumping this up though, man. This is where you need to live. But you know, we, we drop that ball all the time. It’s, you know, I am the bread of life. He comes to me, shall never hunger was like, Oh yeah, right. Yeah. So then I started thinking of our pastor’s story. Cause I love this portion. In fact, he preached about it recently. I want to hear a little bit about that pastor, you know, when you fell off the ladder and I want to get to that point where you’re being wheeled into that emergency surgery, because we go through challenges in this thought.
Pastor Kim Shibley: Yeah. So, I mean, she, though it seems to be the stupidest decision I ever made was when I brought the church’s 12 foot ladder home, because I thought this is so great. I can trim the shrubs, which I successfully did, but then went a little further and decided to cut this branch that was bothering me. That was going over the road and I don’t know what happened. But somehow when I was cutting it, I woke up in a hospital bed, you know, and I actually fell from the 12 foot ladder onto the pavement. Had some major injuries. I think it was 12 broken bones, dislocated shoulder, punctured lung, and a massive head injury and so much so that they actually thought I was dead on the street. And my neighbor, Jim Cooney came over with his wife, Terry and they prayed over me.
Pastor Kim Shibley: But then, you know, eventually I did recover, but after I think it was 18 days in the hospital, they were noticing something. That I was healing physically somewhat yet. I still had fevers you know, all kinds of little problems. And it turns out that because of the medication that they were giving me that there was a problem internally and that my chest was expanding. They took me down for an MRI. I’ll never forget the doctor, wheeling me out of the MRI, says, we’ve got to bring you to emergency life saving surgery. And I’m like, what? You’re going to send me home. And I actually said that to the guy, no, you’re going to send me home. I’m going to get a second opinion. So he brings me up.
Pastor Kim Shibley: He said, well, that’s fine, but we’re going to get your wife and you can talk to the other doctors. So they bring me into the emergency area where they’re going to do the surgery. And I said to the doctor, listen, doc, I appreciate what you’re saying, but I’m going to go, you’re gonna send me home tomorrow. And I am going to see my doctor on Monday and get a second opinion. And he just looked at me. He said, that’s great, Mr. Shibley, but there’s one problem. So you’ll be dead by Monday. Right? And I’m like, Oh, I want to hire this guy as a salesman some day. Very good. But anyway, we had a prayer and then as they were wheeling, and this is the story that you want to hear as they were wheeling me down, I’ll never forget big intestinal surgery because my intestines were leaking.
Pastor Kim Shibley: And what had happened was I describe it as the guilt prayer. Well, they told me, you know, you could die or you could, you know, have some serious problems for a very long time. And so I’m thinking you know, I might die. And I’m thinking at this point, after being in the hospital for almost three weeks, the other side of the Jordan river is looking pretty sweet, right? So no big deal. But instead what I started doing is I started saying the guilt prayer, and I’m remembering all my past sins from even before I was a believer in Jesus. I think when I was 11 years old, something like that. And somewhere in the middle of that silly prayer, God spoke to me. And of course I can never, I’ve never been able to say that I heard an audible voice from God, nonetheless, I somehow, right.
Pastor Kim Shibley: A voice said to me, stop it. You know, stop it. There is therefore no condemnation to those who are in crisis. You dealt with this when you were 19 years old. And I was so set free by this image that I got, that I am, that I don’t need to worry about my past. And I don’t want to focus on what’s behind me. I want to focus instead on looking into the face of Jesus Christ before me and I just started praising God on the gurney on the way to the operating room. You know, I did ask the doctor at that point, if I could please, because I hadn’t drank in days. I said, could I please have a couple sips of root beer before you operate? And he said, no.
Michelle: There’s a lot of layers to what you’re saying. And I, and I think that one of the biggest ones, that one of the reasons why we wanted this to be your episode is because of how well you articulate grace and the redemption within the brokenness. And I think you had a very literal story, but people often think that they are in God’s bad graces when they experienced something that breaks them. They also think I’m too broken to be accepted by God. I have to. You’ve said this before, you know, I have to clean myself up before I go to church. People think that like, I need to not be as broken. I need to start mending myself. And even though this episode’s called broken bread, I think of when I think of brokenness, I think of him as the Potter out of Jeremiah 18, where it says, and the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the Potter’s hand.
Michelle: And he reworked it into another vessel as it seemed good to the Potter to do. And we have to trust him because he is not just our savior, but he’s also our creator. He’s not saving us from an evil creator. He’s our creator that saving us from ourselves. And so we have to remember that he has all rights to completely scrap us. You know, as an artist, sometimes I start something and I’m like, it’s too far gone by. And I just crumble it up, throw it away. He has all the right to do that. But instead he also understands that sometimes it takes a break to make us awake to something else for us to realize something for us to escape something like for us to let go. And I kinda just that’s, that’s like the thought that I’m having as you were on that gurney is that idea, even that you might not have felt that often in your life, but then in that moment is the only time you would start doing a sinner’s guilt prayer and it awoke to something you would never have addressed. But in that moment, he’s like, well, this is a great opportunity to address that. Let’s address that real quick and get that out of the way and move on.
Shea: I like that because when you’re thinking of this brokenness Christ broke for us and in that breaking came salvation and that breaking became security. He finds us in our most broken States and he pieces us back together. I kind of, we were praying on the way in on this. And it’s like, he brings us in pieces as back together. Like the Potter’s clay he’s constantly forming us. And I heard at one time that through the cracks of the pot, your cracks, right. Shines his light. And it’s like, wow. You know, cause he’s there. He’s in me. And in Luke 9:62, right? It says, Jesus said, and no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. He is solidifying us in his kingdom. He is solidifying us in this thought, as pastors rolling down there, the enemy wants him to have all of these, these, you know, these, these questions. Yeah. He wants to Rob glory. And it’s like, no. And then God spoke to him. See that natural nourishment, that nourishment, that people don’t understand that voice that people don’t understand. In fact, some people being called crazy for saying they hear the Holy spirit talk to the Holy spirit. And it’s like, no, that’s my life source.
Pastor Kim Shibley: That’s good. It’s interesting. Right? Because we think about, especially Christians, you know, that want to serve God. They honestly do. They want to please God, they honestly do. Of course, we know that we can only please God through faith. But one of the things that Jesus says, and when we talk about you talk about Jesus being broken. And when he actually calls us the brokenness, when he speaks about it in the book of Matthew 16:24, it says, then Jesus says to his disciples, if anyone desires to come after me, what does he say? He says, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. So he doesn’t start out with, Oh, I’m going to give you this. I’m going to give you a golden, you know, handles on your bathroom utensils or, you know, whatever the case may be, you know, where people have this idea of this prosperity gospel or this idea that, well, if I become a Christian, then I get everything, you know, which is true.
Pastor Kim Shibley: We get everything that matters. We get all spiritual things in heavenly places. The Bible says in Ephesians, you know, all spiritual things, right? I mean, God gives us thousands of promises, right. But Jesus says the key is that we would deny ourselves and take up your cross. In other words, dying to ourselves where it says, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, but not. I have Christ who lives in me and the life that I now live. I live by the faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me, Galatians 2:20. I am crucified with Christ. Sorry. Yeah. I’m crucified. Like that’s a good thing. Being crucified is a good thing. It’s that brokenness and out of brokenness comes lights. Like you mentioned, Shea out of brokenness also comes life.
Pastor Kim Shibley: Jesus says that you have to bury the seed right. For the seed to come back up. But that’s the die first. So oftentimes people will shun the idea of the cross or the idea of death or the idea of somehow denying yourself. How could God want me to deny myself? I mean, he’s given me everything, but has he given you everything he’s given you all blessings in spiritual places, right? Right. And of course he has given us everything and we have an inheritance that’s reserved in heaven for us. By the power of God. And we are God’s children and we are joint heirs with Jesus Christ and all those kinds of things, but mixed in with that is the fact that through our part of our salvation is that we grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ and the growing part is not always comfortable. And it’s not always good. Sometimes it’s persecution that for us things are okay. But for people all around the world that are incredible intense believers, they are face to face with this persecution and taking up their cross and not denying Christ, but denying self. You know,
Michelle: Just two days ago, I posted on my Instagram story, a very simple image and it just said, the world says, indulge yourself. And Christ says, deny yourself. And I always love when I get questions from people based on what I post, but the person’s like, why not a balance? And I think that often in the world, that’s kind of like the shortcut solution is let’s just find a balance between whatever the two things are, even if one’s horrid and one’s not like let’s just find a balance and that’s going to be what it is. And I was excited to answer because we don’t have to indulge ourselves because God’s going to indulge us in what is that eternal end. Even sometimes the temporal provision that is necessary to carry out his calling, but the world would see it as well. What’s wrong with indulging yourself while hearts are wicked above all things and who can know it.
Michelle: Right? The other thing about denying ourselves and the cracked pot with the light shining through it makes me think of a funny example in the movie cocoon, if anyone’s ever seen it, where they’re like these aliens, that glow or whatever, but they’re wearing human shells, right? We have temporal flesh that is containing an eternal being. And as the cracks, he’s not always filling the cracks physically. He’s taking away this shell to reveal more and more of the being underneath that’s eternal that operates in the eternal, that points towards him. And it’s important when we understand that it’s not that when we are doing good, that he gives us good. And when we’re struggling or when we experience something bad, it must be because of something that we’ve done, it’s that there’s an opportunity to reveal more and allow ourselves to be broken for the sake of the gospel.
Michelle: Just like in communion, when we’re chewing on the bread. And when I first started doing community, I was like, I don’t want to, like, I don’t really understand. And then as I was chewing this little tiny piece of bread, I was like, he said, his body is the bread. And here I am demolishing it with my molars, ripping it apart, melting it down to mush and digesting it for my own nourishment. And isn’t that what he went through to provide us a way to unnaturally nourish us. And that’s what he’s calling us to allow things, to break us and use us for their say to nourish them.
Shea: I love the seasonal truth. I love reading the Bible through every year, not a brag. This is just something I love to do, because guess what? Every year is different. Every year he unlocks another portion of something that needs work. See, I love that verse, you know, worshiping spirit and truth, right? We will never be able to worship in spirit without truth. We will never have that unity of our spirit to the Holy spirit, without that knowledge of truth. That is what feeds it connects. It balances us. And so I’m hearing this true, true truth, you know, going to this, natural nourishment, which is actually the most natural nourishment that a man could have because it started with a God, right? He is going to feed me. He is, he isn’t going to allow me to break so that I improve.
Pastor Kim Shibley: That’s good. You know, there’s a verse in Isaiah 61:3, about people that are mourning in Zion. So it’s obviously it’s the Jewish people, but you can certainly use it as an application, our lives as well. It says to console those who mourn in Zion to give them beauty for ashes. All right, because they’re experiencing death they’re experiencing, you know, but we’re going to give you something beautiful out of something ugly instead of something ugly. And then he says, we’re going to give you the oil of joy when morning. And then he says the garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified. Ultimately, what it means is that in our weakness, he is made strong. God uses those hard times when life is like ashes, those hard times when we’re mourning, but he gives us joy, those hard times when we have a spirit of heaviness, but he gives us praise instead.
Pastor Kim Shibley: And then he says that we are called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, and in all of it, God has glorified. So when we experienced times of difficulty, even in those times where we’re just not getting along with someone, even if it’s only for a few minutes, when in that time we refuse to live in our flesh. When we refuse to not honor the King, but to honor him when we live that way, then what happens is we glorify God because we’re living in his righteousness. 2 Corinthians 5:21. He who knew no sin, right? Jesus became sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. So we are those trees of righteousness. I love it.
Shea:: I love it.Yeah, breaking of the bread, the breaking of Christ. And in that breaking super natural, spiritual breaking. He gave us life.
Michelle: What a way to ring in 50 episodes, 50 episodes. So thank you. Thank you again for being here. But yeah. So for everybody who has been listening, if you have any questions, comments, prayer, requests, any, any of that, please send us something @thepantrypodcast.com and as always, you can support us with awesome merch. So until next time, bye.
KEYWORDS: DEALING WITH BROKENNESS, GOD IS THE POTTER, YOU ARE MADE NEW, TAKE UP YOUR CROSS, FINDING GOD, WHAT IS SALVATION, PODCASTS FOR WOMEN, PODCASTS FOR FAITH, PODCASTS FOR CHRISTIANS, CHRISTIAN PODCASTS TO FOLLOW