Promise Keepers' Steve Berger Discusses How the Depth of His Relationship with God Saved Him

Ken Harrison, CEO of WaterStone and volunteer chairman of Promise Keepers, is joined by Steve Berger on the latest podcast of "On the Edge with Ken Harrison." Together they explore issues of celebrity pastors, loss of a loved one, and how to build a foundation with Christ so that no matter what comes your way, you can stand and trust him.

The podcast, available in both audio and video form, can be found on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. Podcast listeners can also receive a challenging weekly devotional that will inspire them to put their faith into action.

For nearly 30 years, Steve Berger's ministry has been marked by purpose and passion. He is the founding Pastor of Grace Chapel, in Franklin, TN, and is known for his straight-talk in the pulpit. Additionally, Berger serves as a Board Member for Promise Keepers. Together, he and his wife, Sarah, self-published "Have Heart: Bridging the Gulf between Heaven and Earth". This project, the most personal to date, deals with the events surrounding their 19-year-old son's entrance into Heaven.

During the height of COVID-19 Berger's church innovation was a role model for many. He transformed his church to an atmosphere where worshipers could remain socially distanced, while receiving the gospel together. Church goers were encouraged to attend "drive-in" worship sessions, where they could remain in their car, but tune into a communal FM channel to hear the message. Following the success of the transformation, fifteen other churches within the state of Tennessee joined Berger and his drive-in services.

Highlights of Berger's interview in the podcast include:

• Pastors who seek their platform first and the Kingdom second, bring people to their message and not to Christ's.

"If I'm committed to Christ and his kingdom, then it doesn't matter who comes or who doesn't come. I'm not going to be a respecter of persons. I'm not going to pander to the crowd. I made a decision thirty years ago when I was asked to be a pastor that I was going to preach the word. I'm not here to build my own platform. I'm not here to name drop. I'm not here to cater to famous people. I'm here to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. Period."

" If pastors don't start preaching the totality of God's word, we are going to see more and more people fall away with the difficult times that we're coming to because what we've won people to is our own personality rather than the savior of the world and that's not going to undergird them when they're facing trial and tribulation that's coming on this land. It's not going to work. It's not sufficient because it was never meant to be sufficient. God, his word, and the power of the Holy Spirit are what is sufficient. Anything else is smoke and mirrors."

• It is important to prepare a foundation with God so that on your darkest day you can still find peace in him.

"I can honestly tell you that neither my wife nor I was upset with God when our son passed. It was because we had decades of passionately loving him, following him, and seeing his hand in our life for years and years and years and years. It might have been more difficult for someone who didn't have that depth of relationship with the Lord to have that lack of anger when a trauma happens."

"It can be really tough to try to prepare for your moment of suffering is not the moment of suffering. It's the days and the weeks and the months and the years prior to it. Are you building a foundation with Christ so that no matter what comes your way, you can stand and still even trust him? You might not like it, you might not enjoy it, you might have to go through some process, but at the end of the day, the thing that is most important is you keeping your faith in Christ through it all."

• As believers in Christ, we do not die. We do not go from life to death, but rather from life to life.

" In John 11:26, Jesus says 'he who lives and believes in me shall never die.' So, Jesus himself is saying for someone who loves him and follows him, someone who truly knows him, that death itself doesn't have the final word over their life. If we see death as having the final word over our lives, as Christians, and we talk about Christians who have died and they're dead, how hopeless is that? It's actually contrary to what Jesus taught. You will never, ever hear my wife and I, our family, and even our church family talking about Christians being dead or having died because it's contrary to the word of God."

• The gospel tells us how we can lead a life of biblical principles and obtain salvation.

"Believe in the gospel and repent by having a change of heart and mind that causes you to change your direction. It means 'I start looking at my life and my sin differently than I ever have before.' I start agreeing with God that the sinful things that I'm doing are actually sinful and that they're not just mistakes - they are things that actively separate me from God. I decide to stop running from Christ and I start running to Christ."

"Receive Christ through a transaction where you boldly say, 'Jesus, I receive you. I receive you as my savior.' Then, Christ will give you the right to become a child of God."

"Confess that you are a follower of Jesus and live a life that speaks to people. Jesus said, "if you deny me before men, I'll deny you before my father who is in heaven. But, if you'll confess me before men, I'll confess you before my father, who is in heaven.'"

 

 

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