Insider & Outsider Status. AKA: How to Trick a Feminist

August 1, 2024 Pastor Chris Oswald

Thesis We must maintain dual identification with both our insider privileges and outsider disadvantages, for over-identifying with either produces spiritual disaster—revolutionary destruction when we fixate on victimhood, or idolatrous hoarding when we fixate on possession.

Series

Providence Podcast

Type

Topical

Tone

—

Method

—

What's in this sermon

The shape of the argument

26 units across exposition, application, illustration, theological claim, and conclusion. The pastor's argument is built from these moving parts.

Pastoral correction · unit #6

"Applies the diagnostic to personal spiritual vigilance: listeners must resist ideologies that train them to fixate on victimhood while ignoring blessing. Both realities coexist and both require godly stewardship."

Doctrinal loci· 10 surfaced

Anthropology · 8 Hamartiology · 7 Sanctification · 5 Ethics / Moral Theology · 4 Providence / Sovereignty · 4 Spiritual Warfare · 3 Doxology / Worship · 1 Eschatology · 1 Soteriology · 1 Theology Proper · 1

Bible citations· 7

Illustrations· 2

personal story · unit #2 — Makes the insider/outsider concept concrete by cataloging the pastor's own unearned advantages—American citizenship, physical size, race. The airport passport observation provides vivid experiential proof of privilege hierarchy.
personal story · unit #13 — Makes the danger personal: the pastor's own vulnerability to over-identifying with times he's been treated unfairly. The spiritual discipline is counterbalancing negative unfairness with positive unfairness (unearned blessing).

Theological claims· 12

God has carefully designed the world so that humans occupy both insider and outsider statuses simultaneously, producing both conservative and reforming impulses. unit #1
The insider/outsider duality is a divinely designed feature of human existence, not a civilizational bug, producing both gratitude and legitimate reforming desire. unit #4
Training people to center identity exclusively on victimhood produces revolutionaries who burn down their own houses without recognizing the blessings they're destroying. unit #5
Feminism tricks women into over-identifying with minority status while ignoring the majority of their lives located in privilege, catechizing them into fashionable aggrievement that destroys their own inheritance. unit #7
The French Revolution exemplifies satanic revolution: zealous destruction without recognition of what is being burned, serving as the demonic counterfeit to the American Revolution. unit #8
The insider/outsider duality reflects the fundamental structure of all reality: the interplay between order and chaos, the known and unknown, what is possessed and what remains to be accomplished. unit #14
You will be tricked as Eve was tricked if you fail to properly evaluate what you have been given against what has been withheld from you. unit #15
God designed dual insider/outsider status to produce healthy imagination and questioning while preventing devilish presumption—gratitude for what we have checks revolutionary destruction while dissatisfaction with what we lack prevents idolatrous satisfaction. unit #16
We are designed to live with both gratitude (insider position) and disquietude (outsider position) until glorification, and over-identifying with either produces hellishness. unit #17
The opposite pathology—over-identifying with insider status—produces idolatrous hoarding where people become unwilling to risk what they have to accomplish what remains, as exemplified by Gollum and the rich young ruler. unit #18
We are created to live as people of both gratitude and lamentation—gratitude preventing revolutionary destruction of what God has given, lamentation preventing idolatrous satisfaction that cuts off holy yearning. unit #20
Anyone urging you to identify exclusively with either insider or outsider status is conducting a spiritual psyop—satanic psychological warfare designed to produce your destruction. unit #22

Quotations· 3

"think of wormwood and screw tape" — C.S. Lewis (unit #7)

"Gollum where it's just all about hoarding the thing" — J.R.R. Tolkien (unit #18)

"America is not merely a proposition, but it is also a people" — JD Vance (unit #23)

Read it

Full transcript

13,956 characters 26 units ~16 min reading time Listen instead →

0 · Establishes the informal, exploratory nature of the sermon as a stream-of-consciousness reflection rather than traditional expository structure

Welcome to the Providence Podcast. My name is Chris Oswald, senior pastor at Providence Community Church. What a great church. What a. What a wonderful church Providence Community Church is. Today's episode is going to be a observe the squirrel brain of Chris's consciousness kind of episode. I have a bunch of things to talk about. Maybe you'll find some of them interesting, maybe you won't, but let me go ahead and get into just a number of things that have been sort of flowing, floating around in my brain.

1 · Introduces the core theological framework: dual insider/outsider status is a divinely designed feature of human existence, not a problem to be solved

As you know, I've done various kinds of meetings and conversations and so on and so forth, and in no particular order. One of the things I thought we might talk about today is this idea of in group and out group status, in group and out group status. This idea that you are both a part of a majority community and a part of minority community. You have things that belong into the realm of. Belong in the realm of order, and you have things that belong in the realm of chaos intruding upon order. You are partly an insider and partly an outsider. You're partly in the majority in some ways and the minority in other ways. And God has carefully designed the world so that typically in the majority of history, we have both things to preserve and conserve and have some kind of essential part of conservatism, however, that might get labeled, and also some part of a disquietude of a desire for things to change, a place in which we are oppressed or on the outside looking in and so on and so forth.

2 · Makes the insider/outsider concept concrete by cataloging the pastor's own unearned advantages—American citizenship, physical size, race

And so practically speaking, this is sort of like, you know, gosh, I mean, let's just use me as an example. We'll use me as the punching bag here. What are some in group statuses that I enjoy? First of all, this passport, right? The citizenship in the United States of America makes me an elite among elites in terms of my sort of in group status in the whole world as an American citizen, I am universally by almost the entire world coveted. People want this thing that I was born with and did not earn. I can travel all over the world and see this and have done so. So that's one piece of my in group status. Another one is like, I'm a large human being. That's not my choice. That was genetically given to me. That's a thing that was dealt to me. Didn't pick it. But it does matter to some degree. What else? I mean, you know, I'm white, you know, lots of things. Like there's lots of things that involve some level of in group status. The biggest one being that I Am I am a citizen of a country that is sort of universally, no matter what they say, considered to be sort of the country, the country. I've stood in many lines throughout many airports with many people from all over the world and seen all the different colored passports that folks have in their hands and know for a fact that all of them would trade their passports for my passport.

3 · Explains the psychological and moral dynamics of dual status: insider privilege produces conservative instinct; outsider marginalization produces revolutionary impulse

So that's an idea of in group. And when I'm in group, I have this sort of natural desire to preserve, protect, care. When I recognize my in group status in some area, when I recognize the blessing that I've received, I have some sort of motivation to maintain it, to withdraw, to hold it, to protect it, and so on and so forth. But there are also areas where I'm an out group, where I have outgroup status, I'm a Christian, you know, I have a particular, I come from a particular socioeconomic status, I come from a particular educational status and so on and so forth. And so in other areas I have outgroup status. I'm sort of on the outside looking in of this sort of cultural capital that is sort of, you know, established at any given time. So in some respects I have reasons to conserve. In other respects I have reasons to revolt.

4 · Elevates the insider/outsider duality to theological principle: this tension is divinely intended, not a civilizational failure

And this is really how all human beings are supposed to live. This is a genuine sort of feature of civilization and not a bug. When we can give people an identity in both ways, they see that which they should be thankful for and that which they are understandably, at least in their own perception, dissatisfied with and want to change.

5 · Diagnoses the spiritual pathology of victimhood ideology: when people are trained to identify exclusively with outsider status, they become blind revolutionaries who destroy their own inheritance without recognizing what they're losing

Now what happens when you sort of motivate people to locate all of their identity in their out group statuses? What happens when you encourage people to incentivize people to center all of their identity in those places in which they are the victim? Well, what you get is a wind is a full blood revolutionary with nothing left to lose. And so what you're going to wind up with in a culture like that is are people that they still have these in group statuses, they still have these blessings. But what you'll wind up with is people who have been trained to renounce those blessings as any part of their fundamental identity and instead embrace all the things that are, you know, sort of typical of victimhood. And what you'll wind up with is a group of revolutionaries who before they realize what they've even done, will burn down their own houses.

6 · Applies the diagnostic to personal spiritual vigilance: listeners must resist ideologies that train them to fixate on victimhood while ignoring blessing

So you need to be watching out for that, not only politically and nationally, but just like spiritually and in your own life. Do you have things that are happening to you, that are unfair, that are unjust, that are difficult, so on and so forth. Of course you do. You're a human being. We live in an unjust, you know, in a functionally sort of seemingly unjust world. We certainly live in a world that doesn't seem fair. And so you will at any given time have something that could be sort of representative of your out group status, of your minority status. And then you will also have things that are representative of your privilege. And in both of these things, you need to honor God, you need to trust God.

7 · Applies the pathology diagnosis specifically to feminism: women are catechized into fixating on disadvantages (real or perceived) while ignoring massive privileges, producing self-destructive revolutionary zeal

And what feminism has done in particular, I mean, amongst many other things, is feminism has encouraged a bunch of women to identify only that which is representative of their out group. And, you know, minority status. Meanwhile, you know, a good 80% of their entire lives is located within the in group privileged status. And they're tricked, you know, they're tricked into burning down their whole stinking identity and house and country and everything simply because they have been sort of catechized to live a life of aggrievement and bitterness rather than understand that, you know, yeah, you've got some disadvantages. Yeah, you're being just, you're being treated unfairly and certain ways. You also have a ton of advantages. And this is just the way that life works. We all get these cards dealt to us. Some of them are better than others and so on and so forth. Rather than that, they're taught almost as a matter of fashion, think of wormwood and screw tape, to embrace the fashion of aggrievement, the fashion of victimhood.

8 · Escalates the revolutionary diagnosis by invoking the French Revolution as historical proof-of-concept: a satanic counterfeit revolution that destroyed its own civilization by over-identifying with grievance while undervaluing inheritance

And it really winds up just causing people to be zealously revolutionary without any mind to what might be burned of their own if they decided to burn the whole town down. And, you know, the reason I'm thinking about this is because of thinking about the French Revolution, which is essentially the satanic version of the American Revolution. I would say that that's actually really, really true. It's like the satanic version of the American Revolution. It's the satanic counterfeit of the American Revolution.

9 · Explains the French Revolution's failure as blindness to inheritance: revolutionaries failed to recognize the spiritual and cultural capital they possessed even within a corrupt system, making them vulnerable to being tricked into selling their birthright

And really what you had there was a group of people who did not recognize the massive spiritual and cultural inheritance received from the people that they rightly or wrongly deemed to be corrupt and from the tradition that, you know, sort of, you know, ensconced or, you know, permanentized that particular tradition. And so they were sort of tricked into selling their birthright.

10 · Introduces Esau as the biblical archetype for selling one's birthright, noting the irreversibility: Hebrews (not Ephesians) records that the opportunity for repentance had permanently passed once the transaction was complete

And that's where I'm kind of landing on this is, you know, you get to this passage in Ephesians, where Esau is said to have sold his birthright and afterward could not find tears for repentance. And I think the idea there is like he literally couldn't repent anymore because that season had passed, the thing was already done.

11 · Exegetes the Esau narrative through the insider/outsider framework: temporary disadvantage (hunger from failed hunt) became totalizing identity, blinding him to permanent privilege (birthright inheritance), producing catastrophic trade

And what had happened there is he was tricked into overly identifying with his out group status. His out group status was a guy who had a bad hunting trip and, you know, for whom fortune did not fall favorably. And he wound up being in a position where he was hungry and maybe had been hungry for a number of days. And because he over identified with his out group status, he undervalued his in group privileges and as such wound up selling his birthright.

12 · Extends the Esau pattern beyond feminism to all identity-grievance ideologies (race theory, etc

I think that that's just like a massive kind of lesson to apply to all of life and certainly is a anecdote to feminism in particular. It's also an anecdote to just really anything related to race theory and so forth. But I suspect it goes much further than that.

13 · Makes the danger personal: the pastor's own vulnerability to over-identifying with times he's been treated unfairly

You know, I mean, there have been times when I've been treated really unfairly. And the thing is, if I'm not careful and I don't counterbalance this unfair treatment in the negative with all the unfair treatment God has given me in the positive, I'm going to sell out fundamentally good things in my life just because I've overly identified with the revolutionary.

14 · Elevates the insider/outsider principle to cosmological framework: all reality operates on the interplay between order and chaos, known and unknown, possessed and desired

And so I think that's like just a pretty broad brush kind of category to think through. Is like, we each have. Well, all of reality is sort of defined by the interplay between the known and the unknown, or the accomplished and the yet to be accomplished, order and chaos. And, you know, in mythological terms, this is often represented as male and female, masculine and feminine. But in general, like, that's just all of life. It's what we have and then what we don't have. It's what is known and what is unknown, what is dark and what is light, and so on and so forth.

15 · Introduces Eve as the original archetype for being tricked through improper evaluation of insider/outsider status—fixating on what was withheld (the forbidden tree) while devaluing what was given (Eden itself)

And like you, you will wind up being tricked as Eve was tricked if you don't sort of properly evaluate that which you have been given against that which you have not been given, or that which has been withheld from you.

16 · Synthesizes the theological principle: dual identification produces healthy imagination (questioning and reforming impulse) without devilish presumption (ungrateful fixation on lack)

So I think in general, God has designed us to live in both places, to have one foot in the in group and one foot in the out group. And that sort of teaches us to always sort of question things while simultaneously being respectful of what we have and what he's given us. And so we wind up with a sort of environment of both imagination without it turning into Devilish, you know, what's the word? Presumption. You know, devilish presumption. Like I, I literally am discounting all that I've been given with an eye toward one thing I have been not given, so forth.

17 · Provides the pithy formulation: gratitude is the insider posture, disquietude is the outsider posture

So yeah, I think it's sort of like disquietude is the out group position and gratitude is the in group position. And we are supposed to live all the way till we get delivered from original sin in eternity, we're supposed to live with both of those feelings, both gratitude and disquietude. And if we ever get tricked in one or the other, we become really, you know, hellish.

18 · Balances the sermon's polemic by addressing the opposite pathology: over-identification with insider privilege produces idolatrous hoarding

I mean, I didn't talk about it but because I think it's not super culturally hot right now. But everything I'm talking about could be expressed in the other, where a person becomes overly guarded or careful about that which he already has been given so that he's unwilling to risk anything to take to accomplish that which has not yet been accomplished. So I've been talking about someone who's sort of their whole identity has been centered on their out group status. But you could take the same thing and say like, well, there's people who could be overly centered on their in group status and this would be sort of, you know, I suppose like Gollum where it's just all about hoarding the thing, or you know, the rich young ruler who went away sad because he had great possessions.

19 · Exegetes the rich young ruler through the insider/outsider framework: he recognized his outsider status (lacking eternal life) but over-identified with his insider status (possessing wealth), producing the inverse of Esau's error—hoarding rather than selling

So in, in that particular story, he, he knows that he's outside of the kingdom. He says to Jesus, what must I do to inherit eternal life? But he's highly conscious of his insider status as a possessor of great possessions. And so he over identifies with what he has and under identifies with what he doesn't have. And you wind up with a problem there as well.

20 · Provides the theological synthesis in compressed form: humans are created for dual posture of gratitude and lamentation

So it just seems to me that we've been created to be people of both gratitude and lamentation. The gratitude keeps us from burning everything down that he has given us. And that lamentation keeps us from being overly satisfied with what we have. So that we would, if we were overly satisfied with what we have, we would cut off all kind of yearning for new and more and so on and so forth.

21 · Signals conclusion of the main teaching by returning to the opening metaphor of 'squirrel brain consciousness' and framing what has been covered as 'the first article' of a broader set of reflections

So that's in maybe, I guess you could say like the first article of this magazine I would entitle the. The Squirrel Brain of Chris is just this idea of like, we need to figure out how to consistently identify with both insider and outsider status.

22 · Issues the diagnostic warning as practical spiritual discernment: anyone who urges exclusive identification with either insider or outsider status is conducting spiritual warfare against you

And if you ever find someone who's making a particular play for you to get identified in one or the other. It's probably kind of like a spiritual psyop.

23 · Applies the diagnostic to contemporary American politics, specifically the reactionary right's appeal to heritage and rootedness

I'm not quite done talking about this. One last thing on this is the move now on the reactionary rite is to identify with sort of heritage Americans and sort of remind Americans like me that we have a unique birthright in this country and that that's worth protecting and so on and so forth. And I would say absolutely that's true. I was pleasantly surprised with JD Vance's speech where he mentioned that America is not merely a proposition, but it is also a people. And that's. He's. He's encoding a bunch of political thought there, and I was surprised that he did that. So I don't love Vance. I think he's mostly. I don't think he's a very skilled politician. I think he's a bit of a. Bit of a charisma sinkhole, for lack of a better term. But one thing I did appreciate was his recognition of this broader idea that was sort of like teaching Americans to be grateful for their past and their rootedness in the country. I think that's a good thing.

24 · Warns against the reactionary over-correction: the corrective to revolutionary victimhood (gratitude for heritage) can become its own error if it produces idolatrous protection of the status quo

But what you'll wind up with if you're not careful is you'll wind up with people who are very foolishly protecting that which they have without understanding that what they have is incomplete and needs to be added to. That's not really an argument for immigration. Don't really have an argument for immigration. It's not what I'm trying to say. Simply talking about the idea of over identifying with one or the other.

25 · Signals the end of this particular reflection in the informal podcast format

Okay.

Where this fits

Recent preaching context

The three sermons immediately preceding this one in the preaching schedule.

Jul 22, 2024

The Narcissism of Sin

True repentance from sin requires recognizing that all sin is narcissistic self-exaltation that harms others, and it demands genuine humility before God, who stands as the avenger of those we've hurt but who, unlike us, responds to our brokenness not with cruelty but with compassionate restoration.

Jul 25, 2024

How to Hate Your Sin

You learn to hate sin by cultivating love for God through meditation on the cross, which is the only motivation sufficient to kill sins resistant to self-preservation and love for others.

Jul 28, 2024

The Lord is a Man of War

God allows us to face seemingly unconquerable trials so that we might see his character as a man of war who delivers the humble and destroys the proud — truths that can only be learned in the trenches.

Exodus 13:1-15:27

August 1 · This sermon

Insider & Outsider Status. AKA: How to Trick a Feminist

We must maintain dual identification with both our insider privileges and outsider disadvantages, for over-identifying with either produces spiritual disaster—revolutionary destruction when we fixate on victimhood, or idolatrous hoarding when we fixate on possession.

Take it further

Discuss · apply · pray

Small groups

6 discussion questions

Chris described the insider/outsider duality as a feature of human existence, not a bug—something God designed into the structure of reality…

Daily readings

5-day reading plan

This week we meditate on the divinely designed tension between insider and outsider status—a structure God ordained to produce both gratitude and holy dissatisfaction, protecting us from the twin sins of revolutionary destruction and idolatrous hoarding.

Prayer

A Prayer for Gratitude and Holy Disquiet

Father, we come before you in awe of your sovereign design. You have crafted us to occupy both insider and outsider positions simultaneously…

Family table

Birthright & Blessing

This prompt invites your family to think about what they already have (their 'birthright') versus what they wish they had, and how both matt…

Couples

Gratitude and Holy Discontent

What insider blessings did the sermon help you recognize that you've been taking for granted, and what outsider longings did it surface that…

Memorize

Genesis 3:1-6

This passage supplies the archetypal pattern of spiritual deception that the sermon identifies as operative in modern ideologies: the serpent tricks Eve by directing her attention exclusively to what has been withheld rather than what has been given, producing the fatal error of over-identifying with outsider status. The sermon explicitly warns that 'you will be tricked as Eve was tricked if you fail to properly evaluate what you have been given against what has been withheld from you,' making this the foundational diagnostic for detecting satanic psychological warfare in any era.

Memory verse this week

Genesis 3:1-6

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, 'Did God actually say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?' And the woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.' But the serpent said to the woman, 'You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.' So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

Why this verse: This passage supplies the archetypal pattern of spiritual deception that the sermon identifies as operative in modern ideologies: the serpent tricks Eve by directing her attention exclusively to what has been withheld rather than what has been given, producing the fatal error of over-identifying with outsider status. The sermon explicitly warns that 'you will be tricked as Eve was tricked if you fail to properly evaluate what you have been given against what has been withheld from you,' making this the foundational diagnostic for detecting satanic psychological warfare in any era.

Draft · pending review

Small-group discussion

6 questions for your group this week

Chris described the insider/outsider duality as a feature of human existence, not a bug—something God designed into the structure of reality itself. What concrete examples from your own life illustrate this dual status? Where do you experience both privilege and limitation simultaneously?

→ How do you typically respond when you're in the outsider position versus the insider position? Do you notice a pattern in which one you're more inclined to fixate on?
The sermon suggested that ideologies can trick us into over-identifying with one status while ignoring the other. What would it look like practically—in how you speak, think, and act—if you were catechized exclusively into victimhood consciousness? What would you lose sight of?
Chris referenced Esau selling his birthright (Genesis 25:29-34) as a pattern for detecting when we're being spiritually manipulated. What made Esau vulnerable to that trade in that moment, and how does his error illuminate the danger the sermon warns against?

Genesis 25:29-34; Hebrews 12:16-17

→ Can you think of a time when you or someone you know nearly 'sold' something valuable because of fixation on an immediate want or grievance?
The rich young ruler (Matthew 19:16-22) represents the opposite pathology—over-identifying with insider status and becoming unwilling to risk what he had. What made him unable to hear Jesus's call? What was he protecting, and at what cost?

Matthew 19:16-22

→ How does his error speak to people (or churches) who resist change and reform because they're afraid of losing inherited blessings?
According to the sermon, we're designed to live in both gratitude (for what we have been given) and lamentation (for what remains to be accomplished). How does the gospel of Christ actually enable this dual posture? What does Christ accomplish that frees us to hold both at once?
Chris warned that anyone urging you to identify exclusively with either insider or outsider status is conducting 'spiritual psyop'—satanic psychological warfare. This week, where are you most tempted to abandon gratitude or abandon holy dissatisfaction? What would it look like to resist that temptation by embracing both?

→ How might your small group help you hold this balance when you're pulled toward one extreme?

Draft · pending review

Daily readings · Monday–Friday

5-day reading plan

Monday Genesis 3:1-6

Eve possessed the garden—insider privilege beyond measure—yet the serpent's deception centered her identity on the *one tree* she lacked, reframing abundance as deprivation. We inhabit the same trap whenever ideologies train us to obsess over exclusions while forgetting the immeasurable inheritance already in our hands. The question before us each day is whether we will evaluate our condition with Eve's fatal blindness or with eyes opened to both gift and longing.

Tuesday Genesis 25:29-34

Esau, famished and fixated on immediate deprivation, sold his birthright for a bowl of stew—the archetypal pattern of mistaking outsider status for the whole of one's identity. His hunger was real, his disadvantage genuine in that moment; but his failure to honor what he *possessed* (the covenant blessing) while addressing what he *lacked* (immediate food) cost him everything. When any ideology—whether framed around gender, race, or circumstance—teaches us to see ourselves primarily through our exclusions, we become Esau, willing to destroy our inheritance to escape temporary hunger.

Wednesday Matthew 19:16-22

The rich young ruler possessed insider advantage that should have produced gratitude and generosity, yet his security calcified into fear; he could not release what he held to pursue what remained undone. His insider status became a prison, not a platform for kingdom work. We see in him that gratitude without disquietude hardens into possession-guarding, and the man walks away from the very transformation his soul craved because he could not bear to be, temporarily, an outsider to his wealth.

Thursday Hebrews 12:16-17

The writer names Esau's profanity—his willingness to despise his birthright—as the defining sin, not his hunger or disadvantage. When ideologies train us to organize our entire self-understanding around exclusion, we despise what we possess and sell it for a momentary solution to what we lack. The tragedy is not that Esau felt hungry, but that hunger became the totalizing lens through which he evaluated his life, blinding him to covenant blessing and making him a seller of his own future.

Friday Mark 10:17-22

Jesus invites the rich young ruler not to lose everything, but to hold everything loosely enough to follow—a posture that honors both his insider privilege (which Jesus does not mock) and his outsider hunger for transformation (which Jesus recognizes). The call is not to destroy what we have but to live with both thanksgiving for our inheritance and holy restlessness about what remains to be accomplished, in our lives and in God's kingdom. This dual posture, maintained until glorification, is the narrow way that avoids both revolutionary devastation and idolatrous stagnation.

Draft · pending review

Pray together this week

A Prayer for Gratitude and Holy Disquiet

Father, we come before you in awe of your sovereign design. You have crafted us to occupy both insider and outsider positions simultaneously—to know the security of what we possess and the longing of what remains unfulfilled. We thank you that this dual status is not a flaw in your creation but a feature of your wisdom, meant to produce in us both gratitude and legitimate desire for what is yet to come.

We confess that we are easily seduced into the lie that one status matters more than the other. Some of us have been trained to see our outsider disadvantages so clearly that we forget the immeasurable privileges we enjoy; others of us clutch so tightly to what we have been given that we refuse the holy disquiet that calls us to build and accomplish. Like Eve in the garden, we are tricked into evaluating what has been withheld against what we possess, and we choose destruction over gratitude. Forgive us when we become revolutionaries who burn down our own inheritance, or hoarders who bury what you have entrusted to us.

We receive afresh the gospel truth that Christ himself knew both the security of the Father's love and the longing of unfulfilled purpose until his work was complete (Hebrews 12:2). In him, we are freed from the satanic psyop that demands we choose between thanksgiving and lamentation, between honoring what we have inherited and building upon it. His finished work secures us so that we need not fear either the loss of our blessings or the risk of pursuing what remains.

Grant us, we pray, the grace to live as people of both gratitude and holy disquiet—to celebrate the heritage we have been given while refusing idolatrous protection of it, to acknowledge our legitimate grievances while recognizing the majority of our lives lived in privilege and blessing. Free us from ideologies that would make us slaves to either insider or outsider identity. Give us imagination to see what must be reformed and humility to honor what must be preserved. Until we see you face to face and all longing ceases, teach us to live in the tension of your design, gratefully and faithfully.

To your name alone be the glory.

Draft · pending review

Sunday-evening family table

Birthright & Blessing

For the parent

This prompt invites your family to think about what they already have (their 'birthright') versus what they wish they had, and how both matter. The goal is to help them see that complaining about what's missing can sometimes make us forget to be grateful for what we've been given—and that's a trap worth avoiding.

Think of something you have—a talent, a family member, a privilege, something good in your life. Now think of something you wish you had or wish was different. How do you feel about what you have when you're focused on what you're missing? What happens if you remember to be thankful for what you have first?

works for ages 8+

Draft · pending review

Couples · three questions over coffee

Gratitude and Holy Discontent

What insider blessings did the sermon help you recognize that you've been taking for granted, and what outsider longings did it surface that deserve your honest attention?
Where might we as a couple be vulnerable to the trap of identifying only with what we lack, or conversely, clinging so tightly to what we have that we resist God's call to build something new together?
How can we pray for each other this week to live with both deep gratitude for our inheritance and honest lamentation for what remains incomplete—refusing both the revolutionary's despair and the hoarder's fear?

Draft · pending review

Where this was preached

About the church

Providence Community Church

Lenexa, KS
Sundays · 10:00 AM
About us · What we believe

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# Providence Community Church

A church preaching expository sermons through the books of the Bible.

## Sermons
- [The Narcissism of Sin (2024-07-22)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2024/07/the-narcissism-of-sin)
- [How to Hate Your Sin (2024-07-25)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2024/07/how-to-hate-your-sin)
- [The Lord is a Man of War (Exodus 13:1-15:27, 2024-07-28)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2024/07/the-lord-is-a-man-of-war)
- [Insider & Outsider Status. AKA: How to Trick a Feminist (2024-08-01)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2024/08/insider-outsider-status-aka-how-to-trick-a-feminist)

## About
- [About the church](/about)
- [Plan a visit](/visit)

The page itself ships with Schema.org Article + Church markup (with real geo coordinates), Open Graph + Twitter cards for share previews, and a canonical URL. Transcripts are server-rendered HTML — no JS dependency for the readable body.