Conduit Living with Guest Speaker Pastor Per Nilsen

What if the reason faith feels dry is not because you need more input, but because nothing is flowing out? We sit with Jesus’ words in John 7:38–39, where he promises that rivers of living water will flow from the heart of every believer, and we take that promise seriously as a blueprint for Christian purpose, meaning, and calling through the Holy Spirit.

We share personal stories that make this real, from a hard-earned lesson in recovery to the unexpected way serving others reshapes the soul. Along the way, we connect Ecclesiastes and Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” to a modern problem many of us feel every day: trying to build a meaningful life through achievement, comfort, and control. The through-line is clear: meaning grows when we stop treating God’s grace like it is scarce and start living like God is abundantly faithful.

We also walk through 1 Peter 4 and the connection between spiritual gifts and grace, showing how hospitality, teaching, listening, leadership, administration, generosity, and practical help are not small things. They are grace in motion, and every believer has a role that matters. We contrast a container mentality (I can’t give until I’m full) with a conduit mentality (stay connected to the source and let grace move), and we name the “caps” that block flow: fear, insecurity, scarcity thinking, and self-imposed limits.

If you want practical next steps, we leave you with three: ask God to renew your mind, take off the cap, and step out in faith even when you feel vulnerable. Subscribe for more conversations like this, share the episode with a friend who feels stuck, and leave a review so more people can find it.

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Transcript

Welcome And Partnership Story

SPEAKER_00 0:02

All right. Good morning, everyone. It's so good to be with you today. Thank you very much, Ben. It's uh just a great opportunity to share God's word with you today. Um I am here on behalf of the Masters Institute, a seminary that you have been connected to with or without knowing it, since about 2009, maybe a little bit before, when you housed a couple of interns from the Masters Institute here. You've also had a couple of students that have participated at the Masters Institute. Um, through that whole series of events, I've come to know Pastor Ryan really well. We get to go together on a regular basis at Starbucks, and we talk about theology and life and hunting and fishing and all of those things that are important to us Minnesotans. And it's just been a great partnership and a great friendship. I really, really love your senior pastor. And I'm glad you're giving him the opportunity to get away and encounter God in a whole new way, meet the spirit in a whole new way. And it's going to be really fun to see what the Lord has blessed him with during this sabbatical time. But on behalf of the Masters Institute, I want to thank you for your investment in the Masters Institute over these many years, prayer investment, financial investment, and student investment. So, on behalf of all the students, staff, professors, everyone connected to MI, thank you, thank you, thank you. The Masters Institute has a really, really clear mission statement to equip the heart, head, and hands of pastors and leaders for the church to continue the ministry of Jesus empowered by the Holy Spirit. And that mission statement intersects in a profound way with the vision and the engagement of the passage of scripture that was read just a little bit ago. And I'd like to read it for you again because that's going to be the central text that I preach from today. John 7, verses 38 and 39. As the scripture has said, out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water. Now he said this about the spirit, which believers in him were to receive, for as yet there was no spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified. So let me just ask the question how many of you are believers in Jesus? Say, Amen. Amen. This passage is for you. It is for you. There's no escaping it. Jesus is speaking to you. He says, Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water. And if you're here today and you're not a believer, let me just encourage you to listen. Maybe you're wrestling with questions of purpose and meaning, and we're going to see today how this particular passage informs our understanding of purpose and meaning and the desire that God has for your life to live it to the full. God wants to pour his grace on you. God wants you to live in the fullness of the life that He can give. So if you're here today and you're a believer, it's for you. If

Jesus Promises Living Water

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you're here today and a non-believer, just listen and let these words soak into your heart. So since many of you don't know me, let me just give you a little glimpse of my family. This is my beautiful family. On your left-hand side is my son Christian. Next to him is his wife Annie, and they have a daughter named Sayla that my wife is holding. My wife is in the center, right next to me. Her name is Mary. Mary and I met when she was 15 and I was 17, and we've been hanging out, doing life together ever since. 40 plus years of marriage, dated for eight years, and she's just the absolute love of my life. On your right hand side is my son Bjorn and his wife Rachel. And I am holding their son Saint. And just a couple of months ago, um, we had an addition to the family, and this is little Finlay. Take a look at little Finley. Isn't she so cute? Yeah. And that is the daughter of my son Christian and his wife Annie. And let me just do a little side note here. Aren't grandkids the greatest things in the world? I mean, I mean, they're just they're just awesome. They allow you to be a kid in a way that you haven't been able to be for years. And I mean, when was the last time you could be in the midst of Target going, and everybody around you thought it was cool. I mean, everybody around you thought it was the thing that I love about it too is that it allows you to get back at your kids who are now parents. Yep. You keep their kid up late and you feed them ice cream before they go to bed, and you do all of those things just to give them that little bit of. But grandkids do something else. Um, they cause you to think about life differently. And they cause you to think about this sense of purpose and and meaning in life a whole lot differently because now you're passing things on to another generation. The question of purpose and meaning is one of those questions that has perplexed people from the beginning of time. And in fact, most philosophers would state that the question of purpose and meaning is the question that is most important in any given individual's life. It's it's even more important uh than are the walleyes biting on the lax? It's more important than that. It's more important than will the Vikings win the Super Bowl this year. It's more, it's more important than that, for sure. It's a deep and profound question. And over the years, every single one of us has explored that question in multiple ways through multiple sets of lenses. My wife was going through some pictures a few weeks ago and found some pictures of me at various stages of my life. And um I'm gonna just throw a few of them up here on the screen for you so that you can see some of my struggle

Family, Grandkids, And New Purpose

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with purpose and meaning. Here's number one. I'm 17 years old and I'm an addict. Shortly after this, I found myself in the basement of a drug treatment center in St. Paul, Minnesota, and met Jesus in a profound way in that treatment center. About a year later, I got cleaned up, and by God's grace, I've been sober ever since, 46 and a half years. It's a remarkable thing. It's a remarkable thing to be exploring purpose and meaning through drugs and alcohol. Not remarkable in a good way at all. Remarkable in a really detrimental way. With that Minnesota Dalton Teen Challenge, those are the people I deal with now each and every day who are struggling with that sense of purpose and meaning, what it actually means to have life in front of them, abundant life, eternal life in front of them. The next uh set of pictures came about six years apart. And um, the first one is when I was in the United States Air Force in flight school. Um, nice high, tight haircut. Um puked my way out of flight school by chance. My inner ear couldn't take it and put me up in those planes and started spinning me around, and and I just couldn't couldn't do it. And and so I left flight school and went into the seminary, and and this is what came out. Um, a guy with, you know, business in front and party in the back. I mean, you're laughing at me, but you all got that picture, don't you? That one that you never want to show anybody. Um I was looking at purpose and meaning in life in a in a whole different way. Whole different way. Wrestling with big picture questions. Um, what does it mean for me to actually engage this calling that God has put in my life? What does it mean for me to put one foot in front of the other to live out this purposeful calling? This is the question of meaning and purpose that every single one of us encounters. Every one of us encounters. It's even a more important question when you weave it together with faith in Jesus Christ, because faith in Jesus Christ says something about your purpose, says something about meaning in life. It says a whole lot about your sense of calling in life. So, what I want to do today is I I want to explore this sense of calling, which exists at the intersection of your identity and your activity. I want to explore this sense of calling, this intersection of identity and activity through this statement. And the statement is this that a Christian's calling is to be a conduit of living water, not a container of living water. We're called to be a conduit, not a container. Let me just unpack that a little further by going back to the question and meaning. One of the things that the Bible does is that it explores this question of meaning and purpose in some really profound ways. And one of the ways that it explores it is through the lens of the wisest person in all of humanity, except for Jesus, of course, and that is King Solomon. In the book of Ecclesiastes, he devotes an entire book to the question of meaning and purpose. And here's how he begins this book Ecclesiastes chapter 1, verse 2. It says, Meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless. Well, that's that's a great way to start a book, isn't it? I mean, think about that. He then goes on to explore all of the different aspects of life where people try to find meaning. And he and he looks at things like pleasure and wealth and and success and and even wisdom, and he determines that none of it can bring meaning. And then in chapter 12, he brings things down and he says this about where true meaning is found. Now, all has been heard. Here's the conclusion of the matter fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or either. In other words, a nonchalant approach to living doesn't cut it in the kingdom of God. God has a purpose for your life. God has meaning for your life that's a part of his kingdom.

From Addiction To A New Life

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Meaning really, really matters. It really mattered for Viktor Frankel, who is a survivor of the Holocaust and who determined in his book, Man Search for Meaning, that you could walk through the most difficult of circumstances if you held a sense of meaning or purpose in your heart. The significance of meaning of purpose comes into the modern day world in some really profound ways. One of them is through the work environment. For those of you who are business owners, you're gonna want to pay attention to this because this is the primary way that you can grow productivity in your company. The individuals who have a greater sense of purpose and meaning are more productive. And the primary way that individuals gain a greater sense of purpose and meaning in any given organization is not by success, not through more pay, not through climbing in the corporate ladder. It is being in an environment where they're encouraged to serve other people, where they're encouraged to sacrifice something for the larger corporation. In other words, if you want to amp up meaning at work and you want to amp up productivity at work, you encourage people to give of themselves. You encourage people to serve and you exemplify that service in your own life. There's a beautiful series of passages in 1 Peter 4 that display this principle through correlating God's grace to the gifts that we have, that we get to share with the world, with our talents, with our abilities. And this section of 1 Peter really builds a framework that connects our identity as children of God to our activity as workers in the kingdom of God. You gotta remember, the intersection of identity and activity is where we find our calling and ultimately our sense of purpose and meaning. And the passage itself reminds us that everyone, every one of you, every one of you has a purpose in God's kingdom. Every single one of you has a profound purpose, a purpose that only you can fulfill. God has given you his grace to be used in his kingdom. He's blessed you with gifts and in arts and in the ability to listen and to love to teach and a passion for administration and for some the ability to organize and clean things. When it comes to mobilizing your gifts in the area of hunger and homes and hospitality, every one of them and every one of you is needed in God's kingdom. There's a role in God's kingdom that only you can fulfill. Only you can fulfill it. You are indispensable in the kingdom of God. First Peter 4 7 says this the end of all things is near. Therefore be clear-minded and self-controlled so that you can pray. Above all, love each other deeply because love covers a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each one of you should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Christ Jesus. To him be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen. Let's come back to verse 10 for just a second. Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms. Let's just read that together. You'll find it on the screen. Let's read it together. Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully

Where Meaning Is Really Found

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administering God's grace in its various forms. Now turn to somebody next to you and say, That's me. I'm the one. That's me. I'm the one. Just say it to somebody next to you. Okay, now let's read this passage again with just a little adjustment, just a small little adjustment. Let's read it again. Ready? Let's read. Each one, that's me, should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms. There is something so cool about this passage that you can't see in the English language, but becomes readily apparent in the Greek language. It's the intersection between two words. And the two words are grace and gift. In the Greek language, the term for grace is katis. In the Greek language, the Greek term for gift is katismata, charismata. And karismata is where we get the word charismatic. It's also where we come to understand that these gifts that we're using is actually just an expression of God's grace in our lives. The charismata, the gift, is just God's grace getting worked out in us. It's God's grace being administered in its various forms. If you've been touched by God's grace, that means that there is a charismata that has been given to you. A gift to be used in God's kingdom for his purpose, for his glory, for his majesty. It's just a beautiful, beautiful thing. That intersection between those words. You see, a Christian is a conduit of God's grace, not just a container of God's grace. I'll never forget the night that this became really significant in my life. I was about a year, year and a half sober, and my sponsor John asked me to come to the recovery meeting a little bit early. I was in the basement of the Federated Church, basement of the old church, you know, those tile floors and a little bit musty. And I got there about a half an hour early, and I heard some rattling in the back, and I walked into the back room, and John was there. And John said, Hey, um, there's the coffee pot. Fill it up with water, um, take the filter and put it in, uh, add some coffee to it, and um, and then plug it in and get the coffee going for the night. And I said, John, what are we doing here? And he said, No, it's what are you doing here? You are gonna be making coffee for this group for the next year. And I was gonna go, what do you what do you mean, John? I've got things to do. And he said, I know. But here's the reality pair. You'll never stay sober unless you learn to serve. You know the hardest part of it all was now I was the one responsible for the bad coffee everybody had to drink. I mean, it was a profound lesson in what it meant for God's grace

Gifts That Carry God’s Grace

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to come to me and change my life from a drug addict to a follower of Jesus. And now came the calling to let his living water flow to me and flow through me out into the lives of other people. You see, serving is the outward expression of an internal transformation. It's the administration of God's grace in its various forms. And what's so beautiful about God's grace flowing to you from his abundance and then through you out into the world is that as it passes through you, it changes you. It takes away your misperceptions and your bitterness and all of that stuff that tries to cling to the human soul. It cleanses you and it refreshes you and gives you new perspective on life. It transforms you. Let's come back to the way Jesus talks about this from John 7, verses 38 and 39. Um, Jesus is in Jerusalem during a celebration called the Festival of Booth. And on the very last day of the festival of Booths, there was this enormous focus on the importance of water for the Israelite nation. And what the Israelites would remember was the gift of water that God gave to them while they were in the wilderness. And so people would pour water on the altars, they'd pour water on the steps of the temple, they would put their hands in water, they'd splash in water, all to remember the significant life-giving gift of water. And now Jesus is there with his disciples. And Jesus says this if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. And what in this moment, what Jesus is saying, just as God gave you water in the desert to sustain physical life, I am giving you life-giving water that will sustain your spiritual life. Then he goes on to say, Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water. Now he said this about the spirit which believers in him were to receive, for as yet there was no spirit because Jesus was not yet glorified. Now, please notice what Jesus doesn't say. It doesn't say, Out of the pastor's heart shall flow rivers of living water, out of the church council members' heart, out of the board member's heart, out of the educated person's heart, out of the individual who's always been doing leadership, out of the very successful person's heart. It doesn't say that at all. It says, out of the believer's heart. If you're a believer, say amen. You were a little more hesitant that time, weren't you? That's you. No excuses, no reasons that you can't. Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water. It's so important that you see yourself that way. That you are a conduit and not a container. And there's a big difference in mentality, like a huge difference in mentality. Here's, let me just sit in front of you. A container mentality says this I can't give unless I'm filled to the brim. And then people might get just a little bit of the overflow. That's that's what a container mentality says. Might get just a little bit of that that overflow. Honestly, what this does is that it it promotes a me first scarcity mindset mentality for us and for God. And and for many, this just taps into a massive consumer mindset that that is so prevalent in our culture today. On the other hand, a Conduit mentality says this: God's abundant. And my task is to stay connected to his source, to his supply. I'm literally a pipeline, and there's enough in that heavenly pipeline, that heavenly store to keep the living water flowing. When I give, God will replace. Meaning becomes found in selflessness. That's a big deal. That's a really big deal. Now, does this mean that I need to be giving all the time? No, I mean, every pipeline has to come offline every once in a while for maintenance. And so you got to do that from time to time. We still need to rest. We need to tend to our connection to the stores. We still need to clean out the pipeline from time to time. We're not God, we're human, nonetheless. The primary image for our life is that of being a conduit, not a container that holds things, a conduit where the living water of Christ flows freely to us and through us. There's another part of this message that is profound as well. Jesus doesn't say, out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water, and oh, by the way, it's completely your responsibility to make this happen. No, he says, the Holy Spirit comes alongside of you. The Holy Spirit works in your life. He said this about the Spirit which believers in him were to receive. They hadn't received the full Holy Spirit yet because Jesus had not been raised from the dead and ascended into heaven. When he was raised from the dead, he ascended into heaven. The Holy Spirit comes, and now the Holy Spirit is available for you and for me to live out this calling that God has given us to be a conduit. One more little thing about this image. The only difference between a conduit and a container is a cap. This is probably the most challenging one for me. And honestly, I love this pick because it reminds me that I create caps in my life. And I and I do it all the time. So you cap the end of a conduit, you have a container. So let me ask you this: how many here in this place have capped their life at some point, unnecessarily? Yeah. See a lot of hands. We all have. It's part of the journey of faith. We put these these caps over, and the caps might look like I'm not smart enough, I don't have the time, I don't have the resources. What will other people think? Insecurity, impatience, fear, a scarcity mentality. No, God can't really do that. There are a billion ways to make a container out of a conduit. But but let's think about the end result of making a container out

Conduit Mindset Versus Container Mindset

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of a conduit. Let's just think about that for a moment of just taking stuff in all the time and never pouring anything out. What happens when lakes just take in all the time and they never give out? They start to get a little swampy. They start to get a little musty. I've been to the Dead Sea in Israel on a number of different occasions, and that's one of the problems with the Dead Sea is that the River Jordan flows into the north end of the Dead Sea, but it has no outlets at the bottom, none whatsoever. And over time, the mineral deposits have built up in the Dead Sea to the point where you can literally do this. You can take a newspaper, and I, as a 195-pound person, can sit down in the water, and it is so buoyant that I will not sink, and I can read that newspaper. It's filled with minerals. There's all kinds of recreation around it. But there's nothing living in it. Zero. That's why they call it the Dead Sea. And, you know, I have to confess that I've done that from time to time in my life where I've just taken stuff in, been kind of this consumer, just drawing stuff in, but never really given much out. So what does that actually look like on a on a practical level? Well, it's the Christian who comes to worship to get fed, but then never ever feeds others. It's a Christian who's in seven different Bible studies but rarely shares faith with others. It's a Christian who holds their abundant resources so tightly because they don't believe in God's abundance. I mean, they really don't believe in God's abundance. There's no outward movement from that internal transformation. You can literally feed yourself to death. Christian is meant to be a conduit, not a container. So then what do we do? What do we do with all of this? Because honestly, when I think about it in my own life, it's pretty challenging. It's pretty challenging to live this conduit life that Christ has called me to. Where do we start? Three things I want to leave you with today. Number one, ask God to change your mindset. The Bible says that we're to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. And one of the places of transformation that many of us need is the movement from a scarcity mentality into an abundance mentality when it comes to God. An abundance mindset says that we have freely received of God's grace, and we're going to freely give. Whenever, wherever God asks us to do that. Secondly, take off the cap. Think about the self-imposed caps that you have placed in your life. And remember that the only difference between a conduit and a container is a cap. And this begins with prayer, asking God every single day, every single day to remove those caps, to remove those self-imposed limitations. The intersection of your identity and your activity is where you find your calling. In addition, we must remember that God, our Father, is also the King of the universe. We're not just invited into his family, we're invited to be participants in his kingdom. And that's a massive, massive gift. Number three, let me encourage all of you to step out in faith. None of this really goes anywhere without actually taking some risks of faith. Taking off the caps from your life can be really scary, especially those that are that are self-imposed. And to push through

Take Off The Cap And Step Out

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feeling vulnerable, remember, in God's eyes, you're not just vulnerable, you're valuable. You are absolutely valuable for his kingdom and for his purpose. You're so valuable that God sent his son Jesus to give his life for you. The Bible even says this: that even while we were still sinners, Jesus died for us. Christ died for us. You have valuable gifts for the kingdom of God. You're a conduit, not a container. Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water. Christians are conduits, not containers. And the greatest meaning comes when our lives are poured out for others, when they reflect the self-sacrificial giving that Jesus showed through his life and death, and when we live our calling at the intersection of our identity and our activity, so that the harvest might be plentiful. Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water. If you're a believer, say amen. Let's pray, shall we? Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for the opportunity to worship you today. Um, I pray, Heavenly Father, that you would come by the power of your Holy Spirit to transform the minds of those stuck in a scarcity mentality and remind them that you are a God of abundance. I pray, Lord, that you would come to those who have self-imposed caps in their life and challenge them to step out in faith and to remove those caps so that your living water can flow. And as your living water flows, Lord, transform our lives, change our heart, refresh our spirits, and do that same thing for the world around us that is parched and desperate for your gracious word. We pray it all in Jesus' name and everyone said, Amen. Thank you.