Plays On Word Radio

Ep 147: Passing The Buck To God

• Pastor/ Artist Fred Kenney Jr. • Season 3 • Episode 147

Share episode

Send us a text

"Do you think the term “Pass the Buck” is negative? Passing the buck to God isn’t evasion—it’s alignment. Today we'll look at this."

We trace Paul’s journey from Stephen’s stoning to Damascus, and the quiet courage of Ananias who walked toward danger and found a brother. We share tour updates, creative hurdles, and why passing the buck to God frees our words and strengthens our witness.

• Passing the buck to God as a posture of witness
• 'CHRISTMAS JOE' sprint tour updates and prayer request
• Preview of the Paul play from dungeon to testimony
• Stephen’s martyrdom and Saul’s zeal
• Damascus light, scales, and conversion
• Ananias’ obedience and “Brother Saul”
• Sincerity versus truth and doctrinal clarity
• Production challenges, studio setup, and next steps

To find out more, check out our website at playsonword.org

Plays On Word Newsletter Sign Up: https://playsonword.dm.networkforgood.com/forms/newsletter-sign-up
Does any of today's podcast resonate with you? Let us know here: https://playsonword.dm.networkforgood.com/forms/podcast-reviews
To Support Plays On Word Radio & Plays On Word Theater, please visit: https://playsonword.networkforgood
The Plays on Word Theater team is always setting up new performance dates! If you want us to visit your church/venue/community, please reach out with your inquiries here: https://playsonword.dm.networkforgood.com/forms/event-submission-form

Plays On Word website
Plays On Word YouTube
Plays On Word Facebook
Plays On Word Instagram
Email us: team@playsonword.org

SPEAKER_01:

Lord, you know you're not listening to the mess. Hold up, wait a minute. Lord, not so. Oh man, like that dude, that guy, he's put your people to death. We heard about him. He's no good. And the Lord told Ananias, listen, he's my chosen history. Go into what I say. And Ananias is it's amazing. He's obedient. He's like Alright, okay. Now how many of us would be obedient like that?

SPEAKER_00:

Hello, and welcome to Plays on Word Radio, where we discuss, analyze, work, and play on the Word of God. Thank you for joining us on this experience today. Let's join Pastor Teddy Let's Make, also known as Fred David Kenney Jr., the founder of Plays on Word Theater, as he does a deep dive into the Word of God.

SPEAKER_01:

Amen. Amen. Well, welcome to all you listening to Plays on Word Radio. My name is Fred David Kenny Jr., otherwise known as Teddy. Pastor Teddy, they call me. Or some people call me Past Duck. But I do take responsibility for things. But the Past the Buck term. Well, actually, let me not get too ahead of myself. Thank you, Katie Kenny and Josh Taylor, for that great intro. Now, back to Pastor Buck, back to our regularly scheduled program. Past the buck is a term that one time I was I was bringing the word on a Sunday morning. Oh man, wow. Good grief. Almost 20 years ago. And it was uh at Rev the Reverend Gradsell's First Baptist Church in Manisquan, New Jersey. Of course, Reverend Gradsell doesn't speak like that, but that's just my term of endearment for him. The Reverend Gradsell. Um, and I was bringing a word there, and ah man, I was talking about the the Lord and how to let him live through us. And when we give up trying to control everything in our in our lives, and we give up striving and put the Lord in charge, we basically can pass the buck to him. You know what I mean? We pass the buck to him. It's it listen, it the Lord's in charge. I'm not in charge. The Lord's the one who's running the show. I'm just an obedient servant here. Don't be mad at me. And it also applies to when you share the gospel. You know, hey, don't be mad at me. Don't be listen. Listen. If Jesus says he's the listen, check this out. If Jesus says he's the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father but through him. Don't be mad at me and call me some kind of um exclusivist bigot or narrow-minded Christian. Listen, don't be mad at me. I didn't say it. He's the one who said it. There's pass the buck right there. And actually, you're much better off by passing the buck. Because you're not taking ownership for it. Because you didn't say it. The Lord is the one who said it. They're gonna have to deal with it. If you said it, it's whatever. What kind of authority do you have? We're dust. We're like we're like grass, man. That's that's uh growing one day and thrown in the fire the next. But the Lord is the rock, he does not move, he does not change, he's the creator, and everyone will stand before him. There you go. That's why it's so much better to pass the bug. Anyway, um I was I was given my doing the sermon, and two of my dear brothers were present at that. Um let's see, it was uh Jim McCombs, was an assistant pastor at Fellowship Chapel at the time. And I don't know how he was playing hooky, he might have been playing hooky from Fellowship Chapel. And Billy Doolittle, I believe, was an elder at the time, our beloved Billy Doolittle. Yeah, and he does a lot, believe me. And he had the best hair out of anybody, man. When I first met him, I said, Wow, man, you look like like Bill Clinton with your haircut like there. I didn't realize that was really an insult, but I wasn't trying to insult him, I was trying to compliment him. Anyway, he still has the best hair out of anybody I know. Anyway, this whole past the buck thing, they're sitting there, and sometimes when I'm doing a play or when I'm doing a sermon. Hmm, do I blame the Holy Ghost on this or not? Let's see. Uh it very well could be the Holy Spirit if it's good. Uh put it this way. Let's let's qualify it that way. If it's something good and edifying, it's of the Holy Spirit. If it's if it makes you cringe, it's of me. Um, so I'm doing the message. I'm giving the message and I'm I'm quoting scripture and just sharing stuff. And the Lord hit me, and I said, Well, let me not, let me not blame the Lord here. I'll let you make the decision. But I'm sitting there talking, and uh I start just describe myself. I said, Well, yeah, they call me Pastor Buck, you know, and we have two other pastors here with me, past the hat and past the plate. They're in charge of the offering. And I pointed to I pointed to Jim McCombs and Billy Doolittle. And they were like, What? What is going on here? Anyway, everybody got a kick out of it. It was kind of funny, but there is absolute truth in that concept of past pass the buck or pasta. You know, that's my my my dear brother, Pastor Harold Boyd. Harold B. He said, What's up, Pasta? Pasta? He doesn't put the E R on it. It's pasta with an A A-U-H, Pasta. So, Pasta Buck. Anyway. Alright, you guys got it? Alright, I don't mean to just go on and on and on and on about that. But I figured, hey, I know some of you are smiling right now. Some of you are nodding your head saying, yeah, and some of you are shaking your head saying, oh my goodness, this guy's nuts. It's all good. Hey, listen, it's um, we're gearing up, man. We are gearing up for our December Christmas Joe tour. The final the final sprint in 2025. And we will be doing some Christmas Joes down near our Southern Command here in North Carolina. Uh, we will be shooting up quickly for some uh a sprint tour. Please keep me in prayer on that. A sprint tour where we're just going from play to play to play to play to play. And the Christmas Joe is a little different than the other plays. And those of you have been listening to the podcast a long time know that every December we play the whole Christmas Joe play because it's it is playable because the play itself is about 30 minutes long. It's not super long, like our Pete and our Joe and our Dan, which is coming, and our Pauli, which is we've gotten a preview of Paul, but not the not the full length, Paul. Um yeah, so did I just did I just break news there? Maybe I broke some news. Anyway, um send me a text if you're interested in in what's going on with Paul. But there are some people in Albania and some people that go to Calvary Chapel Living Water in Tom's River, New Jersey, who have seen the condensed version of Paul, the Paul play. And um Phil Q, he he's a pastor over there, and he he came up to me afterwards. He said, that was incredible. He he was he was so blessed by uh just Paul. It starts out with Paul. Well, it starts out with Paul in prison, and he's writing his second letter to Timothy. And when he writes his second letter to Timothy, like at the end of the book of Acts, Paul is in Rome under house arrest. So he's got a roof, he's got food, you know, he's got people coming in and out. He's basically, you know, it's an apartment. He just is not supposed to go nowhere. If it was in today's world, he would have uh like an ankle bracelet on. That's all, you know, that that reports to the cops where he's going. But, you know, there was a certain amount of freedom he had. He could have his friends come over, hung out. When he wrote 2 Timothy, yo, man. Ugh. He was in the Mamertine prison. That was the dungeon. Oh my goodness, man. It was it was dark, if not pitch black. It was it was dank, if that's a word. It probably is. I need to check it out. I just feel like I should say dank. It was it was like damp. Water uh would often come in there. Um and there were real there were no sanitary facilities. Okay, okay, Teddy, that's good. We got it. We got the idea it was bad. Yeah, it was bad. It was bad, man. That was oof. So that's where he is when he's basically doing his letter for uh Timothy. Second Timothy. And you know, Paul is basically uh about to go be beheaded by Caesar, not personally by Caesar, but Caesar gives the order. And um, you know, Paul basically looks up towards the towards the guards, and the guards are the audience. And he starts talking to the audience. He's saying, you know, you're probably wondering how because he he actually I have him reciting as he's writing, you know, I have fought the the good fight, I have I've I've run the race, finished the race, now it's laid up for me, you know, the crown. And then he looks up and he says, Oh, you're probably wondering why I'm writing this this letter to Timothy again, you know. And then he says, you know, the have I told you my this the story how I ended up here? And he goes, starts telling his story, and he goes back starting when a young man is forced out by a mob of people, and then the people start picking up stones to throw at this young man, and they start taking off their cloaks, and and Saul is what his name was, holds on to the cloaks, and he's holding their cloaks. Some of you know where I'm going with this. The young man's name was Stephanus Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and he's tell Paul is telling this story about how he was holding the coats and he was cheering them on and absolutely giving his vote of consent for the killing of this person who dared to follow Christ. And before as the rocks are flying towards Stephen and hitting him, Stephen looks right at right at Paul, who is actually Saul looks right at him and looks right at him and then looks up to heaven and says, Lord Jesus, you know, don't hold this sin against them. And then the last stone hits him right in the in the head, boom, and he falls down to the ground dead. And then Saul starts telling this story how he was like just went on a rampage after these Christians, and then he's on his way to Damascus. He even said, I'm not gonna just settle for chasing after these Christians in here in um Jerusalem. Nah, I'm going all, I'm going, I'm going outside of the town. We're gonna exterminate the Christians. And he's on his way to Damascus, and all of a sudden, all of a sudden a light shines from heaven, and a voice says, Saul, Saul, why who is it, Lord? He says, He says, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. You know, Jesus basically says, Why do you persecute me? And Saul is like, What? And for three days, he's it he follows the instructions to Jesus. This I'm not giving you the play, the whole play right now, I'm just giving you a synopsis, like the Siskel and Ebert uh breakdown. Actually, it's much worse than Siskel and Ebert. They probably would do a much better. Some of you probably don't even know who Siskel and Ebert are. Okay. Wow. For you, for you 80s and 90s kids, um, the the people that would review movies, uh some of you old heads are nodding your head right now, like, yeah, yeah, I remember them guys. They never really got it right. They didn't like Star Wars, they didn't like this, they didn't like the, you know. Okay, okay. Yeah, they made some bad calls. I don't even think they liked E.T. Anyway, Cisco and Ebert, they would review movies. And they had a show. I guess the equivalent today would be you know, people on YouTube reviewing movies and Hollywood stuff. But back in the day, you didn't have YouTube, you didn't have a million different channels. You had a select few channels. A lot of times you had to turn the knob on the TV. Yeah, I'm kind of dating myself here. How did I become an old head? I don't know how that happened, but because I used to be a young boy. Young buck. Now I'm an old head. What a dirty trick that is. Anyway, Siskel and Ibert, the Siskel and Eber view, we're all over the place right now. The Siskel and Eber view of this this play is that Saul is um making his way and he goes to ends up going to Damascus at Jesus' direction, tells him where to go, and you know, whose house to go into, Straight Street, and then Ananias comes up and says, Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus. That's actually a funny part of the scene because Ananias is just minding his business. And the the Lord says, Ananias, and Ananias, here I am, Lord. And uh he's like, I uh I want you to go to Straight Street. There's a man named Saul there. He's praying, and he's seen a man named Ananias come and lay hands on him or receive his sight, the whole nine. And Ananias is like, hold up, wait a minute. Wait, that's from the Ebonics uh Bible, just for you guys listening. Hold up, wait a minute, Lord, not so. Oh man, that dude, that guy, he's put your people to death, and he's he's we heard about him, he's no good. And the Lord told Ananias, listen, he's my chosen instrument, man. Go and do what I said. And Ananias is it's amazing. He's obedient. He's like, well, all right, okay. Now, how many of us would be obedient like that? I mean, the last person in the world that you would ever expect to come to Christ. Right? A person that might have that probably has a, you know, that could have the authority to imprison you, separate you from your family. A person who has a reputation of holding the coats and cheering on the crowd as they stoned one of the first deacons in the church, Stephen. So he's got a reputation, man. That's good that's not localized to Jerusalem. It's it's regional. Man, that guy Saul. That young dude, Saul, man, he's not a guy to mess with. Keep on the lookout for him. And now Jesus says, I want you to go talk to him. What? Anyway, this guy Ananias, he's he does it. He does, he said, Brother Saul. He goes, he calls him brothers, isn't that something? He goes in there, brother Saul. Listen, man, the Lord Jesus, who appeared on the road to you, has instructed me to come to you. And he lays his hands on him, says, Receive your sight, receive the Holy Spirit. Yeah. And Saul, something like scales fall from his eyes. And this is after three days of him being completely silent, silent, not eating or drinking, nothing. I think he was in spiritual shock because he was sincere. This dude, this guy, Saul was not, he was not faking it, man. He with his whole heart thought he was doing right by God. He thought he was doing the right thing. He thought that he was, you know, he was in God's will by getting rid of these Christians. He thought he was doing right. And come to find out, he was sincere, but he was sincerely wrong. How many people today are sincerely wrong about God? They're sincere, but they're sincerely wrong. Yeah. I think some of you are thinking of some groups right now. You know, some groups that behead Christians thinking that they're doing right by God. There are, you know, some groups that want that want to blow up Christians. Blow them up because they think they're doing right by God. Saul thought he was doing right by God. There are some groups that, if you ask them, they would consider themselves um Christians, but they don't even realize that they're they're not doing right by God because they uh they have added to the scripture or interpreted the scripture without the Spirit of God, so therefore they've come up with a wrong interpretation of the scripture, and they're sowing seeds of confusion. They're sowing seeds of confusion in the body of Christ, confusing people. They have the wrong Jesus. The Mormons say that Jesus is a spirit brother of Lucifer. That's nonsense. Nonsense. Jehovah's Witnesses say that Jesus is uh is a created being. Nonsense, man. Stop that. He's before all things, man. He created all things. Through him all things came. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. Nothing was made that has been made. Stop that. Anyway, I don't mean to make this a rant about cults and groups that are off by degrees. But Paul being sincere, he was sincerely wrong. And he's in shock. I believe he's in shock. He's like, what wait, what, what, huh? And knowing how he knew the scripture, besides just being a Pharisee, like your run-of-the-mill Pharisee, if you started a verse, they could most likely finish it. They knew the scripture, man. They knew it. They knew the word of God. Many of them did not know the God of the Word, but they knew the Word of God. That's a danger. Also, knowledge puffs up. Okay, but love builds up, so, and God is love. So just because, you know, there are atheists that know the Word of God, but do not know the God of the Word. So Paul being in shock, I mean, I just imagine him going through Isaiah 53 and knowing Isaiah 50, excuse me, knowing Isaiah 53, going through it and going, wait a minute, wait a second. Psalm 2, uh, Psalm 22, and just all these different um passages. Deuteronomy 18, the prophet, uh, just all these different passages where it basically points directly to Christ. And now two plus two is equaling four to him, and he's like, wait a minute, wait a second, hold on. Oh my god, I've been wrong. I've been, oh my goodness, I've been persecuting the one who I was so zealously attempting to please. So this whole this whole broadcast today was not supposed to be about our Paulie play, but I am looking forward to that as well. With Dan, God will please pray for me. God willing, we'll be able to have this soon. Pauly and Dan um ready to rock and roll. And we'll have them be able, I really want to try to launch them this year. I mean, it it has been a little bit of a challenge for me to get equilibrium with uh with the church plant that we're doing down in North Carolina, and uh getting time. I like to when I work on the plays, I like to have a little bit of space where I can work on stuff. And my office is really not set up for that, in part because I still have boxes that I haven't unpacked from when we moved. So that's tough. I used to, for the plays for the Genesis Joe and Pete, I went down in my basement at my house in New Jersey and I had space. I could use the whole basement. I remember using the whole basement to work on these plays. Here, I mean, it's it's not the same. Uh, I do have space here, but there's boxes still. And I could use my garage, but there's guess what? There's boxes in there. I need to, I have to go through these boxes and unpack stuff that we haven't used in 10 years, five, ten years. Probably should just dump it. Uh, but I need to find a home for a lot of this stuff still, and then I'll have more room to really do the work that I need to do. As far as the songs and the music, I can get that done. My office is set up like a studio. So that's not a problem. The music, the songs, that's no big deal. Um doing the study. I do I still study the word of God, and I still go through that, and that's not a problem. It's set up like a study office slash uh recording studio, a mixing studio, not really recording. My drum kit wouldn't fit in here. Although it could fit in the garage if I got rid of some boxes. And I'm across from the garage, so it's I could just run a cable. I'm sure Katie would not be happy with a cable running from the garage to my office. Every time she's about to go out the house, she has to step over that cable so she doesn't trip. But where there's a wheel, there's a way we can make this happen. So please keep me in prayer on that that we'll be able to just, you know, get everything uh up to speed so that you guys can be blessed and we can bring the word of God to you with those new plays that are in the dugout. Is that the proper term? They're in the dugout, ready to come out. I I never never officially played baseball. I watched it. I used to follow the Yankees on uh WFAN back in the day. And uh I used to listen to them, the Yankees, and one of their sponsors was Nathan's Hot Dogs, man. And I I started eating Nathan's hot dogs just because of their commercials. I don't eat Nathan, I don't eat, I I try not to eat too many hot dogs anymore. I don't mess with that stuff, but once in a while, hey, it takes me back. Anyway, that's all I just wanted I just wanted to spend this morning with you, or if you're listening to this, whenever you're listening to it, just wanted to spend some time with you on that. Um next week we're gonna well we have something good for you next week. I'll leave it at that. Okay, but until until we meet again next week, God willing, if the creek doesn't rise and if the Lord tarries, right? The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

SPEAKER_00:

This program was made possible by the Playson Word family of supporters. To find out more, check out our website at playsonword.org.

Head Shot

Fred David Kenney, Jr.

Host