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when you subscribe at prolonlife.com/now. This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm
1:11
your host Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it. All right, guys, today we're going to be talking about
1:16
a sermon. Okay, so I'm kind of enjoying these. I get these sermons that will either be sent to me
1:20
or they kind of pop up in my feed in YouTube or something like that. And so when I went across
1:24
one that is like, you know, I think that is especially well put together, well thought out or something
1:30
like that, I would just want to go ahead and share those with you all. So this one was delivered by
1:34
Pastor Jeff Durbin. So if you don't know who that is, he is the teaching pastor and elder at Apologia
1:40
Church in Tempe, Arizona. So Apologia, some people say Apologia, but when Jeff says that he says
1:45
Apologia, so that's what we'll go with. He also has a radio program on KP XQ, which is called Apologia
1:50
Radio. And he has a podcast titled the same thing. That's actually how I found Jeff Durbin was because
1:55
somebody suggested his podcast to me. So this guy was in my Sunday night, jujitsu class, and he just
1:59
goes, man, with the stuff that you listen to and stuff that you like, I think you'd really dig this.
2:03
So I thought that that was really cool. And then I started to pick that up. So I actually mentioned
2:07
him in an earlier podcast of the one about Andy Stanley, whether or not he was a heretic because
2:11
I was not terribly a big fan of how Jeff Durbin was handling that situation and how he was being
2:17
critical of Andy Stanley. I thought I was a little bit unfair, but you know, you can't agree with
2:20
everybody. You can like somebody and not agree with everything they do. This guy's also a world
2:24
champion martial artist. I think he's I think he does karate. He's a fifth degree black belt,
2:29
which essentially means he can't do anything if you take him down. So there's my little jiu-jitsu
2:33
joke. Don't hate me karate people. Tau goes. But here's the thing is, he traveled all over the
2:38
world doing karate. So he was doing like these, you know, different demonstrations. He was part
2:42
of like the moral combat world tour. Like he did stuff while on television with Ninja Turtles
2:46
and in video games and all that kind of stuff. So he was a very accomplished guy. But while that
2:51
was all going on, he was a severe drug abuser. He was abusing drugs pretty much all the time.
2:57
And it almost killed him. He almost overdosed and died. So he overdosed, but he almost died.
3:01
And so during all this while this was going on, as the story goes with him, and I'll put a link
3:06
later to a story where you can actually hear him talk about it. But essentially, he prayed to God
3:11
to save him. You know, if there's a God out there, save me type of a thing. And that's exactly what
3:16
happened. You know, he didn't die. He didn't pass away. And he dedicated his entire life there after
3:21
to serving God. And so this is a guy who became a pastor, a very fiery pastor. He's done a lot
3:26
of public debates against atheism and things like that. And he's he's not been without his
3:30
controversy. He's kind of known as a little bit radical. In some ways, I don't know that radical
3:35
is really the most apropos way to describe him. But he's known for his constant fight for the unborn
3:41
and for reaching out to Mormons directly. Like if you go to their YouTube page, just apology
3:46
of studios or apology radio, I think it's apology of studios, their YouTube, like he's got stuff
3:51
where he's he's just going after the the Muslim or not Muslim, excuse me, the the Mormon community
3:55
talking to these people directly, trying to help them out because you know, a lot of people just
3:59
assume that Mormons and Christians believe the same thing. And in some ways they do it in some
4:03
very, very cornerstone ways they certainly do not. But you know, there's also been some controversy
4:09
over his street ministries that he's done at abortion clinics at abortion mills. And so he's
4:13
just the type of guy that he's just like, look, people are being murdered inside this building.
4:17
They're being dismembered. And I certainly believe that as well. And so he's not just going to sit
4:21
idly by and you know, put across in his front yard, you know, during the March for Life week or
4:26
something like that. And I'm not dogging on that. But he just goes about things a little bit of a
4:29
different way. So this sermon was delivered as a keynote address at the 2014 Ignite Conference.
4:35
So this is a conference for a lot of young people that are in ministry and, you know, a lot of
4:38
concerts and different things. And the subject matter he was given was he was asked to talk about
4:43
proclaiming the gospel. So yeah, pretty big subject matter, pretty important subject matter. But
4:48
that's what he was asked to talk about. So the YouTube title, so the title of this actual sermon
4:54
on YouTube is the sermon that shocked everyone. Unforgettable ending in all caps. And so it was
4:59
just kind of like, all right, that seems like a little bit hyperbolic. I don't know if this is
5:02
like a real thing that seems kind of clickbaity, a little a little bit like that. And so I was
5:07
skeptical whenever I was going to watch this sermon. But the thing about it is as of the recording of
5:12
this podcast, it has around 2.5 million views on YouTube. And it's a sermon. So first of all,
5:18
that grabbed my attention. But also, if you look at the other videos on their on their web page or
5:23
on their YouTube channel, you don't really have anything close to that. I think the one I saw that
5:28
had the second most had like 600,000 or 700,000 views. So this one just far exceeded the others.
5:34
And so the thing about this is whenever I go over these sermons, I don't want to solely your
5:40
experience by telling you anything upfront. I want you to watch it on your own first, it'd be like
5:44
imagine going to see a movie that you really, really wanted to see. And someone like sets up
5:48
every part of the plot for you, including some of the stuff at the end. That wouldn't really be
5:53
something you'd want to do. You want to get, you want to get into the story yourself and take
5:56
out of it what you want to. So I've put the link to this sermon in the show notes. So it's a YouTube
6:02
link. Or if you want to go and do it yourself, just literally type in the sermon that shocked
6:07
everyone, unforgettable ending. Okay. And it'll bring up Jeff Durbin with apology, a church,
6:12
and apology as studios. So I want you to go watch it, go watch it right now.
6:17
And then come back here, and I'll talk to you a little bit more about it. So ready, set, go.
6:23
All right. If you just watched the sermon, welcome back. Thanks for doing that. And if you haven't
6:28
watched it, what are you doing? Go watch it. Come on. I already told you how to do this. So here's the
6:31
thing. Let's go ahead and get into this sermon. So he opens it up as most sermons are opened up
6:36
with a prayer. But he said something really interesting during the intro prayer. And you may
6:40
miss it if you aren't paying attention. And to be honest, a lot of times when I listen to sermons,
6:43
I'll kind of skip past that intro prayer because I don't know, it just doesn't, it's just kind of
6:47
weird. But he says, I pray that we can repent of our indifference to the world. And I really thought
6:55
that that was a huge stage setter. You know, and I picked that up the second time I watched this,
7:00
not the first time, obviously, because I skipped around, but repent of our indifference to the world.
7:05
And then he starts really to hammer a lot of different points home. So I'm not going to give
7:09
you the full spark notes of this sermon, but I am going to go over some of the higher points
7:14
that I think you should have got out of it whenever you were listening to it, or whenever you were
7:18
watching it. And also I'm open to anything else that you glean from it. Make sure to leave us a
7:23
comment on any of our Facebook or Instagram posts or something like that. Send me an email info at
7:28
undaunted.life. I'd love to hear what you thought about it, but I'm going to go and launch in here.
7:32
So he starts a sermon off with Romans one eight. And this is Paul talking to the Christians here,
7:36
and this is Romans one eight. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you,
7:41
because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. And that's what he focused on the last part of
7:45
that statement, which is because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. And so the big question
7:51
that he asks here of the room at that time, and you know, he would ask us the same thing,
7:57
is what has happened to us? What has happened to us? And then he kind of goes a little bit further,
8:03
he's just like basically the church is irrelevant in culture in the United States. And I guess we
8:08
can say more from a macro view of the West, right? The West, the church is completely irrelevant when
8:12
you look at culture. And he just kind of begs the question there, which is, is the gospel now no
8:17
longer relevant? Have we become so progressive as a society that the gospel no longer, you know,
8:23
pings in anybody's mind? And here's the thing is, he talked about how the places in the world
8:29
right now where Christianity is exploding, is the places where there is the most persecution,
8:36
like the highest level of persecution possible. So you think about China, where it's booming
8:41
right now, you think about Sub-Saharan Africa, these are places where people are not just accepting
8:45
of Christianity, they're fairly militantly against it. Some as as a government, like they are against
8:51
the practice of this religion, but it's absolutely booming in these areas. And then he just talks
8:56
about again, how Christianity is just basically in retreat in the United States and in the West.
9:00
And we've talked about that a lot here on this podcast, you know, when I went over the the new
9:04
Matt Chandler book, take heart, it goes a lot into that about, Hey, you know, Christendom, we're
9:08
liking a post Christendom society. And you know, automatically, you might think of that as a negative,
9:13
but it doesn't necessarily have to be. Now then he kind of goes back into the first part of Roman.
9:18
So we talked about Romans one eight, but then he kind of starts going through versus one through
9:23
six. And so I'll read those to you here now. Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus called to be an
9:28
apostle set apart for the gospel of God and go and pause pause here. He made sure to really point
9:35
out that it was the good news of God, like gospel means good news. But he was basically talking about
9:40
how this is the gospel of God, like, and you can't just glaze over that. So I'll start over so this
9:45
flows. All right, Paul a servant of Christ Jesus called to be an apostle set apart for the gospel
9:50
of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets and the Holy scriptures concerning his
9:54
son, who was who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the son of God
9:59
in power according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead. Jesus Christ,
10:04
our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith
10:09
for the sake of his name along a name along all the nations, excuse me, including you who are
10:16
called to belong to Jesus Christ. Okay, so the thing about the gospel and he made this point
10:22
is we have a very weird sense of what the gospel is in modern Christianity and as modern culture.
10:27
And he makes sure to tell us that Christianity or specifically the gospel is not just good advice.
10:33
Like, it's not just a good suggestion. Like, it's not something that we should maybe just try out,
10:39
right? And so he talks a lot about how, you know, kids today in kind of a normal secular
10:44
educational system, we're being taught that we're descendants of fish, right?
10:50
Like, the entire universe is just time and chance acting on matter. He said that. And he also is
10:56
that, you know, we have the story of history on our side and we're sitting on it. So we have all
11:01
these silly things that were being taught in school, regardless of the gigantic gaps in the
11:06
fossil records or, you know, things that happened really outside of science where they couldn't
11:10
even look at it. But we're sitting on the keys to history and the keys to all of the future,
11:16
right? And we're just sitting on it. So he was really just lambasting us for our inability to
11:22
really have an impact here. And the thing that he said that I really liked here around the kind of
11:27
the first part of the sermon was, is that Jesus didn't come to make your life better. And to be
11:32
honest, like, that's, that's what I get from a lot from a lot of modern sermons that I've watched.
11:36
He's like, Oh, man, is Jesus like a genie? Like, he just kind of gives us all the cool things that
11:41
will just put us part of the in crowd. Like, and he made this statement and he made sure he
11:46
talked about immediately after, but that Jesus didn't come for social justice only, right?
11:51
Like he is the ultimate form of social justice, right? You know, we kind of live in this
11:55
era where social justice or SJW social justice warriors is kind of a negative thing. But like,
12:00
the ultimate social justice warrior is Jesus Christ, because he did it properly. He didn't
12:05
put on a stupid black mask and throw a Molotov cocktail through some window, right? That's not
12:09
justice. That's being an idiot. But the thing about Jesus is he came for social justice,
12:14
but he came to reconcile people to God. That's the only, like, that's the reason why he came here,
12:20
right? The gospel message always, and here's the important thing, always came with a call
12:27
for repentance by Jesus, because that's why he was here. He's here to reconcile people to God.
12:32
You can't do that if you don't repent and turn towards him. It just doesn't work that way.
12:37
And so the thing about it that I love how he pointed out about how we look at the gospel
12:42
is we think of the gospel as just something that we add to our current story, right? We've got the
12:47
normal story, but it's almost like this is the whipped cream topping of our moral,
12:51
relativist, dessert thing that we got going on. We just add a little bit of the gospel, you know,
12:56
but it's normally just the parts of the gospel that are easiest, easiest for us to do, right?
13:01
Easiest for us to just kind of work into what we're already doing. And he begs another question
13:06
here, as he's going through this, is does our typical model of evangelism even resemble what's
13:13
happening in the book of Acts? You know, he really hammered on Acts, and he's like, go read it.
13:18
You know, he's like, if you're going to go into ministry of any kind, you've got to read what's
13:21
going on in Acts, and then ask yourself, is the church that you're working for or wanting to work
13:26
for or just the church that you admire or the pastor you admire, is there type of evangelism
13:30
even resemble that? Are they even trying to do something that's in that area, right?
13:36
And I think for most of us, we can honestly say the answer is no, because the charge that was
13:41
becoming very prevalent against Christians during the time that the book of Acts was written,
13:46
and the time it was all being played out, is that, you know, they were Christians were filling
13:52
up Jerusalem with this teaching. You made sure to talk about that, filling up Jerusalem with
13:57
this teaching. I mean, just think about us and any questions us here. Are we doing that in our
14:01
communities? Just our communities don't even look at the macro city, right? But just in our
14:06
communities, in our neighborhood, in our network, right? Are we doing that? Are we filling up our
14:11
communities with the teaching, the teaching of the gospel? And then he goes even further and talks
14:16
a little bit more in Acts nine, and he talks about the conversion of Saul of Tarsus whenever he
14:21
became the apostle Paul, obviously, and he just talked about something that frankly, I had never
14:25
really got in my readings and study of this, but Paul immediately went to Damascus and began arguing
14:32
with Jews about the person of Jesus immediately after that he was, you know, changed. And after
14:37
Jesus became real to him, and after he accepted him and repented of his sin, like that's like the
14:42
first thing that he did. And as a result of his boldness, everyone wanted to kill him, right?
14:48
Think about it, you are going at the bedrock of people's reason for existing by challenging
14:53
their Judaic practices, right? But how many of us have faced that? Like how many of us have
14:58
literally been so unbelievably, I guess you could say in Cindy area or annoying or something like
15:05
that when it came to our proclamation, the gospel to where people wanted to kill us. Like I certainly
15:10
have never had something like that. I've had people probably want to kill me for other reasons,
15:14
but not because I was so annoying with the gospel and so persistent, you know what I mean?
15:18
And another thing that Durbin did here in the sermon is he challenged our typical model of
15:23
evangelism even further than he did earlier when I set that up. And he kind of came straight at
15:28
the thing where it's like, you know, a lot of us think that evangelism happens because, you know,
15:32
we have barbecues and we have fight nights. And you know, the thing about that is that's kind of
15:36
like our crux for what we do that, you know, we're going to create this environment that's going to
15:40
seem so cool, and that, you know, you're going to get invited into our click. And but only if you
15:45
accept this Jesus guy, which people are just going to desperately want to do. And, you know,
15:49
you kind of talked about how you could be someone's friend for years before you talk to him about
15:54
Jesus and how how backwards that is, how you can spend five to 10 years investing in somebody
15:59
before you even think to mention Jesus or hey, you should come to church with me. And he just
16:03
talked about how, you know, the barbecues and the fight nights, those are great, but those should
16:06
be a natural overflow of the things that we're already doing within community, right? And I've
16:12
heard of this a lot. And I think Matt Chandler was first person to point this out whenever I heard
16:15
it. And it was basically like, have you ever actually heard a story of someone coming to Jesus? So
16:21
when they're giving their testimony or however they describe that, where they were just like,
16:25
yeah, you know what, life was pretty good. But then I saw this group of people that just, man,
16:29
something was different about them. Like they just seemed a lot nicer. They seem to really care
16:34
about my family and they invited me to things. And then I just thought, gosh, this Jesus guy must
16:39
be real just because to be honest, again, I started going to church late in life, you know, I was
16:44
already in high school by that time. That's what I heard all the time. Like, you know, live it out
16:49
and people want to be like you, you know, when things go wrong, you know, be positive and be
16:54
chipper and wear a smile and all those different things. But at the end of the day, it was just
16:59
kind of like no one's ever been like, Hey, Kyle, or Hey, random person or Hey, you, you just seem
17:04
really happy. Where does that happiness come from? We don't do that. Like, that's kind of weird. Hey,
17:10
where's all your happiness come from? Have you ever even asked a question like that? So I thought
17:14
it was good that he pointed that out. And he also just kind of made a declaration that I
17:18
guess drew a line in the sand. And we're talking about how we're not sick. Like as a people, as
17:22
humanity, we're not sick, we're dead. And it's because of our sin, we're just dead. And again,
17:28
coming back to the gospel, the gospel is the only thing that can save us, right? And so we try to
17:33
fill it up with all these things. And of course, you know, I'm not going to basically elucidate all
17:36
these other different sermons that you've heard before, but we try to do all these man-made things
17:40
to be awesome and pleasing to God when it's just the gospel that we need, right? And he talked about
17:46
the story around the middle where the gospel is not something that you just try out. He talked
17:51
about this bumper sticker and all these things about how these people are just like, you know,
17:54
basically give Jesus a try. Like what a weird way to say that, right? Just imagine if you had
17:59
the cure for cancer and there's a five-year-old that has this particular form of cancer that you
18:04
have the antidote for them. And think about if you went up to that kid and their parents here,
18:09
you're just like, you know what? I think you should just give this a try. Like, obviously,
18:14
that's kind of a polite way of saying it. But no, no, what you need to say is this is going to save
18:18
you. You need to take this, right? Now, of course, they'd be crazy if they didn't take it, but it is
18:24
still their choice, right? So it was just kind of framing how we talk about the gospel and how
18:29
we present it a little bit better. Now, he kept going on and he talked about Romans in Romans 1 16.
18:35
So you've heard this, especially if you're a fan of the 1 1 6 click, and he really hammered this
18:40
home, right? And it was this, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for
18:45
salvation to everyone who believes, right? And he was just really talked about that a lot, just the
18:50
power of God for salvation, right? That's the gospel that the gospel is not just a story that
18:55
we hear on Easter. The gospel is not just a story that we skip over because we've read it 10 times
19:00
before, like it's the power of God for salvation. It's how we are reconciled to him. And then he
19:04
spends a lot of time here talking about kind of about mega churches. And I think this is really,
19:10
really important and shouldn't be lost on us. And again, I try to say all the time, I'm not
19:13
anti mega church, right? If you have a big church, that kind of speaks to maybe what's happening
19:17
inside the walls, but that doesn't necessarily mean that everything's going well. And everything's
19:21
that as healthy as it could be, right? And he made this declaration here that basically mega
19:26
churches, big churches, they will do everything they can to keep people there. And we know this
19:31
to be true. Even if you go to a mega church, right, you know this to be true. They will soften the
19:37
blow of certain messages just for the sake of numbers. They will not talk about certain important
19:43
topics because they know it'll [inaudible] people off. They won't go into important topics that, you know,
19:48
maybe weird to hear about. So like spiritual warfare or how we should think about transgenderism or,
19:53
you know, fundamentalist Islam, they won't go into those subjects because the next week they don't
19:57
want, you know, you know, 70% of the people to come, right? And the thing he talks about the most is
20:03
he talked about how Jesus won't soften anything. When Jesus was talking to people, and as the numbers
20:08
were growing and as his following was growing, he didn't soften anything. If anything, he became
20:13
more rigid, right? And so he specifically talked about this, about, you know, what's written and
20:19
recorded in Luke 14. And I'm going to read verses 25 through 33. So again, this is Luke 14 and verses
20:26
25 through 33. I'm going to read it in the ESV version if you want to follow along. Now, great
20:30
crowds accompanied him and he turned and said to them, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his
20:35
own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life,
20:40
he cannot meet, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me
20:46
cannot be my disciple. For which of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count
20:52
the cost, whether he has enough to complete it. Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is
20:57
not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying this man began to build and was not
21:03
able to finish. Or what king going out to encounter another king in war will not sit down first and
21:09
deliberate whether he is able with 10,000 to meet him who comes against him with 20,000. And if not,
21:16
when the others is yet to a great way off, he sends a delegation and ask for terms of peace.
21:22
So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
21:27
Okay, that's not the message of a guy who just wants to get all the followers keep coming,
21:34
right, to get them to keep donating money to keep donating time and volunteering. That's not the
21:38
message. Right. And then the phrase that Durban used in here was Jesus was the master of church
21:44
shrinkage. Right. So Jesus would not have been considered a great evangelist. Right. Just think
21:50
about it in terms of imagine a church that's growing, like that's almost bursting at the seams
21:55
and for the pastor to go up and say something like that. Like, if you love your wife, you can't,
22:00
like, you can't be my disciple. Like, if you put these people and these things that are important
22:05
above me, that's going to be something that's incredibly difficult for you to do in order to
22:09
follow me. Right. And the huge part of that is that if God loves us, and this is so important. So
22:15
if you've tuned me out, I want to make sure that I make this point abundantly clear, because I think
22:19
it was very well laid out by Durban, is that if God loves us just as we are, we hear that all the
22:25
time, just as we are, then why do we need Jesus? Right. Oh, you know, God, he just loves you how you
22:33
are. Come just as you are. Right. We've heard, we've heard that song in, in pews all over the planet.
22:38
Right. Come just as you are. Yes. Come to him as you are. Right. You don't need to do anything
22:42
before you get there. But if we ourselves as we are in this moment was good enough,
22:48
then we didn't need Jesus to begin with. And that's such an important distinction that Durban
22:53
makes here is that we had to have Jesus because just as we are was not going to be good enough,
22:59
not by a long shot. And he goes even further just talking about ministry in general and says,
23:04
basically, if you didn't come into this, this being Christianity, the evangelical side of Christianity,
23:11
then don't come. If you didn't come into this to die, then don't come. And it's an important
23:17
thing to think about. Again, if we go back to my book of man podcasts, it was one of the very,
23:22
very early podcasts where I went over that book, you know, I went into some of the stories about
23:26
these martyrs, these people that, you know, walked calmly to their deaths, some of them singing,
23:31
you know, singing songs in praise to Jesus, you know, on their way to being ripped apart by,
23:36
by bears or being split into by horses running in opposite directions or, or, you know, boiled in
23:41
and, and, you know, hot oil or, you know, buried alive, you know, all these things. And they went
23:47
there and they were okay because to them to die was gained, right? And I think that's so important
23:54
for us to think about is, you know, would we be willing to die for our beliefs? Like our very
23:59
specific set out beliefs as predicated in the gospel. And that lends itself to another question
24:04
that Jeff Durbin throughout there, which is, am I in love with comfort in being well received?
24:09
Which kind of goes back to everything that he's about, right? You know, is he going to stand
24:14
outside of an abortion clinic with a microphone that projects his voice to basically beg women
24:20
and men not to kill their children, right? Would he do those things if he was really care, like,
24:26
he really, really cared about being well received? Like you can't imagine that everyone that came
24:30
by and talked to him was really, really happy about what they did. In fact, they weren't at all.
24:35
I kind of, you know, talk about that a little bit more here in a second. But a lot of us,
24:39
we live for this comfort. We do. Like we want to be well received. We want to be well respected.
24:44
We want people to like us. We want to be invited to parties. But for the sake of the gospel,
24:49
should that be the focus? Should that be the thing that we're worried about? Like, are we in love
24:55
with comfort so much that we're not going to have that awkward conversation that could help save a
25:00
life or a soul, right? And the thing about it is, it's such an important distinction for us as we
25:08
begin to think about what it is that we're doing, right? As we move forward. Now, now, one of the
25:13
biggest things and I think the main reason why this sermon caught on so much is because there was,
25:18
like, an insane story about abortion. And this story starts around the 35 minute mark. So,
25:24
if you were, if you've lost track, you know, early on, stop listening to it, go ahead and fast
25:28
forward to the 35 minute mark and just, you just have to watch this part, okay? Because I could
25:34
talk about it here. But I know some of you have cheated. You've gotten 25 minutes into this
25:38
sermon. You're like, I'm going to, or into this podcast and you're going to be like, I'll listen
25:41
to sermon later. So I don't want to ruin anything for you because there's like, it would be major
25:45
spoiler alert territory. But just an incredible, incredible story about the sovereignty of God
25:53
in working through humans. It's just crazy. It's just awesome. And then he ends it very well. He
25:59
ends it by reading the lyrics to a song that a lot of us know, and it's Rise Up, O Men of God.
26:04
And so I'm going to go ahead and read those to you here. Rise up, O Men of God,
26:08
have done with lesser things. Give heart and mind and soul and strength to serve the King of Kings.
26:13
Rise up, O Men of God, the Kingdom Terry's long, bring in the day of brotherhood and end the night
26:19
of wrong. Rise up, O Men of God, the church for you, doth wait, her strength unequal to her task,
26:25
rise up and make her great. Lift high the cross of Christ, tread where his feet of
26:29
Tron, as brothers of the Son of Man, rise up, O Men of God. And then he went into his final sermon,
26:35
okay? So just a great way to end it, especially after the abortion story and kind of all the
26:39
stuff that happened there during that speech. But I want to point out a few things real quick
26:44
that I noticed during this sermon. So they're they're really, really kind of quick. But
26:47
the first is that he's a really good extemporaneous speaker, right? A lot of times we see
26:52
see people that are just not really talented speakers, but they're pastors, right? So they
26:58
maybe shouldn't be at the pulpit teaching, but it's just their role. And they're basically just
27:02
reading their notes the entire time. They're just they have to have their notes in front of them.
27:06
This guy just spoke, like, and you know, he had to have main points. And I seem to remember him
27:11
going back and looking just glancing as notes a few times, but really, really good extemporaneous
27:15
speaker. And this leads into the second thing I noticed, which is this dude just knows his
27:19
scriptures. No, not his gods. Like he just knows the Bible. Like he quoted so many scriptural
27:25
passages. And he quoted them perfectly. Like he didn't summarize them or, you know, change the
27:30
wording a little bit. And you get the point, you get the point you didn't do anything like that.
27:34
He just knows his scripture. I mean, this is a guy who used to be a drug addict and used to be
27:39
more concerned about his spinning wheel kick than anything going on in the Old Testament,
27:44
but he just knows what he's talking about. And the third thing I noticed was that the crowd
27:48
really didn't have any idea what to do. This was either the biggest wet fart of a crowd ever,
27:53
or they were just so confused because he was just blowing their mind at that extreme of a level,
27:58
right? And so I don't really know which which it is because there were some obvious jokes
28:03
that he put out there that kind of got some very little chuckles and stuff like that.
28:07
But there were some things that he said that, I mean, I'm sitting in my office by myself and I'm
28:12
like, man, I'm kind of getting like jacked up. I'm like, yeah, man, breach it. Let's go. And nobody
28:18
was really saying anything. There was not really any clapping. There was one point where he basically
28:22
talked about how many souls they had saved from being murder out of abortion mills. It was like
28:28
pulling teeth to get people to clap. It's like, of all the times to jump up and go crazy,
28:32
it's not when your team scores, you know, the final penalty goal in the World Cup.
28:36
It's when someone says, yeah, um, this woman was going to murder her baby inside of her body,
28:41
and they decided against it. And now that kid's alive, you know what I mean? A lot, a lot different
28:46
type of a thing. So I want to move on here as we, we kind of get towards the end of my comments here.
28:51
I want to talk about the three reasons that this sermon is important, right? Every sermon is
28:56
important to some, some way or another, whether it teaches us something or keeps us from,
29:01
from doing something bad or helps us avoid something. I get it, but these are the three reasons that
29:06
I'm pulling out that this sermon is really important. And the first is, is that we have to be careful
29:12
of the entertainment church phenomenon. So what do I mean by that? So I think some of you get
29:18
it immediately, but for those I need to like spell it out. There's a lot of people now
29:22
that they leave church incredibly entertained, right? The music is incredible. They set the mood
29:29
really well. The first two songs are upbeat. The third song is incredibly long and dramatic. And
29:35
they sing the course 74 times in a row. And then they do the last song and it's upbeat again. And
29:41
then you're ready to go. And then they do the announcements and the announcements are really
29:45
squared away and super awesome. And then, you know, the dim the lights and they have like a preview
29:49
of the sermon. And then the pastor comes up and he's just great and he talks for 30, 35 minutes and
29:54
he's funny and he's engaging. And man, I'm getting all this life advice. And gosh, that's all really
29:59
good advice. We all pray and, you know, with all those different things and then you leave,
30:02
you're super entertained, right? And to be honest, it's a great place to bring friends that are
30:08
unchurched because, you know, they're really entertained and we are beings that want to be
30:12
entertained. And I'm not saying anything is bad about anything that I just described at all. So
30:17
don't misunderstand me. But we have to be concerned when the overwhelming majority of the people that
30:23
leave that room, entertained, also picked up nothing that was gospel centered. Yes, there was
30:31
mention of Jesus, there was mention of God, there was even some scripture that was quoted, right?
30:36
You may have even shed a tear during that third, you know, song that during the praise and worship
30:40
set, right? But did anything get you a closer relationship with God? Did it get you a closer
30:47
discipleship with Jesus? Did it bring in, you know, a better understanding of how the gospel
30:53
can be like the overwhelming part of your entire life? I don't know that a lot of those things do
31:00
that. And again, there's nothing wrong with being entertained. And I'm sure some people have
31:04
entertained their way right into the kingdom of God, right? But it's something we've really got to
31:09
be careful about. Now that doesn't mean you need to go to a church where every single person in the
31:13
room is like a lay theologian and all those different things like I get it. But we have to be careful.
31:18
And if you're at a church that you're very entertained by, but you're not developing any type of deeper
31:24
discipleship with Jesus, you really should be concerned about that. And the second reason I
31:28
think the sermon is really important is that this was something that Durban pointed out. But if we
31:32
are not salt and light, then there is no salt and light. I thought that was a fantastic thing they
31:38
said. If we are not salt and light, then there is no salt and light. And so he's obviously making
31:44
reference to what Jesus said as recorded in Matthew five, this is verses 13 through 16. I'll read
31:48
him here. You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness
31:54
be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's
31:59
feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp
32:05
and put it under a basket, but on a stand and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way,
32:11
let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your
32:15
Father who is in heaven. Right? So this is Jesus's words now that he's not saying that humanity is
32:22
salt and light. You know, creation is salt and light, right? Because again, salt's a preservative,
32:28
right? But it can only preserve if it's salty. He's talking to us. He's talking to the people
32:33
of God. He's talking to the followers, disciples of Jesus. We have to be salt and light.
32:41
Right? The world doesn't have it in any other form. You don't get salt and light through the
32:45
government. You don't get it through your girlfriend or boyfriend. You don't get it through anything
32:49
like that. You get it from Christianity. You get it from Christians. You get it through the power
32:53
of the Holy Spirit. That's how you get salt and light. And the third reason that I think this sermon
32:58
is really important and good enough for all of us to watch and rewatch and send out to people is
33:02
that a gospel gospel centeredness has to be present in our lives. Right? We talked about the gospel
33:08
lot today. Because that's, you know, a big theme, obviously, of the sermon that we listen to.
33:12
But gospel centeredness isn't always present in in Christians lives. It's just not.
33:16
You know, again, we kind of go back to the if God just loves us just as we are, then why do we need
33:22
Jesus? Again, we have to think about how the gospel is, you know, how it precedes everything
33:29
that we do. I think one of the best books I've ever read about this exact topic is the book
33:34
explicit gospel by Matt Chandler. I've mentioned it whether four or five times this podcast, but
33:38
explicit gospel, that's on our book list of the 100 books every modern Christian man should read
33:42
list. So if you want to see the rest of that list, go to undaunted dot life backslash book list.
33:46
There's my plug. But the thing about that book, it's like a tough five favorite book for me ever.
33:52
But you can't read that book or go through the study or any of the things around that concept
33:59
of the explicit gospel and think to yourself, ah, you know, I could probably do something else.
34:03
I could do the gospel thingy, but I could probably do something else outside of that as well.
34:07
Like there's no room for that. Matt Chandler does not leave any room for that. And probably
34:10
because he leans on the scriptures more than just about anybody I listen to, right? He just heavily
34:15
leans on that and the understanding that he's he's clean from that. So gospel centeredness for
34:19
us as individual men that has to be present in our lives. Because again, we talk about manhood
34:24
all the time, we talk about spiritual, mental and physical resilience and making sure that we do
34:28
those things and cultivate that on a daily basis. But the gospel precedes all that.
34:34
I mean, it's even more macro than just talking about spiritual resilience because guess what?
34:41
Like let's say I was a Buddhist and I talked about spiritual resilience. Well, basically,
34:45
I'm talking about meditating to the earth or whatever it is they do. Because again,
34:50
consciousness is not a real thing within the Buddhist thought, right? That the mind is an illusion,
34:55
right? So just think about it as a Christian as somebody that has a discipleship set up with Jesus.
35:01
If the gospel is not the center of the things that we're doing, the decisions that we're making
35:04
and the direction that we're going, then we're pretty much lost at that point. All right,
35:08
guys, for let you out of here, we're going to do a quick resilience boost. As you know, by now,
35:11
we are a men's ministry and our mission is cultivating manly resilience. And specifically,
35:15
we do that by providing content that forges spiritual, mental and physical toughness. So
35:20
today I want to focus further on spiritual resilience kind of in light of the things that
35:23
we went through here. So I have four things that I am going to list here. So obviously,
35:28
the very first thing is the thing you should have already clicked on and watched. If you're not a
35:31
cheater, you should have went and watched this sermon. So this is a very shareable sermon. It's
35:36
palatable for people that are not, you know, maybe new, maybe they're new to Christianity or
35:41
people that are not new to it. People that have just, you know, their old hat with all this stuff.
35:45
But it really is a solid sermon. But also I provided the link to apology of studios. Their website
35:51
is just apology of studios.com. Because there's a lot of people they've got articles. They've got
35:55
other videos. They've got the podcast. And there's like, you know, you can pay extra and kind of get
36:00
different types of access. So it seems like they put out a lot of good stuff. Again,
36:03
I don't agree with everything that they've said or done, but I don't agree with any,
36:06
like anybody 100%. So cool to go check out their website. Also, I provided a couple of articles
36:12
that were written about Pastor Jeff Durban. So the first one is I reject your warning,
36:18
pro-life pastor having none of this officer's unlawful attempts to silence abortion street
36:22
ministry. So this was a really interesting video where he was basically within the confines of the
36:29
law and two people that are supposed to uphold the law, basically were trying to stop him from
36:33
doing so. So it was really interesting to see how he was very stern with these people, but also
36:38
incredibly polite. It was a, you know, example to me that, you know, in the future, if you get into
36:42
a debate on a topic like this, and if any type of law comes into that, just a great way to
36:47
comport yourself. And then the last article is here's why this extremist hipster pastor
36:53
thinks it is absolute the absolute best time in history to be a Christian. Okay. So in this one,
36:58
there's like a little link there. It's got like a 30 minute video or something like that of him
37:02
basically talking about the story of his life. And so, you know, it kind of gives you a little
37:07
bit of an understanding of his point of view, very similar to Matt Chandler's about how this
37:11
really is a good time for us to be Christians and how we can be salt and light for the world. So I
37:15
think if you take down all those four things and if you look at him and kind of dig around,
37:19
I think you'll get some good stuff from that. So guys, as always, thank you so much for listening
37:23
to this podcast. Please subscribe on iTunes, SoundCloud or Google Play and refer your friends to listen
37:28
and then be sure to share this on social media. Make sure you use the hashtag
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37:46
keep busting us up to the top of this and we can keep getting this podcast out to people. Okay,
37:50
I'm also booking speaking engagements for the remainder of 2018 and the beginning of 2019.
37:56
So if you want me to come speak to your church camp or to your team or to your boardroom or to
38:00
your Sunday school or your men's group, please just let me know. Hit me up info at undaunted.life.
38:06
Again, info at undaunted.life. Our website is www.undaunted.life and you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter
38:13
at undauntedlife or facebook.com/undauntedlife. Check out our free devotionals on the U version
38:18
Bible app. Just search undaunted life under plans. And as always, we want to thank the band
38:22
August Burns Red for allowing us to use their music library for our content. The intro outro track
38:27
on this podcast is our song King of Sorrow, which is off their latest record entitled
38:31
Phantom Anthem. The links to all this are in the description. I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
38:36
Remember, keep cultivating manly resilience. Keep forging spiritual, mental and physical toughness.
38:42
Keep seeking the Lion of Judah.