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1:18
This is Undaunted Life of Man's Podcast.
1:22
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
1:24
Let's get into it.
1:25
All right, guys.
1:26
We've got a special return guest of the podcast today.
1:27
His name is Gary Thomas.
1:28
He's a best-selling author and international speaker.
1:31
His books, guys, have sold well over 2 million copies worldwide at this point.
1:36
He's probably most known for his marriage and relationship books.
1:39
He's definitely most known for that.
1:41
That includes sacred marriage, which is sold over a million copies by itself, and Cherish,
1:45
which is actually only 100 books every modern Christian man should read list today.
1:49
Also, he is here today specifically to talk about something that isn't in the marriage
1:53
and relationship category, and that's his new book, "The Life You Were Reborn to Live,"
1:58
great title, dismantling 12 lies that rob your intimacy with God.
2:02
That was a scaffolding for our conversation today.
2:05
He's been on the podcast before episode 367, so if you want to hear us talk about marriage,
2:09
that was about his book, your marriage is a fortress and things like that.
2:12
But this one today is more about Christian living, and we look at 12 lies, right?
2:17
We actually fly over most of them.
2:18
I think we covered two-thirds of them, or three-quarters of them or so.
2:22
These are lies that are basically stumbling blocks for Christian life, and so he knows
2:27
the audience.
2:28
He knows 95% male audience.
2:29
He's really a big fan of what we're doing here at Undaunted Life, and so he really kind
2:34
of catered his commentary to the 95% of the men that are listening to this, but to our
2:39
5%ers out there, to the ladies.
2:41
There's plenty of here for you, plenty stuff here for you as well, and then the thing about
2:45
this particular conversation, we were talking about, "Okay, what is this restlessness that
2:49
a lot of us feel, this anxious, this kind of low-grade anxiety that we feel all the time,
2:53
and where does that come from?"
2:54
But also how that dovetails into our need for control, and then he gives his argument
2:59
for why guys that think about their family first are actually playing into Satan's hands,
3:04
so that's an interesting one, but we looked at how we need to dismantle isolation, how
3:08
we need to dismantle kind of self-centered salvation, but then we get into a couple of
3:12
my favorite chapters, which is dismantling apathy toward the church, and then at the
3:17
very end, we talked about my favorite chapter of the entire book, which is dismantling
3:20
complacent ignorance, I just, I really was thrilled with how the conversation went every
3:28
time Gary and I get to have an interaction, it's always a lot of fun, so I'm just glad
3:32
to bring him to the show again, so without further ado, let's get into it.
3:36
Gary Thomas, I would do my normal welcome back to the show, but just peek behind the
3:40
curtain here, there's some sort of a tech issue going on here, and I can see you, but
3:44
you can't see me, but even though you can't see me, you maybe just gave me the greatest
3:48
compliment I've ever gotten into my life, and so I'm going to ask you to repeat it, sir.
3:52
Well, you couldn't see it, you said, so just try to picture me, I said, well, great, then
3:55
I'll do a 1980s era Robert Redford head on a 2010 The Rocks body, and figure out, we'll
4:03
get it just about right here.
4:04
Guys, so just think about that bearded mountain man, but also all juiced up on all, I mean,
4:10
The Rocks basically walking Tropicana at this point, but I will say, Gary, the last time
4:15
you were on this show, it was like episode 300 something or other now we're on episode
4:19
800 something or other where in the world have you been hiding, why are you hiding from
4:23
my audience?
4:24
Well, congratulations, that's quite a feat.
4:27
Well, I don't know what you what you've done to hide from us for this long, but we got
4:32
you back today, but we got some business to attend to because you got a new book out that
4:36
we're going to be really digging into.
4:37
It's called the life you were reborn to live.
4:40
So guys, you can check it out right here on the screen dismantling 12 lies that rob your
4:44
intimacy with God.
4:46
But I was informed, Gary, that there are rules to this whole publishing game and you are only
4:51
allowed to do marriage books, sir.
4:53
And this is not a marriage book.
4:56
What are you trying to pull off here?
4:58
Well, you know, the, the tagline of my ministry has been closer to Christ, closer to others.
5:04
But let's just be honest, marriage books sell better, at least ones written by me than spiritual
5:08
formation books.
5:09
And I started out with spiritual formation books on the Christian life.
5:14
And the marriage books just kind of take took over and I like to write about the Christian
5:18
life, but I felt like I was sort of a, a baker who wanted to bake croissants, but everybody's
5:23
buying the donuts.
5:24
And so the publisher kept saying, give me the donuts.
5:28
But I really got to a point, Kyle, where I said, for now, I've said what I could say
5:32
about marriage and there's really was a lot I wanted to say about what it means to build
5:36
intimacy with God, particularly in this one, how I think there are demonic forces and cultural
5:44
forces that are lying to price away from God and to rob our intimacy with God.
5:50
Well, it was, it was quite the croissant.
5:53
It was very warm and buttery and I happened to enjoy it.
5:56
But there are 12 lies, as I said, in the tagline or the subtitle of the book, I want to just
6:01
go ahead and read the 12 lies here to give guys, because we're just going to be flying
6:05
over the book today, we might get into each chapter, but we're only going to be getting
6:08
into a small chunk of each chapter.
6:10
But each one of these lies, it's dismantling and then blank.
6:14
So the first one is relentlessness.
6:17
The second is the need to be in control.
6:20
Third is family first, fourth is isolation, fifth is self centered salvation, six is the
6:25
need for comfort.
6:27
Second is the demand for a sin-free life, eighth is apathy toward the church, nine is a materialistic
6:33
worldview, 10th the allure of earthly splendor, 11th a sense of entitlement and 12th.
6:39
I'm very, very excited to get to that one complacent ignorance.
6:42
I like that.
6:43
I'm going to start using that as a dig on people that I don't like.
6:45
It's like you are complacentally ignorant, sir, but I wanted to, I was curious about
6:48
this list Gary, because the way I do lists is I've kind of approached lists from two
6:53
different ways.
6:54
I'll create 50 things and then I'll narrow it down to my list of 10 or 12, or I will
6:59
scrape and claw my way up to my 10 or 12.
7:02
And I'm like, I put my best foot forward.
7:04
This is how we got there.
7:05
So with this list, was it a whittle down or a climb up?
7:10
Well, for me, they were, they all impacted me personally.
7:15
Some I think I caught early on, some really caught me by surprise.
7:20
And you know, like with sacred marriage, what it's got is I'm married to make us holy more
7:23
than to make us happy, cherished and whatnot.
7:26
A lot of those were just writing down the journey that God had taken me on.
7:31
In this case, it was really 12 different journeys that God had taken me on that that impacted
7:37
me so much.
7:38
I was just excited to say, Hey, here's what I found.
7:41
Let me share that with you.
7:43
Well, I could tell even from the different anecdotes that you shared that these are
7:46
some things that because you can kind of tell like when a college professor has ran a business
7:51
before and how they're teaching in the business school versus a business school professor that
7:55
just read a bunch of business books and how they're teaching you.
7:58
It seemed like you had some level experience with all this.
8:00
And so I want to get into each of those 12 lies.
8:04
But right from the beginning here, okay, and you just there's no one else listening.
8:07
It's just me and you right now, you said in the introduction that there were three things
8:12
that you learned that you could do while giving a speech that would guarantee a standing ovation.
8:20
And then you buried it, you didn't give us the list of the three things to bring out
8:25
the standing ovation.
8:26
Well, I just got to tell you, I'm speaking here in a few days and dad gum and I want
8:30
a standing ovation.
8:31
What are the three things Gary?
8:33
I've never shared them publicly and I said I wouldn't, but here's what I just feel so
8:41
manipulative, which is why I pray at the end of a talk because it totally undercuts everything.
8:46
But one, you got to share a vulnerable story that kind of evokes tears and makes people
8:53
feel like they're on your side.
8:55
You wrap up by saying, boy, you've been a great crowd.
8:57
I've really enjoyed this journey.
8:58
I really appreciate it.
8:59
So you kind of just throw on some sugar at the crowd.
9:02
And then you just kind of got to wait and give some eye recognition.
9:07
And yeah, that's a pretty good formula to get people stand up.
9:11
Well guys, here's the thing.
9:12
If you don't have a tear jerker story, just go to chat GBT and say, Hey, I need to make
9:16
people cry at the end of this speech.
9:18
And you'll be good to go.
9:19
And if anyone doesn't be like it's Gary Thomas's fault, right?
9:21
So this is easy.
9:22
We've got this wrapped up in a nice little package.
9:24
But hey, let's get up to the first lie here.
9:27
Lie number one dismantling.
9:28
Look, I want the listeners to know since they haven't read the book that I, I work against
9:35
that.
9:36
It was just, I'll let people know since you opened up the gate, I'll walk through it.
9:42
I did open up the gate.
9:43
You were very, very humble about it.
9:45
You said I did this once and then it felt icky and then I like didn't want to do it
9:49
again.
9:50
So it's okay.
9:51
It's just sort of, I just wanted to, just as a matter of interest, but I've shared it
9:56
with my wife and she knows about it.
9:58
So I'd never do it again.
9:59
Cause I would come down and she'd go really Gary, are you serious?
10:03
And so yeah, I don't want the applause of the crowd.
10:07
If it's building my wife's disdain and the point in the book is it's easy to play to
10:13
the world's acclaim, but how does our God, the only audience that matters view what we're
10:20
doing?
10:21
And it's about this whole reorientation that in my natural man, in my natural desire
10:26
to be appreciated and wanted or acclaimed, it's easy to work for the things that create
10:32
a standing ovation in this world, but it's ruinous to our souls.
10:38
With Jesus made it clear, Paul made it clear, we cannot please God and the world at some
10:43
point in our life, we have to decide who am I living for?
10:47
What am I trying to get out of this?
10:50
Because you can't do a little bit of both.
10:54
Absolutely.
10:55
I agree with that.
10:56
Well, Gary, let's get into these lies.
10:57
Let's get into the first one here dismantling restlessness.
11:00
So you say restlessness and then people get a lot of different ideas in their heads.
11:04
So when you talk about restlessness, what are we talking about specifically?
11:09
It's that sense of unease, when's the next shoe going to drop a certain ongoing level
11:15
of anxiety?
11:17
And what I found is that, and the reason this was really one of the first chapters, peace
11:22
is one of the best things about being a Christian.
11:25
Pieces at overall senses that I'm right with God, God's got my back, I'm not waiting for
11:31
the other shoe to drop, even if it's not okay, I'm okay.
11:36
And it really is one of the best things about being a believer.
11:38
If you look at the Old Testament, people might be surprised at this, but go back through
11:42
the major prophets, the minor prophets, the Psalms, it's prophesying that with the Messiah
11:50
will come peace.
11:51
They got us all about bringing peace to the world.
11:53
So when Jesus is born, what do the angels sing?
11:56
Peace on earth.
11:58
Good will toward men.
12:00
Jesus proclaims himself, he said, my peace I give you.
12:06
And so what I found, and this was not my discovery, it was a brilliant essay by Henry Drummond,
12:12
one of my favorite classical writers who died a couple hundred years ago, is that restlessness
12:18
has a cause and peace has a recipe.
12:23
And so if you want to experience the peace that the Bible promises, you have to recognize
12:27
what causes restlessness and then what builds peace and get your way into it.
12:32
And so I just kind of go through that.
12:34
And I think one of the main things that, well, the lie that I believed is that peace is situational.
12:41
By that, I mean, peace will come when I have a certain level of financial comfort.
12:46
I'm in decent health.
12:47
I don't have any real vicious enemies.
12:50
Everybody I love is good with me and they're following the Lord.
12:53
The person I like is in charge of government or the church, whatever that is.
12:59
And when I can make all of these things come true, finally, I'll have peace.
13:06
But Henry Drummond points out that none of those things will ever all be true at once.
13:11
And it's the pursuit of trying to make those things come true that causes restlessness.
13:18
But when we die to those things, he has this brilliant passage when he says, look, Jesus
13:21
personifies peace, but let's look at Jesus falsely accused of a capital offense.
13:27
Fairweather friends who deserted him in his greatest need betrayed by one of his disciples
13:33
to be handed over, no money, no house, I mean, all of the things that we think we need for
13:40
peace were absent from Jesus's life.
13:44
And yet he personified peace.
13:46
And so understanding that peace is relational instead of situational and what that means,
13:52
it really does set us up for one of the best experiences of what it means to be a believer.
13:58
When you said this quote here in that chapter, peace is a person.
14:02
It's not possessions, health or a claim.
14:04
It's putting your security in a person and recognizing that if you have him, Jesus, you
14:10
already have enough.
14:12
And I'll say for me, like, I'm a pessimist.
14:14
Now I use my pessimism as a superpower because if you say you're going to get me the thing
14:17
by Friday at five o'clock, I'm going to assume you're not going to do it.
14:20
So I'm either going to be right or I'm going to be pleasantly surprised, right?
14:23
So that's how I use my pessimism.
14:25
But that pessimism Gary does kind of lead to this low, you know, low resolution anxiety
14:31
that there's always something around the corner and with me, you mentioned the other shoes
14:36
going to drop.
14:37
I've actually used that language before and a lot of men understand what I'm talking
14:41
about, Gary, to where you're just like, you experienced some success maybe in your business.
14:46
Maybe you have some breakthroughs or some successes with your kids.
14:49
Maybe things have been going well for a while in your marriage and you're just the guy that's
14:53
waiting for something to happen.
14:56
Now, Psalm 23, the point is not that Jesus or that God delivers us out of the valley.
15:01
It's that, you know, when we're in the valley, God's there with us and we're either in the
15:04
valley coming out of the valley or about to go into the valley.
15:07
But man, that that pessimism just leads to this anxious existence where peace is almost
15:13
impossible.
15:14
And Kyle, since you've gone through the book, the rest of the book talks about a lot of
15:20
things that would naturally destroy our peace.
15:23
If peace was situation, situational instead of relational, peace is a person.
15:28
The need we have for adversity we can get into that we're going to be fighting sin for
15:33
our whole lives.
15:34
There's going to be issues with our family.
15:37
We're going to be at odds with the way the world views us.
15:40
All of those things, the Christian life is just, it's this life of facing all of these
15:46
battles, but with Jesus around us and maybe a picture might be, say, you're, I don't know,
15:51
in Galveston, Texas, and a cat-five hurricane is coming in.
15:55
So you go in the center of your house, see how I can go to the bathroom, get into the
15:59
bathtub.
16:00
I've had somebody who said they experienced this.
16:03
You literally see the roof being lifted off the house.
16:06
The walls are caving and furniture is flying.
16:09
But then Jesus enters the picture, like the picture, Jesus, 10 foot tall, Jesus, who just
16:14
wraps his arms around me.
16:17
And as long as Jesus has his arms around me, the storm is literally irrelevant.
16:22
In fact, as a guy, I'm going to open my eyes and watch the show.
16:27
I'm going to say, this is amazing.
16:29
Look at that and that and who knew cows could fly and whatnot because Jesus has got me everything
16:36
else can feel like it's in chaos, but I can have peace when I have it in Jesus.
16:42
And the title of the book, the life you were reborn to live is kind of based on this thought
16:46
that we get reborn, we get wet in baptism, but we haven't changed our thinking.
16:52
We're still living with the values of the old life apart from Christ, the purposes of
16:57
the old life, the strategies of the old life.
17:00
And so we really haven't been reborn in the sense of we're not living the exciting, adventurous.
17:08
Sometimes it feels chaotic, but it's always under God's providence life that we were reborn
17:13
to live.
17:14
And so people get bored with their faith.
17:16
They don't experience the thrill and the adventure of what it means to live this incredible
17:21
life in Christ.
17:22
Well, I think it's also about what are you tethered to?
17:25
Because I'm pretty sure I'm remembering this correctly, but you mentioned, I think a couple
17:28
in the book where they had saved millions and millions of dollars and their retirement
17:33
life looked like it was guaranteed and squared away, and now they're renting, right?
17:37
And so if they were tethered to their ability to build up enough stuff inside the storehouse,
17:43
gosh, the disillusion they have to be living with right now has to be substantial.
17:47
And I think that dovetails into the second lie, dismantling the need to be in control.
17:52
So I want to read a couple of quotes here.
17:54
If you're bored with the Christian life, he kind of just alluded this.
17:57
If you're bored with the Christian life, because it seems to routine and placid, you're likely
18:02
not living the Christian life as it was meant to be lived.
18:06
And a little bit later in the chapter, a spiritually adventurous life requires risks.
18:12
Now I'll say Gary, I became a Christian as a 15 year old.
18:15
I didn't grow up in church.
18:16
And so I missed out on vacation, Bible, school in a wana and all the Old Testament stories
18:19
and all that.
18:20
So I'm having to go back and learn it as an adult.
18:23
But I remember the first time I ever thought about the synonymous nature of adventure in
18:29
the Christian life was after I read Wild at Heart by John Eldridge.
18:33
That was the first time it ever occurred to me that the Christian life could be adventurous
18:38
and that seeking out adventure could be a God honoring thing.
18:43
And so let's talk about that seeming dichotomy between the Christian life and this actual
18:49
adventurous life where risk is involved.
18:53
The natural men in us want to control everything.
18:56
We just like to feel in control.
18:58
But I ask guys this, would you rather live in the jungle or in a factory assembly line?
19:05
In the factory assembly line, you know what's going to happen?
19:08
You know what you're supposed to do.
19:09
It happened last Monday, it happened on Wednesday.
19:11
It's happening on Friday.
19:12
So it feels safe and secure.
19:14
You feel competent.
19:15
You've done it.
19:16
You've achieved it.
19:17
You're going to produce what you're expected to produce a jungle.
19:20
You don't know what's around the corner.
19:21
You don't know what's going to hit you.
19:22
You don't know what's going to come at you.
19:24
You don't know what delightful sights or sounds you'll come across.
19:28
Jesus makes it very clear in John 3a that the Christian life is about living in a jungle,
19:34
not an assembly line.
19:35
He says, "The wind blows where it pleases and you hear it sound, but you don't know
19:41
where it comes from or where it is going.
19:44
So it is with," and here's the word Kyle, "everyone born of the Spirit, that we're
19:50
carried by the Spirit, that God sets up divine appointments for us to be used.
19:55
We need to keep our eyes open and our ears open."
19:58
And I found Kyle that this is the thing that will unite marriages and also help us with
20:04
raising our kids.
20:06
Marriages collapse often just because they become boring.
20:10
Two people living for each other, trying to fulfill each other.
20:14
It's what one Texas pastor told me when you've got two people getting married because they
20:18
want to be fulfilled by each other, you've got two ticks and no dog, right?
20:22
And it just doesn't work, but when you need for purpose outside of yourself, when you're
20:29
saying we need spiritual adventure, instead of why can't I get you to do this or why can't
20:33
I get her to do that saying, "Hey, what can we do for God?
20:37
What gifts has God given us?
20:39
What resources?
20:40
What opportunities?"
20:42
And we don't know what's going to happen.
20:45
And it just fills our souls in a way that controlled ministry doesn't.
20:50
One of the examples I use, that can do in it today, as we record this, when I'm going
20:55
to preach on the weekend, I do a number of run-throughs and then I preach it in front
20:59
of a group of about 12 people just to get feedback and refine it and whatnot.
21:04
And I probably over-prepare my sermons very likely could be pride, insecurity, you name
21:10
it.
21:11
But I was struck one time after I preached the sermon, this guy comes up, because I'm
21:15
always there in the lobby or the atrium afterwards talking to people, he said, "You know, nine
21:20
months ago, you gave me a little counsel and you prayed for me," and he said, "I've never
21:24
forgotten.
21:25
I can't tell you how much that impacted me."
21:29
God, he didn't mention my sermon that I prepared for.
21:33
He mentioned this completely spontaneous time of ministry that I didn't even remember and
21:39
yet, God had really used that to touch him.
21:42
And then for the guys that have kids, here's why you want to unleash spiritual adventure.
21:47
You don't want them to get bored with their faith.
21:50
And when we make faith about, "Okay, faith means you don't use these words, you don't
21:54
get drunk, you don't look at porn, you don't do this, you don't do that," then, well, is
21:59
that what Christianity is?
22:00
But you send them off saying, "Hey, son, when you go to class, I just want you to keep your
22:05
eyes and ears open."
22:08
Maybe there's somebody being left out.
22:10
God opens eyes and says, "You need to go to him."
22:12
Or you're on a team and you can tell somebody's really discouraged.
22:15
How about you just leave all the guys that are laughing and figure out what's going on?
22:19
Or even you see a teacher, everybody's making fun of them.
22:21
They're obviously having a bad day and God wants you to go up and say, "Hey, I really
22:25
appreciate the way you do this or that," that you can be light.
22:28
And then at the end of the day, "Hey, let's talk.
22:30
How did God use you today?
22:32
What is God doing through you?"
22:34
When kids get a taste of being used by God in spontaneous ways, by the spirit blowing
22:41
where it pleases, they get ruined to the world because it's far more fulfilling to our souls
22:47
to bless than to gossip, to encourage, than to chastise or criticize, to be used to give
22:54
rather than always to take, to be focused on lifting up others rather than be focused
22:59
on others appreciating us.
23:01
And I think spiritual adventure is one thing we don't talk about way enough in our own
23:06
lives and our marriages and our parenting suffers accordingly.
23:10
Hey, guys, real quick.
23:11
I know a lot of you train for very specific things.
23:14
So maybe you've got a mud race coming up, a mountain hunt, a 5k, or maybe you just want
23:18
to keep up with your kids or you just don't want to let the old man in.
23:21
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Well, with sons Gary, you need to usher them into manhood by welcoming them into manhood.
25:26
That's one thing.
25:27
But then also welcoming them into adventure and giving them categories of positive adventure.
25:33
Cause like, Hey, we're going to jump off this bridge.
25:36
Don't know if there's rocks in that water.
25:37
And if it's shallow or not, yeah, stupid adventure.
25:40
But then there are exciting adventures where you may not, you know, end up in a coffin
25:44
at the end of the day.
25:45
Well, let's go ahead and move on to number three, dismantling family first.
25:49
So that one's going to, you know, strike people's ears as odd, even reading it like that.
25:53
But let me hit a couple of quotes from the chapter, life in Christ hinges on the notion
25:57
that Jesus claims not just our first allegiance, but our entire allegiance, our commitment to
26:03
our family is a subset of our commitment to God, not vice versa.
26:07
So it made me think of the lawyer versus Jesus in Luke 10.
26:11
So the lawyer is trying to trip up Jesus.
26:13
What's the greatest of all the laws?
26:14
You know, Jesus says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul,
26:17
with all your strength, with all your mind.
26:18
And the second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself.
26:21
So what that begs Gary is, okay, well, who is my primary neighbor?
26:26
Well, if you're married, that's your spouse.
26:28
If you're, and then you ask like, who's my secondary neighbor?
26:31
Those are your kids that you need to raise up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
26:34
And tertiary early, your neighbors, everybody else, right?
26:38
But even in the book, you say putting family first plays into Satan's hands.
26:44
And you have guys that it, man, it's been beaten into them, beaten into them like, don't let
26:48
your job be your mistress, right?
26:50
Don't let your business be your mistress.
26:52
Don't let your mistress be your mistress.
26:54
Don't do that.
26:55
What's wrong with you?
26:56
Don't let your fancy football team, your video games, your hobby, your fishing, your golf,
26:58
your jujitsu.
26:59
Don't let that be your mistress.
27:01
Let your family be the main thing, and so you got these guys, Gary, that are like scraping
27:06
and clawing.
27:07
And every day they're trying to put their family first and trying to put their wife ahead of
27:09
their kids.
27:10
So the kids know the, the deal, right?
27:12
And then here you are.
27:13
You're like, no, this is actually playing into Satan's hands.
27:15
Now I read the chapter.
27:16
So I know what point you're making, but the guys in my audience haven't read yet.
27:19
So how about you make it clearer to them?
27:20
Well, I think it's going to shock a lot of people since I've written so much about marriage
27:24
and parenting.
27:26
But I don't disagree with any of the things you said.
27:29
The difference is God claims total allegiance even over our family.
27:34
If we look at Jesus's teaching honestly, it's shocking how he warns us that faith in him
27:42
will often divide families rather than unite him.
27:46
Now I still believe Kyle, if you have a husband and wife, both following the Lord, seeking
27:52
first the kingdom of God above all else, surrendered to the spirit, that will unite them like literally
27:57
nothing else on this planet can unite a man and woman.
28:01
But Jesus warns that here's just an example from Matthew 10, brother will betray brother
28:05
to death, the father, his child, children will rebel against their parents and have them
28:10
put to death.
28:11
You'll be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will
28:16
be saved.
28:17
Jesus isn't telling his followers that you failed if your parents turn on you or if your
28:22
children turns on you or even Matthew, if your spouse turns on you, he says that could
28:27
be a result of putting me first.
28:31
And there's a shocking example where one time his mother and brothers show up and somebody
28:36
says, hey, Jesus, your mother and brothers are here.
28:38
Jesus, well, who's my mother?
28:40
Who are my brothers?
28:42
Those who hear the word of God and obey it.
28:45
And so Jesus says the family of faith actually takes precedence even over our blood family,
28:52
our family of origin.
28:56
Interestingly, the gospel writer never tells us whether Jesus goes out to see his mother
29:00
and brothers.
29:01
I suspect he did, but it's significant that the gospel writer thinks it doesn't matter
29:06
as much as Jesus claiming full allegiance.
29:09
Now, why does this matter so much?
29:12
When we don't put our faith in God first, I think we set up a lot of things I've seen
29:19
men renounce the clear teaching of Scripture because they want to keep access to their
29:27
children or their grandchildren.
29:29
So they deny what they know to be true because they're more concerned with their kid thinks
29:33
of them than how their kid is relating to God.
29:39
And there are other instances where we just, we love our family best by putting God first.
29:47
And so when family falls apart, it's not because we are putting a hobby first or we're putting
29:54
a job first.
29:56
That's where poor priorities will reap the consequences.
30:00
This is those who are honestly committed to the truth of God and the commandments of
30:04
God and the love of God.
30:07
And because it's so exclusive, Jesus doesn't promise us that everybody we love will agree
30:11
with us and they may rebel against us because they're rebelling against God.
30:18
Yeah, and it almost brings up this thought, like, I think people have added a list to
30:24
the 10 commandments, the 11th commandment, thou shalt be nice, no matter what, no matter
30:27
what the circumstances say.
30:29
And every now and then, that doesn't, it's not licensed to be a jerk, but it's like,
30:32
look, the gospel is what it is.
30:34
The Bible just says what it says, like, are we going to follow it or are we going to add
30:38
to it?
30:39
And people that feel like they need to make the, the gospel sweeter for some reason.
30:42
I think that, that plays into this as well.
30:44
Now, again, largely male audience that we're talking to.
30:47
So lie number four, I think is especially pertinent to this audience.
30:51
This manly isolation, okay?
30:54
This is especially bad for men because men have got this idea, Gary, that the lone wolf
30:58
is like this cool thing that we should aspire to.
31:01
And it's like, dude, watch animal planet, watching that geo, what happens to the lone
31:07
wolf, even if they were previously the alpha, they are put out from the pack and they either
31:12
starve to death, freeze to death, or they're killed by another animal.
31:16
That's what happens to a pack animal when they're alone, because duh, because that's
31:20
how words work.
31:21
And so I think in the Bible, you elucidate this point through a couple of very familiar
31:26
characters, but you come at them from a slightly different way than is normally presented.
31:30
But you talk about Samson and David, okay?
31:32
So what can we learn about dismantling isolation by looking at Samson and King David?
31:38
Okay.
31:39
Can I just go back a little bit, Kyle, before I get there?
31:42
Yeah.
31:43
Because there's one point I wanted to make about putting family first, like it's really
31:46
pertinent to guys that I neglected to mention.
31:49
Sure.
31:50
One of the reasons we have to put family first is God didn't design our family to fulfill
31:54
us ultimately.
31:56
You can give everything to your wife now, like I have an incredible wife, so it's easier
32:00
for me.
32:01
Passing guys love their wives heroically and sacrificially and never get back what they
32:07
would hope, or they've sacrificed for their kids and their kids reject them.
32:12
So when you put family first, you make yourself vulnerable that you could do just about everything
32:17
right and have a broken heart and an unfulfilling life, because you're putting your fulfillment
32:24
on people who are fallen.
32:26
When you put God first and loving your family becomes an expression of your love for God,
32:31
God's never going to let you down.
32:33
God's never going to neglect what you do.
32:35
God rewards earnestly everyone who seeks him.
32:38
So I just think for men, yeah, love your family sacrificially and heroically, but you get
32:44
your fulfillment from being obedient to God and not that outcome of how your family turns
32:48
out.
32:49
He comes to relationships, here's what I love about Samson and the difference between David.
32:57
And I got this, I want to mention his name because he really helped me, Nate.
33:03
Do you know what I'm talking about, Kyle?
33:06
Yeah, I don't have, I have, I read it on my pad and all the notes are on that.
33:12
There we go.
33:13
There we go.
33:14
That's right.
33:15
He really helped me that.
33:16
It's a great book actually for men.
33:17
And he talks about how when you look at Samson and David, they both had similar sins and they
33:24
both stumbled with women, right?
33:26
They had problems with women in their lives.
33:30
And the difference, you know what, David with Bathsheba, Samson and Delilah and all the
33:34
things that went on, but here's the difference.
33:38
David had friends and Samson didn't, David goes on to glory, Samson goes on somewhat
33:45
to infamy, I'm just a tragic end.
33:48
He does kill God's enemies, but Philistine is still going on, Philistines are still going
33:53
on, even though a lot of the rulers have been killed.
33:57
And Nate points out the difference is David's friends go on for pages.
34:00
He had the three, he had the 30 when he was kicked out of his kingdom.
34:05
He had a whole part of an army that would go out and surround him.
34:09
When David sinned, he had Nathan, thou art the man who would confront him.
34:14
He had the close relationship with Jonathan, Jonathan.
34:18
So though they had some of the same temptations and the same weaknesses, David fulfilled his
34:23
purpose before God, because he had friends that could help him along the way, Samson
34:29
was on his own and he died on his own and his impact wasn't nearly as significant.
34:36
And I say this to guys, I'm an introvert, I often don't feel like I need relationships.
34:41
Change so much in my life is I used to think of the spiritual disciplines as studying scripture,
34:46
you fast, you meditate, you have times of solitude, and I can all do that fine.
34:51
I've added spiritual connection with others to my spiritual disciplines.
34:58
Every day, I want to have a significant conversation with another brother and the Lord.
35:05
It doesn't always have to be spiritual, but they're friends I want to keep up.
35:10
Every statistic I've seen sociologically shows that relationships determine your health and
35:16
your emotional health and even your lifespan more than just about anything else.
35:22
That loneliness is to your spirit, what smoking is to your body, it's devastating.
35:29
And so we need to bring relationships in.
35:33
And for a lot of the guys listening, Jessica, other guys don't know what that means.
35:39
We have to initiate it, that's what this chapter is.
35:41
This is what it means, this is why it's important, this is a scriptural case, this is the research.
35:48
So how do you make these relationships happen?
35:51
They won't happen by accident.
35:53
Other guys may not seek you out because in general, you're right, it's sort of that
35:57
lone ranger form of spirituality, I'll stand on my own, but we will go furthest, we will
36:03
be strongest when we're standing arm in arm with our Christian brothers.
36:08
That's so absolutely true.
36:09
And I just got to tell you, I mean, I beat this drum, I talk about the difference between
36:14
a six PM guy and a three AM guy, you know, a lot of guys got fellas that are available
36:19
until about six PM if you got to move a couch or you need advice on a tax question.
36:24
But who are the guys at three AM that they're answering the phone?
36:27
Like they know you're not calling it three AM, like only people that call three AM or
36:31
people that are desperate or weirdos.
36:33
And so they're answering the phone to figure out which one you are, but these are just
36:37
guys that are ready to go.
36:39
These are guys like Jonathan that's willing to get punched in the face for, you know,
36:43
trapping his buddy and then basically calling them out, right?
36:47
But then, you know, David had guys in his life that just loved him.
36:50
He had guys in his life that would just fight at the drop of a hat for him and guys have
36:54
to have that.
36:55
Now when we get into chapter five or the fifth lie dismantling self-centered salvation.
37:00
So I read the title of chapter and then I read the chapter, of course, and there was
37:03
a quote from the chapter that confused me a little bit, and so I want to get your help
37:08
here to help clear this up because I read it over and over.
37:11
But sometimes I think I have the intellectual capacity of, well, I was going to say some
37:15
rude.
37:16
But anyway, sometimes I feel like I'm not quite there intellectually.
37:18
So help clear this up for me, quote, here's what we must dismantle our definition of the
37:24
gospel as primarily God will save us as we go on to embrace the more complete statement.
37:31
God will enlist us.
37:33
Our sermons tend to be centered more on Christ died for us than we must live for God.
37:39
And so as I read that and as I was trying to like coalesce that with the, the, the point
37:44
of the chapter and the title of the chapter, it actually smacked of more self-centered.
37:51
If I kept thinking of it that way, because I always get on to certain pastors where it's
37:54
like, you know, there's the kerfuffle that went down years ago with Matt Chandler and
37:59
Steven Furtick, where Matt Chandler's at Steven Furtick's church.
38:02
And he's basically like, guys, you're not David.
38:05
You're not the point of the story.
38:06
Stop making yourself David and your problems Goliath.
38:10
And like that's just not it.
38:11
You're not the point.
38:12
The Bible is for you.
38:13
It's not about you.
38:14
And so I had all these thoughts kind of swirling in my head.
38:17
And I think I just kind of got confused in the weeds there.
38:19
So help clear that up for me if you want.
38:22
Self-centered salvation is when people present the gospel as I, as I heard it growing up,
38:27
Jesus lived a perfect life, died on a cross, rose from the dead, so that our sins could
38:32
be forgiven and we could live with Him in heaven.
38:34
Now, kind of every word of that is true and ultimately our faith rests not on anything
38:40
we do but on what Jesus did.
38:43
But when you present it that way as the end point, you miss the point of the gospel that
38:49
God wants to enlist us and not just save us.
38:54
And I go to Paul for this.
38:55
This isn't me.
38:56
It's Corinthians 5, 15 when Paul says, "And he died for all that those who live should
39:04
no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and was raised again."
39:11
Paul is going off, I believe Jesus in Matthew 6, 33, when he said, "Seek first the kingdom
39:16
of God, God's reign, God's work, God's purpose on this earth, not even my own salvation.
39:22
Jesus is taking care of my salvation.
39:24
I don't have to worry about that.
39:26
But what He saved me to do is not to wait so that I go to heaven, but to be available
39:32
for Him to use me to bring heaven to earth."
39:36
And the example I use, I love football, even like watching the draft, it's exciting to
39:41
see young men's dreams come true.
39:44
But when you look at the draft, they're not drafting people to wear the uniform, saying
39:49
you come, you're going to put on the interview, you're going to get a paycheck.
39:51
They're drafting them to play a position.
39:54
If they draft a guy who weighs 160 pounds, you know he's not an offensive lineman.
39:59
If they draft a guy who weighs 350 pounds, you know he's not a cornerback, they're drafted
40:03
to play a role.
40:04
And what I'm saying is that God saves us to draft us to fulfill a role in His kingdom
40:11
under His direction.
40:13
Why this matters is that with the self-centered view of salvation, I'm just kind of trying
40:18
to not sin and give a little bit of my money to God, but essentially it's all done.
40:24
I can just sit back when we're missing the excitement and the adventure of being used
40:29
by God to seek first the kingdom of God.
40:33
And one of the examples I use is when Jesus was on the cross and people mocked Him saying,
40:39
come down for that cross.
40:40
If you're the son of God, then why don't you come down from the cross?
40:43
Because in their small way of thinking, if Jesus was powerful enough to come down from
40:50
the cross, He would have because they think, well that's what we live for, our own comfort.
40:55
But it was because Jesus is the son of God that He stayed on the cross.
41:00
I have a purpose, He says, bigger than my own comfort.
41:03
I'm actually dying so that I can reconcile God and man and some of you perhaps.
41:10
Why is that matter? Because when we just look at Christianity as God blesses me and God's
41:16
going to save me and God's going to bring me to heaven, there will be other well-meaning
41:20
believers that say, come down from that cross.
41:24
God wouldn't want you to suffer.
41:25
God wouldn't want you to face a difficult marriage.
41:28
God would want you to give up on that relationship.
41:30
God would want you to give up on this job.
41:32
In the chapter I use a story of a physician.
41:34
It's a woman, but it could be a guy.
41:37
She just talks about how she's got hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt to get through
41:41
medical school, but people think that she's rich and she should give away her services
41:45
for free because what kind of sick Christian prophets of others getting sick?
41:51
Because of the circle that she's in, she has to see 50 patients a day.
41:58
Half the patients come in, they've already gone on WebMD and they've diagnosed themselves
42:03
and they'll make her feel like she sold out to big pharma if she doesn't agree with them.
42:07
She's got the drug addicts that come in, that know how to present symptoms so that she'll
42:12
try to give them opioids and they can get angry and maybe even violent and she's far enough
42:17
long in her career where she might want to say, I don't need this.
42:22
I mean, I'm just about paying off my debts.
42:25
I just want to do something else, but Kyle, she really believes this is what God made
42:30
her to be, this general physician treating these people, even though it's hard and she
42:35
fights insurance companies and people question her motives.
42:39
And it'd be easy for her to say, well, come down from that cross.
42:41
I don't need this anymore, but it's because God has created her to do that.
42:46
She's not going to come down from the cross.
42:48
She's going to take Jesus's words, take up your cross daily and come.
42:54
Follow me.
42:55
And so I would just ask guys out there, you're going to be in difficult situations, a difficult
42:59
marriage, difficult job, difficult parenting situation.
43:03
And people might say, look, God wouldn't want you to go through this, come down from
43:06
the cross.
43:07
That's self-centered salvation.
43:09
We've got to dismantle that and say, you know, God enlisted me and He drafted me.
43:14
And you know what?
43:15
If you get enlisted and drafted in the NFL, you're going to get hit.
43:19
Very likely you're going to get injured, but that's the point.
43:22
You've got to place to play in that team.
43:25
I don't want men to settle for anything less.
43:28
We're going to get bored with a self-centered Christianity.
43:32
One I think is well, I'm not going to ask you about it because I want to skip to number
43:35
eight.
43:36
But dismantling the need for comfort is the very next chapter, the very next lie, this
43:40
number six.
43:41
And you're talking about like what you learn from suffering and discipline and how we should
43:45
approach afflictions with surrendered silence and realize like there's something that's
43:50
happening here because when all of us look back, because you know, Gary, I'm surrounded
43:54
by all these rise and grind people, people that just love, you know, the grind and we're
43:58
going to build up.
43:59
We love the build up when we're in control of it, right?
44:03
We don't like the teardown process, but when we look back in our past, it's those times
44:08
where we were torn down where we made the most strides.
44:11
It's just like how a muscle works, but I really want to get to lie number eight, okay?
44:15
So this is dismantling apathy toward the church.
44:19
So the tagline for the chapter is learn to be a suffering servant for the church.
44:26
Now Gary, in 2025, that quote doesn't even make sense because none of us think this way.
44:32
Because you know why churches for us, right?
44:35
We are the consumers of the church.
44:37
We have to hear the music exactly how we like it.
44:41
It's got to be the right songs and some with the right people with the right amount of smoke
44:45
versus neons, we have to have that, then we have to have our pastor that's up there wearing
44:50
some stylish clothes.
44:51
He's got to entertain us.
44:53
He's got to make us laugh.
44:54
He's got to sprinkle a few Bible verses in there to keep his tax exempt status.
44:58
But at the end of the day, it's for us.
45:00
If the coffee's not good, we'll change churches.
45:02
If the pastor says that our chosen lifestyle is actually sinful, not good for us, screw
45:07
that guy will go to a different church.
45:09
Gary, I live in Oklahoma.
45:10
I use this as a joke.
45:11
But if I were to trip in the process of me re-catching my balance, I will land on four
45:16
or five different churches, right?
45:18
That's how, you know, really covered up.
45:19
We are, but we just don't think this way, right?
45:23
In the apostle Paul, you know, he kind of talks about he lived as if he was at war, right?
45:30
I mean, you say that in the book, spiritually speaking, the apostle Paul lived like we're
45:34
at war, but Gary, I walk around with these people that are in this spiritual malaise where
45:39
they think we're a peacetime army here.
45:41
And it's like the things that have happened just recently should disabuse us of this notion
45:47
that we're walking around in peacetime and that we're just in this, you know, debate
45:51
about ideas culturally.
45:52
It's like, no, we're fighting evil, right?
45:55
And we can't use the tools of this world, but the tools of this world are also helpful
45:58
as we try to push back darkness and evil.
46:01
So talk to me a little bit about that and then we'll get into a couple of more things
46:04
from the chapter.
46:05
Yeah.
46:06
Can I tell the story from World War II?
46:08
Yeah.
46:09
This really says it is a great story.
46:12
A bunch of Czechoslovakia had been taken over by the Nazis.
46:17
And there are some Czech resistors that wanted to tell the world they have our land, but
46:21
they don't have our heart.
46:23
And general Reinhold to Hydrak, who was third in command in the Nazi army behind Hitler
46:29
and Goebbels, I believe, are enmler, I'm sorry, just a particularly despicable evil man.
46:37
He was the architect of the final solution, trying to wipe out literally all the Jews
46:42
in the world that they could get to.
46:44
They knew he was coming through Czechoslovakia, so they made a plan to assassinate him.
46:48
And they had 17 paratroopers that came in, and I'll never forget this line.
46:53
This is when guys stand up.
46:55
They knew that the Nazis believed in what they called collective responsibility.
46:59
They didn't care about the Geneva Convention.
47:01
If they caught you, they would torture you till you gave up everybody in the resistance
47:06
so they could totally wipe out the resistance.
47:09
And when it's that kind of torture, no resistor could pretend I could withstand that.
47:16
So they handed out cyanide tablets.
47:18
And here's a line that grabbed me, Kyle.
47:20
They said, "Our mission isn't to get away safely, our mission is to kill Hydrak."
47:27
Now, they were successful.
47:29
It took them three days to die from the wounds, but every one of those resistors was ultimately
47:34
either shot in a battle, or ended up taking the cyanide because they knew it was inevitable
47:39
that they would be captured.
47:41
And you see this heroic story, and I just want to ask the men today, is the nation of
47:49
Czechoslovakia as important as it was to these resistors, is that how important the kingdom
47:55
of God is to us?
47:56
Do we have that attitude?
47:58
Our mission isn't to get away safely.
48:00
Our mission is to advance the church, God's bride.
48:04
Do we care about the kingdom of God as much as they cared about the Republic of Czechoslovakia?
48:10
Will we sacrifice for the church as much as they would sacrifice for their country?
48:16
But we have this consumeristic mindset.
48:18
Is this what my kids need?
48:20
Is this what I need?
48:21
Do I get the worship I need?
48:23
It's a completely the opposite attitude of Paul.
48:27
Paul said to the Colossians, "I rejoice in what I'm suffering for you, and I fill up
48:32
in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions for the sake of his
48:36
body, which is the church."
48:39
He said to the Corinthians, "I will very gladly spend for you everything I have and
48:45
expend myself as well."
48:47
And it's a challenge because I'm going to stage in life where I can kind of choose what
48:53
I want to do.
48:54
It would be so easy.
48:55
I could just drift off into retirement.
48:57
The Paul's commitment to be a servant of the church, to work hard for the church, and
49:03
to take the failures of the church, which we all know, as motivation to serve the church
49:09
more, not to withdraw from it.
49:12
I was talking to a young woman once and she was giving a very valid criticism of the contemporary
49:17
church, and my response was, "Then help us fix it.
49:22
Maybe your generation can help present a better church than my generation has done up till
49:28
now, but the church is the bride of Christ.
49:31
Christianity is not to be a solitary faith, and we have to redouble on our effort that
49:36
we are here to be servants of the church, not apathetic toward the church.
49:42
We're fitting right into Satan's playbook.
49:44
If we think it's all about just us getting to heaven rather than building the church
49:48
of God.
49:49
It's a faith that Paul promised, it's not the faith that Jesus calls us to."
49:53
Gary, I get a lot of questions in my emails and my DMs from guys, and some of the questions
49:59
are completely off the wall, but one of the most common questions, if not the most common
50:03
question is, "Hey, I live in who's it's what's it's Montana?
50:07
Do you know of any man-friendly churches in my area?"
50:09
I'm like, "Dude, I don't know the man-friendly churches in my zip code.
50:13
I know the one I go to, but I give them some hints.
50:18
Do, are there young families there?
50:20
Are there a bunch of kids running around along with a bunch of people with gray hair?
50:24
Do the men seem involved during worship?
50:26
Do you hear men's voices as the pastor doing life lessons and sprinkling Bible verses over
50:30
the top of it?
50:31
Or is it the expositing, the scripture going verse by verse, helping you apply that to
50:35
your life as discipleships taken seriously and all that?"
50:38
And that just helps people kind of put a lens through which they can view the church as
50:42
opposed to consumeristically.
50:43
But a little bit later in the chapter, Gary, you say this quote, "A church without a purpose
50:48
is a church without passion."
50:51
Now I actually know of a lot of churches that are very passionate.
50:55
They just happen to be passionate about the wrong things.
50:58
They're passionate about getting another location so they can increase their footprint.
51:03
They're passionate about selling more books by the lead pastor.
51:06
They're passionate about getting their worship team to be up there with like Maverick City
51:12
and Hillsong and all these places so that they can increase their social media profile
51:16
or standing, but they're not passionate about the gospel.
51:19
They're not passionate about discipleship.
51:21
They're not passionate about keeping people in the sanctification process.
51:26
And then also, Gary, I know a lot of churches that have a purpose and sometimes even a written
51:30
stated one, one that they can put on their website or on the wall and the lobby.
51:34
But it's just junk.
51:35
It's just a junk statement.
51:37
It's vapid.
51:38
It's nonsensical.
51:39
The contents of the purpose make a huge difference.
51:43
So talk to me a little bit about purpose and passion and kind of how that could all work
51:47
to an actual gospel end.
51:50
I hope the guys listening have picked up, when we talk about self-centered salvation,
51:55
we talk about the church, we will be bored if we're trying to produce fame for ourselves
52:02
or comfort for ourselves or even the perfect family.
52:06
When we worship Jesus, when we see the glory of Jesus, we see the wonder of Jesus, who he
52:12
is, what he's done, what he's doing, we realize, I don't really matter.
52:19
It's boring for me to live for my own comfort, to live for my own little tiny acclaim, to
52:25
live for this little bit of happiness.
52:29
I want to give myself over to what God is doing.
52:32
And what he said, I've seen it is true.
52:35
Churches that want to feel important or to get bigger, whatnot, because they're not
52:39
worshipping Jesus, when you see the glory and beauty of Jesus, it's like, who cares
52:45
what people think of us or who cares what people say of us.
52:48
We want you to see Jesus as we see him because he is our hope, he's our joy, he's our reason
52:54
for being.
52:55
He's the one that holds us together.
52:58
And so I think it just lasts a bit.
53:00
Hey, can I interrupt you real quick, Gary?
53:01
Gary, don't lose your train of thought here because I think that's important.
53:03
But I do want to mention a couple of guys because we get new listeners every week.
53:07
So if I've said it before, I always feel the need to say it again.
53:10
But you mentioned a quote with the two ticks one dog earlier, that's from Matt Chandler
53:14
at the village church in the Dallas area.
53:16
And then everyone knows I have a great affiliation and friendship with Joby Martin, a church
53:19
of 1122 out there in Florida.
53:21
The thing about those two guys that I've learned, so go back to when Matt Chandler was
53:25
running the village as a multi site.
53:28
And then he felt the strong pull from God that each one of his churches need to be rolled
53:32
off to be their own autonomous churches so that they can operate more effectively in
53:36
the region that they were of the DFW Metroplex, which went against every church growth strategy,
53:43
which went against marketing.
53:44
It went against all the publishers were like, no, don't do that.
53:47
More people will buy your books if you're the main pastor of all these different areas.
53:51
And he said, no, and the elder board was unanimous that we're going to roll these things off.
53:55
It didn't make sense, except it made sense for the gospel and for the discipleship process.
54:00
And then you got Joby Martin.
54:01
That's kind of running.
54:02
You call it your, your typical men's or typical, you know, large mega church ministry.
54:07
If you look at it from the outside and then you go in there and they, they don't treat
54:11
worship as song singing.
54:12
They treated his warfare and the pastor waited until he was 50s to write his first book when
54:17
he could have wrote it earlier, but he's like, I'm, I'm leading a flock here and like he
54:21
doesn't like to do headshots.
54:23
He doesn't like to go in like finagle is way into the biggest conferences because he's
54:27
like, are those things helping me shepherd this flock that God gave me this flock right
54:31
here in this particular area and everything they do is for the sake of the gospel.
54:37
And then once they get people into the kingdom, right, or in unto the team, as it were, it's
54:41
like, all right, well, let's get serious about discipleship.
54:44
All right.
54:45
You got three years ago on a mission trip where it's time to find a new church.
54:48
And so there are guys out there that have big profiles that didn't try to get that.
54:53
I think it's important to find those guys to give them their flowers and to support their
54:57
ministries.
54:58
But go ahead.
54:59
I just wanted to make sure to mention that.
55:00
No, I, I think what you said kind of wraps it up, that we just need a bigger picture.
55:05
We need to fall in love with Jesus over and over again.
55:08
See him in his glory.
55:09
See him in his power.
55:10
Realize that his kingdom is more fulfilling than our own.
55:13
Seek first the kingdom of God.
55:16
That's going to fulfill you more than any family you could create any business you could create,
55:21
any ministry you could create.
55:22
And it's so freeing because then it's not about you.
55:26
Because in the end, it is ultimately it is all about Jesus, how much God loves us, what
55:32
God has done for us.
55:35
All right, Gary, I teed it up at the beginning, but my favorite chapter, this is why you got
55:39
to read to the end of the book and listen to the end of the podcast, guys, because my
55:43
favorite chapter was chapter 12, right?
55:45
So we get to the 12th lie, dismantling complacent ignorance.
55:49
So we're going to dig into a few things from this chapter.
55:51
So I'll read a quote here.
55:53
The truth is, most of us don't passionately pursue wisdom because we're comfortable with
55:58
where we are in life.
55:59
We think we know enough.
56:01
We're getting by with what we have.
56:03
And so many more compelling pursuits capture our imagination.
56:07
So I've railed on this, Gary.
56:08
You got guys that haven't read a book since high school and they think that's fine.
56:12
You got guys that they they fall into one political persuasion or ideology and they don't
56:16
change.
56:17
Like I don't actually care when a politician says something different today than they did
56:21
20 years ago, because I'm like, Oh, that means this person has kept thinking.
56:24
They were disabuse of a previous notion and they've accepted a new view of reality and
56:28
a philosophy.
56:29
They're in great.
56:30
I'm actually cool with that.
56:31
But my gosh, Gary, especially with guys, we get to this point where we're like, Oh yeah,
56:36
I'm good.
56:37
You know, I've read the Bible before.
56:38
I know the Bible stories, you know, I know the stories in the Bible, but I don't know
56:43
the story of the Bible.
56:44
But man, I really don't know who's going to be the best running back for my fantasy football
56:49
team next week.
56:50
Spend some time thinking about that, man, I don't know how long it's going to take me
56:53
to level up in this new video game that I got and blah, blah, blah.
56:56
So I need to go check that out and you have these guys pursuing all these passions and
57:00
all these different directions.
57:01
And it's just like guys, you're investing so much time and energy that crap that doesn't
57:05
matter.
57:06
And you know, it doesn't matter, but you go after it anyway.
57:09
So where did we get this malaise where we're not even seeking wisdom?
57:15
Here's why I'm so grateful for scripture.
57:19
This kind of kind of wraps up a little call.
57:21
We are being lied to every day about what we should value, about what's most important,
57:27
about what leads to fulfillment.
57:29
If Paul says in Romans 12 to do not conform to the pattern of this world, world is aion
57:35
in Greek.
57:36
It could also be age.
57:37
Paul saying this world is trying to conform you and shape you and mold you.
57:42
Don't let that happen.
57:43
How do you not let that happen?
57:45
Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
57:48
And Proverbs tells me that wisdom is worth more than rubies.
57:53
So I just want to ask the guys, do you pay more attention to what your 401(k) is going
57:58
to look like a year from now or whether you're going to be a wiser person a year from now?
58:03
Do you truly value wisdom over worldly wealth?
58:07
Well, how you spend your time is going to impact that.
58:10
Do you spend more time figuring out where you can invest here or there or there or make
58:14
you money or trying to grow in wisdom?
58:17
But the best thing you can give to your wife, to your kids, to your friends, to your church,
58:24
to yourself is wisdom.
58:27
I mean, the Bible goes out of its way.
58:29
The beginning of wisdom is this.
58:31
Get wisdom, though it costs all you have, it's going to cost you screen time.
58:37
It's going to cost you some free time.
58:39
Get understanding, cherish her, and she will exalt you, embrace her, and she will honor
58:46
you.
58:47
She will give you a garland to grace your head and present you with the glorious crown.
58:51
That's Proverbs 4, 7, through 9.
58:52
And I just want to ask the guys, do you believe scripture?
58:56
Do you believe when the Bible speaks, God speaks?
59:00
God is making it as clear and explicit as He can that one of the first pursuits in your
59:05
life, well, first pursuit is His Kingdom, but a second part of that is pursuing wisdom
59:11
because otherwise you can spend your entire life winning battles that don't matter, achieving
59:19
things that count for nothing, but wisdom sort of sets you on, I value this, I don't
59:25
value this, I prioritize this, I deprioritize that.
59:29
If we aren't growing in wisdom, if we're not thirsty for wisdom, we're being conformed
59:35
to this world and this world is saying, this is what you should care about.
59:39
This is what you should think about.
59:40
This is what you should aspire after.
59:43
Wisdom is just way, way, way undervalued in the church today.
59:48
Want to read a quote to double down on that from the chapter after you were talking about
59:52
Romans 12, too, here's a powerful takeaway, to do nothing is to be conformed.
59:58
If we don't fight against being conformed, we will be conformed.
1:00:03
If we consume popular culture, mindlessly, it's blog posts, podcast, television series,
1:00:08
movies, music, news and commercial novels will be conformed to popular culture.
1:00:12
Remember, this age has an agenda, which is to run as fast as it can from God's agenda.
1:00:18
But now I do want to draw a little bit of a delineating point here is there's a line
1:00:23
between knowledge and wisdom, okay, because we live in a time where people can easily
1:00:29
gain knowledge, okay?
1:00:31
I can talk to my phone and ask it a question that previously I would have had to find
1:00:37
the guy in town that had the encyclopedia Britannica or some sort of atlas and go to
1:00:43
their house, ask them the question, open up the encyclopedia and find the answer, right?
1:00:47
We can just get it all instantaneously.
1:00:49
When we look at the age of AI, I've worn guys on my show, okay, use AI as a tool, right?
1:00:56
To help you be more efficient, I'm fine with that.
1:00:59
But don't go to it for advice.
1:01:01
I know of people getting marriage advice, business advice and stuff from AI, right, literally.
1:01:07
And the thing about it is, is AI has knowledge, but it lacks three other things, wisdom, discernment,
1:01:14
and the Holy Spirit, right?
1:01:16
So here you are getting marriage advice from a bot that was programmed into the algorithm
1:01:21
by people that are left leaning atheistic.
1:01:24
And then you're thinking there's going to be no issue with the outputs on the back end
1:01:27
because of quantum computing or something Joe Rogan said on his podcast.
1:01:31
But I look at wisdom and discernment as gifts, right?
1:01:36
Because as we know, there are people that are smart, they're 36 on their ACT people.
1:01:40
But when it comes to the real world, they're dumb as a box of rocks, like they have no
1:01:44
wisdom.
1:01:45
They have no discernment.
1:01:46
They don't know what to do with that knowledge.
1:01:48
And so is it almost foolhardy to seek wisdom because wisdom is a gift that's given to us?
1:01:54
Should we just pursue knowledge and hope it kind of translates into wisdom?
1:01:58
I think knowledge is, I would kind of describe it as facts, which can be helpful.
1:02:03
Wisdom I would say goes back to truth.
1:02:07
Things like when Jesus says, if you save your life, you will lose it.
1:02:10
If you lose your life, you will save it.
1:02:12
That's wisdom.
1:02:13
That's like it's when you become a servant that's better than trying to exalt yourself.
1:02:18
That's wisdom.
1:02:20
It's understanding what really matters in another chapter, Kyle.
1:02:25
I talk about Paul before Agrippa and Bernice and how Agrippa had all of the power and all
1:02:32
of the wealth.
1:02:33
And Paul was smelly and beaten up.
1:02:35
His body was a monstrosity of wounds.
1:02:38
He was going to die in a few months.
1:02:41
And yet Paul ended up being the significant one there.
1:02:45
Paul, because he became a Christian, literally said, I'm going to go from being the persecutor
1:02:51
to the persecuted.
1:02:53
With the powers of the world, I get to throw you into prison.
1:02:56
But now he sees Jesus.
1:02:58
Now you're going to throw me in prison because testifying to Jesus matters more than whether
1:03:04
I live in prison or in a palace.
1:03:07
It's wisdom that often goes against the knowledge that the world presents.
1:03:13
We're only going to get that from Scripture.
1:03:15
Look, I've read the Christian classics my entire life back when I was in my early 20s.
1:03:23
But there is a power and a truth that emanates from Scripture.
1:03:28
I could get more from one chapter in the book of Colossians, Colossians chapter 3 than any
1:03:34
of the best books that have ever been written because it is living an active.
1:03:39
It's the sword of the Spirit.
1:03:41
And so that's where we want to go.
1:03:44
It's not just acquiring knowledge from this source and that source.
1:03:47
Wisdom is found, I think, first in Scripture.
1:03:49
Also, I love the Christian classics.
1:03:52
People who are writing in response to Scripture, it's not like Scripture because you still
1:03:56
have to test it.
1:03:58
But these are time-tested truths that the churches said, yeah, there's help here.
1:04:02
There's truth here.
1:04:04
There's great guidance here.
1:04:05
And then I still like to read a lot of contemporary books because I do think the Spirit is speaking
1:04:09
to people today.
1:04:11
So it's more about finding the sources where true wisdom comes from.
1:04:17
Knowledge can be helpful, but knowledge apart from truth, it puffs up instead of causing
1:04:24
us to be faithful followers of Christ.
1:04:27
Yeah, I think you're right.
1:04:28
And as evidence of that this year, like guys, I am pro.
1:04:31
Like I have a book list on my website, the 100 books, every modern Christian man should
1:04:34
read lists.
1:04:35
You're featured in the marriage section of that.
1:04:37
But guys, read C.S. Lewis, read GK Chesterton, read Vody Bockham, like read those giants.
1:04:43
But this year on the forging table, which is where me and three other laymen are going
1:04:46
through books of the Bible an hour at a time, we decide to do the book of Romans, the letter
1:04:51
to the church in Rome.
1:04:53
But we decided as opposed to doing a chapter an hour that we were just going to record
1:04:56
for an hour and see how far we get into scrape our way through the scripture.
1:05:02
And Gary, it took us 12 hours to get through Romans chapter one.
1:05:06
I'm not the first one was just Romans one one, right?
1:05:09
Right.
1:05:10
It was Romans run one, and then it was Romans one, one part two.
1:05:14
And then it was Romans one, one through one four.
1:05:16
It took us four hours to get through the first seven verses of the letter, right?
1:05:20
Because Romans one one, it's like Paul, okay, pause.
1:05:23
Who are we talking about?
1:05:24
Who was he before?
1:05:25
Who is he now?
1:05:26
The servant of Christ Jesus.
1:05:28
Okay.
1:05:29
That word is actually due loss.
1:05:30
What does due loss mean?
1:05:31
What does it mean to be purchased?
1:05:33
So it's a difference of scraping through something that is ultimate truth as opposed to going
1:05:37
through things that have truth inside of it.
1:05:39
So again, guys, the name of the book is a life you were reborn to live.
1:05:44
You can check it out there in the show notes.
1:05:45
But when we get to the end here, you always got something cooking.
1:05:48
You're not bored.
1:05:49
You're not you're living with adventure and risk out here.
1:05:52
So I know you're working on something, but I want you to tell us about something.
1:05:55
Yeah.
1:05:56
Tell us about you.
1:05:57
Told us how to get a standing ovation.
1:05:58
But what's that thing you're working on?
1:05:59
You haven't really told anybody about the publisher would be mad if you mentioned it.
1:06:03
Give the guys a listen to the end here, something special.
1:06:07
Well, I mean, I've always got there's four or five books I'm dying to write that that
1:06:15
I'm talking to my publisher about that I'm ready to go with.
1:06:20
So you're right.
1:06:22
I'm not really supposed to talk about them before we get a little bit further down the
1:06:26
road.
1:06:27
But with this book, I think the message I just want to get out Kyle is that we were reborn
1:06:34
to live an entirely different life with different values, different belief systems, different
1:06:40
passions and different help.
1:06:42
And I think what's holding so many Christians back is they get wet in baptism, but they're
1:06:48
not fully reborn in the sense of living a totally new life.
1:06:53
And I Frank, I just feel sorry for them because Christianity is the most fulfilling life.
1:06:59
It's the most exciting life.
1:07:01
And I don't think anybody would want to deconstruct from that life if they were truly experiencing
1:07:06
it.
1:07:07
Very good.
1:07:08
Well, thank you for all the time you spent with the audience today, but that's all for
1:07:11
me.
1:07:12
Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?
1:07:13
No, thank you God.
1:07:14
It's always fun to talk.
1:07:15
I so appreciate what you're doing, reaching out for the guys.
1:07:18
I'm not surprised you're number one at that point.
1:07:21
And I just appreciate you as a brother in the Lord fellow servant in the gospel.
1:07:26
Thanks Gary.
1:07:27
There you go guys.
1:07:28
I hope you enjoyed my time with Gary, but before I let you go, we are going to do a
1:07:31
quick resilience boost at Undaunted Life or Mission is equipping men to push back darkness
1:07:35
with content that forges spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
1:07:38
So a couple of links for you today.
1:07:39
The first is to Gary's website, so you can check out a speaking day to all of his other
1:07:42
books and also I've got a link to where you can buy his newest book, The Life You Were
1:07:46
Reborn To Live.
1:07:47
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1:07:49
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1:07:58
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1:08:01
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1:08:20
I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
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Keep seeking the lion of Judah.
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