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0:58
This is Undaunted Life Man's Podcast. I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it.
1:25
Joe B. Martin, welcome to my house.
1:32
The people in YouTube are listening to this right now. They don't know why you're here.
1:37
I guess we should go ahead and tell them. So a while ago, should I leave it a surprise?
1:43
It's your house.
1:45
No, I'll leave it a surprise. I'll leave it a surprise for why you were here,
1:49
that what we did not initially, like the first night, but why you were here in my space.
1:54
So I think most people will be able to use context clues, but you're in Oklahoma.
1:58
And the last time you're in Oklahoma, you couldn't exactly remember where you were or if you technically were here at any point.
2:02
So I'm going to say this is your first trip. This is like your first official trip to my state of Oklahoma.
2:07
So welcome to Oklahoma. What do you think?
2:09
It's good to be here. I love it. I have been here one other time, but I just don't know what part of Oklahoma.
2:14
You think you went to Wichita Falls, which is right on the other side of the border down in the southwest lands.
2:20
And so there's a chance you were in law, which is where I'm from.
2:24
It may be. It's a friend of mine. I got to get to work with that owns some property there, and we chase turkeys around to know avail.
2:31
So speaking of chasing turkeys, you and I did just go on a hunt. So shout out to our buddy Heath, my buddy.
2:37
Now your new buddy Heath. So he went and took us on a hunt on his family's land.
2:41
So that was cool to kind of get to see that because you and I have hunted before down in well, not in Florida and Georgia.
2:47
And so we've hunted at your retreat center for the church and also at a different place, South wind plantation.
2:53
We did that. Something for the guys that are in this audience that don't go to church 1122.
2:58
Y'all do something called encounter every year. And so I want you to kind of give us an idea of that because to be honest with you,
3:03
I've never gone to a church that did something similar to this. And so it's very unique.
3:08
But when I get flooded all the time with questions about, Hey, what makes a man friendly church?
3:12
Hey, do you have a man friendly church in my area?
3:14
I typically have to talk to guys about how to go in through the back way like, okay, here are some questions that you could ask your pastor.
3:20
Here are some suggestions that you can make to the elder board of some things that you could do to push the church like in a more masculine direction.
3:27
You know, where the manly men in your church aren't like repelled by what's going on.
3:30
So where did the idea for encounter come from? What is it? And then we'll just flow from there.
3:34
Well, I did student ministry for about 15 years before planning the church.
3:38
I think one of the problems with adult discipleship is that adults quit going to camp.
3:42
And so I look for opportunities to take people from our church just out of the air conditioned air into the woods,
3:51
draw near to God. He will draw near to you.
3:54
And so one of the things that I do is virtually every Monday morning,
3:58
I get up going to the woods, climbing to a deer, staying open, my Bible and right sermons.
4:02
And I thought, wow, this works pretty good for me.
4:04
What if I open this up to a bunch of guys just to experience a version of that?
4:09
So we call this thing encounter because the hope is you would encounter some animals
4:13
and you would encounter the Lord.
4:15
And so you came as my guest on encounter last year and it's just wide open to anybody who wants to sign up.
4:20
We go hunt for a few days.
4:22
We have a divo that you take up into the deer stand with you and you just spend some time with the Lord.
4:27
Read this word, listen to him and you spend some time with some other brothers around the campfire at night.
4:32
Just sharing a little testimony. Some of the testimony is not very serious.
4:35
We talk about the animals that we encountered and the only rule is you have to start every story with.
4:41
So there I was and we never let the details get in the way of a good story.
4:46
So we want people to elaborate as much as possible.
4:48
And then every year I ask, okay, who encountered the Lord?
4:51
And people just begin to share testimony.
4:53
And every single year, though, there has not been an official gospel presentation or invitation,
5:00
one of the men gets saved.
5:02
So it's pretty awesome.
5:03
Well, I mean, I remember when I was there, it's like, okay, I'm the only guy that doesn't go to your church.
5:07
And so, but I'm kind of like a known entity because some of the people listen to the show.
5:11
But like when I show up at something like that, that's not like it's not a paid speaking gig
5:16
where the church brings me in and everybody knows that I'm like the speaker, right?
5:20
I just try to be a little bit of a fly on the wall.
5:22
And so I was able to be a fly on the wall last year.
5:24
And it was unique getting to see guys that were there for their second one that are connecting with one another.
5:29
It's good to see guys that are new, but you can tell they're kind of struggling a little bit.
5:32
Maybe someone helped them kind of get there because this is the thing that you have to pay for.
5:35
And it's not the cheapest thing in the world, but like, you know, it's a private hunt at a nice facility with good food.
5:39
And so, you know, you get what you pay for.
5:41
But I just thought it was so unique because you've told a story about how you prep sermons on our show
5:47
and you've told it from your pulpit plenty of times and how God doesn't owe you a sermon but it overwhelms you every time.
5:51
And I got to sort of see that firsthand at this hunt that you and I went on because you're in a different part of the land.
5:57
And you were, you know, we're spot and stalk hunting, but you were watching a particular part of the land for a very long time.
6:02
And you were preparing this week's sermon, which, you know, we won't talk about what the sermon is because this will come out a few weeks after.
6:07
And the cadence will be all off.
6:09
But the same thing was apparent whenever I had the Church of 11, 22 little devotional when I was in the blind
6:17
because where I was, there was only really one line of sight.
6:19
And so, you know, I wasn't going to get surprised by an animal that I mean, I was going to be able to see him coming.
6:23
But otherwise, I would have just been sitting there listening to the podcast the whole time.
6:26
Like I would have never been reading something.
6:29
I would have never been just spending time just like literally sitting there type of thing.
6:33
And so it almost gave you that forced, um, that forced disconnect, right?
6:39
And so it's kind of hard to encounter God whenever you're constantly drowning them out with other stimuli.
6:43
And so this was one of those moments that you kind of forced it.
6:46
Even if it's godly stimulus, right? Even if you're even if it's like worship music and all of that, man, there's something about the human experience
6:55
that I don't think was supposed to be constantly and consistently distracted.
6:59
Um, some of our best thoughts come when we're quote unquote board imaginations grow, some of your best ideas grow.
7:07
Sometimes you got to sit through the quiet long enough so all the things you can think to be distracted by can eventually run out.
7:14
And you can just listen to the Lord.
7:16
You know, the reformers talked about we have two books.
7:18
We have the Bible and we have the book of creation, not that the book of creation can reveal the gospel to you,
7:23
but it does reveal a part of God's glory to us.
7:26
And so you put those, I like to put those two things together and sit in the woods with my Bible and read it and just see what he has to say to me.
7:32
So really all encounter was, and I like to hunt.
7:35
I just thought it'd be cool to bring a bunch of men out into the woods and let them experience what I experienced when I write sermons in the woods.
7:43
Do you know any other pastors that do that, that their churches have kind of like, you know, they, they bought hunting land somewhere.
7:49
And that's like kind of what their pastor does is he goes out in the nature and he, you know, sits in a stand.
7:53
Like I've never heard a story similar to that.
7:55
I know Brian Tom does a thing called man camp and it's just that it's just to get dudes out in the woods,
8:01
but it's like terrible because this tent camping and they're tough.
8:03
We stayed in a really nice place and made like grits and eggs for breakfast every morning and got driven to our stand.
8:09
So this is a little more bougie, but it's awesome.
8:12
Well, even just like a pastor that individually by themselves on a weekly basis goes out in the woods to to write their sermon.
8:19
Because I know every pastor has their own way of doing things and whatever works for you works for you.
8:22
I don't think so.
8:23
I know Jim Bergen in Colorado hunts a lot, but I don't know how many he writes in in the tree stand like I do.
8:30
It just works out so good for me, man. And we in our church by God's grace was able to purchase this retreat center about three years ago.
8:37
And so it's just an incredible opportunity for me to go sit in the south Georgia pine woods and listen to the Lord.
8:43
I mean, every, you know, I just read my Bible on my phone.
8:46
So I can't just turn it on because the light will shine you up and you can't do that while you're waiting on the deer hogs or whatever to come in.
8:51
So it also forces me to pray and confession.
8:55
I'm not a great prayer.
8:56
I wake up thinking about doing not praying and I would read, especially when we first planted the church 12 years ago,
9:03
I would read about men like Spurgeon and Wesley and Calvin and guys like that.
9:07
And their prayer life was incredible. I mean, multiple hours a day.
9:12
They didn't have cable leave, so what else are you going to do?
9:15
But I remember a real conviction like God has given.
9:18
I didn't feel like my prayer life was keeping up with the responsibility that God was giving me.
9:23
And I just found if I go sit in the woods, if I get there an hour, an hour and a half before the sun ever comes up,
9:28
before I can ever get to work on the sermon, I just have an hour or an hour and a half just to pray to God.
9:34
It helps me a lot.
9:35
And so each week I try to start by just saying, God, you're the chief shepherd.
9:40
I'm the under shepherd work for you.
9:42
There's your sheep.
9:43
They're not my sheep.
9:44
What do you want to say to your sheep through me?
9:46
That's my prayer.
9:47
And like I was explaining multiple times to you, God does not owe me a sermon.
9:52
It's a real gift of his grace that he would give me any idea, again, what to preach this week.
9:57
And so, yesterday, yesterday, I just felt like God opened up my, I don't know how to explain it, opened up my brain
10:05
and just dumped this like real insight into a passage that I've read hundreds of times before,
10:12
but for whatever reason yesterday, I saw it in a brand new way.
10:15
And the only way I can explain that, it's a fulfillment of a prophecy that Jesus said,
10:20
I'm going away, but you're going to want me to go away because I'm going to send to you the helper, the paraclete,
10:25
the holy spirit.
10:27
And one of the things that he's going to do is he's going to teach you things.
10:30
He's going to reveal to you things that are in the scripture.
10:34
And so, I hope that happens when I am preaching, right?
10:38
That somebody's sitting there, whether it's listening to the, to my podcast, like three years later,
10:43
actually, I just got an email from a guy I need to share with you.
10:45
He was listening from us to a sermon from 10 years ago, right?
10:49
And he was talking about what God did in his life.
10:51
But I'm hoping he would experience what I get to experience that God would, the power of the Holy Spirit
10:57
reveal some truth from his word that would impact his life.
11:00
Hey guys, real quick.
11:01
Here recently, I went on a hunting trip with a group of guys and one of the guys had lost 50 pounds on the carnivore diet.
11:08
And some of you guys don't need to lose a bunch of weight, but you're trying to maximize your overall health.
11:12
And a lot of you are experimenting like me with the carnivore diet.
11:15
But the problem is, is you don't have a cattle operation that you can trust to get you high quality beef.
11:20
And that's why I want to introduce you to my friends, the official beef delivery partner of Undaunted Life,
11:25
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11:26
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11:30
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11:34
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11:38
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11:40
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11:42
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11:46
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11:51
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11:57
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12:00
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12:01
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12:09
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12:15
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12:21
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12:23
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12:27
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12:30
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12:32
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12:33
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12:37
One of the things that I find unique about that is...
12:41
Well, excellent.
12:42
Let me back up.
12:43
I feel like you could prepare a sermon another way.
12:46
Do you feel like if you were just at home sitting on the back porch, like for whatever reason, retreat centers on fire, you can't get out there like...
12:53
Sometimes I have to.
12:55
I mean, you know, I ride lots of sermons on planes or sometimes in the summer when it's 100 million degrees.
13:02
And especially if I've been away from my family a lot, I might choose to just stay in the backyard and watch the bird feeder kind of thing.
13:09
So, but my normal rhythm is to try to get out in the woods.
13:14
Now, one of the things that's great is that everybody that goes to our church in Jacksonville and around, they know what I'm supposed to be doing on Monday.
13:21
So sometimes I'll even just like shift it up and go Monday afternoon.
13:24
But if I'm seen in public, like if I'd run into the grocery store and somebody from 1122 sees me on a Monday morning, they are like, what are you doing here?
13:32
We don't need you here.
13:33
It's like that.
13:34
We need you on that wall.
13:35
We want you on that wall.
13:36
That's kind of the sentiment I get, which is pretty neat.
13:39
Well, we kind of talked about over the weekend because you're asking me about like how I prepare a solo episode and those types of things and like how I did 99 episodes of this show before I ever did one interview.
13:48
And so it's like, you're going to have to figure out how do you do interviews and preparing for an interview with an author is different than preparing for an interview with a, you know, Navy SEAL that's never written a book or something like that, which I don't think there are any Navy SEALs that haven't written books at this point.
14:00
So congratulations, you guys very prolific, but it's just, it was always kind of a shock to me.
14:05
This, this was back in the, when I was still working full time doing other stuff time where I was still once a week, get in this studio.
14:12
This is before quick hitters.
14:14
This is before interviews.
14:15
This is before as capacitor before from the Senate with Mark Wayne Mullen before any of that stuff.
14:20
And I would have something on my mind to talk about.
14:23
And I would prepare an episode that was roughly 45 minutes long.
14:26
Now I'm a content creator.
14:28
So if you're going to be that, you have to do that, right?
14:31
You have to be able to stare at a blank screen.
14:33
That's why I tell people all the time that asked me like, Hey, I want to start a podcast.
14:36
You know, what would you suggest?
14:37
And I was like not doing it because it, I mean, it can be miserable to stare at a blank screen or a blank piece of paper and turn that into an hour's worth of content.
14:44
But at some point, I feel like God always provide me something to talk about.
14:49
That was something that I could be passionate about, not just something to fill up the airways.
14:53
Yeah, I think, and I think what you do is way harder than what I do.
14:58
I mean, how's that?
14:59
If I don't know what to do, I could just teach a book of the Bible and which is what I mostly do.
15:02
So the content is there.
15:04
My job is more like the transformer outside of your house.
15:09
It takes the electricity that would catch your house on fire if it wasn't transformed.
15:14
And so the power of the word of God sort of flows through me.
15:18
And then I try to transform it or tease it out in a way where people that might not have enough time to study the Bible, like I get the gift to study the Bible all the time or have the degrees in.
15:29
I can also put some stuff on the bottom shelf for people that maybe don't understand that particular aspect of doctrine or theology.
15:36
And I can dig into places where they're like, well, I never knew that was a reality about that passage.
15:40
But I'm at least sorry, even even if we do a topical sermon like the series we're in now.
15:45
I don't know if you would consider this topical or not, but it's the seven last names of Jesus.
15:50
So that's just decided.
15:53
I'm not really staring at a blank screen.
15:55
Now, a year ago, I was staring at a blank screen as I was determining what like what the sermon series would be.
16:03
But even as I map that out, even if we do a topical series like on, I don't know, the email that the guy that I want to share with you was about the seven deadly sins.
16:12
But even when I do that, I don't just tell everything I know about pride.
16:17
I go find a primary text to exegete about pride.
16:21
So that's way easier than like what a comedian does.
16:25
They just think, I have to entertain people for X amount of time and I've got to come up with something out of nothing.
16:32
Well, the closest thing that we have to that is we know what the next year and a half of the forging table is going to look like.
16:40
So for you guys listening to this on time where we're rounding to a close on Matthew and then we're going to take a little bit of a jaunt and then we're going to do another long book and we already know what long book we're going to do after that book.
16:52
And the next two after Matthew and our little little break, they're heavy.
16:57
They're difficult books.
16:58
You know which ones that we're doing and it's like it's going to be really, really heavy.
17:01
So that's the only thing that I can know, but I'm not like preparing for those now.
17:05
Like the book that's after the next book, like there's no way really to prepare for that, whereas with my solo episodes, especially now, because typically the cadence is some big topic that I talk about for 15 to 45 minutes.
17:16
And then quick hitters, right?
17:18
Well, quick hitters are things that have happened relatively in the recent past.
17:22
So it could have happened that week or within the last couple of months.
17:25
And you keep a running list of that stuff, right?
17:27
So I've got it on my phone.
17:28
And so for those of you out there that are sharing stuff with me through our email, if you send me DM is on Instagram and you're sharing these news stories with me, I don't always like respond to you in that moment.
17:37
But if it's something that I want to look at a little bit further, I might see that as like quick hitter material, I will just put it in the bank on my phone.
17:44
And so sometimes I just have to go through and just clear it out.
17:46
Sometimes I have to do an episode like what I did, you know, several weeks ago where it's like, I just have to do like 15 quick hitters because it's like, I have to talk about all these different things because I was telling you part of this is just cathartic.
17:56
Because you asked me like if I couldn't do all the different types of episodes, which one's what I keep doing.
18:01
The thing is, is a thing that keeps me from inflaming people on my personal Facebook page is being able to prepare an episode where I can give a full-throated opinion on whatever the incendiary topic is or whatever news story and be able to just get it out of my head.
18:14
Because if it's left in there, it just, it just eats at my brain in my attention span.
18:18
Like whenever I was dealing with the throat issues and I had this, you know, country music theology thing kind of twisting around in my head and I'm like, I have to get this out.
18:25
It's got to get out of my brain and I just can't move on until it's out.
18:29
So I like that.
18:31
I like when I listen to you do all that stuff.
18:33
I enjoy the ask a pastor segment that I get to do once a month because you ask me that kind of stuff.
18:39
And this is a, this is really good evidence of how your job and the kingdom and my job of the kingdom are very, very different.
18:45
Well, let's actually talk.
18:46
I was going to ask you about that because that's the worst way to preach ever.
18:48
It's a great way to run a podcast.
18:50
Right.
18:51
But you know, because you're giving commentary on cultural issues all the time, beware of the pastor that's got his own little quick hitter segment and every sermon is just like, well, let me tell you what I think about the 10 most popular things right now.
19:02
It's a very, very dangerous way to preach.
19:05
And, and you shouldn't change the thing because this is not a sermon.
19:09
You're not given a sermon necessarily.
19:11
Well, but that's, so what's interesting about that is there are people, people that give me bad reviews or people that write me angry emails.
19:18
They're judging me as they would judge a pastor.
19:20
And what have I told you about that stuff?
19:22
Don't worry, I'm getting there.
19:23
Don't worry, I'm getting there.
19:24
But it's like, I never knew how to exactly handle that.
19:26
Like, okay, how do I handle, because typically I handle criticism by saying, luckily for you, there are millions of other shows out there, you know, try one of those out.
19:33
Maybe they want to offend you so much.
19:34
But you and I were having a phone conversation before we were like buddies, but when we were still just kind of like, hey, this is kind of like a guy that I had on my podcast once.
19:42
But before we were buddies and you said, yeah, you can't preach the news cycle.
19:45
You were talking about pastors because I was explaining how frustrated I was at certain pastors when we're talking about certain things from certain pulpits.
19:50
And you're just like, yeah, you can't really preach the news cycle.
19:52
That's not what Sunday morning's about.
19:53
And you know, people in my life had echoed the same sentiment.
19:56
But then at one point, you just said, Kyle, look, I'm the pastor, you're the prophet.
20:00
Not like, hey, Kyle, you can tell the future kind of profit, but it's like, you're the guy that's screaming into culture and you're doing stuff that would be not, it would be at best weird from my pulpit, but at worst inappropriate from my pulpit.
20:14
Yeah, so hopefully there, hopefully I play a prophetic role, but there's a, you don't have a group of sheep that you are responsible for moving them from this place to that green pasture.
20:28
That's very different.
20:30
And I'm applauding what you do on your show, the way you just drop truth bombs, whether it be about some pastor or it's about the pope or whatever, you know, like, even if I believed everything you said about everything you've ever said.
20:45
How, what would I have to do with anything if I just gave all these hot takes on what the pope is saying lately from my pulpit?
20:52
That's not the point of what I'm trying to do, right?
20:54
I'm trying to get somebody, I'm trying to get all the somebody's in our church to take one more step of obedience in the direction of the good shepherd.
21:01
That's what a shepherd does.
21:03
And so I was saying that to free you up, do your thing.
21:07
Don't, so, and don't let somebody try to box you in at this, you know, like they would, like they would criticize me as a pastor.
21:14
And then likewise, the other way is that I have a different role than you have to.
21:18
But what's really great is we work together off of the kingdom of God and I think both roles are very, very important.
21:23
Hey guys, real quick, if you're anything like me, you are constantly on the lookout for high quality products that are actually made here in America by American hands.
21:31
The problem is that a lot of American companies have outsourced their labor overseas, so it's an American company, but it's supporting people that don't live here.
21:39
So I've always went to partner with an American company that prioritizes America, American workers, and making all of their materials here in this country.
21:47
That's why I want to remind you that we are partnered with Origin.
21:50
Origin is an apparel company based in Maine, and they are focused on getting as much manufacturing back to the United States as they can possibly do.
21:58
What do they make? They make the best jujitsu geese on the planet, and these are the only jujitsu geese that are made completely in America.
22:05
They also make jeans, yes, they're stretchy and awesome.
22:08
They also make amazing hunting gear, and I know you guys love your kuyu and your sika, but those companies use overseas labor, and they don't do that to help you guys out.
22:16
They do that to increase their profit margins.
22:18
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22:22
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22:51
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22:57
So literally, what would you suggest to that pastor?
23:00
Because I've been critical even of my own pastor because before a Tuesday election, he was like, "Remember on Tuesday, vote biblical values."
23:06
And I love my pastor. I love the fact that he's been in the same church for 30 years.
23:11
He sposits books of the Bible. We're in Colossians right now, and we're just like freaking going.
23:16
We've been in Colossians 1 for like five weeks, and we're not even done with it yet.
23:19
And I didn't know that I would ever love that, but I freaking love it like I'm thirsty for it, right?
23:23
But I was so frustrated when you say that because so many people will say, "Yeah, I'll vote biblical values, and I'll vote for this guy who is advocating for killing babies in the womb."
23:31
It's like, "Could you be more specific?" And so you and I talked offline about there was even an election in Jacksonville
23:37
that you feel like you could have swayed by mentioning to your flock of substantial amount of people
23:45
that, "Hey, this election matters. You shouldn't want Christians to not have anything to do with culture or politics,
23:52
because then you will only have atheist running politics, so you don't want that."
23:56
But then it's like, "Where do you draw the line of what you dress?" Let's be specific, okay.
24:02
I think it would be a good idea for you to tell your pastor what everybody your age and younger hears when he says that line.
24:11
He thinks he's probably being clear, and you could help him by saying, "You probably need two or three more lines of commentary on what the Bible actually values."
24:21
One of them that is just cut and dry, and I don't see any way around it right now, is the sanctity of human life.
24:28
Now, when it comes to preaching politics, now on the one hand, we sure did love it when the civil rights were doing it.
24:35
So, who would argue that Martin Luther King Jr. should not have had a role to play because he also had a pastoral role, and you know what I mean?
24:44
So, let's embrace some of the best ideas of that. When it comes to the right to life, the thing that up until very recently,
24:54
I think pastors could be a little more vague. You know, let's back it up 40 years ago.
24:59
It seems to me that the majority of the differences between the two sides were like, "About your ideas and maybe taxes and immigration, or maybe welfare, something like that."
25:08
It wasn't actually life or death. And so, for the pastor that completely keeps his mouth shut,
25:16
I think Bonhoeffer would look at you and be like, "What are you doing?"
25:21
Because it is a holocaust of innocent life.
25:24
And so, what you were talking about specifically is in our city, we had a pro-life candidate and a pro-death candidate, and I don't think I did enough.
25:35
And I would need some more wisdom and insight on what role I should play.
25:41
So, I preach on pro-life all the time, you know, those kind of things.
25:46
We're in the middle of this thing right now called the Ten Ten Life, which is about pro-life from Wombu Tomb.
25:51
But it is true. I mean, I think pastors have a role to stand up for the innocent and the vulnerable, and there is no more vulnerable than the unborn child.
26:00
So, let's actually dig in there. So, I'll use it in the context of what I wish my pastor would have done, or what I would have liked to have seen.
26:07
And again, I'm one person. Like, I could have been the only person in the church that that quote caught awkwardly.
26:12
But I will say, there's a lot of men that I know that I talked to about that quote.
26:16
And it just kind of went in one ear out the other, and they didn't notice until I said something, and they were like, "Oh, yeah, I guess I could see how that would be problematic."
26:24
What I don't want my pastor or you or any other pastor to do is put their ballot up on Sunday and say, "Hey, two days from now, your ballot should look like this, or Hellfire is what's going to be welcoming you into eternity."
26:38
No, no, that's the extreme.
26:41
But I can say, on the taxation stuff, or on minor stuff with school board, or bills that are in a certain area, or like, "Hey, should we increase the taxes by one cent so we can build a YMCA?"
26:55
Like, no, I don't think you need to really be talking about that.
26:58
But when there is a potential difference between someone that believes in life versus someone that doesn't, that's when I think you should be specific.
27:06
And so, as a pastor, I do mean naming names, and a lot of pastors are very awkward with naming names, so Lucas Miles wrote the book, "Woke Jesus."
27:15
Well, he wrote a book before that where he did not name names.
27:18
He just described situations and gave you context for you to figure out who he was talking about.
27:22
Well, in "Woke Jesus," he named names.
27:24
He's like, "No, I'm talking about these people, and I'm talking about this that they put on Instagram, and I'm talking about this that they said from the pulpit."
27:30
Which made it easier for me, because then I don't have to read between the lines.
27:33
But at the same time, it's like, "Hey, this is why specifically I'm calling this person out for this individual thing."
27:38
You know, you and I are big Aleister Begg fans.
27:40
Imagine me going back and saying, "Let's just say there was a pastor that said you should go to a gay wedding.
27:45
Let's just make up a complete scenario out of thin air."
27:47
And it's like, "Okay, well, if you don't know who Aleister Begg is, and if you don't follow Christian Twitter, you're not going to know who I'm talking about."
27:53
So you're thinking it's some ethereal anecdote or example.
27:56
But back to your example, I think it would have been appropriate for you and your flock to say, "Hey, for everyone that's listening to this,
28:02
that's outside of our world, hey, you can tune us out for a little bit because this is a Jacksonville thing that we need to talk about."
28:09
But we need to talk about these two candidates.
28:12
And if you think this is too political, then I welcome you to try out one of the other great churches in our area.
28:16
We can help offload you soon.
28:18
And then you can explain why it's important to the specific topic of life.
28:22
Now, all your explanations are coming down to tax policy and those types of things.
28:28
You know, public school versus private school funding and tax credits and all.
28:33
Yeah, don't do that.
28:34
But that's kind of where I would have been like, "Okay, I'm down with that.
28:36
Even though I don't know any of these people and I can't vote in that election."
28:39
Like that actually makes sense because elections have consequences.
28:43
Albert Moller was the first person I heard say that.
28:46
And it's like, "Yeah, if Hillary Clinton got elected in 2016, who knows what the unborn would be in for right now?"
28:53
And that's not just because Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey would still be in force.
28:58
But what are the other additional things that would have happened with her three Supreme Court picks,
29:02
you know, assuming that she would have gotten three?
29:05
Like, it's an entirely different thing.
29:06
But yeah, that's kind of what I would have liked to have seen.
29:08
Yeah, I mean, I'm with you.
29:10
And again, I preach per life all the time.
29:15
But there are times when it's not about preaching the news cycle.
29:19
It's about the time to act is coming up next Tuesday.
29:25
We should be specific about it.
29:27
But I think only on the matters that are life and death according to the Bible.
29:32
Maybe not even just life and death, but matters that the Bible is just so black and white specific on.
29:39
Things like gender and marriage and life, things like this.
29:43
Well, you know what people actually love?
29:45
People love handouts, right?
29:47
That's why if you're going to present, give your handouts at the end, right?
29:50
Because if you give them the handout beforehand, they're not paying attention to you.
29:53
They're paying attention to the handouts.
29:54
So there's a pro tip for you guys.
29:55
I wonder if this would almost be more appropriate.
29:57
Hey, guys, two days from now, we will be having a local election.
30:01
I would like to give you some generalized advice.
30:04
However, on your way out the door today, we have these little booklets.
30:09
And we have looked at each thing that is on the ballot and each position that is on the ballot.
30:14
And we're not doing a deep dive into each of their different platforms.
30:18
But we're talking about here's what the Bible says about life.
30:22
And here's how Christian should vote as it pertains specifically to life.
30:26
Now, you might be thinking that's a Republican Party GOP pamphlet.
30:29
All we're doing is we're supporting what the scripture says.
30:32
We're just reading what it says and we're applying it to our people that are supposed to be overseeing us,
30:38
which in a constitutional republic, we have the ability to put in place.
30:42
And while I have my own thoughts about like the size of government and, you know, what police, how they should be funded.
30:50
And I have my ideas about taxation and all of that.
30:53
I would be willing to put every idea that I think is right on the bat burner if it's saved innocent life.
31:01
Sure.
31:02
So we could, we could increase the government.
31:04
We could shrink the army.
31:05
We could defund the police.
31:07
We could do all these things.
31:08
If it's saved innocent life and I'm just playing all my cards there by telling you what I'm for.
31:14
But this one, this one is the Trump card for everything in my opinion.
31:19
It is a modern day Holocaust where innocent people are losing their lives.
31:22
And we, and what's crazy now is some wackos are calling it healthcare.
31:28
How in the world does the taking of an innocent life, how can it even be called healthcare?
31:33
It's crazy.
31:34
Well, because language is important and you aren't talking about this in the truck.
31:38
People that are on the political left, they have weaponized language in a way to where, oh, that's not what that word means.
31:44
Like, this is what the word means.
31:45
So it's, it's, it used to be a gender affirming care, which is actually backwards because if you were affirming their gender, you would be saying, hey, you are a boy.
31:54
So we're going to win to affirm that you are a boy, not pretend you are a girl.
31:58
But now it's life saving gender affirming care.
32:01
So that if you advocate against it as a conservative political pundit or a Republican politician or something like that, you want to end lives.
32:09
You want to kill people.
32:10
Hey, I thought you were pro life, but you're not supporting this bill, which is for life saving gender affirming care.
32:16
It's, it's all semantic games.
32:18
And typically where a public ensues, they go, no, that's, that's not what it meant.
32:23
You're twisting my words.
32:24
See, and it's just like you're allowing the semantic game to be played.
32:28
It goes all the way back to the issues with gender.
32:30
As Jordan Peterson has talked about, there is no more fundamental truth on this planet in a secular form.
32:36
There's no more fundamental truth than that.
32:38
There are two sexes of humans.
32:40
There's no more fundamental truth.
32:42
And if you can convince people that that is something that is fungible or fluid or changeable, then I can convince you of anything.
32:50
I can convince you to get a jab and tell you that it's going to make this problem go away.
32:54
I can convince you that, oh, it doesn't actually matter what we teach your kids at school.
32:58
I can, you know, convince you that, hey, your teachers actually should have rights to your kids while they're not in your care, but in their care.
33:05
I can convince you of anything.
33:07
I can tell you that the sky is blue and that up is down and left is right.
33:10
Because if I can convince you that the most fundamental thing is not fundamentally true, then the postmodernists have won because we are beyond the point of even recognizing capital to truth.
33:21
So I don't know what the average age of your listener is. I'm 50, just a couple of thoughts, okay?
33:29
An attack on gender is an attack on the character and nature of God.
33:32
So this is the foundation of that.
33:34
Back this thing up to, what, early 2000s where there's a lot of people saying, why is this even any of your business?
33:42
If these people love each other and want to get married, why in the world, why are you so against this?
33:46
Just let them do what they want to do.
33:48
It has nothing to do with you.
33:49
It's their bedroom. Don't be obsessed with their crotches.
33:52
So first of all, you're like, time out.
33:54
You didn't invent marriage. God invented marriage.
33:57
So you just make up a new word.
33:59
I actually think it would not be nearly as big a deal if they were only talking about, I want to be able to pass all my stuff and get the same tax break to this, you know, all that kind of visit them in the hospital.
34:11
But it was an attack on an institution of God, which is marriage.
34:17
Well, then you fast forward and to today, how does it affect me today?
34:22
Because if I think the Bible teaches something other than what you are doing, then I'm the bigot.
34:28
Or if I won't play your pronoun games.
34:31
I could, I mean, I work at church.
34:33
So at my church, that's obviously not a problem.
34:35
But you could lose your job at a university.
34:38
I thought this was just your bedroom and what does this have to do with me?
34:41
Now, everything that you said wouldn't happen, you were encroaching on fundamental beliefs for believers.
34:49
And there will come a day when a regular sermon that I preach out of 1 Corinthians 6 will be called Hates Beach and probably punishable by law.
35:01
That's the drift.
35:02
And it all started with an attack on the character nature of God.
35:06
That's why this stuff matters.
35:08
Listen, this is a part of what Jesus was talking about in the Sermon on the Mount, which everybody loves to quote, even if you're like a super lib.
35:16
And he's talking about salt and talking about light.
35:19
These are the places where we have to be a shining light of the good news of the gospel.
35:24
And we have to be that preservative that preserve the institutions that God has created for his glory.
35:30
Well, you said something earlier that it may makes perfect sense why you said it.
35:33
But you said, "Hey, I work at a church that's obvious that we don't play into that game."
35:36
However, there are a lot of churches that do play the pronoun thing because they find it to be hospitable.
35:43
Pronoun hospitality is a big deal.
35:45
This is something that I've directly came at people with where they say, "Hey, look, for the billions of women on the planet that agree with my position, does that matter?"
35:54
But one of the things I ask, because these are all, these are not all a carte views.
35:58
These are views that come in a package.
36:00
These are a package deal.
36:01
And so I'll ask them, "Well, if I were to identify as female for the remainder of our interaction, do I get to have an opinion then?"
36:08
Which typically gets a chuckle from the room because people are like, "Oh, because that's kind of bold to say."
36:12
But the thing is, have you ever met someone that is pro-trans, that's also anti-abortion?
36:17
Does that person exist?
36:19
That's certainly not somebody that can get elected to office in the Democratic Party.
36:23
That's not somebody that can exist, that can advocate for those types of positions.
36:27
But you're getting a collection of ideas.
36:29
I can guess where you land on all these incendiary cultural topics and political topics because of how you feel about one of those topics.
36:37
And pro-life and the trans issue are two of those major topics.
36:40
And most people, they just don't know, they just freeze up.
36:43
And so that's part of the thing that I try to do with my show or from the profit side of things where I'm like,
36:49
"Look, if we're going to push back darkness, if I'm going to equip men and subsequently people all over the globe to be able to push back darkness, you need to know what to say back."
36:58
And you can't always just say, "Well, God said in Scripture, sometimes you have to start somewhere else with people, which I know some people think is anathema."
37:06
But some people would say, "You start with Scripture and then work your way other places."
37:10
But for people that automatically think Scripture in and of itself is just the meandering of people that existed hundreds of years after Jesus, it becomes a bit of an issue.
37:18
But go ahead and hop back in.
37:19
The Apostle Paul in Athens at Mars, he did not start with Scripture, when he would preach the Jews, he started with Scripture, and when he preached the pagans, he started with pagan literature.
37:28
So you stand on good ground from the Scriptures to not scratch, necessarily start with the Scriptures.
37:32
Now, one of the things that historically churches have done much better than they get credit for, but we've still got a long way to go, is, and I know it's going to sound like a commercial for the church I get to leave.
37:44
But at the Church of Lev. 22, we started this thing called the Ten Ten Life Initiative.
37:49
And a big piece of it is that we wanted to be pro-life from womb to tomb, which means that being pro-life was not just a political agenda, it wasn't just a philosophical or even a theological agenda.
38:02
And so we're supporting First Coast Women Services and other crisis pregnancy centers, but we also have an adoption ministry, we foster probably more, I mean, we're trying to foster every kid in every county that we have a campus.
38:16
We take care of special needs, kids, we fight against human trafficking.
38:20
So I would say historically one of the things the church could do a better job of is even before you get into the argument, arguments about pro-life.
38:30
If somebody pulled up your receipts, they'd be like, man, this isn't just the thing they think.
38:35
They really do love when babies are born and are trying to help babies be born.
38:41
And another thing I always want to do is every single time I'm talking about this, and I am not trying to make excuses, I'm just trying to preach the gospel.
38:50
There's a bunch of women in my congregation who have had abortions, and I need them to know the good news of the gospel that therefore now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
38:59
So we fund this Bible study in our city everywhere we have campuses, the counties all around us, called for giving and set free, and it's just a, and you know what the first thing you do?
39:10
You have a funeral for your baby.
39:12
So this is not some kind of like, right, bro, when I read the curriculum, I don't even just see the rest of it.
39:17
This is not some like, don't worry about everybody does it, you're okay, there's no condemnation.
39:22
That is not this Bible study.
39:24
It walks you through the valley of the shadow of death and then lets you know that Jesus will meet you there and bring you out on the other side to rescue you from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of life.
39:36
It's legit.
39:37
And so, and we funded that too, because think of all the influence of if a woman who had had had had bought the lie of the abortionists, and that's the way I want to say it, man.
39:49
Oftentimes they've been lied to it. The only thing you ever heard was this information and then you bought into it.
39:56
I'm not saying you don't have responsibility and you don't have agency. We all do.
40:00
But imagine if we could equip those women with the gospel so that their daughters and granddaughters and all the people that they influenced that these women could say this is a lie.
40:09
And let me tell you how it impacted me.
40:11
And even if you send in this way, then Jesus can still forgive you and set you free and you don't have to be defined by it.
40:20
Well, I'm not the first person to point this out, but I feel like a lot of men, a lot of pastors are afraid of the women and their pulpits because they won't say those things.
40:31
So you and I talked about in general, pastors love to pick on the men and they should be picked on because they have a different and important role as head of their households.
40:38
But then there are women that leave churches thinking they smell great and that everything is awesome about them, that they're not depraved because they're a woman.
40:46
And some people listening in my audience are going to be like, that can't be true. It's super duper true.
40:50
There are women that don't think they're sinners. They think men are sinners.
40:54
They think the only woman that ever sinned was Eve. And even that was a little bit iffy because Adam should have stepped in somehow or something like that, even though they also don't believe in chivalry.
41:01
But the exact same thing could be said about these individuals on that when they talk about the abortion issue, which a lot of pastors don't even address it, but then they address it in such a soft way.
41:11
And that they have a thousand qualifications before they get into the issue when the only qualification should be exactly what you said and exactly how I start every of my abortion talks, which is there is now there for no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
41:23
But if you ignore the fact that these women have shed the blood of innocent image bears, regardless of the circumstances as to why, whether it was for a rape or incest or I'm in college right now and I don't want a baby or anything in between, when you ignore that, you're not giving them
41:40
an opportunity to understand the true sweetness of the gospel because everyone kind of talks about, especially pastors are like, look, I want my kids to have, you know, they got saved at a wanna.
41:50
And the worst thing they ever did was, you know, take a piece of bubble gum from their buddy's lunchbox. That's the type of thing that I want my kids to say someday. That's the testimony I want them to have.
42:00
I don't want them to have, though, in there I was with, you know, a needle in my arm and a belt wrapped around it and those types of things, they don't want that type of testimony.
42:07
But with a lot of these women, they have to understand that the fact that they shed innocent blood or the men that helped pay for, the men that drove them there dropped them off and picked them up or the parents that pressured, you know, their child to kill their grandchild, all those people need to understand that they took place in the shedding of innocent blood, which is just a heinous sin before God.
42:24
Then we give you a preacher hat, if there's any preacher listening. So here's a part of the way I get at that, especially when I don't have enough time to do that whole rant every week, you know what I mean?
42:37
So anytime you're listening, like anytime you're listening sins, when you're talking about things like guilt or shame or condemnation or God could never forgive me from, say the word abortion, say the word, like some of you come in here with such shame
42:53
because you broke your promise, you never live up to this, you didn't, you know, you're listening things, say the word abortion in the list of sins as a normal thing to say.
43:05
So that when you're talking about the goodness of God, because you're right, man, we live in a world that thinks that's some kind of different thing or it's also can be put in a category that it never gets talked about.
43:17
It only gets talked about one way, it only gets talked about like politically instead of also theologically, and that Christ died for that forgiveness too.
43:27
When you don't, you shouldn't have to hire a mercenary like me to come in and talk about, you know, abortion or on abortion Sunday, come on and listen to this angry ginger talk about why you shouldn't kill your kids.
43:35
But part of the thing as well is like, and I just have this tendency, like there are people that when they walk in the room, they become a calming force, I'm whatever the exact polar opposite of that is when I walk into the room,
43:45
the intensity is ratcheted up in a lot of ways.
43:48
And on particular topics, I lean into that, like with my family, I try to make sure that's not the case because if every time you walk in the room, the anxiety level goes through the roof, that's not good for mama and babies just, you know, that that's a just being a dude hack, like, don't be that guy.
44:01
Try to figure out a way to make that the opposite.
44:03
So I'm still in the process of that.
44:05
But whenever I do my abortion presentation, whenever I'm in the church, I know it's heavy from the beginning because people know why they're there.
44:14
They didn't accidentally show up to the abortion talk, right?
44:16
Yeah.
44:17
They know why they're there.
44:18
And I ratchet up the gravity from the very beginning.
44:21
And I'll leave it to everyone's imagination because I want you to come see me whenever I do that out in May in Jacksonville.
44:26
But that's what I do.
44:28
I try to ratchet it up because I'm like, what we're talking about today is not fun.
44:32
This presentation in particular is hard for me.
44:35
It's very difficult for me to get through.
44:37
I get choked up every time I do it.
44:39
And I know what I'm about to say and I get choked up at a different point every time I present it because it's just what's in my heart.
44:45
I hate bullies.
44:46
I hate true injustice.
44:47
It's not made up social injustice.
44:49
But I hate true injustice and there's no more innocent person than a person that is residing in there's mother's womb.
44:54
Correct.
44:55
So most people listening to this, if you saw somebody that was strapped down to a chair and being beaten to death, a lot of guys in this audience, you would intercede.
45:04
But at the very least, most people would be like, that's wrong. I can't believe anyone would allow that.
45:09
But then we allow babies in the womb that are essentially strapped to the womb to be ripped limb from limb using a vacuum hose or cut into pieces and then scraped out with these different tools.
45:22
And we're supposed to say, oh, well, that's just her right as a woman.
45:26
And it's like, no, you don't get a right to that.
45:28
And again, I get into all the different arguments and we can extrapolate it out from there.
45:31
But I just, I really don't have a whole lot of patience for pastors that don't want to go into this issue because they're just, they're shocked that their flock is confused on how to talk about or act on the pro life issue.
45:44
And if there's a, my favorite is when people are pastoring an area that passes a pro abortion law or that Alexa pro abortion senator or that votes for the pro abortion candidate that is running for the general election election for president.
46:00
They're shocked and appalled.
46:02
And I can't believe this happened.
46:03
It's like, bro, you're part of the reason why this happened because there are people in your church that are there every single Sunday in your pews.
46:11
They voted for those people because you refused to open your mouth because you didn't want to be needlessly divisive.
46:16
I just don't get it.
46:17
Yeah, part of our job is to equip our people to live out the kingdom of God here on earth.
46:22
And the kingdom of God is not allowing babies to be killed at the hands of convenience.
46:28
And I guess that's the other thing.
46:30
You say the word convenience people.
46:32
So when you see these man on the street thing, so live action does a great job.
46:35
They go up to people on the street and they just ask them questions like they start up with, Hey, you know, in general, are you pro life or pro choice and they don't ask God to questions or not trying to make anyone look stupid.
46:42
It's not one of those men on the street things.
46:44
But then they ask people questions like, Hey, how many, what percentage of abortions if you had to guess?
46:49
I know you don't know.
46:50
But if you had to guess what percentage of abortions in America take place because of rape and incest because we hear about those all the time, right?
46:56
That's, that's what Democrats have, you know, force fed people down their throats, especially since the overturning of Robie Wade and Planned Parenthood be Casey.
47:03
And their answer.
47:04
Yeah.
47:05
And they're guessing 60% is it 75?
47:08
It's the same stuff.
47:09
Like when people ask like, Hey, how many unarmed black people are shot by white police officers every year and people are like, Oh, well over 10,000.
47:15
And it's usually like nine or something like that.
47:18
And a lot of those people are in the process of trying to run the cop over with their car.
47:21
And they're still considered as unarmed, but we're not going to get into that subject.
47:24
But like a lot of these people, they don't know the first thing about it.
47:27
And it's well less than 1% of abortions take place because of rape and incest.
47:31
And some pro lifers are like, Oh, you shouldn't talk about that.
47:33
But I'm like, no, we're going to talk about that because then it begs the next question, which is, well, then what are the reasons given for the other 99% and they are.
47:40
I don't know who the father is.
47:42
I don't have a lot of money.
47:43
I don't have help.
47:44
I already have too many children.
47:46
Now it's just not a good time in my career or in business.
47:51
My body looks really good in a bathing suit.
47:54
And I have a trip coming up where there's going to be a lot of opportunities for me to take some pictures on the beach.
47:59
And that's going to look good on Instagram.
48:01
And it's all these things.
48:03
And those can all be summed up in one word.
48:05
And that's convenience.
48:06
And so it's like there's not a good reason to end innocent human life, right?
48:11
Because the only lives that we end are non innocent human lives, right?
48:15
So if you forfeit your right to life, the moment that you shed the blood of innocent blood, right?
48:19
We get that from scripture as well.
48:21
But with these people don't realize that they're on the other side of that ledger.
48:24
And they don't understand.
48:25
Yeah.
48:26
And the Bible says, woe to those who call evil good and good evil.
48:30
Right.
48:31
Now we have moved to a place.
48:33
I mean, regardless of what you think about the Clintons, at least Bill Clinton says, well, rare, safe.
48:40
Oh, safely going rare.
48:42
There you go.
48:43
I mean, it was at least then, which is not a long time ago.
48:47
Right.
48:48
That was the 90s where they're saying, all right, nobody wants this.
48:51
But we're going to try to make a way for if you have to, right?
48:55
I mean, that really sounds better.
48:57
But then you ask somebody like, Hey, if this is morally neutral, why does it need to be safe, legal, and rare?
49:02
Because if you needed rotator cuff surgery and someone's like, Hey, you know what, rotator cuff surgery that should be safe, legal, and rare.
49:07
Which is true.
49:08
It's like, no, like I want it to be happen as much as possible.
49:11
Right.
49:12
But they are, but nobody.
49:13
And how would it come to the place now where people are like, shout out your abortion.
49:16
Yeah.
49:17
Whoa.
49:18
To those who call what is evil, good and good evil.
49:20
And for Christians, it is incumbent upon us to point out that those things are evil.
49:24
It is not unloving to point to evil things and say that is evil.
49:28
See, I think the war for life is one probably way more on the one on one level than it.
49:35
Then it will ever be on like podcast and sermons.
49:38
It's way more.
49:39
It's like two degrees away from the sermon or two degrees away from the talk that you're going to give.
49:45
It is believers that have a theological biblical understanding of what life is and when life
49:52
begins and why life matters and why life value is valuable.
49:56
They're equipped with a little bit, just enough, even just enough to have a real conversation
50:00
with somebody that they love so that when somebody that they love find themselves in
50:05
a position where they think they're going to choose abortion, that they can say, Can
50:09
we please talk about this?
50:10
Well, this is being formed to do that.
50:13
Right.
50:14
That's exactly why.
50:15
To anyone in these churches that are listening to this, pastors are like, Okay, I think I
50:18
need to start taking this a little bit more seriously.
50:20
There's one thing I make sure that I do whenever I do this talk live because it's a rough talk.
50:25
There's always tears there and I make sure at least two things happen.
50:29
I tell the pastors and the elders of the church, I was like, You have to be down front after
50:34
I'm done because I'm going to burn off some stuff in that room and I don't live here.
50:39
My style is burn it down and walk away, whether I'm talking to a group of men and firing up
50:43
about the manliness of Jesus, or I'm talking to a mixed crowd and talking about abortion,
50:48
I'm going to get to burn it down and walk away because this is not my church.
50:50
I am not your pastor, but there's going to be some people coming down here that are going
50:54
to need to confess some things that are going to need some healing and you got to be ready
50:58
for that.
50:59
And then I also say, if you're not partnered with a pro life ministry or a pregnancy center
51:04
or pro life pregnancy center emergency pregnancy center in your area, you better get a partnership
51:08
with them before I get there and make sure they are there and make sure they got a sign
51:12
up sheet and they got extra pages because you're going to have people flooding all the sudden
51:17
that want to give their time and their money because some people can give one or the other
51:20
or both.
51:21
No one can give neither.
51:22
And so a lot of these pro life pregnancy centers, one of the best things that they do
51:26
is they need men who are on call because sometimes you will have the father of the baby come
51:32
into this pro life pregnancy center and they are both considering abortion still.
51:37
And so while mom was back doing some of the mama stuff or maybe doing the ultrasound or
51:41
different things like that, they need someone to talk to dad.
51:44
They need a man to look at him in the eye and maybe part of their testimony is look what
51:49
I did.
51:50
Don't make the same mistake.
51:51
I did.
51:52
It's hey, go in there and rescue her and one of the most one of the most impactful quotes
51:56
I've ever heard from a person is our local pregnancy resource center here in Edmond, Oklahoma.
52:01
This woman told me that we only have four guys that are on call.
52:05
Half of them go to my church, by the way, which is great.
52:07
But we only have four guys that are on call that can come in.
52:11
But I will tell you, when when a man can't be separated from the woman to go talk to
52:15
another man, that means they're in with us.
52:18
And more often than not, the woman is not worried as much about what I'm saying.
52:23
She's not worried as much about the feeling she's having in her stomach.
52:27
She keeps looking to her man like, please save me, please save me from this decision.
52:33
Please walk me out of here, like, please don't let me walk into Planned Parenthood.
52:38
Like it's a, it's desperation.
52:40
And most of the babies, most of the women that come in there with their babies, their babies
52:44
will leave intact and they will, they will be born because they do an ultrasound.
52:48
They hear their baby's heartbeat.
52:50
They understand the development cycle of their baby.
52:53
They understand that look, we know you don't have a lot of money.
52:55
We know he doesn't have a super good job.
52:56
But guess what?
52:57
We're not just taking care of you until this baby is here afterwards.
53:00
We're going to give you diapers.
53:01
Oh, you need a car.
53:02
We can help out with that.
53:03
You need, you need an apartment.
53:04
We can help you out with that.
53:05
You need, you need baby clothes.
53:06
You need a baby carrier.
53:08
All that.
53:09
Guess what?
53:10
We got people that that's all they do is they raise money or spend money to make sure
53:12
that you don't have to make this decision based on whether or not you're going to have the
53:15
accoutre model on the back end to, to maybe able to keep this baby alive comfortably.
53:19
And have you seen the statistics when the dad sees the ultrasound?
53:22
It is.
53:23
It's almost 100%.
53:24
It's in the upper 90%.
53:25
Why?
53:26
Because because that's his progeny, he can see it.
53:29
That's it.
53:30
God put that in that man.
53:31
Right.
53:32
Why do you think we have this in us to defend our progeny, like with our fist when they're
53:36
outside the world?
53:37
So the folks at First Coast Women's Services is the name of one of the places that we,
53:41
we work with.
53:42
And so we just did a gala for them a few months ago and, and they were sharing basically
53:47
the same sentiment that these girls find themselves in a very, very vulnerable situation that
53:53
they didn't plan.
53:54
They didn't, you know, they've made whatever poor decisions they've made to be there.
53:57
And they're just looking to their man and they're just essentially with their ice screaming,
54:02
please lead, please help, please protect.
54:06
And if the guy could just have the kahone's to say, come on, baby, we got this.
54:12
Well, that's the thing.
54:13
That's it.
54:14
We got this.
54:15
Culture is told her and him that it's his time to default to her.
54:20
Correct.
54:21
Hey, she's got what got us into this problem in the first place.
54:23
Right.
54:24
Hey, dude.
54:25
This is her choice.
54:26
Her body, her choice.
54:27
You hear from a lot of these guys like, Hey, if you got a girl pregnant and she went to
54:30
have an abortion, if she, and that's not how they say, if they wanted to kill your baby,
54:34
what would you do about it?
54:35
And they're like, well, you know, you know, it's her body like I, I can't tell her what
54:37
to do with her body.
54:38
It's like to, to an extent, correct.
54:41
But also we tell people what to do with their bodies all the time.
54:44
If I were to strip naked and run in downtown Edmond and the police officers stop me and
54:48
put me in handcuffs.
54:49
I can't be like, bro, my body, my choice.
54:50
What are you doing?
54:51
If I use my body to invade your personal space, right?
54:54
I write to swing my fist, stops where your nose begins, like I'm sure people have heard
54:57
that before.
54:58
The same thing is true.
55:00
That's not her body.
55:01
That is a body inside of her body.
55:02
And that body just so happens to be the body of your child.
55:05
That is your DNA.
55:06
That is your future right there.
55:08
So which is, I mean, honestly, the thing that would probably shut down abortion if it
55:12
would be of men would just stand up and act like men.
55:14
Sure.
55:15
In fact, I haven't told our church this yet, but next year we're going to focus once again,
55:19
we did it six or seven or eight years ago, but we're going to do it again this next year
55:22
is just have a real focus on the men of our church standing up and acting like men.
55:27
I mean, think about, think about all the problems that would cease in our world if men would
55:34
act like men.
55:35
Worship goes away.
55:36
Fatherlessness goes away, unwed merit or like babies out of wedlock goes away.
55:40
Poverty.
55:41
All of that.
55:42
Poverty goes away.
55:43
Yes.
55:44
Yeah.
55:45
Jail sentences.
55:46
I mean, we're totally okay with abdicating our responsibility to our families, to our
55:48
women, because here's the thing, unwed mothers for every racial group except for Asians has
55:53
skyrocketed since the 1960s.
55:56
So for black Americans, it's around 70 percent for Hispanic Americans, it's around 50 percent
56:01
for Caucasian Americans, it's around 33 percent.
56:03
You're like, Oh, hey, we're white and we're winning.
56:05
It was 3 percent.
56:06
It was 3 percent in the 60s.
56:08
And now it's 33 percent.
56:10
And so the thing that people don't understand because we, you know, it's fine to look at
56:13
graphs and look at statistics and compare people groups and all that.
56:16
But what you're seeing is the abdication of fatherhood.
56:20
So whether that's daddy government, that's taking that role, hold on, not weather, go
56:23
for it.
56:24
So that's the thing.
56:25
So when fathers advocate their responsibility, the government will gladly take that over
56:30
for you and never relinquish it.
56:32
Right.
56:33
If you don't think this is set up to perpetuate this, it is, it's one of the greatest evils
56:39
of all time.
56:40
I mean, of all time, it is, it is a cultural evil of the enemy.
56:44
I mean, read about it, I know there's, there's Romans 13, but there's Revelation 13, which
56:49
talks about this kind of cultural evil.
56:51
And when fathers don't stand up and do what fathers are supposed to do, I'm telling you
56:55
the government says, forget you.
56:57
We got this.
56:58
You can trust us with them.
56:59
Well, look lately, would you trust the government?
57:02
And weak men are all too willing to abdicate their responsibility to a nameless, faceless
57:08
bureaucrat that will take care of their issues because they were okay with mommy and daddy
57:12
taking care of all their issues, you know, being a snow plow for them, basically clearing
57:16
out all the possible negatives that could happen to them for their entire life.
57:19
And then once they launched, they didn't launch, it was failure to launch.
57:23
And they're still looking for someone else to take care of their, their bad decisions.
57:27
I want the government to pay for the bad decision for me to take out six figures worth of student
57:31
loan debt to get a worthless degree.
57:33
That wasn't going to lead to a good job.
57:34
So they're, they're fine with people taking care of that.
57:37
Hey, we need people to take care of my credit card debt.
57:38
I ran up all these credit cards because of this, that and the other thing, I need someone
57:42
to take care of that.
57:43
I need someone to pay for my housing, you know, housing is just so expensive, I need
57:45
the government.
57:46
And it's like, if you default to daddy government in anything, obviously, as I said, government
57:51
programs don't shrink over time, they only grow over time.
57:54
But the most fundamental and one of the most nefarious things specifically the American
57:57
government ever did was to incentivize single motherhood.
58:01
And so women do that if they had a baby that if the man were there, she wasn't going to
58:05
be able to get the government assistance.
58:07
And so she has to make sure that the man it runs off.
58:09
And a lot of them in are more than willing, it's like, hey, I'll drop my seed and then
58:13
all bounce.
58:14
This is great.
58:15
It's the best of both worlds.
58:16
I don't need to pay alimony.
58:17
I don't need to pay child support, you know, unless, you know, things go haywire for me
58:20
or I'm going to state that, you know, values that more than anything else.
58:23
But again, we, we think we're playing a semantic game here.
58:26
It's like, no, you're literally playing with life and death.
58:29
100%.
58:30
And the crazy thing is, is this is not a complicated issue.
58:33
I know it's complex based on where we are today.
58:35
It goes all the way back to the way God created things to be for the man to just stand up
58:42
and act like a man to be strong, to be fierce, to be protector provider.
58:48
And when we don't do that, the whole thing breaks apart.
58:52
So let's lean into what that's going to look like next year, because we spent a lot of
58:55
time kind of breaking down some, some incendiary issues.
58:57
And so you and I have had a lot of, you know, off camera, off mic discussions about this
59:02
and what that's going to look like and how we're going to be able to partner and be able
59:04
to help, you know, pour gasoline on the stuff that you're doing.
59:08
But there, there's a weird thing happening in the men's space.
59:12
There's a lot of different categories.
59:14
There are people that are going to, they're trying to rewild at heart.
59:17
What John Eldridge did back in 2001, when he wrote Wild at Heart, everyone's trying
59:21
to rewrite that novel or not, not novel.
59:24
They're trying to rewrite that book to try to write the next greatest book in that space.
59:28
And what they end up doing is right being a less poetic, less philosophical, less smart
59:32
version of John Eldridge, and they'd all just comes off vapid.
59:35
Then you've got the other side, which is the machismo, dirt road, beef jerky, you know,
59:41
you know, IPA, a man thing to where it's all, it's all aggro, it's like aggro stuff.
59:47
And so the entire ministry is about pullups and smoking meat and doesn't really have a
59:51
whole heck of a lot to do with the, the, the propagation of the gospel and taking it to
59:55
the ends of the earth.
59:57
And then there's, there's not really that happy middle as well.
59:59
There's not really that, when you think of the manhood pastor, the manly pastor, there's
1:00:04
not really someone that comes to mind.
1:00:07
Maybe you know, you've gotten some value from a guy like Driscoll or you've gotten some value
1:00:10
from, you know, you know, pick a pick a pastor, I don't want to name any more, but there's
1:00:14
not really that thing where a guy at a church can, Hey, I'm going to use this program and
1:00:19
it's going to get me to that next step as a man.
1:00:21
I'm going to use this thing to kind of develop.
1:00:24
So I wanted to kind of tee you up to talk a little bit more about, you know, why even
1:00:27
talk about the manhood stuff and why do that really off of the heels of the tent in life.
1:00:32
Well, it's also going to be a transition year for what our church will be prepared to do
1:00:38
in the following years.
1:00:39
And if I don't get the men to do what God has called them to do, then our church will
1:00:44
never be able to go where it's supposed to go.
1:00:47
And this doesn't mean that we're leaving the women out.
1:00:49
I mean, quite honestly, and since the empty tomb, the women have been holding it down for
1:00:52
the last two years in regards to their responsibility with the church.
1:00:57
So this is not a program.
1:00:59
It's not, you know, I love Eldridge's books.
1:01:02
I love them.
1:01:03
But it's super philosophical, you know, this is just the unpacking of what the Apostle Paul
1:01:08
says in 1 Corinthians 16, be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong,
1:01:15
let all that you do be done in love that there's the definition that act like men is like the
1:01:20
hub in the middle of the wheel and the way that you act like men.
1:01:24
First of all, there are men and women and those things are different.
1:01:28
And if you don't even know what a man is or a woman is, how in the world can you act
1:01:32
like a man or serve a woman?
1:01:34
So we hard we're going to have to start there.
1:01:37
And the way we do this is be watchful.
1:01:39
That means like watch out.
1:01:40
There's an enemy.
1:01:41
There's a, the devil's prowling around like a roaring lion and seeking someone to devour.
1:01:46
Typically, if you look at a roaring lion on the animal planet, it devours the isolated
1:01:51
one.
1:01:52
Right.
1:01:53
We got an isolation problem.
1:01:54
The church should be the place where men find community and not just so we can feel good
1:01:58
about each other, but so that we can fight against the roaring lion that's trying to
1:02:01
kill you, stand firm in the faith.
1:02:04
That word stand means like fight, like take a stand, stand up, stand your ground and too
1:02:09
many people are overcome by fear, fear of what mama says, fear of what the government's
1:02:14
going to do, fear of what my wife's going to say about me, fear of what the school teacher
1:02:18
said.
1:02:19
And we got to quit being led by fear.
1:02:20
We've got to stand firm in the faith, act like men, not like women act like men.
1:02:25
Be strong when who the enemy is a conniving son of a gun.
1:02:32
Is he not sure?
1:02:33
So that we've got men apologizing for strength, right?
1:02:36
It is a high holy calling to be called a man and you were not given strength for you
1:02:41
alone.
1:02:42
You're just talking about physical, obviously, but we are also talking about physical.
1:02:47
Correct.
1:02:48
Obviously, right?
1:02:49
Yeah.
1:02:50
So yeah, mental fortitude, spiritual fortitude, a willingness to get in the fight and stay
1:02:54
in the fight.
1:02:55
Yeah.
1:02:56
You're not just strong for you.
1:02:57
You're strong on behalf of the people that God has put under your care and then let all
1:03:02
that you do be done in love.
1:03:04
If you go to the love passage in first Corinthians chapter 13, after he after Paul describes
1:03:09
what love is, patient kind, all the things.
1:03:11
He goes on to say in that passage when I was a child, I acted like a child.
1:03:16
But now that I'm a man, I put childish ways behind me.
1:03:20
Yeah.
1:03:21
So when we sometimes when we just flex our manhood, we're being childish.
1:03:28
Yeah.
1:03:29
That what we've been called to do is let all that we do be done in love.
1:03:33
And so I do have a book coming out then we're going to unpack it.
1:03:37
I haven't put together all the sermon series for the whole year.
1:03:41
We will ramp up things like encounter and some ends of it, some things like that.
1:03:44
And probably this is me just, I've been praying about it a little bit, but I'm not at that
1:03:48
point in my year where I'm, I mean, we just got started in this year, so I'm going to
1:03:53
do a lot of Paul's pastoral epistles because a big part of what he's saying is, all right,
1:04:00
boys, Titus, Timothy, time will grow up and need to be men.
1:04:03
And so we're going to spend a lot of time in that.
1:04:06
So to those of you out there wondering, yes, I'm going to have a hand in a lot of this.
1:04:10
And yes, I am definitely excited about this because you don't really get a pastor, a major
1:04:13
pastor that is thinking through and thinking in themselves, Hey, we really need to do this
1:04:17
to set them in up for the next thing that we're going to do.
1:04:19
But I do want to circle back to when you were talking about isolation.
1:04:22
So I get a lot of emails.
1:04:23
I get a lot of DMS, but there's some things that I get consistently.
1:04:28
Probably the thing I get the most consistently is, Hey, do you know of a man friendly church?
1:04:31
You know, Hey, Kyle, I'm all about, Hey, I want to find a man friendly church.
1:04:33
You know, I live in Nashville.
1:04:35
I live in Boise, I live in, you know, who's it's what's its Ohio, you know, can you help
1:04:40
me?
1:04:41
Do you know of a man friendly church in my area?
1:04:43
And I'm like, bro, if, if I had a staff of a hundred people and our only focus was Oklahoma
1:04:48
city in the surrounding suburbs, we couldn't have a database updated enough to where they
1:04:54
meet these certain standards because you're constantly having new pastors, new elders,
1:04:58
you know, new worship leaders, new, you know, different things, it just would, it would
1:05:02
be impossible.
1:05:03
You know, to do it across the country, much less across the world is not really possible.
1:05:06
But I tell them, I'm like, you know, look for a church where the Bible's being exposited.
1:05:10
Look for a church where the men are involved.
1:05:12
Like they're look for a church where the volunteer opportunities are not just, you know, holding
1:05:16
hands and caring for babies, you know, look for a church where the men are singing, right?
1:05:20
Because if the songs are what you would hear on like K love or air one, the men probably
1:05:24
aren't really singing.
1:05:25
If it is the men that are singing, it's typically the men that have their hands up, but they're,
1:05:29
you know, their hands are a little bit down because it's a little little limpy.
1:05:33
But what I, the other thing that I get most often is, hey, where do I find foxhole guys?
1:05:40
Because at this point, I've talked about building a godly and manly foxhole building
1:05:43
those three AM friends as opposed to your six PM friends, like all those types of things.
1:05:46
Hey, where can I find those guys?
1:05:48
And you know the very first place I think not to look for them church because when most
1:05:55
people go to church and don't see foxhole guys there, that's when they message me.
1:05:59
They're like, Hey, I've been at this church for a long time.
1:06:01
And most of the guys seem really, really soft.
1:06:03
Is there something wrong with me?
1:06:05
Am I, am I approaching it the wrong way?
1:06:06
And so what I'll do is I'll say, Hey man, you know, maybe go to, to your, to your local
1:06:10
Jiu Jitsu gym or start going to Jiu Jitsu, maybe go to the shooting range, maybe go to,
1:06:15
to the bow, the bow rack, maybe go to the cross vid gym, maybe go to these places where,
1:06:19
you know, manly dudes tend to congregate.
1:06:22
And I kind of tell them, Hey, get some of these guys together and then go into your
1:06:26
church and kind of like take it over from the bottom to the top, right?
1:06:30
Have these guys set up meetings with the pastor, have these guys set up meetings with the worship
1:06:33
pastor and try to like, say, Hey, by the way, we're here to, like, you know, you know,
1:06:38
we want to be a served and discipled in a way so that we can serve and disciple and
1:06:41
catechize.
1:06:42
Can you help us that type of thing?
1:06:44
But it's like, I hate that I have to give that advice because when most men, this is,
1:06:48
this goes back, Joby, to the very beginning of undaunted life when I was in my early 20s
1:06:53
or when I was in my teen years and I just become a Christian.
1:06:55
And I thought to myself, Oh, okay, I get, I get it now.
1:06:58
The Christians are in church doing God stuff and the men are outside the church doing man
1:07:03
stuff.
1:07:04
Yeah.
1:07:05
Those, those don't ever crossover, but it's cool.
1:07:06
So we're just going to keep these things separate and when we need men, we'll go to these
1:07:08
guys and when we need God stuff, we'll go to these guys, right?
1:07:11
But then in my early 20s, it turned to wait a minute.
1:07:14
There should be crossover.
1:07:15
There should be a tremendous amount of crossover here.
1:07:18
And I'm afraid to death that there are manly men that are going to walk into these churches,
1:07:22
see all these frumpy, soft, doughy men and walk right back out and be like, these, these
1:07:26
aren't my people, right?
1:07:27
I can't depend on these people.
1:07:28
I can't rely on these men.
1:07:29
I don't want to be one of these men.
1:07:31
So I'm going to, I'm going to go do me and I'm going to, you know, go be hard somewhere
1:07:34
else.
1:07:35
Right?
1:07:36
And I just, I hate that that's the way that most people think and that may be wrong and
1:07:38
that may be the wrong paradigm, but I've talked to literally thousands of men at this point
1:07:43
that think I'm right.
1:07:45
It's probably a fair criticism over the last several decades of the church, however, it
1:07:50
is not accurate of the church I pastor, but, and I didn't have a man strategy.
1:07:56
What we did have is we set out to be very authentic before the word authentic was like
1:08:02
the buzz word that everybody wanted to use, you know, and so men could actually be men.
1:08:06
One of the things if the people asking this are followers of Jesus Christ, the first thing
1:08:11
they need to do is repent of their idol of consumerism first and foremost, like go serve
1:08:16
the bride of Christ before you're waiting for her to serve you.
1:08:19
So start there.
1:08:21
Also, I'd be very careful to judge what all the men in Sunday school are like as men
1:08:26
based on what they look like in Sunday school versus what they look like at the jujitsu gym,
1:08:30
you know, some of the toughest BA dudes are some Docker wearing wimpy little calm over
1:08:37
guys.
1:08:38
I've talked about something.
1:08:39
But they are godly beast, man.
1:08:40
When it comes to loving their wife and raising their kids and managing their house and you
1:08:43
know, so so that's true.
1:08:47
You know, don't fall for the fads either just because the pastor like where's cowboy boots
1:08:52
on a final shirt does not mean that's a man friendly church, you know, he might just be
1:08:55
the most insecure person ever and he's trying to come up with another scheme to get some
1:08:59
more dudes to come to his church.
1:09:01
Just find some godly men.
1:09:02
The best way I think to find them is to go mission together, be about a thing study the
1:09:08
Bible together.
1:09:09
Listen, so I'm at your house.
1:09:10
I have met a bunch of the men that are in your life.
1:09:15
Some of them are dude.
1:09:16
I mean, you know, that one yoke dude, it's a brown belt.
1:09:19
He looks like a foxhole guy, but then there are other guys that I would not have said.
1:09:23
No, I bet that's one of your foxhole guys just based on appearance, but he's a, he's a freaking
1:09:27
beast when it comes to following after Jesus and so make sure that you're not measuring
1:09:33
the way the world measures based on how much money they have, how much influence they have,
1:09:37
what they physically look like, but then you would look at the heart like God does.
1:09:41
But the thing is get in the ring.
1:09:44
You get no credit for just comp, complaining and criticizing about all the churches and
1:09:50
why they're bad.
1:09:51
You know, I'm talking about the guy that has decided not to get involved in the church
1:09:54
because it's not the way he wanted it.
1:09:56
Listen, this is that whole, you know, the man in the ring is who counts.
1:10:00
And so get in there and get in the fight, stand firm, be strong.
1:10:03
Don't be isolated.
1:10:04
Find a church of, there are no perfect churches in the meantime, try to create a band of brothers
1:10:09
around you and then from there you could be an influence in that church.
1:10:14
And so let's talk.
1:10:15
Let's talk about that.
1:10:16
Cause it is interesting.
1:10:17
Cause you got to meet a lot of my foxhole guys, you got to meet my forging table guys like
1:10:20
in, you didn't get to interact with him a ton, but you got to interact enough to be able
1:10:23
to, you know, judge him a little bit.
1:10:25
And yeah, if you judge the book by its cover, some of those would be like gigantic question
1:10:28
marks like, why in the world, Kyle, even, you know, being the same house with a person
1:10:31
like this.
1:10:32
But this is the way I look at it.
1:10:35
There are some guys that are a little soft physically.
1:10:39
Do you know what those guys need?
1:10:40
Like no pun intended, they need hard bodied guys in their life to help pull them towards
1:10:45
that.
1:10:46
Correct.
1:10:47
Right.
1:10:48
And they got soft brains.
1:10:50
That's right.
1:10:51
Right.
1:10:52
This is what I talk about all the time.
1:10:53
Again, I keep going back to the same crap I've been saying since 2016, since I started
1:10:56
doing this publicly, it's like spiritual, mental, physical resilience.
1:11:01
I know a lot of guys that are yoked out Jim bros that can deadlift 600 pounds and squat
1:11:06
the entire gym and can also run a mile and under, you know, six minutes or whatever.
1:11:10
I know a bunch of those guys and a bunch of those guys haven't read a book since high
1:11:13
school and even in high school, it was a little bit sketchy.
1:11:16
That's not, that's not good.
1:11:17
That's an incongruency.
1:11:18
But then I also know guys that are just absolute thug life theological prayer warriors.
1:11:24
They're, they're heresy hunters.
1:11:25
And guess what?
1:11:26
They're always right when they're hunting heresy.
1:11:28
They're always pointing it out correctly and exegeting the scripture properly that they're
1:11:31
nailing that mega church pastor with, but if they needed to sprint to the end of the
1:11:35
street to save their life or to save someone else's life, everyone dies.
1:11:39
And so I, I keep saying that.
1:11:41
So if you are the guy that walks into the church and the guys aren't as hard as you
1:11:45
do physically or they don't do the stuff like if they couldn't survive on their own in the
1:11:49
wilderness for more than like 17 hours or something like that, maybe that's your calling to disciple
1:11:55
those guys in that way.
1:11:57
And also I bet you there's a way that they can disciple you.
1:12:00
I remember something you said, I don't think it was an ass capacitor.
1:12:02
It was probably one of your, your first three interviews that you did on this podcast.
1:12:05
Yeah.
1:12:06
You were talking about the chains, right?
1:12:07
So that's Shane, Shane, chamber and R and Shane Everett.
1:12:09
And if you listen to how high these guys can sing or maybe if you look where to look at
1:12:13
them physically, you might pass by them and be like, Oh, those aren't guys that I would
1:12:17
want to see on my left or my right.
1:12:19
If I run a foxhole until you talk to them, until you listen to their deep, unbelievable
1:12:24
level of understanding of scripture in all its ways, not just the love ways, but in all
1:12:29
the ways they understand and rely on the word of God as they're writing their music.
1:12:33
And it's like, bro, for storming the gates of hell with water guns.
1:12:36
And I see the Shane's next to me, it's like, let's freaking go.
1:12:40
So I think every, all the sentiment that you are communicating is actually rooted in the
1:12:46
answer to a question Jesus was asked.
1:12:50
Somebody said, Hey, Rabbi, that's the greatest commandment.
1:12:54
And he quotes the Shema Deuteronomy six, four, and you shall love the Lord, your God, with
1:12:58
all your heart, soul, mind and strength.
1:13:01
So what you are saying, we did a whole two year initiative just on this idea right now
1:13:06
called the one initiative.
1:13:08
So when you see the one true God for who he really is, that's what Shama Israel means.
1:13:13
That means listen, Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one.
1:13:16
It just, it doesn't mean like number one on your list.
1:13:18
It means like the word is a card.
1:13:20
He's like the paper on which you would write a list.
1:13:23
So when you see him for who he is, you give him all of you heart, soul, mind and strength.
1:13:28
Well, if you're taking care of your mind and you're all theologically astute and you're
1:13:32
taking care of your soul, you love Jesus a lot and you're taking care of your heart,
1:13:35
all your relationships are awesome, but you're going to die 10 years early because you don't
1:13:40
steward your physical vessel very well.
1:13:42
You're not loving him with all switch out any of those that you want to any of those
1:13:47
that you want to.
1:13:48
So and what's really interesting about this, in my opinion, there's only one verse about
1:13:55
Jesus from age 12 to 30.
1:13:58
There's one verse in the whole Bible, Luke to 52.
1:14:01
And here's what it says.
1:14:02
And Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.
1:14:07
You know what Jesus did from 12 to 30?
1:14:10
Lived out the Shema.
1:14:12
He loved the Lord, his God with his heart, soul, mind and strength.
1:14:15
He grew in stature in favor of God and man wisdom and stature in favor of God, man.
1:14:19
That's what we're supposed to do.
1:14:20
So part of the reason we need each other, particularly as men is exactly what you're
1:14:24
talking about.
1:14:26
You don't just find a bunch of bros.
1:14:27
Sorry guys, we got an amber alert going on, what's that?
1:14:35
That is absolutely a first.
1:14:36
Yeah.
1:14:37
But so listen, man, this happens in my church sometimes.
1:14:41
So what is happening right now is somebody that's for a kid, right?
1:14:44
That's for a kid.
1:14:45
That means a kid is lost and somebody's panicking rightfully so.
1:14:53
And they, the powers that be are doing everything that they can to find this kid.
1:15:00
This is the gospel.
1:15:03
We are lost.
1:15:06
We were lost.
1:15:08
A cry goes out, Lord, I'm lost.
1:15:11
And the 99 are left to go find this one.
1:15:13
That's it, man.
1:15:15
Whatever it takes.
1:15:16
We pray real quick just for who I have to name.
1:15:18
Let's go.
1:15:19
Father and Heaven, Lord, I don't know the details.
1:15:20
I don't need to.
1:15:21
You know them all.
1:15:23
Jesus is the kind of savior that we'd seek and save the loss.
1:15:26
Lord, I pray for the authorities, the first responders, all the people that are looking
1:15:30
right now, I pray that they would find this loss of child and bring them back to their
1:15:33
family for your glory and Jesus.
1:15:36
Amen.
1:15:37
Amen.
1:15:38
Amen.
1:15:39
You remember what you were saying?
1:15:40
Luke 252.
1:15:41
Yeah.
1:15:42
You know, we need to find men like Aaron Charms iron, so one man Charms is in another.
1:15:45
As you were saying, they might sharpen you physically.
1:15:47
They might sharpen you spiritually, relationally.
1:15:50
Listen, brothers, get around some guys that have worn out Bibles and wives with a smile
1:15:56
on their face.
1:15:57
Yeah.
1:15:58
And be like, how are you doing this?
1:15:59
You know?
1:16:00
So I actually want to talk about that.
1:16:02
Let's talk about iron sharpening iron because I've been, I've been a part of some, some men's
1:16:06
groups and some, some men's activities that actually help start some other men's groups
1:16:10
that, you know, kind of went a particular way and I want to go a different way.
1:16:13
And, you know, part of the reason why I don't have life is in this big, you know, goliath
1:16:16
of an organization.
1:16:17
It's like I was telling you a lunch today.
1:16:19
It's because like, I don't want to be this enormous ship with this small rudder.
1:16:21
Like, if I need to about face and sprint in one direction as quickly as possible, I can't
1:16:27
do that, you know, having to check in with 17 different people and a board of directors
1:16:30
and all this.
1:16:31
And I just need to go.
1:16:32
I need to run in that direction, difference between a pastor and a prophet.
1:16:35
But when we talk about iron sharpening iron, which is everybody's favorite verse to put
1:16:38
on the screen when they're doing the men's event, right?
1:16:40
Like we're here to, for iron to sharpen iron, I feel like people don't know what that actually
1:16:45
looks like.
1:16:46
When iron is sharpening iron, that is typically like when you're not, now I'm not talking
1:16:50
about it, like, you know, sharpening your hunting knife, right?
1:16:53
That's not what I'm talking about.
1:16:54
When iron is sharpening iron, that is loud.
1:16:58
It is hot.
1:17:00
It is dangerous.
1:17:02
Like, and I feel like the way people describe it is like, you know, two streams of lotion
1:17:06
hitting each other.
1:17:07
It's like, that's how how iron sharpens iron.
1:17:10
Painful.
1:17:11
Right.
1:17:12
And this is what we do as men when we don't have foxhole guys, because again, the way
1:17:17
I describe a foxhole guy or a three AM friend is like, okay, I always use the same example
1:17:21
because I was in this situation where you're at dinner with friends, it's couples dinner
1:17:25
or something like that.
1:17:26
You say an off color joke where your wife is the punch line because you're the funny
1:17:29
guy and you got to look for material no matter where you are and you embarrass your wife.
1:17:34
You need that guy and your foxhole that on the way back to the car, they don't make
1:17:36
a big deal about it.
1:17:37
They don't like stop the presses and make the entire restaurant stop clink glass together
1:17:41
and say, I'm rebuking my friend, but they grab you by your shirt and they say, brother.
1:17:45
Yep.
1:17:46
You embarrass your wife.
1:17:47
I know you didn't look at her after you said your joke, but I did.
1:17:49
She's very embarrassed.
1:17:50
Not only do you need to apologize, you need to never do that again in my presence.
1:17:53
I'm going to smash you to pieces.
1:17:54
You need guys like that in your life, but if you're, if you're a guy that doesn't have
1:17:59
foxhole guys around you, you don't have three AM friends around you.
1:18:02
You got a bunch of six PM friends and you're, you're thinking yourself, man, that, that,
1:18:06
that crazy gender is right.
1:18:07
I need some, I need some three AM foxhole buddies.
1:18:10
And then the first time they rebuke you, you reject them, you shut them out.
1:18:15
And then you distance yourself from that rebuke.
1:18:19
And it's like this goes back to when your and eyes relationship changed.
1:18:23
It changed with one phone call to the redounding benefit of me, I will, I will openly admit,
1:18:29
but you kind of took a risk on a phone call a couple of years back just because it was
1:18:34
something that you needed to get off your chest.
1:18:36
And in that moment, for whatever reason, I accepted the rebuke and it changed the trajectory
1:18:42
of really both of our ministries as it pertains to men.
1:18:47
But most men don't have a place in their heart for that kind of rebuke because they
1:18:53
always hated it when their dad did that, right?
1:18:55
They always hated it when they're high school football coach grabbing them by the face mask
1:18:58
and embarrassed them from all their, all their family and friends and teammates and those
1:19:02
types of things.
1:19:03
And gosh darn it, they don't want to accept it because they already get a bunch of crap
1:19:05
from their wife.
1:19:06
They already get a bunch of crap from their laws.
1:19:08
They got already get a bunch of crap from their boss.
1:19:09
They already get a bunch of crap from, you know, the mayor or whatever the thing that's
1:19:12
going on in their city.
1:19:13
And so they're like, I don't need a bunch of other guys in my life trying to knock off
1:19:17
my rough edges.
1:19:18
Hey, you know what?
1:19:19
I was born this way, bro.
1:19:20
Hey, I'm just a, I'm just an angry guy.
1:19:21
Hey, I, I'm just a drinker.
1:19:23
Hey, I, you know, I just lie sometimes.
1:19:24
Hey, I just like to cut loose.
1:19:25
Why are you judging me?
1:19:27
And then it's like, can we go back to that part where you said you want to foxhole guys
1:19:30
that we're going to be able to help you cultivate spiritual mental and physical resilience?
1:19:34
You know what you're doing right now you're basically working against that.
1:19:36
What are you doing?
1:19:37
Yeah.
1:19:38
I don't use the phrase foxhole, which is a great phrase in my, my phrase is terrible,
1:19:42
but it just comes from the Bible with the guys that rip off the roof to get their friend
1:19:46
to Jesus.
1:19:47
You need four corner toters.
1:19:48
Corner toters.
1:19:49
So if you don't have people that are taking you to Jesus, you will not be able to stand
1:19:54
firm, watch out, let everything you do in, do in love, be strong and act like men.
1:20:00
You just, you're out of the game, man.
1:20:01
You're just out of the game.
1:20:03
Now what you have to do, what you need to do, it's like a retirement account.
1:20:06
You build it before you need it.
1:20:08
If you wait until you need it to begin to try to build it, it is, it is over, man.
1:20:12
It's over and it shouldn't be the only conversation.
1:20:17
Most of the conversations with your foxhole guys are pretty light and lively and fun and
1:20:21
like, oh yeah, good shot bill.
1:20:22
Nice putt.
1:20:23
I mean, it's just normally like that.
1:20:24
It's just when they see you out of line or one of the things you could ask is who's praying
1:20:28
for you?
1:20:29
Yeah.
1:20:30
And don't be like your mom because you're not telling her the truth.
1:20:32
No.
1:20:33
Who's actually going to war for you in, in the heavenlies against the demonic forces that
1:20:39
are trying to steal, kill and destroy everything going good in your life.
1:20:42
Yeah.
1:20:43
If you don't have those people, you're not doing this right and you're going to get taken
1:20:45
out.
1:20:46
And when are you leaning on the strength of others?
1:20:47
I go back to an episode we did a long time ago called foxhole funeral.
1:20:51
I've done two episodes like that, unfortunately, but one of those was when a buddy of ours,
1:20:55
a guy in my foxhole, their father passed away.
1:20:58
And I remember because we talked about this in the truck, there were about a dozen guys
1:21:02
that were friends of his that were there.
1:21:04
Eleven of those guys were foxhole guys like like me guys that were, you know, jiu jitsu
1:21:10
with this guy.
1:21:11
Just knew this guy.
1:21:12
None of us knew his father.
1:21:13
We were there for him.
1:21:14
There was one guy for him in Sunday school.
1:21:15
Wow.
1:21:16
And that affected him deeply.
1:21:17
There was one guy that founded in his heart and in his schedule, the time to go and be
1:21:20
at his, his buddy's funeral.
1:21:23
And those are guys that he was the rock at his father's funeral to my buddy JC.
1:21:28
He was the rock.
1:21:29
He was exactly what Jordan Peterson said.
1:21:30
You should be be the get one guy at your father's funeral that everyone can rely on.
1:21:34
And I literally watched him carry his mother hurt like his dad's widow down the aisle
1:21:42
and seat her before he went and addressed everybody at that funeral, like we're talking
1:21:47
like gargantuan elephant sized balls like to do that type of a thing.
1:21:52
And he was ready, but also he's like, I knew y'all were there, y'all were there for me.
1:21:56
And I appreciated that.
1:21:57
Like he didn't need to, but it's like, if I needed to look up in the balcony and see
1:22:00
you guys, y'all were able to kind of shoulder apart that burden.
1:22:03
And most of us just aren't ready for that.
1:22:04
So one of the things I would warn a man that's like, yeah, that's what I need.
1:22:08
And he goes to two Bible studies and he's like, well, this isn't it.
1:22:11
You're never going to find it in the actual Bible study.
1:22:14
The Bible study is like the means to the end whereby let's say there's 12 guys in the
1:22:18
Bible study.
1:22:19
There will be two of those men that are going to be the kind of guys that you are open and
1:22:24
vulnerable and risk that kind of thing.
1:22:25
They might surprise you, which are rare.
1:22:27
Correct, correct.
1:22:28
So don't ever get caught up.
1:22:29
There's no program that a church could offer that meets all the needs that you need as
1:22:35
a Jesus follower.
1:22:36
The programs are often just to like get people in the right lane to take the next step.
1:22:41
And then some of this you kind of do on your own, just like we, because I bet there was
1:22:45
a bunch of guys when we were talking about fathers, abdicating responsibility and they're
1:22:49
like, you tell them that yet you abdicate all the responsibility for your own discipleship
1:22:53
and blame your church for not doing what it's supposed to do when it's got all the things
1:22:57
they are needed for you to grow up with me in a fat baby, being spoon fed and just pick
1:23:02
up the word and start feeding yourself a little bit in community with some other people.
1:23:06
So yeah, it's just, it's just kind of like training wheels to get you going in the direction
1:23:10
that you need to go.
1:23:11
When I want to talk about this as well, I talk about categories of friendship because
1:23:14
there are guys out there that they just, they've been in 10 weddings as a groomsmen and a best
1:23:19
man.
1:23:20
They are the life of the party.
1:23:21
They are a great friend.
1:23:22
They will, you know, they'll pick up the phone and call you to see how you're doing and
1:23:25
they'll check in and they'll make sure they never forget your birthday and like I'm not
1:23:28
saying those guys are bad.
1:23:30
But then there are the guys that are your friends and sometimes that's the best man guy.
1:23:34
But then there are those guys when the chips are actually down and you told me a story
1:23:37
about a pastor that when the chips were actually down, it was a shock who the one pastor was
1:23:42
I reached out to this guy and we don't necessarily need to go there.
1:23:45
But there are going to be guys when the chips are down for you that you were going to be
1:23:48
shocked that show up.
1:23:50
There are going to be some that aren't shocked to you.
1:23:51
But I remember that there was a guy in my life that I already saw as a good friend.
1:23:56
But then I was like, Oh, he's not just a good friend.
1:23:59
He's not just a foxhole buddy.
1:24:00
He's not just three AM guy.
1:24:02
He's a I'm on my way friend and that's my boy Adam because when James, our first born
1:24:06
was six weeks old, we were on the way to our hospital for the second time in the middle
1:24:11
of the night with emergency intestinal issues that we thought was going to lead to emergency
1:24:15
surgery.
1:24:16
We avoided emergency surgery, but still had to do surgery, which was very dangerous and
1:24:20
could have resulted in the ending of the life of our first born son, right?
1:24:24
The heaviest of heavy situations.
1:24:25
No pain like you pay.
1:24:26
We don't have friends or we don't have family in this area.
1:24:29
We didn't have anyone to take care of things and guess what?
1:24:31
When you leave in the middle of the night, you don't check every, you know, box on the
1:24:34
way out the door and make sure every eye is dotted and T is crossed and we have two dogs.
1:24:40
Those dogs need to be let out.
1:24:42
They need food and water.
1:24:43
They can't do any of that for themselves.
1:24:44
And so we're in the hospital in the middle of the night.
1:24:47
I don't remember how he knew that we were in the hospital in the middle of the night,
1:24:51
but you know what he didn't do?
1:24:53
He didn't text me and say, Hey, brother, I'm, I know what you're going through right
1:24:57
now is tough.
1:24:58
Like I'm praying for you.
1:24:59
Although that would have been fine.
1:25:01
He didn't say, Hey, man, if you can think of anything that you need, let me know that
1:25:07
would have been fine.
1:25:08
But he didn't do that either.
1:25:09
It was a link to a meal train that says, Hey, can you just plug in your address and some
1:25:13
of your dietary preferences and we'll make sure that food gets you at the hospital so
1:25:17
you don't worry about which would have been great.
1:25:20
He said, I'm on my way to your house to take care of your dogs, which he's never been around.
1:25:27
He doesn't even know my dogs, right?
1:25:30
Can you just let me know how to get in the house?
1:25:33
And he was an I'm on my way friend.
1:25:36
And that's when it's like not that I wouldn't have expected him to hop in and be that guy
1:25:40
for me.
1:25:41
But that was in that moment when I didn't ask him when I didn't have to come up with
1:25:44
something for him to do so he could feel better in my time of need.
1:25:48
He just said, I'm on my way.
1:25:50
Let's get it.
1:25:52
One of the questions you get a lot, I get some, you know, all right.
1:25:55
So how do I find these foxhole friends?
1:25:57
Okay.
1:25:58
So here's the B one right first and foremost, just be one, like be the guy.
1:26:03
And if you you're like, well, I don't know how to do that.
1:26:04
I don't know what to say.
1:26:06
I don't know what to do.
1:26:07
Here's what you do.
1:26:08
It's John chapter 11.
1:26:09
You just show up.
1:26:10
You just show up.
1:26:11
Yeah.
1:26:12
I mean, one other thing that Jesus knew all things Lazarus dies, but what he did is he
1:26:16
just showed up and was present with Mary Martha and he hasn't theological discussion
1:26:22
with Martha because that's how she's wired and he cries with Mary because that's how
1:26:25
she's wired.
1:26:26
Okay.
1:26:27
Yeah.
1:26:28
And so one of the things you do is you just show up the there's a guy in my life that's
1:26:31
just so, so, so important and had a stroke.
1:26:35
And so he's in the hospital and in rehab and beyond every day that I could, I went, there
1:26:43
was a couple of days I couldn't go.
1:26:44
I just went anyway.
1:26:45
Yeah.
1:26:46
You know what I mean?
1:26:47
Yeah.
1:26:48
And there's nothing for me to do.
1:26:50
What can I do?
1:26:51
Like he has, he's got nurses and physical therapists and like there's nothing even and
1:26:55
I ask his family a hundred times, what can I do and all of that, but just show up on
1:26:59
the scene.
1:27:00
Yep.
1:27:01
And it's amazing what the ministry of presence will do, particularly when it comes to man.
1:27:05
So there's the clip, there's a clip that went viral a couple of months ago.
1:27:08
So Sean Strickland, former middleweight champion of the UFC.
1:27:12
He is a walking non filtered, sawed off human being, like not only is he one of the greatest
1:27:17
185 pound fighters on the planet right now, he will say whatever is on his mind.
1:27:22
Anyone that knows his story, he's been on Joe Rogan.
1:27:24
He's been on a bunch of other podcasts, unbelievable trauma as a child.
1:27:28
He was around tremendous violence, tremendous sexual abuse, physical abuse.
1:27:35
Just a nightmare.
1:27:36
The guy had a nightmare upbringing and it has deeply affected him and you can just tell.
1:27:41
Well, he's on a podcast with the O'Vaughn, so the O'Vaughn very funny comedian and,
1:27:45
you know, typically when you're on Theo Vaughn's podcast, it's pretty light because the O'Vaughn
1:27:50
is a comedian and he's not at his best on stage.
1:27:52
He's at his best when he's just sitting across from somebody, you know, chat and just riffing,
1:27:55
right?
1:27:56
So it's exactly Jordan Peterson on the mic.
1:27:59
Not exactly.
1:28:00
Even though he and Jordan Peterson are buddies, so I'm sure they're both, Jordan Peterson's
1:28:03
getting funnier and Theo's getting smarter.
1:28:05
I can guarantee you that's happening.
1:28:07
But they're doing, you know, conversational Theo's podcast and something is said and
1:28:14
Sean Strickland goes back, Theo Vaughn was describing when he was a child how he would
1:28:20
actually and Theo, Theo started getting upset, how he would actually mark his bed with his
1:28:24
own urine and how children that are abused will almost go feral that they will, as an
1:28:30
animal would, mark their territory, that children that are abused physically, emotionally, sexually,
1:28:36
all those types of things, they will actually mark the edges of their bed as a protection
1:28:40
mechanism.
1:28:41
It's unbelievably sad to even describe out loud, right?
1:28:45
What would have to happen to a child for that to happen.
1:28:48
And then Sean Strickland is trying to say something just haggard and crazy off the wall
1:28:53
because that's just how he deals with pain, but he got stuck and he started crying.
1:28:58
And at the time he's the UFC 185 pound champion.
1:29:01
He's one of the baddest human beings on planet earth, brutal and all of his quotes and commentary,
1:29:07
you know, against woke and against everything right and he can't, he can't get words out
1:29:11
because he's, he's so choked up.
1:29:13
And Theo Vaughn said one of the most poignant things that went kind of unnoticed by some
1:29:18
people, but he goes, Oh man, I'm sorry.
1:29:23
And then Sean Strickland still trying to talk.
1:29:24
He's still trying to get it out.
1:29:25
And then Theo Vaughn says, Hey man, we can just sit here, I'll just sit here with you
1:29:28
for a minute.
1:29:29
Let's sit.
1:29:30
He didn't say, Hey, let's let's just let's just cut the cameras like let's let's just
1:29:34
take a break.
1:29:35
He didn't say he didn't just fill up the dead air, which is what I do anytime.
1:29:38
There's dead air on the forage table.
1:29:40
Let me say something.
1:29:41
He goes, Hey man, we can just sit here for a minute.
1:29:43
And so guys, I say all that to set up.
1:29:46
Because when you show up, your presence is the present.
1:29:49
Hey man, we can just sit here for a minute.
1:29:52
Sometimes it's going to be tears.
1:29:53
Sometimes it's going to be anger.
1:29:54
Sometimes it's going to you need to save him from that third punch on the wall.
1:29:57
So he doesn't, you know, add hand surgery to the myriad of other issues that he's suffering
1:30:00
at that moment.
1:30:01
But you just need to be there.
1:30:02
Yeah.
1:30:03
Actually, one of the worst things you can do in, in severe tragedy and this is 30 years
1:30:09
of ministry speaking here, you don't try to say the right thing.
1:30:11
Who?
1:30:12
Because sometimes you'll say that's a word to me.
1:30:14
Oh, like, you know, when you try to get all theological about stuff, just the, oh man,
1:30:18
just slow your role.
1:30:20
And I'll give you the shortest version of the Bible, John 11, 35 and Jesus whipped.
1:30:25
So think about this.
1:30:26
Jesus is sitting next to Mary and Jesus with, well, what's he weeping for?
1:30:33
He knows Lazarus is dead, but he knows he's going to be alive in what 20 minutes, 45 minutes.
1:30:38
How long did he wait?
1:30:39
The Bible does not say how long he waits, but he's not confused.
1:30:43
He knows this is going to be awesome.
1:30:44
Everybody's going to be celebrating.
1:30:45
In fact, the next chapter of people are going to bust open perfume on his feet because of
1:30:48
what he did.
1:30:49
Okay.
1:30:50
But he was, he was fully present in the moment with Mary.
1:30:54
This is what the Bible means when it says he waits for those who weep.
1:30:57
And that's a, that's what we need to do.
1:30:59
Sometimes you just got to just sit with people and almost mirror what they are going through
1:31:04
because you know, listen, I love you and I'm for you.
1:31:09
Oftentimes when I don't know what to say, that's what I'll say.
1:31:11
I'll just say we love you.
1:31:13
That's it.
1:31:14
Or I love you.
1:31:15
That's it.
1:31:16
And just, and just be in that moment.
1:31:17
Yeah.
1:31:18
I mean, Joby, I can remember, I won't go into the circumstances because I have not been
1:31:21
getting permission to tell the story, but there was a, a death on Christmas day, years
1:31:26
back, we had a big snow and ice storm on Christmas and one of my best friends and his cousin
1:31:31
and his cousin's fiance were in a vehicle.
1:31:33
They slide off the road, him and his cousin were, were in the front, not wearing seatbelts.
1:31:37
They both get ejected through the sun roof.
1:31:39
My, one of my buddies flies over the median of the highway lands on his head on the other
1:31:43
side of the highway.
1:31:44
There's an off duty police officer that literally watched him fly through the air and land on
1:31:47
his head.
1:31:48
He ended up having a mild concussion and nothing else.
1:31:51
Well, his cousin wasn't so lucky.
1:31:52
His head split open right there on the highway.
1:31:54
He died in his fiance's arms.
1:31:56
Worst case scenario for any of that, right?
1:31:59
And so the guy that died was the cousin of the driver, right?
1:32:03
So now the driver, he lived survivor's guilt, but also his cousin's dead.
1:32:08
His fiance, like it's, it's a whole thing, right?
1:32:10
And I remember going to the first viewing of the body.
1:32:13
So there were a lot of viewings of the body.
1:32:15
There was, you know, the funerals.
1:32:16
And then there was just a lot.
1:32:17
The very first one was like the next day.
1:32:21
And I remember my buddy's parents being there.
1:32:24
I remember some friends being there.
1:32:26
And I just remember all I could think to do in that moment was not to put my hand on
1:32:30
my buddy's shoulder.
1:32:31
That survived, right?
1:32:32
Who had just got out of the hospital.
1:32:33
Right.
1:32:34
And I put my hand on his shoulder to not like, not pray for him to not go around and ask
1:32:39
all the people, Hey, is there anything I can do for my buddies or anything?
1:32:41
Do you know of anything about I stood next to him?
1:32:44
Yep.
1:32:45
That's it.
1:32:46
Like he was sitting down on the pew.
1:32:47
And I just stood next to him and did nothing.
1:32:51
And for me, like, yeah, I guess I did something, but for a guy of action, a guy of words of
1:32:57
guys saying the right thing at the right time and in springing into action in that moment
1:33:01
that you've been training for your entire life and this whole machismo bullcrap, I just
1:33:05
stood there.
1:33:07
And it's not like we talked about it later and he's like, you know, that time when you
1:33:10
stood there, that's whenever I understood the gospel, but now it wasn't as dramatic as
1:33:14
that.
1:33:15
No, but you were his friend, man.
1:33:16
Right.
1:33:17
We never talked about it again.
1:33:18
Um, and as we, as we actually got a wind to the end here, cause you and I are, are on
1:33:21
a timer.
1:33:22
We got to go somewhere else and do some more fun stuff before I send you back to Florida.
1:33:26
But I just wanted to, to tell you this to your face and also just, we'll just keep this
1:33:29
between you and I.
1:33:30
We won't let it.
1:33:31
So everybody else just stop listening.
1:33:33
But I am so like tickled to death, like honestly, that you and I are even buddies, but then
1:33:38
beyond that, you have taken steps personally as a senior pastor of church of 11 22, which
1:33:44
is a big church that's got a lot of stuff going on to move your ministry towards what
1:33:49
undaunted life is doing, not just to utilize it, not just to point people to, but you have
1:33:54
brought church of 11 22 down to what we're doing.
1:33:58
And I don't mean that negatively, like y'all were hovering above us, but you, you are brought
1:34:01
resources and time and attention to what we're doing here.
1:34:05
And what y'all are doing is y'all are equipping us to do what I feel like I've been put on
1:34:09
this planet to do, which is to equipment to push back darkness.
1:34:12
And as I tell people all the time, we can't pull off what we're doing without donors,
1:34:15
but we also can't pull any of this off without people that are bought into what we're doing
1:34:19
and sold out to the exact same mission because some guys, their mission field is homeschooling
1:34:24
their kids, some guys, their mission field is the actual mission field overseas.
1:34:28
Some guys, it's running a church.
1:34:29
Some guys, it's running a company that is, you know, fostering the, the propagation
1:34:34
of a hundred different families and making sure that they're all well fed and can live
1:34:37
indoors, right?
1:34:39
And those are the types of things that are really, really important.
1:34:41
And so for me, I just wanted to give you a sincere thank you and an apology for any future
1:34:46
thing that I say that might, you know, get you in trouble because you're going to get
1:34:49
a microphone stuck in your face.
1:34:50
Hey, did you know that Kyle Thompson of Undaunted Life said this?
1:34:52
Do you repudiate it?
1:34:53
So I give you that thank you, but I also give you that I'm so sorry in advance.
1:34:58
Well, it's, it's, it's, you're pretty easy to invest in, bro.
1:35:01
I mean, you know, when we met several years ago, I love what you're doing.
1:35:05
I'm into it.
1:35:06
Just personally, I listen to every interview, every forging table.
1:35:10
I just listen.
1:35:11
I like it.
1:35:12
Um, I love what you're doing.
1:35:14
I think, I think we're better together.
1:35:15
So, and I, and I think for us, I mean, maybe we're a five talent church.
1:35:19
I will see when the master returns.
1:35:22
And we want to act like one and live like one and not be the one talent church that took
1:35:25
what God had given them and out of fear digs a hole in it and just be like, no, this is
1:35:29
all ours.
1:35:30
We try to be a conduit of God's blessing, not a cul-de-sac.
1:35:33
And also my time here, man, what a complete honor.
1:35:36
I'm not just to be here.
1:35:38
I was, I wouldn't come if I wasn't honored to be asked, but you and your crew, mostly
1:35:42
you and your wife, y'all have honored me like crazy.
1:35:46
And the way you talk to me to the jokes, to the gifts, to the hunting trip, to, and to
1:35:52
just be a part of your home for a few days.
1:35:54
And it means a lot.
1:35:55
And I think it's, um, I think it's something that men have lost the art of is honoring
1:36:01
one another.
1:36:02
Cause everybody likes to pick on one another and everybody likes to jab at one another.
1:36:05
But the Bible says out do one another with honor.
1:36:09
And so I've been honored like crazy.
1:36:10
It's been an honor to be here.
1:36:11
Well, I appreciate you saying that, but I'll just tell you, this was all selfish for me
1:36:14
because there are people that don't think Oklahoma is in the South.
1:36:18
And so we're not included in the Southern hospitality category.
1:36:21
And so I just needed to make sure that you knew because what's Oklahoma?
1:36:25
Are we Midwest?
1:36:26
Are we Southwest?
1:36:27
Are we South?
1:36:28
No one really knows.
1:36:29
We're part of the South.
1:36:30
I'm not saying the South arises again or any of that nonsense, but Southern hospitality
1:36:32
lives here.
1:36:33
Dad, gummy.
1:36:34
You have reclaimed it.
1:36:35
Congratulations.
1:36:36
Very good.
1:36:37
Well, hey, until next time, we'll see you, Joby.
1:36:38
Peace.
1:36:39
All right.
1:36:40
Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode.
1:36:41
And to this, please subscribe, rate, and leave us a positive five-star review.
1:36:45
If you want to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, just shoot me an email
1:36:48
to info@undonton.life.
1:36:50
That's I-N-F-O@undonton.life.
1:36:53
Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook and check out our website for everything else,
1:36:56
including how to donate to keep more content like this coming your way.
1:36:59
Just go to www.undonton.life.
1:37:02
And also we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing us to use their music for our
1:37:06
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1:37:07
The music on this podcast is our song Perpetua, which is off their self-titled debut album
1:37:11
on Face Down Records.
1:37:12
The links are in the description.
1:37:14
I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
1:37:16
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