Let's be honest, most men drift. We wake up, we scroll, we work, and then we just rinse and repeat. And we know we're softer than we should be. That's why I built the 31-day resilience reset. This is not a devotional, it is a field manual for men ready to stop drifting and start fighting back. So, for 31 days, you'll train your spirit, mind, and body with scripture, prayer, and daily challenges that forge real resilience. Go to www.undaunted.life/31days to download this resource for free. That's undaunted.life/31days. Start your reset today. This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it. Kyle Idleman, welcome back to Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. This is your second foray onto this show and into this audience. Are you nervous at all? Cuz I feel like I'm losing my edge a little bit. >> know what, man? There's a it's a a fellow Kyle puts me at ease. Instant trust. Well, and beyond that, can we just go ahead and dispense with all the Kyle memes on the internet where it's like, you know, a baby named Kyle is being baptized with white Monster energy drink or something like that. I don't get what it is about people named Kyle, but like apparently everyone in the public thinks that we're just sawed off from the very beginning. I mean, you and I notice it. Did Did you see the Kyle conference in Kyle, Texas where they had a collection of Kyles come together? Uh yes. Also, there was a There was like a collection of gingers somewhere in the world. And so, everyone that gathered in Kyle, Texas wanted to let me know about that. And then the collection of gingers, they got me coming and going on that one. Just needed a a They just need a ginger Kyle conference in B perfect. You You could be their leader. Hey, look, the universe would tear. That like there's there there would be like there would be like a hole in the fourth dimension or something like these dorks on the internet believe in. Like, that would happen at that exact [laughter] moment. We have to keep Ginger Kyle's as far away from each other as possible. But, uh to segue here, uh we're going to talk about the new book here in just a second, but there's a couple of subject matters that have come up a lot uh for me and for my audience over the last several months, and so I just want to kind of pitch those things out at you. One thing uh since the assassination of Charlie Kirk on September the 10th of last year, I feel like there's this been this crisis of discernment in our culture. Okay. A lot of people, a lot of well-meaning people, a lot of smart people have been drawn towards, I guess you could call them journalists or pseudo journalists or podcasters or people that love to make a lot of claims, but don't substantiate them. They don't give receipts. They don't like say, "Hey, I think that this happened and this is why." They just throw out the claim, and then people hear a claim and they think, "Oh, that's evidence." It's like, no, evidence is a claim undergirded by truth. That That's what That what's makes it evidence. And I feel like it's it's coming into the church, and I know you saw the the data from Lifeway and Ligonier 2025 state of theology. Self-described evangelicals, people that say the Bible's their highest authority on the planet, uh a majority of them believe that God accepts the worship of all religions including Judaism and Islam. A bare majority believe that God invented [clears throat] marriage to between be be between one man and one woman. And there are a bunch of other things that are just like, wait a minute, if we just read our Bibles, like, this stuff would be so super duper clear. And so, I'm not trying to tie this to some sort of, you know, eschatology or anything else like that, but I really feel like we're reaching a crisis point as a body politic or as a society when it comes to just basic discernment. Wanted to get your read on that. Yeah, well, I feel this pressure as a pastor to uh more than ever to kind of be a pundit on these things where they come so quickly, and I get a lot of questions that I think often are very genuine from people. Like, "Hey, what do you think about this? Or what does the Bible say about that? Or what's the church's perspective on these things?" And without meaning to, like, that can dominate my day. I can feel this uh pressure that I've got to address each of these things. And I have really embraced, like, I'm called first to be a pastor shepherd. That that is my role. And so, I'm going to do my best to honor that by speaking of these things in a way that um reflects what not just what scripture says, but how scripture would say it. So, for example, you know, when James talks about being quick to listen and slow to speak and slow to become, you know, I'll use the word angsty instead of angry, because it is this idea of being upset. So, if if part of being a follower of Jesus is I'm going to be I'm going to be quick to listen and slow to speak, that means I'm not going to have something to say the second something gets um surfaced. If it means I'm going to be slow to become angsty, I'm going to be slow to be upset, that one of the qualities for me as a man is going to be not living an angsty life, where I am always wound tight, but what rather that I have a um a confidence and I've got this peace uh that isn't going to be dictated by, you know, what's happening in the news that day or somebody else's um virtue signal or or the pressure that uh social media's putting on me to comment about something. And and and so, I want to I want to embrace that side of being a pastor. For I'll give you a quick example of this. >> [snorts] >> This past weekend, we're we're going through Genesis and um you know, I was in Genesis 18 and 19, which is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, right? Like it is a pretty disturbing story. And there were there were just different things happening culturally that I was able to speak to because the text spoke to it. And I increasingly have this confidence that look, I'm I'm going to hold up God's word and then I'm going to let God's word illuminate some things and there might be occasion where hey, this is a pretty big deal but you know, you mentioned the assassination of Charlie Kirk. There's something that comes up like okay, I'm going to I'm going to speak to that. I'm going to address that. But general I mean generally allowing God's word to be what decides you know, the issues that get the spotlight and what I'm going to speak on. I think there's a lot of wisdom in it and what I'm just discovering is that the Holy Spirit has a way of connecting those things. We went through the whole book of Romans in a year and I was amazed at how it lined up and spoke to things that were happening in the world. Now there were weeks where I didn't you know, speak about certain things people wanted me to talk about and uh and and yet I knew hey, we're going to get to some of those things but I'm not going to let other people determine the urgency or the level of intensity in which I speak to those things in in a moment. Does that Does that make sense? It does because the temptation can be to preach the news cycle but that's what you know, newscasters are for in the 24-hour news cycle and political podcasters and things like that. But then there are things that are so egregious like you know, call it a political assassination, call it a martyrdom of someone like Charlie Kirk, what that means for everybody, what that poured out, you know, what it showed about the divide between progressives and conservatives in this country, believers and non-believers. You had people cheering and shouting in exclamation and enjoy that somebody was murdered and then other people that were so horrified that it moved them to go to the church for the first time in a long time. A good buddy of mine was an atheist for a long time, ardent atheist. For whatever reason after Charlie Kirk was murdered, he found himself in a church on Sunday morning breaking down in tears during worship. Oh yeah, I we had we had I don't know, 3 or 4,000 extra people that weekend. And so you know, to not talk about it would have you know, been a miss. Well, let me use the gospels as a as an explanation for this is that Jesus when he would teach the temptation is to think that he's deciding what he's going to teach on and then asking who am I teaching to. That's not the order that I see in the gospels. I see Jesus saying, who am I teaching to? Okay, now here's what I'm going to talk about. And so often times, I mean there's specific examples of this where there's one person in the audience that asks a question or has a need or whatever the issue might be. And Jesus did directs his message based upon the that person that he's speaking to. I forget who said this, but they said you know, a great communicator asks, what am I going to talk about? You know, the best communicators talk communicators ask, who am I speaking to? And so recognizing, hey there are a lot of people coming into church that have these fears or these anxieties or this anger. I don't I want to understand who they are and I want to speak to them. When I write a message, I'll usually write two or three names at the top of my document where I'm studying and because I know these are the folks that I want to direct this towards. I know enough about what's happening in their lives to to connect the dots between what scripture is saying and what they're walking through. And if I hit them, I'm going to hit a lot of other people. Yeah, and ultimately what we've seen with a lot of people again, with there's just this crippling level of biblical illiteracy to where people even did a cursory read over their Bibles, even just the Gospels, it would dispense with a lot of these nonsense ideas about what Christians should believe, what core level doctrine is, what secondary or tertiary doctrine is, cuz the part of the problem is you have people elevating tertiary doctrine to the place of primary doctrine and arguing about it as if it can be known. Cuz there's a lot of gray areas in scripture. There's only one truth, but there's a lot of gray areas. That's that's worth debate. But then there are things that cannot be debatable if you call yourself a Christian. You have to believe in the virgin birth. You have to believe that Jesus was God and man. You have to believe that he died on a cross, that he was resurrected 3 days later, and that somehow counted for you. Then we start getting into other stuff that can be considered second and secondary and tertiary doctrine. And before we Yeah, go. Go. >> Well, I just got to say one of my favorite passages that addresses what you're talking about is I Romans 4 Romans 14? Yeah, Romans 14. Where uh, you know, Paul's going through these issues, secondary issues, and and and he kind of gives his position on it, but then he has this verse where he says, "And whatever you think about these things, keep it to yourself." And >> [laughter] >> I love that. I mean, culturally, that seems like such a word for believers. Like, hey, yeah, you know what? If you want to have strong opinions about some of these things, good for you. Like, have convictions, have opinions, but don't feel like you have to share all of that with all the people all the time. Like, there's some wisdom in saying, which is really hard for us these days, but there's some wisdom in saying, "You know what? I'm pretty convicted about this, but I'm going to keep it to myself." And, you know, as he's addressing unity in the church, he recognizes that that is an important discipline. Like, in the church, if we can't recognize these areas that we can have conviction around, but doesn't but it doesn't mean we have to share it all the time. Some of those things, you know, the biblical high road is to keep it to yourself. Well, one of the biggest things that I get asked about constantly is I I have people demand that I have a young earth older debate on on the show. They demand that I I stick my flag firmly in one place or the other. And the thing about it is is whether the earth is six thousand years old or a bajillion years old, we can't know for sure because God gave us science and we would use science to be able to even look at that, but we can't go back to the founding of everything and see exactly how that happened. We don't know how big of a gap there is between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. We just flat out don't know. If you have a hard argument for it, fine, but don't say that I don't believe in the authority of scripture if I don't believe the earth is exactly how old you believe that it is. And the same thing like I was I was on a I was on a coaching call yesterday with a guy who is, you know, kind of feeling some inner consternation about you know, spiritual gifts and you know, whether he's a cessationist or whether he's not and you know, he has kind of his his prior convictions, but then he has a church that kind of he feels like he's swinging on this pendulum and I just told him I'm like, brother, let me fast forward a year. You spend a year, you know, reading books and engaging with the stuff on both sides of the issue. You you pendulum back and forth on this issue and you you land somewhere and you realize, oh my gosh, I spent all this time on something that at best is secondary doctrine and [clears throat] yet I haven't been preaching the gospel to myself. I haven't been praying over my wife. I haven't been, you know, catechizing my children and here I have I've been having this big struggle about something that's I wouldn't say isn't important, but it's it's it's something that is debatable and you're going to spend hours and hours and hours and find yourself roughly where you are now and there's not a whole lot of value in being able to stick your flag in one place or the other. >> Oh, well, and and just the humility to say, you know what? I may not I'm I'm growing. I'm learning in some of these things. I I would say over the years I've become more aware that God may change my perspective on things. He might teach me something new. You know, I might discover in scripture something that I hadn't studied before. And so, I like to leave some room for that. Like And let me put it this way. There is something wrong in your spiritual growth if you can't remember the last time God changed your mind about something. Like that that's that's not healthy. Like in humility, we should be able to recognize, "Hey, you know what? The way I think about this now is different than the way I thought about it, you know, 4 or 5 years ago." Again, you and I are talking about secondary issues. We're not talking about the essential doctrines but but yeah, leaving some space I'm where I stand now may not be where I stand, you know, in 5 years from now. Well, it's funny you use the 5-year timeline. I tell people all the time, if you don't look back on who you were 5 years ago and you're not at least a little bit embarrassed, you're probably not progressing. Because if you can look back and be like, "Wait, I thought that? Wait, I worked out that way? I I ate that way? Like I believed that? I wore those shoes?" Like you should always be able to look back and be like, "Okay, I'm a little bit embarrassed of who I used to be." And even I had this pointed out to me on Sunday. About a year ago, I was racked with this over not overwhelming anxiety, but but a good level of anxiety about my boys, who would have been, you know, 3 and 5 at the time, about their salvation. And are they elect? And did God foreknow what they were going to do or did he hold them down and force them to accept the gospel? Whatever your irresistible grace means. And then someone asked me on Friday and I said, "Look, I'm not sovereign over their salvation. I can't force them to be saved. Like that's not my role. As their father, it is my job to put as much gospel kindling around those boys and soak them in as much scripture and as possible. All the while realizing there are a lot of dads that have done that and they it never took for whatever reason. And then there were dads that were completely absent, kid grew up basically pagan, heathen, and then at some point the gospel got a hold of their heart anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, well, I I just was convicted about this very thing because of the this passage I was referencing earlier about the Sodom and Gomorrah where Abraham goes to God and said, you know, God, if there's 50 people, will you save the city? God says, yeah, you know, for 50, I'll do it. And he said, well, what if it's five less than 50? What if it's 45? [clears throat] God says, yeah. You know, then goes to to 30, then to 20 and he goes all the way down to 10. What and God keeps saying, yeah, you know, for the sake of 10, I'll save I'll save the city. What struck me in that is that there is this power of intercession that I would have underestimated that Abraham is interceding uh for for the city and God wants to say yes. Like so every time Abraham asks, God's like, yeah. And it messed with me and as I'm thinking through, you know, what really is my faith on the power of interceding for my children, the power of interceding for people who are lost, the power of interceding for people who are on this path to destruction because of their decisions. Like it just challenged me to say, okay, this has more of a role than I have sometimes acknowledged partly because of my confidence and faith in the sovereignty of God. But then recognizing that God is so sovereign that he can take our intercessory prayers for our kids or for the people around us and when he wants to say yes, you know, he's sovereign enough to say, well, I wasn't going to do this, but yeah, because you asked, I'll I'll do that. Which is just I don't know. For me, I mean, I've been a pastor for a long time and it just challenged me like I'll let me use your example as a father. You know, as a father, as a grandfather now, you know, everything in me wants to to try to control their their you know, what they get exposed to and the decisions they make and to control the outcome, and yet just being re-convicted that as a man of action, the my first my first priority still needs to be intercession. My first priority still needs to be I'm going to intercede. I'm going to fight a battle that they don't even know I'm fighting with the confidence that God wants to say yes to those prayers. Hey guys, real quick. I know a lot of you train for very specific things. So, maybe you've got a mud race coming up, a mountain hunt, a 5K, or maybe you just want to keep up with your kids, or you just don't want to let the old man in. But, for a lot of you guys, whether you're working out at the Globo Gym, or even your garage gym, you get there and you just don't know exactly what to do. And so, you just kind of settle for the same old workout routine, maybe some bench press, bicep curls, a walk on the treadmill, and you know you're not really getting the most out of your workout plan. And I want you guys to stop wasting time at the gym. No more settling. It's time for you guys to get a guide to help you reach your fitness goals. And that's why I want to remind you about my good friends at Mountain Tough. Mountain Tough is a fitness and mental toughness app developed by military special operators and mountain hunters that's becoming a global movement for building mentally tough athletes on and off the mountain. Mountain Tough is a native app ready to be downloaded on all platforms, so that includes iPhone, Android, Apple TV, Roku, and there's more. Once you sign up and download the app or access the website, you immediately have access to hundreds of exercise programs and literally thousands of workout videos. Thousands. So, that includes structured hybrid strength endurance programs, daily workouts, the full exercise library, mental toughness training, the Mountain Tough community, and accountability. And you can use it all on the go, online or offline, no matter where you decide to train. So, if you're just getting started, that's great. They have programs for beginners. If you have minimal or no gear where you train, that's not a factor. They have minimal gear and body weight programs. And guys, if you're wanting to get into or maintain elite-level fitness, they've got you covered with programs for top-tier athletes, too. And for a limited time, Mountain Tough is extending Undaunted Lifers like you an incredible offer. Go to mountaintough.com. That's mtntough.com and enter the code Kyle when you sign up for a monthly plan to receive your first month free after your 14-day trial. So, that's 6 weeks free to make sure this is for you. I'm sure it will be. That is 6 weeks free on the best-in-class physical and mental training app in the world. So, stop wasting time. It's time to get real fitness results. Let my friends at Mountain Tough guide the way. Again, go to mtntough.com. Promo code Kyle. When you talk about prayers, I don't know when it shifted for me. I I would love to be able to give this person credit, but I think they asked me, "Are you praying over your kids?" And I was like, "Yeah, yeah, I pray for my kids." He's like, "No, no, you didn't hear what I said. I said, 'Are you praying over your kids?'" I said, "I'm sorry, what do you mean?" He's like, "I don't mean are you praying about them? I [clears throat] don't mean before you go to bed you say a prayer with them or you go in their bed after they fall asleep and put your hand on them and pray for them. I mean while they're awake, are you praying out loud over them?" And I Oh, man, I shifted immediately, Kyle. I was base Now it's like I'm praying an aspirational identity over my boys. So, they're 6 and 4 now, and I pray over James and Elijah, "Lord, I pray that you would continue to guide them and lead them. Uh You make the gospel clear to them. Lord, I pray that they will grow up to be courageous, tough, meek, tender men who will always serve you." And they're hearing that over and over and over. You You know where what resonates with me on that and is I know the difference when somebody prays for me and somebody prays over me. That's good. >> Like I've I've got I've got men in my life who will pray for me and I'm grateful for that, but there are some men when they pray for me, I'm going to get prayed over. And when they pray over me, they're speaking courage into me. They're speaking identity over me. And you know, that's those are prophetic prayers. Um and I love that as a father. That's a good challenge to say, "Okay, what would it sound like you know, tonight if I don't just go in and kneel next to my son's bed and pray for him, but what if I pray over him?" That's good. Well, the same thing like you're everyone talks about Morse code and Todd and all that. Well, one thing that I created as a habit years ago and I can't take credit for this cuz someone else had the idea, but when the server comes to your table at dinner and puts your your meal down and all those types of things, what do they always say? Is there anything else I can grab you? And the typical answer in Oklahoma is yeah, grab me some Oklahoma ketchup, which actually is ranch. And so but but as opposed to that I will say, "My my family is about to bless our meal. How can we be praying for you?" Yeah. Not can we pray for you cuz that's a yes no. There's an assumptive close of you need prayer and I just need you to open your mouth and tell me what it is. And sometimes we've gotten the no, I'm okay and then they just walk away. And other people we've had break down in tears. Yeah. Because they you know, they're working two jobs trying to make ends meet. Their family lives in another state. They haven't seen their mom and dad and blah blah blah. And then guess what? We get an opportunity to minister to that person with a tip, right? And there was a gal that we we basically we looked up what it cost to fly from Oklahoma City to wherever her family lived and that was her tip. And you know, we we told her that we're like, "Go see your family." And it's like and it's not about the money. It's about our kids heard that. That's just going to be the air they breathe, man. Oh, this is normal. And then if they sit down with a family that doesn't do that, they're going to be like, "What's wrong with you, weirdos? You didn't ask the server if you could pray for them." Well, you know, I love that story. I one of the things last month I I we do Uber Eats way too much, you know. But I have found that that is a really good opportunity. When you get a a Uber Eats driver, you know, a DoorDash driver come up, you know, they're in a little different environment than they are in a restaurant where there's a lot of noise and busyness. Uh and I love what you're doing with that and and we've done some of that, too. But, uh you know, it's just the two of us out in the driveway. And um and I've had some really cool opportunities to pray for a couple of uh my Uber Eats drivers and to talk to them because that environment is is a little bit different. But, to tie it to what you just said, uh you know, I I look up and I can after just the most recent time and my wife and two of my daughters are are looking out at the driveway from the window and wondering what's going on cuz, you know, I've got one hand on the Uber Eats driver, the other hand raised in the air, I'm praying for this guy. Like, so, you know, looking for those opportunities to to to model it where they get to connect it, you know, in a genuine way. Like, oh, this really is this really is what we believe. Uh there's no substitute for that. Well, and part of it is like, if you start looking at cuz I don't know what this phenomenon is, but let's say you buy a brand new black Silverado, all of the sudden you're going to notice every black Silverado in your town [clears throat] because it's like your brain is queued up for that. So, if you're looking for opportunities to minister for people and minister to people, those opportunities will be there. We had a, you know, a guy working on some some stuff at at one of our uh one of our properties and he's, you know, he's an older guy, uh woodworker, like carpenter, that type of thing. And he just in the conversation, he just kind of brought up that he was sick. Like, that he has he has cancer and, you know, it's in the latter stages and he's just, you know, he wants to go out, you know, while he's working. That's his thing. He's he's not going to get busy dying, he's going to get busy living and all those things. And then he said some stuff that was kind of like squishy spiritual, but not not biblically based Christian. And so, it gave me the opportunity while we're talking about what color stain and, you know, timeline and budget to where it's like, "Hey, you mentioned you were sick and you mentioned, you know, feeling like you you've been opened up to more of a spiritual idea. You know, when people say they're spiritual but not religious, demons can be spirits. So, would you mind being more specific what you mean by that? Mhm. And then it just kind of opened up the conversation to more so what he believes, and there was no Jesus there, and I just was able to give him a very clear, non-awkward, again, people are like, "Oh, that's so awkward." It wasn't. But, I I love this guy enough as a man who was a perfect stranger to me 30 minutes prior to that to say, "Hey, you're in this place right now where if you can forgive how how forward I'm going to speak, you're staring at the Grim Reaper, right? And, you know, you you look at every hour like a blessing, like somebody that's not sick doesn't." I say, "But, there's a reason that you're here, and there's a there's a fulfillment in you that that can happen if you accept the the blood of Jesus." And I just told him like, "Look, Jesus was a real man that died on a real cross for the real you." And, you know, and then it just opened up that conversation, you know, was able to get the guy a Bible, like those types of things. And look, guys, your job is to plant seeds. You're not always going to be the one that plants it, waters it, watch it's cultivate, and then to get to experience the first fruits. That may not be your job, you know what I mean? >> Right. You know, I so I've got a theology on this. So, uh as a dad. So, my when my youngest daughter was um living in um Texas few years back, just going through a tough time and a few different things. And I got lots of people in Dallas that I know and I'm friends with. And and so, as a dad, I'm thinking to myself, hey, I want her to get some encouragement. You know, I'm going to put a few people around her that can help support her. And I'm really careful about who I send her to cuz cuz she's my daughter. And what I think happens is that the heart of God as a father sends his sons and daughters to you know, people to to men that he knows will care well for them. So, when you start saying yes, he starts sending more people to you. Like it's not a coincidence. Like you'll hear you'll hear certain guys tell stories about sharing their faith and you're like, "How did How do they get all these opportunities?" I I think God sees that like, "Oh, this is what when my son when my daughter needs something or they're hurting or they're broken, I know that this church or I know that this pastor or I know that this, you know, um neighbor is going to take good care of that. I'm so I'm going to send I'm going to put them in a line for that person. And so when you say yes to to someone, you will start having more yes opportunities partly cuz you see them more, but partly I think is because God as a father says, "Okay, if that's how you're going to care for my my daughter, then I've got a lot of other daughters that need to be cared for that way." And and he starts sending you those, you know, you see them and then he's sending them. And then your role is to be obedient, to take those steps, to take the next right step, to open your mouth, and I'm talking to me just as much as I talked to the other people. You hear the thing, you get the feeling in your gut that you should say something. Yeah, see something, say something. Now, here I am I've I've I say wasted, but I've had a fun time the last 30 minutes. We're supposed to be talking about your book now, but I still have another question that's not book related. But it's kind of tangential to some of the stuff that we talked about, you know, praying over your kids, even praying over your wife. One thing that has been shocking with the rapidity and commonality of this refrain that I'm getting from a lot of guys, whether they're talking to me in person, sending me DMs, sending me emails, a bunch of guys that are in very, very difficult marriages. Now, it's been an array of different reasons, right? Affairs on both sides, uh you know, the the spark's gone, uh you know, kids are gone and we realized we were just business partners this entire time. We weren't actually in love and we weren't actually married. And again, I'm I'm getting one side of the story from one of the parties involved and I'm getting it via email. It's the least exhaustive thing ever and I just keep telling these guys I'm like, "Look, I can't I can't give you specific advice given general amounts of information. I can't do that. But, what I'm finding, Kyle, is the correct answer is, "Look, read Ephesians 5. Read the passages that are directed at husbands and do that. It's good. >> You let the passages directed at the wives be between her and God. So, that may be the correct answer, Kyle, Kyle, but that is not a very satisfactory answer for them as they hear it and me as I say it. Yeah. >> Cuz then there's the actual living that out on a day in day out basis. Like, what do I do with, you know, whether it's a woman with an unrepentant spouse or a man with an unrepentant spouse or someone that doesn't want to to work on the marriage or someone that that doesn't think that anything's wrong or whatever and I keep running into these men and I find myself flat-footed not being able to give better advice all the while knowing I'm working with a limited deck of cards here. But, even just as a pastor, if someone were to come up to you after a service or even throughout the week to give you the same kind of scenario outside of, "Hey, Ephesians 5, get into biblical counseling and you know, let God deal with their heart." Like, how in the world do you live that out? Well, I love your, you know, counsel. I think that's the right counsel. What I would put on that, if I if I was talking to somebody after church and they were sharing that their story with me is I would I would say I he Here's Ephesians, you know, 5. Let's do that for By the way, I'd throw Ephesians 6 in there, too. Let's Let's do that for uh 6 months. And then Yeah, because what I think a lot of men need specifically is I It's similar to like if if you came to me and and you said, um "Hey, I want you today to start eating right and exercising." I'd [snorts] be like, "Okay, I I know I need to do that." But, if you said to me, "In 6 months from now, you know, here's here here's the challenge. I I will in in 6 months from now, I want to you know, let's see what's changed. And giving me something to to really focus on in 6 months, I my experience is that we get very kind of caught up in this cycle of um, you know, it it feels impossible, it's never going to get better, it it is the way it is, there's no point in this, I've already tried everything, you know, and so there's something about saying, hey for the next 6 months, let's let's pray differently, let's live this out differently. You know, I heard the uh a story uh you know, the uh the of a guy you know, going to or actually in this the story was a lady going to a divorce attorney saying, I'm I'm ready to get divorced and the attorney says, hey look, you know, let's if you really if you really want to put it to your husband, then you know, for the next 6 months, you know, be the best wife you've ever been and then put that right now, he'll be glad if you left, but if you be the best wife you you've ever been for the next 6 months and then we'll we'll file for divorce and it's going to hurt him so much more. And so she's like, great plan. 6 months, I'm you know, well, what happens of course [clears throat] is it at the end of 6 months, you know, things have changed. Her heart's changed, you know, he's taken steps towards her and and so my encouragement often times as a pastor is to say, hey, I understand how you're feeling right now. And I like like you, like I can't get I don't know all the different sides to it, but but if you take ownership of your piece of that and you control what you can control for the next 6 months, then and let's talk again. And uh and I I think putting just putting some you know, metric on it like that helps challenge us in a way that uh feels more like, okay, I can do that. Let me let me lean into it for the next 6 months. And maybe that's a great word by the way, you know, for some men who are listening to this. I don't know, you know, whatever their day is, circle 6 months from now on the calendar and just decide I'm not going to make a decision until that day. I'm not going to make a decision today or next week or next month, but in 6 months from now I'll I'll think a little bit more about this. But here's what I'm going to do for the next 6 months. Well, this is what I would also suggest to some of those men and I have, whenever I do suggest that they get into biblical counseling or seek out those types of advice, I'm like, "Please make sure you're sitting down with a counselor that doesn't have the Bible in one hand and the DSM-5 in the other." Because it's like these are these things are not equal. One is something to live by, one can inform things, but also the DSM-4 or 3, you know what they said? Homosexual attraction was a mental disorder. Then all of a sudden the Overton window societally changed on that and then guess what? The DSM-5 changed on it. The next iteration of it was like, "Oh, all of a sudden this is a this is an issue. This is a mental thing." And you know, that book is full of mental issues that people can diagnose without a brain scan. So I'm like I'm like that tells you something. They're saying there's a problem in the brain. They're saying there's a deficiency of some kind and yet they can't even elucidate the appropriate amount of whatever thing that they're saying is off in that person's brain. And so it's like I'm not saying that those things aren't valuable and I'm not saying that you shouldn't look at them at all. But it's like you have to be very careful. Don't go go to your your broke friend friends for financial advice. Don't go to your fat friends for fitness advice and don't go to your your friends that have busted up marriages for their advice either. And so and like we don't look to culture to be the arbiter of what we should do inside or outside of our marriages. But anyway, we've spent the last half hour talking about stuff which was not what we were supposed to talk about, but that's kind of what happens every every time you and I get together. The segway from that conversation into some of the book stuff is is perfect because like what I talk about in this book The Missing Messiah is the is the Lordship of Jesus and and saying yes to Jesus because he is your Lord, not because, you know, somebody made a really good psychological argument for it, and not because, you know, practically speaking, it makes the most sense, but because you've said yes to to following Jesus. And so the the word Messiah is and Christ, same word. You know, a lot of Christians might think that, you know, Christ is Jesus' last name, but it's it's Messiah and it is the anointed one. And and so coming to a place as a follower of Jesus where I say I I I accept him as savior, I follow him as Lord, and and recognizing the implications of that in different areas of of my life. So, you know, that's true as a husband. Let me give you an example of this like Let's say let's say as a man you have someone who has I don't know, they've hurt you in a pretty significant way. Maybe there's betrayal, abuse from maybe even years ago, and you've got this you know, you've got this bitterness that has taken a root in you, and you're just kind of angry. You're just angry, and and that's how a lot of people would describe you. And you know, you kind of know where it comes from, but it it feels weak to let that person off the hook, so you're going to hold on to that. You know, that feels stronger to hold on to that anger, hold on to that bitterness. And then you listen, let's say you listen to some podcast that talks about the the dangers of unforgiveness. Like what it does to you physically to hold on to bitterness, what it does to you psychologically to not forgive. And so you start to think, okay, well, may- maybe there are these practical reasons to consider this. And maybe that's all true, and maybe that's motivating and helpful information. But Jesus says pray for your enemies. Like that's what he says. He says to pray for your enemies. So, if if you have somebody who's hurt you, if you have somebody who's an enemy, and and you're not praying for them, then you're not following Jesus as Lord. Like the that's the idea of the missing Messiah, that that you're saying yes to what Jesus has asked you to do when it's not comfortable, when it's counterintuitive, and countercultural, but because he's your Lord, you're you're going to do it. Now, there might be all these other things that are benefit, but the reason you're doing it is because you understand authority, because you understand submission, because you've said yes to Jesus as Messiah. And and in my experience, like that is a lens that um a lot of us have not learned to see faith through. You know, in other words, when I'm talking to people as a pastor, increasingly, you know, I feel like I've got to make a case for you know, why this makes sense psychologically, or let me give you the neuroscience behind it. And I kind of like all that stuff, by the way. I I I'm into it. I think God made us a certain way. So, I don't I don't mind that, but ultimately, you know, what we've been asked to do is to submit to the lordship of Jesus, and and that is a that's a different framework to make decisions and to live your life. Yeah, guys, the book is The Missing Messiah, The Jesus We Can No Longer Ignore. You can check it out in the show notes. And you get into a lot of different types of Jesus that people like to get into, and you know, uh we flowed a little bit too much at the beginning, so I won't be reading as many quotes uh from the book as I normally would, but really at the beginning, you hit this idea of the customized Jesus, or the all the car Jesus, if you will. So, I'll read a quote here. The idea of a customized Jesus might sound innocuous. After all, shouldn't we have a Jesus who meets our needs? Maybe one with two hearts? The danger in this, and it really is a danger, if we make Jesus in our image, we're placing our hope in a false Messiah. If our Messiah is artificial. Our hope is false and will fall under or fail under pressure. And you talk you talk about this also through the lens of hey Jesus is, you know, not just for a eternity, he's for today, he's for right now. And if we talk about salvation, people think about salvation always in the past tense, don't they? But it's like no no, salvation is past tense, present tense, future tense. Past tense, that's our justification. Present tense, that's our sanctification. Future tense, that's our glorification. So this is a thing that happened, is happening and will happen, right? But we just don't see Jesus in that way because we see Jesus and you talk about this as well, it's a transactional thing. Like I'm going to give Jesus a little bit of this and he's going to give me some other stuff and, you know, I'm going to send positive vibes, Kyle, out into the universe that's going to attach to other positive vibes and it's going to rain down blessings on me. And you have non-Christians and even, you know, certain certain pastors that will kind of give off this idea that that's the Jesus who he is. And when you think of Jesus that way, you miss the Messiah entirely. Yeah. Yeah, and and one of the things I try to break down in the book is how this is western culture um uh this is western culture at work in our faith. Like it's not new, in other words, you could see some of this in first century world. It's just like hyper western culture. This idea of everything being customizable, you know, that it's just very natural for us to approach following Jesus as a consumer instead of a disciple, you know, meaning well what can he do for me? Um looking at faith based on well what what can it do for me? And we do that subconsciously, meaning that if we're not intentional to recognize it and fight against it, it's our default. We're That's how we see everything, you know, I I talk in the book about this um >> [snorts] >> idea of the kind of the Netflixification of faith where it's it's we don't realize that Netflix is doing it, but it knows who we are, it knows what we are into, it knows what we like and and it builds the algorithm based upon us and we we just everything's that way. So, we expect faith to be that way and we kind of put Jesus in that category. Um I had a a guy who, you know, told me not long ago that um that he was leaving the church and and in his explanation of why he was leaving I mean, I didn't know the guy, but he said, um "I feel like when you're preaching, you're trying to interfere with my life." And I'm like, >> [laughter] >> Yeah, it's like the description right. Ding, ding, ding. You got it. Like that seems That's exactly what the gospel's meant to do. And but but the what struck me was like the clear like he had no idea what he was saying. Like from his perspective that made complete sense. Like if you're Of course, you shouldn't be doing that. You shouldn't be interfering with my life. And while, you know, any anyone who understands the lordship of Jesus and his invitation to follow him gets the fact that that is, you know, that's a foundational truth. The way I talk about this is like um Uh yeah, I experience this as a pastor a lot where people have different areas of their life. Think of it like a chest of drawers. In one drawer is, you know, their political perspective. In one drawer is their sexual desires. In one drawer is finances. In one drawer is faith. Like as a pastor, no one minds if I rummage around in their faith drawer. They're like, "Yeah, yeah, you know, I I expect that. I come I come to church, you know, talk to me about God, talk to me about faith and spirituality." But the minute you open up one of these other drawers, um that feels off-limits to them. And and and so the what Yeah, in instead of shaming them for that I my hope is that this book helps them recognize our cultural inclination is is um to compartmentalize all this stuff. But what Jesus invites us to is that he's the dresser that all the drawers fit into. That like, oh, he he he has the rights to all these areas of my life. And And by the way, the the most miserable people, like sad people, that I know, are the people who really try to keep this compartmentalized. Where they they've said, "Now, you know, I'm going to follow Jesus here, but but here uh hands off." Like that one foot in, one foot out. They they think that's the they're protecting their joy or they're protecting their happiness by trying to do it both ways. But but really they're it it's creating the one thing they're afraid of of losing. They're they're they're they're they're afraid of not being happy. And uh you know, what'll happen if I follow Jesus in a way that's not comfortable. But the most uncomfortable thing is to be split that way. And um and you've got one one foot following him and the other foot, you know, doing its own thing. Right. And you can't split Jesus savior and Jesus lord. And so, people love the savior part, but the lord part is a little persnickety. And the other part of it is I I think if we're being honest, if we look at, okay, what led to this? Of course, western culture, four waves of feminism, Marxism, communism, whatever. Yeah, there's a lot of isms that we can point towards. But I think there's a lot here. Part of the reason why people look at transactional Jesus, uh people look at Jesus as kind of like a life coach. It's almost like how the Romans initially approached Jesus to where they're like, "Yeah, add him to the pantheon." How a Hindu That's how hard it is to do, you know, gospel work in Hindu countries cuz you're trying to replace thousands, millions of deities with one, right? The the one true one. But it's like I feel like the seeker-sensitive movement, and I don't know if we're in the death throes [clears throat] of that, if if that's on its way out or whatever, but if I think the seeker-sensitive movement had a lot to do with that because it asked so little of people, right? Hey, you know, "Belong before you believe." And all that. It's like Jesus is like, no, no, no. Like, go sell everything you got and and give it to the poor. And like, you know, that that's what's required of you. This this is going to cost you everything. But we make it seem like it's, ah, it's just really not that big a deal. Come get your cookies and your coffee, listen to secular music in the lobby, listen to, you know, not non-theologically rich music from the stage once you come in, hear the TED Talk, be entertained, laugh a little bit, get whipped up by the last song where we do bridge, bridge, bridge, chorus, key change, bridge chorus again, build up, raise your hand. Add it to the annual report, no discipleship, and then it's so easy for people to become a Christian. While at the same time, if you're in the fuddy-duddy fundamentalist side of things where they make it seem like it's impossible to to become a Christian and become a follower of Christ because, hey, you got to wear khakis and you got to follow these 15 rules that we made up and those types of things. But I really think the seeker-sensitive movement in a lot of ways has a lot to do with why people look at Jesus this way. I wonder what your your read is on that. Yeah, you know, I I do I mean, I agree with you. I think that that the pendulum swung that way for a reason, which I think you were alluding to there. You know and and and yet it it swung pretty far and and when things like, oh, you know, like Luke 9:23, you know, if anyone would come after me and deny they must deny themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow me. When that type of invitation from Jesus, you know, is not talked about, it's kind of overlooked, then there's something has gone significantly wrong. Yeah. And and so, if your faith doesn't include denial, which is saying no to yourself, like if you can't think of times where you're saying no to you so you can say yes to Jesus, like no to your agenda or no to your desires or no to your opinion or no to your, you know, preference around a, you know, spending time with somebody. If you can't think of some practical ways that you're saying no to you, Um, then you're you're not following Jesus. Like it it it should be uncomfortable. And and what has happened is like that gets you know, that's become the small print if it gets included at all. And I, you know, and if I'm feeling pretty compassionate about the pendulum swinging that way, I can I can understand like, okay, out of out of um a genuine care for wanting to connect people to Jesus, this is what this is what happened. Um, but but now we see that and and we have, you know, we have a responsibility to call that out and to and to correct it. Um, and and by the way, and if you know, the the problem with that kind of easy believism approach is it it cheapens grace. Like it people don't feel like they end up needing it. Like so they go to church and like, oh, well, this is, you know, entertaining or whatever, but there's nothing supernatural about it. And and I think one of the reasons we're moving away from that is it hasn't held up. You can't you can't put your weight on it. And so, you know, when when life hits you hard, you recognize like, oh, you know, this was nice, but it didn't it can't hold up my weight. Well, one of the things that I talk about a little bit in the book is just the you know, the the the deconstruction you know, movement is often times deconstructing a Jesus that isn't even real. Like it's it's Jesus that's not even in the Gospels. Yeah. And uh and to that end, I'm like, okay, you know, bring it on. But but deconstruct it using the real Jesus, which um, you know, in other words, you might have you might be deconstructing a Jesus that you've put in this very comfortable box or that box was handed to you. And that might be a healthy thing to do. But just really examine, you know, who he is in in the Gospels. Yeah, guys, I a great question to ask an atheist is, hey, can you describe to me the God that you don't believe in him cuz I I think I may not believe in him either. Because [laughter] it's like they're going to go ahead and describe this God that doesn't have it's not trying you in a nature. There's no Father, Son, Holy Spirit. But that that's the reality of it because it's like hey, you're giving them an invitation to join your team and you're not even talking about team Jesus yet. You're just like hey, you know, it's just like hey, let's define our terms before we knew move forward. Let's define the term God. What is that? What do you think it's not? And then you can kind of build out from there. Now, one thing is we talk about these different things and you talk about this in the book church divisions, teams. We kind of talked about teams earlier. Team cessationist, team non-cessationist, team younger, team older, team Calvin, team Arminianism, like whatever the thing is. But I want to read a quote from the book. Within modern Christianity, you'll find a mind-boggling array of theological movements and church divisions. Catholicism Orthodoxy Protestantism Calvinism Pietism Methodism Pentecostalism Fundamentalism Evangelicalism, and Postmodern Christianity. While there is something to be said for finding a church that feels like home, a place where you can worship in a way that connects with you, there's a potential dark side for this. For one thing, it's easy to find ourselves in an echo chamber where everyone else thinks just like we do. And where the Jesus portrayed agrees with us on every point. Another danger of staying in our separate corners is that it divides the universal church. But the greatest danger in my opinion is making Jesus our servant rather than us submitting ourselves to his service. The only way to capture Jesus's true image is to remain in God's word and to hear about him from a wide variety of voices. I'm with you on all that. Here's where I struggle. You can't have right thoughts about God if you don't have correct doctrine about God. But then you have people I think I just heard the quote this morning. Howerton was talking about we're talking I think it's Pentecostalism or you know, some sort of version of that is one of the fastest growing movements in the world, but people have looked at that and said, "Hey, that's an encounter with a spirit looking for a theology." Well, that's kind of a compliment, right? Because you have people that are encountering the spirit, and then you have people that are just so deep in their theology, it's like there's got to be an intersecting point for those people. It can't be either or. But Kyle I've also thought about this and can I felt a bit convicted over the last year or so. Some of these seeker-sensitive churches, some of these milk churches, and I'm not talking about the milk churches where there is no gospel. Like those are probably being led by wolves in sheep's clothing, the pastors probably aren't even in Christians. They're just people that found a way to to make money in tangentially talking about God. I'm talking about churches that do have a gospel, but it's just milk every week. Milk, milk, milk, [clears throat] no meat. Is that just God using that as an entry point for somebody? Eventually maybe they'll graduate to a church that's more meat-driven, more Bible-driven. Maybe that's not a place that they should be longer than a few years, but it it just served as an entry point because it's like my kid's going to first grade next year. There's a reason why he's not going to 10th grade cuz he's still a chimp. He can you know, he can't trust a fart at this age. Why am I going to trust him with algebra two? And so I like I'm I'm just trying to think through what that looks like because yes, I feel the consternation of the divisions. Catholics think they got the whole thing wrapped up except for the whole them considering the gospel to be an anathema part. That's kind of an issue. Orthodox is growing big time for guys that want something substantive that they can sink their teeth into that feels manly. I get it. But then there's all this array of Protestantism and no one knows which team is the best and we're so desperate to plant our flag, Kyle. And so it makes us feel bad if we think we're planting the flag in the wrong team, if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, I I think the you know, the echo chamber idea is that you know, we take this idea of Jesus as personal savior and we we personalize instead of personal it's personalize, which is two very different things. And being Jesus as a personalized savior is pretty dangerous. So now, I I'm going to look for a a movement or a denomination or a an orthodoxy that fits fits me best. The problem with that is what I where I might need to be challenged you know, maybe the opposite of that. Uh so, you know, if my, you know, if if my um if my non-charismatic friends don't spend time with my charismatic friends, you know, they're they're not going to to grow in ways that God wants them to grow and and and and so the longer I'm a follower of Jesus, the more beauty I see in um in this. And and this goes back to what you and I touched on at the beginning of this conversation. Like there's an assumption being made here and that's that's true in that context of what you just read out of the book. Uh of the essentials, you know, being standing standing on those essentials while recognizing that there's a lot of beauty and opportunity in in seeing some things that are different. But I I've been challenged enough over the years. I I tell the story in the book about a Haitian pastor um named Edry who really challenged me around um money and finances. We were studying Luke 12 together about uh you know, tearing down barns and building bigger barns. I just have always read that in the context of priorities. I'm like, oh well, you know, his priorities were wrong and that's what God was addressing. And my my I was studying it with a uh uh Haitian pastor who's like, that's not how I read it. You know, he was reading it in the context of community. Like his whole thing was reading this and like what would it be like in his community if being surrounded by people who are, you know, um you have have a food deficiency or people who are hungry and he's build tearing down barns and building bigger barns. And I thought, man, that's so interesting. I never I never read it that way and for him, that's the only way he read it. And I needed his perspective to better sharpen my hermeneutic. And and I think that that's probably true in a thousand ways that we don't always recognize. And you know, so being able to you know, standing on God's word, knowing God's word well, but being able to do that whole hold it humbly in a way that invites a different perspective or or challenges challenges me in in ways that are uncomfortable, I think is so helpful. I I challenge guys all the time. You know, hey, don't just study God's word on your own. You got to study God's word with other other people because Yeah. If you just study it on your own, you won't see things the same. You need other people to study with you because they'll show you things in yourself. They'll hold up a mirror and and it's it's meant to be studied in in community with people who who may not agree with you on every every practice or every area. And that's what we try to model on this show on Sundays. We have something called the Forging Table and we're going through books of the Bible. It's me and three other non-professional pastors. So every now and then we've had Chandler on there and Joby's been on there and Jay Riesner from from my church and different people. And we're studying the Bible as guys would. Now, we have lights and cameras on and all those different things, but we're ribbing each other, we got jokes. Everyone's got jokes. But then we're we're spending time and you know, we did Matthew and Genesis and Acts and you know, Nehemiah and we're going an hour at a time, a chapter at a time. And then you brought up Romans earlier. We've been in Romans and we approach Romans differently cuz Matt Chandler's like, look Kyle, Romans is Mount Everest. You don't sprint up Mount Ever- Mount Everest. >> Right. Yeah. And so I think he did the first eps- four episodes with us. In four hours of recording, to we got from Romans 1:1 to Romans 1:7, right? I mean, we're not going full Asperger's and and doing it the uh you know you know, the uh the uh John Piper way, where it's going to take us 7 or 8 years to to do this. But, we're going to be in Romans for maybe 2 years. There's a group of about a dozen different guys that are studying Romans as if we're scraping through every word and every phrase and every paragraph. And my goodness, the the benefit that it's had for all of us outside of what we say into the microphone is substantial. For sure. And all this kind of ends with what what we'll make the last question of the day cuz we're running out of time. You talk about something that's very important to me that again, sometimes I get caught flat-footed in terms of what would I tell a pastor or what would I tell someone to do this. But, you talk about the rabbi-disciple relationship and how it's very different than how we do discipleship today. You talk about discipleship today being very spiritualized and privatized and academicized, if I said that right, and consumerized. And then we have people that just flat out don't do it. They just don't do it. The church wants you to raise their your hand so they can count you in the annual report. There's no discipleship. But, even in First Baptist West in Lawton, Oklahoma, when I gave my life to Christ as a 10th grader, Yeah. they took me in the back afterwards. I sat down with an elder. They made sure I meant it. I said I meant it. I got baptized that Sunday. And that was it. I wasn't put with a guy with gray hair, really someone that had just been a a Christian more hours than I had. They could have been younger than me for all I knew. There was never that connected experience. And so, I kind of felt like I was just an untethered buoy out in the ocean for a long time and just waiting for that gray-haired guy to be like, "Son, I will disciple you." You know, what I mean? And it just never came. At some point, I had to realize, if I'm going to eat meat, I'm going to have to learn how to feed myself, right? And I'm going to be submitted to a pastor and an elder and a and a local shepherd, and I'm going to supplement with other people and other sermons, right? But, talk a little bit more about that rabbi-discipleship relationship. And and talking to a lot of pastors that listen to the show as well. What's the best way we can do that on a larger scale in the context of the the capital C church? Well, you know, one of my best friends in the world, it's an incredible father, husband, follower of Jesus. I'm going to say five or six years ago he had a son graduating from high school and he came to me and was just broken. You know, he's like, I have not discipled my son. I I I feel like I have failed him in this way and I'm listening to him trying to make sense of it cuz I know the dude really well. I'm like in my mind I'm thinking, dude, you you have 100% discipled your son. I know your son, I know you, I know this has happened. And so I'm listening to him, I start asking him questions and he'd gone to some conference and come back with this idea that because he hadn't taken his son through whatever it was, like some kind of curriculum and some kind of a program and because they weren't meeting every morning at 7:00 a.m. and because he didn't pray for his son every night before he went to bed out loud and because he didn't have his son memorize these verses, that he had failed at discipling his son. I'm like, man, that's not how I see it. I think I think you have discipled your son beautifully because he has seen you do those things. Like he's been following you and as he's followed you, he's watched you pray for the server. He's watched you wake up early in the morning so you can spend time with God. He's walked out on the front porch. He knows that you've gotten accountability partner where you ask, you know, you got we ask each other hard questions. Like he's he's seen all of that. But but what what had happened was he was thinking that discipleship was this program and this curriculum. Right. Listen, you use the program and curriculum. Don't hear don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that that is wrong here. But But if you do If you're going to do one or the other, do do the part where you lived live life faithfully and you invite someone along with you and let them see it. Like if you're going to choose one or the other, do do both. Like have have some curriculum, go through it, be intentional. I think all that's right on. But understand that discipleship happens as you know, Jesus is a rabbi, it's it's on the way. It's It's being It's not sitting in a classroom and taking notes and it it is And again, not to say that I'm not saying those things are wrong, but it is an invitation to see it. Like to say, "Hey, look, you know, to my son, this is what it looks like when when I hand the money drawer over to God. And this is what it looks like to struggle with sexual desires and the lordship of Jesus. Like let them walk with you in it and and that is that is discipleship. It's inviting somebody along while you're on on the journey. And and and I just think as men, like to me that is that adventure of discipleship, seeing it that way instead of just like hey, we're going to work our way through some content, you know, is much more like inviting. And again, I'm not against You you hear me on this, I think. Well, like I look, I know people that have written books on discipling their kids. I mean, you know, John Tyson's The Intentional Father. That book has caused more anxiety maybe than any other book and than any eschatology book that I've ever read because he talks about the severing dinner where when your son turns 13, he needs to go to dinner with his mom and his mom basically has to say, "I will always be your mom, but I'm no longer I I've I'm not your primary parent. You go to your dad for everything. I'm always going to be here to support you." So, moms around the world hate John Tyson for that. And then all the dads hate him cuz they're like, "Wait, you every morning at like 4:00 a.m. you and your son studied the Bible for like 10 years and then you went on this like, you know, trip somewhere and you you walked until all your toenails fell off and you know, a dad that works, you know, 10-hour shift, 12-hour shift, he's trying to figure out how he can do that. But the encouragement, guys, that you should hear from Kyle and he that Kyle and this Kyle is you just have to be very intentional, no pun intended, with what I just said. The intentionality has to be there. You need to, you know, really marinate your son in the things of the Lord. And sometimes that's just going to be him watching you faithfully love their mother, you faithfully serving the local church, submitting That's That's discipleship. >> Right. Submitting to the authority of the local church when you disagree with their position, not on core doctrine, but on something secondary or beyond that. And so, I think that's important, but also to the men out there, every single one of you knows an untethered young man without a father. All of you do, right? There's a single mom, maybe the dad passed away, maybe he's a deadbeat, maybe it's a guy that loves siring children but not fathering them. And there's a way to include that boy in what you were doing with your boys. There's a way to father that boy in a way that's not weird, that's not like, "Oh, you know, why is he spending so much time with this young boy?" It's like we've been Again, we've been uh inoculated into this culture of that Netflix that everything is a crime just waiting to happen. But it's like there are ways that you and other men in your life Kyle, just earlier this week, I talked to Colton Kyle, who is Chris Kyle's son, Chris Kyle, American Sniper. He was murdered when Colton was 8 years old. So, guess what? A bunch of good dudes filled in the gap left by Chris Wow. for for the rest of his upbringing. He's a young man now, he's engaged, he's squared away, he's on the path. It's because other men took seriously that they can play a part in the discipleship and formation of this young man so that he doesn't become lost. Because if he becomes lost, there could be generational harm that comes from that. So, guys, make sure that I we're we're being intentional. But Kyle, we've gone everywhere in this conversation. It's uh gone just like the last one and I always enjoy talking to you, But, that's all for me. Is there anything else you want to get off your chest? Man, it's been No, it's been great to hang with you. Thanks for uh having me on. All right, we'll talk again soon. Thanks, brother. Thank you, everyone, for listening to this episode. Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate, and leave us a positive five-star review. If you want me to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, just shoot me an email to info@undaunted.life. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook, and check out our website for everything else, including how to donate to keep more content like this coming. www.undaunted.life. The music on this podcast is the song Conqueror by the Christian metal band Void Aweken. Be sure to stream their music on Spotify, Apple Music, and wherever else you get your music. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical resilience, keep seeking the lion of Judah. Void Aweken. >> [music] [music]