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"This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast.
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I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
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Let's get into it."
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So, Joe B. Martin, do you remember when you...
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We're at my house earlier this year, and I did an interview of you.
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Do you remember how I started that interview?
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I can't remember.
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Okay.
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I said, "Joe B. Martin, welcome to my house."
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Oh, yeah.
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Well, I'm currently in your house, we're at the Church of 1122, the main campus.
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And so, like, am I supposed to say, like, "Hey, Joe B. welcome to your house."
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That's kind of weird.
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I don't...
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I don't let anybody call this church my church, so no way.
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Should I just do that on repeat while I'm here this week?
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No, no, no.
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I can make it weird.
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What I'll do is, when people are in the lobby trying to find you, I'll be like, "Hey,
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just whenever you find them, let them know, "Hey, Joe, we thank you so much for letting
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me come to your church."
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And things like that.
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Never.
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Never, never, never.
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Well, we're here because of saturated.
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Let's go.
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So, this was your idea.
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So, I know you say you're not an idea guy and all that kind of stuff, and you're always
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real humble about it, but you called me months ago, and you're like, "Hey, we do saturated
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every year, blah, blah, how about you come out?"
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And so, we were recording this before saturated starts, so this is like...
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It starts today.
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So, what we got tonight?
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We've got Jim Bergen.
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Jim Bergen.
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We've got Matt Chandler.
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Yeah.
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And then Derwin Gray.
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Yeah.
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And then Ben Stewart.
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And so...
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And then me.
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And then you.
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You got to come out of the bullpen to get that last night.
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That last out in the ninth inning.
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So, I guess first of all, I want to kind of know your process of how you pick the people
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that you want to come and do this because you're kind of taking a risk because you're
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bringing people in and you're saying like, "Hey, I'm lending this pulpit to these people
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in a very truncated amount of time, and y'all got to get on base.
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You can't just come up here and record that back.
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You got to get on base."
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But even back up before that, what was the impetus for you behind like, "Hey, I think
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all these guys not only should be here, but also Kyle should be here, and Donald Life
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should have a part of this."
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What was kind of your impetus for that?
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Because y'all got your own microphones, like you got your own studio.
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You don't necessarily need me here, but it was an interesting crossover for the things
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that we're both doing.
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Well, the pastors that I invited to be here are just all men that I love to listen to
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them preaching, and they all just happen to be friends of mine.
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That helps a lot, and I have a crazy amount of trust for them, and they can just chuck
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some gospel corn, man.
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I mean, these are just some of the best preachers ever, and so a big part of what I'm trying
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to do is just bless my church, bless this church, and say, "Here's some people that you should
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be listening to, if you're not," and then I wanted you to be here because you spend
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a whole bunch of time talking to a bunch of men that are frustrated because they might
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not feel like some of the churches in their area are what they're looking for.
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We talked a lot about that, and we probably should talk more about that, but Jim Bergen
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and Matt Chandler and Derwin Gray and Ben Stewart are some man-friendly gospel-centered
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preachers that everybody that listens to undaunted life should be aware of, and especially with
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all the crossover between our worlds lately, you know, really organically, you know, it's
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not like we've got a strategy session on how to expand either of our platforms or anything.
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It just seemed to make a whole bunch of sense, and you know, I've got a lot invested in undaunted
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life, too, and so I want those men to be able to supplement the local churches that they're
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involved with with some really good preachers, so here's a line up from saturated.
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So let's, I want to talk about the supplementation a little bit because when I get an email or
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a DM from a guy that says, "I live in Wherever'sville, Indiana, do you know of any man-friendly
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churches in my area," I feel a lot of emotions when that happens.
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Sure.
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One, I'm thankful that these people even listen to us where they would even send a message
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thinking, "I hope this gets to Kyle so that he could potentially help me," so that's,
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I feel the way to that responsibility, but then I immediately am like, "I hate not having
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the answer, like to anything, like I hate not having the answer, especially in a world
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like this," and, you know, I try to tell them, I'm like, "Look, I don't know all the
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man-friendly churches in my zip code, right?
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I live in Oklahoma, you can't trip and fall without running into four churches, like it's
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just kind of the way of it, and I don't know what to tell them other than, "Hey, I don't
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know what's in your area, but here's some things that I would look for if I was in your
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backyard," and so, kind of some of the things that I say is like, "Okay, expository preaching,
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do you hear male voices when the singing's going on?
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That's a good hint.
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Are the men involved, do you see, go when it's rainy, do you see men in the parking lot
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with umbrellas, walkin' people in, like, are there a lot of young kids running around?
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Like there are just certain things that would give you a hint that this is probably a healthy
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church, that it's perhaps not, you know, a mile wide and an inch deep, and so those are
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some of the things that I say, but for guys that listen maybe to both of us that are listening
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to this right now, if they're in Wherever'sville, wherever, like, what would you tell
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them to look for?
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A church that preaches the Bible loves Jesus and is centered around the gospel, and everything
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else is secondary, everything else is secondary, because what you've got to be really careful
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of as a man is not to become a consumer and put your own preferences above the mission
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of the church, so the current state of the church could be a guy that's not an incredibly
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gifted orator, but he's dedicated to preaching the whole council of the scriptures and he
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knows the gospel, he's not teaching March-based righteousness, and the only music might be
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a quartet of women, and it's terrible, okay?
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Suck it up, bro, and the only place to serve is for you to cut the grass, I don't care,
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get involved in a local church, period, end up, now.
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If you have a lot to choose from, then it might do you better to find one where men
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are acting like men, standing up and loving and leading well, but this has to be, like,
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you being involved in a local body is non-negotiable, and I think, I haven't had this conversation
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with you privately, but we should, I think you and I have got to, like, shift our language
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a little bit.
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I think me and you start needing, we need to start using language like, I'm here to help
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churches, yada, yada, yada, instead of just beating up all the crappy ones, like, I think
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the more people that are influenced by what we're doing in 11-22 and the more, like, people
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in charge that are listening to undaunted life, I would like to see, I would like them to
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see us as a source of help.
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So there's primary and there's secondary.
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The secondary things, I'm not saying they're not important, it's just not the decision-maker.
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And so you could, I mean, you never know, you might be the guide that begins to tip things
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in the right direction.
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You have talked a lot about getting involved in a church, going to see a pastor and saying,
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"How can I help?
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I'm here to serve.
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I want to help raise up men."
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What's wonderful about today's technology is that let's just say the music and the preaching
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at your church isn't whatever, your favorite, your style, whatever.
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There are two talent, one talent and five talent people that are just hard.
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Well, because of technology, you could be very, very involved in a local body.
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You could serve like crazy, you could have fellowship, you could do all the things in
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your local community and then supplement online with some other preaching and music.
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No problem, man.
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I think it actually helps people stay more involved in their local churches than steals
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them away.
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So what's funny about that is people will ask me about my church because they're like,
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"Oh, Kyle's the Man-Friendly Church guy.
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His church has to be absolutely off the charts as it pertains to the things that Kyle finds
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important and it's not."
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Which some people will be like, "Oh, wait a minute, is Faith Bible Church in East Edmond,
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Oklahoma?
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Is that not a great place to go?"
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I'm like, "No, it's a tremendous place to go because it's got super deep roots in a
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lot of very, very important areas."
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Your pastor's a stud.
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Yeah, Mark his talk is the man, but his style is not my preferred style.
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The music there is going to be no shock to anybody that's ever been there is not really
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my style, even inside the worship space.
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But that doesn't matter.
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And so that's one of the things that I tell these guys is it's like, it's not just about
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how can the church serve you, it's how can you serve that local body.
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I literally got this text driving here today, okay?
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This is from a guy that you know, so I'm not going to say his name on air, we'll just
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call him HB.
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But he said, "We have decided to leave the church.
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We have been attending for the past four years, I won't name the church."
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I guess the pastor got wind of it and wants to have a talk.
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I'm going to confront him over why we are leaving.
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Not the typical God is leading us somewhere else, BS.
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Our church the last two years has been in an all in campaign and the things have really
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changed.
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Typical want to be mega church stuff.
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I want to be truthful and confront their shortcomings of abandoning the gospel for made
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up growth metrics.
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What a line.
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This is just a dude, right?
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Abandoning the gospel for made up growth metrics.
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I'm going to do my best to channel you maybe with half the spice.
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And so-
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And let's see who it is.
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I didn't catch that name.
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Yeah, I would highly encourage this brother.
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I would highly encourage right these things down so that you can say it the way that you
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want to say it.
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And hopefully this pastor will not be defensive but really have ears to hear.
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And that means a lot coming from a guy that knows the word and has been highly involved.
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Because here's what's crazy.
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We're large churches, a lot of people here, and we've never tried to do the church growth
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thing.
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So that's exactly my point is a growing church is not indicative.
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So it's one of those things that if you think a church, oh, they're growing and they've
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got a lot of different locations and you're automatically skeptical.
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That's where I was years ago before we knew each other.
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It's like, oh, there's something weird going on here.
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They're hiding money in the walls of the bathrooms like there's some weirdness going
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on up in this world.
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And so that's not the problem.
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Growth is not indicative of something being sour.
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It might be sour or it could be health or it could be blessing, it could be provision,
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it could be any number of things.
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Because there are enormous churches that span across multiple locations and states that
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are awful, some that are incredible and a whole bunch in between.
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But for this guy, he's not leaving because the parking lot's getting too full, because
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two weeks in a row, they're part in the where they normally sit was full already.
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Like it wasn't those reasons.
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Our church got away from preaching the gospel and started going towards things that would
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get more crowds in.
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And when you do that, you inherently, you water down the gospel.
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I mean, that's what run over by the grace train is like, if you start trying to water
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down this message, you don't get a book like this.
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Correct.
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You know what I mean?
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And so that's the thing I feel like is healthy with a message like that.
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That's crazy what's happening here because we get churches all over the place that call
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us and like, hey, can we come kick around and see behind the curtains and for sure.
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And I always think you're going to be so underwhelmed when you get here, especially if you're
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a pro at doing church, because we just sing and talk like everybody else.
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Now, I do think our worship, I will tell you this, we don't have any gig worship leaders.
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We have actual worship pastors that love Jesus and regardless of their life, whether they're
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seminary trained or have the title pastor or not.
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I mean, but it's not secular session musicians coming in to make a buck on the weekend.
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We don't do that.
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Yeah.
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Occasionally I will allow like if the band people come to me and be like, Hey, listen,
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we're teaming up on this one guy.
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We know a bass player that's like at the bars and he's our friend.
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And can you please allow him to be part of our team because he's our one more and you're
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trying to gang up occasionally?
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I will let him because I'm like, yeah, that's the, you'll, you will worship better than you
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ever have in your life if you're trying to lead a guy to Christ.
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You know what I mean?
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So we're really worshiping and bro, we just teach the Bible.
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I mean, I just did nine weeks on spiritual warfare.
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We spent nine weeks on less than one chapter in the book of Ephesians.
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That's not a church growth strategy at all.
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And yet, you know, we've grown more we ever had.
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I wanted to actually try to put a finer point on that.
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So I know you've had people come in before and I remember the first time I came in and
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of course, you know, you see the big building that, you know, oddly looks like a Walmart,
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a Hobby Lobby and, you know, all those types of things and you have, you know, different
12:28
things set up here and you've got your tech and you've got your lights and you got your
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smoke and you got unbelievably talented musicians and all that stuff.
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All that's great.
12:36
And so when someone comes in from a church that's already doing that stuff, right?
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They've already got the fancy lights and all of the fancy microphones and cameras that
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no one technically knows how to use.
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They just pretend like the guy's off camera right now, but like you have those people
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in place, but then they see what's happening here and they're like, something's missing.
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You could call it it factor.
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You could call it there's something in the water.
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You could call it.
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Oh, just this just must be a, this area kind of a thing.
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So if you were to try to elucidate it, to put clothes on that, to say like, this is
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why we have all this stuff, but things are different, not just feel different, but are
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different.
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Like if you had to put a fine point on it, what would it be?
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Man, because I have an idea and I was like, such a cop out that the spirit of God is here
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just straight up.
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He's here.
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And I don't know how to get God to move in a supernatural way like he's moving here,
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but I can guarantee you how to stop him.
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And one is to move away from the word.
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When you begin to move away, this was last week sermon.
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The last thing that Paul prays in the book of Ephesians, or he asked to be prayed for,
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and it's a part of the armor of God after you get all suited up.
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Everybody says that the sword of the spirit is the last, is the offense weapon.
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He's the only weapon that's offensive, but then he says, not only do you use the sword
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of the spirit, the word of God, but also prayer.
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He's like, pray like crazy for the saints, and would you guys pray for me that I, every
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time I open my mouth, I boldly proclaim the mystery of the gospel.
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Those are the three offensive weapons against the enemy.
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So we traced what happens to a church when you move away from the gospel.
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What has happened in a bunch of churches is the moment you begin to move away from the
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word of God, the revealed word of God in scripture, you are moving away from the living
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word of God.
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His name is Jesus.
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And if you look at at the church of Ephesus, because so interesting, this is where Paul
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asked for that prayer, it is the same church where Jesus says, you guys have abandoned your
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first love and I'm removing my lamp stand.
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So while Jesus will not remove salvation from the believer, he will remove his presence
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from a church.
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There are some really big churches right now and they have treated the word of God as an
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obstacle to evangelism.
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Yeah.
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Oh, God help him, man, God help him.
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So just trust, listen, the power is in the word of God.
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The power is in the gospel.
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I think, I mean, Jesus says, you see, you can trust that he's always faithful.
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This isn't the right way to say it because it sounds like you're putting God like on the
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witness stand, but you can like give me a little bit of grace here.
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You can hold God accountable to his own promises.
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So Jesus said, if he is lifted up, he will draw all men unto himself.
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The thing that drives our church is that we just try to make much of Christ.
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A lot of people ask the question, is church for church people or lost people?
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If you're like, man, church is for the Lord.
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Yeah.
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He loves to see lost people saved and he loves to see found people get really discipled
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and get involved in the Great Commission.
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So when you begin to quit aiming your church at the people attending and you begin to lead
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all the people attending to aim all of what you're doing to glorify God, I think that
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is the key difference.
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So I want to put an even finer point on what you just said, because I'm looking at it through
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the lens of how I would prepare to do something.
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So my normal MO over the years and with Undaunted Life is included is I'm going to figure out
16:22
what I'm going to do.
16:23
I'm going to figure out what I'm going to talk about.
16:26
I'm going to build it and I'm going to say, all right, God, do something cool, right?
16:32
And so there's an inequity there in terms of the planning process and what should be
16:37
first and primacy and all that kind of stuff, right?
16:40
And so I'll acknowledge that.
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And I was telling you off air for the first time in my career, for the first time in my
16:45
career and I'll even include every presentation I did in college, right?
16:50
That was my bread and butter.
16:51
I took less exams than I did presentations in my undergrad and graduate.
16:56
I have never scrapped a talk day of ever.
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I was the guy if the presentation was on Friday.
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I had it built out over the weekend and I would drill it throughout the week, right?
17:08
Sure.
17:09
You know, I did a degree program where you had to give a presentation had to be between
17:11
nine and 11 minutes.
17:12
If it was less than nine, you were a doctor letter grader.
17:14
If it was over 11, you were a doctor letter grade and you couldn't have a timer, right?
17:17
I failed miserably.
17:18
Yeah.
17:19
So you have to be, you have to be in this pocket, right?
17:21
So I say, all that to say this, I'm going to build out the presentation.
17:25
I'm going to do all the things I'm going to be ready.
17:27
But then if the spirit of God moves and says, no, my immediate reaction was, hold up, wait
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a minute, I wrote this presentation with you in mind, why can't you just leave me alone
17:37
right now?
17:38
And so I'm about, I'm a couple hours away from going to speaking to a full room of guys
17:42
in Tennessee.
17:44
And I literally feel like God was telling me, you just can't do your bread and butter
17:47
presentation.
17:48
That's not what's needed in that room.
17:50
And so I scrap my, was Jesus a manly man presentation that I could give him my sleep.
17:55
And I come up with a completely new one about Godly companionship and all that.
17:59
So so I say all that to set up this point, what a lot of pastors do, and they will admit
18:04
it on their leadership podcast, because you know, they do their sermons, but then they've
18:07
got their leadership podcast because they're actually leadership guru and not necessarily,
18:11
you know, a pastoral guru.
18:14
These people will figure out what they want to preach on, how many weeks it'll take them
18:19
to make that point, and then they will find the scripture that will kind of help them
18:24
along in this journey.
18:26
And I've, I've elucidated that a lot before.
18:28
So the fine point that I'm wanting to make that I'm circuitously getting around to is
18:33
as long as you're not aligned everybody, you drive out to the retreat center on Sunday
18:36
evening.
18:37
You go sleep in a cabin, you wake up the next morning before dark, you get into a deer
18:42
blind and you sit there and you pray in the dark and then you open up your Bible app and
18:48
you say, God, there you're, you're sheep.
18:51
What would you like to say to your sheep this week?
18:53
But if you do that, and if we can assume the message is coming back to you are coming from
18:59
the Lord, you're not going to get away from the scripture.
19:02
You're not going to get away from the gospel because therein is the point.
19:07
And so aside from the music, aside from the great production team, aside from the look
19:12
of everything, aside from, you know, how much HVAC you have running around, so everyone's
19:16
comfortable at all times of the year, you're sticking to the number one thing that will
19:20
feed people eternally.
19:22
And so that would be my contention for what is different.
19:25
And so if there are pastors that are wondering why is it different here, that would be what
19:28
I would say.
19:29
Well, there's one thing that happens before that too.
19:32
And I've got to just admit, I've got such a great team.
19:36
I can cosign that.
19:37
I mean, you've met so many of them.
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They do such a great job of like running the day to day here that I am afforded the flexibility
19:45
and the time.
19:46
Like God's never in a hurry, man.
19:48
It's really hard to sense the spirit of God move when you're in a hurry.
19:51
Yeah.
19:52
I'm thinking about this.
19:53
Everything about this.
19:54
God created everything in six days.
19:56
Why did he take six days?
19:58
He could have said everything.
19:59
Let there be everything.
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Is that your argument for young earth?
20:02
And one said six days.
20:03
Regardless of whatever.
20:04
It is true.
20:05
I don't care.
20:06
Yeah.
20:07
Okay.
20:08
So why six days?
20:09
And then why am I always in a hurry if he wasn't in a hurry?
20:11
He was like lived in rhythm.
20:12
So anyway, so there are like three or four day increments that I take throughout the year
20:18
where I go and do these like mini retreats, it's just me, my Bible Jesus with the idea
20:22
of God, what do you want to say to your sheep next year?
20:25
And that's how I map out like the year's worth of sermon.
20:29
You're expecting it.
20:30
So that when the week gets there, then I know like, oh, this is the first week of grace
20:34
training this week.
20:35
I know I'm an Ephesians too, because a year ago I built this thing out.
20:38
So that's the first thing second.
20:40
And so you're exactly right.
20:43
The people that come up with a theme first and then look for Bible verses to support.
20:48
In my opinion, there's doing it backwards.
20:50
There's doing it backwards.
20:51
The sheep does not say to the shepherd, here we go, follow me.
20:54
The sheep say, where are you going?
20:56
I want to follow you.
20:57
So that's what I'm trying to do.
20:58
Well, Joby, it's the thing about it is it's a sustainable model that works.
21:02
That's why they keep doing it.
21:03
And so it's the same argument and not everyone's going to agree with me, not everyone in this
21:07
building would agree with me.
21:08
It's the same argument when people like, Oh, hey, the reason why I'm a devotee of the
21:12
Enneagram is because it works, but almost everything that comes from the darker side
21:17
of the ledger has some truth in it.
21:19
Otherwise you wouldn't buy any of it.
21:21
Because if it was so outlandish and off the wall and was never applicable in any situation,
21:25
it wouldn't be an effective arrow for Satan to shoot.
21:27
And so that's, as I was thinking about, okay, what are we going to, what are we going to
21:30
talk about whenever we get here and I was sitting there yesterday?
21:34
Every time we have a conversation, like every now and then I'll bring up some kind of macabre
21:37
topics and, you know, the baby Hitler thing and all that.
21:39
That's kind of a fun one.
21:40
We don't have to go there again.
21:42
But there's some darkness, there's some dark clouds hanging over Church of 1122 and Undaunted
21:48
Life all at the same time and for us personally, I think you mentioned in a recent sermon that
21:53
three out of the four Martins have been in the hospital recently, right?
21:57
During the series on spiritual warfare.
22:00
Right.
22:01
Interestingly enough, the morning that I woke up and I was going to give my bread and butter
22:04
presentation in Tennessee, the moment my eyes opened, I was being attacked about something
22:10
from my past, like something to do with family and all that kind of stuff and it was just
22:14
overwhelming me and I'm not like, I'm a, I'm not an anxious person.
22:19
Like I just, I have frenetic kinetic energy just at all times, but I wasn't angsty that
22:25
morning.
22:26
I was anxious and I was just like, Oh, no, like I shouldn't, I shouldn't be here.
22:30
Like, you know, imposter syndrome was just basically all over me.
22:35
And so you do this, this long series on spiritual warfare, but even people that believe in spiritual
22:41
warfare, because there are Christians that honestly just don't believe it because they
22:44
can't see it.
22:45
They're so tactile.
22:46
They need to be able to see it physically touch it to believe it's happening.
22:49
Sucker punches.
22:50
It's the one you don't see coming.
22:51
Yeah.
22:52
Right.
22:53
That's why I don't get in bar fights because you might be able to beat that guy up, but
22:54
you don't know where his friends are.
22:55
Yeah.
22:56
And so that's why you're getting your tail kicked in spiritual warfare because you're
22:59
the sucker.
23:00
If you don't know, you have an enemy.
23:01
And that's, that's part of my issue is we got guys that are default aggressive in both
23:05
of our audiences.
23:06
We got guys that love the fight and we got guys that are sold out to the mission of
23:10
even if there's something going on in the spiritual realm, I'm going to push that back.
23:13
I'm going to find the darkness so that I can push it back.
23:16
But I think guys are going into that battle with a squirt gun and it's, it's just a bit
23:20
of an issue.
23:21
And I'm, I'm not saying I'm not in that I would include myself in that as well.
23:26
There are times when I go to battle and I realize, Oh, shoot, I didn't bring my pants.
23:29
And so it's just, it's what, what am I doing here?
23:32
I want to kind of get a perspective from you as to kind of how you're experiencing that
23:36
because you've, you've had a runway of over a decade with church of 11, 22.
23:40
You've seen a lot of growth, but you've also seen a lot of attack.
23:42
And so like, what do you do on, on this big scale and how can that be applicable for what
23:48
just a normal everyday dude is dealing with?
23:50
So I think, I mean, a part of the reason I taught this over nine weeks is just go back
23:55
and relisten and relisten to what Paul instructs the folks in Ephesus to do in chapter six.
24:01
I mean, round one is your battle is not against flesh and blood.
24:05
So we do fight, but the way we fight, we have a different weapon system than the world has,
24:12
like we're not going to, we're not going to win this spiritual warfare when we fight against
24:16
people because that's not the battle.
24:18
And how we do it is the putting on the full armor of God.
24:21
So you've got to gird up your loins ready to fight in truth.
24:25
You've got to receive God's approval upon you.
24:28
That's the breastplate of righteousness.
24:30
You've got to put on the helmet of salvation because like you can't be doubting if you're
24:34
even on God's team.
24:36
You've got to have your feet ready to share the gospel in any and every situation he tells
24:40
you to, you got to take up the shield of faith, which thanks for that article thing you sent
24:44
me that you linked together with your family, your brothers to fight.
24:48
You got to take up the sword of the spirit.
24:49
These are things every single day that you've got to equip yourself with so that then you
24:55
can be equipped to push back darkness.
24:57
Just because something is spiritual doesn't mean it's not actual or literal or real.
25:03
One what you're, what you're referring to is you told me you were going to talk about
25:06
the phalanx and I was like, dude, I've been obsessed with the phalanx and I found it doing
25:11
some research for something else way back in the day that I forget if it was Greeks that
25:16
did a first for the Romans because the Romans kind of to a degree perfected the phalanx
25:20
because they would have invented it.
25:22
Yeah, yeah.
25:23
And so they found the, well, they have things all the way back as like 25th century BC in
25:26
ancient Sumeria.
25:27
And so it's like, but basically, you know, you've, you've got your spear and what the
25:32
way the Romans did it is like, yeah, your shield and your left hand spear on the top.
25:35
And then you had dudes on the bottom fricking cutting enemy Achilles out and all that.
25:39
And then they would spear him.
25:40
Right.
25:41
So, but the thing about the phalanx is it only works as long as it doesn't shatter.
25:45
Yeah.
25:46
And the only way it shatters is if somebody is out of the phalanx.
25:49
And so let's say somebody in the middle of the phalanx dies, the phalanx has to immediately
25:53
come back together or it splits and now it's a free for all.
25:57
And so what they would do to keep people from running in the middle of battle is it's me
26:03
here.
26:04
It's my dad to my left home, you know, hold my shield and covering him.
26:07
It's my eldest son to my right.
26:10
It's his brother to his right.
26:12
It's our first cousin that we actually talked to over here on the left.
26:15
That's how they would ensure that you wouldn't take off running because if I take off running,
26:19
my dad is screwed because he's next to me.
26:21
If I take off running, now all of a sudden my son is going to be, you know, in a potential
26:26
bad situation.
26:27
And so for guys that are wanting to fight that spiritual battle, how can they find, I guess
26:34
talk to me about like how they can be one of the people in the phalanx where they're not
26:38
only just protecting and being offensive and defensive, but they got people on their left
26:42
and right doing the same.
26:44
The best place to find men like this is always going to be in the local church.
26:49
The best way to surround yourself with men like this is to be this kind of man.
26:53
This best way to be this kind of man is to be rooted in the scriptures in the gospel.
26:57
And even if you don't know it that much yet, be committed to be a person that's learning
27:00
it.
27:01
Like I'm telling you, man, here's a little, here's a little discipleship hack ready.
27:04
If you want to use our stuff, please use our stuff, just become an expert in one book of
27:08
the Bible.
27:09
Like Philippians has four chapters.
27:12
We did a 10 week series on Philippians last year.
27:14
Read it for the next three months of your life.
27:16
You probably memorize most of it.
27:18
Listen to every sermon on every week of the book of Philippians and you might not know
27:22
the whole Bible super good, but you got Philippians and when you get done with that, go to James.
27:26
You know, so like really be committed to know this and the key, and this is why it works
27:32
in the illustration of shield to shield.
27:36
You can't be free until you learn to be honest and 99% of the way that the enemy attacks us
27:43
is this a dirty war campaign of the mind.
27:46
The enemy can't just, I mean, you know, you read about in third world countries in some
27:50
places manifestations of the demonic in ways that are kooky, but that's just not the normal.
27:55
I'm not saying it doesn't happen.
27:57
The problem is with the regular believer is if the devil himself manifested himself, like
28:02
in the parking lot, you would probably then realize, holy crap, we're in a battle.
28:07
Let me go get some band of brothers and let's fight.
28:10
And the enemy doesn't want you to fight.
28:12
So what he wants you to do is be lulled to sleep.
28:14
And so the majority of the attacks are in the mind, right?
28:18
Well, you can't be free until you learn to be honest.
28:21
You got to first and foremost find a band of brothers that you say, we are going to be
28:25
painfully honest about how the enemy is coming after us.
28:29
And we're going to band together in this dirty war misinformation campaign of the mind.
28:34
And we are going to be truth hearers and true tellers to one another.
28:38
And you've mentioned before, because I've told you, my guys have a list of things that
28:42
I want them to ask me because if I were my enemy, this is how I would try to take me
28:46
out.
28:47
Yep.
28:48
Man, you start doing that with a group of guys.
28:50
See, we don't, you've done as good a job as anybody on talking about three AM friends
28:55
and foxhole yada yada.
28:57
And men settle for buddies, you know, like beer, drink of buddies and golf buddies and
29:01
all buddies.
29:02
It's fine.
29:03
Everybody needs buddies.
29:04
Those relationships require nothing of us, but right, maintaining.
29:09
But when you begin to go to that level and be honest, just go first.
29:14
Just be the man that goes first and says, here's where I'm doubting myself.
29:18
Here's where I'm doubting my salvation.
29:20
Here's where I failed as a husband, you know, I need your prayer.
29:24
Then what it will do is it will like boldness, but gets boldness, man.
29:28
And that's a courageous thing for a man to admit out loud.
29:31
I don't have what it takes in this area, or I'm afraid.
29:35
And then the men that respond rightly, what's going to happen is you're going to have that,
29:41
that war experience together and it's going to bond you closer and closer and closer.
29:45
Also, you could tell those men, hey, I'm a fraud.
29:49
Okay, so a lot of my best friends are CPAs, I don't know why, but CPAs know so much about
29:55
people because back in a former life, I did financial advisement and people would rather
29:59
talk about their sex lives than to talk about their money and talk about their retirement.
30:03
It's just a weird thing when you start talking about people's money, especially if you live
30:07
in an affluent community or something like that, because everyone's trying to, you know,
30:11
oh, he's got the newest truck, right?
30:12
Oh, I just got the LT.
30:14
He's got the trail boss.
30:15
I'm like, oh, this is, you know, you're, you're comparing people in that way.
30:18
And the issue that you find when you talk to these CPAs, they obviously don't, you know,
30:24
go against confidentiality, but they're like, dude, I've got a client that you would think
30:28
based on his house, his diet, his wardrobe, his car, his yard, his everything that this
30:36
dude is absolutely flush with cash.
30:39
And I'm like, bro, he doesn't have $1,000 in the bank.
30:42
He is leveraged here to do this, to take care of that, to make sure he can still have the
30:48
fancy, you know, golf membership and he can do this and he can still, you know, be one
30:52
of the people on the sponsorship board and T-shirt for this thing, but it's, it's all
30:57
a game.
30:58
It's all shell game.
30:59
And he's like, my job is to keep him out of prison because the IRS called, but that's
31:03
as good as I can do.
31:05
And so when you communicate with these guys, here's my list.
31:09
You can, you can be really upfront with them and be like, Hey, bro, I'm a fraud in these
31:13
areas.
31:14
Because the thing that I tell guys all, all the time is you know how to get around your,
31:20
your accountability software on your phone.
31:22
You know the tricks to get the smell of alcohol off your breath.
31:26
It's peanut butter, by the way, right?
31:28
So alcoholics that I know have peanut butter in their car and fresh spoons because in case
31:32
they get pulled over or in case their wife has questions when they get home, they got
31:36
visine for their eyes and they've eaten a bunch of peanut butter to get the smell off
31:39
of their breath.
31:40
And it's like, we know how to get around all the things.
31:43
The point is not how deceptive can we be.
31:46
It's how forward and honest can we be with the guys in our life and don't sell those
31:51
relationships down the river and say, yeah, man, I want accountability and I want super
31:54
tight guys like that.
31:56
And then just not be honest with them because we all have our varsity sins that we think
32:00
that we can just hang on to is what was Chandler was talking about the, you know, the lion,
32:04
right?
32:05
You think the lion's tame or the bear or whatever.
32:07
And then all of a sudden the bear remembers, I'm an apex predator and you actually have
32:11
no control over me.
32:12
That's what your sins like and you think you've got it under control, but dude, it's got you.
32:17
It just hasn't taken you out yet.
32:18
Yeah.
32:19
Even the other morning when you were here in the whispers of the enemy, that's what I call
32:22
it the whispers and I get them a lot before I go preach because honestly, because God
32:26
has blessed me so much and given me so much influence in his kingdom, you know, that bothers
32:31
me probably more than failure would.
32:35
And so you texted me here like, Hey, dude, I'm supposed to preach tonight and I'm being
32:40
attacked between the ears.
32:42
It's a misinformation campaign.
32:44
It's a dirty war campaign.
32:48
And the reason I use that language is there are enemies all around the world that want
32:51
to take out America, but they can't just line up in the Atlantic Ocean and try to take us
32:57
out.
32:58
We just squish them.
32:59
Merka.
33:00
It's over.
33:01
I mean, what Mexico going to attack us?
33:02
It wouldn't take a second.
33:03
The Canada going to try to invade the little goofy guys with their fuzzy hats on the horses.
33:07
I mean, it wouldn't take long.
33:08
So same thing with the devil.
33:09
He's already defeated.
33:10
He can't try to directly attack.
33:12
So that's where the indirect attack comes from.
33:15
So and my research, so first of all, good on you.
33:19
And you also didn't just text a random person, you, you texted a preacher that knows what
33:23
it's like to stand up in front of people with a face, Michael, and to have the whispers in
33:27
that particular area.
33:29
And I didn't just send you back.
33:30
Pray hands.
33:31
Yeah, it's not.
33:32
I gave you a very specific, I said something to the effect of I am praying for you.
33:39
If you're anything like me, I preach better from a place of desperation or something like
33:44
that.
33:45
Yeah.
33:46
Dude, if you're like me, you'll preach better when you are more desperate.
33:48
That was your response.
33:49
And so, but that's, I mean, that's the way to go about it, man.
33:54
That that here's what's going to happen.
33:57
There's going to be a time coming to be my life where I'm going to now reach out to you
34:00
because you reached out to me, you know, those kinds of things.
34:04
And you're so right, dude.
34:05
You try to pretend, because man, when you describe what your CPA is describing, I think
34:10
you described particularly in the south, like the majority of men going to church spiritually
34:17
speaking, they're bankrupt, but at church, they're trying to look spiritual.
34:21
Well, why do you think I railed on country music theology?
34:24
So hard last year.
34:25
Okay.
34:26
So again, for those of you that are new, I had two vocal court surgeries last year.
34:30
In between surgeries, I couldn't talk above a whisper.
34:32
We thought my career as a podcaster and a speaker was completely over.
34:37
It's like, hey, can I write and still have an impact or do I just need to like be a UPS
34:42
driver or something?
34:43
And I'm pro UPS drivers, but it's like, hey, what's the job I can do where I don't have
34:46
to talk to people all day long, constantly, because I'm not going to be able to, you know,
34:50
do anything.
34:51
But I had this concept that I was just sitting on and it was just like sitting in the middle
34:55
of my soul.
34:56
And it was, I live in Oklahoma.
34:59
So people think because they were born on that precious red clay that their part Choctaw
35:04
Indian like me because Oklahoma is a Choctaw word, which means red people.
35:08
So don't tell the woke people because they're going to want to cancel my state after they
35:10
find that out.
35:11
They're going to call us like the commanders that'll be all of a sudden be our state name
35:15
out of nowhere.
35:16
But you've got you've got that going on.
35:19
Grandmama went to church.
35:21
You got baptized when you were a baby.
35:24
You occasionally vote Republican and you listen to country music.
35:28
And so because God is pro all of those things, somehow you get your free ticket to heaven.
35:33
And so you can show up and mouth the words to some old hymns a few times a year and you
35:39
can play, make pretend and you can say, Hey, praying for you, brother, when you haven't
35:43
done that in years, and you can just be fine because you're checking the box because you
35:47
were born in the right place at the right time to the right people and you listen to the
35:51
right music and it just so happens to sit well inside of your soul.
35:54
And so my very first podcast coming off of my second surgery, this is my comeback, baby,
36:01
was on that.
36:02
And it's like, look, that Morgan Wallen song, that Luke Combs album, that, you know, Travis
36:07
Trit diddy that you you liked back in the day, that's not what's going to save you.
36:11
Correct.
36:12
And God doesn't have grandchildren.
36:13
Right.
36:14
And so I didn't come up with that.
36:15
I got that from you.
36:16
He saves first names.
36:17
Not last.
36:18
And that's that's part of the issues.
36:19
I feel like so many guys are worried about making sure their last name is on the back of
36:23
their jersey for Team Jesus, Team Cross.
36:26
And they're just not being real.
36:27
That's what I said in front of these guys in Tennessee.
36:29
I was like, it's so interesting that this is a room full of people.
36:34
And yet not all of you are involved in the thing that they want me to talk about to convince
36:38
you to be a part of, because some of y'all are here checking the box because it's a Monday
36:43
night.
36:44
Who does a men's event on a Monday night?
36:46
No body, but the room was full.
36:47
Right.
36:48
And it wasn't real home.
36:49
And the barbecue is just okay.
36:50
So it wasn't because of the barbecue.
36:51
The cake was awesome.
36:52
But I will say that's part of the issue with a lot of these guys is they think they're doing
36:58
enough already.
36:59
And this is the ultimate point, and then I'll throw back to you.
37:02
They think whenever I talk about godly companionship and foxhole and three AM friends and find
37:06
friends that'll help you bury your dog, they think that that doesn't apply to them.
37:10
And when I talk about Jesus at the Tuma Lazarus, weeping, he could have been weeping because
37:15
of the unbelief that was around him or because his buddy had died.
37:18
We don't know exactly why we just know that he wept, right?
37:21
Who is with him?
37:22
The 12.
37:23
We're there with him.
37:24
But I'm like, but you don't need guys.
37:27
Jesus chose to have guys, but you're good to go.
37:30
You're good at lone wolf thing.
37:32
The best place I see it is in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus asked Peter James and
37:35
John come a little further and pray with me.
37:37
Yeah.
37:38
All right.
37:39
So if the almighty son of God feels like he needs three brothers to pray extra for him,
37:41
but you don't, who the freak do you think you are?
37:43
I just don't get it.
37:44
I don't get it.
37:45
Yeah.
37:46
Here's the thing.
37:47
Here's what I've began to say to try to help at church.
37:50
You've heard me say this, you know, it's like a retirement account.
37:52
If you wait till you need it too late, but the other thing I'll say, man, if life's going
37:56
awesome for you and you're awesome and you're strong and you're mature, praise God, then
38:00
how about show up to be the strong one for somebody else?
38:03
Maybe.
38:04
No, you're going to be arrogant.
38:05
You're going to be an a-hole, but I need you to show up and get in a disciple group
38:08
and get to know some men because maybe you're their answer to prayer.
38:12
Maybe you're going to be able to point the way on your country music theology thing.
38:16
I love it.
38:17
I'm going to give you a name.
38:18
Drew Parker.
38:19
Okay.
38:20
The country music guy, he actually writes a bunch of songs with Luke Holmes and travels
38:22
with him.
38:24
Drew loves Jesus.
38:26
It's not like Christian country.
38:27
It's just country by a Christian, bro.
38:31
His newest album, Camouflage Cowboy, is so good.
38:36
It is so stinking good.
38:38
And this guy, he's got a him at the end.
38:41
His songs are, I mean, he's got, he's like 30, I don't know, he's like 30 or something.
38:45
He's young, but he's got that like old school, old man country voice.
38:48
It's so good.
38:49
I mean, he's got one where he talks to me, he sings about, I like whiskey, but I love
38:54
Jesus.
38:55
And he says his life is somewhere between some about like running wild and walking on
38:59
water.
39:00
It basically sounds like Roman seven unpacked.
39:02
Anyway, I've been discipling this guy for a couple of months now.
39:05
If you need a guy that's not just like a hat tip to the man upstairs, but a guy that's
39:11
singing for real country music about a real life, my man, Drew Parker.
39:17
Hey, that's, I mean, that's great shout out guys.
39:18
And here's the part of the thing about that as well, is you got to blow up guys like that
39:22
and you can't guys have this weird habit of they'll find something and they'll keep it
39:26
to themselves.
39:27
It's like you, you found this band or this artist or this movie or something like that.
39:31
And you go, man, that's amazing.
39:32
My friend should all watch that.
39:33
All right.
39:34
I'm going to go to bed.
39:35
It's like just stop.
39:36
Stop.
39:37
Right now, like they just had a baby.
39:38
I mean, his career is going, I mean, he's got a ton of number one songs that he's written.
39:43
Yeah.
39:44
This is one of his best buddies forever and anyway, but you know, they just had a new
39:50
baby.
39:51
And so he rearranged his whole world to make sure he's at home serving his wife like off
39:56
the stage.
39:57
This brother's loving Jesus and loving his wife and being the man in his family.
40:00
And I guarantee you, well, I'm going to take, I'm going to take a shot in the dark here.
40:04
I'm assuming that guys got some dudes in his life that'll hold him accountable that if they
40:08
hear a lyric that's a little bit out of whack in their song, that they're going to at least
40:11
mention it like, Hey, what's up with that?
40:13
And part of the thing is, well, you know, talking about the types of guys that you have around
40:17
you, you need to have some guys that aren't that impressed by you, right?
40:21
Especially if you have a cool job.
40:23
And so you've got a cool job.
40:25
People think my job is cool.
40:27
I had a business coach a long time ago say, here's the thing is you don't think you're
40:32
cool, but a lot of people think you're cool.
40:34
Right.
40:35
And here's how you can leverage that for their benefit, right?
40:37
You're the same turd.
40:38
You've woken up with every day of your life, right?
40:40
You know your shortcomings and you know where you suck and you don't need to be reminded
40:43
by your wife all the time, like, because you know already, right?
40:46
But you've got to have guys in your life that are certainly not afraid of you, but people
40:51
that just aren't that deeply impressed because like the guys in my life, the guys that can
40:54
speak into my life that have on a regular basis, they, yeah, great.
40:59
The rankings on the podcast, great Kyle, all the growth you've seen and all that, you're
41:02
in this category on Spotify.
41:04
Oh, that's great.
41:05
Hey, you said this in Sunday school and it was super rude and you didn't really notice
41:09
and you can't really do that.
41:11
Hey, you described somebody this way and that's just not going to fly brother in the same
41:15
thing happens in the reverse.
41:17
These are people that may have, they may have created businesses that have created generational
41:22
wealth for their grandchildren that don't exist yet.
41:25
And I may be in all of that.
41:27
I may think that that's awesome, but whenever they step out of line, I don't care.
41:31
I don't care that they can run circles around most people when it comes to, you know, their
41:34
net worth and all that.
41:36
It's because my brother has gotten out of line and is my responsibility to nudge if not punching
41:40
back into order.
41:41
Yeah.
41:42
So I get the opportunity to disciple several very famous people and I'm not going to mention
41:46
any of their names.
41:47
I guess I mentioned Drew's, but I'm not going to mention any names.
41:49
And a part of the reason I think they asked me to disciple them is because I'm not going
41:53
to be like, Oh my God, you have me through a test.
41:55
You know, I'm not going to do that.
41:56
That's just, I don't care.
41:57
I mean, I care.
41:58
I root for them.
41:59
But however, I tell all these guys, I would tell you this too, like this relationship is
42:05
great.
42:06
We sharpen one another.
42:07
We're friends.
42:08
We do some stuff together.
42:09
We do ministry together.
42:10
That's all great.
42:11
I can never be one of those immediate guys for you because I'm not, I don't live in your
42:16
town.
42:17
Right.
42:18
One of the things that gets a bunch of famous church people in trouble is they don't have
42:24
local elders or local accountability.
42:28
Okay.
42:29
And I get it.
42:30
What they try to do is be like, nobody knows my life because nobody and it's true.
42:33
My elders, they've never passed or the church like I've passed.
42:36
None of them ever passed or the church.
42:37
Yeah.
42:38
I've always elted things because they're old men and they know what they're, and they're
42:41
not impressed with me, but here's what they do know, man.
42:45
They are in my life enough to hear my tone of voice with my wife.
42:50
You know what I mean?
42:51
And they're like, ooh.
42:52
Yeah.
42:53
A hundred percent, man.
42:54
A hundred percent.
42:55
And so you can't, it's good to supplement, you know, some iron sharpening and iron with
43:00
some guys that you get to know that are in different areas that, you know, we do have
43:04
a lot of common in regards to that.
43:06
I mean, who else gets on planes and flies around and puts face mic on and talks to strangers,
43:10
you know?
43:11
Yeah.
43:12
However, you better have some people in your life that see what it's like when you're out
43:18
on a Friday night and what you're doing.
43:19
And they see the way like what's your tone of voice when you call your children, these
43:23
kind of things.
43:24
Dude.
43:25
So for some guys, I feel like you have to literally explain it over and over and over.
43:30
That was my thing with the find some dudes that'll help you bury your dog thing.
43:32
So guys, I've been talking about foxhole buddies, three AM friends.
43:36
Who's car?
43:37
Are we going to take friends?
43:38
Matt Toders, Kings table, but my dog dies and I cry and do a microphone for 30 minutes
43:43
and all of a sudden you get that you need guys around you.
43:45
You're welcome.
43:46
But let's get it.
43:47
Yeah.
43:48
It was your fault that you made me do that.
43:49
You're like, you should really talk about it.
43:50
I'm like, who, why, you don't know anything.
43:52
Why are you telling me what to do?
43:54
Everybody wanted to hear it.
43:55
And you wouldn't you know it?
43:56
The amount of messages that I've gotten from guys that it didn't make any sense to.
44:01
I can't remember if I mentioned it earlier or not, but I mentioned it at least off air.
44:04
A guy made me a dog bone with my dog's name on it at the presentation of the place that
44:08
I went to because he had just heard that and he had a dog that was like that.
44:12
And so it just kind of made a connection.
44:13
But to put an even finer point on it, you need guys in your life that are willing to
44:18
interrupt you.
44:19
Now that may not seem like the most profound thing that anyone's ever heard in your life.
44:22
You're probably not thinking that should be a t-shirt or a bumper sticker.
44:25
But the thing that I find very unique about the handful of men in my life, it's a good
44:30
amount of handful.
44:31
Like my real foxhole guys, my real mat toaters.
44:35
No one interrupts me, Joby, nobody ever for a few reasons.
44:39
One, I have kind of an intimidating countenance, even if I don't want to, because I look like
44:43
this, I'm a ginger, it's just it's an issue, right?
44:46
But I talk way too fast for you to get a word in.
44:48
And that's not a feature.
44:50
That's a bug, right?
44:51
That's not something that I'm like trying to do to people.
44:53
It's just like they're trying to respond to what I said two minutes ago, but I haven't
44:56
stopped.
44:57
And I'm just keep rattling stuff off, but I can point to exact moments with dudes that
45:02
I trust, dudes that you hung out with when you came out in Oklahoma, they have no problem
45:06
interrupting me.
45:07
And when they do that, I'm like, hey, man, nobody interrupts me, but again, they're not
45:12
impressed by me.
45:13
You need guys like that.
45:14
They're going to be like, cute.
45:15
I know you're about to make a nice argument and it was going to have a first, second and
45:19
third point and a closing.
45:20
I don't really care about all that because you're wrong.
45:22
And here's why.
45:23
Let me give you one more little hack and you should formalize this.
45:26
So with some of my guys, we have an annual meeting in my office and we all, everybody
45:32
gets a turn like on the hot seat, if you will, and we just finished two sentences.
45:38
One is whatever you do, don't stop and you just keep talking.
45:44
You know what I mean?
45:45
You tell the guys.
45:46
Because oftentimes in accountability relationships, it's all negative and true iron sharpening
45:51
is like, you know, do whatever you do, don't, and it's, and not just general stuff.
45:56
Everybody needs to always love their wife and, you know, like don't list the commandments.
46:00
But there's some things that God has uniquely designed you for and you're really thriving
46:05
in, in the body of Christ and you figured out your part there.
46:09
And so, so we do some encouragement that way.
46:12
And then some, the other one is here's some things I just think you should know about you.
46:18
And I don't think a lot of people are telling you this because sometimes the, the conversation
46:22
just doesn't go there, you know, or sometimes this happens a lot.
46:27
Let's say you find some guys and especially, I mean, I'm 50 years old.
46:29
Let's say you get some 50 year old guys and there's not like these glaring sins, you know,
46:35
the warning life on your life is not on and you're like check engine, check engine, you
46:39
know, and it's just kind of a thing.
46:41
And so we have a formalized meeting.
46:43
We typically do it at the beginning of the year.
46:46
We take turns.
46:47
We all do it together out loud.
46:49
So, because here's what I think is helpful too.
46:52
You put this in a really succinct way.
46:54
The worst thing you can do when your brother tries to hold you accountable stiff arm.
46:57
Okay.
46:58
It's terrible.
46:59
Even with that though, I can still have a tendency to begin to think, oh, that's adorable.
47:03
You're trying to take the speck out of my eye because let's talk about the plank in yours.
47:06
Watch this.
47:07
And I know more Bible verses.
47:08
Yeah.
47:09
So I went, okay, but when there's three guys, one guy's talking and my other two guys are
47:13
nodding.
47:14
I'm like, I'll do that.
47:16
Dang it.
47:17
So it also gives the guy that's pointing out the hard stuff a lot more courage to, as he's
47:23
saying something, you get a lot of affirmation from the other two guys like, yep, yep, he's
47:29
right.
47:30
I would formalize it.
47:31
Yeah.
47:32
Like that would do a thing one time a year.
47:33
So this is what we're going to do in January, you know, New Year, New Year, New Year, let's
47:36
go with it and finish these two sentences, whatever you do, don't stop, you know.
47:42
And here's some things you need to know about you that it seems like you might not know
47:45
about you.
47:46
And the thing with that second one is that can still be a positive.
47:49
So this came up here recently with probably my main foxhole guy and it's so funny.
47:55
I'll get to why it struck me, but this is a guy that's okay, interrupting me.
47:59
So I'm talking about something I'm describing, something I'm helping a guy with.
48:03
And I gave a unique detail about this particular guy that I just rattled off from memory, mid
48:10
sentence to me making my point.
48:11
He goes, by the way, Kyle, do you understand how unique that is that you just rattled off
48:15
a very, very specific, unique detail about a human being that you barely know.
48:22
He's like, almost nobody does that.
48:25
And in my head, I was like, what are you talking about?
48:27
Of course, that small, meaningless detail would stick into my brain to where I could
48:32
just pull it out in this casual conversation.
48:34
He's like, no, man, that it just doesn't work that way.
48:37
But like two weeks prior to this, I'm in this dude shop, he's somewhere else.
48:40
But like he's trying to describe to me, I was borrowing a couple of tools.
48:44
And his shop is huge, right?
48:46
And he's like, okay, go to the corner of the shop.
48:49
It's the Northeast corner.
48:50
It's not the toolbox in the middle.
48:52
So one to the left of that, count one, two, three, rose down, open up that one.
48:57
And the third one from the left should be the one that you need.
49:00
And like, if I'm lying, I'm dying.
49:02
He did that with like three or four different tools and took me right to it.
49:05
And I'm like, bro, is this like some sort, am I getting pranked right now?
49:09
They're like, this is awkward.
49:10
Like, do you have an idetic memory?
49:11
Like what?
49:12
This is weird.
49:13
And so I was blown away by that.
49:14
He was blown away that I remembered something that most people would not remember.
49:18
And it got me thinking about that because like, I didn't cultivate that skill.
49:23
God, I guess gave that to me because I have a hard time remembering people's names, but
49:26
I can tell you something really important that could destroy that person's world or lift
49:30
them up.
49:31
And he's like the, and he didn't say this, but upon reflection, I was like, okay, there's
49:37
going to be a time where I'm going to need to help that person and knowing that detail
49:41
is going to be really important and wouldn't you know it?
49:44
A couple of days later, I'm talking to this guy on the, on through zoom.
49:50
And this is a guy that had been a Christian for a long time, grew up, you know, preacher
49:55
son.
49:56
And you know, he had always his entire life thought I don't have a very good testimony
50:02
because I got saved, you know, at vacation Bible school when I was like seven years old,
50:06
I grew up in a house with a preacher and like, I just don't really have that good of a testimony.
50:10
So I kind of just keep it to myself.
50:12
And in that exact moment, I remembered something that he mentioned weeks before.
50:17
He mentioned that he had two young granddaughters.
50:20
And I remember that and I go, Hey, do you want your granddaughters to have a dramatic testimony
50:25
or a boring one?
50:27
And this dude froze deer and headlights froze his eyes got, and this is a guy that's got
50:32
a job where he's completely in control, highly conscientious engineer brain.
50:36
His eyes were as big as saucers and he was like, Oh my goodness, you're right.
50:41
He's like, I want them to have the most boring testimony ever.
50:43
And then I didn't let it sit there.
50:44
I go, why?
50:46
He's like, because for a young lady to have a dramatic testimony means she's either made
50:51
some horrible decisions or some horribly horrific, sinful things have happened to her.
50:55
And I'm like, exactly.
50:56
So can you just get over yourself?
50:58
Your testimony is your testimony.
50:59
No, you didn't have a needle in your arm and you were literally hovering over your body
51:03
because you were about to die.
51:04
And also you were brought back to life.
51:06
You never touched hair.
51:07
I went again and all that.
51:08
But that's not the point.
51:09
And so it's like again, coming back to the whole point is having those guys in your life
51:12
that are willing to interrupt you to tell you the thing that'll make you chew on it a little
51:15
bit longer so that you can take that part of the sword, iron sharpening iron and make
51:19
that part even sharper.
51:21
If you don't have guys like that in your life, you were dying on the vine.
51:24
Like you got to have that type of thing.
51:26
Yeah, part of the reason I wrote this book is because of exactly what you're talking
51:28
about and such a misunderstanding of grace.
51:32
So like we talked about Luke 15 in the book, the older brother needs the grace of the father
51:36
every bit as much as the younger brother, that when you've been run over by the grace
51:40
train, whether that's at six years old at VBS, it changes your life just as much as if it's
51:47
when you're 60 year old and you get saved out of a gang or whatever.
51:50
You know, that the grace of Jesus Christ changes everything.
51:55
And honestly, really the root, if you think about it, the root of what makes iron sharpening
52:02
iron brothers and battle together is essentially what we're trying to do is just grace one
52:08
another.
52:09
Like, I would love you so much that I would want you to see and experience God's grace
52:13
here and you've taken your eye off of it.
52:15
Therefore you're going in another direction and it is by grace that God has put me in
52:19
your life to go, whoa, whoa, whoa, care more about you than what you think about me right
52:21
now.
52:22
Don't go in that direction.
52:23
That's grace.
52:24
So, if we can really bring grace back to the center of these relationships, I think that's
52:33
where, because a lot of men are confused about it, they're like, I don't want a guy in my
52:36
life just going to beat me up all the time, or I don't want to sit around in a circle
52:39
and talk about my feelings.
52:40
And you're going, that is not what we're talking about here.
52:43
You're talking about an actual dynamic fluid relationship where you do a bunch of buddy
52:48
stuff shoulder to shoulder so that when you need to really drop a grace bomb on somebody,
52:53
you've built the relational equity that you are able to.
52:56
Well, part of the reason is because these guys, a lot of these guys are married and they've
53:00
already got somebody that wants to sit around and talk about their feelings with them and
53:05
is willing to beat them up when they don't do things.
53:07
I mean, that emotionally beat them up and that person is called their wife.
53:10
And so they're like, I don't need a male wife at this point.
53:14
Like I don't need just another person dumping on me telling me where I'm not taking care
53:18
of business.
53:19
That's why they're like, hey, if you're going to go fishing with me, you're not allowed
53:21
to talk.
53:22
So it's like, we can be fishing buddies, but don't ask me questions.
53:25
And, you know, again, that's why I talk about why guys should do physical things that are
53:29
difficult all the time.
53:32
Because you got those guys that'll give you 85, 90% of the story when you just ask them.
53:36
But it's that last 10 to 15% of the stuff that actually matters that you can't get to
53:41
unless they're like physically exhausted, maybe mentally and emotionally exhausted.
53:45
And then all of a sudden, and then they just like give you the rest of the story.
53:49
They give you the issues with dad growing up.
53:51
They give you the story of abuse.
53:53
They give you the, this is the thing that I'm currently fighting with.
53:56
And I just can't bring it to the light because I don't know how to fight it in the light.
53:58
So they keep fighting it in the dark, which is where the fungus grows and they don't
54:01
understand that they're trapped.
54:03
And again, most guys don't even have, they don't even have a way to describe the phenomenon
54:08
that I just did.
54:10
And they're just, they're happy to just amoeba their way through life.
54:13
And they're like, well, I guess I'll just get end up somewhere.
54:16
It's like, yeah, you'll end up somewhere, but you're not going to end up somewhere on
54:18
purpose.
54:19
Like that's part of your problem.
54:20
Yeah.
54:21
The guys I tend to get closest to, I also share some of the best memories with, whether
54:24
it's a mission trip, it's a hunting trip.
54:27
It's always doing hard things.
54:29
It's always like find some guys that will do hard things with you that you enjoy, that
54:33
you push yourself in.
54:34
And there's often, I mean, in the scriptures, if you look at God's instructions on how to
54:40
even posture our body that like initiates the posture of our heart to receive what he
54:46
has for us, right?
54:48
So like you raise your hands and surrender or you raise your hands and victory as a part
54:52
of worship.
54:53
It postures your body in a way to posture your heart to receive what God has for you.
54:57
Very similarly in, you know, if you, if you got a band of brothers or a group of guys,
55:02
man, get some shoulder to shoulder stuff, do some work together.
55:05
Like, if you know what it's like to pack an elk out and do hard things for, I don't know
55:11
how to explain it, it just makes it easier when you're sitting around one day to do hard
55:16
things that are emotional and spiritual.
55:17
Why do you think I'm such a big walking billboard for Jiu Jitsu?
55:20
Yeah.
55:21
Yeah.
55:22
Because it doesn't matter.
55:23
And the number of guys I've started Jiu Jitsu because of, of the podcast, it's like it's,
55:27
it's crazy.
55:28
And when people come up to me and like, they airport and like, dude, I started doing Jiu
55:31
Jitsu, like I had a guy come up to me at Phil Robertson's church and he's like, he went
55:35
back to my goal setting episode, which I think was episode two.
55:38
Let's go.
55:39
It was like two or three.
55:40
And he's like, I listened to that episode and I decided in that moment, oh no, I've just
55:46
been mailing it in.
55:47
So he started trying to Jiu Jitsu, he started working out.
55:50
He dropped weight.
55:51
And the thing is, is he's describing this to me while his wife is standing right next
55:55
to him.
55:56
And so like I'm listening to it, I'm giving him my full attention.
55:59
And then as soon as he was done, done talking, I turned his wife and go, is this true?
56:03
And she was just like, yes, and I'm like, and what has that done for y'all?
56:06
She's like, you have no idea.
56:08
And that's not so, Hey, Bragg on Kyle, cause he talks about it, but it's like, because
56:12
there's so many things that happen if you train Jiu Jitsu, you have to figure out what
56:15
a key is.
56:16
You have to figure out how to spell it so you can Google it so you can buy one.
56:19
Then you have to walk in that first class, not knowing anything.
56:23
You don't know how to tie your pants, much less your belt.
56:26
And then you go out there, maybe it's a beginner's class.
56:28
It's a bunch of other, you know, baby deer that don't know what's happening.
56:32
And the words people are using don't make any sense.
56:35
Like your body is not moving in a way that you thought it could move, but all of a sudden
56:38
you're in this really pinched up spot.
56:40
But then the whole thing about Jiu Jitsu is you just have to keep going.
56:44
Yeah, there are guys that walk in with some natural athletic ability and size and strength
56:48
and explosiveness and flexibility and all that.
56:50
Yeah.
56:51
So they can get better faster than you, but they still suck.
56:53
Like nobody walks in a full fledged killer.
56:56
It just doesn't happen.
56:57
Well, that can help you one day, but not at first.
56:59
Right.
57:00
Yeah.
57:01
In the whole, the whole thing about it.
57:02
It's all about resilience.
57:03
Yeah.
57:04
You have to keep showing up.
57:05
And so this is kind of a hack when you came to, to Edmund, I kind of, you know, you're
57:11
in my, my house and there's probably a dozen of my guys there and I'm talking to you.
57:15
I'm like, Oh yeah, that's my buddy.
57:16
He's a CPA.
57:17
Hey, this guy's a pilot.
57:18
That guy's a purple belt.
57:19
That guy's a brown belt.
57:20
Yeah.
57:21
Yeah.
57:22
This guy works at a school and that that's how I described it because you already knew
57:25
a whole lot about that person just by me telling you purple belt, brown belt, because that
57:29
in your mind, you're like, okay, they've been training.
57:32
And your brown belt.
57:33
Yeah.
57:34
Yeah.
57:35
One of the helps, you know, TRT brown belts.
57:36
Yeah.
57:37
It's kind of a thing.
57:38
It's like an actual thing you might run into in the wild guys you should train.
57:39
But that's the whole thing about doing hard things.
57:42
And maybe Jiu Jitsu's not your thing.
57:44
Maybe you've got an injury that precludes you from going there.
57:46
Maybe you're a surgeon in that job, but like you have to find something.
57:49
Here's what I found.
57:50
The deepest conversations and the ones I've needed most with my elders or some of my,
57:55
like my Mac carrier guys have rarely been scheduled.
57:58
I did say you should formalize that one thing just to force that conversation.
58:02
But it's typically like Charles and I have been bow hunting and we're cleaning a deer.
58:07
And somehow the conversation goes into, man, me and Gretchen have been doing good.
58:12
You know what I mean?
58:13
Very rarely does a man show up for a like, you know, like a book study.
58:18
And then that's where it comes out.
58:20
That's a big part of the reason.
58:21
And I know you rail on golf and I know what you mean, like, but whatever the thing is
58:25
that you're doing, a big part of the reason you need to be constantly or in a focused way
58:31
with the right men doing these things is now this is different.
58:35
It's just a little bit of a leap, but acts one way says you will receive power when the
58:38
Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be my witnesses.
58:41
It's sort of like that.
58:42
Like you don't know when God's going to open the door for you to either look at your buddy
58:46
and go, man, how are you really doing?
58:48
Or you don't know when that moment's going to be where your buddy is there and it's time
58:53
for you to talk.
58:54
And so if you got some shoulder to shoulder stuff, it's just really, really positive.
58:58
One part of the thing is is when you're in that moment and the guy says the thing and
59:02
you know, he's lying.
59:04
You've got to have the boldness to be like, hey, man, that's not actually what I asked
59:07
you.
59:08
Do you mind answering my question?
59:09
Right?
59:10
I mean, because this isn't a political debate where you can be asked this question and then
59:12
you answer the question that you actually want to answer like that's, that's not what this
59:16
is.
59:17
You're going to answer the question that I asked you because you're trying to obfuscate.
59:19
You're trying to skate around it and you thought I wasn't paying attention.
59:22
But again, yeah, if you've been hunting all day or all week and then you finally get the
59:25
animal on the ground or it's at the end of comp practice and for two hours, you've been
59:29
trying.
59:30
You've had freak beasts trying to choke you to death like it's one of those things where
59:32
now your shoulder, shoulder, you've done something together.
59:35
Now you've earned the right to speak into my life in the same works, works in the opposite.
59:40
I got to take a big left turn here because I'm going to forget it because you've, you've
59:44
said so many things that have made me want to want to go there.
59:47
So obviously I read, run over by the grace train, read every single word of it.
59:50
I told you when we did the episode for my show that it's this and the explicit gospel
59:56
by Chandler who will be here tomorrow.
59:59
That are the books to where it's just like, yeah, if you can't remember any of the anecdotes
1:00:02
or any of the fun stories or the, you know, all that kind of stuff, you could just describe
1:00:06
it in one word and it's gospel, whether it's in the title or the subtitle or not.
1:00:10
So I think some people are going to get the point of run over by the grace train.
1:00:16
What I think some people might miss or they might say is lacking, not that the book is
1:00:20
lacking is okay.
1:00:22
I now have a framework and a matrix for run over by the grace train.
1:00:27
But what about run over by the true train?
1:00:29
Because I tell people all the time like, look, my job is to not get you to ignore the lamb
1:00:33
of God.
1:00:34
It's to get you to understand that God is that Jesus is both lamb of God and lion of
1:00:38
Judah.
1:00:39
He's not 55 45.
1:00:40
He's a hundred a hundred that type of thing.
1:00:42
And the same thing is he came full of grace and truth.
1:00:45
So if you don't understand the grace part, which we've talked about, there's some people
1:00:48
in my life that don't understand the grace of God.
1:00:50
And so they've never forgiven anybody for anything.
1:00:53
That's just kind of the way that they operate.
1:00:55
And so what about the people that are like, great, got it, check on the grace part, which
1:00:58
in and of itself is somewhat problematic because you never get over the gospel, as you would
1:01:02
say.
1:01:03
What about the people that are like, wait, what about the true train?
1:01:04
And what about the people that need to be run over by that?
1:01:07
Every chapter is just an unpacking of a text in the scripture.
1:01:11
And so every chapter is just rooted in the truth of the word of God.
1:01:15
So and it's, you know, it's pretty in your face and hard hitting.
1:01:18
Chapter one is the features too.
1:01:20
Well, the first half of it is just you're a wretched blackhearted sinner.
1:01:22
You are a child of wrath.
1:01:24
You were dead in your trespassing.
1:01:25
You're not a mistake or you're sorry, chapter two is Romans chapter three, no one by works
1:01:29
of the law will be declared righteous.
1:01:31
I mean, that's the, so the diagnosis starts chapters three and following.
1:01:35
We began to talk about Jesus encountering people and how he encountered them with grace and
1:01:40
truth.
1:01:41
So you'll see it with the woman at the well.
1:01:43
He doesn't just grace her and be like, Oh, you poor thing.
1:01:45
I can't believe you have to come here at 12 because nobody likes you.
1:01:48
When she asked for the living water, he goes, go get your husband.
1:01:50
I mean, it's what the whole chapter is about.
1:01:52
You can't fake it with him.
1:01:55
John chapter eight, he's going to say very clearly, who condemns you, no one, then neither
1:01:59
would I condemn you.
1:02:00
Now go leave your life of sin.
1:02:03
We spent a whole chapter on David being confronted with his sexual sin by Nathan and what he
1:02:08
has to do with it.
1:02:09
So you don't get the grace of Jesus without truth.
1:02:13
You do not.
1:02:14
So it, you know, if you just kind of, if you read the chapters instead of just the title,
1:02:18
it's just going to be true, true, true, true, truth, all the way to Peter at the end when
1:02:22
Jesus reinstates him.
1:02:24
So I want to get even a little bit more specific because, and as I've, I've told you this before,
1:02:28
you know, people got their problems with the chosen and yeah, I don't like that they allow
1:02:31
people on the set to have, you know, LGBTQ progress flags flying from their, their camera
1:02:36
bags or whatever.
1:02:37
Yeah.
1:02:38
That's a problem.
1:02:39
But what that show has done for me is I've said over and over is it's caused me to slow
1:02:43
down when I read the Bible, not just the gospels.
1:02:46
I always talk about the woman with the problem of blood.
1:02:49
That is like it takes 14 seconds to read that section.
1:02:53
That was three episode arc on season three or four, I think it was season three.
1:02:58
And you're like, Oh my gosh, you're putting yourself in the shoes of the woman, even though
1:03:02
as a man, you can't really understand the issue she was having, but you can understand
1:03:06
a prolonged ailment that has completely put you out of culture, right in polite society
1:03:12
and for Jesus to lift your face and to call you daughter shocking, it gets me teared up
1:03:15
every time part of the issue that we're running into with something like that is when we read
1:03:21
the Bible, we don't feel the angst that was likely felt in that moment by that person.
1:03:25
So when Jesus told a woman, go and get your husband, do you know when like when you got
1:03:31
in trouble as a kid, right?
1:03:33
And you also, and you heard your dad's voice or someone said, go to the principal's office
1:03:36
and your stomach just sank completely out of your body, right?
1:03:40
When Nathan said you are that man to David and you were righteously indignant 17 milliseconds
1:03:46
ago, and now all of a sudden you're like, oh, you feel about this tall?
1:03:51
That's what I think people are missing in these stories.
1:03:54
And that's not a commercial for, Hey, make the Bible about you.
1:03:57
You were not David in the story of David and Goliath, but you've got to be able to feel
1:04:01
that feeling too.
1:04:02
So I don't like to use word story because they're an event.
1:04:04
Yeah, I don't call the events that I don't be like, have you heard the story about my
1:04:08
daughter's car wreck?
1:04:09
I don't know.
1:04:10
I just say my daughter got a car wreck.
1:04:12
So these are a big part of the way I preach and write is with a spirit filled imagination
1:04:20
to put flesh and bones on actual events.
1:04:24
So this is like the written version in the events that we are going through, like the
1:04:29
woman at the world, the woman caught in the act of adultery, Peter on the sea shore.
1:04:34
I mean, and Charles helps so much.
1:04:36
He is a novelist.
1:04:37
So he's really, he's really good at this.
1:04:40
This is exactly what we're doing.
1:04:42
Let me tell you that chosen story for all you anti chosen people, bro.
1:04:47
One of the darkest days I've had in recent history is so I got the flu that turned into
1:04:55
pneumonia.
1:04:56
It's been several days at Mayo, trying to get over it.
1:04:58
I probably didn't sleep for like 30 hours, 40 hours, something like that.
1:05:04
I just couldn't sleep every, the only, if I, if the only position, if I sat straight up
1:05:09
like this, I was okay, but man, if I leaned over that much, I would just get this girly
1:05:14
and cough.
1:05:15
And dude, I was dying.
1:05:16
I was like, I can't do this.
1:05:18
I can't do this.
1:05:19
I'm freaking out.
1:05:20
And then when I would go, when I would kind of nod off, I would get these terrible immediate
1:05:26
nightmares that don't come from me.
1:05:30
Don't come from God.
1:05:31
I'm telling you.
1:05:32
And I would be like, nope, I'm telling you, I was like in a spiritual warfare in my bedroom.
1:05:37
And I'm just like, Lord, please help me go to sleep.
1:05:39
I mean, you know, all the things, right?
1:05:41
I'm also thinking, I'm going to cough the rest of my life and I'll be able to preach
1:05:43
all the things.
1:05:44
It's like two o'clock in the morning, I turn on the television and it's the chosen.
1:05:49
And I'm like, I'm watching Jesus.
1:05:50
Yeah.
1:05:51
Okay.
1:05:52
Sounds like such a preacher story.
1:05:53
I climb up on my bed.
1:05:54
I find this one position I can get in with a bunch of pillows kind of praying minutes.
1:05:59
The episode that's on is Jesus at the pull of Bethesda.
1:06:02
And he looks at the man and says, do you want to be healed?
1:06:05
He might as well be standing in my room going, do you want to be healed?
1:06:08
And for the first time in 40 or 30, 40 hours, I fell asleep.
1:06:12
And I said for three hours because three back and back episodes of the chosen was all.
1:06:15
So listen, I get it.
1:06:17
I get all the same things.
1:06:18
You know, I mean, I get the people, you know, it's like, they take some, some liberties
1:06:23
there to try to fill in the story.
1:06:26
I think that stuff matters though, like in Mark Tapper and I on with that dad shows up
1:06:30
with a kid.
1:06:31
Oh boy.
1:06:32
And he says, I believe, help me overcome my unbelief.
1:06:35
Dude, that guy, the first name, he had friends.
1:06:38
At one point, he brings his boy home from the hospital and that's not how it works.
1:06:42
But you know, and they had hopes and dreams.
1:06:45
And Jesus says, how long has this been happening?
1:06:47
And he's like, he doesn't say from birth.
1:06:50
He says, since he was a child, which means for a while, everything's going OK.
1:06:54
And we know parents where everything's cool for months.
1:06:58
And then one day, like he, he's not talking like everybody else.
1:07:00
He's not taking steps like, you know, and there's usually one parent that denies things
1:07:04
and one parent that thinks the worst.
1:07:08
This is that dad.
1:07:10
And if you already know the end of the event before you begin to read it, then you don't
1:07:14
sit in it with how empathetic Jesus is with this man.
1:07:20
And so a big part of why a book like this helps is because it helps put some skin and
1:07:27
flesh on the revealed perfect word of God.
1:07:29
Well, look at, let's go to Mark two, right?
1:07:31
So where do you get the concept of the format toters?
1:07:34
That's it.
1:07:35
That's a quick story to read through as well.
1:07:37
But if you slow down, it's like, how crowded did it have to be inside and outside this
1:07:44
home to where you couldn't even be like, excuse me, excuse me, I just got just real quick,
1:07:48
just so make way I've got a guy that needs to be healed by Jesus to wear somebody in this
1:07:53
crew.
1:07:54
And again, we don't see this from the text.
1:07:55
I don't want to read into something that's not there.
1:07:57
But I doubt these guys would have done what they've done next if this guy was a stranger,
1:08:01
if this guy wasn't like a legitimate person that they knew, perhaps it was just, you know,
1:08:05
four guys that just like perhaps I don't think that you're mad.
1:08:09
I think this is their dude, man, this is they go up on top of someone's house and they don't
1:08:12
let anything stop.
1:08:13
Yeah.
1:08:14
And these roofs were these long, thick, clay, heavy things held up by heavy wooden beams
1:08:21
and it's got, yeah, straw and batch and rocks and sticks and all that kind of keeping it
1:08:26
together.
1:08:27
In a lot of ways, it's more secure than your shingles and your plywood that's on top of
1:08:30
your roof of your house.
1:08:32
And these four men said, I'm going to destroy a stranger's property to get this guy to the
1:08:39
feet of Jesus.
1:08:41
But if you just read the story, it's like, oh, that's interesting.
1:08:43
And then you see the Sunday school rendering of that and everyone smiling and everything.
1:08:48
We don't have anything from the text that tells us that these men had tools.
1:08:53
So imagine if you destroyed a roof with your bare hands.
1:08:56
What would your, your fingernails and you're probably caked with stuff.
1:09:00
The people that were inside had stuff falling down on top of them, dust and clay and junk.
1:09:05
Yeah.
1:09:06
Jesus.
1:09:07
To the church, people, the church, people with the good seats were the most disrupted.
1:09:11
Oh, man.
1:09:12
And I bet they didn't appreciate it.
1:09:13
So the outsider could get in and the outsider got in that they were disrupted.
1:09:17
I'm a, I'm sure at some point, Jesus stopped mid sentence to be like, all right, there's
1:09:21
crap falling from the ceiling.
1:09:22
Let's let this play out a little bit.
1:09:24
The holes getting bigger in the roof, there's, and it's not like he didn't know what was
1:09:28
coming next.
1:09:29
But that's another thing that when you're reading the text in order for the text to literally
1:09:34
come alive as this is a description of what really happened at a time in history, you
1:09:38
have to read it slowly and you have to chew on it.
1:09:41
That's why I tell people that are like, Hey man, which Bible in a year program do you
1:09:44
do?
1:09:45
And I'm like, none of them, because all you're doing is flying over the Bible, which is fine.
1:09:48
I'm not anti getting into the Bible, regardless of how you do it.
1:09:52
But it's not until you come down out of the clouds and you land the plane a little bit
1:09:55
in a certain chapter that's going to work out.
1:09:57
Yeah, maybe once every decade do the Bible in a year.
1:10:01
And then the other nine years, try to get as proficient in the smallest amount of Bible
1:10:07
you can.
1:10:08
I mean, like really, yeah, take all your time to, to let the revealed word of God be real.
1:10:16
This is a, I love, you know, chant.
1:10:17
I'll still this sometimes.
1:10:18
Chandler's like, all right.
1:10:19
He's over here a little bit of speculation walks away from the public.
1:10:22
But what he's doing though, he's, he's just putting flesh on a thing that actually happened.
1:10:26
Like we don't have faith and faith.
1:10:29
We have faith that an actual God became an actual man.
1:10:33
I don't know actual cross and actually resurrected from the grave three days later.
1:10:37
It is very, very, very helpful while the Bible is not about you.
1:10:40
It is to you.
1:10:41
And it is for you.
1:10:43
And these were real people with the same problems and issues and insecurities that you
1:10:48
and I have.
1:10:50
And these things happened.
1:10:52
And so to the best of your ability, um, help understand that Lazarus was a real human being
1:10:59
that Jesus cried real tears.
1:11:03
And that's going to really help you the next time you're in a place and somebody that you
1:11:06
love is going through a really tough time, as opposed to this being like a fairy tale
1:11:11
that you're trying to, uh, exact a principle from.
1:11:14
That's very different.
1:11:15
But it's certainly different and also if we are to be Christ like, we have to not try
1:11:22
to fake the emotions that Christ had in the exact moment that he had them, but it's to
1:11:26
wrestle with, okay, if I were in that situation and my Lazarus dies, right?
1:11:32
So for all intents and purposes, this is one of Jesus's best friends, right?
1:11:35
Biggest supporters.
1:11:36
He was the guy in charge of the house.
1:11:37
That was his, you know, basically home base for a long time, right?
1:11:42
How would I respond?
1:11:43
And if your response is I would do everything I could to make sure that I didn't show emotions.
1:11:49
I would do everything I could to be the stoic Western man.
1:11:53
I would do everything I could to be Marcus Aurelius in that moment.
1:11:57
Might I suggest that you're going about it the wrong way?
1:12:00
And the reason why I say that is cause that's how I've tried to be, right?
1:12:04
And I think there is virtue in what, you know, Jordan Peterson talks about be the one man
1:12:08
at your father's funeral that everybody can depend on, but that doesn't mean that you
1:12:13
don't crack when you're giving the eulogy.
1:12:14
You give me emotional and dependable.
1:12:16
Sure.
1:12:17
So here's the, for example, okay.
1:12:19
So I've taught John 11 so many times when the Bible says Jesus, well, literally in Greek,
1:12:24
it means like snorted like a bull, which means he's [inaudible].
1:12:28
It's cry, but I think it's that kind of cry like I described JP crying when like he got
1:12:32
so mad because of people wouldn't help him with that car wreck to stop him with anger.
1:12:36
That's right.
1:12:37
Right.
1:12:38
Right.
1:12:39
Because he's, this was not the intention.
1:12:40
Death is a result of sin and Jesus is [inaudible] and Jesus knows he's going to put death to
1:12:44
death.
1:12:45
I think it's weird.
1:12:46
Okay.
1:12:47
So you mentioned three out of the four Martins have been in the hospital since this spiritual
1:12:51
warfare series started.
1:12:53
Well, the last one was my daughter got a car wreck.
1:12:56
She's on the way to church with a lady that works for me and her daughter who they're
1:13:01
the same age and somebody T bones them.
1:13:05
And I'm the, I'm like first on the scene.
1:13:07
And just the way it worked out, Gretchen, I were coming home from the gym, raving calls,
1:13:11
Gretchen screaming, we've been in a rush.
1:13:12
She's going crazy.
1:13:13
She's hurting.
1:13:14
She's in her head pretty bad.
1:13:15
We see her because Gretchen's like, I see you.
1:13:17
So I stopped the truck.
1:13:18
Gretchen gets in.
1:13:19
I just sprint up there to her.
1:13:20
Okay.
1:13:21
We get there.
1:13:22
We get them in the ambulance.
1:13:23
We get to the, we get to the hospital.
1:13:26
All I can think about is the freaking enemy in my life right now.
1:13:29
Try to take my voice and try to take both my kids in the last 10 weeks.
1:13:33
Yep.
1:13:34
And to pray some very r-rated prayers against the enemy.
1:13:38
Okay.
1:13:39
If they were recorded, I'm sure one of those watch dog ministries would print them out
1:13:44
and say, I'm disqualified.
1:13:46
But here's what I was thinking.
1:13:47
I was thinking about Jesus being [inaudible], snorting like a bull.
1:13:54
And I began to think, God gave me this picture of the screw tape letters and you know how
1:13:59
like wormwood and they're right back and forth.
1:14:01
And in my mind, God was like, if that was going on, the senior demon saying to the junior
1:14:06
demon, I think you just overplayed your hand because now he's [inaudible].
1:14:10
He's praying more.
1:14:11
He's trusting more.
1:14:13
He's leaning in more, saturated is going to do something it's never done before.
1:14:18
But the reason I felt like I could is because I know the verses in the Bible and the Psalms
1:14:22
when David prays ways that we would say, I don't think that's okay except it was the
1:14:26
Word of God and the way Jesus reacts at the tomb of Lazarus.
1:14:30
So that's what I, that's what we're talking about.
1:14:33
How important it is to get inside of the Scripture and let it get inside of you.
1:14:38
When I think it, it's worth repeating or if some guys are going to be hearing this for
1:14:43
the first time is that a lot of people give Satan in the dark forces to little credit
1:14:50
but some people give him too much credit.
1:14:52
Yeah.
1:14:53
And so I don't remember who said it first or who really got me thinking about it.
1:14:55
But it's like, Hey man, don't you realize that Satan's not omniscient.
1:14:59
He's not omnipresent because again, I didn't grow up in a family that, that went to church.
1:15:03
I had, you know, no Bible reading for myself personally until I became a teenager and,
1:15:08
you know, my brain was 10 years away from being fully developed.
1:15:10
And so it's like basically a chimp trying to do a Ruggies kind of, kind of how my Bible
1:15:14
study was.
1:15:15
But we get this idea and I don't know if it's from culture or from, you know, scary movies
1:15:20
or something like that, that Satan is inside of our brains.
1:15:23
He can hear our thoughts.
1:15:26
He can sense what we're sensing and he can push us in a direction when it's like, no,
1:15:31
but he does have your playbook.
1:15:32
Correct.
1:15:33
He's like a game film.
1:15:34
Right.
1:15:35
Right.
1:15:36
So he's more than your game film.
1:15:37
He's, he literally has your playbook.
1:15:38
Like, you know, one of your, your backup punter, you know, wasn't looking at his bag and, you
1:15:43
know, someone went in there and snatched the playbook.
1:15:45
So he has a really, really, really good idea about what it's going to take to knock you
1:15:49
off your rocker.
1:15:50
And so he can put together a really good game plan, but the game still has to be played.
1:15:55
How many games have we seen?
1:15:56
What was it recently?
1:15:57
And I you beaten a Notre Dame at Notre Dame.
1:16:00
Praise God.
1:16:01
Don't you think, you know, the number five team that goes down in a blaze of glory couldn't
1:16:04
have happened to a better team, but like in that exact scenario, if you simulate that
1:16:09
game a hundred times, it goes the way it went, somewhere between zero and one times, but the
1:16:15
game was played.
1:16:16
Right.
1:16:17
And so I feel like in that situation, people will accept in my analogy to stretch it out
1:16:22
a little bit further, they're either accepting their position as NIU that, Hey, I need a miracle
1:16:27
here.
1:16:28
That's only going to happen once in a generation, or they're going to accept the Notre Dame
1:16:30
thing to where like, this isn't an anomaly, it couldn't have possibly happened.
1:16:33
And it's like, dude, you, you're not fighting the enemy appropriately because you're not
1:16:38
even, you know, viewing him correctly.
1:16:41
I, there's a, there's a podcast by a guy that used to be a pastor.
1:16:45
He was really famous.
1:16:46
And then he was disqualified by the way, I do refuse to use the word disgraced because
1:16:51
that brother needs grace is more than any of us as much as any of us.
1:16:54
So I hate that word disgraced, but disqualified for sure.
1:16:57
Cause there are qualifications of the elder in the Bible and he is, he's disqualified.
1:17:00
Anyway, he's got this brand new podcast out.
1:17:02
It's very popular because he's real hip and all this stuff.
1:17:05
And there's a lot more psychology than theology in it.
1:17:08
And he was, I mean, oh boy, he really set people up to lose the other day.
1:17:13
And he said, started good.
1:17:15
Who do you think you are to think the devil is attacking you?
1:17:18
Do the devil ain't attacking you, like I think he would look at my daughter's car wreck and
1:17:23
be like, the only reason that happened is cause the person driving the other car wasn't paying
1:17:27
attention and ran the red light, bro, you were setting everybody else up to be sucker
1:17:32
punched.
1:17:33
If you don't realize that we have an enemy that only wants to steal, kill and destroy.
1:17:38
And Satan himself got a third of the angels to follow him in Ephesians six list like rankings
1:17:45
of demonic order that worked for him.
1:17:48
So it may not have been Satan himself focused on me via Reagan at beach and Hodges last
1:17:55
week, but for sure, in the original creation, there were no car wrecks.
1:18:00
There was no pain.
1:18:01
There was no hurt.
1:18:02
There was none of that.
1:18:03
So this is at least collateral damage of the, of the fall of mankind.
1:18:09
And for sure, the Bible talks about myriads and myriads of angels circling the throne.
1:18:14
Okay, that's like hundreds of millions upon hundreds of millions.
1:18:18
So if a third of those are now working for the devil, you don't think there's one trying
1:18:22
to take you out?
1:18:23
I'm just telling you, here's what it reminds me of.
1:18:27
Dear season in Georgia and Florida opens Saturday the 14th.
1:18:31
I will be in a tree with my bow trying to stick a good boat.
1:18:34
I've got one of two that I'm, I'm trying to shoot.
1:18:37
I always think it's kind of funny that we call it a sport.
1:18:40
I'm pro it.
1:18:42
The problem is half the team doesn't know we're playing.
1:18:46
So guess who always wins?
1:18:47
I don't always get one, but they don't ever get me because they don't know that the bell
1:18:51
has rung and I'm sitting up there trying to kill him half more than half the church doesn't
1:18:56
realize that there is an apex predator called Satan Lucifer and he only wants to kill stealing
1:19:03
destroy you.
1:19:04
So you should be prepared and you should fight and you should not fight alone.
1:19:08
You should link your shields of faith with some other brothers and go to war cause he's
1:19:13
trying to kill you.
1:19:14
He's not just trying to get you to stumble.
1:19:15
He's not just trying to get you to hiccup.
1:19:17
He's not just trying to get you to take your eyes off the ball.
1:19:20
My friend Charles says he is trying to tear your head off of your shoulders and put it
1:19:25
on a platter and then brag about it.
1:19:27
And if he can get you to do it yourself even better because he's, he's the ultimate counterfeiter.
1:19:32
Right.
1:19:33
So everything he, God creates Satan counterfeits.
1:19:36
So if he can get you to deposit the counterfeit bills into your account, then he doesn't have
1:19:39
to expend as much effort.
1:19:41
And so one of those, one of those things is, I forget where, where it was in a, in Ezekiel,
1:19:45
but it talked about how God is surrounded by, by angels and rainbows and things like that.
1:19:50
Well, the rainbow has seven stripes.
1:19:52
Yeah.
1:19:53
Roy G. Biv.
1:19:54
That's seven stripes.
1:19:55
How many stripes does the pride flag have it has six, but it looks like a rainbow, but
1:20:00
it's not.
1:20:01
And so if you were Satan and you wanted to counterfeit God's promise that he made the
1:20:05
humanity that I won't kill all you guys again for being, you know, numb skulls.
1:20:09
I won't flood the earth again.
1:20:10
The counterfeit is, I want to surround myself with this flag, with this version of the rainbow.
1:20:16
And the problem is, is when you have Christians individually, pastors, mackerelie, and then
1:20:21
also entire denominations depositing those bills into their own accounts.
1:20:26
Like you are literally doing the bidding of Satan and you're, you're putting it, you're
1:20:32
using verbiage that says, no, actually I'm virtuous and I'm loving in this moment.
1:20:36
So you're dying.
1:20:37
Those churches are not churches.
1:20:39
They're synagogues of Satan.
1:20:41
And so what's crazy, man, I mean, I'm 51.
1:20:43
I've been doing this for 31 years or 32 years now in full time ministry.
1:20:47
And so dude, the, the Satanism I were in our world is more and more overt.
1:20:53
Oh, yeah.
1:20:54
It's just right down the open.
1:20:55
I mean, bearded men and dresses mocking the last supper, you know, you can't even watch
1:21:02
not.
1:21:03
I don't watch award shows.
1:21:04
I just watched the backlash of them afterwards because it makes the news in time and you got
1:21:09
Taylor Swift.
1:21:10
Who the, I mean, who do she's just some little country girl that sings little poppy songs
1:21:13
and she's doing satanic rituals in her shows?
1:21:15
Yeah.
1:21:16
I mean, what do we, it is, it is, I, and I honestly think I think Satan is overplaying
1:21:21
his hand because what you see now is you see a whole, you really do see this swing, what?
1:21:27
Like maybe 10 years ago, the four horsemen of atheism were all the rage.
1:21:30
Oh, yeah.
1:21:31
Now everybody thinks they're dumb and, and whether people are actually submitted and
1:21:34
surrendered to the lordship of Christ or not, you got a whole bunch of really popular people
1:21:37
claiming to read their Bible every day and claiming Jesus Christ, you know.
1:21:42
And so we are at war.
1:21:45
Well they, in these moments, you realize at some point that your feet were planted firmly
1:21:50
in mid-air.
1:21:51
Yeah.
1:21:52
And so you read the God delusion and you pull out five or six little quips that you can
1:21:56
throw into, you know, an argument or something like that and you're like, that's my worldview.
1:22:01
That's my philosophy.
1:22:02
And then one day you realize, oh wait, there's, there is nothing here that there's, there's
1:22:06
nothing here that substantiates itself until you get back to scripture.
1:22:09
And so as we work to a close, cause you know, we got, we got more stuff we got to do today.
1:22:14
Obviously we're doing this before you deliver the sermon, but by the time guys are hearing
1:22:17
this, it'll be after you've delivered your sermon.
1:22:19
So guys, if you're listening to this part, go back and listen to Joby's latest sermon
1:22:23
as he wraps up saturated.
1:22:25
But talk about the sermon that you're going to deliver because you don't know exactly
1:22:29
what the, the four guests are going to be coming in, in preaching about specifically.
1:22:33
But this is technically week one of your sermon series.
1:22:36
That's kind of going through, you know, run over by the grace train.
1:22:39
What is the cord you're trying to strike with the congregation, with the people that
1:22:43
wound up taking in message from week one?
1:22:45
So week one is Ephesians two, we're just laying out the gospel.
1:22:48
The diagnosis and the cure, that's it.
1:22:52
And a lot of people in our culture, and you know, you, you laugh at this all the time.
1:22:57
We'll think that the role of the pastors that make everybody just feel good, but I'm supposed
1:23:01
to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
1:23:03
Yeah.
1:23:04
And so Ephesians two begins with the diagnosis that you're not bad.
1:23:07
You're dead in your trespasses, but God being rich in mercy with, because he is loved,
1:23:12
loved us.
1:23:13
And it's by grace that we have been saved.
1:23:14
And so we're going to preach the gospel and ask people to surrender their life to lordship
1:23:18
Christ.
1:23:20
The, for the next however long it is, nine or 10 weeks this series, we are going to walk
1:23:25
through the chapters of this book.
1:23:27
And again, the first two weeks, we just established what grace is, who grace is.
1:23:31
See, grace has a face.
1:23:33
Grace is not a concept.
1:23:34
Grace is named Jesus.
1:23:36
And for sure, he comes full of grace and truth.
1:23:38
And then every other week is how grace changes everything.
1:23:42
The whole premise of the book is the reason I call it run over by the grace train is if
1:23:47
you got run over, if you came late to church and I was like, Hey man, where you been?
1:23:51
And you said, I got hit by a freight train.
1:23:53
I'm like, I don't think he did because your hat's still on.
1:23:55
You're not bleeding.
1:23:56
Your shirt isn't even wrinkled.
1:23:59
And yet there's so many people in church that say, I know Jesus and there's, you haven't
1:24:03
changed.
1:24:04
There's nothing.
1:24:05
God hasn't changed one thing in your life.
1:24:07
And the power of the grace is infinitely greater than a freight train.
1:24:10
Now, I'm not saying we check all the sanctification boxes in the same order, but Spurgeon says,
1:24:15
the grace that does not transform you won't save you.
1:24:18
This is the anti cheap grace book.
1:24:21
And so we need it.
1:24:22
We don't ever graduate from it.
1:24:23
We need to constantly revolve around it.
1:24:26
There'll be a week on forgiveness, one of the most misunderstood things.
1:24:29
There's a week on anger.
1:24:31
You and I both commiserated and how far we have to go.
1:24:34
Yeah, guys, just skip that chapter.
1:24:35
You don't need that one.
1:24:37
Honestly, if you listen to the conversation about the book, me and you talking about anger
1:24:44
is a really good snippet of what it looks like for two men that love Jesus and want
1:24:48
to look more like him to just not put on the fake face.
1:24:53
And we're like, I used to have anger issues.
1:24:54
You ever noticed every Christian used to struggle?
1:24:56
Yeah.
1:24:57
And I'm telling you, man, Christians don't even sin anymore.
1:24:59
They just struggle.
1:25:00
Just struggle.
1:25:01
Bruh, that's a sin.
1:25:02
Okay.
1:25:03
So anyway, so that's what we're doing, man.
1:25:04
Interesting what grace is by Ephesians 2, Romans 3, and then the rest every week for
1:25:08
the next nine weeks is how grace changes everything.
1:25:11
Well, man, I'm looking forward to it now.
1:25:14
I didn't mention it, but I am wearing my official limited edition, sorry, Joby shirt, but we've
1:25:19
been talking for about 90 minutes.
1:25:21
Did I say anything that you're going to have to talk to me about later and then I'm going
1:25:23
to have to say sorry, Joby, or can the shirt just speak for itself?
1:25:26
Not a thing, man.
1:25:27
Not a thing.
1:25:28
It's just an accountability.
1:25:29
Have you been wearing your sorry, Joby shirt?
1:25:31
I know it fits really good.
1:25:32
I don't know.
1:25:33
In fact, I talk to our people in between two, we need to start doing our shirts from whoever
1:25:37
you get yours from, because the two, whatever, the Fourth of July one, the Patriot skeleton
1:25:45
one, oh, I love it.
1:25:46
And then the one with the big lion on it, they just fit perfect.
1:25:49
Well, that's a problem when you have small people pick out your hats and your shirts and
1:25:53
stuff like that.
1:25:54
You need normal-sized people, then you need some Shrek-sized people, then you get together
1:25:57
and figure out something that's in the middle, but man, I'm excited to be here.
1:26:00
Thanks for having me.
1:26:01
Yeah, but I appreciate you.
1:26:02
Thanks.
1:26:03
Thank you for listening to this podcast.
1:26:04
Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate, and leave us a positive five-star
1:26:08
review.
1:26:09
If you want me to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, just shoot me an email
1:26:12
to info@undonton.life.
1:26:14
That's I-N-F-O @undonton.life.
1:26:17
Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook and check out our website for everything else,
1:26:20
including how to donate to keep more content like this coming your way.
1:26:22
Just go to www.undonton.life.
1:26:24
And as always, we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing us to use their music for
1:26:28
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1:26:29
Many music on this podcast is our song Perpetua, which is off their self-titled debut album
1:26:33
on Face Down Records.
1:26:34
The links are in the description.
1:26:36
I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
1:26:38
Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical resilience.
1:26:45
Keep seeking the lion of Judah.
1:26:59
[music]