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1:18
This is Undaunted Life of Man's Podcast.
1:22
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
1:24
Let's get into it.
1:25
Welcome back to The Forging Table.
1:26
The mission of Undaunted Life is equipping men to push back darkness with content that
1:29
forges spiritual, mental, and physical resilience.
1:32
At The Forging Table, you'll see a group of regular guys forging spiritual resilience
1:34
by digging into God's Word and we're welcoming all of you to come along on that journey with
1:37
us.
1:38
We got OG Ryan here and then on your...
1:39
I guess this is your sophomore journey here, so no sophomore slump.
1:43
We've got Donnie and Howard, but we need to address the elephant in the room, okay?
1:49
I'm not wearing socks.
1:50
No, it's not about the socks.
1:51
Guys, go back to last week.
1:52
One of the dumbest things I've ever seen or heard my entire life went down last week,
1:56
so you guys can check that out, butt, butt, butt, butt.
1:59
The three of you guys spend a lot of your free time doing something that I find to be just
2:04
anathema and terrible, all three of y'all golf.
2:08
Here's the thing.
2:09
I used to golf, right?
2:10
Because in college, I was convinced by people with low discernment that if I didn't golf
2:15
and if I wasn't good at golf, that I would never close the deal.
2:18
The deals were only closed on the 18th green and all that type of stuff, and so I just
2:22
spent all this time on the golf course, man, every time by like the sixth or seventh hole,
2:26
I was like, "Gosh, are we still here?
2:28
Is this still happening?
2:29
It's just slow and the ball never moves and there's no one to chase or choke," and it's
2:33
just like, "Ugh," and then one day I just kind of stopped doing it and I've kind of
2:37
floated more towards the jujitsu, the hunting, all that type of thing, and I kind of realized
2:41
you don't need to know how to golf in order to be successful in business and all those
2:44
types of things.
2:46
But I've just had this growing disdain for golf and the amount of time it takes and
2:50
the amount of friends that I have that do it so often.
2:53
So what's wrong with me, I guess?
2:55
So like if I were on y'all's, if I was on your couch as a client or something like that,
3:00
let's use the, "I'm what's wrong with you and let's keep it just to golf.
3:03
Let's not just go."
3:04
No, no, no.
3:05
Let's not go into all the time.
3:06
Yeah, I'll go ahead and start the timer, but I don't get it.
3:09
What am I missing?
3:10
Okay, I'm going to tell you.
3:11
Here's your problem with it.
3:12
Okay.
3:13
Hit it.
3:14
You want to be excellent at everything, right?
3:15
Right.
3:16
You want to be a killer.
3:17
Of course.
3:18
You can't kill the golf ball.
3:19
Why not?
3:20
And you can't expect to be a pro when you've not put time into it and effort and all of
3:25
the stuff.
3:26
That's the problem with most golfers.
3:28
They try to be this perfect golfer and they haven't put the time, the effort, the energy
3:32
into it.
3:33
So last week I played with a guy and he, on 13, he snapped his three wood on purpose.
3:39
And on 17, he threw a club pretty far, got some good height, good distance.
3:46
And I think sometimes, and I play with him a lot and a lot of times he recognizes, just
3:50
a bunch of boys hanging out, outside, out beautiful terrain, a gorgeous day, just laughing
3:57
and having a good time, having a scar.
3:59
And then sometimes he forgets that and it's all about being excellent and you really can't.
4:04
You have one day of a good shot and the next day you won't?
4:07
Ryan, those are, those are pretty good guesses.
4:09
I think.
4:10
I'm just, I like, why do I like golf?
4:13
Yeah.
4:14
No, I know.
4:15
It's like, what's style?
4:16
Yeah, let's talk about that.
4:18
So your biggest argument against you, Jitsu, is I don't want a guy to sweat on me.
4:22
And here's the problem.
4:23
I don't want a sweaty, hairy thigh in my neck and face.
4:26
Okay.
4:27
And here's the thing.
4:28
Me neither.
4:29
But if you choose to train and allow that sweaty, nasty man thigh to wrap around your,
4:36
your head and, you know, triangle choke, you, the thing is, is if that were to happen in
4:40
real life, you're not experiencing that for the first time.
4:43
How long have you been doing it, Jitsu?
4:45
Seven and a half years.
4:46
When have you wrapped your leg around a guy's neck when you needed to other than practicing
4:50
Jitsu?
4:51
Here's the thing is when that moment arises, I will rise to the occasion.
4:56
Do you remember that?
4:57
Do you remember that?
4:58
I will fall to the level of my non-training.
4:59
What Howard?
5:00
Do you remember that scene in Indiana Jones when the guy gets the swords out and he's like,
5:04
looking at it around and all that, and he just pulls out his gun and shoots him.
5:06
Yeah.
5:07
So what if you get in a fight in an airport?
5:10
Don't go to the airport, I guess.
5:11
What if you get in a fight at a federal building?
5:13
What if you are flying somewhere and you don't travel with your pistol?
5:16
Now you're in Wherever'sville, Ohio doing something, something, such and such and with
5:19
whatever.
5:20
Now what?
5:21
Oh, you're on a golf course or you can see will carry in whenever you're trying.
5:23
Hey, I got a golf club.
5:24
Yeah.
5:25
He's got a nine.
5:26
Don't mess with him.
5:27
He's got a nine iron.
5:28
And that's what you're going to be worried about in that moment.
5:30
Some guys trying to attack you.
5:31
You want to travel for like the last 20 years for business.
5:35
And I have never had to wrap my sweaty thigh around some dudes neck.
5:40
That's the exact thing.
5:42
Let's look at all the time.
5:43
Something rotten.
5:44
Didn't happen.
5:45
And let's just say that's exactly how the rest of our life is going to work out.
5:48
It didn't happen for all these days.
5:49
So it can't happen for the rest of our practice golf to get birdies and I've gotten three.
5:53
So boom.
5:55
So you got three birdies.
5:56
Three birdies.
5:57
You've had zero fights.
5:58
In the words, in the words of the, the amazing philosopher Justin Gaichy, if one man can
6:04
hold you down, two can rape you.
6:07
I'm just saying, Ryan, you would be easy to hold down.
6:09
That's all I'm going to say.
6:10
I know, man.
6:11
I'm pretty heavy.
6:12
Even easier to hold down.
6:13
Gravity helps.
6:14
I just stay on my back.
6:15
All right.
6:16
This just got weird.
6:17
No.
6:18
Well, here's the thing.
6:19
I in Howard, you were asking earlier before we started recording, like what would it take
6:23
to get me on a golf course?
6:24
I'm not like anti going to a golf course, but if I'm going to spend like four or five
6:28
hours of my, of my life that I can't get back doing something so miserable, there's got
6:34
to be like, you know, a kid that's, you know, got cancer or something like that, and I need
6:37
to go play golf to make sure that, you know, kid can kind of raise the money or the widow
6:41
or something like that.
6:42
Yeah.
6:43
I'll do that.
6:44
How many hours did you walk looking for elk?
6:45
How many hours did I walk?
6:46
Yeah.
6:47
I did a whole lot more staring at the empty landscape than I did walking, but I came back
6:50
with with nothing.
6:52
Nothing.
6:53
Sorry.
6:54
You walk just a little bit on it.
6:55
Right.
6:56
So you could have helped that kid with cancer, by the way, you know, it's funny about that
6:59
is I actually thought about that exact scenario when I was out hunting because I was like,
7:03
because if you go to the golf course to golf, you know what happens?
7:07
You golf like unless there's an asteroid strike or something like that, you go in golf.
7:11
But like, I'm not a journey person.
7:13
I'm a destination person.
7:14
And so, uh, went on a hunting trip recently, didn't come home with any meat.
7:18
And then I was telling somebody, if someone in our Sunday school, one of the gals and
7:21
she just goes, oh, but did you have fun just out there and they try to go, no, no, and
7:25
she just looks at me and her little sweet countenance and I'm just like, here's the
7:29
thing.
7:30
I'm a destination person.
7:31
Okay.
7:32
I didn't go out there to sight see.
7:33
Went out there to shoot an animal, dragging back to my house and then eat them slowly.
7:35
So that's what I want.
7:36
Here's the thing about golf.
7:37
You have a lot of little, little wins, right?
7:40
Yeah.
7:41
You may have a bad round, but if you got two or three birdies, but yeah, that tops it like
7:45
you're excited.
7:46
Well, I'm like Kyle, I liked it.
7:47
I liked to catch.
7:48
I don't like to fish.
7:49
Mm hmm.
7:50
If I'm not catching anything, I don't like to be right now.
7:52
So I got you.
7:53
So in golf, what does that mean?
7:54
So like, if you go out there and you don't shoot well, you wish you would add a, what
7:57
does it mean?
7:58
Well, the thing, but you break it down.
7:59
So if you had one hole that was phenomenal, you had a birdie and then a bunch of bogeys,
8:04
your birdies will keep you coming back.
8:05
You hit a perfect drive and you hit five bad ones, you're going back for the perfect
8:09
drive.
8:10
So it's that little thing that keeps you going back.
8:12
And I beat my brother almost every time.
8:13
So it keeps me coming back.
8:14
No, that's a good one.
8:15
Yeah.
8:16
Okay.
8:17
So I think what we're all saying is that at some point in your life, you're just going
8:19
to have to wrap your sweaty leg around another man and try to show him.
8:22
I think that is ultimately the takeaway that we need to go on with this.
8:25
When that happened to me, I'd come back from Sunday nights and my wife would be like,
8:29
did you have fun?
8:30
I'm like, no, I didn't have any fun.
8:31
I'm whipped.
8:32
This is what I think.
8:33
I think needs to happen.
8:34
I had a sweaty leg wrapped around my face.
8:37
Right.
8:38
Right.
8:39
Right.
8:40
So crap.
8:41
One of the greatest fighters of all time.
8:42
Hickson Grace.
8:43
Everybody knows about hois.
8:44
Hois won the first couple of UFCs and all that.
8:45
And so he was a small, wiry jiu-jitsu guy that ended up beating all these big fighters.
8:49
But the Gracie family champion, the greatest Gracie fighter of all time was not hois.
8:54
It was Hickson.
8:55
And so the thing with Hickson is when you're training, he's training with all his brothers
8:59
and cousins and his dads there, like the inventors of Brazilian jiu-jitsu are there
9:03
watching.
9:04
And he had this circumstance happen.
9:06
I think it was when he was at Brownbelt or maybe it just got his black belt or something.
9:09
He tapped to discomfort.
9:11
And so people will talk about tapping to pressure.
9:13
So there are submissions where you're being choked and you're losing consciousness or
9:16
you're getting a limb that's twisted and could break or something like that.
9:21
But pressure is where you're not in a situation where you should be tapping.
9:25
You're just uncomfortable, right?
9:27
And Hickson in front of his family, he tapped to discomfort and he basically tapped to claustrophobia,
9:33
right?
9:34
And so in order to counteract this, and I think he's a teenager at the time, he told
9:39
either his brother or his cousin, I can't remember to wrap him up in the rug of the living room
9:45
and to stick him behind the couch.
9:47
And no matter what he said and no matter how much he pled to leave him there, I think it
9:51
was for 15 minutes or something like that, to where he could figure out how to like calm
9:56
himself and like get into the thing is he wrapped him up in it.
10:00
He is claustrophobic.
10:01
It's the family living room rug.
10:03
And so he's like this stinks and it's just whatever and he's screaming, let me out.
10:07
Let me out.
10:08
Let me out.
10:09
But his cousin or brother was like, no, no, I'm not going to do it.
10:11
But he found himself able to calm himself down to slow his brain down a little bit.
10:16
And then I think he did that two or three more times over the over the next weeks or
10:19
whatever, just kind of inoculate himself to that negative condition so that his brain
10:23
would respond in the right way the next time he felt the stimulus of being claustrophobic.
10:28
So I say that to say Ryan, all we need to do is for the next like four or five years,
10:36
every day, I'm just going to wrap my sweaty leg around your neck and I'm going to squeeze
10:41
and guess what?
10:42
But the first time it's going to be really terrible.
10:43
Second time, it's probably not going to be nearly as fun.
10:46
But guess what?
10:47
By that third, fourth, fifth time in a row, you're just going to be like, ah, no biggie,
10:50
no big deal.
10:51
So that if that fight does find your doorstep, if that wolf does show up at your home and
10:55
he decides to throw a flying triangle, you're prepared for that moment, like you're like
10:59
going to break into my house on purpose.
11:01
Right.
11:02
I have thought about it, would it be easier if you let him, he gets picked the Kelowna
11:07
uses white?
11:08
Dude, if you, if you like wore a cologne and sprayed it, I might, I might be down.
11:14
That's it?
11:15
Down.
11:16
Yeah, that's all.
11:17
I just have a deal.
11:18
I freaking hate deal.
11:19
It's not a deal.
11:21
I know.
11:22
You just shook on it.
11:23
You just shook on it.
11:24
Everyone saw it.
11:25
It was a deal, right?
11:26
Donnie saw it.
11:27
Howard saw it.
11:28
Did you all see it?
11:29
Yeah, they saw it too.
11:30
So you're in.
11:31
No, no, no, no.
11:32
What?
11:33
You were cloned and then Chandler's got to come down and hang out with that.
11:36
No, no, no, no.
11:37
We've already shaken on this whole thing.
11:38
No, no, no.
11:39
We've already.
11:40
He's backing out.
11:41
No.
11:42
We're not backing out.
11:43
Chandler's got to come.
11:44
Chandler's got to come.
11:45
No, here's the best part of what I, what you just agreed to as well.
11:47
You didn't even specify the cologne.
11:49
So I'm going to wear like some wax bodies.
11:52
I'm going to go to a gas station.
11:54
I was going to ask you what you wanted him to wear when he's wrapping his arms, right?
11:57
He just put his hand out there.
11:59
I felt bad.
12:00
I didn't believe him hanging.
12:01
That's too bad.
12:01
That's what you thought about that.
12:02
I'm going to go to a gas station on the south side of Oklahoma City and put a 20, 25 cents
12:07
in a thing.
12:08
And it's one of those like gas station perfume things.
12:09
I'm going to find like the freaking girliest perfume.
12:13
That's right.
12:14
Spray you down with it.
12:15
I'll lick it off you.
12:16
Grab before you go.
12:17
No, this is good.
12:18
This is great.
12:19
This is one of the best things that's ever happened on the 14th day with you agreed to
12:22
do.
12:23
You just do all you have to do is wear a cologne.
12:24
Guys.
12:25
The night before I'll bring all the whiskey.
12:27
I'll tell you what.
12:28
Yeah.
12:29
Well, that was an exciting 10 minutes of our lives.
12:31
I guess at this point, we should go ahead and get into acts 26.
12:34
There's a lot of fun.
12:35
This is a long chapter.
12:36
We'll go ahead and get in.
12:37
Sorry, guys.
12:38
I just thought we'd have a little bit of fun there at the beginning.
12:39
But Ryan, even, I mean, you fresh off one of the best negotiations you've ever had in
12:43
your entire life.
12:44
How about you go ahead and lead us with the first 11 verses of acts 26?
12:52
So, a group has said to Paul, you have permission to speak for yourself.
12:57
Then Paul stretched out his hand and made his defense.
12:59
I consider myself fortunate that it is before you, King Agrippa, that I'm going to make
13:05
my defense today against all the accusations of the Jews, especially because you are familiar
13:09
with the customs and controversies of the Jews.
13:12
Therefore, I beg you to listen to me patiently.
13:15
My man or a life from youth spent from the beginning, among my own nation and in Jerusalem,
13:20
is known by all the Jews.
13:22
They have known for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that according to the
13:26
strictest party of religion, I have lived as a Pharisee.
13:30
And now I stand here on trial because of my hope and the promise made by God to our fathers,
13:36
to which our 12 tribes hope to attain as they earnestly worshiped night and day.
13:42
And for those I hope, and for this hope, I am accused by the Jews, O King.
13:48
Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead?
13:54
I, myself, was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus
14:00
and Nazareth, and I did so in Jerusalem.
14:04
I not only locked up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority from the
14:09
chief priests, but when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them.
14:14
And I punished them often in all synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme and in raging
14:20
fury against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities.
14:27
Let's go ahead.
14:28
Let's read this next section, Ryan, because I think we'll be able to discuss it.
14:30
Let's go and do 12 through 18, and then we'll kind of discuss this because this is all kind
14:35
of.
14:36
Actually, no, let's pause.
14:37
No, it's cool.
14:38
No, no, no.
14:39
It has nothing to do with that.
14:40
Let me actually, let's go back.
14:41
So let's just look at this first section here.
14:42
So we see Paul kind of making, he's kind of like stacking his arguments, right?
14:47
And he's using himself as kind of like the center point.
14:49
So versus four through eight, we have Paul the strict Pharisee.
14:53
So he's basically like, look, I was a Pharisee of Pharisees.
14:56
Then nine through 11, we have Paul, you know, the fanatical prosecutor, a persecutor of
15:02
the Christians.
15:03
And we'll get to that here in a second, but we're going to get into basically Paul the
15:06
commission to puzzle.
15:07
I didn't want to read one thing real quick here before we dig into Paul's defense.
15:10
This is from RB, RB rockum, I believe it is RB rockum.
15:15
He pointed out something that was interesting about kind of everything that's happening
15:18
here again, we kind of get into the historicity of what's going on here.
15:21
You have Herod the Great that tried to kill baby Jesus.
15:25
You had his son, Antipas, beheading John the Baptist.
15:29
And then his grandson, a grip of the first killed James, the son of Zebedee.
15:33
And now we have Paul before the great grandson, a grip of the second.
15:37
And so we have all of these important men.
15:40
And there's this one line of Roman ruler that is having this direct impact on these
15:46
individuals.
15:47
So again, that's, that's part of the reason why I wanted us to go from Matthew, take a
15:51
little bit of a break and then get right into acts because this is all roughly happening
15:55
in the same period of time.
15:57
And so it just helps whenever you can have somebody put it into, you know, a paragraph
16:01
to be like, Hey, this is how this is all connected.
16:03
I had a note here.
16:05
It said, you know, when Paul says listen patiently in verse four, I like the fact that he wasn't
16:11
there for exoneration.
16:12
He was there for conversion.
16:14
He was there for a purpose.
16:16
He wasn't trying to state his case so that he would be free.
16:19
He said, listen patiently, because I really want to give you the gospel.
16:22
And I just love that that Paul has one dimensional thinking here.
16:26
Yeah.
16:27
I think when I was looking at that too, I'm thinking to myself, like, you know, if you,
16:30
if you pull back to about 10,000 foot, it's like, is Paul afraid, you know, as he worried
16:37
about his life, is he, is he defending himself for that?
16:40
No, he is truly like, I've got this opportunity to, to talk to these people, to convert to
16:45
them.
16:46
And so I just thought that was, you, you come from a different position when you're not
16:50
in fear.
16:51
Right.
16:52
This is an opportunity for him, you know, every time he's in front of somebody, he gives
16:55
his testimony.
16:56
Mm hmm.
16:57
And it's not about him.
16:58
It's always about God, you know, and like that, I think, uh, you know, once Sunday, our,
17:04
our pastor was up and he was talking about, you know, how we can kind of make more of
17:09
ourselves than we need to.
17:10
I think we're in the Exodus series right now and he talked about how Moses was making
17:14
it all about him.
17:16
And it's not about him.
17:17
It's about God.
17:18
And I think it's kind of funny when we're reading the Bible as men and we're, and we're
17:21
going through and we're discussing this, how much do we make this about us or how much
17:24
do we make it actually about God?
17:26
And if you notice Paul in his defense is always a testimony about God and he's always
17:31
looking for another opportunity, another audience, whether big or small, important or not,
17:38
societally, to, to share the gospel.
17:40
And so this brings up a couple of things.
17:42
So a few months ago, as I talked about on the show, we all lost a friend and Zach Foster.
17:46
And one of the things about Zach Foster is he always shared his testimony.
17:51
Dude, he did.
17:52
Anytime he could.
17:53
I said on the show, this was on my Brown Belt episode.
17:55
I started by talking about Foster where he just, he was annoying about Jesus and I mean
18:00
that as a compliment, like he found every opportunity, whether it was someone just bringing
18:05
him his coffee or someone that he was, you know, helping him on with a project to bring
18:09
a conversation back to Jesus and guys, he became a Christian in his thirties, right?
18:13
And so Zach Todd, who you guys know from the Forging Table and things like that, you know,
18:17
a lot of us have talked about the fact that he became a Christian in his thirties, you
18:20
know, after his career gotten going, all this kind of stuff.
18:23
Zach Foster became a Christian after Zach Todd did, right?
18:26
So like the same time, yeah, so like Zach Foster wasn't a Christian yet, but Zach Todd
18:31
had just become a Christian.
18:32
Zach Todd is asking, you know, Foster to come with him to like these men's events and
18:36
Foster's like, ah, that's not really my scene. And then you fast forward just a few years
18:40
and he is going to every kid's camp. He's helping set up audio visual stuff. He's part
18:45
of the ministry in the church. That's like, you know, taking care of the widows, you know,
18:49
their homes and different things like that. He's volunteering a kid, you know, with the
18:53
kids program and things like that. And so he goes from none of that to all of that in
18:57
a short period. It's because Christ got a hold of his life.
18:59
And Zach tells an amazing story about Zach. So I want to start using Zach Todd. Yeah,
19:03
yeah, Todd starts saying like tells an amazing story about Foster. So Foster, I knew Foster
19:08
from high school. I was a, I was a year older. We kind of ran in the same groups, but we
19:13
weren't super close like he and Todd were. But Zach was, or Zach Todd was going to one
19:20
of those events and he invited Foster to the event and they were sitting in the car. And
19:25
if he knows Zach Foster now, most people who are listening would know Zach Foster now.
19:31
He goes, he goes, man, these Christians are always so happy. I don't understand it. You
19:36
know, and like, it was like, it's just funny to hear that that came out of his mouth because
19:41
if you saw him after his conversion to Christianity, he was the happiest. It was the happiest person
19:46
I've ever seen in my life. Like I was like, at least bit forced either.
19:50
No, it wasn't forced. You just had this. I'm like, the love that he had and like the care
19:55
that he had is just something to aspire to. And knowing him, you knew him in college.
20:01
I knew him in high school. Like you would think he was the last person to be loving and
20:05
and all that. And he was just the most lovable guy. And like, it was a true, true loss for
20:11
our church community and for our friends, our friend group or forging table. Because he
20:16
was a, we were talking about last week, these two new guys on there. I was on the episode
20:19
with him and I think it was Russell Moore. Yeah. Yeah. And they worked together. Yeah.
20:23
And so yeah. So testimony is kind of a big thing. And I know we talked about last week
20:29
about the gospel. And it's just like, it took me a while to learn what it was.
20:33
Let's actually go into that. So guys, if you listen to last week, I put a pin in that.
20:37
But one of the things that we were saying, because anytime someone comes on the show for
20:39
the first time, they have to answer the same three questions. How did you become a Christian?
20:43
How do you like study the Bible? How does your mind work? And Ryan, we had you since
20:46
you did that like two years ago, we had you kind of refresh everybody on that. You talked
20:51
about how you had an understanding of kind of like the elements of the gospel. But if
20:56
someone asked you, what is the gospel that you couldn't really explain it in its totality?
20:59
And I don't mean using all the theological language and all the stuff that could potentially
21:03
confuse people. You just didn't know the gospel. And it actually reminded me of when people
21:08
believe, so they believe that the resurrection, resurrection happened, but they don't believe
21:15
in the resurrection. So they don't believe. So Jordan Peterson was put to a point where
21:19
this secular person was like, hey, if there was a monitor at the mouth of Joseph of Arimathea's
21:26
tomb, three days after Jesus was put in there, what would we see on the monitor? And he goes,
21:30
I would presume we would see Jesus of Nazareth walk out. And so Jordan Peterson believes that
21:35
Jesus Christ rose from the dead, but he doesn't believe in that for himself. And so it was
21:40
almost like that. So I do want to have a bigger discussion about kind of like, what is the
21:43
gospel and how are the elements therein?
21:45
I think it comes down to, you know, if you grew up in like the, what do you call it, the
21:50
Christianese type of aspect is Jesus died on the cross for my sins. That's what the gospel
21:55
is. Yeah. And it's like, well, why did he die? Like somebody asked me, they're like,
21:58
why did he die on the cross for you? And I was like, I don't know, because God said
22:02
him to do that. Well, why? Why would he need to die on the cross for you? You know, you're
22:07
a good person. Like, yeah, I am a good person. You know, like I do good things. And it really
22:14
made me think. And I was, and I had to come to the conclusion like, yeah, I may do good
22:17
deeds here and here and there, but I'm a selfish person. I'm, I'm, I'm not a good person. And
22:24
when you start reading the Bible, and you start looking at the, if you start looking
22:28
at God and God's moral law, like the moral law isn't there to beat you over the head.
22:34
The moral law is there to be a mirror to show you why you need Christ and why he had to
22:39
die for you. Because if I could go and do all these good deeds and still stand before
22:46
a Justin holy God, and I would still be in sin, because even if my good deeds, I weigh
22:52
my bad deeds, I still have bad deeds. And so I had to look at Christ more than just this
22:58
figure who just died on the cross. And like, I think once you figure out your depravity,
23:03
and you figure out that you're, you're not the good person that you think you are, and
23:09
that there is somebody out there better than you, and he walked this earth, and then he
23:13
died for you. I think it adds a little bit more to, to the gospel and why, why God's
23:20
love is so infinite.
23:21
Well, I think the thing is too, it's like so many times we compare ourselves to others,
23:25
right? We're not comparing ourselves to an infinite God. And when we put ourselves in
23:29
comparing to him, we see how depraved we truly are.
23:32
But then if we, if we look at an infinite God that we look at, we try to make him more
23:37
like us. And when we make him more like us, he doesn't seem that harsh. You know, we
23:42
don't think that it needs to be, you know, like, there, there isn't the beauty of, of
23:47
who God is and all of his majesty and all of his holiness. We kind of degradate his
23:51
holiness when we put ourselves up there next door.
23:54
Yeah, what do we see in the reflection, right? When we look at our reflection, what do we
23:58
see? That has a lot to do with whether we need a savior. And then when we look at God,
24:02
I think a wonderful question I like to ask my clients is, when you look at God, what do
24:06
you see? What, what, what is your vision? And love, that's how we grew up. And yeah,
24:11
and that, that form of a father figure sometimes has a lot of related factors to that. But
24:15
what do we see? Do we see a perfect loving, but also just God that can be both loving
24:21
and both powerful and, and give us consequences for sins? Or do we see this daddy that is
24:27
always going to be good for us or this horrible, you know, once I sin, he's going to beat
24:30
me up. You know, what do we see in the reflection? How do we see ourselves? But then how do we
24:34
see God? Well, and also there are people that don't think they have a syndet. And so they
24:37
don't think, you know, because perpetuation, you know, it's payment that satisfies, you
24:41
know, we, we need to, we have a lot, there are a lot of people that don't have a syndet.
24:44
I remember Ryan, we were having a discussion. I think it was one of your wife's friends,
24:47
like she's a stay at home mom, you know, she does a good job homeschooling the kids, like,
24:51
you know, dinner's always ready. Like, you know, she sat in the front row in school and
24:56
got good grades and all that type of thing. And so a woman like that might look at herself
24:59
and be like, well, I'm good, especially in our kind of Oklahoma Christianese culture, this,
25:04
you know, country music theology culture that we live in to where it's like, you know,
25:07
where we're conservatives, we're Republicans, you know, we have an American flag hanging
25:11
outside our door and all that. So you don't ever feel the deprap, the gravity or the weight
25:15
of your sin. And so that's not the only thing that is important to consider. But if the people
25:21
can't feel the weight of their sin, they're not going to feel the need for a savior. And
25:24
in addition to what you were saying, Donnie, the important thing when you're looking, it's like,
25:28
oh, was it toes or somebody like that? But it's like, I'm not going to try to say it. But it was
25:33
just basically how we view God that that's a very important thing is like how we view God.
25:37
That's why I'm so adamant about talking about the Lion of Judah, because I've been critiqued
25:40
before, like how you never talk about the Lamb of God, you just talk about the Lion of Judah
25:43
thing. I'm like, well, first of all, it's not just a thing. It's not the Lion of Judah thing.
25:46
It's like you're talking about a part of Jesus's personality that is all-consuming. And whenever
25:52
you read in Revelation, he comes back with a sword in his mouth, eyes like fire, a tattoo on his leg,
25:56
and a robe dipped in blood. And we don't know if that's blood from the cross or the blood of his
25:59
enemies. And so it's like, that's the Lion of Judah. And if you don't understand the Lion of Judah,
26:02
then it's hard to understand the totality of who Jesus is. If you don't understand the truth part
26:06
of who Jesus is, and it's, you know, how can you understand him and his totality if you only
26:10
look at the great side? And so I think that's kind of what we're getting into here. It's where,
26:14
you know, what the gospel is, you can regurgitate some of the pieces of it,
26:17
but you're not talking about it in reality for how it pertains to you and what that means for you.
26:23
I feel like he was just cheaping it. It's just like, yeah, he died on the cross from my sin,
26:26
so I can go back and do whatever I want to do. I have it. I think Bonhoeffer called it cheap grace.
26:31
Right. And so I really lived in that cheap grace. I lived in it so bad where I was just like,
26:38
hey, this is just who I am. You know, I'm a Christian and I can do this because this is how
26:43
God made me. You know, it's like, did God make me that way? No, God made me into the fruits of the
26:48
spirit, which I lack, you know, but I live in a sinful world. And so God made me have these,
26:55
these, what do you want to call it? Attributes. Yeah, but I don't utilize them because I'm in a
27:00
sinful world. Right. That quote, by the way, just real quick, I just found it. Hey,
27:04
W tozer was tozer, what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important
27:08
thing about us. Yeah. And so that goes back to what you were saying, Donnie, to where it's like,
27:12
is God absent because your earthly father was absent. Right. So when you were in need as a child,
27:18
was your dad gone? Because then that's going to lead you to believe that your heavenly father is
27:22
the same. Whereas all the, all the demerits are all the things wrong with our earthly father.
27:27
They find their perfection in God, the father of heaven. Right. But again, we don't look at it that
27:33
way. We basically put, you know, the facsimile of our dad onto the heavenly father and we look at
27:40
those attributes in that way and it's incredibly damaging. You know, having a son, I love to look
27:44
at that the way I look at God. I mean, my son knew that there was punishment, that there was
27:49
consequences to his actions. And they were hard at times, but he also knew my love for him. That
27:56
was a parallel to what I wanted to teach him about me as his father and get him ready for adulthood,
28:01
but also in the heavenly father. And he never questioned my love even though he got punished.
28:08
And so there was a dichotomy there that I felt like I was responsible for in terms of my relationship
28:12
with him. And when he, you talked about cheap grace, when I would give my son a little pass and then
28:18
he would just blow it off and just do, you know, that had consequences because you knew that he
28:22
didn't really care about you. He didn't care about what you were doing for him. And there's such a
28:28
parallel, you know, you guys and, you know, you guys have sons and you see the parallel in regards
28:33
to our relationship with God and how we're parenting and how our sons respond to us and us to them.
28:38
Actually, I have a question as it pertains to that. I honestly want y'all's opinion,
28:41
because I don't know where I've fallen this. I know where I lean to. But I've heard people say,
28:45
you should never tell your child that they're that you're disappointed in them.
28:49
Because when you say that, they're going to apply that to their heavenly father, where God is never
28:55
disappointed in us because like he knew before time, everything that would be wrong with us,
29:02
everything that we would do, everything that we would say, all of our sins, past, present, future,
29:06
all those things, he knew that and he bought us anyway, he paid for us anyway. But there are times
29:11
just pragmatically and practically with a child, when they've made a mistake and it's like,
29:15
man, I'm really disappointed in your decision making here. Like we've talked about this,
29:19
we've gone over this and yet you still did this. Like this is disappointing. And so I don't know
29:24
where I kind of land on that. But I, in general, I guess I'm okay with it.
29:27
Well, I used to be even harder than that. I told my son, he'd say, hey, dad, I love you. And I said,
29:32
well, you know, I think you say you do. And I think in your heart you do, but the way you treat me
29:38
and the way you respond to my rules and regulations does not say you do because your love is about
29:42
obedience. And so if I said I was disappointed or down on my son, he also knew I loved him, Kyle,
29:48
but at the same time, that disappointment and or consequences to his actions were still a part
29:53
of what we were dealing with. And so my son always knew that I saw love by what he did,
29:58
not what he said. And the way he acted, and he knew that I would have a disappointment in, but he
30:02
also knew I loved him. Yeah. I don't agree with that. I think you should, your kids should know
30:08
that you're disappointed in their actions. I mean, yeah, maybe, maybe God is, you know,
30:14
he bought us anyways. But I mean, even though he knew what we were going to do before time,
30:17
I'm sure he was disappointed that that's the same way. You know, like his disappointment may have
30:21
been like 300 million years ago about it, you know, whatever you want to talk about young or
30:26
earth or old earth. But, uh, are we doing it now? No, we're not. We're not doing it now. We'll
30:31
wait for that. It'll come at some point in the future. Yeah. But no, but what I'm saying is like,
30:35
I think disappointment is a good thing. Um, you know, I, but also being a father is,
30:41
you're going to mess up. You're not, you're not God. Right. You know, and so that's where like,
30:46
so my son, you know, love him to death. He was having a bad day and I had to discipline him.
30:53
And I took away, uh, we were supposed to go out to the dinner. He went to go to Freddy's.
30:58
We ended up going because he got in trouble. And then he had another attitude and was doing
31:02
stuff again. So then he lost video games with dad that night. And then the third time he does it
31:07
again. And so this time it's corporal punishment. I have to spank him and I spank him. He gets spanked.
31:12
He gets mad about it, punches the couch really hard. So I have to spank him again. And we get
31:18
into the car or no later on that day, he starts, his attitude starts to change. Cause I talked to
31:23
him about his attitude and how it was disappointed in his attitude. Well, his attitude started to
31:28
change. He was being very helpful. Got his brother in his car seat was doing all these things. And I,
31:32
I said, you know, my wife Rachel and I said, Hey, he's had a total 180 on his attitude. I think I'm
31:38
about giving him video games back tonight. And she goes, I think you should. And so we got in a
31:42
car. I said to him, I said, Hey man, I've noticed a change that you've made in your attitude and
31:47
everything. When I let you have video games back tonight. And he goes, Oh, that's awesome.
31:51
I was like, Hey, I'm just proud of you of the change that you made. He goes, well, it's the
31:54
spanking that really made me think about it. And I was like, really? He goes, I was like,
32:00
are you serious? Cause I don't want to do it again. I hate spanking my kids. Like they know it too.
32:04
Cause after I have the talk with them, I was like, you think dad enjoys doing that? And they're like,
32:08
no, you know, but he also fails a father because he and I were at the batting cages. He was playing
32:14
around. Looked like he was about to put a ball into the machine and it's like 80 miles per hour.
32:21
And I'm like four feet away from it. Like think about taking that to the face. He wanted to see
32:25
how fast his dad was. Yeah. Yeah. Fast enough to be like, you're an idiot. You know, like that's
32:31
basically what I basically called him an idiot without calling him an idiot. I was like,
32:34
that's the most idiotic thing you could ever do. And I was mad about it for like two days.
32:39
And Rachel, my wife kind of looked at me and she's like, you know, you really did call him an idiot.
32:42
I was like, I know in my own way I did. So I had to apologize as a father. I had to be like,
32:47
Hey, I'm going to mess up sometimes just like you're going to mess up in two wrongs. Don't make a
32:52
right. I shouldn't have talked to you that way. And I need your forgiveness for that. And just
32:57
know that dad's going to mess up sometimes. And it's okay to call that out. But that's different.
33:01
I can't call out my heavenly father. My heavenly father is just and good no matter what. And so
33:07
that's the thing we can't take God and put our father in his place. I would add something to that
33:14
before we get back into Acts 26. I do think when you see some of the Psalms and some of the laments
33:23
that we see in scripture, no, we can't, you know, call out God for being an idiot and say,
33:28
Oh, you're you're the worst and all those types of things. But we can take our lament to him.
33:32
We can cry out to him in a way that's like angry, like, because that when you read through some of
33:37
these Psalms, especially the Psalms of lament, like there is anger all throughout these words.
33:41
I don't understand. I don't get it. And you can take that to God. David was a man after God's own
33:45
heart. Yep. And as much as you see him lament, he was a man after God's own heart. And I do think
33:51
there's nothing we can't take to a loss, anger, frustration, irritation, whatever. God's big enough
33:58
to handle that. And his love is big enough to handle it. But the thing with David, though, his
34:02
anger wasn't towards God. His anger was more towards himself, I felt like, like, what do you
34:08
want? He's expressing it to God. Right. But it isn't like, God, you screwed this up or God,
34:13
you called me an idiot or whatever. Well, I think like my son would come to me and be like,
34:17
you called me an idiot. I'm like, yeah, that was right. I think it's good that we point out our,
34:23
you know, our failings, but then we redirect them to how good our God is, right? Yeah.
34:28
Well, we saw that today at church, when Mark was going over Exodus, Exodus six, where he's talking
34:33
about, you know, Moses is just whining like, Hey, I have uncertain side of his lips, whatever
34:38
that means, either he had an impediment or he just sucked at speaking publicly, or we don't know
34:42
exactly what. But God didn't respond. I love Mark's point here. God didn't respond by just like
34:47
giving him a pep talk like, Oh, no, you are good. Every morning you go to your, you go to your mirror
34:52
and you just say, like, I am good enough. I am all these things like all these affirmations. No,
34:56
he just said, me, God, I am this. And I'm going to do this, this, this and this. Why? Because I am
35:03
God, right? Because I am the I am. And he, you know, he wasn't like rebuking Moses necessarily,
35:09
but it's like Moses, you are like navel gazing and looking at your limitations and you're forgetting
35:14
the guy that gave you the task, right? You're forgetting the creator God of the universe here.
35:18
And he was, that's exactly what I feel like Paul, right? Like Paul here knows that, right? He's,
35:23
he is so laser focused on what he's trying to do. He doesn't care about the consequences. He
35:28
doesn't care what people thinks about him. He's doing the work of the father because he knows
35:32
the father that's going to make that happen. He knows the Holy Spirit is going to work in
35:36
these people's lives. And he's like, the rest is up to him. And that's right. I feel like he's
35:39
talking to a gripper and Bernice in this. And 100% because what he says is he says,
35:46
especially because you are familiar with the customs and controversies of the Jews.
35:50
And so this comes back to like Festus wanting more information to go back. And so Paul knows
35:55
they know the law. They've seen the, you know, the laws that mirror all these customs that are put
36:02
on the people that Christ took away in regards to ceremonial law. And so he's like, you know,
36:07
this is, this is all happened in public eye. This is all happened. The crucifixion happened
36:13
publicly. And the resurrection even happened publicly. The resurrection happened in front of 500
36:18
people when he finally ascended after he was resurrected. So like people saw Jesus alive again.
36:23
I love Paul's commitment to the Old Testament too. Yeah. I mean, Paul,
36:26
he doesn't hate from it yet. No, he does not in hitch. Here he is giving the gospel
36:32
and using the Old Testament. Right. As a centerpiece really to set it up.
36:37
When we see how many times did Paul begin with the Old Testament because of his audience,
36:41
how many times like whenever he was in, um, whenever he was in Greece, you know, he was using,
36:46
he was appealing more to reason and things like that. So part of it's just understanding your
36:49
audience. Let's get back into Acts 26 here. Uh, we got to keep this train moving. Howard,
36:53
if you can go ahead and hit versus 12 through 23.
36:56
Through 23. Okay.
36:59
On one of these journeys, I was going to Damascus with the authority and the commission of the
37:05
chief chief priest about noon King Agrippa. As I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven
37:11
brighter than the sun blazing around me in my companions. We all fell to the ground and I heard
37:16
a voice saying to me in Aramaic, saw, saw, why do you persecute me? It is hard for me to kick.
37:22
It is hard for you to kick against the go ads. Then I ask, who are you Lord? I am Jesus,
37:30
whom you are persecuting the Lord replied. Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to
37:35
you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and what you will see
37:40
of me. I will rescue you from your, excuse me, your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending
37:47
you to them to open their eyes and turn them from their, from darkness to light and from the power
37:53
of Satan to God so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are who are
38:00
sanctified by faith in me. So then King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven.
38:07
First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and all Judea. And then to the Gentiles,
38:13
I preached that they should repent and turn to God and demonstrate their repentance by their deeds.
38:18
That is why some Jews seized me in the temple courts and tried to kill me.
38:23
What do you want me to go through? Ah, they're 23. 23. But God, God has helped me to this very day.
38:30
So I stand here and testify to small and great alike. I am saying nothing beyond what the prophets
38:36
and Moses said would happen that the Messiah would suffer and at the first rise and first rise from
38:43
the dead would bring the message of light to his own people into the Gentiles. So we see in this
38:49
section, you know, before we have Paul the strict Pharisee, Paul the fanatical persecutor.
38:54
Now we have Paul the commissioned apostle. I think the stock commentary broke it down in that way,
38:58
but we see here that Paul, we see different descriptions of Paul's conversion story,
39:03
but he's not stressing his conversion as much here as he's stressing the fact that he was commissioned,
39:08
that he was a commissioned apostle and that he was sent out. And I thought it was interesting
39:11
in 16 through 18. There's kind of three action verbs from Jesus here. There's a point. This is
39:17
in the ESV. There's to a point. There's delivering and then they're sending. So a point deliver
39:22
sinned. And so this is how he's decided to build, you know, his foundation. Like, look,
39:26
I was the Pharisee of Pharisees. I was strict. I was more strict than any of you here. Also,
39:31
I persecuted more than any of you here. And then even after that, God still saw it fit to commission
39:38
me to be an apostle for the message that I was expressly out there to take out. It's just an
39:43
incredible story. And again, he's giving that before a very important crowd. Other thoughts here.
39:49
This is a testimony. I mean, he's giving his testimony. He's giving exactly how he came to know Christ
39:55
and he's given his before during and after. I find a lot in verse 17, just like comfort.
40:03
Also, maybe think of the dark, the doctrine arises says delivering you from your people
40:09
and from the Gentiles to whom I am sending you. So Christ has already like brought the Gentiles
40:16
into the fold, even when he's talking to Paul at that point. So at the time, you know,
40:22
it's only, you know, the Jews were the chosen people and now the Gentiles are now chosen as well.
40:27
And then to open their eyes so that they can turn from darkness to light. So I was thinking of like,
40:32
was it Bane when he was like, uh, he goes, you adopt the darkness? I was born into it. Like,
40:38
we were born into darkness. Like Adam's original sin, we are born into the darkness.
40:43
That's where our depravity comes from. But there's a light because of Christ Christ is that light.
40:48
So we talked about that reflection. Like when I look in the water and I see that reflection,
40:52
you know, we know what God sees now that I'm in Christ, not me. He sees Christ, you know,
40:57
and that's something that like we have to remember. And it says from the power of Satan to God. So
41:02
like we're out of the darkness into the light into God and they may receive forgiveness of sins
41:07
and place among those who are sanctified by faith in me. So like we're sanctified in our faith
41:13
through him, even though we're not perfect. I just thought it was, I thought it was a beautiful part
41:18
of his testimony that just like just kind of shows the love that that Paul has and how he's trying to
41:23
talk to not only a gripper and Bernice, but like when talking about the Gentiles, he's talking to
41:28
Festus as well. Well, I think, you know, in all of his testimony, he's trying to make the truth known,
41:34
right? And that's what the whole Jewish leaders were trying to conceal the truth. And in all of
41:41
his testimony, it was, it was consistent. And I think one of the commentaries I was reading,
41:45
talking about how strong, how strong a truthful testimony is. And with Paul, it was always
41:51
consistent. It was truthful and it was bold. And so, you know, we just see that throughout this.
41:57
And we're certainly going to see that boldness continue all the way through the end of Acts.
42:02
Let's go ahead and wrap up Acts 26. So Donnie, if you can read 24 through 32.
42:07
When Paul was saying this in his defense, Festus said in a loud voice, Paul, you are out of your
42:12
mind. Your great learning is driving you mad. But Paul said, I am not out of my mind most
42:17
excellent Festus, but I utter words of sober truth for the King knows about these matters.
42:23
And I speak to him also with confidence, since I am persuaded that none of these things escaped
42:29
the note escaped his notice for this has not been done in a corner. King Agrippa, did
42:35
you believe the prophets? I know that you do. Agrippa replied to Paul, in a short time you will
42:41
persuade me to become a Christian. And Paul said, I would wish to God that whether in a short or
42:47
long time, not only you, but also those who hear me this day, I become such as I am,
42:53
except for these chains. The king stood up and the governor and Bernice and those who were sitting
42:59
with them. And when they had gone aside, they began talking to one another saying, this man is
43:04
not doing anything worthy of death or imprisonment. And Agrippa said to Festus, this man might have
43:10
seen been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar. So one thing that's that's interesting
43:16
here. I like the section where, you know, Agrippa is like, this is ESV in a short time. Would you
43:21
persuade me to be a Christian? And Paul said, whether short or long I would to God that not
43:27
or I would to God that not only you, but also all who hear me this day might become such as I am,
43:33
except for these chains. So I've thought about this before, when you're sharing the gospel with
43:37
someone that you know, because there's walking up to the homeless person or the random person as,
43:41
you know, Zach Foster, whoever a server would be, be sharing the gospel and those types of things.
43:45
But when you're sharing with a friend, very rarely is that kind of a one and done conversation,
43:49
where, you know, you share the gospel, you know, if they accept it right there, and then you all,
43:53
you know, drive to go get baptized or do whatever the thing is, it's usually a protracted thing that
43:58
you're doing over a period of time. And I remember a buddy of mine named Mike Ritalin. So he's a
44:03
retired Navy SEAL. He's a dog trainer. So he trains, you know, Malinois to be basically meat
44:09
missiles that he sells to, you know, the, the, you know, spec ops community into, you know,
44:14
sheriff's offices and things like that. And so this is a guy that is fairly ardent in his,
44:21
and why not ardent in his atheism? But like, there was one time where I think it was a second or
44:25
third time being on my show. And you know, when I was on his show, you know, we're talking about
44:28
God talking about Jesus and the gospel and all these different things. But at one point,
44:32
right in the middle of the show, he goes, God, why the F do you care so much if I believe in God or
44:36
not? And I didn't really try to, you know, meet fire with fire. I said, because I love you, Mike,
44:41
because at the end of the day, if you're right and I'm wrong, then that means I've wasted all this
44:48
time and money in this philosophy that's not actually real. But we're both warm food, right?
44:53
When it's the end of our time, we just turn off and then we just get buried and we're warm food.
44:58
And so that's the worst case scenario for me is that I've wasted a lot of time and money.
45:01
The worst case scenario for you is eternity, right? And so if you don't get this right,
45:06
it's everything forever. And so that's the thing right here. It's like, hey, whether short or long,
45:12
basically saying no matter how long it takes, right, I'm going to continue to share this message.
45:18
And as we see throughout the Bible and certainly in the book of Acts, you preach the gospel, some
45:22
will accept it, some will not. And it doesn't really matter how well you do. It doesn't really
45:27
matter what stage is done from, how fancy the microphone and PA system are, how, you know,
45:31
great, the environment is and how good the coffee was in the lobby. At the end of the day, like,
45:36
the Holy Spirit's going to move in that person or it's not. And I think it's important for us to
45:41
understand that for us, we kind of want the short term benefits of doing the thing, whether that's,
45:47
you know, we're talking about earlier with golf is like, you just want to be good automatically.
45:50
That's just not how this works. But you need to be in it for the long game as well.
45:53
I read a commentary by scroll, scroll, scroll, sorry, on this. And he talked about this being
46:00
like one of the, one of the things a group of wishes he never said, you know, like a regret.
46:05
Right. Like he was like, man, that's got to be really regretful on his end to be like,
46:10
in a short time, do you think you can persuade me to be a Christian? Like, I don't know if he was
46:14
there or coming close to it, but he just did not want to want to do it. And it reminded
46:19
sprawl of a time. So his dad had a lot of strokes as a, as a kind of a middle-aged man. Now sprawl
46:27
was, I think, in the senior in high school when his dad actually died. And he goes, I remember
46:32
a time where I was carrying my father from like the living room to his bed. And he's a teenager at
46:39
this time. And he's dad, like out of breath had to sit on the couch and he's sitting on the couch.
46:43
And he looks at him and he goes, I fought the good fight. I've carried, I've carried the faith.
46:48
Like, but Paul says, and I think second Timothy, I finished the race. And he goes,
46:54
he said something to his dad, like, don't talk that way, dad. Because his dad's
46:58
about ready to die and everything. And he didn't, he didn't want to see his dad die. And he goes,
47:02
that's one of the things I always regretted was not being like, you know what, dad,
47:06
you finished the race, you fought the good fight. And I think this is like a thing that
47:10
the grip was going to, you know, have to come to terms with this, like, man, the gospels proclaimed
47:15
to you. And I mean, that's where, you know, we can talk about a soteriology all day long.
47:20
And it's just like, it's just like, man, if your eyes, if your eyes are open to it,
47:25
you still choose not to walk into it. It's kind of crazy, you know,
47:29
Well, Carter talks about how a gripper got out of character and addressed Paul directly.
47:34
You're mad, Paul, you know, it was kind of this form. And then all of a sudden out of
47:39
character says you're mad and all of a sudden start directing him personally. It's almost like
47:44
all kind of drew him in and drew him in to have this face to face one-on-one conversation,
47:48
even though you had all these people surrounding him. So I thought that was really telling just to
47:53
think about how Paul's message was impacting a gripper specifically. And you just see this
47:59
by him getting to that point, right? Well, I think it's funny that Vesta thinks he's mad
48:03
when he starts talking about resurrection, crucifixion and resurrection. He's like,
48:06
are you crazy? Have you learned too much already? Like, what's going on here? But the thing is,
48:11
is a gripper knows because a gripper knows the history. A gripper knows, like, hey,
48:15
this was public, this happened, like, no, like, Vesta, this actually happened. So that's why he's
48:19
like, do you persuade me to become a Christian in a short time? You know, and it's just like,
48:24
it's like he just, I mean, he just straight up preached the gospel while in chains in front of
48:30
everybody, like think of like, like the end of a few good men where Jack Nicholson's like, I want
48:36
Tom Cruise is like, I want the truth. He's like, you can't handle the truth. Just think about being
48:40
in that witness stand and just being, just proclaiming the gospel to people. And that's what he's doing.
48:45
Yeah. He stayed on, he stayed on task. I mean, he was called mad and he's just
48:50
kept preaching, just stayed on task with the message was he fought the good fight.
48:54
One also, if someone says you're out of your mind. So this came up here recently to where it's like,
48:59
when you operate in the space and I'm in, because I'm, you know, I'm certainly in the Christian space,
49:04
but I'm also in the kind of conservative politics space as well. And so people will make these
49:08
grandiose comments and accusations about your character based on, you know, how you think about
49:13
policy or something like that. And so this guy, this political commentary was like, hey, look,
49:19
if someone calls me racist, the response is not, I'm not racist. Here's all the reasons why I'm
49:24
not racist. It's yeah, I'm not racist. And honestly, I don't really care what your opinion is, right?
49:29
Like, what made you think I would care about what you think about me? Why in the world would I take
49:34
critique from someone I wouldn't take advice from? And so that's what I think is important
49:38
and we kind of see Paul doing that here to where it's like, hey, Paul, you're out of your mind.
49:41
It's like, I'm not out of my mind, most most excellent fastest. So he's still being respectful,
49:45
but I'm speaking true and rational words. And then he just keeps going. So it's like, I'm not going
49:49
to deal with the objection by staying on this narrow objection about whether or not I'm saying,
49:55
because it wasn't like, no, I'm actually saying, and I would like to prove that I'm saying,
49:58
by telling you this, this and all these things, it's like, Nope, I'm actually, I'm not insane.
50:02
And then I'm just going to keep on with my message. Well, yeah, and kind of comes back to when he's
50:07
calling him crazy, he says, for the king knows about these things, and to him, I speak boldly.
50:12
So he speaks boldly to him and he goes, for I am persuaded that none of these things
50:16
has escaped his notice for this has not been done in a corner. So it hasn't been done in the dark,
50:21
like everything that happened was public. And so it's just public knowledge.
50:25
This is a great example. And you could pull it out in several places of how we're supposed to
50:29
deal with government. How we're supposed to as Christians deal with government, which it isn't,
50:34
I'm going to hide under Bush, but it's not actually being disrespectful. I mean,
50:40
Paul's respect is followed through this whole chapter and other chapters, but his boldness is
50:45
also followed. I think that's absolutely the case. And you have a lot of people that, you know,
50:51
they want to extrapolate Romans 13 into no matter what the government says, we're going to go with
50:55
it, which, you know, we don't really have the time to really go too far into that right now.
50:59
But you constantly look at the refrain of people that are typically on the political left about
51:03
speaking true to power, right? Whatever that means. This is speaking true to power, right?
51:09
Because the things that he's saying could have lost him his head because had this not gone his way,
51:15
had they agreed with the charges, even though they were erroneous charges and basically were
51:19
vapid had no foundation, it doesn't matter if it's true or not. It matters if Rome actually agreed
51:25
with them because if Rome agreed with them, then he loses his head, right? And so even with that in
51:31
mind, as he said, I think, as we went over last week, he's like, look, I'm not trying to save my
51:35
life here, right? Like, you know, yeah, I don't care about that. Yeah, if I've done wrong, I deserve
51:39
death. The thing is that I have not done wrong and they've done nothing to prove it. Yeah. And so,
51:44
again, you can speak the truth and love, but a lot of people forget about the truth part.
51:49
They're like, just speak in love. I was like, sometimes you can speak in love and it's anti-truth.
51:54
It's not just wrong. It's anti-truth. That's the opposite of truth. And so that's something that
51:58
we should keep in mind. So let's wrap up our thoughts on Acts 26 here.
52:02
I think the thing that I go to in that, it's like, you know, for so many of us, when we get pushed back,
52:07
like Paul was getting here, we cower down. But do we have boldness in the truth, right? We can't
52:15
be quiet about our faith. We have to be willing to go out on the limb like Paul did here. And,
52:19
you know, I think that's an application for me. I can't be afraid to talk about that. I can't be
52:23
afraid to share that truth. Yeah, as he finishes up, and Grippus is your head into Rome, you know,
52:30
Acts 2311, he was promised he was going to go to Rome. And that promise was fulfilled. And I think
52:36
there's something to be said, when God puts us in a direction, it's going to be fulfilled. It may
52:40
not look like we want it to look. It may not go the same route, but it'll happen. And, you know,
52:45
that was kind of the end of 26 says, hey, it's going to happen. And that's why I'm such a big fan
52:50
I've talked about before. I'm about direction over vision, because people will get a vision for
52:54
their life, which will take them in a completely opposite direction of what God has for them.
52:58
Because if I were to go from here to St. Louis, as long as I stay within a minimum corridor,
53:03
right, I'm going to be able to, you know, if I get a little bit off track, I can course correct
53:07
and still end up at the at the gateway arch, right? But if I have this new vision, and I just
53:12
rent, you know, you know, rip the stick to the right, and I want to go this way now,
53:15
like it's going to take a huge course correction to get back in the direction that God has for you.
53:19
And I think a lot of people miss out on that. And also the last thing I'll say here, and then we'll
53:24
wrap up Paul stood ready. He was ready at all times. Again, we don't know the full timeline
53:31
of all these things, because, you know, you got to think as his prosecutors had time to prepare
53:36
their arguments and all those types of things, Paul had time to get his crap together as well.
53:41
But he stood ready. And so many Christians are caught flat footed, whether somebody's giving them,
53:45
you know, some sort of rebuke or some sort of a cultural rebuke about, well, you can't say that
53:50
because it makes me feel bad or things like that. And so many people because they want to speak
53:54
in love, but not the truth and love that major issues with that. But guys, we're going to go
53:57
and leave acts 26 there. So come back here next week, where we are going to be digging into acts 27.
54:02
So read through acts 27. But before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost
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