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1:18
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, we'll see a group of regular guys, normally foraging spiritual
1:35
resilience by digging into God's Word, and we're welcoming all of you to come along
1:38
on that journey with us.
1:39
We've got a couple of OGs with us today.
1:40
We've got Zach Todd, and we've got Ryan Horn, but I'm going to draw this out for the people
1:44
that are not watching this on YouTube or Rumble.
1:46
We've got a special guest in the fourth chair.
1:48
So we give a lot of shout outs on this podcast and on the Forging Table, we've had some
1:52
people on the Forging Table.
1:53
We've had Joby.
1:54
We've had the great Terry Fakes.
1:55
We've had a lot of people here on the Forging Table, but people on my podcast have heard
1:58
me mention one pastor over and over and over ad nauseam since I launched this podcast back
2:03
in 2017.
2:04
And now you're actually sitting here in the flesh match handler.
2:07
Welcome to the Forging Table.
2:08
Listen, all my dreams have come true in this exact moment.
2:10
This is it right here.
2:12
I can go home now.
2:13
This is as close to the third heaven as I think I'll probably get.
2:16
All right.
2:17
I'm going to like diminish everything that you just said, because I think I have a new
2:20
goal in life, which is just to collect pastors to have on the Forging Table.
2:23
So we had Joby.
2:24
We had Terry Fakes.
2:25
We had you now.
2:26
I think I need to kind of shoot for maybe like Steven Furtick, Joel Osteen.
2:28
Like what do you think?
2:29
Do you think those would be good guys to kind of bring in?
2:31
I've got Furtick cell if you'd like it.
2:34
Can I please have it?
2:36
Oh, are you?
2:37
Are you sure?
2:38
Let's pray call it right now.
2:39
Yeah.
2:40
I have a whole folder on my phone.
2:41
He would see.
2:42
It's me and not answer.
2:43
Well, we'll call for my phone.
2:45
Okay.
2:46
You see?
2:47
Look at the problem solving.
2:48
I have a lot of memes.
2:49
I have a lot of Steven Furtick memes that I want to share with Steven Furtick.
2:52
I'm sure someone has seen them and has already sent you a cease and desist.
2:56
Well, so is there an inverse relationship to the size of your biceps and the level of
2:59
your theology?
3:00
Because I feel like the bigger his have gotten, the worse his theology has gotten there seems
3:04
to be like a bigger.
3:05
So in the early days, you thought he was tighter theologically?
3:08
Yeah.
3:09
Yeah.
3:10
I thought so.
3:11
Okay.
3:12
But I was also dumber.
3:13
Okay.
3:14
So I have no idea where I land on this continuum either.
3:15
I suspect then.
3:16
They were probably about about yay size about about kind of what you're looking at right
3:20
now.
3:21
They've been pretty consistent.
3:22
Okay.
3:23
Well, hey, you're in Oklahoma.
3:24
You're enjoying yourself.
3:25
So how often do you get up here in Oklahoma?
3:26
Have you enjoyed yourself so far?
3:28
Love Oklahoma.
3:29
Love hanging out with you.
3:30
I mean, I have good friends in Oklahoma City.
3:32
I've got good friends in Norman.
3:34
And so I'm up here a couple of times a year.
3:36
Very good.
3:37
Well, you have to come up a little bit more often because when you and I met, we became
3:39
fast friends because we were doing, you know, jujitsu and all that.
3:42
So you can kind of become fast friends, which speaking of which, I don't know if I've ever
3:45
talked to either of you guys about this.
3:47
But you know, jujitsu, it's a sport where it's like trying to fold clothes with people
3:51
inside of it.
3:52
Some people call it murder yoga.
3:53
And I seem to remember talking to both of y'all about the benefits of jujitsu.
3:59
But just in case you've tuned my voice out, maybe Matt can talk a little bit about the
4:03
benefits of jujitsu for, you know, the modern Western man.
4:06
And then maybe y'all would consider it, but he told me I'm not cut.
4:09
No.
4:10
Hey, no, it's his turn.
4:11
It's his turn, right?
4:12
Come on.
4:13
Let's go.
4:14
We're done that mirror spiritual formation, quite like jujitsu does.
4:24
And so the number of times I'm going home and thinking, Oh my gosh, that is a lot like
4:32
this in regards to my own sanctification and my own growth into what the Lord has for me
4:38
as a mature man spiritually.
4:41
And so I think one of the things I love about it, not only do I feel more prepared for anything
4:46
come what may, I mean, it's just the 1%, you know, it's just the 1%, not only do I feel
4:52
more prepared for the 1%, I feel like the physical spiritual mashup in how God made us.
5:04
It quickens those things for me, and it makes me constantly lean into my own anxieties and
5:09
fears.
5:10
I train at a place with a lot of killers and that like I'm not a big man, I'm 65 to 15,
5:17
and I am not a big man at the gym, I train at.
5:20
And so, so yeah, that I'm, I don't know the last time I went and I wasn't a little anxious
5:25
about what might occur, but I'm still choosing to go and there's something about that I think
5:30
mentally and spiritually that I love.
5:33
And yeah, so, and then it does for me what I guess long runs do for other people, which
5:39
is clear the head, calm, calm me down, I'm frenetic internally.
5:43
And so the Lord uses Jiu Jitsu to kind of calm some of that.
5:47
When you're doing a round, like that's what I tell people all the time is like, so if whether
5:52
you're just a little bit anxious or you're walking through the valley of shadow of death
5:55
and you walk into a Jiu Jitsu gym and it's time for rounds, like maybe some black belts,
6:00
maybe guys that have like for me, or like, you know, the guys at our gym, the black belts,
6:04
if they're rolling with the white belt that they can just really control, like they can
6:07
probably think about what's for dinner, they can probably think about the thing at work
6:10
that they didn't complete or something like that.
6:13
But for the rest of us mortals, like your entire, you're either thinking offense, defense
6:18
or survival, like that's essentially all you can think about, especially, you know, your
6:22
blue belt, purple belt, you know, we're both working our way up.
6:25
And so things slow down a little bit, but especially a white belt, like the time flies
6:31
in the round and because you're just literally just trying to think through in your brain
6:35
you're just not quite fast enough to catch up.
6:38
That's it.
6:39
You reeled me in a little bit.
6:41
Could you like explain, maybe give an example of sanctification that you were talking about
6:46
that feeling?
6:47
Yeah.
6:48
So here's the awesome and the awful about Jiu Jitsu that I think correlates beautifully
6:56
with even as I've tried to lead people.
6:59
The only way to do Jiu Jitsu is to do Jiu Jitsu.
7:05
And so like you can do all the one on ones you want.
7:09
You can watch all the videos you want.
7:11
You can do all the drilling you want.
7:14
But the only way to grow and to mature is to get on the mat and roll.
7:19
And so if you think about how we try to lead people, like the number of times that people
7:24
have gone, what's your favorite book on prayer?
7:27
Yeah.
7:28
So tell me about your prayer life and I was like, man, I can do that.
7:31
But the only way to learn to pray is to pray.
7:35
And the only way to learn to share your faith is to share your faith.
7:39
Now we can talk ad nauseam about techniques and about reading the person in front of you
7:47
and we can talk all about that.
7:48
But until you do it and then consistently do it, you're never going to do it and you're
7:54
never going to really be any good at it.
7:55
And I know we're talking about saying going to be good at it.
7:58
It's a hard thing in the spiritual because there's spiritual gifts and there's the spirits
8:02
role and power in those things.
8:04
But if you think about, I mean, we all to some level are leading men, encouraging men,
8:10
discipling men, they what the bent of the modern day is show me the technique.
8:21
But the only way to get better at Jiu Jitsu and I would argue almost all of the spiritual
8:26
disciplines is to do them, not read about them, not.
8:30
And I know there's some, some kind of value there.
8:33
I'm just not going to, I'm not going to put a ton of value on that.
8:37
I'm going to put a ton of value on actually doing well and there's an ego component here
8:41
as well because I happen to know there is a prominent pastor here in Oklahoma.
8:46
Maybe he has big biceps.
8:47
I hear he does Jiu Jitsu, but he only does private lessons.
8:51
And so if you're doing it like that, like that's how Mark Zuckerberg does it.
8:54
Zuckerberg isn't just rolling up to classes and rolling with whoever is in the room.
8:58
There's an ego component because the guy who's teaching you is not trying to kill you because
9:01
if he kills you, the odds of you coming back and keeping paying him go down considerably.
9:06
And so when you submit yourself, no pun intended to what's, who is there and who you end up
9:12
rolling with because typically, you know, I've been in classes where the professor is
9:15
matching up, you know, guys the entire time and then I've been in classes where you just
9:19
like, oh, you make eye contact with the guy, so yeah, you and me, okay, you avoid eye contact.
9:22
Right.
9:23
You're avoiding eye contact with the gym enforcer because we're like, Oh God, he like killed
9:26
me last time.
9:27
But like, you have to submit yourself to that and to almost the authority of what's going
9:32
on in the mat and just be like, this is medicine and I have to constantly take my medicine
9:36
because the thing is I get onto people all the time about their hobbies, right?
9:39
So maybe it's golf, maybe it's video games, whatever you're into, you're into.
9:43
But how transferrable is your hobby to a real world scenario that actually matters.
9:48
So you're really, really good at Call of Duty or Madden or you can, man, you can chip that
9:52
ball into the green from 150 yards out and all that.
9:54
Isn't that awesome?
9:55
It is literally transferrable to nothing in the real world.
9:59
It's definitely awesome.
10:00
Oh, it may be fun.
10:01
It's just not transferrable to any that's not true golf or Call of Duty.
10:05
You talked about 150 yard chip is definitely awesome.
10:07
Yeah.
10:08
It's great to do it.
10:09
Right.
10:10
And it only is awesome on a golf course and that's the only place it can be awesome.
10:14
That's true.
10:15
Okay, so for the record, I mean, I've said this like 10 times, but I'm just going to
10:18
say it probably one more time.
10:20
One more time.
10:21
When I first got to know Kyle wasn't, we didn't know each other very well and I went
10:24
to this ridiculous Sunday night, you know, been there to stuff that they have.
10:29
He may have showed up.
10:30
Which they, they, they bring you in as a jujitsu Bible study, but it turns out to be a red
10:36
line workout that no human being should go through.
10:39
All human beings.
10:40
And I, I had been, I've done this two or three times, I've been working out for like a year,
10:43
lift and weights, you know, going through the, the apps, staying consistent, could not
10:49
do any part of this workout.
10:50
It was horrible.
10:51
I walked up to Kyle after and I'm like, Hey man, don't know you well.
10:54
But how do I do this?
10:55
Like I, I've been working out for a year and he looked at me in the eye, he said, what
10:58
have you been doing?
10:59
Elliptical.
11:00
For the record.
11:01
Long walks.
11:02
Yeah.
11:03
Hey.
11:04
Long walks.
11:05
Hey, he took me out to his truck.
11:06
I remember this distinction.
11:07
And you walked me through a program and for the record, you said P90X, there's a 20 minute
11:18
version.
11:19
And the kind of person I am, I went home, thought about it for a month, reconstructed
11:23
my garage, put it in a gym, hung the TV, hung the pull up bar, got after it, never been
11:26
able to do a pull up.
11:28
I have dislocating kneecaps, Kyle.
11:30
I know.
11:31
Okay.
11:32
You're sending me pictures of like small people and people with, you know, like no legs doing
11:35
jujitsu.
11:36
But I cannot do it.
11:37
It was a midget going against a guy with no legs.
11:40
I was like, what's your excuse?
11:41
They just don't work.
11:42
They don't work.
11:43
There's money on that.
11:44
There is a desire to do jujitsu.
11:46
I've done it, but I can't physically do it.
11:48
But you and I, we were working on some stuff behind scenes that we can't talk about that
11:52
may turn you into the bionic man.
11:54
And so like, you know, we'll talk about it on the break, but hit one more thing before
11:58
we actually dig into scripture.
11:59
Go ahead.
12:00
I'm just saying, I just don't do it.
12:01
Cause like last time I did it, I had some dude's hairy leg around my neck and I just can't
12:04
do it.
12:05
And your life's on the line and you're watching somebody slowly steal your family from you.
12:10
Now what?
12:11
Oh, get your sweaty leg off me, mister, sir.
12:12
Come on.
12:13
It just grosses me out.
12:14
Oh God.
12:15
Also worse things than that.
12:16
I also I would be way worse.
12:18
I know.
12:19
I also am working on my hip structure.
12:22
Cause that's one thing you really need to work on or your hips when you're doing jujitsu.
12:25
And I just don't have, I don't have the, you talked about P90X.
12:29
Like I don't have the rhythm to do P90X.
12:30
I have no rhythm.
12:31
I can not dance.
12:32
Got to do it.
12:33
I am Phil Collins song.
12:34
Yeah.
12:35
It's who's not salsa.
12:36
And so like murder salsa.
12:37
Yeah.
12:38
Murder salsa.
12:39
You just have to put the word murder in front of whatever it is.
12:40
And we can do it.
12:41
Murder salsa.
12:42
Murder salsa.
12:43
Murder salsa.
12:44
He leaves out with chips that you can't sleep the next night.
12:46
No, but all I'm saying is like, so there are people that would, you would look at them
12:49
like they were ridiculous.
12:50
They're like, gosh, I'm so hungry.
12:51
I can't go to the restaurant.
12:52
There are people that are like, Oh yeah, man, I need to get my hips ready before I go in.
12:56
And here's another Christian Corey Larry.
12:58
Imagine you trying to say, yeah, I've just got to get myself right and I've got to get
13:01
myself cleaned up and up before I can come to Christ.
13:04
You would never say the same thing about any other area of your life.
13:06
But this whole like, Oh, I got to get in shape before I go to Jiu-Jitsu, no Jiu-Jitsu helps
13:09
you get in shape.
13:10
Oh, I got to get my hips ready to go before I go into Jiu-Jitsu.
13:12
Nope.
13:13
It'll help loosen up your hips.
13:14
But I say that because I know it.
13:15
No.
13:16
You do not know it.
13:17
I do know it.
13:18
No.
13:19
Do you know it?
13:20
I know it.
13:21
I had a stinky leg on me and it like maybe not want to walk into the room for a year.
13:23
This is why I'm here.
13:24
I love the word of God, but this is why I'm saying all I'm saying is like, Hey, I feel
13:29
what you're feeling right now.
13:30
We know I was under the weather the last couple of days and so I miss leg day today and it's
13:34
killing me.
13:35
That's right.
13:36
Well, we can hit something like right in between.
13:37
No, I've got it.
13:38
I've got to rest up.
13:39
So for what?
13:40
For life because we got this evening.
13:42
For his hips.
13:43
I don't know.
13:44
For his hips.
13:45
My hips don't lie.
13:46
My hips don't lie.
13:47
What we're doing.
13:48
Dude, I've got that.
13:49
I've got that hips.
13:50
Okay.
13:51
We'll work on your hip secure.
13:52
All right, guys.
13:53
Well, we should probably at some point get into the scripture.
13:54
So like I'm very excited to dig in and it was really funny because whenever you were
13:57
like, Hey, I'm going to be doing the sabbatical, like I just want to get as much training in
14:00
as possible.
14:01
It's like, Hey, let's let's come up and let's do as much training.
14:03
But then it's like, Hey, do you want to like record with the crew and kind of dig in?
14:07
You're like, What are y'all digging into?
14:08
It's like, Hey, we're going to be digging into a few chapters of acts and you're like,
14:10
Yeah, let's lean in.
14:11
Let's do it.
14:12
And we were having a nice discussion about some of this beforehand.
14:14
So let's go ahead and dig into acts five.
14:15
So guys, you should have been read up through acts five before Kim coming in here today.
14:19
So Zach, how about you lead us off today?
14:21
Let's do acts five and we're going to dig into the first 11 verses.
14:27
But a man named Ananias with his wife, Safira, sold a piece of property.
14:33
And with his wife's knowledge, he kept back for himself, some of the proceeds and brought
14:36
only a part of it and laid it at the apostles feet.
14:39
But Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to
14:44
keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land?
14:49
While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own?
14:52
And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal?
14:55
Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart?
14:59
You have not lied to man, but to God.
15:01
When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last.
15:06
And great fear came upon all who heard of it.
15:09
The young man rose and wrapped him up and carried him out and buried him.
15:14
After an interval of about three hours, his wife came in, not knowing what had happened.
15:19
And Peter said to her, tell me whether you sold the land for so much.
15:23
And she said yes for so much, but Peter said to her, how is it that you have agreed together
15:28
to test the spirit of the Lord, behold the feet of those who have buried your husband
15:33
or at the door and they will carry you out?
15:36
Immediately she fell down at his feet and breathed her last.
15:40
When the young men came in, they found her dead and they carried her out and buried her
15:45
beside her husband.
15:47
And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things.
15:52
So this might not be appropriate, but right after I read this section, I wrote in my margins
15:57
here, I was like, wait, did Peter kill these people with mind bullets?
16:01
And nobody was here to laugh because nobody except for me was listening to today's just
16:05
D at the time.
16:06
But there's really seemingly a lot packed into this small story.
16:09
But the immediate thing that I'm that I contrast with, and this is the reason that you can't
16:14
just read the Bible is if it's a singular verse or a singular section.
16:17
They just in Acts 4 got through talking about what Barnabas did and how it was this positive
16:24
thing and he didn't withhold.
16:26
And some people, I guess, get with Ann and I since a fire, they get the different, they
16:29
get something where it's like, oh, it's wrong to sell land, oh, it's wrong to make a profit.
16:34
And I'm like, or try this one on, or it's wrong to lie about it to the church that you're
16:40
trying to provide, you know, some sort of like benefit to.
16:43
But that's the thing right from the beginning is it's like you go right from Barnabas and
16:47
then you go right into Ann and I since a fire, so we see the clear distinction between the
16:50
two.
16:51
Yeah.
16:52
I think it was like one upmanship, like, it's like, oh, Barnabas did this.
16:56
So I'm going to pretend to do this, but I'm still greedy.
16:59
So I want to, I want to go ahead and lie and say, hey, I sold every, I sold everything.
17:04
So look at me, look at look how great I am.
17:07
And it was all about them and not about the church.
17:08
Right.
17:09
I love how just two things, Warren Wearsby says, Ann and Nias means God is gracious, but
17:15
he learned that God is also holy and judgment.
17:19
We must remember that the sin of this couple was not robbing God of money, but in lying
17:24
to him and robbing him of glory.
17:27
I was, I just heard a pastor say this recently and by recently, I mean, in the last year,
17:33
and it's been a framework that I thought was really helpful.
17:38
He was telling the story of meeting with a very well known, disgraced mega church guy
17:47
that was in prison.
17:48
And he had asked the guy, how did you, how did you fall out of love with the Lord?
17:56
Like when did they tell me about that journey where your heart had hardened towards the
17:59
Lord and you and he, when he tells the story, he's like, man, tears filled this man's eyes.
18:05
And he said, I never fell out of love with the Lord.
18:08
I always was deeply in love with Jesus, but I no longer feared him.
18:14
And I thought the grid, the grid he set up from there, here's his line, this is my take
18:20
on his line, that the friendship of Jesus will be a real fuel for your life, but a fear
18:29
of the Lord will keep you from being stupid.
18:33
And then he got into like, how do you make sense of David and Bathsheba?
18:37
How do you make sense of, and he just started listening these guys in scripture who it's
18:41
very clear, these people love him, but they're freaking idiots.
18:47
Like, what the hell are you doing, David?
18:50
Like this is, you should be at war.
18:52
Why are you on the roof?
18:53
Your servant told you that's your rise, what the hell are you doing?
18:57
And so John was, he was setting it up to be like a fear of the Lord is what keeps us
19:05
from sinning.
19:07
It helps us understand, yes, he loves me.
19:09
He's gracious.
19:10
I'm welcomed in his presence, but as we're supposed to be said, as you quote, like he's
19:14
holy, holy, holy too.
19:17
And you better hold that in tension with, I don't know if tension's the right word.
19:22
You better have that in your other hand as you cling to that gracious, loving, welcomed
19:27
in his presence, sung over, delighted in sonship that he's given you.
19:32
And I think what's clear in the text here is they've got no fear of God.
19:36
Their whole mindset, they're bringing kind of the world's value system into the church
19:42
at its infancy.
19:44
And I think that's why it cost him their life, that like Jesus isn't going to build his,
19:47
he's not going to build his church this way.
19:49
This isn't going to, it's not going to work that way here.
19:51
And let me show everybody that it's not going to work that way here.
19:55
So let me ask with that in mind, like, are you saying that they, they maybe never feared
20:01
God or they, I'm not as interested in that.
20:03
Let me, let me go to the second part.
20:04
So that had a fear of God, but then lost it.
20:07
So how do people go through the process of losing that fear?
20:10
Because yeah, it's like you can be untethered, you can, you know, you know, be away from
20:15
the ecclesia, which, you know, we see in this text, the first, you know, use of that word
20:19
ecclesia here in the book of Acts, but like you're, you're disconnected from accountability.
20:23
You're disconnected from the church.
20:24
You're not praying.
20:25
You're not seeking the Holy Spirit.
20:26
Like none of those types of things.
20:27
You're not reading the Bible.
20:28
Is that how people are losing their fear?
20:30
Or is it just like at some point they're like, eh, I'm a God, no big deal.
20:33
I think there's a lot of different ways that people lose their fear of the Lord.
20:38
I think it's hard to develop and keep a fear of the Lord in this modern moment, where everything
20:43
seems, and this is like rightly to be about the grace of God, the friendship of God, the
20:50
delight of God in his children.
20:52
All of that is true, but, but you hardly ever hear anything about his holy wrath, about
21:00
his justice, about his, so, so these are concepts that, that you, you hardly hear preached.
21:08
Nobody's really writing on them.
21:10
Uh, nobody, nobody highlights how, how serious God is about sin throughout the scriptures,
21:17
not Old Testament versus New Testament.
21:19
Like God hates sin and, and no sin goes unpunished ever and, and Christ absorbs the wrath of
21:28
God towards those of us who would believe were under grace, not under that wrath.
21:33
That's a great truth for Christians.
21:35
But has nobody read Hebrews?
21:38
Has everyone forgot that he disciplines those he calls sons and scourges all of those who
21:42
belong to him?
21:44
So it's, it's an imbalance yet again.
21:48
I think we, we probably swung the pendulum as, as the people of God are prone to do away
21:54
from kind of rugged, fundamental holiness movement and, and swung it back over here,
22:02
where Jesus is my best friend and the lover of my soul, which is not untrue, just incomplete,
22:07
but it's incomplete.
22:08
Well, we've bought into the lie of, I just saw a sprawl, a clip of sprawl the other day.
22:13
He was talking about, um, I was kind of colloquialism about, you know, uh, hate the sin, not the
22:19
center, that type of thing.
22:20
And he goes, well, God doesn't send sin to hell.
22:23
And it's like, so you're going to have to like, and I can't remember if he was talking
22:28
to preachers or what exactly was doing, but it's like, look guys, whenever you, whenever
22:33
you qualify every single one of your statements that may come off as harsh, people won't take
22:37
the statement seriously.
22:38
It's like, so what, you know, what Vodie Bockum's talked about a lot, like when a lot of pastors
22:42
do a sermon on a homosexuality or gay marriage, they, it dies the death of a thousand qualifications
22:47
for it gets there.
22:48
It's like, look, you know, I have gay friends and we love gay people and all that.
22:51
It's like, would you do that with a pedophile?
22:52
Would you say?
22:53
I love pedophiles.
22:54
And you know, I know people that struggle with pedophilia and all that's like, you wouldn't
22:56
do the same thing, but for whatever reason, you say that in this context and we're supposed
23:00
to all just go along with it.
23:01
Well, it's not for whatever reason, right?
23:04
It's the hot button blow up, like I'm, I'm oftentimes curious that despite how I preach
23:11
and despite the things I've said, how many people even in my own congregation on that
23:15
subject will just tolerate my view on that subject because they like everything else.
23:22
Yeah.
23:23
Go ahead.
23:24
Yeah.
23:25
Well, I'm just saying it's the cultural moment, it's the cultural moment.
23:28
Right.
23:29
I can ignore that.
23:30
That's right.
23:31
It's like the bad album on the song or the bad song on the album.
23:33
You're like, I'll just skip that one.
23:34
Yeah.
23:35
But that's, it was interesting to me that you stopped yourself and you said the word tension
23:38
and then you said, I don't know if that's the right word.
23:41
Yeah.
23:42
And what I was reminded of is workout your salvation and fear and trembling.
23:45
Yeah.
23:46
To me, it seems like tension is a very appropriate word.
23:49
Yeah.
23:50
I wonder why you might struggle with that.
23:51
I just don't know if that's precisely, is it tension or is it just surrender to the complexities
24:00
of a God who is love and has wrath and how those things shake out for the believer.
24:08
I know how they shake out for the unbeliever, but how do they shake out for the believer
24:13
because the scriptures just replete with us being, not replete, the scriptures are full
24:18
of like, we're welcomed in his presence, he delights in us, he sings over like all of
24:22
that's true.
24:24
And he hates wickedness and double mindedness and it's all there.
24:31
And the great theme of fear of the Lord, right?
24:33
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
24:36
Like you want wisdom.
24:37
You better fear his name.
24:39
And then, you know, I've seen guys, the language isn't going to work for you to just go.
24:43
That's a healthy respect.
24:44
Yeah.
24:45
It's not just a healthy respect.
24:46
The word several times in Hebrew is terror.
24:49
And then whenever you see, I like in it, here's kind of what I play in my mind.
24:54
Like when men of God see angels in the New Testament, yeah, they fall on the ground like
25:00
dead men and they're not God.
25:05
They're not Jesus.
25:06
They're messengers, servants, warriors, they're not the king of king.
25:12
They're not the lamb lion of Judah.
25:15
And so I know that I just want to go, I'm just going to run and give Jesus a hug.
25:20
Maybe.
25:21
Well, it's the same in the opposite when you have people that are like, well, when I get
25:23
up there a judgment day, I'm going to give them a piece of my mind.
25:25
It's like, you know, you'll do nothing like you'll do not, but like Ryan, we've talked
25:29
about this at nausea, but we constantly talk about things that we hold in tension.
25:33
So how do we hold in tension?
25:35
God's sovereignty and our free will, like how do we hold that in tension?
25:38
But I feel like with the lamb lion, the grace truth, like, you know, I guess, nice and
25:44
justice, those types of things, the way that I explained it to people is we look at Jesus
25:49
coming fully in grace and truth as if it's a 50 50 proposition that he came 50% grace
25:54
and 50% truth.
25:55
It's like, no, he came 100% grace and 100% truth.
26:00
And I feel like that's easier for me.
26:02
That's easier for me to think that way because 50 50 can very easily turn to 65 35, right?
26:07
And so, oh, he's, he's more, he's more 60.
26:09
He's more grace right now.
26:10
He's more true right now.
26:11
Good.
26:12
He's more than our, our grace, you know, and that, that's the thing.
26:15
We always try to put Christ up or God up as like one of us, and it's like, he's not one
26:20
of us.
26:21
Like an ideal.
26:22
Well, it's just like, yeah, but it's just like, oh, well God, you know, God's love is
26:26
like my love.
26:27
And I was like, no, it's not.
26:29
His love is more bound.
26:30
His love is reckless, right?
26:31
Yeah.
26:32
I thought it was reckless.
26:33
No, no, no.
26:34
Not allowed to say that.
26:35
I like that song.
26:36
It's a good song.
26:37
It's actually a good song.
26:38
Actually you shout out Corey asbury.
26:39
But no, but that's the thing is like, we just have this idea that God is exactly like us
26:43
and he's not like our knowledge is not his knowledge.
26:47
His knowledge surpasses us by all means, just like his righteousness surpasses us by all
26:51
means, his grace surpasses us by all means.
26:54
Like we have to come to a conclusion that we are just the pot and he is a creator.
26:59
So I'm actually going to dig in a little bit and then this is going to be completely on
27:02
me.
27:03
We're probably going to go a little bit long today because I find this to be very interesting.
27:05
So we always look for, what have you been talking about?
27:09
A lot of plausibility structures is like some of the big theme that you've been hitting
27:12
for the last year or so.
27:13
So whether you're leading a church or going through an MBA program or trying to set up
27:20
a sale cycle with a particular whatever, you're trying to come up with some common understanding
27:25
of the problem and how we can get to the solution.
27:28
You've been through a lot of, Zach, you've been through a lot of high level negotiation
27:31
classes and things like that.
27:32
So the thing that I wonder, Ryan, is like, okay, as humans, are we just trying to default
27:37
to God is just a higher version of us so that we can have some way of even fathoming what
27:42
he is?
27:43
Is that kind of our comfort mechanism to where, because if we think about the vastness of
27:49
God or of the universe or all that, we can easily just be completely crushed by the notion.
27:53
So I wonder if that's our way of trying to create some sort of a structure that we can
28:00
wrap our heads around.
28:01
So we're like, oh, God's just like us, but more so.
28:03
Well, go ahead.
28:04
No, you go ahead.
28:05
I was going.
28:06
What I thought when you were talking is that this is how God has determined to relate to
28:10
us and that even his language in scripture is anthropomorphic.
28:14
Yeah.
28:15
But like he knows, he knows like he's incomprehensible at some level to us.
28:22
And so he uses anthropomorphic language to help us.
28:26
I mean, he comes down to us in that way.
28:29
And after, you know, Jesus comes down to us.
28:33
So in some sense, we need those plausibility structures.
28:36
And I think he's woven and created the world that way.
28:40
But I also think the word of God has to put its weight on us to write our mistakes around
28:49
that interpretation through anthropomorphic means.
28:53
He's not like me.
28:54
He is unchain, he is immutable.
28:57
And I need him to be immutable.
28:59
If he's not immutable, then he's not God.
29:02
Like you get into those incommunicable attributes.
29:04
Now you're not human anymore.
29:06
And so it's those incommunicable attributes of God, those things that at my best, even
29:11
with the spirit, I will never be that rework God in a way that should develop a holy fear.
29:21
Like even the doctrine that God is simple, he's not parts.
29:24
He's one thing is brain bending for me.
29:27
There's no anthropomorphic place to go with that other than worship and in awe of his
29:34
holiness, his otherness.
29:37
And I think that's where the word of God and all its weight has to bore itself on us,
29:42
has to bear itself on us.
29:44
Somebody has to preach the full counsel of it.
29:46
We have to be sitting under the full weight of who God has revealed himself to be.
29:51
The majority of that language is anthropomorphic.
29:54
And then the stuff that's not really matters, but it's also harder to preach because there's
30:01
not always a lot of applications for you to do tomorrow morning.
30:04
It's more, this is who he is, take it in.
30:08
And I think that's what makes us grow in a fear of the Lord and grow in awe of his holiness,
30:12
his otherness that's so imperative for us to live a victorious Christian life.
30:18
When we're talking about anthropomorphism, so that's giving human characteristics to
30:22
something that's not human.
30:23
So the way that we normally understand that is there's a reason why Lion King, they have
30:27
like, you know, eyelashes for the animals, they give them a kind of humanoid like type
30:32
features and they're able to talk.
30:34
It's because if you were to just like, there's a reason why the animated was so much more
30:38
well received than the live action, because it's like you can't give a real lion, these
30:43
types of features and all that you can't really connect with it.
30:45
Like with the remake of the little mermaid, like they tried to make the crab have some
30:49
human-esque type of things, it was just strange, I guess, and so like you don't necessarily
30:53
want to do that when you're trying to relate to God as well.
30:56
You want to hit one more thing before we go in the next section?
30:58
Yeah, I guess one thing I would say is kind of like what you were just describing.
31:02
I mean, from a negotiation standpoint, what's interesting is you don't have to understand
31:07
all of the complexity of the situation.
31:10
Generally speaking, a decision, a move forward is made based on an emotional connection and
31:16
trust and the relationship.
31:18
And just like with God, I would say that you can have that trust, you can understand
31:22
his character and you can move forward in that.
31:25
Second thing I would just say is as an example right now, we were talking about fear.
31:31
I'm going through an interpersonal situation with a person that's been quite difficult,
31:36
something I've never encountered before, and it's kind of gotten to the point now.
31:39
I've had four days to think about this, I've just finished a camping trip, so I had some
31:42
alone time and it came down to, I just have to adhere to what God says in his word.
31:49
At this point, I just have to comply with it, even if I don't intellectually or emotionally,
31:53
frankly, want to do that.
31:55
Absolutely.
31:56
And that's the healthy part of, you know, he's Lord.
31:58
Yeah.
31:59
Yeah.
32:00
And I would say that's a good example of fear.
32:01
Yeah.
32:02
I'm going to do what the Lord says, not what I think or feel or what makes sense to me.
32:07
He's got them not, I don't even understand all of that, but I laid my yes down and I'm
32:11
keeping it down.
32:12
Yeah.
32:13
Think about people that choose to forgive.
32:14
We've talked about that.
32:15
You know, all of us in private conversations like, so your fear of the Lord is higher than
32:21
the level of discomfort you're going to feel for doing something and, you know, Joby gave
32:25
you some good advice.
32:26
It's like, look, man, everyone talks about forgiveness like it's a feeling.
32:28
It's not.
32:29
It's a decision.
32:30
Yeah.
32:31
You choose to forgive and then you remind yourself of it.
32:32
And if you're a Christian, how do you do that by constantly preaching the gospel to yourself?
32:35
Forgive us as an action.
32:36
Just like love.
32:37
Right.
32:38
And the other thing that I wanted to bring up was the fact that I think that we always
32:42
try to create God in our own image is because we're afraid of mystery.
32:45
Yeah.
32:46
We're afraid of not having all the answers and we're trying to develop those answers within
32:51
our own understanding and just not putting our faith in him and allowing him and putting
32:55
our trust there.
32:56
And speaking of mystery, segue of all segues, let's talk about many signs and wonders, Ryan.
33:00
So let's just get right into it here.
33:02
Read verses 12 through 16, my friend, go, go, go.
33:05
All right.
33:06
Many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles
33:10
and they were all together in Solomon's, Portico, sorry, I gotta pull this up.
33:17
None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem.
33:21
And more than ever, believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women
33:25
so that they even carried out the sick into the streets and laid them in cots and mats.
33:31
That is Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall upon some of them.
33:35
The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem bringing the sick and those afflicted
33:39
with unclean spirits and they were all healed.
33:43
So there's quite a bit here where we have quite a bit left in this chapter as well.
33:48
I didn't know this until I was reading the moody commentary, but back in that day, people
33:51
believe that someone shadow was actually an extension of themselves, which you and I both
33:55
read the moody, Ryan.
33:56
So that was very interesting to me.
33:58
And so if your shadow touched a corpse, you would be unclean.
34:02
It's like, dang, you had to really pay attention to your sundial and know exactly what direction
34:07
the someone's going is you're walking by, you know, the cemetery or whatever.
34:09
And so kind of kind of a rough deal, but there's a whole lot that we can talk about here.
34:13
But the thing that I was struck by, and we were talking about this a little bit before
34:17
we started recording.
34:18
So I'd be curious to get your thoughts on air on the record.
34:20
But like, I feel like Pope worship, this may have been one of the first times where this
34:25
kind of started because if you are Catholic and we don't have, you know, Winkler here,
34:28
we're a resident Catholic, but when you talk to a Catholic, they believe there is a direct
34:32
line, you know, that from Peter to Francis and that all of those men were the right men,
34:39
that, you know, the people that chose them and they, you know, they put the white smoke
34:42
out and all that, that all those men were right.
34:44
Those are the right ones.
34:45
Those are ones that God wanted in those positions.
34:48
And so, and they don't even talk about necessarily from like a sovereignty point.
34:51
It's kind of their own little theology.
34:53
But I feel like in this moment, were these people in awe of the power of God through
34:58
Peter or of Peter?
35:00
And so I just wonder if that's where we start to get this break away from the entire point.
35:05
Not that Peter was, you know, aiding this, but that's just the way that the people took
35:09
it.
35:10
You know what I'm saying?
35:11
Yeah.
35:12
And people do this.
35:13
I mean, people will always make much of servants of God whose God's power is moving through
35:19
profoundly.
35:20
And this is why Paul ends up having to make the argument in Corinthians where he's like
35:23
some of your, like a Paulus's sermons or I mean, your podcast in them every week and
35:28
you know, Peter's the OG.
35:30
He's like the John Piper and some of you, you're going, John's my guy.
35:33
And then some of you're like, no, no, no, Paul, you're my guy.
35:36
And here's the reality guys, like we all have a role to play and God's determined the role
35:41
that we play.
35:42
And we're just trying to play our role faithfully.
35:45
God gives growth.
35:46
God grants salvation.
35:47
God's the one who's done this work in your life.
35:51
And so I don't, I don't see any evidence here that, that Peter wants this, but I use clearly
35:55
see that they're becoming the first blue checkers.
36:00
You know, I mean, these are the first super verified.
36:02
These are the first blue check celebrity Christian pastors.
36:06
And it, it doesn't seem that they're, it doesn't seem that they're trying to correct that out
36:12
of the crowd, but it, it certainly Paul does later.
36:17
Paul later is going to be like, Hey, the way you're seeing us is not right.
36:19
Okay.
36:20
So let me actually break into that a little bit, correct that out of them because there's
36:25
a guy that's in the similar space, a similar space is me that he was not a Navy seal, but
36:30
he was introduced by several people and several articles online as being a Navy seal.
36:36
He was aware of it.
36:37
It was said in his presence and he never corrected the record.
36:39
Yeah.
36:40
And so it seemed like he was liking the fact that people thought he was a seal.
36:43
So it wasn't directly stolen valor because it wasn't pretending, but he wasn't correcting
36:47
the record.
36:48
I've been introduced on podcasts and at speaking events as a Navy seal, as an MMA fighter,
36:54
as all these things that I am not.
36:56
And as opposed to embarrassing my host, which would be rude, I will come up with some sort
37:01
of funny way to correct the record and say, yeah, it's like, yeah, I got ugly ears and
37:05
ugly face, but I've never actually, you know, been locked in a cage with another heathen
37:08
with a referee.
37:09
That's the only thing keeping me from death.
37:11
Yeah.
37:12
You know, it was like, I trained you Jitsu, but I'm not an MMA fighter.
37:13
So everybody kind of gets a laugh and you get to correct the record.
37:16
But I'm curious for, for right now, because like you're in that celebrity pastor status.
37:21
You have been for a long time because you sell a lot of books.
37:23
You're asked to go speak at the big conferences.
37:26
How do you, how do you maintain personally for the crowd, for the people following you
37:32
to be like, Hey, don't look to me.
37:34
Look through me to the father because for a lot of people, we like, we'll get high on
37:38
our own farts and be like, man, I have this many followers on Instagram.
37:41
I just got asked to speak at this conference.
37:42
I must be something else.
37:44
Like, how do you keep that humility of like, nah, man, it's not about me.
37:47
Yeah.
37:48
So I have, I have what I would call a king's table where I have a group of five men that
37:54
or four men on the fifth that know everything from my tax returns to like, like they know
37:59
everything about my life.
38:00
There is no Matt Chandler in my inner circle.
38:03
There's no deference paid to Matt Chandler.
38:06
There's no, they're just good friends.
38:08
Most of them have been with me for 15 or 20 years.
38:11
No matter what anyone says about me, good or bad, I'm not, I'm not receiving it in a
38:17
way that's going to alter how I understand myself that that needs to come through those
38:23
men or men and women that know me and know me, not my preaching gift, not my leadership
38:29
gift.
38:30
They know me.
38:31
So it's really easy for me to both divide praise and ignore criticism when I know you
38:42
don't know me.
38:43
So here's what's happened in the controversy that I've experienced in my life.
38:47
There are some people out there that no matter what I do, they're going to love me.
38:51
Like if there was a video of me clubbing a baby seal, the people would, there would be
38:57
like a plane, a historic parable, if you will.
39:03
And there would be people online that was like, what'd that seal do to him right before?
39:08
All we have is him clubbing it.
39:10
But did you see, did that baby seal go after his daughter?
39:13
What was the seal wearing?
39:14
I bet you that seal went after his daughter or something.
39:16
And then there are people that no matter what I do, I'm the problem and I'm in this for
39:21
money and power and I'm in the, now, the truth is neither of those people know me.
39:26
Neither of them know me, neither of them see the secret places, neither of them know what's
39:31
going on in my house, neither of them know what happens, what I'm frustrated and I'm
39:34
in a meeting that I don't want to be in.
39:37
Nobody sees that except this group of men that I'm calling my king's table and they
39:41
see it.
39:42
And so when they affirm, I'm just receiving it.
39:45
And when they critique, I'm not only receiving it, but you saw two years ago, I'm submitting
39:51
to it.
39:52
Right.
39:53
They get the same way, there's no guile in them.
39:56
They love the word of God.
39:58
They love Jesus and they love me and my family and they know it.
40:04
They know my life.
40:05
They know how I'm spending my money.
40:07
They know when I've been in the dark night of the soul, they know when I've wrestled
40:10
because of stuff at home or when I'm acting in a way that's inconsistent with how they
40:15
know me to be.
40:17
And so for me, that group is the anchor God gave me to not get too puffed up by praise
40:26
and not to be absolutely destroyed by the guy that lives with his mom in South Carolina
40:30
and has made it his mission to expose me for the money, hungry, power, hungry fraud I
40:36
am.
40:37
Yeah.
40:38
I'm still in the mission to do the exact same thing.
40:39
We just want the last thing.
40:40
Yeah.
40:41
This is just part of the plan, you know, get you in close and then they expose you there
40:43
towards the end.
40:44
And if he had Jordans on real quick, no, yeah, I've been taking lots of, I took pictures
40:49
of his suitcase.
40:50
There's lots of expensive stuff.
40:51
There's gold bars in there for whatever reason, like, I don't understand what it costs to
40:53
stay here.
40:54
You could stay at the hotel and admin or you're not supposed to mention that.
40:58
Okay, but like the kind of the way I do it, because I'm, I deal with that to a much, much
41:03
smaller degree than you.
41:04
So there was something that I picked up back in my sales days and so y'all may have been
41:07
through this in some of your trainings and things like that.
41:10
Like I will try to ask six questions about the other person before I will answer any about
41:14
me.
41:15
That's good.
41:16
So they're like, Hey, you know, so what brought you?
41:17
I'm like, Oh man, my story is not that important, but like you seem to be making the rounds
41:21
around this room.
41:22
Like, do you know a lot of these people?
41:23
That's one.
41:24
Well, what, you know, did you go to school in this area?
41:26
That's two.
41:27
Well, how'd you end up in that line of work?
41:28
That's three.
41:29
And I just try to do that because I'm literally training myself to not be interested in my
41:33
story, right?
41:34
So that my farts stay stinky.
41:36
So like that I'm not like getting to that point where I'm getting high on my own farts.
41:39
But the other thing I remind people all the time is please do not put your faith in me.
41:43
Like, I will 100% let you down, whether it's an opinion that I have, whether it's, you
41:49
know, something that I do or say, like, I will 100% let you down.
41:53
But if you look more to the father because of me, that's the entire point of why I'm
41:59
here.
42:00
It's like, I want to be able to divert your attention from this face or these words or
42:04
whatever towards the father.
42:06
And it's like, I do a [inaudible] poor job of that sometimes, but other times I'm nailing it.
42:10
And that's also contextual to the person.
42:12
I can say the exact same thing.
42:13
And another person's like, oop, unfollow.
42:15
And someone else is like, oh my gosh, this, this entire part of the Bible has been opened
42:18
up to me, which I find that to be deeply important as we work through this.
42:21
I think it's true.
42:22
And the fact that like I've gone through a lot of churches, like in church hurt, I mean,
42:27
and by church, it's just like, you know what, we put this pastor up on a pedestal.
42:30
Yeah.
42:31
And he's human, you know, but it never made me want to like doubt my love and faith in God.
42:36
And I feel like that's a hard part right now is that people put all their faith in these
42:39
celebrity pastors, not saying that you're a celebrity pastor, but, you know, he has his
42:44
car on his wallet.
42:45
All right.
42:46
But I'm saying they put their faith in like, who's the guy, the Hillsong guy, Carl Lentz
42:51
and everything.
42:52
And then, you know, Carl's human, he's going to fail, you know, and he's going to, he's
42:56
going to talk about Ravi on the show a lot, how important he was.
42:59
And it's like, you find out post death that he was a, like an evil sexual deviant.
43:04
And maybe you got saved in an RZIM event.
43:06
And then you put the foundation of your faith in Ravi's philosophical underpinnings of his
43:10
arguments and not in the work that was done on the cross.
43:14
And it becomes incredibly problematic where you're having this attack of conscience and
43:18
this attack of faith because, you know, Ravi wasn't who he said he was.
43:21
And then you start going backwards and you're like, wait, did Ravi actually talk about the
43:24
gospel or was he basically talking about philosophy the whole time?
43:27
That becomes very problematic.
43:28
And I just talked about that with a family member because we went to a church where the
43:31
pastor had an infidelity and the person I was talking to, she was like, man, that
43:36
really hurt me and everything.
43:37
And I was like, Hey, I get that.
43:38
And I was like, she's like, but there's grace for him.
43:40
He guys, he started another church.
43:41
And that's where the argument kind of came in is like, like he's unqualified to start
43:46
another church.
43:47
You know, I was like, he lost that qualification when he stepped outside of his marriage.
43:51
But there's grace in God and he should, he should go off and do something.
43:54
You know, he should go off and figure out something else.
43:56
And I was like, you can't let that come down on you.
43:59
You have to go ahead and you have to believe in God and believe that God has the best.
44:03
Very good. Well, we're not pacing very well, and that is my fault, but we got some other
44:06
great stuff to get to in Acts five.
44:08
So Matt, this is the first time you will be reading out loud on adult life demands podcast,
44:12
but I will say this from the very beginning.
44:14
If you mess up at any point during this, the penance you have to pay is you have to say
44:19
sorry, Joby out loud.
44:21
That's the thing because very early on, we all knew that Joby was listening to this.
44:25
This is before he ever even came to Oklahoma to be on the show and the one, the only Matt
44:29
Grasmire and his delicious mustache, he said, sorry, Joby, when he mispronounced a word.
44:33
And so from now on, if there are mistakes made at the forging table, you must pay your
44:37
penance to the ghost fifth member of the forging table.
44:40
Just so you know, I'm the worst reader on the, you nailed it though.
44:43
You just got through nailing it, but I'm also the one Joby loved.
44:46
All right.
44:47
That's also true.
44:48
He loved you.
44:49
Yeah.
44:50
He kissed him directly on the left.
44:51
Sorry.
44:52
Seventeen through 32.
44:53
It was nice.
44:54
Okay.
44:55
Let's do this.
44:56
But the high priest rose up and all who were with him.
44:59
That is the party of the Sadducees were fit.
45:04
Sorry, Joby.
45:05
All right.
45:06
That could be your one that covers the whole.
45:09
Okay.
45:10
But the high priest rose up and all who were with him, that is the party of the Sadducees
45:14
and filled with jealousy.
45:16
They arrested the apostles and put them into public prison.
45:20
But during the night, an angel, the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out
45:24
and said, go and stand in the temple and speak to the people, all the words of, I'm sorry,
45:31
I'm wearing my glasses and my contacts.
45:33
I just realized, why is this?
45:35
Okay.
45:36
I'm going to keep going.
45:37
Go and stand in the temple and speak to the people, all the words of this life.
45:43
And when they heard this, they entered the temple at daybreak and began to teach.
45:48
Now when the high priest came and those who were with him, they called together the council,
45:54
all the Senate of the people of Israel and sent to the prison to have them brought.
45:59
But when the officers came, they did not find them in prison.
46:03
So they returned and responded, we found the prison securely locked and the guard standing
46:11
at the doors.
46:13
But when we opened them, we found none, no one inside.
46:17
Now when the captain of the temple and the chief priests heard these words, they were
46:22
greatly perplexed about them, wondering what this, I'm sorry, I need to heard the, I need
46:31
my big Bible words, they were greatly perplexed, perplexed about them, wondering what this
46:36
would come to.
46:38
And someone came and told them, look, the men whom you are in, the men who you put in
46:43
prison are standing in the temple and teaching all the people.
46:49
Then the captain with the officers went and brought them, but not by force for they were
46:55
afraid of being stoned by the people.
46:58
Is that where you want me to stop?
46:59
You want me to keep going?
47:00
Let's go through 32.
47:01
Okay.
47:02
And when they had brought them, they set them before the council and the high priest questioned
47:06
them saying, we strictly charged you not to teach in the name, yet you have filled Jerusalem
47:13
with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man's blood upon us.
47:20
But Peter and the apostles answered, we must obey God rather than man.
47:26
The God of our fathers raised Jesus, I promise I can read if you're just listening to this
47:34
on YouTube.
47:35
I'm not.
47:36
I've got a master's degree.
47:37
And when they brought them, they sent them before the council and the high priest questioned
47:47
them saying, we strictly charge you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled
47:53
Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man's blood upon us.
47:58
But Peter and the apostles answered, we must obey God rather than men.
48:03
The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree.
48:08
God exalted him at his right hand as leader and savior to give repentance to Israel and
48:14
forgiveness of sins.
48:16
And we are witnesses to these things.
48:19
And so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.
48:23
Guys, the rumors are not true.
48:24
Matt Chandler can read and he just proved it to everybody.
48:27
I'll get you a larger print.
48:28
We'll get you a little bit older for next week.
48:31
Okay.
48:32
Yeah, that's all right.
48:33
So I just want to point something out.
48:34
You have never read well, I'm literally I'm driving the boat like I don't have time to
48:39
read.
48:40
Right.
48:41
I want to think I'll read so that we can find out.
48:43
It's going to be like that scene and dumb and dumb are like to heat to hit with a Zach
48:48
combined.
48:49
Yeah.
48:50
Zach will help me the entire time.
48:51
There's reasons why I'm driving the boat.
48:52
Okay.
48:53
Right.
48:54
So there's a few delicious things in this passage.
48:55
I find like the Sadducees didn't believe in angels.
48:58
Nope.
48:59
And it was an angel that was sent to let them out of prison.
49:01
And I just think it was so I just think it would be so funny because again, when you
49:05
read the Bible without any personality or humor, this is a funny story.
49:10
But like if you're just reading it super serious, it's like, oh, and then they saw the guys.
49:14
It's like, no, you put these guys in prison and then you show up to work the next day.
49:17
You got your coffee and your briefcase and all that and they're there again.
49:21
And you're like, wait, how did these how did they wait an angel?
49:24
But I don't believe an angel.
49:25
Wait a minute.
49:26
How are these guys there?
49:27
So there's there's a lot of that, but there's a couple of keys in this passage that I want
49:30
to go over.
49:31
The first is just jealousy.
49:32
That's what we see in verse 17 that I can't read out loud because I can't read, but they're
49:36
filled with jealousy.
49:38
And we see this and I don't know why this is coming to mind.
49:41
So this will be the first WNBA reference here on the forging table.
49:45
But Caitlin Clark, the only women's basketball player for the last like a couple of decades
49:49
that anybody can can name off top of their head, obviously had a great tournament, all
49:52
these different things.
49:53
And this will be coming out a few months later into the WNBA season.
49:57
But she's experiencing these vitriolic comments from other other women in the league.
50:01
She's being hit on non basketball plays, being knocked down during the game and all that,
50:05
you know, these women are calling their these horrific names that if any of us were to say
50:08
that from the crowd, we would be kicked out and banned for life and just these horrible,
50:12
horrible things.
50:13
And it's, it's all stemming from a jealousy of her.
50:15
And it's like, wait, do you all notice that there are more people in the stands and more
50:18
eyeballs paying attention to you all more followers?
50:20
It's because of her maybe don't like try to knock her down and knock her out of the league.
50:24
But in this particular situation, these Sadducees, they're not necessarily worried about bad
50:29
theology.
50:30
They're worried about the fact that, wait a minute, these people are getting a crowd
50:33
and their crowd seems to be bigger and they're not listening to us anymore.
50:37
It's jealousy that leads them down this entire path.
50:39
And, but it's like, I'm not going to hover above that and pretend like I wouldn't be
50:42
in their shoes as well.
50:43
If I was in their shoes, I'd probably be acting the exact same way.
50:45
It's like they have a heart and heart.
50:46
They're not even listening to the message.
50:47
They're just seeing the people and they're angry.
50:50
And it's like, their heart, their haters, their haters, I hate that, but they're, did
50:55
you really just go Taylor Swift here right from the beginning?
50:58
Okay, here's the thing about Ryan.
50:59
So Ryan's not just a Taylor Swift fan.
51:01
He went to the concert.
51:02
He went, that era's tour, that apparently one third of the population of the planet went
51:06
to except for people that have their man card still.
51:08
He went there and he had like a full on like, you had like a, like a, like a box out there,
51:13
right?
51:14
You had like a big like business box and everything like that, but nobody, yeah, but nobody came
51:18
with you.
51:19
Yes, we did.
51:20
We had the tell the clients.
51:21
That's not how you told the story before.
51:23
No, no.
51:24
Correct the record on the 40 table.
51:25
I correct the record here.
51:26
I did not know that I said that we didn't have any clients.
51:28
I said, no, what happened was nobody else from my team as a company I was working for
51:34
would want to go.
51:35
And so since I was working with that partner, I can't imagine why they wouldn't want to
51:38
go manager.
51:39
Yeah, I had to go.
51:40
I had to drive all the way to Kansas City.
51:42
This is no smoke at Taylor Swift, but you're the, you're the one that spotted the Taylor
51:49
reference.
51:50
Because I didn't even know until you said that's Taylor Swift, I was like, wait what?
51:57
I'm just going to be honest here from the beginning.
51:58
She's not terrible.
51:59
All right.
52:00
She's got, she's got some bangers.
52:01
I'm going to say that I might have a pop playlist on my phone that has a few, a few
52:05
Swiftie songs in there.
52:06
I'm not going to lie to you.
52:07
I'm, I'm a big fan of the national and they collaborate with her a lot.
52:10
So okay, I don't know what any of that means, but like I'm, I'm, I'm hoping that that's
52:14
not a bad thing that we just mentioned here on the forging table.
52:16
But hey, I took us off, but I'm going to bring us back on the highway.
52:18
Bring us back to jealousy.
52:19
Okay.
52:20
Yeah.
52:21
So we're jealous of Taylor.
52:22
Well, let's just kind of talk about that because like I've talked to Joby about this.
52:24
I've talked to some other pastors about this that have a larger followings and one of the
52:29
ask a pastor questions, right?
52:30
I think it was from you was, Hey, should we look at churches that are bigger, right?
52:34
So we, we mean that in terms of square footage of the auditorium and the number of spots
52:38
in the parking lot as God favoring them more.
52:42
And Joby was like, we got to be real careful about saying that a church is size is indicative
52:47
of how God is favoring them or of what is being preached there.
52:50
Jollocene church is probably being the most prominent example of that.
52:53
But talk a little bit about that because it's like, obviously you've experienced jealousy
52:57
because it's like, well, I wrote a book that was better than the explicit gospel and yet
53:01
mine didn't sell more than 15 copies like, and then, or it's like, why does he get to
53:05
go to that conference?
53:06
Like, why is his church growing?
53:07
Why does he get to build up the multi site church, but then also be super virtuous and
53:11
like put them all off into autonomous churches and all that speak, speak to that a little
53:15
bit because God, it's so, it's so negative.
53:18
Yeah.
53:19
I don't, again, I'm not spending like any, any time concerned with someone who is trying
53:28
to judge harshly, what I feel called to do.
53:33
I'm just really not, but I, but I do want to spend a great amount of energy praying, getting
53:42
my team to pray, getting the people around me to seek the favor of God rather than with
53:48
our charismatic personalities and our super gifted, you know, human abilities, pulling
53:54
something off that looks like the favor of God.
53:58
And so like one of the things I want to measure is not how many baptisms we're doing, but
54:02
where are they three years later?
54:04
So I think I'm a good enough communicator that I mean, I can get people up there getting
54:10
in the water if I want, but I, I can't transform anybody's soul.
54:15
I, I'm a great motivator, but motivation doesn't change hearts.
54:20
It helped, it gives them like a discipline pursuit of behavioral modification, but that's
54:26
not the gospel.
54:28
And so if we baptized a thousand people, I'm not saying I wouldn't be like, I mean, I see
54:32
what Joey does.
54:33
Like we baptize 40 billion people.
54:35
Those are almost that number.
54:36
Yeah.
54:37
But Florida is done all of them, but, but I, I really, I want to know where they are three
54:46
years later.
54:47
Yeah.
54:48
Like are they, are they in community?
54:49
Are they growing in the Lord?
54:50
Are they growing in fear, Lord?
54:52
Are they, are they growing in generosity?
54:54
Are they, what are the, what are the marks of a maturing disciple and three years later?
55:00
Are they there?
55:01
And are they displaying that?
55:02
Well, that's what shifted my perspective on large churches when, because I asked Joe
55:08
be that specific question, which is like, okay, you'll see these annual reports that
55:11
say how many people have been baptized.
55:13
And it's like, is that the number, is that the number of people that were saved because
55:17
of this church, this local body or this ministry?
55:19
And the way he said is like, look, anyone that makes a move towards, towards Jesus, we're
55:25
just going to count it.
55:26
Right.
55:27
And so like if they get into the ocean and all that, that's fine.
55:29
But it's not the number, because there are mega churches that didn't, the number they
55:33
care about is the number of people that they can put in their annual report, a people that
55:37
raise their hand after the rock concert and the TED talk.
55:40
And you know, the manipulative music at the end to get them to feel emotionalism so much
55:44
that they raise their hand.
55:45
Some people care about that number, but then there are mega churches like church 1122 that
55:50
really care about what life looks like three years down the road.
55:53
Are they plugged in to a local body?
55:55
Are they doing mission work short term or long term?
55:58
Are they being, you know, sent out in whatever way that they need to be sent out?
56:02
And that's why they create all those different things.
56:04
And so that has kind of helped me understand like the difference in how people approach
56:07
ministry as well as like, where do we put our focus and where do we put our effort?
56:11
The heart behind that question when I asked it wasn't like about mega churches, it was
56:15
more about somebody who's preaching a heretic gospel or adding on to the gospel gospel plus
56:21
type message.
56:23
And somebody came to me and they're like, well, look at, look at how big that church is.
56:26
And it's blessing that church.
56:28
So they must be doing something right.
56:29
And I'm like gospel plus it's only nine, nine, nine a month, right?
56:32
Yeah.
56:33
I'm just like, are you sure it's God blessing it?
56:35
You know what I'm saying?
56:36
Like, you know, and that's, that's, that was my mind behind the question when I asked it
56:39
is because I grew up in a very different type of movement and money and, and, and things
56:47
and people were what made your church rather than what decide, what does discipleship look
56:52
like or what are people growing, you know, what actions, what fruits are coming from here
56:56
other than prosperity and, and control.
57:00
Well, and then prosperity for who?
57:02
Yeah.
57:03
Right.
57:04
Prosperity for the pastor or prosperity for the people.
57:08
I know the message is prosperity for the people, but usually that message is prosperity
57:13
for the people because the prosperity given to the pastor.
57:17
When it's seemingly the only pastors that are really, really comfortable talking about
57:20
money or the prosperity ones that are benefiting from that, right?
57:23
And I, because I feel like pastors have been scared.
57:25
I would know we made the joke earlier about preachers and sneakers, but I think pastors
57:28
have been scared to wear shoes, including that are just in their closet because they're afraid
57:32
of what it looks like.
57:33
It's like, okay, well, there are pastors that are wearing $1,500 suits and, you know, $900
57:39
Italian dress shoes, but they're not as flashy as, you know, a pair of rare Jordan threes.
57:44
And so they're, they're being considered in a certain way.
57:46
And so like I like when pastors are like, no, we're going to preach and talk about money
57:49
because Jesus talks about it.
57:50
We're not going to hide from it because we're scared that you're going to be thinking that
57:52
you're just, you know, raiding our pocketbooks.
57:54
And that's, that's the thing too.
57:56
This kind of goes back to earlier on in the chapter with the Nias and Sephira and a Nias
58:00
and Sephira.
58:01
Sorry, Joby.
58:02
Sorry.
58:03
It happens.
58:04
We're all due one, but, but like that's something I came through is like the 10%.
58:07
I mean, RC's role even brought it up in his commentary.
58:11
And my, my questions, and since Matt's here, I thought it'd be great to ask is like, is
58:15
that 10% biblical or is that 10% more of like a ceremonial type of old law that now we were
58:22
more into the Corinthians and then giving with a grateful heart because growing up, you
58:27
know, they really hounded that 10% in the church that I went to.
58:31
And if you weren't doing the 10%, you weren't getting the blessings.
58:33
You're stealing from God.
58:34
You were stealing like you.
58:35
Oh man.
58:36
They, we knew Malachi three eight had a young age, you know, and, and so like my sister
58:41
who should have used a name, my bad, but I have a family member that is like going through
58:46
something.
58:47
Yes.
58:48
No idea.
58:49
Um, but, but she's like kind of dealing with that.
58:52
We're discussing that in the 10%.
58:55
And I'm just like, give with a grateful heart.
58:57
I was like, give with, give what God has asked you to give, give out of obedience and make
59:02
sure that your message is the message of the church is on point that you feel good giving
59:06
there, you know, if not, then you need to talk to your pastor and kind of get an idea
59:11
of, you know, where he's going with that.
59:12
Or if that doesn't work, find someplace else, you know, but like you have to be obedient
59:17
to God and obedient to what he lays on your heart.
59:20
And so I just wanted to get your thoughts on that.
59:22
Yeah.
59:23
I, so I'm going to land in the spot that would say the tithe is biblical.
59:29
Okay.
59:30
Um, in that, and, and where I'm getting that is when Jesus has the opportunity to take
59:35
it off of us, he doesn't take it off of us.
59:37
Okay.
59:38
He, he rebukes the Pharisees for tithing on their dill and mint, basically their condiments,
59:45
which is just wild, but that they neglected the greater works of justice and mercy.
59:53
But then the sentence right after that is says, and you should have done both.
59:59
And, and so when Jesus has the opportunity to take the tithe or turn the tithe into something
1:00:04
other than it was understood, he, he doesn't do it, he doubles down on it.
1:00:10
And so that, that's how I've understood it.
1:00:12
That's how I've operated since I've become a Christian that, that from day one, it was,
1:00:18
you, you get the first fruits, you get the 10%.
1:00:20
And then everything over that is, and, and it's not my tie, that's my, it's an offering.
1:00:25
It's an offering.
1:00:26
So I'm more in that camp where that, that, that's where I'm going to land on it.
1:00:30
But I understand the argument on the other way to God loves a cheerful giver.
1:00:35
You know, Hilaron, he loves a hilarious giver, he just like a crazy person with their money.
1:00:40
But we at the church, what we're trying to do is we, we just do a, like our liturgy is
1:00:46
we end our service.
1:00:47
We don't have an oftatory.
1:00:48
We do a generosity prayer.
1:00:50
We all stand together and we read this prayer out loud about God making us a kind of people.
1:00:56
But when I'm preaching on this or teaching on this, I'm, I'm starting with the heart
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because that's where the Bible starts on this subject.
1:01:05
And, and then getting us to like, but, but these are some, these are some real, real
1:01:12
tracks, if you will, for how we're going to grow in that.
1:01:15
Because like, even if I look at my own giving over the last, gosh, I've been a Christian
1:01:19
30 something years now, like the 10 was a starting point.
1:01:24
It's not where we are now.
1:01:26
It was our starting point.
1:01:27
And then Lauren and I have had long conversations is because I've financially we've gone and
1:01:32
I mean, we thought when I'm switched my major from political science to Bible, we thought
1:01:38
we were taking a certain kind of vow, you know, we didn't see, like we, we just thought we
1:01:44
were going to have a lot of money, you know, and we didn't, you know, I was making 12 grand
1:01:47
a year when we got married, we would get in fights because she would drink a whole soda
1:01:52
before I got home.
1:01:53
I was like, you drank that whole soda?
1:01:54
And it wasn't even like a doctor paper was like, doctor thunder, right, you know, it
1:01:58
cost 15 cents.
1:01:59
But it was like, that's like, that's like a replenishment cycle thing, a soda back then.
1:02:06
And and so what's happened is that the rails that we were on says our first 10 is his because
1:02:14
it's all his.
1:02:15
And then as as financially different things started happening, we we understand the concept
1:02:23
of drift.
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My wife and I do.
1:02:26
So we, we've got questions that we are constantly at.
1:02:29
We have Sunday night meetings where we're like, let's talk about the week.
1:02:32
What else is going on?
1:02:33
How can I serve you?
1:02:34
What do you need from me this week?
1:02:35
Here's what I would love this week.
1:02:37
And oftentimes one of the things we're talking about is who sat at our dining room table?
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Has everyone that's been at our dining room table been someone who is a name or is in
1:02:48
a certain tax bracket or has a certain education level or and in it, I'm not trying to be, we're
1:02:53
not trying to be legalistic with it, but we must have an honest conversation is everybody
1:02:57
in our life willing to bless us who's in our life that can't really bring us anything,
1:03:02
but that we're pouring into and we're loving on and we're bringing into our circle.
1:03:06
And and another one of those conversations are always around money like when, when is
1:03:11
it enough?
1:03:12
When is it enough?
1:03:14
Like like when do we have all that we need and we have because if you're not going to
1:03:17
have that conversation, you're just going to drift.
1:03:20
And so I mean, I'm literally just had this conversation with my 18 year old.
1:03:23
He's really into cars.
1:03:25
I'm really not.
1:03:27
And he, there's this Cadillac, something black wing and he's like, dad, you should totally,
1:03:33
you could drive a Cadillac people to the church when it's a Cadillac.
1:03:36
And that car is like, it's like a hundred thousand dollar car.
1:03:39
And it's not like a hundred thousand dollar car because all cars are a hundred thousand
1:03:42
dollars right now.
1:03:43
It's like 120, 130,000.
1:03:44
And I'm like, son, I am, I am never if if I had millions of dollars, I would not be
1:03:52
buying a hundred and forty thousand dollar car.
1:03:56
And let me try to explain why to you.
1:03:58
And it doesn't have to do with how it might be perceived because I was driving a black
1:04:02
wing or it's just, I know what that money can do in places that are more important to
1:04:07
me.
1:04:08
And but that's been an ongoing conversation with Lauren and I.
1:04:11
But for us, the rail started at 10% is the Lord's and and then we had a little, we want
1:04:16
to be generous.
1:04:17
We're going to put another couple of percent over here to just be generous with.
1:04:20
And then over time, do those percentages need to shift in this next season of life?
1:04:25
Yeah.
1:04:26
And that's been an ongoing conversation with Lauren and I, I, I kind of see where you're
1:04:29
going with that because like for me is I had a real problem with that obedience and like,
1:04:34
I had a guy who was like kind of just pouring into me.
1:04:37
He was like, he's like, man, we left that church, but we still gave to this other church.
1:04:41
And I was like, man, you were still giving like I pocketed that money.
1:04:43
I felt, I felt simple.
1:04:45
I was like, dude, I, I go, we left that church, I pocketed everything I had, you know?
1:04:49
And, and I was like, but I had to come down to my heart and I didn't know where the money
1:04:53
was going.
1:04:54
I didn't know how disciple, I didn't see discipleship within that church.
1:04:57
And I just told my wife, I was like, we've got to find someplace new and we got, I can't
1:05:02
give to hear anymore because I just felt, I just didn't feel the obedience there.
1:05:06
And then we ended up moving to Keller, Texas, I get into this church, man, we start giving,
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we start giving more than 10%.
1:05:12
And, and it's, I think one thing that I looked at it was sacrificial giving and just being
1:05:17
able to make that sacrifice and then having a cheerful heart and making that sacrifice.
1:05:22
And so when we ended up leaving that church to move back here, couldn't find another church.
1:05:26
I made sure that that, that money went there just because I just love the mission of that
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church.
1:05:32
There was discipleship.
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I was discipled there.
1:05:34
I saw discipleship going down.
1:05:35
And so I'm trying to tell this family member like, Hey, just look at the mission.
1:05:39
Make sure your mind's on the mission and that God's laying it on your heart, but you have
1:05:42
to be obedient.
1:05:43
You have to give, whether it's 10% or not, give with a grateful heart is what I said
1:05:47
heard.
1:05:48
I'll probably talk to her a little bit about the 10% I'm glad you talked about this family
1:05:51
member that we have no idea which family member it is.
1:05:53
Like it's not possible.
1:05:54
I have multiple family members.
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I doubt that.
1:05:57
I doubt that's just the one that you mentioned.
1:05:59
So, so we're run short on time.
1:06:00
We still got a little bit more to go.
1:06:02
We're just going to go a little bit long on this.
1:06:03
This is probably not appropriate considering the timing, but I'm just struck by what we
1:06:08
see in verse 29, but Peter and the apostles answered, we must obey God rather than men.
1:06:13
Immediately, I went right back to Romans 13 because I've never had more non Christian,
1:06:18
non Bible readers throw Romans 13 in my face than in 2020 with the lockdowns and, you know,
1:06:25
all the different things that happen within the pandemic to where it's just like, wait,
1:06:27
wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, like Romans 13, man, like if we're, if your church needs
1:06:32
to be shut down for the betterment of society based on what these people say that are your
1:06:37
moral betters in government, you're just going to have to do that.
1:06:40
So you sit down and you shut up and you just take this.
1:06:43
And so I feel like there's this, this tension between, okay, when do we follow?
1:06:48
When do we not follow?
1:06:50
When is it appropriate to do that outwardly?
1:06:52
Because we had James Coates on the show who was arrested in Canada, who drew the line
1:06:55
in the sand immediately.
1:06:56
And then you have guys like MacArthur who are basically in the Canada of America, which
1:07:00
is the, which is California that drew a line immediately and said, Hey, everyone find
1:07:04
out, okay, we're holding church.
1:07:06
Like y'all do what you got to do.
1:07:07
And if you want to drag an 80 year old man out of here in handcuffs so that you can, you
1:07:10
know, to have me take a picture with the Slickback governor, that's fine.
1:07:14
But like at what point, and I'm specifically asking you, Matt, like at what point do we
1:07:19
say, look, I'm obeying God rather than man and you do what you got to do, but I could
1:07:23
do what I have to do.
1:07:24
Cause that's the one thing that we see here is Peter and the rest of these guys right now
1:07:27
are like, you do what you got to do.
1:07:29
But I'm going to do what I got to do and then we'll figure it out in the end.
1:07:32
Yeah.
1:07:33
So I think you can look across church history and you can find that the people of God often
1:07:37
are at the forefront of societal change simply because they won't get the name Wilberforce
1:07:42
on your shirt.
1:07:43
There it is.
1:07:44
That's right.
1:07:45
Certainly one of those, but you go to like civil rights movement that's predominantly led
1:07:49
by the black church, but they literally were like, no, we're going to sit where we want
1:07:52
to sit and, and we're going to, we're going to go where we want to go.
1:07:57
And we're going to do it peaceably and then do what you want to do.
1:08:00
But they certainly weren't, well, oh, the laws here are that the Negro has to, that no,
1:08:04
they were, they were going to stand in defiance, you know, it was Augustine, you know, an unjust
1:08:08
law is no law at all.
1:08:10
That's, that's actually Martin Luther King quoting Augustine in his letters from a Birmingham
1:08:15
jail.
1:08:16
And, and so I think there are these moments in history where the people of God have actually
1:08:20
not obeyed Romans 13 for, for the higher law of obedience to God specifically as it relates
1:08:27
to his lordship and specifically as it relates to, I think matters, I would say matters
1:08:34
of life, the Amago Day becomes a driver, I think for the people of God.
1:08:39
The thing that has distinctly made us different than the prevailing cultures that we found
1:08:46
ourselves in is this belief in that all humans are made in the image of life.
1:08:52
And so, or image of God that there's something unique about us that we're like God somehow
1:08:57
in some mysterious way and therefore are worthy of dignity and value and intrinsic value.
1:09:05
And so the church has historically, whether it was on slavery or, you know, on abortion,
1:09:11
we've been willing to say, no, we're, we're willing to be arrested here, we're willing
1:09:15
to go against the fray.
1:09:17
And so when it's time, and I think there's a whole slew of questions you have to ask
1:09:21
when it's time, when it's not time, where you want to fight this, you, this isn't everything,
1:09:25
you know, this isn't every time we have an opportunity to stick it to the man, we're
1:09:29
going to do it.
1:09:30
And I think it's interesting in the text that this is about proclamation and what's
1:09:35
said and not said.
1:09:37
And so they're preaching and they've got a large crowd and they're arrested.
1:09:43
And what's the command?
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Stop that.
1:09:45
Stop that preaching.
1:09:46
You're trying to put his blood on us.
1:09:49
And then they go back and do what?
1:09:51
They proclaim yet again.
1:09:53
And then boom, they're arrested again and they bring it up again that like we, you're
1:09:58
trying to put this man's, you're, you're putting this man's blood on us.
1:10:01
So for me, I can see probably even in my lifetime, even in Texas, that, that I'll probably be
1:10:09
fined and or arrested at some point, even in my own lifetime, five, another 20 year run.
1:10:15
Right.
1:10:16
And so that's fine.
1:10:17
I've just told them, I just need a couple of good cigars and a book or two and I'll be
1:10:19
fine in there.
1:10:20
Well, that's the thing is the, the cultural revolution is moving at a pace that is, that
1:10:25
is astonishing.
1:10:26
And I have one more comment before we get to this last section.
1:10:29
When you look at where things were in 2014, this is Priya Bergfeld.
1:10:33
That was just 10 years ago.
1:10:34
And think about life was like back then, because I remember in 2012 that I worked in
1:10:39
New York city and that's when the Chick-fil-A controversy broke where it was a political
1:10:43
statement whether or not you ate a chicken sandwich on a particular day, right?
1:10:47
And we talk about like, that seems like it was a million years ago, that was 12 years
1:10:51
ago.
1:10:52
And so with things like that, we see that happen with pride month or the normalization
1:10:56
of pedophilia or the normalization of, of lockdowns and people that are walking around
1:11:00
still wearing masks and their cars and things like that.
1:11:02
And we're showing, you know, we're showing the government, Hey, we will acquiesce to whatever
1:11:06
you say because we are terrified and we are scared.
1:11:09
And so I feel like there's going to be a lot of pastors when the next revolution comes
1:11:12
or when the next, you know, the next cavalry comes or something like that, you're going
1:11:17
to see a lot of these people fold like lawn chairs.
1:11:20
So we're going to get to this last section here and it's going to be read by me.
1:11:23
Oh, it's going to be read by me.
1:11:26
So for anyone out there that thinks it, you know, it might be rough.
1:11:29
I have no idea.
1:11:30
I hope you can read good.
1:11:31
Sorry, Joby.
1:11:32
Hey, I could talk good, but I can't read great.
1:11:34
So here we go, guys, we are finishing acts five.
1:11:37
Please pray for me as we get through this.
1:11:38
All right.
1:11:39
When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them, but a Pharisee in the
1:11:43
council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held an honor by all the people stood up
1:11:47
and gave orders to men, uh, dang it, to put them in outside for a little while.
1:11:51
Sorry, Joby.
1:11:52
And he said to them, men of Israel, take care of what you are about to do with these men.
1:11:56
For before these days, theodus, theodus, just say it quickly and no one will care, rose
1:12:01
up claiming to be somebody and a number of men, about 400 joined him.
1:12:05
He was killed and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing.
1:12:09
After him, Judas, the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some
1:12:13
of the people after him.
1:12:14
He too perished and all of him followed all who followed him were scattered.
1:12:19
So in the present case, I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone for if this
1:12:23
plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail.
1:12:27
But if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them.
1:12:30
You might even be found opposing God.
1:12:32
So they took his advice and when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and
1:12:36
charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus and let them go.
1:12:39
But they left the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to
1:12:43
suffer dishonor for the name and every day in the temple and from house to house, they
1:12:48
did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus.
1:12:52
And so there's quite a bit here that I think is important for us to get into, but I did
1:12:57
want to read a section from the Moody commentary that I thought was really interesting about
1:13:01
this.
1:13:02
And so I'll read it again.
1:13:03
This is from the Moody commentary.
1:13:04
Gamelio was both right and wrong.
1:13:07
He was certainly right in arguing that if God was with the new movement, even the Romans
1:13:12
would not be able to control it.
1:13:14
In addition, history shows a movement can succeed through human effort and determination
1:13:18
without divine intervention from Luke's perspective.
1:13:22
However, of the advance of the church in the Acts, Gamelio was right.
1:13:26
The church advanced from Jerusalem to Rome.
1:13:29
It could not be stopped because it was a movement of God.
1:13:33
And so the interesting thing about this is, man, Gamelio is a very interesting character
1:13:37
here.
1:13:38
And so they kind of split the baby a little bit though, because it says that they listened
1:13:43
to them, which I guess it means that they didn't just kill them outright.
1:13:47
But they gave them the 39 lashes and then sent them on about their way.
1:13:51
And so this is a guide to where when you see these wise men, whether it's in a business
1:13:56
book or some sort of a story that you're reading to learn about what happened during certain
1:14:02
crises, you have some wise guy at some point that is like, let's just wait and see because
1:14:08
the proof will be in the pudding.
1:14:10
Whereas we live in this era to where it's like, no, we got to decide now whether or not this
1:14:13
is going to be appropriate.
1:14:14
Now we've got to make the right decision.
1:14:15
And I've read all the books.
1:14:16
I have all the degrees.
1:14:17
So we got to do it this way.
1:14:18
And some people, it's like, Hey, sometimes the wait and see approach is is appropriate.
1:14:24
And he's seemingly the only person listed here that was making that call.
1:14:28
You took a deep breath.
1:14:29
Go for it.
1:14:30
Let's go.
1:14:31
Let's go.
1:14:32
All right.
1:14:33
I know.
1:14:34
All right.
1:14:35
Let's hit it.
1:14:36
So this is, this is weird.
1:14:37
It kind of goes along with that, but it says, Gamelio was a Pharisee who probably did not
1:14:41
want to see the Sadducees win any victories.
1:14:43
There it is.
1:14:44
He was a scholar highly esteemed by the people rather liberal in his applications of the
1:14:48
law and apparently moderate his approach to problems.
1:14:51
He had mistake.
1:14:52
He had the mistaken idea that if something is not of God, it must fail.
1:14:56
But this idea does not take into consideration human sinful nature and the presence of Satan
1:15:01
in the world.
1:15:02
In the end, God's truth will be victorious.
1:15:04
But meanwhile, Satan can be very strong and influential for multitudes of people.
1:15:09
Jesus made clear that we cannot be neutral about him and his message at times being neutral
1:15:13
means making a quiet and perhaps cowardly decision to reject God's offer significantly.
1:15:20
The first group named among those who go to hell is the cowardly, Revelations 21 eight,
1:15:26
the people who know the truth, but were afraid to take their stand.
1:15:29
If Gamelio was really afraid of fighting against God, why did he not honestly investigate the
1:15:36
evidence diligently search the scriptures, listen to the witnesses and ask God for wisdom.
1:15:43
So where's these takes?
1:15:44
He's being political here more than anything else.
1:15:47
He doesn't want the Sadducees to win, but he doesn't necessarily agree with these men.
1:15:51
And he's kind of trying to get out of it in a way.
1:15:54
So he takes no stand and that ends up being a stand.
1:15:59
He's also read that he was a protégé of Helal.
1:16:01
Hello.
1:16:02
That was his grandson, right?
1:16:03
Yeah.
1:16:04
And so, yeah.
1:16:05
And Helal was the one back in Matthew 19 that was very liberal in regards to divorce.
1:16:10
And so it's like you kind of see him taking the same stance of like, hey, let's just let
1:16:13
him do what they want to do rather than let's take a hard stance and which God used for
1:16:18
his glory.
1:16:19
Isn't it so interesting now that you would have someone that would be of, okay, so let's
1:16:23
look at potential like a denomination, let's just make one up like the Episcop Aliens.
1:16:27
And let's just say that there was a liberal faction of that denomination that was fully
1:16:32
bought in to queer theory, to the sexual revolution, to all these different things.
1:16:38
They demand that you do it their way now.
1:16:41
And so it's interesting back at this time, it's like, hey, I'm going to do the political
1:16:44
thing.
1:16:45
I'm going to try to bring more people to my side.
1:16:46
I'm going to kind of like, they probably didn't have the continuum of left and right
1:16:49
or they at least didn't think that way back then, but I'm going to kind of pull people
1:16:52
to the left on these important issues at the time, like divorce, like marriage, you know,
1:16:57
like what we see here in the text of Acts 5.
1:16:59
But then now we don't see that at all.
1:17:01
There is an overt way to where it's like you, because it used to be, hey, just leave us
1:17:04
alone, let's love who we love, let's do what we want to do, let's just be tolerant.
1:17:08
Now it's like, you will do this or you are the bigot.
1:17:10
You will do this or you are sinful.
1:17:12
You will do this or you will be on Christ like.
1:17:14
And so it's so interesting that what we see from there, kind of this more shrewd approach
1:17:18
to now you're just going to do this or there's going to be consequences.
1:17:21
Yep.
1:17:22
Well, I think in the thing that's unfortunate, if I'm going off of what you're saying, not
1:17:26
necessarily the text is that, to me, it feels like it's the conservatives that do this while
1:17:33
the progressive liberals are the ones going to do this, this is love, this is compassion,
1:17:37
this is empathy, and it's the conservatives that are like, I mean, yeah, and won't say
1:17:46
what the truth is for fear of the backlash of that truth.
1:17:50
So what he's doing here is he's trying to get out of the backlash of one way or the
1:17:55
other, and he's trying to take a no stand stand.
1:17:58
And to me, this is the problem with conservative evangelicalism is they just won't say it.
1:18:07
And then nobody's saying it.
1:18:09
And so you just handed the megaphone over to the left that completely redefined Christian
1:18:15
compassion and empathy.
1:18:16
In fact, when I first started ministry, you know, it's funny, I've been in this now for
1:18:21
a while.
1:18:22
When the emergent church was going to destroy Christianity, and then it was the prosperity
1:18:28
gospel that was going to destroy.
1:18:30
And I think the biggest challenge right now is this false gospel of empathy and compassion
1:18:36
that's not biblically defined, it's defined with the world's terms.
1:18:41
And so you can't ever hurt anybody's feelings.
1:18:45
And Jesus is always hurting people's feelings.
1:18:48
Well, it's the 11th commandment, we bastardize the 11th commandment into a cultural type
1:18:54
of thing.
1:18:55
Yep.
1:18:56
And in fact, go ahead.
1:18:57
Go ahead.
1:18:58
No, no, you were going to say something.
1:18:59
No, I was just saying, like, yeah, we've basically we've taken the 11th commandment and
1:19:04
we've turned it into a cultural, a cultural definition.
1:19:07
And it's be nice and do these things and have empathy, but you're not taking truth.
1:19:12
You're lacking truth because we're living in this.
1:19:15
We want to call it postmodern area where my truth and your truth are the same truth.
1:19:20
And there's no, there's only one truth and it's biblical truth.
1:19:23
And we're, I think he's right on the conservative area.
1:19:27
A lot of us are afraid to say what the actual truth is because we're, when we, when we look
1:19:32
back at this back at verse 41, then they left the presence of the council rejoicing that
1:19:36
they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name, for his name.
1:19:40
And we're afraid to suffer dishonor for his name.
1:19:43
And let's look at this way as well, you know, who else was supposed to be the death meal
1:19:46
for Christianity, the four horsemen of New Atheism, right?
1:19:49
Yep.
1:19:50
And so that they were supposed to spell the end.
1:19:51
Oh, these books are wildly popular.
1:19:53
They're selling millions and millions of copies.
1:19:54
Like that's it.
1:19:55
That's it for Christianity.
1:19:57
And you know how we repudiated those people to where their, their arguments are seen as
1:20:01
pathetic and juvenile truth.
1:20:04
That's how we were able to do it.
1:20:05
We were able to appeal to the higher level of true capital T truth.
1:20:08
Anytime somebody says the purpose of life is, I always try to listen just to see in this
1:20:13
case, he wrote, the purpose of life is to glorify God by building character through truth.
1:20:21
When that's the thing.
1:20:22
So there's so many through points to what we're talking about, guys, as we wrap up here,
1:20:25
even at breakfast this morning, we were talking about Catholicism and it's like, okay, here's
1:20:29
an issue.
1:20:30
It posts Pope Francis says a thing and maintains an opinion that is a biblical or just like
1:20:35
anti-biblical, not in the Bible whatsoever, who's right?
1:20:39
So the Bible says this Pope Francis says that who's correct, who's the highest authority
1:20:43
that we appeal to.
1:20:45
And so that's the other thing when you talk to people that are like cultural marks, a
1:20:48
sort of people that are just like atheistic and in their bent, it's like, okay, you say
1:20:52
the genocide's wrong.
1:20:53
Let's say I were to make the, the, the point that it depends.
1:20:57
Who's correct?
1:20:58
Who's, who's authority are we appealing to?
1:21:00
By what standard do you say what you say?
1:21:02
Well, biblical authority, but then we also have church movement that's trying to pull
1:21:06
away from biblical authority and wanting to add something else to it.
1:21:10
And I feel like the thing is, is if you look at the Bible nowadays, the Bible doesn't
1:21:14
hit what our culture thinks is right.
1:21:16
And they don't like it.
1:21:17
And they want to change it and they want to find any way that they can around it to change
1:21:21
it.
1:21:22
And if they can't change it, they're going to go after its inerrancy.
1:21:24
Well, there's certainly that, but then you have this, um, people will self-sensor and
1:21:29
right, so if you've ever been putting Instagram jail, it's not fun.
1:21:33
And so there are some people that once they are put in Instagram jail, they will now self-sensor
1:21:37
and not post the things that got them in trouble the first time, or whether it's on Twitter,
1:21:41
you know, whatever we're supposed to call that now, like owning those types of things,
1:21:44
you will self-sensor.
1:21:45
And so there are pastors that will not preach the hard stuff from this book because they're
1:21:49
like, Oh, I got a little bit of backlash last, last time we had a couple of people get mad
1:21:53
in the lobby or we had a couple of people, you know, hold signs in our parking lot.
1:21:57
It's like, okay, if that is the standard by which you will have courage or not, I have
1:22:01
major issues.
1:22:02
I mean, it's the book you wrote years ago, take courage to where it's like, look, you
1:22:05
were built for a time such as now, like, so stand in that.
1:22:10
And so that's the thing that I find very concerning when I look around and I see so many cowardly
1:22:15
pastors that showed their colors, especially during the 2020 season, and I go back to letter
1:22:20
to the American letter to the American church by Eric Metaxas and he talked about if a few
1:22:24
thousand more pastors in Germany had just not supported the rise of Hitler and the Nazi
1:22:30
party, there would have been no third Reich, no Holocaust, no World War II and tens of millions
1:22:36
of people would still be alive today.
1:22:38
And the entire, the entirety of history would be different.
1:22:42
Just think about if all those people were still alive in the early 20th century, kind
1:22:45
of where we would be now.
1:22:46
But guys, there's more that we could say about acts five, but we're going to have to cut
1:22:49
it off there.
1:22:50
But guys, make sure you come back here next week, ready to go with act six.
1:22:52
But can we all just agree that daddy can't actually read out loud?
1:22:55
Can we all actually?
1:22:56
Okay.
1:22:57
And I'm not calling you daddy.
1:22:58
Yeah.
1:22:59
That's not.
1:23:00
Wait, no one wants to call me none of y'all.
1:23:01
No, that's rude.
1:23:02
All right.
1:23:03
Well, hey, you guys don't know.
1:23:04
Daddy got either.
1:23:05
So well, let's let's close with a prayer to zaddy God or daddy God.
1:23:08
Yeah, that could work out.
1:23:09
No, let's not do that.
1:23:10
But guys, come back here next week, ready to discuss and go through acts six.
1:23:14
But before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost and adult life.
1:23:17
Our mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that forges spiritual
1:23:20
mental and physical resilience.
1:23:22
We didn't talk about during the show, but we do have a cross way forging table starter
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set for you guys.
1:23:27
So if you want to start your own forging table, cross ways worked with us to get you these
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five amazing books.
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There's a great study Bible in there, a journal.
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There's some other books that are fantastic.
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You can get all of that for 50% off just follow the instructions here in the show notes and
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then also log us the log us Bible software, which yours truly Matt Chandler uses.
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It's an absolute little give a quick commercial for log on.
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She got 30 seconds.
1:23:46
Yeah.
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Listen, use it almost every day of my life, whether you want to kind of just get three
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feet deep or you want to go all the way to the bottom, it's user friendly and it's whether
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it'll bounce between your computer and your phone, your tablet, you can do all of it wherever
1:24:00
you are.
1:24:01
There is no better Bible software on planet earth and like, hey, you might have Bible
1:24:05
apps on your phone and all that's great, maybe quick reference stuff.
1:24:08
But when you're getting into a deep study of scripture, it is a fantastic, fantastic
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guide.
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And guys, don't use it and pay them all the money in the world.
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Use it as a discount.
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We've got a discount code and we got a link here in the show notes so you guys can check
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that out as well.
1:24:20
And also as we talk about all time, we are a donation based ministry.
1:24:23
So if you're wondering, how can things like the forging table happen?
1:24:25
How can I provide Matt Chandler with gold bars that will allow him to come to Oklahoma
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and take care of this?
1:24:30
It's because of you guys.
1:24:31
You helped me buy those gold bars.
1:24:32
I kid just a little bit, but no, seriously, everything that we do is mainly paid for by
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1:25:00
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1:25:08
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I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
1:25:21
Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
1:25:28
Keep seeking the lion of Judah.
1:25:46
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