0:00
The new LinkedIn Hiring Pro can't undo your last hire - The Lone Wolf.
0:04
Who you thought was a good collaborator because you didn't have the right candidate insights.
0:08
But once you hire them, it was all hoarding info, declining meetings, and howling at the full moon?
0:13
But LinkedIn Hiring Pro can go deeper than just the resume to find you a perfect fit.
0:19
By using insights from the LinkedIn network to give you a short list of best fit candidates.
0:24
Hire right the first time with LinkedIn Hiring Pro.
0:26
Post a free job today at LinkedIn.com/quality.
0:30
Struggling with weight loss? Prolon's five-day fasting mimicking diet is a clinically
0:34
developed nutrition program designed to promote fat loss while protecting lean body mass.
0:38
Developed at USC's Longevity Institute, it assists the body in entering a fasting-like state
0:43
that helps reset metabolism and target visceral fat. In just five days, Prolon offers a science-backed
0:49
approach to weight loss without extreme restriction or guesswork. Get 15% off plus a $40 bonus gift
0:55
when you subscribe at prolonlife.com/now.
0:58
This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it.
1:22
All right, guys. Welcome to the very first forging table. Guys, if you were confused about what the
1:26
forging table is, go back to the previous episode. Okay, so not this episode, but the one right before
1:31
it where I go into a bunch of detail about where this idea came from, how it's going to be conducted,
1:35
what it's going to look like in the future, all that stuff. So if you have any questions,
1:38
those will be answered there. But ultimately, the mission of Undaunted Life is equipping
1:43
men to push back darkness with content that forges spiritual, mental, and physical resilience. So
1:48
at the forging table, you'll see a group of regular guys forging spiritual resilience by
1:52
digging into God's word. And we're welcoming all of you to come along on the journey with us. So
1:56
before we get into Galatians one, because I obviously teed that up last week, we got to do
2:00
some introductions because people don't know y'all. Like I know you barely, but basically this is what
2:04
we're going to do because you're going to introduce yourself. You're going to give your name. We're
2:07
going to let people get used to your voice a little bit. But these are the three questions
2:10
that you're going to answer for the audience. The first one, when and how did you come to faith in
2:14
Christ? The second, how do you like to study the Bible? And third, how does your brain work? So
2:19
we'll just work clockwise. So Eric, lead us off. Yeah. So I came to faith in Christ when I was 10.
2:25
And basically I came from a family they didn't talk about politics or religion. So that was kind
2:32
of just, you know, it was just thing that was off the table. I viewed God as the guy that stood up
2:38
there and had a lightning bolt ready to take me out. I messed up. But I had an experience with my
2:44
youth pastor in which he shared the upper room where the guys were all eating. And then afterwards,
2:52
Jesus came out with the basin and towel and washed their feet. I was like, wait, wait,
2:58
this is God. Yeah. And it was just a huge shift in my thinking. And I remember thinking, well, this is,
3:04
this is who God is. Then that's who I want to follow. And so I came to faith that night.
3:11
Didn't tell anybody, because again, don't talk about religion. And it wasn't until months later,
3:16
that had an opportunity through my youth pastor to actually express that get baptized, whatnot.
3:22
So anyways, that's how that went down. I studied the Bible. I mean, I like to pour
3:26
the word multiple times. I'll read it slowly. I occasionally use commentaries. I try not to
3:34
just allow them to tell me how to think. But it is nice after I've gone through and studied
3:39
to see if I'm lining up with other thinkers. And so that's, that's kind of how I approach
3:46
things. And I really like to, I love gathering information. But I think I have to ultimately
3:52
move it towards some kind of application in my life. Otherwise, I feel like I'm missing the point
3:57
on that. What was the last question? How does your brain work? We need to know.
4:00
Well, I can make very quick decisions. But oftentimes we'll ruminate and think about things
4:08
for a long time before I do, because I can sometimes make impulsive decisions that don't
4:13
take other people into account. So, but that's, that's the basic.
4:17
All right, that's Eric Browning now. Ryan Horne, let's get it.
4:19
My name is Ryan Horne. I came to Christ. I always grew up as a Christian. So parents
4:26
were Christians, their parents were Christians. I would like to call myself a cultural Christian
4:31
growing up. So grew up in a very legalistic household, no drinking beer, no watching ninja turtles.
4:37
That was always great. We're gonna have to get back to that.
4:40
Yeah. And then kind of, you know, lost my way in the faith for a little bit.
4:44
Then in college, went to another church and got married and then went to a church that was very
4:49
more illicit. So on the opposite side of legalism. So it was very much like, "Grace and go do something.
4:55
Grace and go do something." And so had some problems within my marriage. We ended up moving to Texas,
5:01
had some guys pouring to me and kind of rededicated my life to Christ and just kind of started studying
5:06
the Bible, started getting to know God through the Bible rather than through works. So that's kind
5:13
of how I've come along as a Christian. What's the next question? How do you like to study the
5:19
Bible? This is gonna be, guys, you know, this is the first one. So everyone listening to the
5:23
audience. This is the first one. We already forgot to do a bunch of stuff before this, but
5:26
it's gonna be, if you don't like this, it's just gonna get worse from here. Okay. So here we go.
5:30
So that's the second one. How do you like to study the Bible and then how does your brain work?
5:33
If I'm on here, it's only gonna get worse. So I like to study the Bible. I like to look into the
5:37
history into the context of the Bible. I like to read it for, you know, we're going through Galatians.
5:43
I want to know about the Galatians. I want to know who the Galatians are. I want to know why
5:48
Paul writing this letter. And so that's how I dig into the to the Bible. I really like commentaries.
5:55
I'll read commentaries by MacArthur, by Moody, really into the reformers like Calvin and Spurgeon.
6:01
So that's basically how I dig into the Bible and how my brain works. I'm a pretty emotional person.
6:07
So I'll probably like be very passionate about a certain thing and really want to drill that
6:13
in until you understand it until my face like makes a face where Kyle and my wife will say,
6:18
you make me feel like an idiot. So it's gonna happen. Yeah, it's gonna happen. A good thing
6:22
I'm sitting right here. So none of you will see my face. But yeah, I'm kind of very passionate
6:27
about something. If I if I feel it and I feel the spirit move, like I want people to understand it.
6:31
And that's something that I need to grow on and work on is as a believer is, you know,
6:36
how do I get my message across? Well, you're you're a resident Calvinist. And so it's like,
6:39
if you're not angry and argumentative, people are going to be like, is he really reformed?
6:43
Like that's that's basically where we're going to go. I'm 90% reformed because I do not have a
6:46
beard. Yeah, that's also true. But you know, you did do one for Halloween. You know, you kind of put
6:50
the beard on, which is great. All right, Matt, let's wrap up. He can actually still see the
6:54
question. So if he misses up, you miss that awesome major problem. I should have wrote those down.
6:58
Yeah, you're good. All right. My name is Matt Grassmeyer. I mean, the way I came to faith is not any,
7:03
it's not a really great story. I grew up in a home that we were Christian in name. And we went to
7:08
church every Sunday. And I was just so busy that I didn't have time to sin. And so I just thought
7:14
I was a good kid. And so like, you know, I go all the way through high school, just I was so busy
7:18
doing sports, school activities, everything. And then I just hung out with the crowd that
7:23
were really good kids. And so I thought, man, I am also a good kid. I am a Christian because
7:28
I do not sin. And then I got to college and my world was wrecked. And I was like, oh, my gosh,
7:34
there's like, I don't have anything to do. And I got myself into trouble. And then somebody invited
7:38
me to church. And I've always just been fascinated with history. And the Bible is a really great
7:46
historical record. And so that's always fascinated me. But I guess coming to faith was in college
7:53
I just kind of made a decision. You know what? I believe Jesus died for me in a cross. I believe
7:58
Jesus lived a perfect life. And it wasn't a big like moment of fireworks or anything. I didn't
8:03
really even tell anybody. It was just like, okay, this is what I believe now. And I I'm a Christian.
8:10
And that that kind of started to make some things work. And then, you know, I think
8:16
sanctification, you know, comes into place, it comes into play in the grace of, okay, you are
8:21
justified. But now I'm going to do a work in your life. And that was kind of that's kind of been a
8:25
slow thing for me. But yeah, it just kind of happened. I just said, you know what, I'm a Christian now.
8:31
And you know, I've had guys like you point in my life, you know, we've known each other for a long
8:34
time. And you know, just getting different perspectives has just kind of helped me stay on the
8:38
with a perspective of running towards Christ and running towards God. So
8:43
the way I study the Bible is I like to read the Bible. I like to listen to the Bible. But I also
8:50
jump back and forth between commentaries and like sermons. Steve Lawson is a big I'm a big
8:56
fantasy loss in Alistair bag. So I like to listen to sermons and listen to commentaries and listen
9:01
to to breakdowns of scripture. But I'm similar to Ryan where I like to understand the context to
9:06
like what was going on at the time. What is it? What did it mean? And then the application part is
9:12
probably the hardest for me. But that's something that I've, you know, over the last couple of years
9:16
I really tried to dig into. The way my brain works is I'm a very slow processor. Like
9:21
Katelyn calls me like, Oh gosh, slow cooker or a crock pot. Thank you. But I like to
9:32
stew on stuff. But once I get it, like I get it. And then I can I can talk about it at length. But
9:38
yeah, I'm I'm more of a slow processor. And I also like to ask questions. So
9:42
when I in the last episode, I kind of go into my thing just as a summary. So I became a Christian
9:46
as a 10th grader kind of hellfire brimstone speech, the way I like to study the Bible. And I've had
9:51
stretches of my Christian walk where I didn't really read the Bible at all. But I like to have the
9:55
Bible read to me. So I'll listen to Johnny Cash reading the Bible or I'll kind of read it myself.
9:59
Sometimes I feel like I go to the commentaries too quickly. And so that's why, you know,
10:03
I kind of try to slow down a little bit in terms of my brain. I I process things
10:08
very, very quickly, I can make very, very snap decisions. But then like, I can take a 500 page
10:13
book, read it and then tell you what three things you need to get from that book, where somebody
10:16
else has more of an Iodetic memory. But before I move on, I'd like to kind of do this where I
10:20
want to kind of say and to tell our audience why I wanted each one of you here from my perspective,
10:25
because you know, it's interesting to hear kind of what you guys think. So with Eric, like you
10:29
have a kind of a calm wisdom. So there's knowledge and then there's wisdom. And I feel like you make
10:34
calls that are very, very quick, but they're wisdom filled. But you're also not like you
10:38
don't get out over your skis too too much. And so I thought that would be good for the group.
10:42
Ryan, you're not scared to challenge people's points of view. And the thing is, is what we don't
10:46
want the forging table to be or really any type of discussion with friends that isn't being recorded.
10:50
We don't want everyone disagreeing with each other all the time because that gets really,
10:53
really boring. Then there's no challenge there. So I think that's kind of what you bring. And Matt,
10:56
I told you this yesterday, the slow cooker thing is right. But you will calmly probe
11:02
with your questions and you will calmly challenge with your questions. Whereas I'm more aggressive
11:06
in my questions, Ryan, you're more aggressive like that. So there's going to be a nice little
11:09
mixture here of all those different things. But before we dig into Galatians one, one thing we
11:13
forgot to do before we hopped into this was to pray. So Ryan, if you will give us a quick prayer,
11:17
then we'll launch. Yeah, let's do this. Lord, we come to you right now. We just want to thank you
11:21
for the time that we have together as men. We just hope that your word gets out to the men out there
11:26
that they can grow their families in a spiritual way with you, Lord. We just pray that as we dig
11:32
into Galatians, it opens our eyes and opens our mind to not only, you know, critique in our life,
11:38
but the grace that you have for us, Lord. We ask that there's no condemnation and what we're
11:43
what we're reading, but only conviction and how we need you and we love you. I just want to thank
11:48
you for this time that we have and who just pray your blessings over the listeners and over
11:52
the guys here at this table in your name, we pray. Amen. Amen. Well, as long as the tech holds out,
11:56
I think this is going to be pretty awesome. So I was trying to think while we were going into this,
12:00
why did we pick Galatians first? Because I for the life of me, because so I got all of us together.
12:04
So guys, there's going to be some people in some future episodes that are going to be a part of
12:07
this. Like, do we remember? Does anybody remember why we pick Galatians? I was pushing. I do. Galatians,
12:12
the letter to Galatians is to me really the bedrock of your faith in your doctor. If you understand
12:20
Galatians and what Paul is trying to get across, like, all the other doctrines that you believe
12:25
will be in line. If you get that wrong, like, you're going to be spinning your wheels for no
12:31
reason. So like it is it is the bedrock of faith, in my opinion. Luther called it his wife. Yeah,
12:37
you did. It was just Katie. Yeah, like, so it was that important to a guy like Luther. It should be
12:41
that important to us. One with this or go ahead, Ryan. I was saying, you know, when you look at
12:46
Galatians, I mean, this is at the foundation. What is the gospel? You know, how do we talk about
12:51
the gospel? How do we preach the gospel? You know, and when we look at the Galatians, the Galatians
12:56
are looking at grace and, you know, and so this gives us a good idea, a good foundation on how do
13:02
we take the gospel to the people? Well, and Ryan, one thing that I think is awesome about that is
13:05
like when we get to Galatians two here, we're going to be covering Galatians one right now.
13:09
There's so much packed into like a few verses at a time where we could spend all of our time
13:14
getting into this. And this may be a good time for me to mention like, guys, this is not an exhaustive
13:18
look in the next hour or so of Galatians one. Obviously, we're going to be scratching the
13:21
surface. The intention is for you to dig into the scripture yourself for you to come along on this
13:25
journey with us. But just kind of set the stage for Galatians, like everybody pretty much agrees
13:29
this was written by Paul written somewhere between 49 AD and 55 AD. More people are on the 49 side
13:35
than the 55 side. But I guess this is one of Paul's earliest writings. But the main theme, if I could
13:41
justify and say the main theme is justification by grace through faith. That is the theme
13:47
of Galatians. But and we're not going to read the entire Bible, guys. So if you're if you haven't
13:51
read it yourself, some of this is going to seem a little bit weird, but just kind of kick off our
13:53
discussion. The very first verse of Galatians one. So Galatians one one, Paul and Apostle,
13:59
not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God, the father who raised him from the
14:04
dead. So there there's your statement of the gospel from the very beginning. But I wrote in my notes
14:08
because I have a little note Bible, I underlined not from men nor through man. Okay, it is crazy
14:14
how fast we get to that though. So all of us kind of came to came to Christ in a different way at a
14:19
different time. But we we all get there to whether it's like five minutes from then or 10 years from
14:24
then where it's like, okay, yeah, grace, yeah, grace your faith and the, you know, the resurrection
14:29
and all that, but all this other stuff. And so like right from the beginning, it's like,
14:34
it's, it's the easy gospel versus the hard gospel. Right. So the easy gospel is Christ died. There's
14:38
nothing I can do like it is what it is. I just have to accept it. Sorry, Calvinist, but it's like,
14:41
I just have to do that one step of accepting it. Yeah, I'm throwing, I'm throwing it out there.
14:45
We'll get to that. You know, we'll get there. But that guys just for me just kind of kick this off.
14:50
I was like, okay, not through man, like nothing that I can do, nothing that your favorite pastor
14:55
or anybody can throw out there or your favorite commentary is going to change how easy the gospel
14:59
is. So here's the thing that I have. You say through man, right? What are you? I don't identify
15:06
as anything. What do you get? You're a man. So this is like the Calvinist message. You know what
15:12
I'm saying? Like, here we go. I was hoping it wouldn't evolve from the very, very beginning,
15:17
but here I did start it. Okay. But all right. But like, but that's the thing that's very
15:22
interesting is where the gospel message, whether you accept it more from a Calvinist point of view
15:28
or an Armenian point of view or something like that, the overall thing is is like, dude, it's not,
15:32
it's not you. Like, you're not the main reason why this is going down. Yeah. Well, when you look at
15:37
that through through Jesus Christ and through God, the father, I mean, you kind of reverse back to
15:41
her 17 when Paul was in the desert. So Paul will, Paul will talk about he was in the desert. He
15:47
didn't learn the gospel from man. He learned the gospel from Jesus Christ himself. I was in the
15:51
desert. I think he's very specific about like he says, I didn't really see anybody. Yeah. Like,
15:56
I didn't talk to the original apostles. I went on and I learned through revelation through Christ.
16:02
So everybody can hop in at any point. We can't have dead air. I'm like, look, that's why there's
16:09
three other people on this. So the no one looks at me. Like, he's, he's writing that, you know,
16:15
like he, he didn't talk to Peter, who was also be known as kyphus through this thing. He didn't
16:19
James the brother of Jesus. Was it see, I said kyphus, kyphus, it's okay. I know.
16:25
And we're going to keep, we're actually going to start keeping track of mess ups.
16:28
I know you're on the count of this. Yeah, you know, we're not going to count ours.
16:32
Like ours is one category and then you have your own because you're clearly going to mess
16:36
up more than anybody else to have that. We'll order the pizza. Well, the time I mess up.
16:41
So the interesting about this, though, is even to set the stage a little bit further,
16:45
like the Judaizers right now in Galatia are causing a lot of issues because they're trying to do
16:52
gospel and and Peter, see if this or what we can call him kyphus. We just call him whatever.
16:56
This was the other rabbi who killed Jesus. But like, they, they bought into it. And it's like,
17:02
Peter, you bought into this. Like how, and I just, I don't really have an answer. I'd love to hear
17:09
kind of else perspective on it. Like, why, why is Peter the one that's like, of all the people,
17:15
like you're, you're supposed to be the rock, right? And like, you're the one that bought into this,
17:18
to this lie that you need to add a bunch of extra stuff.
17:20
Tradition. Yeah, exactly. A tradition or, you know, people pleaser. I don't know what it is. But I
17:25
was actually looking to see timeline wise, maybe you guys know, when Cornelius, you know, had his
17:33
vision and then went to Peter, and Peter, you know, and had his vision about eating unclean
17:40
things, you know, the sheet and all that sort of thing. And then whenever he did his thing that
17:46
required rebuke, and we'll get to that later on. But yeah, it was interesting to me. I was just
17:50
wondering if there was a timeline thing, like, I mean, Peter obviously knew that the Gentiles are
17:55
being reached. So I think what comes down to it though, is you look at Peter, what was Peter's
18:00
whole goal? It was, it was to bring the Jews to Christ. You know, Paul was to bring the Gentiles
18:05
to Christ. So if, if I don't have enough faith in how the gospel is supposed to reach other people,
18:12
I'm going to start the gospel and, you know what I'm saying? Like, how can I bring these other
18:16
people on? I mean, we're seeing it in the church today. You know, it's not, hey, we're afraid to
18:19
talk about the gospel. Let's do the gospel and. And so I think for Peter, it's like, hey, if I
18:24
join him with these guys and kind of talk about our traditions, this is going to really bring them
18:28
into the gospel. It's like pragmatism before it ever started. You know, so I think that's what
18:33
Peter, why Peter was able to jump on that ship a little bit easier. One, it was his tradition. And
18:38
two, it's like, hey, this is how I can probably try to bring people to the gospel. I think that's
18:41
a good point. We are a people of and then, like, and, and what else, what else can I do? Like, what
18:48
else is there? And it's not, we're not satisfied with just, it's just grace. You're justified. You
18:55
don't have to do, you can't do anything to be justified. But we want that extra. And I mean,
18:59
you see that throughout the story of the Bible, like we are people that is and then, right? What's
19:04
next? So we want that control. Yeah, absolutely. We want the control. And Matt, like, so when you
19:09
get into, uh, verse six, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the
19:15
grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, not that there is another one. And so
19:20
the funny thing about that is like, okay, we're, we're all kind of talking about gospel plus,
19:25
right? And that's not the gospel that you pay like eight bucks a month and get extra stuff. Like,
19:29
that's just like, we're, that's like more things adding to the gospel. But like, right from the
19:33
beginning, he kind of disabuses us of that from the beginning. It's like, no, no, this is a different
19:36
gospel. Yeah. As in that, that's not the gospel. And like, for the life of me, as many times I've
19:40
read Galatians, I don't ever remember reading, not that there is another one. Like, that's kind of
19:45
like a sarcastic shot at the Judaizers in this letter to be like, not that there's another one
19:50
by the way, which I felt like that was interesting. So it's not gospel and it's different gospel.
19:54
Yeah. Well, I mean, we deal with different gospels today, you know, prosperity gospel,
20:00
consumer gospel, and let's list goes on. And it's,
20:04
Well, I think that's an important distinction to make because it's not, it's not a, this isn't
20:08
some flippant thing. If you're adding things to the gospel, like that is a false gospel, that you're
20:15
sending people to hell, you're condemning people to, I mean, James talks about like, if you want to
20:22
keep the whole law, you got to keep the whole, if you mess up once, like you, you are guilty of
20:26
not keeping the whole law. And so we get, we get to a place where it's not, it's not just this
20:32
thing that can be flippantly. Oh, well, you know, it's just grace plus and you're right. So he's very
20:36
like harsh in, oh, this is false. This is a false teaching. And I think he's on fire right now,
20:42
because that's the shortest greeting I've ever seen from Paul. Yeah, like, he's like, he's like,
20:47
Hey, and I see you guys, man, I'm really astonished that you guys have done this, you know, like,
20:52
it's almost obligatory. His greeting is like, okay, I have to write this, or he, or he would have
20:56
just started with, I am astonished that you guys are doing this. We'll go back. I think it was
21:00
chapter four. And he's like, I wish I was there with you. So I'd have a different type of,
21:05
like mindset or way that I'm talking to you, I would be more loving, because I think he's just
21:10
on fire right now. Well, and so I wonder, and again, we'll get more in the relations too,
21:14
relations too, is, you know, worth the price of admission for this entire book, in my opinion.
21:18
But I wonder if it's almost like, because all of us in guys, if you're wondering, none of us are
21:22
professional Christians, none of us work at churches, like we're not theologians, none of them most
21:25
have our M divs or anything like that. So we're just regular dudes. So we've all had different
21:29
experiences with management, either being in management or being under someone else's management.
21:33
This almost feels like Paul is like, all right, Peter, like this is all good to go. We all understood
21:38
the assignment. And then all of a sudden, it's like, have you ever had a team that you kind of
21:41
let do something? And then you show up and you're like, this is not even close. This is not even
21:45
in the neighborhood of what I thought that we were going to be pulling off. And so it almost feels
21:49
like that to where I wonder if Paul feels a little bit of like personal slight, or if he's,
21:53
you know, I'm anyway, I don't really think that because it's like he's so, he's so like
21:58
desperate for the gospel message to get out clearly. But yeah, I think there is a personal
22:02
slight he feels because he goes in and talks about in this chapter, like how he's an apostle
22:08
and what he's done. Like he goes into his credentials to like prove who he is. So I think there is a
22:13
personal slight where he's like, how are you guys not listening to me? I've done this. I've done
22:18
this. I've I've been the Jew who went and killed Christians. Yeah, that's first 13. The latter
22:23
part of his how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. So those are
22:27
like his his bona fides. It's just like, yeah, that's I'm the guy. I'm the guy that tried to do that.
22:31
Yeah, I'm I'm the I'm the ultimate Judaizer, you know, and I tried to take this whole thing down.
22:36
And now it's like, I went out into the desert, you know, Christ came to me as I was going to
22:41
kill more Christians and blinded me. And then I went out in the desert and I learned from Christ
22:46
himself, you know, and then I went three years later to Peter into James and learned under that.
22:52
And then went out 15 years and did this and that, you know, and he like lays out what he's done.
22:56
Absolutely. It's so interesting that he does that because they they obviously knew they knew who he
23:01
was. He's like, he's writing to them like after he's been with them. So like, the fact that he felt
23:06
like he even had to reintroduce himself says a lot about where he's coming from. He's like,
23:11
they they had to know like his story, he used to kill Jews, he used to persecute. And then Jesus
23:16
stopped him and said, Hey, let's turn this thing around. You work for me now. Like they had to know
23:21
that. So the fact that he's even like giving his credentials says a just a lot about where he's
23:26
coming from. Sure. So he's so hot. Well, and I don't know, you know, maybe he had his ego hurt a
23:31
little bit, but it still was always about Christ. Of course. Yeah. It wasn't it wasn't about him.
23:36
Well, I think part of it is so I don't somebody say credentialing like or maybe I just kind of heard
23:40
that in my brain. So okay, so like with credentialing, no, it couldn't have been made of that word.
23:43
There's no way it could have been Ryan. That that's your second fault. So I'll put that on the ticker.
23:47
But like Eric with what you do. So you do physical therapy and things like that. And so like
23:51
everyone kind of has that guy in their life. That's the dude bro physical therapist. Right. So he
23:56
listens to Joe Rogan and he watches YouTube videos and so he can tell you how to fix your elbow and
24:00
like that he like that guy. But it's like it makes sense for a guy like you and your business and
24:04
your profession to not constantly talk about your credentials. But if you if someone's challenging
24:09
your point of view and they have no basis for like they've blown their knee out. They've their
24:14
post surgery and they walk in and if they tell you what they need to do to rehab, like at a certain
24:19
point, you have to kind of be like, all right, if you want to rehab on your own, go for it. But
24:22
you also have to point back to be like, Hey, I know what I'm I know what I'm doing. Not only did I
24:26
go to school for this, but I've been doing this for a while. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's
24:29
exactly right. Get those people all the time. I'm like, well, I mean, you can you can do this on
24:34
your own or or not. I mean, when somebody's calling the body part something that's actually not a
24:39
body part, I'm like, maybe you should go back to the Google and try again. Well, so the interesting
24:44
thing about that is the importance of the message and the people getting it right is such that you
24:50
wouldn't just leave people to their own devices here. So Hardell Moore, who's a friend of mine,
24:54
he's a he's a legendary wrestling coach around here. He's been on the podcast before, but he will
24:59
have parents at tournaments at wrestling tournaments. Again, this is a guy that it was a national runner
25:03
up in multi time, all American and Oklahoma State, you know, one of the best wrestling programs,
25:07
the best wrestling program, collegiately of all time. And he will have dads who didn't wrestle
25:13
that will be yelling things at their son in the middle of the match over Hardell, who's coaching
25:20
them telling them what they need to do in order to score in order to win all that in multiple times.
25:24
I know that he's done this. He will get up from his chair and say, dad, go ahead and have a seat.
25:28
And he will sit back in the back and he will let dad coach. And that's a learning lesson,
25:32
not only for the kid, but also for the dad to be like, look, you put him in this program
25:36
so that they could be coached. If you want to be your kids coach and his coach only,
25:41
go for it. But in this scenario with Paul, it's like, there's too much on the line
25:46
in this, not just the city of Galatia, but the entire Mediterranean rim for him to just be like,
25:50
yeah, okay, y'all figured out, do what you want. Yeah, and I think as a sidebar,
25:54
sometimes we feel like that Christianity is too basic. And it's almost like we need to reinvent it
26:00
and like, let's put a different little spin on it or whatever, you know, I help my nine-year-old
26:06
in baseball. And so all the guys think that I'm just an amazing pitcher. I was never a really
26:10
amazing pitcher at all. In fact, I was more of a catcher than anything, but they want me to help
26:14
teach pitching. And so I can feel it, I can feel that some of the dads want me to teach
26:19
other things. I'm like, look, step towards the plate, you know, keep your eyes on the catcher's
26:24
med and just release here. That's it. That's not make it more complicated. I think sometimes we
26:29
make it more complicated and we start trying to add things to the gospel as if we're trying to like
26:33
make it more shiny. Oh, for sure. But I think it's like you guys back to the fundamentals, right?
26:39
Like we want to run before we can crawl or we want to dunk before we can do a layup.
26:45
Yeah, there's so many things. And I think Paul is calling people back to the fundamentals. But
26:49
yeah, I think that we're also egotistical. We think we can do it better than than people who've
26:55
been doing it for a long time or better than what God says. So yeah, or if you're living for man
27:00
and not for God, then you're apt to try to do things to appease man, right? Get their attention,
27:06
get their listening ear. That's exactly what the Judaizers are doing. They're trying to please man.
27:12
One and that really goes into like of all the stuff in Galatians one, for me personally,
27:16
verse 10 is kind of that like gut check verse for me. So it's for am I not I'm reading from the ESV
27:20
anybody that didn't remember for am I now seeking the approval of man or of God or am I trying to
27:26
please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. Fire. Yeah,
27:33
and dude, like again, there's so many things like this guys, this is just kind of a sidebar on reading
27:37
the Bible again. Maybe you read the entire Bible when you first got saved. Maybe you kind of just
27:41
listen to what your pastor says or maybe you go to one of those churches where you get two or three
27:44
verses and then you get 45 minutes of life lessons. Like if you forget in to dig in, like, I don't
27:49
remember the last time someone did a study or an entire sermon on Galatians one 10, but that right
27:56
there, that's the gut check for me. That's why I highlighted it in yellow. That's the hey, Kyle,
28:00
you need to make sure you remember this for the rest of your life because it's like almost everything
28:04
that I do, even if you say you're not trying to do stuff for people, because I say all the time
28:08
about my show, it's like, look, I posting ghosts on social media. I don't I don't go into the comments
28:13
because nobody has the right to argue with me in my comments section. I'm not posting for you. I'm
28:16
posting for someone else. But at the end of the day, that's actually not true because I'm posting
28:20
for the people in my audience that will like it, right? I'm saying things on my show, whether a
28:25
lot of people agree with it or very few people agree with it. I'm ultimately looking not for the
28:30
audience of one, I'm looking for the audience of whoever's going to be a fan of undaunted life
28:34
for the donors for the different things like that. But right there, it's like, who am I seeking
28:37
seeking the approval of? Because if I if I orient myself around trying to please God with the words
28:44
that I say, that's going to lead to some men liking it, some men not liking it, but it's not going to
28:48
matter at the end of the day. So I don't know about for you guys, but the first 10 was like big
28:52
gut check for me. I mean, I grew up, like I said, in a legalistic household. So it was all about
28:57
doing the right thing. And then I went to a moralist church, just really close to home.
29:04
The one thing that like kind of gut checked me from that pastor and made me want to go and look
29:09
in the Bible and look at what I'm what I'm learning from this guy who tells us to never look into
29:14
the Bible really, he goes, if you want to get close to God, you want to get close to Jesus,
29:19
go out and do something for someone. And I'm like, nice thought, you know what I'm saying? Like,
29:23
really great thought. I went out and did it. But all I felt was the goodness of myself for going
29:29
and doing something for somebody else. And so then I, you know, you go and read something like Galatians,
29:33
I'm not seeking the approval. And I'm not seeking the approval of like, all right,
29:37
somebody thinks I'm a nice person. You know, I'm justified by grace alone. And so that's where it
29:42
kind of, you know, I started digging deep into my Bible and seeing this more moralistic path
29:46
of this church. And I was like, it's just not where I see the gospel headed. So yeah, well,
29:52
there's nothing wrong with doing stuff for your neighbor, right? No, of course. Like, that's a
29:55
really good thing. But like, I think I think it's important to dig into the word and I'm like,
30:01
Kyle, I've had times in my life where I didn't read the book, the Bible at all. But I think we
30:06
live in a time that's that's similar to right before the Reformation in the fact that we have
30:13
access to the Bible, but we have all these pastors and churches saying, Hey, get it from me. You
30:17
don't need to read the Bible. We're not keeping you from we're not holding the Bible away from you.
30:22
But we're telling you, I'm an expert enough. You don't need to look into it. And so
30:27
it's so important to get in and dig in for yourself. And like, I can't count how many times I'll come
30:35
back and read the same passage and go, Oh man, I did not get that before. Well, and I wonder,
30:42
so you bring up some of those churches and I've obviously talked about a lot on my show and I've
30:45
tried to be a little bit more measured, you know, thanks to Joby Martin from the church of 1122 down
30:50
in Florida, to be a little bit more precise in my language about the types of churches,
30:53
because just because it's a big church doesn't mean it's a church that's not focused on discipleship,
30:57
and on, you know, making sure that people are doing the right things. But on that last part,
31:01
if I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. My fear though,
31:06
for a lot of churches is that they're, especially in the seeker sensitive model,
31:11
is they're trying to please man, but they're trying to get people that hate them to want to come,
31:17
but they'll still hate them. And so they're trying to make the church palatable for people
31:20
that hate church and people that hate God and all that. And again, that's a seeker sensitive model,
31:25
but they're, they're not serving the flock of people that want to be there, that want to be
31:30
disciple, that want to be, you know, helped out, I guess. And they're basically ignoring all that
31:35
so that they can please man so that they can, the first song of the said is kind of the secular song,
31:39
right? So that everybody kind of feels comfortable. You know, they never really challenge or push too
31:43
hard, because if they do that, they know these people aren't going to come back. And again,
31:46
they can always kind of default back to the, Oh, well, we're seeker sensitive. And it's like,
31:51
I just don't know if I'm down with that. I know we all come from different backgrounds and kind of
31:54
have different opinions on that. But that last little part, it's like, look, if the number one
31:58
thing you're trying to do is to serve man. And that's causing you to not preach the gospel every
32:02
Sunday. And that's causing you not to call people out for their sin. It's like, dude, you are not
32:06
serving Christ. Like you were serving yourself. And like, that's, that's probably why I get so
32:09
fired up about I'm glad I have more precise language, because I really think that that is
32:13
important so that, you know, everyone doesn't just kind of get put in that same broad category.
32:17
But man, like that's got to be a convicting message for any of these guys are actually paying attention.
32:21
Remember when, remember when Jesus was talking about, unless you eat my body, drink my blood,
32:27
you cannot be a part of me. Yeah, John six. Yeah. And you know, what happens immediately after that.
32:32
And then it says, in many of his disciples turned away and left and stopped following him. And then
32:37
he has a discussion with the disciples. And he's like, are you guys gonna lead to? But what was,
32:42
what was interesting is he didn't, you don't see in the next section him going, okay, guys,
32:47
we need to rethink how we're presenting this so that these people don't leave. No, he didn't
32:52
care. He did not care. He, I mean, he cares about the truth. And that was it, you know, and he's
32:57
just gonna keep pushing truth. But Eric, people constantly will bring that up. Well, they won't
33:02
bring that up because their paradigm for who Jesus was, is he always loved the sinner and he always
33:07
made the center feel good. And he always did those things. But if you actually read the gospels,
33:12
if you actually read them, there was so many times like, dude, like how many of you, like I've
33:15
said some pretty inflammatory things, but I've never had somebody try to throw me off a cliff
33:19
because of something that I said, because they were so angry at something that I said. Like,
33:22
you know, that's, that's just a thing like Jesus was constantly doing and saying things that didn't
33:27
just, you know, make the religious elites of the day, man, because that's the other thing
33:29
people like to say is like, Oh, well, you know, he wasn't, you know, railing against the government,
33:33
you know, he was, he was railing against the religious elites for, you know, so we shouldn't
33:37
be in the culture war, right? Because you know, that doesn't really matter as much. What really
33:41
matters is hearts of people. It's like, bro, the Sadducees and the Pharisees that was the government
33:46
and the religious elites of that area, right? Just because they were under the, you know, the,
33:50
the guys or the thumb of the Roman Empire doesn't mean that they weren't the ones that were running
33:54
the show. And so that everyone loves to present Jesus as the guy that's only worried about making
33:58
you feel good to bring you close. But you're exactly right. Like how many times that's just
34:02
one example of him being like, it is what it is. Like that's what he could have said. It just kind
34:06
of, it is what it is, guys. Look at the rich, rich, rich young ruler, you know, and he like,
34:12
Hey, Lord, what can I do? You know, well, you can have you done these commandments? Yeah, I've
34:17
lived them all. Like, all right, you know what I'm saying? Like, nobody's fulfilled a lot. Only
34:21
one person's fulfilled the law. That's Christ. And so he's like, well, what else can do? Well,
34:25
sell your stuff and come follow me. The guy's like, no, Jesus didn't like, Hey, man, just,
34:30
just kidding. Yeah, 95% of it. Don't worry about it. Just give a little bit away. All your works are
34:35
really good, man. So you just don't come and follow me. He's like, no, he wanted him
34:38
sacrificed one and to give up. Well, I think, I think that who you serve matters. And I think,
34:44
I mean, he echoes that again in, I mean, if you think Jesus is just a hippie dude that wants
34:49
everybody to like him, read, read revelation. When he's talking to the churches, and he says,
34:53
I'm not going to pronounce this right. Less, less Sophia or something.
34:57
That's one check for you. So he's talking like, if you are lukewarm, you are neither hot nor cold,
35:03
I will spit you out of my mouth because you are Christian in name only. You are saying you're
35:07
following me, but you're really not. So like he echoes that. We'll push back on that quite a few
35:11
times. Let's go. The context on that. Okay. So it's the Church of Laodosia.
35:15
So I was, I was not even. I say, I was not even close. You're wrong. You're wrong. I'm clearly
35:23
right. But yeah, let's go ahead and see. Let's go. So if you look at Laodosia, it was a rich city
35:29
in the middle of like Asia is Asia minor, I believe. And there's a city above them and a city below
35:35
them. The city above them had really good hot water. The city below them had really good cold
35:39
water, but their water was. Yeah. And even through all their riches and everything,
35:42
their water still sucked. That was like the context of that. Sure. And we use that in that
35:48
term sometimes, but sometimes that that context is not in the way of like, there's lukewarm
35:53
Christians and their hot Christians and like, at least from the context that I've read. Interesting.
35:59
Yeah, because I actually did a, we back in our Sunday school, I actually did a study on that.
36:05
Okay. So it's like, what are some words? What are some verses that we take out of context?
36:09
Interesting. So like that might, my study Bible specifically talks about that. So that's kind
36:14
of where I got that. Who's studied Bible? It is correct. It is a Bethmore study.
36:19
Oh, boy. It is not. It is not 30 minutes without Bethmore sneaking in.
36:25
Oh, she'll come and Galatians three, three, three, eight, eight, so it's uh, I'd love to dig in
36:31
with it. I would like to dig in with you. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, because I want to see what that
36:33
one says. That's, that's good stuff. I like that. So, okay, so let's kind of talk a little bit more
36:38
about that specifically because then we start getting into exegesis and isegesis and everyone,
36:43
you know, so exegesis is you're basically elucidating what's actually in there in the text and isegeding
36:47
is like where you're like, okay, I'm, I'm trying to put stuff in there, you know, basically to back
36:51
into my argument or something like that. Um, I wonder because I forget what I just read it this
36:57
week, but I've already forgotten. Um, it was basically like don't add anything to the scripture
37:00
that's, that's not already there. Like, you know, like just take what is there in the scripture.
37:04
But I wonder if that's still an important application though, Matt, because, you know,
37:08
people will talk about this, you know, you're a rhino, right? In the political context, you're
37:11
a Republican in name only, right? So you're, you're Mitt Romney, you know, you basically just have
37:15
that on your card. You've got the elephant on your logo, but you're just going to do whatever you
37:19
want. You're going to pretend to be moderate, but you're actually going to caucus with the
37:22
Democrats when it's convenient. Like whatever the thing is, like that's easy to understand the
37:25
political context on the Republican side, Democratic side, they don't really have like, uh, the same
37:29
corollary. But I think that is very, very important because it's like in the Christian walk,
37:34
like it's way easier to define how to help somebody if they're hot or cold. When they're in the mushy
37:39
middle, when they're kind of giving a mealy mouth, a pastor giving some sort of mealy mouth sermon,
37:44
you're like, I don't exactly know how to apply that. It's like trying to, you know, grab a fistful
37:48
of water or nail jello to the wall because it's like, there's no substance to kind of what's being
37:53
said. So I wonder if that's still a good application for what we see, especially if you read the gospel
37:57
accounts, because Jesus didn't seem to be very accepting of people being in the middle. Yeah,
38:01
I know. You just said the rich ruler, you know, it's like he wanted you to be all in not 95%
38:08
like get in. We wanted you all in. So your faith, your faith. So one thing. So this is not, obviously,
38:17
we're talking about Galatians one, this isn't about the rich young ruler, which the funny thing
38:20
about that is the only way that we know that he's the rich young ruler, like in three different
38:23
gospels, he's described as one, he's described as rich, one that he's described as young and one
38:28
is he's described as a ruler. So that's kind of interesting that we kind of put all those together
38:31
and just say rich young ruler. But I, I wonder if he thought Jesus was going to ask him for a
38:36
donation, right? Because like that was where he was most like ready to serve, right? Because I
38:43
tell people all the time, it's like, you know, when I do the abortion presentation and I talk
38:47
about people going and volunteering or something like that at a local pregnancy resource center,
38:51
it's like, some of you have a lot of time, some of you have a lot of money, some of you have both,
38:55
none of you have neither. And so it's like figure out which one that is for you. But it's almost
39:00
like he, again, I'm imputing something, I'm reading something in the description that's not there.
39:04
I'm just, I'm curious, y'all's thought on it, because whenever I look at that story, it's like,
39:07
I wonder if he's like, let me know what I need to do. And Jesus is going to be like, hey, you know,
39:11
let's make a sizable donation so that we can keep this ministry going for the next 30 days.
39:15
Like it's that email you get from, you know, the nonprofits that are like, oh, you know,
39:18
really struggling in this month would really be great if we got 10 more donors like that type of
39:21
a thing. But then whenever Jesus said what he said, no, no, no, I require it all, not, not a
39:26
large percentage, not, not a decent amount, not enough to serve us. But he's trying to serve
39:32
you. Jesus, in that moment, it's like, look, I need you to give me everything because if you
39:36
don't give me everything, you get nothing kind of a thing. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. For sure.
39:40
Well, I guess he could have given a donation and then followed him. Yeah, which is what he required.
39:46
Right. You know, then you live in the riches, so to speak,
39:49
could have been the new air one every fall and spring, you know, get that donation thing going.
39:53
Yeah, shout out to air one. Guys, we are not sponsored by air one. You're like, you're sneaking in Beth
39:59
more, you know, commentaries, you're sneaking in air one guys, he's gotten a fair
40:03
piece of work for it. So, so, so I kind of brought up, you know, the abortion thing in the pro
40:08
life thing. So there was a surprising kind of echo of the pro life cause here in Galatians 1 as well.
40:13
So Galatians 1 15. But when he who had set me apart before I was born and who called me by his
40:20
grace, so that's another example to where it's like, okay, if you're pointing towards the pro life
40:24
cause, obviously there are things that God has for you and has for your life that he set in motion
40:30
before you were born, which is to imply in the womb, which is to imply that there's something in
40:35
there that is important that requires our protection that that requires us to think about. Like, we
40:39
don't look at them as a non entity when we're in the womb, but extrapolate and y'all can take that
40:44
wherever you want to go with it, but extrapolate that all the way out to what he's doing right now.
40:49
Like again, but when he had set me apart before I was born and who called me by his grace, he's
40:55
talking about his current job, right? He set Paul apart to do what he's doing right now,
41:01
which is currently getting in the face of Peter Cephas or Caiaphas and, you know, pushing back on
41:06
the Judaizers, right? And so like with what he's doing with Peter, it's like God preordained, if you
41:12
will, like what is happening in that exact moment? And that was set in motion before you were even
41:18
born. I mean, that's that's convicting for me. Just like, I know a lot of guys that are kind of in
41:22
that consternation part of their career. Like, am I doing what God wants me to do? Or am I just
41:26
doing what's making the most amount of money or whatever thing like that is? But it's like, dude,
41:30
like there were plans for you that were set forth way before anyone knew what you looked like.
41:35
Well, I think he also like right before that he's talking about like,
41:38
he's talking about what he was doing before. Like, so even he couldn't mess that up, even he couldn't
41:44
like take over what God had already planned for his life. Like he was literally killing
41:50
Christians and he was he couldn't even overcome what God had set forth for him.
41:54
Well, was that part of God's plan for him to be killing Christians? I know somebody's gonna be
41:58
asking that question. Sure. I don't, I don't, I think yeah, because God is sovereign.
42:03
Well, does that get into a discussion? That's an important point, Eric, because does that get
42:08
into a discussion of God's perfect will versus God's realized will? And so it's like, you know,
42:13
on Sermon on the, on the, on the mount whenever they're like, hey, how do we pray? And it's like,
42:17
you know, when he's, when he's Jesus is teaching the apostles and the rest of the disciples how to
42:22
pray, it's like pray that, you know, God's will is done on earth as it is in heaven.
42:26
Implicit in that is that God's will is not always done on this planet. Again, a lot of people would
42:31
quibble with that, you know, there, there's a whole lot more that you can unravel with that,
42:34
you know, theology. But it's like, did, did God want that to happen so that he could have
42:40
the bona fides whenever he's doing all these other things? Or did God just work everything,
42:45
you know, according to his purpose and work it everything towards good in that moment?
42:48
Because I can't imagine that you could say that God would want, you know, the raping and slaughter
42:54
of innocence so that later it could end up being really nice scripture. But it's like, you know,
42:58
God's going to weave whatever you meant for bad for good. Like again, that can go a lot of different
43:02
ways. So I'm just curious how you guys think about it. It's sin. Sin entered the world through Adam.
43:06
So now God's working through a world that used to be perfect before sin. And now we're working
43:11
through a world with sin. And so, you know, it's like, look at the story of Job, you know,
43:17
Job was a blameless man who didn't really do anything wrong. But the devil was still able to
43:23
wreak havoc on his life and take his health and take his family. You know, God didn't say, hey,
43:29
I want you to go and do this stuff. Job, he said, do what you want with Job. Job was always going
43:34
to follow me, you know. And so sin is in this world. There's, you know, we get into Daniel and
43:39
Daniel gets into the spiritual realm of, you know, demons and princes within regions and stuff like
43:45
that. So, you know, I feel like what you said is, you know, these things are happening and God
43:51
uses it towards his glory. So, you know, the slaughter of Christians happened, but God used
43:57
it towards his glory with Paul, you know, saying, you know, this guy slaughtered Christians,
44:01
now look at it, he's preaching my message, you know. So, it takes it a step further. So, what evil,
44:07
what the devil plans for evil, God makes for good. And so, that's how I look at his sovereignty in
44:12
regards to all this stuff going on. Well, Eric, you brought it up. So, what would you read on it?
44:17
No, I mean, I'm kind of in the same boat. I think God can redeem and does redeem all situations,
44:22
you know, even when they're terrible. And that does not make it, you know, for those that maybe
44:27
are listening just any easier in the present if you're going through something that's hard right
44:31
now. But God is able to turn that into something good. And I, and just like when you're brought up
44:38
this kind of this whole thing about the rich young ruler and, you know, what the ruler may have been
44:43
thinking. I mean, Jesus rarely answered or responded to people in ways that they thought they were,
44:48
you know, it's always a little bit different. So, I think even how God redeems a situation
44:54
for himself and makes it good may not look like we think it should. We don't think it can be
45:00
good at all, but he may not even see the good. And I think that's the important thing to
45:05
understand, too, is like it may not even be on this side of eternity for us. But God is sovereign,
45:11
and God's going to do what he wants. And we don't get to say when it happens or doesn't. So, I think
45:17
that's a hard thing to get, a hard place to get to. Well, and Matt, a good thing that I try to,
45:21
you know, remind people is, so let's say you share the gospel with somebody or, you know,
45:26
you do kind of the little thing that I try to encourage people to do is like when the server
45:29
brings you your food and then says, Hey, is there anything else I can bring for you guys?
45:33
That's when you say, Hey, we're about to pray over our meals or anything that we can pray for
45:36
you about. I've never had somebody respond negatively. I've had people's, you know,
45:39
everything from no, I'm good all the way up to, oh my gosh, like my grandpa's like dying of cancer
45:44
and like my family's like, you know, I'm picking up extra shifts to try and see what we can do to
45:48
cover the bill. It's like, I mean, you're going to get those stories, right? But let's say it's one
45:52
of the whatever those responses are. And let's say you pray for that person. Let's say you pray
45:55
over that person, that person, that person, that's it. You leave a tip, you write God bless on the
45:59
receipt and then you leave. You have no idea what that could set in motion later. And you will likely
46:05
never know. It's not like you're leaving your phone number and then they're going to find you
46:08
one day or they're going to write that next bestseller and they're going to name you as the person
46:12
that like changed their entire life. That might happen. But like that, that's where I think we get
46:16
into this culture. This is kind of that naval gate. Well, not naval gazing, but this narcissistic
46:19
culture where it's like, you know, you see those guys that do the Instagram videos or the YouTube
46:23
videos where they like give away money or they bless people, but they're doing it so that they
46:27
can make more money off of the downloads and off of the advertising. And it's like, you know,
46:32
and maybe that makes me a cynic to where I'm like, Hey, you're not doing that because you really
46:35
want to help that family. You weren't you're doing that because you needed content for the week.
46:38
But that still doesn't change for the Christian. The fact that you are called to do it. Like when
46:43
you see an old lady whose limbs are falling off of her tree after a storm or something like that,
46:47
like you don't take an Instagram live of you cutting them down. So people tell you how awesome
46:51
you are. Like you just do it. And like, and I'm not fully hating on people that are doing the,
46:54
you know, the Instagram thing and like, because that may encourage people and kind of enlighten
46:58
them to kind of go and do it themselves. But yeah, I mean, Ryan, you want to happen. Yeah.
47:01
I mean, that's just something that I see all the time. And if you look in the Bible, it's it talks
47:05
about the people who go out and do their good and want to spread it out for everybody to see.
47:10
That was one thing that we don't we dealt with that that the other church that we went to was
47:14
we would do things for the poor, but then we'd want to be we wouldn't want to be noticed for doing
47:18
it. Like it's kind of weird when you've got news nine over there, you know what I'm saying? Like
47:22
taking pictures of everybody while we're packing, you know, food for the poor, or it's different
47:28
than if you're on YouTube and you're like, Hey, I'm going to give these cheeseburgers out to the
47:31
homeless people as I walk around. It's like, why can't we do that without being noticed? Why can't
47:36
we let God work through that? Yeah, that goes back to verse 10, right? Like, who are you serving? Who
47:40
are you doing it for? Like, you don't plan a redwood tree to see it a hundred feet tall. Yeah, like,
47:45
we're we're all we're all in this garden together. And one of the best, this is this comes from I
47:51
think this is on your book list. If it's not, then you can mark this down as a as an heir. Greg Cocle,
47:55
tactics tactics, like he talks about like 99% of us and the percentage might be wrong to our our
48:02
our gardeners. We're not harvesters. We all want to harvest. We all want to be the guy that brings
48:07
that person to Christ. But the reality is, like, we just need to tend to the garden. Just like we
48:12
have to see water the flowers and let it go. God's going to do what he's going to do. You don't,
48:17
in fact, you probably aren't going to harvest. Yeah. Are you faithful to just do what you're called
48:23
to do? Is it? Hey, let me pray for you. And then you're done. Yeah. Well, like, what it's interesting
48:28
when you set up something like that, because here earlier, you know, this would have been in the
48:32
the summer of 2022, I did a speaking engagement in a small town. And after we were done, I at the
48:38
last minute, that afternoon, I threw in kind of an altar call thing towards the end, I just kind of
48:43
lop it onto the end of a ready, made talk that I had. And about 15 guys accepted Christ that night.
48:49
And my very first thought, and I don't know, like, and this is not like, Hey, pat me on the
48:54
back. I'm so virtuous. But my very first thought was because I immediately turned it over to the
48:58
pastor. I had those 15 guys come down to the front. And then I had all the other guys that
49:01
were at the event, you know, gather around those guys to pray. And I had the pastor that was running
49:05
the church, basically do the prayer. I almost grabbed my iPad, went to my truck and drove home.
49:11
Just to be like, this is not a me thing. Like, this is not like, there was not something special
49:16
that I did that convinced these men, like to do the thing. And it was in that moment. And like,
49:23
because I was gone for a little bit, and then I finally walked back into the church and like,
49:26
the people that were running the event thought that I had left. But it's like, what if I had,
49:30
right? Because I told them from the beginning, I was like, guys, if something great happens here
49:33
tonight or something like that, guess what? I don't live here. Like, y'all are going to be
49:36
the ones like I typically come in, I speak, I burn it down, and I walk away. Y'all have to deal
49:40
with the ashes. Y'all have to deal with, you know, building these guys back up or kind of setting
49:44
them in motion. But it's kind of that thing like, what if that didn't happen, Matt? What if I just
49:48
got done with the, the end of my presentation, it just is what it is. And I get my normal hand
49:51
shakes at the end is like, does that mean I shouldn't have done it? Does that mean I failed in some way?
49:55
Right. But it goes right back to dude, like, that's so great. Like, because I read tactics again,
49:59
but a couple of years ago, but I already forgot that part. Such a great part. I think that's
50:02
probably one of the biggest things I took from that is like, just be faithful in what you have
50:06
now in the moment that you have, do, do what you think you are called to do then. You don't,
50:12
it doesn't have to be complicated. And do the maximum with which you were equipped. Exactly.
50:16
If you give a hundred percent of what you've got at that moment, in the Bible's clear, it says,
50:20
you know, that those that do things for in the sight of others, because they want their praise,
50:26
that is the reward. Yeah. You know, the ones that are doing it in the closet, you know, or don't,
50:30
are not looking for that. They have a heavenly reward. Wasn't it funny about that as you bring
50:34
that up? Like, I remember when Tim Tebow was still playing at Florida and he had the, the scripture
50:38
on his eye black and, you know, he would pray on the sideline and all that. And it was all these
50:42
non-Christian pagans in the news that would bring up that scripture to say like, he shouldn't be
50:47
praying in public. And like, I always think that's rich. Whenever people that don't believe in the
50:52
Bible will use the Bible as the nexus of their argument. But there's one other thing, because we're
50:56
getting kind of close to the end of wrapping up Galatians. Well, I want to, I want to stop. Yeah,
50:58
yeah, go ahead. I think like, I'm not a huge Tim Tebow fan, but like, we're called to be where
51:03
our feet are. He didn't put the camera in front of his face. Like, he was just acting where he was.
51:08
He was where God put him. And he was going to pray regardless of where the camera was. Like,
51:13
I think there's a lot to be said for like, we can't get hung up on. Oh, God, there's a camera here. I
51:17
can't do this. Like, be where your feet are and just do it. Can we talk about why you're not a Tim
51:21
Tebow fan? Like, what's wrong with you? No, no, like, I don't have a problem with Tim Tebow. I'm
51:25
not like a Tim Tebow fanatic. Why do you hate Tim Tebow? Like, that's what I want to know. Like,
51:29
you will maybe get into that in the next one, because I do want to get to this, because I mean,
51:33
I didn't know that about you. I didn't know that you were such a terrible communist, but like,
51:36
we'll go from there. Like, I want to talk about kind of the overall concept of owning our past,
51:41
because I've known, you know, everyone here for a long time, Matt, I've known you the longest, like,
51:45
you, you know the most about me, because you met me when I was 18 years old, and just the knucklehead
51:50
stupid crap that I did and thought, and you know, he's, he's basically seen the best and worse of
51:55
me. But I think we have this concept. Well, let me read the scripture and then I want to kind of
51:58
back into it, because we talked about a little bit earlier. So Galatians 113, for you have heard
52:02
of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it.
52:07
So Paul is not running from his past as a violent persecutor of the people of Christ.
52:15
He's bringing that up as an example as to how depraved he is. Like, guys, I not only was I
52:23
the ultimate Jew, like, not only was that it, I was the, I was the ultimate persecutor as well.
52:30
And that is such an incredible thing for us to kind of think through, because I know for me,
52:35
personally, there were there have been a lot of times in my life where it's like, okay, if no one
52:39
ever brought that up again, that would be awesome. I would really like if everybody ignored that
52:43
about my past. Now, there are other people that love to revel in their past and they kind of make
52:49
that like a, oh, yeah, you know, I was like a really cool guy, but then they'll say like,
52:52
yeah, but that probably wasn't something I should do. But I think it's a very important and powerful
52:56
tool to point to your, your former life, the depraved things that you did and thought
53:01
and to propel that and almost encourage people like, look, you can be like me too.
53:06
Like you could be a guy that had this depraved past and you could use it. You know, I had Tim
53:11
Charlie's on the podcast last year and he talked about, you know, after his son died, you know,
53:14
he didn't ever choose to be the guy that wanted his, his ministry to be around, you know,
53:19
a parent that lost a child suddenly. But you know, when his child died at the age of 20 suddenly,
53:24
he's thrust into that life of, hey, now I am going to be able to minister to people that have lost
53:29
their children. Like your story and you're depravity and the things that you did that sucked that
53:34
were awful, that were sinful and evil, that can be used by Christ in order to redeem somebody else.
53:40
So I'd love to kind of get y'all's thoughts on that as we kind of wrap up Galatians 1.
53:44
I think this is funny because like sometimes I read this and I think of 8 Mile where M&M literally
53:50
gets out all of the bad things about him because he knows it's going to come back and it almost,
53:54
and almost in this obviously is not a theological concept. So I didn't get this from a commentary
53:59
anywhere. I don't want to mean anybody to think that like church guys are saying this, but like
54:02
he's, he almost looks like, Hey, I'm getting this out there because I don't want anybody to say,
54:07
Oh, but you're a sinner because you did this. I know. And here's what I did. Here are all the
54:11
things that I did, but it, but Christ redeemed me anyway. And like I, it's kind of like that
54:17
moment in 8 Mile where he's like, I'm just going to lay it all out there. And then you have nothing
54:21
to come back on me with. From Tim Tebow to 8 Mile, we've had Beth Moore, we've had it all in this
54:26
first episode, guys, we are basically crushing it on this first one. No, that that's an exact
54:30
good point. It's like, there's nothing you can say to me that I didn't already just submit to you.
54:35
Yeah. And I, and I, you know, we're just talking about testimony, right? And everybody has a
54:38
testimony. I think when I think about some people have a, a deeper bottom than others, you know,
54:44
they hit rock bottom way down here. Some people will hit it right here. But we all have some
54:48
place that we were that, that God then redeemed us from and saved us from that we can talk about.
54:54
And yeah, I mean, I, I say that because I, you know, here, here Paul is talking about all this
55:00
terrible stuff he did. And that's fine. So people have that, those stories, but we all, we all have
55:05
something that we can connect with on some level with someone regardless of whether it was, I mean,
55:10
you said you kind of had like a beige conversion. You know, it wasn't like you went and did drugs,
55:17
ended up in a ditch somewhere. I used to haunt me. I used to think like, Oh my gosh,
55:21
how is God getting used to me? Because I didn't do all of these horrible things. But then that
55:25
guy just goes to, we're taking it away from Christ and we're making it about me like, you could be a
55:30
really good person by, by people standing, but you're still a depraved sinner that needs Christ
55:35
to intervene on your behalf. So that's it. Yeah. Well, no, like the good thing about that as well,
55:41
as I've thought that as well, because I remember there was a guy that that played for the UCO hockey
55:46
team. So we went to UCO. I know you're talking about exactly your time. We'll just call him by his
55:49
nickname is nickname was Fux. And so this was the guy he was literally brought in to be the guy that
55:54
fought all the toughest guys on the other team. Like that's how he got a scholarship to go to
55:57
school because he was really good at fighting. And this guy, he was he was literally loose cannon,
56:01
like he would get in fights at parties. He would he would get in fights like literally all the time.
56:05
And so I hadn't seen him for a couple of years. This is early on in in Kelsey and I's marriage,
56:09
you know, so I'm, you know, 23 years old or something like that. And I see him like in the
56:14
produce section at Walmart, and we lock eyes and he comes walking right toward me. I'm like,
56:18
okay, I have no idea what I said or what I did, but it's about to go down by the tomatoes.
56:24
And like this is, you know, before I knew how to fight, not that it would have made any
56:27
difference by this guy. But this is a guy that came, I think he was from Chicago. He used to
56:32
gang bang. He used to do all kinds of crazy stuff. And he comes up to me and he's got like this
56:38
twinkle in his eye. He's like, Kyle, I'm so glad I saw you like this is this is so neat. Dude,
56:43
I accepted Jesus here recently. Like my entire life is so unbelievably different. Can I talk to
56:47
you about it? That's awesome. And I'm just like, wait, what? What? And like, so that's the
56:54
example, Matt, of that's the dude that used to gang bang that used to get in fights all the time.
56:59
And Jesus snatched him up from that life and said, no, my senior. And like, it was just like,
57:04
that's not my story. Like, I wasn't the guy that literally was dead, you know,
57:08
with the needle still hanging out of my vein in my arm. And then I floated over my body and saw
57:12
my entire life flash for my eyes and then went right back into my body and changed all that.
57:17
But that, that makes your, your, your personal testimony more sensational. But it doesn't make
57:22
it any more useful to Christ. And so I think that that's a really, really important thing for all
57:26
of us, especially if you had a squeaky, clean upbringing, if your parents still love each other,
57:30
all those different things, like you didn't grow up in the gutter and you didn't, you know,
57:33
do all these different things. You're not prison Mike. And it's just kind of one of those deals.
57:36
That's very, very important for the, but like, I think that that's really important for all,
57:41
all of us to remember is like, it doesn't matter where you came from. God can use all of it.
57:44
Yeah, that's a, I mean, I kind of talked about it personally.
57:48
Let's go. Yeah. Rapsa, I got a family member dealing with the throws of addiction.
57:52
And they were getting really deep into drugs, went to the hospital a couple times near death.
57:57
And I just gave them a Bible and I hadn't talked to them for a year. I actually just met with them
58:03
just last week. And they've kind of committed their life to Christ and just said, Hey, I appreciate
58:09
you giving me that Bible, you know, like what laid it on your heart. And I was just like,
58:13
you're supposed to be dead, like at least three times, you know, but God has a plan for your life.
58:18
You know, you were predestined or something, you know what I'm saying? But I was like, you should
58:22
be dead. And but God has you, your, his glory is going to be seen through you and through your
58:28
recovery, you know, but you just got to keep your eyes on him and you got to make him your number one.
58:33
And they're, you know, I would get in more integrations if we were going to get into freedom,
58:37
you know, and he's going to stumble. You know, I told him, you're going to stumble.
58:41
But it's being convicted of that stumble and trying to go back to what Christ has
58:46
signed up for you. And so, you know, you can all have a squeaky clean, squeaky clean image.
58:52
Yeah, I'll be in the throes of something. But you know, he always has a hand out there.
58:57
I think that's a really powerful story. Like he was, he literally should have died. But like,
59:01
that's that is the beauty of the gospel. Like we're all dead. We're all dead. Yeah. Like some,
59:06
you can just see it outwardly on more on some people because they have, they have like drowned
59:13
in addiction. I'm, I was dead before Christ found me and said, yeah, I got you. Yeah.
59:20
Like we're all just dead. We're addicted to self. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's like, yeah,
59:24
I'm addicted to myself. You know, that's my throes of addiction is what is Ryan want? Yeah, you know,
59:29
and we're all very, very different. Like we're all depraved in different ways,
59:32
but depraved, we are not less. And so I think that's a very important thing. But
59:35
guys, there's, there's more to say certainly, but we'll have to leave it there. But come back
59:38
next Sunday where we'll dig into Galatians two and make sure that you read it so that you're
59:42
prepared for next week, but before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost.
59:45
Add adulted life. Our mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that
59:48
for just spiritual, mental and physical resilience. So the only link I've got for you today is a link
59:52
to our donation page. I've said this a lot to you guys. The only way that we're able to pull off
59:56
things like this and do some of the things that we need to do is because we have guys like you out
59:59
there that are supporting the content that we make. So make sure you go to that link and hop on board.
1:00:02
Thank you guys for listening to this episode. Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe,
1:00:06
rate and leave us a positive five star review. If you want to come speak live at your event or on
1:00:10
your podcast, you shoot me an email to info@andontin.life. That's i n f o @andontin.life.
1:00:16
Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook and check out our website for everything else,
1:00:19
including how to donate to keep more content like this coming your way. Just go to www.andontin.life.
1:00:24
And as always, we want to thank the band August Burns read for allowing us to use their music
1:00:28
for our content. The musical and this podcast is our song, cutting the tides, which is off their
1:00:31
10th anniversary re recording of their album leveler. The links are in the description.
1:00:36
I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness. Keep forging spiritual,
1:00:42
mental and physical resilience. Keep seeking the lion of Judah.
1:01:06
[Music]