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1:17
I'm your host Kyle Thompson and welcome back to the forging table.
1:24
The mission of Undaunted Life is equipping men to push back darkness with content that
1:28
forges spiritual, mental, and physical resilience.
1:30
At the forging table, you'll see a group of regular guys forging spiritual resilience
1:34
by digging into God's word and we're welcoming all of you to come along on that journey with
1:37
us.
1:38
That's Eric.
1:39
That's Ryan.
1:40
That's Matt.
1:41
Guys, we're going to dig into Galatians 4.
1:42
Now, last week on Galatians 3, we went a whole lot of other places and we kind of got
1:46
into some little arguments, but I do just want to reiterate something that I said on
1:49
that podcast is all of us are in different journeys of our Christian life.
1:54
We're in different journeys of our theological lives, digging into Scripture, digging out
1:57
of Scripture as my buddy, Dale Partridge, says, "It's not how many years you've been
2:00
to Christian.
2:01
It's how many hours."
2:02
When you're tempted to just fly off the handle and think one of us said something that
2:06
was heretical or I can't believe they don't understand that or why don't they think the
2:09
way that I do and you send me the world's longest email, know that I may not read all
2:13
of that long email and I may not respond in a way that you like, but everybody here, we're
2:18
open and we're basically laying bare our potential ignorance or the things that we maybe don't
2:22
quite understand or parts of the Bible that, you know, to be frank, maybe we're just reading
2:26
really for the first time with our eyes actually being open.
2:29
So, again, when I say we're bringing you guys along the journey with us, that is one of
2:33
the things that we're here because we want you guys to see what it's like when people
2:37
without divinity degrees, without professional Christian-grown bona fides, just coming here
2:41
to this forging table to actually talk about it.
2:43
So just wanted to kind of get that out there, but as we dig into Galatians 4, there's something,
2:48
Eric, that you were talking about off air that I wanted to kind of get in here because
2:51
this first section, I think it's broken out this way in the ESV, it talks about suns and
2:56
airs.
2:57
And so that's Galatians 4, 1 through 7.
3:00
And in there, you have a lot of talk of sunship, of being in air, but also about slavery.
3:05
So I basically cut you off before we hit the record button because I wanted you to just
3:08
go ahead and say it on here.
3:09
So go ahead and talk about what you're talking about in terms of slavery.
3:12
Yeah, so my big takeaway from this, I really liked this chapter, was just this whole idea
3:19
of slavery.
3:20
I mean, I think we'd all agree that we as sinners are slaves to sin and it's through
3:26
Christ that we are set free from that so we don't have to be slaves.
3:30
And so as I look at this, I'm like, man, you know, if we just kind of think about this
3:35
old school, if a master had a slave, and that master came to the slave and said, hey, I've
3:42
got good news, I'm going to set you free today.
3:46
You've got to be, I mean, there's no reason to think any different that that slave would
3:52
be absolutely an utterly static, you know, pick up his stuff, leave, be super grateful,
3:59
go out his life.
4:00
But what I just took away from this, that I just thought was even bigger than that, it's
4:05
like we, we are slaves to sin, God saves us, but he goes a step further.
4:11
It's like we don't deserve this next thing, but he, not only does he set us free, he then
4:17
makes us sons.
4:19
And that to me is incredible.
4:22
It's incredible.
4:23
Reminded of the prodigal son, remember he took his inheritance early, went and squandered
4:31
it, ended up with the pigs, was like, what, what am I doing?
4:38
You know, he remembers, because as a child, he was under probably the watch of some of
4:44
the slaves or whatever you want to call them of the master of his father.
4:50
He remembered, I'm sure, and was like, you know what, even those, even those guys that
4:55
are under my dad have it better than I've got it, I'm going to go back and just ask
5:00
to be one of the servants.
5:04
And he goes back and, you know, you know, the rest of the story, the dad meets him for
5:08
he ever gets to the house.
5:10
And the dad's like, no, no, no, you're not coming to be a servant.
5:15
I'm bringing you back in as my son, you know, and just that, that, that beautiful picture
5:20
I think that is set in different ways here, but it's the same essence.
5:25
I think that's beautiful in regards to how you bring, how he brings that son in, back
5:29
in again.
5:30
And then you think of the brother, the brother who's jealous and angry.
5:34
So like, I look at the brothers like, Judaizers, you know, they're like, all right, God's bringing
5:38
in these Gentiles, but these Gentiles didn't do the law like we did.
5:43
They weren't, they weren't circumcised like we are, they're not following the ceremony
5:46
like we are, and it's just like, you look at that picture and it's just full adoption.
5:51
Well, yeah, that brother, the brother, I'm sure was like, no, no, no, make him a servant.
5:56
Yeah.
5:57
No, I do all these awesome things.
5:58
I never left like what every time I've read or heard the story of the prodigal son, I've
6:03
always been on the side of the older brother.
6:05
Yeah.
6:06
I'm like, because like, I'm such a justice minded person.
6:09
And I'm just like, no, no, no, like, yeah, yeah, welcome him back.
6:12
But yeah, he goes to the back of the line now.
6:14
And so I always have to kind of check myself because I guess, you know, when I was very
6:19
early in my Christian walk, I thought that was the point of the story.
6:21
Was that the older brother got screwed in the steel, right?
6:23
You know what I mean?
6:24
I was like, yeah, I didn't see any of the rest of it, like I didn't see any of the rest
6:27
of the stuff that you're supposed to see about that story.
6:30
But it's funny how this first part of this or even the story of the prodigal son just
6:34
hits different when you become a father of a son, okay?
6:38
So this literally happened to me last night.
6:40
So one of my favorite, I really love Westerns.
6:42
I don't like as many of the older Westerns, I like a lot of modern Westerns.
6:45
But Christian Bale did a Western years ago called hostels.
6:48
It is an especially brutal movie.
6:50
It's got some things that are very, very uncomfortable.
6:52
If you have a wife that is at all not into like, you know, anyway, it's a very brutal
6:58
opening scene if you have kids and like them.
7:01
And so I will say that that scene always felt brutal to me, but I never became upset until
7:08
I became a father.
7:09
And then it was a different level of emotion.
7:12
It was a different level of anger.
7:15
All those things were just different.
7:17
And I think it kind of goes back whenever I read this beginning part and maybe I'm maybe
7:20
I'm putting a little bit too much poetry into this first part of Galatians 4.
7:24
But Jesus or God removes your identity as a slave from you, but he leaves you with your
7:32
memory of what it was like to be a slave.
7:35
And so because you're no longer a slave to sin, right, as we've all sang and enjoyed
7:41
that.
7:42
Yeah.
7:43
Yeah.
7:44
There you go.
7:45
Hey, not all of it's bad.
7:46
But so we understand that, but we don't lose our recollection of what it was like to
7:50
not be that.
7:52
And I think the important thing about why that is is because we need to remember what it
7:56
was like to be depraved because that is a reminder of how sweet the gospel is.
8:01
Because if you just lose all memory of all the depravity that you had, it's a weird thing
8:05
to kind of build your faith on in the future because it's like you have nothing to compare
8:08
the good now to the bad that was before.
8:11
That makes sense.
8:12
Yeah.
8:13
I think that's part of our testament.
8:14
I think that's also why Paul talks about how what he did before he became a Christian basically
8:20
was all the bad things he did in persecuting Christians.
8:22
It's like, yeah, God pulled me from that.
8:26
I think looking at the prodigal son, even the older son who was mad, he wasn't in the
8:36
dad's house because he did anything.
8:38
He was there because the dad gave him permission to be there.
8:41
You're my son because you're my son.
8:43
There's nothing you can do right to keep that, but there's also nothing you can do in the
8:49
negative side to lose that.
8:52
And I think I think I remember the first time I thought about it that way, like, man, the
8:56
older son is missing the whole point here of like, it doesn't matter if you're good
9:03
or bad.
9:04
You're only there because the dad says you could be there dad says you're, you're a part
9:08
of my family.
9:09
You're in my house and you're going to stay in my house, whether you are partying and
9:14
up with friends because you squandered your inheritance away or you're doing what you're
9:18
supposed to be doing getting up every day, helping your dad run his house.
9:22
When did you mention Alistair bag on a previous show week of this?
9:25
And so it's like, that's, that is one thing where it's like, Hey, you know, you're at
9:28
the Pearly Gates.
9:29
Why should we let you in?
9:30
If anything, if you start your sentence with because I, you've ruined it.
9:34
It's like, no, no, because he, the man on the middle cross that I could come and said
9:38
exact thing.
9:39
It's like the, the older brother, the brother in that story, he's like, wait a minute.
9:42
Right.
9:43
Well, look at the stuff I've done.
9:44
Look at all the righteousness I have shown.
9:46
And the father showing in a way, it's like, no, neither one of you are righteous.
9:51
His blunders were a lot louder and a lot more embarrassing to the family name, but guess
9:54
what?
9:55
He's still my son, which it sucks when you're still focused on the justice and you're like,
9:59
Oh, screw that kid.
10:00
But it's like, no, like that's the power of the gospel.
10:02
Yeah.
10:03
That's a, that's a, I feel like that's a pretty big problem though in our culture is it's
10:06
performance based, you know, acceptance.
10:11
We had this conversation even yesterday because my son, he studied solo for science tests.
10:17
We were like, help, we can quiz you.
10:20
You really wanted to do it on his own, which, which on how old and 13, my oldest.
10:25
Yep.
10:26
And anyways, got, got his tests back.
10:28
I think he scored an 80 and what, which is fine.
10:32
It's fine.
10:33
But there is that margin.
10:34
You're like, well, yeah, you know, we, and so we had a conversation about like performance
10:39
and we have certain minimum standards that you've got to keep the grades above whatever,
10:44
but or else, you know, so we do have some minimum performance standards, but really what I
10:50
told him, I reiterate, because he was kind of upset that we weren't like, yeah, you know,
10:54
or whatever, you know, we weren't upset either.
10:57
It's just like, look, all that really matters that you just give your all just give your
11:00
all.
11:01
And that's it.
11:02
I mean, if you give a hundred percent and that's as good as you knew, that's fine.
11:05
It's okay, we're not expecting you to get at ninety hundred or whatever.
11:10
We're not going to love you any less or any even more, you know, any more.
11:15
If you do get a ninety or a hundred and I'm reminded of a, of another story, and I'll
11:21
be quick of a dad on the sideline in a soccer game, his little girls playing.
11:25
She's like eight years old, and he's like, stay another, you know, yelling and cheering
11:31
her on this parent next to him, it's like, come on Sally, you know, score that goal.
11:36
We'll get ice cream after the game.
11:39
He kind of pauses, and he's like, you know, hey, hey, Emery, score that goal.
11:45
But if you don't guess what, we're still going to get ice cream.
11:49
Why is that?
11:50
Because you love me, daddy.
11:51
You know, so it's not performance based anyways, I think it's, I think that's super important.
11:58
Like there's a difference between our identity and our role.
12:00
Like we have lots of roles, I have a role as a dad, a role as a husband, a role as a
12:04
as an employee, a role as a congregant, but like my identity is always in Christ.
12:08
And if my role is my identity, and I'm only, I'm only finding satisfaction in scoring that
12:15
soccer goal, but I'm not grounded in my identity as a Christian.
12:19
Like, man, I'm a, I'm going to go off the rails real quick.
12:22
And I might screw up my role at work, but and still a son of God, yeah, at the end of the
12:27
day.
12:28
And that's what my identity should be.
12:29
Yeah, and you mentioned embarrassment there.
12:31
I think there are a lot of things that can embarrass our family too.
12:36
And we can, you know, we take that personally and then, you know, project that on our, on
12:41
our kids, when they do something that then we're like, Oh my goodness, you know, you
12:46
know what everybody's going to think about us now, you know, because you did that thing.
12:49
Well, I mean, we shift really quick off of race based parenting to performance based
12:55
parenting, because we now feel, um, we feel embarrassed and we realize that our identity
13:01
is tied up in our kiddo and how he is perceived by the world rather than our Christian identity.
13:08
Well, yeah, we're all.
13:09
Oh, sorry.
13:10
Go ahead.
13:11
No, go.
13:12
We're all, we're all kind of geared towards like, what do other people think of that?
13:14
That's a really hard thing to, to get over like, yeah, my son's, you know, he's struggling
13:18
with lying, but like, I'm not going to say, you know, he's struggling with suicidal thoughts
13:23
or what you like we pick and choose what we, my son is not, I don't, I don't want, I'm
13:26
just using as an example, he's seven, but like we pick and choose what we tell the world
13:30
to because it's like, man, if I say that, it's kind of embarrassing.
13:34
I don't want people to know that about me or my family.
13:36
So we even pick and choose what we, what you put out there as we are so driven by that.
13:42
So I think that, that, that really leads to an important discussion, which, you know,
13:45
it's still applies to collations for, but performance and standards.
13:50
So defining yourself on your performance, but actually having standards, because there
13:53
are families and there are parents that think that having standards at all is wrong for
13:59
the child as well, because like having minimum standards, because, you know, how are these
14:03
standards going to be equal?
14:05
Because one kid might be more intellectually inclined than the other one might be more
14:08
artistically inclined, athletically inclined, whatever.
14:10
So what do you have a sliding scale of standards based on how good or bad your kid is at this
14:14
or that thing?
14:15
But also there are standards, yes, you are saved by the grace of, by having the grace
14:22
of God, by having faith in Christ.
14:24
But there are standards of a Christian life that you would hold some would call them rules,
14:28
some would call them, you know, whatever.
14:29
Why are you giggling?
14:30
Why are you giggling?
14:31
We're, but it seems like we're about to get into a conversation about cheap grace.
14:35
Like what is cheap grace?
14:36
Like grace, like salvation is not just to get out of jail free card, something that makes
14:39
me feel good.
14:41
Like that's Bonhoeffer called that cheap grace.
14:44
Like if I just go to the altar and say, yes, I'm giving my life to Christ, but there's
14:48
no change and I don't, I don't go.
14:50
I just go, all right, cool.
14:51
I don't have to go to hell now.
14:52
I can do whatever I want because I said, I believe in Jesus Christ, like that is cheapening
14:59
your salvation.
15:00
Well, I guess that goes back to the prodigal son thing.
15:02
Yeah.
15:03
To where it's like, did he cheapen the family name by letting the son, like, because it's
15:08
seemingly the house had standards.
15:10
One son, you know, met and/or exceeded the standards, the other one significantly fell
15:15
short of the standards.
15:17
And so the performance of one was great and the performance of the other was bad, but
15:20
they both end up with the same thing, which is sonship.
15:23
Does that make sense?
15:24
Yeah.
15:25
But you have to look at the one who stumbled had humility.
15:27
Yeah.
15:28
He humbled himself.
15:29
He didn't say I'm going to go back to daddy and daddy's going to take care of me.
15:31
I'm not entitled.
15:32
Yeah.
15:33
He went back and said, I'll be a slave to my father.
15:36
Yeah.
15:37
You know what I'm saying?
15:38
And so entitlement.
15:39
That's a good word.
15:40
Yeah, absolutely.
15:41
And so I did to say I cheapen grace, you know, I was going to a church and it was all about
15:45
grace.
15:46
And next thing you know, we have these groups and I'm throwing parties and doing stuff you
15:51
shouldn't be doing.
15:52
And I was like, my whole excuse was, I have grace.
15:56
God knows this is who I am.
15:57
This is me.
15:58
God loves me for me.
16:00
And his grace is for me.
16:01
And this is just, you know, this is just what I do.
16:04
The whole God loves me just the way I am is a really, really dangerous theology to have.
16:09
And I've been there and I knew, I knew a youth pastor who would cuss in front of kids.
16:13
And if he was ever called out, he'd say, oh, I'm just a sinner who stayed by grace just
16:17
like you.
16:18
And it's like, ugh, that's very cringy because it's like, man, you should be holding yourself
16:23
to a higher standard and be above approach, absolutely.
16:27
But like, if you're just going to use the, use the grace card as well, I can do whatever
16:32
I want because God loves me just the way that I am, you are not going to find that in scripture.
16:37
You're not going to find God ever leaving someone where they are.
16:40
He finds you where you are, but then he tells you to leave what you lack there, what you
16:44
lack now is sanctification.
16:46
Yeah.
16:47
Yeah.
16:48
Absolutely.
16:49
You know, there's no conviction in your walk.
16:50
And so then if there's no conviction, there's no sanctification.
16:53
Yeah.
16:54
And I think it's an important thing to think about what you're saying is well, Matt, is
16:57
a lot of people will build their entire theology off of here are all the things that I want
17:02
to do.
17:03
They're the things that fit into a Judeo-Christian ethic here, the things that don't fit into
17:07
a Judeo-Christian ethic.
17:08
But I've got this gigantic blanket I'm going to put over everything.
17:11
It's my little force field.
17:12
Now force field is grace.
17:14
It's my get out of hell free card.
17:15
It's my whatever.
17:17
And they're, they're not worried about sanctification.
17:18
They're not worried about molding themselves into what Christ would want for them.
17:22
They're worried about molding the gospel around the cracks that they've allowed into
17:26
their life.
17:27
And so that's the thing that you struggle with.
17:28
And it goes back to Galatians two where Paul rebuked Peter to his face.
17:33
Then having a guy like that, that youth pastor that would cuss in front of the kids and not
17:36
rebuking that person.
17:37
Now the guy didn't show any humility clearly to kind of deal with that.
17:42
But I mean, imagine not saying anything because you're like, oh, that's just who he is.
17:45
God made him that way.
17:46
Yeah.
17:47
But you're exactly right.
17:48
One of the most nefarious things in our modern narcissistic culture is that Jesus, if he is
17:52
good, he will love me for everything that I am.
17:56
But that I am statements they make are I am gay.
17:59
I am non-binary.
18:00
I am a sexual center.
18:03
I am a cusser.
18:04
I am a cheater.
18:05
I am a whatever there's.
18:06
Gossip her anything.
18:07
Anything.
18:08
Anything.
18:09
I am just saw somebody post on Twitter.
18:10
I am a gossip her.
18:11
That's just the way God made me.
18:13
She was being sarcastic.
18:14
But like if you carry the logic out to its conclusion, like you're, that's where you
18:21
get to get to like, I'm a liar.
18:23
So didn't go.
18:24
Okay.
18:25
Vodie do that recently where he had a Vodie Bockum had a, he was preaching.
18:29
He was like, I'm an adulterer, you know?
18:32
And he's like, basically the church is being like, all right, that's okay that you're an
18:36
adulterer.
18:37
You know, you still have grace and stuff like that, you know, and he's just kind of
18:41
showing the foolishness of how grace has been bastardized.
18:44
Can I say that word?
18:45
Yeah.
18:46
Sure.
18:47
I said sure.
18:48
Like I run this.
18:49
Yeah.
18:50
Thank you.
18:51
Thank you.
18:52
You want to switch sheets?
18:53
You can, you can sit in my chair if you want.
18:54
But grace has been bastardized by modern Christianity, you know, it's now, it's, it's,
19:00
it's, it's like the, there's a movie I watched called a welcome home Roscoe Jenkins.
19:05
This whole thing is about team of me.
19:07
And it's no longer being on God's team.
19:09
It's God's now on the team of me.
19:11
Yeah.
19:12
You know what I'm saying?
19:13
It's like, no, we're like losing our focus.
19:15
Our focus is this postmodernism is bringing such a self absorbed version of Christianity
19:22
out here that is just, it's temporary.
19:25
Well, when imagine carrying that same attitude back to how you deal with your kids, imagine
19:31
teaching your kids the theology or the philosophy of you are fine the way you are.
19:37
Because then if you take that out and you extrapolate that out, let's go back to your
19:41
13 year old in the, in the science test or something like that.
19:44
If they are fine the way they are, they shouldn't study at all.
19:47
Like because their current level of knowledge is enough.
19:51
They are enough.
19:52
And I thought Alyssa Childers did a great job in her, her latest book where she basically
19:55
talked about, you know, all these people, it's like, Hey, I'm living my truth.
19:59
And that's all that it is.
20:00
And like they're talking about and they hear these sermons where it's like, you are enough,
20:04
slay queen and all that.
20:05
But like they would never say that to a 13 year old.
20:08
That's a term from the bible, right?
20:09
You know, it's like, yeah, it's a, it's first [inaudible] back three floors.
20:13
Um, no, but like, but imagine, imagine doing that.
20:16
Like we would never think to do that with a child.
20:19
Like a two year old that is currently not potty trained.
20:21
You're never going to try to teach that kid.
20:23
Hey, you're fine the way you are.
20:24
You don't need to develop past that.
20:26
But we treat our own personal theology, our own personal walk with Christ in that same
20:30
way, because we're just like, Oh, you know, we were stuck in sin and now now we're safe.
20:35
So it's just whatever.
20:36
Well, you can see that in the church and I hope this doesn't ruffle any feathers.
20:39
I'm sure.
20:40
I hope it does.
20:41
I feel like we haven't made, we haven't made anybody mad this show so far.
20:43
It might, but like look at, look at church run addiction programs.
20:48
We look at addiction, which is a sin that we look at it like, well, that's just the way
20:55
you are.
20:56
And it like, these are church run programs telling people, okay, you have a problem with
21:02
alcohol, but that's just how you are.
21:05
That's not what Jesus ever tells us to do.
21:07
Jesus doesn't say you're a drunk.
21:10
It's okay.
21:12
It's just who you are.
21:14
Here's a 12 step program.
21:15
He says, don't be a drunk anymore because that's not how I called you to be.
21:19
I called you to be my son.
21:21
I called you to be an heir to my eternal kingdom.
21:24
You are no longer a sinner and how awful is it to tell somebody who comes into a church
21:29
broken looking for salvation and you tell them, it's okay.
21:35
It's okay that you're a drunk.
21:37
And I like, and this is a new thing for me to come to grips with because it's like, that's
21:43
not biblical at all.
21:45
It's not.
21:46
It's not biblical at all.
21:47
And there are some really great addiction programs out there, but we are doing, we are
21:51
doing people with addiction to disservice by telling them, it's okay.
21:55
So yeah, that goes back to when Adam Comer from S2L came on our show a while ago, because
22:01
that was around the same time.
22:02
I think I heard Jeff Durbin from Apology, basically talking about that.
22:05
He's the first person that put that in my head, I was like, oh my gosh, this makes sense.
22:08
Yeah, it's like, if your identity is found in Christ, then you don't start out a meeting
22:12
with hi, I'm Kyle, I'm an alcoholic.
22:14
Absolutely.
22:15
And so like, that's one thing that S2L and some of these other actually faith based recovery
22:19
programs will do.
22:20
It's it's like, hi, I'm John, I'm saved by the blood of the lamb, like, and I'm no longer
22:25
slave to sin, you know, it gets right back into the beginning, it's Galatians 4.
22:29
That is a mind shift because dude, there are a lot of Christians that would completely
22:32
disagree with us on that.
22:34
And like, but they've never heard it that way because it's like, look, how would you develop
22:39
a program for somebody that that you're basing on the blood of the lamb covering them, but
22:45
then just acknowledging, hey, you're going to be this forever, no matter what.
22:49
Now it's not counter to what I said earlier, it's where it's like, hey, we were no longer
22:52
slaves to sin, but we remember our slavery.
22:54
But again, the whole thing is we are no longer slaves.
22:57
We do not identify as slaves any longer.
22:58
We identify as sons with the father because that's the, the right that he gave us.
23:02
Our identity is not wrapped up in being an addict.
23:05
Right.
23:06
It's going to be a slave period, but instead of a slave of sin, you know, it'd be a slave
23:11
of righteousness.
23:12
Yeah.
23:13
So you're always going to be a slave.
23:14
Coming from, you know, I got family members that deal with addiction, I've been to the
23:17
island on meetings and trying to understand them and figure them out.
23:21
I think that was the most frustrating part where it was like, you know, you can't control
23:25
their disease.
23:26
Like, is it really a disease?
23:28
Yeah.
23:29
You know, like, is it really a disease or is it really, he just doesn't know how to handle
23:33
life and decides to go to something else rather than.
23:36
But then you also deal with, if you go to an actual island on meeting, it's always your
23:40
God, which is something like we're hearing it in the Christian circles a lot lately was
23:46
I listened into one of those Christian stations.
23:49
I won't bug them again, but they had a, because I really don't listen to him that much.
23:55
But they had somebody who was, you know, one of the singer songwriters on there, she said
24:00
something she goes, well, my Jesus.
24:03
And I'm like, oh boy, I'm like, or Jesus, you know, like, be careful with that.
24:07
Yeah, it's like, there's only one Jesus, you know, and then during this island on meeting,
24:11
they're all like, you know, you got to find your higher power.
24:14
You're God.
24:15
That's like, there's only one God, you know, like, how are these guys going to figure out
24:20
and die to themselves, you know, and die to Christ if they can pick out whichever God
24:25
they want to make a God.
24:26
And these are, these are run by churches where churches don't, but there's not a vetting
24:29
process.
24:30
Like, just go, yeah, great, because the argument is, well, how many people have you brought
24:37
out of addiction?
24:38
Do you realize how many people that, that that program has pulled out of addiction?
24:41
Yeah.
24:42
And in our response should be, yeah, but they're sending them straight to hell and that and
24:47
that is what really matters.
24:49
Does their salvation matter or does it just matter that they put the bottle down for two
24:53
weeks?
24:54
How many people did Joel's bring to an altar call?
24:57
We're going there, we're going there that quick.
25:00
That's what I would say back to that person, you know, never heard of it.
25:03
Never heard of it.
25:04
Never heard of it.
25:05
What's funny about that is when you talk about the disease model, it's like, okay,
25:07
is this a disease or is this a sin compulsion?
25:10
Because I remember around the time that when all the stuff came out about Tiger Woods and
25:14
all the, you know, sexual peak of delays he was having and all that kind of stuff, it
25:16
was like, oh, he went to sex rehab.
25:18
Okay.
25:19
I was like, and if everyone's being honest, no one knew that was a rehab before.
25:23
And if everybody could pick an addiction, they'd be like, I'd love to have sex addiction.
25:26
That would be awesome, you know, just because, you know, I could ask for forgiveness, but
25:30
then I had all the fun, but like, that's the thing that people, when we treat things as
25:34
a disease model, it's like, wait a minute, there's a sin problem.
25:36
I remember the, I can't remember the name of the book.
25:38
This was probably 10 years ago, but it was a book about, you know, people that had mental
25:41
disorders.
25:42
And this book was basically claiming that every mental disorder is a demon and how we
25:46
can exercise authority over these demons and things like that.
25:48
We're talking about every single mental disorder that you could potentially have.
25:53
And so if we extrapolate out exactly what we're talking about right now is alcoholism, not
25:57
a disease, but hey, you know, bipolar is a disease.
26:01
You see how far this can kind of get extrapolated out.
26:03
That's a really dangerous place to be because like, you know, I don't, I don't think that
26:08
depression is a, is a demon, you know, and I think God gave us, God gave us tools that
26:15
are not necessarily like laid out in scripture to help people with mental disorders.
26:22
And I don't want people to hear what we're talking about and think like, okay, well,
26:26
I can just pray hard enough or ask God and I'll be good.
26:29
Like you, if you have, if you are, if you have an alcohol addiction, you should seek
26:34
help for that.
26:35
If you have a sex addiction, you should seek help for that.
26:38
There's, there's not a, the old pray, the gay away, like that's not how it works.
26:43
Like you have to go to war with your sin.
26:47
You have to, you have to be willing to get in the fight, put on the armor of God like
26:50
you were talking about, Eric, but like, you, you can't just say, all right, cool, I picked
26:56
up my Bible.
26:57
So I'm not an alcoholic anymore.
26:59
A leg's broken.
27:00
Yeah.
27:01
But I'm not going to go to the doctor.
27:02
But on, but on the flip side, no one would say somebody, say to somebody who has a problem
27:05
with lying.
27:06
It's okay.
27:07
Like just, it's fine.
27:08
No, you would say stop lying.
27:10
You don't tell your seven year old who lies about everything.
27:13
It's okay, son.
27:14
That's just how you know, in this family, we don't lie.
27:18
We tell the truth because that's what we do, that's the right thing to do.
27:21
We don't gossip because that's not what we, we don't, we don't get drunk.
27:27
We don't have an addiction to alcohol because we are not called to do that.
27:30
We must go to war and put our sin to death.
27:34
Yeah.
27:35
Absolutely.
27:36
And I think, I think a lot of the things that we're talking about, and this goes back
27:39
to what you were talking about with your son, what we've all talked about in terms of how
27:42
we look at scripture, it comes back to a discussion about truth.
27:46
So when someone talks about my Jesus or my God or my truth, it really does come back
27:50
to what is truth and is there such a thing?
27:54
Because I think people are conflating, especially in our modern moment, lived experience with
27:58
their truth.
27:59
So we might have a different lived experience if we were on either side of a car accident,
28:05
but it doesn't change the truth of the situation, doesn't change the truth of how fast the cars
28:09
were going and in what direction, whose fault it is mainly, you know, even outside of the
28:13
insurance context or something like that, but that's where it gets into hearing relations
28:17
for as well.
28:18
I want to specifically talk about verse 16.
28:20
Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth, okay?
28:23
So starting in verse eight, Paul is, you know, he's talking about his concern for the Galatians,
28:29
basically laying these all out like, Hey, almost like, Hey, here's why I'm talking to
28:32
you the way that I'm talking to you.
28:34
Here's why this is so important and almost as like a throwaway line, it's have I then
28:38
become your enemy by telling you the truth.
28:41
And so implicit in that, and again, I know it's dangerous to imply anything to the Bible,
28:44
but just just follow me here.
28:45
Be careful.
28:46
I will be careful as it's careful as I can be implicit in that statement is that his truth
28:52
telling is ruffling some feathers in that moment.
28:55
Now, obviously my brand in the way that I act in this world is I try to be a true teller.
29:01
Sometimes that, you know, if you want to see what people think about that, go to my one
29:03
star reviews, people are like, I seem so sure of himself.
29:06
It's like, how bored would you be if you listened to somebody show and they had no fully formed
29:10
opinion on any single subject matter on the planet?
29:13
Like that's not what you want to listen to.
29:14
You want to listen to somebody that has a fully formed opinion and is willing to defend
29:17
it.
29:18
But there are so many problems in our modern day, whenever you tell someone the truth about
29:24
something that they're doing, a sin that they're committing, a thing that they're doing that
29:28
is hurting themselves or their families, and then it's, oh, well, you're just judging
29:32
me.
29:33
Well, that's maybe your truth.
29:34
That's not necessarily my truth.
29:36
And I think that this is very interesting that even Paul is talking about that here in his
29:40
letter to the Galatians, to where it's just basically like, hey, does the truth hurt?
29:44
Is the truth hurting your feelings?
29:46
Because again, it comes, you know, when Ben Shapiro's like, hey, facts don't care about
29:49
your feelings.
29:50
Like that doesn't mean feelings are important.
29:52
It means when it comes to truth or false feelings don't come into play because how you
29:56
feel about the truth doesn't make it any more or any less true.
29:59
So I wanted to kind of get you all to chat on that a little thing.
30:01
When you look at it is we should always tell the truth.
30:04
And one thing that I've learned in my life is telling the truth, but like, because sometimes
30:10
you have learned that or you're working on it.
30:13
I'm working on it.
30:14
Okay, there it is.
30:15
All right.
30:16
But you can keep going.
30:17
I'm working on it.
30:18
I'm working on my face.
30:19
I suppose we have to change that when I tell the truth.
30:21
So, but, but no, I mean, when you look at it, it's like, we should always be there with
30:26
the truth.
30:27
We should always think about some of these feelings, you know, like, hey, we know this
30:30
is going to hit them pretty hard.
30:32
Like, if I see my brother and sin, if I go out and be like, dude, you're a sinner.
30:36
I don't do this stuff, you know, you need to do like this.
30:39
How's it going to take that?
30:40
You know, but if you come at him with love and say, hey, man, I've noticed this, like,
30:45
you know, it's, it's hurting your family.
30:47
It's hurting me as your friend.
30:48
Like, it's something I want to help you with, you know, um, I think it's just how we go
30:53
about it.
30:54
And I think, you know, that's what Paul's kind of kind of showed with Peter, you know,
30:58
is he went after Peter, but, you know, it was, it's a pretty quick thing.
31:02
I don't think it was like straight up like, you know, Peter and like yelling at him across
31:05
the table.
31:06
I think it was, dude, I'm going to call you out on this, talk about it, discuss it.
31:11
And then that person's usually going to either accept it, or they're not going to accept
31:15
it.
31:16
And then you hope that, you know, God opens our eyes to that.
31:19
It's funny because like Paul's literally talking about, like, I would testify that you would
31:23
gouge out your own eyes for me.
31:24
So clearly, clearly there was a love for Paul, right?
31:28
So then how quickly he's already, he's anticipating like, and not too long ago, y'all would have
31:34
done anything for me.
31:36
And now that I'm telling you this truthful thing, because this, like I care about your
31:42
salvation, now I'm an enemy.
31:45
How quickly does that change?
31:47
And that's, that's interesting even, you know, 2000 years ago, it seems like it's, it seems
31:53
like it's like so quick now, but it was even, that's, that's not a new thing.
31:57
It was even quick back then, and how, how quickly that can just turn on a dime.
32:02
There's a weird example just from my day-to-day operations as a physical therapist, to get
32:07
people that come in with low back pain.
32:10
And it may be chronic.
32:11
They'd be like, I've had this pain for like three years.
32:14
And you know, so one of the basic things I do is all, okay, well, show me how you squat,
32:19
you know, it's a little squat, they do, you know, most people, not everybody, a lot of
32:24
these people with low back pain especially when it's chronic have something called a butt
32:27
wink.
32:28
And a butt wink is, so a butt wink is when you get low enough, your glutes get tight
32:33
enough that they pull your lumbar spine, which is the lowest part of your back, out of a
32:37
neutral position.
32:39
So now if you get someone, you know, it's industrial based or whatever, and he's doing
32:43
a bunch of lifting every day, and every time he bends over, he gets a butt wink, and when
32:46
he's taking his neutral, he has neutral spine, out of a neutral position, and then putting
32:51
on stress.
32:52
The funny thing about that is he, I guarantee you, does not stand in front of a mirror or
32:57
have mirrors at work where he can see himself squat.
32:59
So he has no idea what is going on.
33:03
All he knows is that three years ago, he went to go pick up a pencil off the ground and
33:07
his back went out.
33:08
He was like, it was literally a pencil, you know, and whatever really what it was, is
33:11
it was all the years prior to that, if I'm doing it wrong, and then finally built up and
33:18
then his back's like, can't handle it, pencil, yep, you're done.
33:23
And so a lot of what I do is I reveal the truth of what's going on, and it's a silly
33:27
example, but just it works, works in this well.
33:31
I mean, I reveal to them what they're doing wrong.
33:33
And then I tell them, you know, it took you a long time to get into this position even
33:39
right now.
33:40
I was going to take you a minute to get out.
33:41
It's going to be hard to work.
33:42
And what's, it's really interesting to see some people are like, let's do it.
33:46
And then other people are like, oh man, I have to do exercise and you know, whatever.
33:51
So I mean, it's a good analogy for sin, you know, like, like the old, the old song, it's
33:58
a slow fade, you know, like, you don't, you don't, you don't start out, you know, looking
34:05
at hardcore porn, you know, it's a picture here.
34:09
It's a quick clip there.
34:11
It's a magazine that you find and you spiral and you, you slide down this slope.
34:17
But like, that's a really good analogy.
34:19
Like you do it to yourself, but then you end up with, you're like, how did I get here?
34:23
It's like, well, look back, look back into the last five years.
34:27
That's a pretty clear indicator of how you got here.
34:30
And I think, but if I was going to, I was going to put that back, like the law is there
34:35
to help us see a reflection of if we're looking at the law and we're paying attention to the
34:39
law, we can say, Oh, shouldn't be doing that.
34:43
It's a reflection of God as a law.
34:44
Yeah.
34:45
And it helps us understand, okay, if I am concentrating on God's law and I'm trying and
34:52
I'm looking at that, like, right is right and wrong is wrong and God's eyes and I'm looking
34:57
at that daily, then there's less chance for me to go down that five years slippery slope
35:03
because I'm constantly looking in the mirror at this reflection of what God says is right
35:06
and wrong.
35:07
I think that also talks about do you have people that are in your life that are willing
35:11
to be a Paul to your Peter and also are people telling you the truth along the way.
35:18
So this is always kind of a funny story, but it's also sad in the same way back when American
35:23
Idol, you know, when it was Simon Cowell and Paul Abdul and, you know, the rest of the
35:26
whole thing.
35:27
And it was, it was always the first two or three weeks of that show where, you know, every
35:31
now and then you'd have your Ruben stuttard or your carry under wood or your Kelly Clarkson.
35:35
But then most of the reason why people watch those first couple of weeks is because of
35:38
these absolute train wrecks of humanity where these people thought they could sing.
35:43
They went up in front of them and then Simon would say something really, really rude and
35:47
mean and Apollo would be offended and like, but the reality was is that person genuinely
35:52
showed up that day for that audition thinking they could sing and the producers of that
35:56
show saw an opportunity to embarrass somebody that clearly couldn't sing, put them in front
36:01
of the judges so that they could get, you know, this, this, you know, viral moment before
36:05
there was like social media viral moments or something like that.
36:08
So it's funny.
36:09
We all got to laugh.
36:10
Simon said funny things and all that.
36:12
But the sadness I felt for these people that no one in their life told them at any point
36:18
along the way, bro, you can't sing.
36:21
I love you so much.
36:23
You're good at so many things.
36:24
One of these days I'll discover what one of those things is, but one of the things is
36:27
definitely not singing.
36:29
But imagine withholding the truth from somebody because you didn't want to hurt their feelings.
36:35
And yet all you've done is you've delayed and increased the size of the embarrassment
36:41
that they're going to feel someday, but that's, that's American Idol.
36:44
That's someone not being able to outrun, you know, this embarrassing moment on television.
36:48
Imagine if you're ignoring somebody's sin debt, if you're not pointing them or even
36:53
as a Christian, a Christian that is doing something that is outside of what God would
36:57
have for them in their life and then not pointing that out at all.
36:59
Well, but the other part of the American Idol, which, which can bleed into this too, is in
37:04
a lot of those cases, they had people telling them that they were good.
37:08
It wasn't just people that were saying that weren't telling them they were bad.
37:12
They were saying like, you're good, you're good, you should, you should pursue this.
37:16
And I think that's the other scary part about sin and telling people truth is sometimes we
37:22
don't tell them the truth or the church doesn't tell people the truth, but sometimes they
37:27
go a step further and they learn it, they enable it and they say, you're good.
37:32
And like it's called flattery.
37:34
Yeah.
37:35
And like that's another, that's, that's the next step of like, I think, I think we're
37:38
at, at that place in our culture now is where churches are not only shying away from bringing
37:43
biblical truth, they're like eating it up and telling people that it's good.
37:49
And, and that is a scary place to be.
37:52
What kind of goes back to something I talked about on one of these previous weeks where
37:55
it's like anytime they release data about what Christians in America actually believe
37:59
it is astonishing the things that Christians have convinced themselves are okay.
38:03
And I wonder if it's, if it's more about the appeasement culture that we have now that we
38:07
don't like ruffling anybody's feathers unless they're, you know, a conservative white male
38:11
Christian and we love ruffling those feathers, but like we, we, we want to just affirm everybody.
38:17
Like we don't want to challenge anyone's identity and we're in this affirmation and Eric, you
38:20
and I've talked about this because, you know, you and I've talked about how you're helping
38:23
your kids traverse public school because it's like some of the conversations that you're
38:27
having to have with them based on what might be discussed in the classroom or what they
38:31
might see on TikTok or what one of their knucklehead friends thinks.
38:34
It becomes a really, really rough thing because we're in an affirmation culture.
38:38
You are good the way that you are.
38:40
You were born this way.
38:41
You're okay.
38:42
So Lady Gaga gave an entire generation of gay people, you know, basically the ace of
38:45
space to say that, no, no, no, I was born this way.
38:48
And if God is a God of love, then he will love me for this.
38:51
And we will bastardize what the love of God actually is to fit our preconceived notion
38:56
about what we want love to be for us.
38:57
Yeah.
38:58
And I, and just to reiterate that a lot of those conversations need to be very forthcoming
39:04
and a lot earlier than you think, you know, what the first exposure to porn for any kid
39:10
always, especially is going to be around eight years old, eight, eight and a half.
39:13
I mean, so if you're not fronting that early, then you run the risk of kind of be on the
39:18
backside of that, and if you're not willing to have a sex ad conversation with your, with
39:23
your boys or your girls, uh, Netflix is happy to do it for you.
39:27
Yeah.
39:28
Well, we're, we're in the throes of that too.
39:29
Like we pulled our oldest kid out of public school because there were some things happening
39:34
that we, we felt like we were just at such a disadvantage to the school that we thought,
39:40
you know what, he is our, he is not a missionary.
39:43
He is our mission at this point in his life.
39:46
And then like, I think there's some categories that we got to put on there.
39:49
And so like, that's not the right decision for everybody, but like for us, we're like,
39:53
you know what, you are a mission right now, you are, because we got a lot of flack for
39:57
that.
39:58
Don't you, you're Christians.
39:59
Don't you want your kids to minister?
40:00
Not, not right now, not at six.
40:02
So it's so, I'm so glad you brought that up because I forget, it may have been Vodie.
40:06
He talked about this recently, but it was like, yeah, I think it was Vodie everywhere
40:09
you see in the scriptures where missionaries were sent out, they were equipped and then
40:14
they were sent.
40:15
And so what Christian parents that, you know, a lot of them that have their, so these people
40:19
that, you know, we're giving you crap for taking your kids out, it's like, wait a minute,
40:23
I am not equipping.
40:24
I, they are not equipped to go into that mission field yet at all.
40:27
They're still in the process of being equipped.
40:29
What you're doing is you're allowing them to be catechized by a secular entity or by
40:34
the knuckleheads around them that don't have a Judeo-Christian ethic.
40:37
And how that's like, no, we have this completely different set of views because then people
40:40
are like, oh, are you just going to take your kids completely out of all parts of culture?
40:43
It's like, no, but like, my job is not to risk them being catechized by the public school
40:48
system.
40:49
That's a ton of plays.
40:50
Vodie Bakam also says, don't send your, don't send your kids to a Roman schools and be surprised
40:56
when they come back Roman citizens.
40:57
Well, I always heard it going, send your kids to Caesar.
41:00
That's, that's it.
41:01
Yeah.
41:02
Yeah.
41:03
Which is a, we're in the throes of that right now at home.
41:05
So we're trying to get our kids into private school.
41:07
They're in public school.
41:09
And then if we can't get them into the private school, they're going to be homeschool.
41:12
And what's funny is, is if you look at the national statistics in the last 10 years,
41:18
I think they had like 500,000 kids being homeschooled, it's now five million.
41:23
Like it's just, and I come from a family of public school teachers.
41:27
My wife was a public school teacher, her mom was a public school teacher, her grandparents
41:31
were public school teachers.
41:33
And they're even on the boat of like, oh, you need to pull them out homeschool them.
41:38
Because they're young, you need to mold those minds.
41:42
You need to strengthen them against this world.
41:45
Because this world is happy to mold our children's minds, you know?
41:48
And I want my kid to know about the culture and know about other things that are going
41:53
on in the culture.
41:54
And I want him to have a loving aspect towards that person because of the Amago day.
41:58
But he also needs to know what's right and what's wrong.
42:01
Well, and Eric, go ahead.
42:02
Yeah.
42:03
No, I was just going to say, you know, we don't learn how to have conversations with other
42:09
people by learning what they believe per se, we learn what truth is, I was just thinking
42:16
like a dollar bill.
42:17
I mean, if a guy's, if a guy's being trained to recognize counterfeit money, they don't
42:23
put a bunch of counterfeit money in front of them and tell them to memorize it.
42:27
They give them a dollar bill and they have him memorize that so that whenever he sees
42:31
a counterfeit, he's like, clearly that is not the dollar bill.
42:35
You are so ingrained with the original, the authentic thing that you can spot a fake or
42:40
whatever.
42:41
Like you don't even have to look at it.
42:42
Yeah.
42:43
It just doesn't, it doesn't feel right.
42:44
It doesn't look right.
42:45
The colorings off everything.
42:46
Well, it's also Walter Martin.
42:47
He did it.
42:48
He used to do a big sermon on that.
42:49
He talked about counterfeit money.
42:51
Like you just, you, all you do is feel real money all day long.
42:55
And then the first counterfeit you get, it's like, it's fake.
42:58
So, so with that in mind, obviously I've said on the show a bunch, I think there are only
43:01
two options for schooling for our kids, vetted private Christian school and homeschool.
43:06
And you and I have had this conversation.
43:07
So, to anyone thinking I'm putting them on the spot, we've had this conversation before,
43:11
I just wanted to kind of bring it out there.
43:12
You and your family have decided that the kids are in public school and are going to
43:15
stay in public school.
43:16
Now, I remember one thing that you said to me is you said, now, Kyle, that's going to
43:19
mean I have to have a whole lot more conversations with my kids than maybe what somebody out
43:23
of Christian school is.
43:24
Now there's the other side of that coin where people spend X amount of dollars per year
43:28
to send their kid to a private Christian school and then they just turn their brains off.
43:30
And they just think, Oh, okay, we're going to let the school catechize them.
43:33
It's like, no, no, that is a supplement to how they should be being catechized while
43:36
they're at home.
43:37
Family Shepherds by Vody Bock.
43:38
I'm like that type of a style.
43:40
But for you, talk to me a little bit about that.
43:42
So going back to verse 16, have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?
43:46
A lot of kids are being taught in this postmodern context of truth is relative.
43:50
We're in certain public schools are telling you that math is racist being on time is racist.
43:55
These are all things that are part of the white patriarchy that is trying to hold a particular
43:59
group or a particular class of citizens down.
44:02
And that's not just happening in Portland.
44:03
That's not just happening in Chicago or New York City or DC or something like that.
44:07
That's happening in Edmund, Oklahoma.
44:08
That is happening all over the place.
44:09
So, so for you as a dad that's trying to catechize your kids that are of different age groups
44:14
and different genders, they're only two, by the way.
44:16
So he's got boys and girls, I didn't know he doesn't have a spectrum of kids.
44:20
He has one or the other, but like, how do you deal with that?
44:23
Because I know truth is very, very important to you.
44:24
The catechizing of your kids and basically marinating them in the truth is important.
44:29
But how are you able to pull that off?
44:30
Yeah.
44:31
Well, I mean, I have a plan.
44:34
Some of it is actually written down, you know.
44:36
And so one of the things that I was blessed with when I was about 23, I started meeting
44:44
with a gentleman from the Navigators, which is a ministry, international ministry, and
44:48
he just poured his life into me.
44:50
It really honestly was the first time that I had someone spiritually guide me and he
44:56
taught me the real basics on how to remain disciplined in my walk.
45:01
You know, I didn't really know how to pray.
45:04
I could pray, but I didn't know how to pray effectively.
45:07
I didn't really know how to read my Bible, didn't know how to apply my Bible to my life.
45:11
So I received a lot of that.
45:14
And so one of the things I knew that I wanted to do was to do better than my dad did.
45:20
And I love my dad.
45:21
My dad have a great relationship.
45:23
But that time of his life and my life, he was not a very good spiritual leader, in fact,
45:27
not really at all.
45:28
He got us to church, got me to camp, Christian camp, and that was, those are two really,
45:33
really great things that he did.
45:34
It was just not a very good disciple maker.
45:37
And so I just felt like, man, it isn't.
45:39
And I know you guys agree, it is important for us to disciple our kids.
45:43
And so part of what I'm doing is I'm countering that flood, those flood waters with some very
45:48
consistent discipleship in my home.
45:51
We have a lot of just open conversations about different things based on age.
45:55
A lot of earlier conversations, repeated conversations.
45:58
The things that I see happening, and you guys, well, I mean, you'll have to restrict access
46:04
to phones, access to apps, I mean, because it is coming from everywhere, not just school.
46:11
One of the things I'm very thankful for is I see my oldest son specifically, and now some
46:15
of my middle child is nine, starting to identify these things that are coming across, like say,
46:22
YouTube or regular TV or an app or something like that, and they're pushing back against
46:27
it.
46:28
They're just kind of, they're dismissing it, they're recognizing that it's not right.
46:31
And I can appreciate that.
46:33
But it is hard work, and we're willing to put in the effort, heck, if it got to a point
46:40
that, you know, this is too much, then yes, we would then make a switch, it wouldn't do
46:46
that a heartbeat.
46:47
But you're right, you can expect your youth pastor to disciple your kids, your church
46:53
to do it.
46:55
Certainly not your school.
46:56
You've got to do it.
46:57
And so I'm praying to just the consistency day in and day out.
47:02
Yeah, it's a lazy cop out, you got you got 18 years and 66 books.
47:06
It's up to you.
47:07
So you're not your schools and your churches aren't, they're not doing it.
47:12
Well, that should be a supplement for sure.
47:14
So as a follow up to that, and this is kind of open for everybody, because, you know,
47:18
obviously for my wife and I, we've looked at private school and we did a tour of one
47:22
here recently.
47:23
And one of the things that the headmaster said is he's like, look, if your kid is here from
47:26
preschool all the way through their senior year high school, they're going to spend 15,000
47:30
hours with us minimum.
47:32
And so that's like, you know, if they're not doing a bunch of extra sports and a bunch
47:34
of extracurriculars, it's like it's 15,000 hours.
47:37
And I didn't do the math.
47:38
I'm just going to take him out of his word that he's done the math before.
47:39
And let's just say that it's in, in that vein, I think a lot of parents, they overestimate
47:45
the amount of time they have with their children, because they forget about how long they are
47:49
going to be at school, being marinated in whatever it is the teachers want to teach
47:53
them, whether private, public or, you know, whatever.
47:56
And that's where these parents, so I guess is like, how do you deal with the time because
48:01
no matter what, you're at a deficit of time, because, you know, by the time that you leave
48:06
for work, like, you know, they're, you leave for work before they're gone for school and
48:11
those types of things.
48:12
And then by the time you get home, like how much time do you really get with them before
48:15
they need to be doing homework or their home from practice and you got to get them fed
48:18
and cleaned and put them in bed and those types of things.
48:20
And you don't have enough time on the weekends to make up for all the lost time during the
48:24
weekend.
48:25
So every single week that passes by, you're at even more of a deficit, more of a deficit,
48:29
more of a deficit where they're spinning the overwhelming majority of their time quantity
48:35
of time with the school.
48:37
How do you counteract that to make the quality of time with mom and dad purposeful and meaningful?
48:42
Yeah.
48:43
And that's a great question.
48:44
And I probably don't, I don't think of it necessarily as a time deficit because I know
48:48
that God's word is powerful and effective and, and able to discern and cut through and all
48:53
of that.
48:54
So all I know is that the time I do have that I make it, I make the most of it, I make it
49:00
quality and, and let God do his work.
49:05
So totally get it.
49:06
I understand that just as far as just exposure, exposure, exposure and then just not as much
49:11
over here.
49:12
But I feel like, and we prayed through it and that the God in his, in his infinite wisdom
49:17
and his power can, can sift through that.
49:21
So, I mean, but it's, it's daily.
49:23
I mean, we don't, we don't skip, skip times, you know, I'm constantly, I say, Hey man, to
49:29
my oldest, I said, make sure you do your Bible reading.
49:32
We share through a Bible app, what we're reading and the three questions that we go through
49:37
consistently.
49:38
Or what did I read?
49:39
What stood out the most?
49:40
Or do I fall short?
49:41
What by the grace of God?
49:42
Am I going to do about it?
49:43
Or the Holy Spirit is going to, you know, guide me to do about this.
49:46
Just so we're in taking the word, we're expressing something from it that stood out and then we're
49:51
taking it from our head to our heart, hopefully to our hands, you know, outward.
49:56
So yeah, I think, I think Jesus is really specific with the order of operations that
50:00
he gives us the great commission.
50:03
He says, probably going to quote this wrong, he sends, he sends people out in order of where
50:10
they should go.
50:11
And I read, and I read that as be where your feet are, our first, our first mission is
50:16
our kids.
50:17
Like we're called to mission to minister to our kids before we're ever called to minister
50:22
anywhere else.
50:23
We miss that, if we miss our wife and kids, like we're going to have to answer for that.
50:29
It's, you know, the church, yeah, like that is, that is my mission.
50:33
I am the biggest problem in my marriage.
50:35
I'm the biggest problem in my family.
50:38
And I have to reconcile that and I have to be able to come to the mat every day and die
50:43
to myself.
50:44
And I'm not, I'm not saying that I'm good at that.
50:46
Don't hear me say that.
50:47
I am terrible and I still have a lot of work to do.
50:50
But if we can realize that and understand that our first mission is our kids and nothing,
50:56
a lot of other stuff just falls by the wayside.
50:59
Yeah.
51:00
And it's, that just makes me look at like, you know, you have Christ in the church, you
51:04
know, like I have the best example how to lead my church, which is my family through Christ,
51:10
you know, we look at marriage, marriage is, you know, man and woman Christ, the church.
51:14
And so we've kind of, you know, my kids are younger, they're not as old, but we, we kind
51:19
of do like a Spurgeon thing, like morning and evenings type of thing.
51:22
And so we get up, no, I read that on my own, but we get up in the mornings and I'll do
51:27
a devotion with them.
51:28
You know, we just finished the reformers.
51:32
And now we're going to move to church history and go over that.
51:35
Now we're starting catechisms as well.
51:37
And then at night, you know, it's a switch off.
51:40
Sometimes we just finished a way of the warrior kid part two, you know, and now we're starting
51:45
in case for Christ with my son, you know, with my daughter.
51:49
We read some books, you know, in regards to, you know, faith and Bible stories.
51:54
One of the books I actually read to her the other night was one about pictures, about,
52:00
you know, what are good pictures and what are bad pictures.
52:02
Oh, yeah, we have that.
52:03
Yeah.
52:04
So like teaching them at an early age, what's good things to look at, what's bad things
52:07
to look at.
52:08
And these are just things that, you know, you pull before bed and have conversations about.
52:11
And so we really like to use that mornings to, you know, kind of discuss and devote our
52:16
time to God and then use it evenings to either do the same or kind of devote just to a price
52:21
like living.
52:23
And then the other thing my wife and I have started to do is we take each older kid because
52:27
our youngest is only seven but we take each older kid out once a month and we go and spend
52:33
that quality time with them and talk to them about life in general and kind of get to know
52:37
what they're going on, you know, with school stuff.
52:40
And I think that's so important.
52:42
Just if we're going to be people of the truth, we have to be people of the book and we have
52:45
to try to find ways to bring that into a kid's life.
52:48
I mean, I remember having a conversation with somebody here recently where I was talking
52:52
about, you know, men that don't read.
52:54
And so like these men that, you know, from the moment they graduate high school, they
52:57
haven't read a book since they think you're silly.
52:59
If you spend time reading a book, they'd rather do another fan's football draft.
53:02
They'd rather go play another round of golf.
53:03
They'd rather go do something else and they're not going to read and that but they want their
53:07
kids to read.
53:08
That's always so interesting to me.
53:09
And so it's the same thing when someone's in horrific shape, but they want their kids
53:12
to be in shape with someone has no money, but they want to model to their kids like how
53:15
to have good money.
53:16
Like that's that's not.
53:17
Or clean the room.
53:18
They don't clean your own room.
53:19
Right.
53:20
And so it's like, but the same thing is true.
53:21
Like y'all seemingly are finding books that are applicable to where your kid is at at
53:26
their stage of life, something that they can absorb and take in, but that it leads back
53:32
to what is being talked about here whenever, you know, Paul's talking about truth.
53:37
And the thing is, is that you would rather your kid reckon with truth now when they're
53:41
this moldable, as opposed to later when truth smacks them directly in the face.
53:47
And like, so we talked about, we've talked about porn and what do you do?
53:49
Like that first time your kid, you know, comes across porn, that is a very, very important
53:54
moment, not just for them, but for the entire family to understand like, how are they going
53:58
to categorize sex and sexual desire and all the, the rightness and those types of things.
54:04
And here you are showing your kids a picture, a book about pictures, like what pictures are
54:08
good or what, which are not.
54:10
It all goes back to as well, like you don't want to assume that nobody could potentially
54:14
hurt you.
54:15
And then as an adult, you're hurt by somebody because you gave them your full trust whenever
54:19
they didn't do anything to deserve it.
54:21
And you may be, you know, made yourself unsafe in the entire process.
54:24
So I think it's important for all the dads listening to this to be thinking through truth
54:29
and be thinking about what can you be doing to bring more truth into your household, regardless
54:33
of what stage you're at with your kids or how old they are.
54:36
Oh, yeah.
54:37
For sure.
54:38
And I, and I was just, I had just had this thought, you know, we, we do at around age
54:43
of six, a ceremony with our, our kids, including our daughter who's just a little bit behind
54:48
when he do hers this year for a, we do give them a life verse.
54:53
It's nothing.
54:54
There's nothing magical about giving them a verse, but it's one of the things that we
54:58
highlight is on the parent side, it's, it's we're observing our children and we're, we're
55:06
seeing them kind of like Jesus saw Peter.
55:09
He's like, well, you're Simon, but you're going to be Peter.
55:13
You know, he saw this, this, this state that Simon was in, but he saw what he could be.
55:19
And I kind of took that and I was like, you know, we, we can see a lot of good in our
55:23
children, a lot of potential in our children to be very raw.
55:27
But let's attach, you know, a verse or a section of scripture to that because one, we want
55:33
them to understand that the universe does not revolve around them.
55:37
They're actually part of a grander story.
55:40
And we want them to see that they have a part in God's story, yet still to be determined
55:46
by God and the Holy Spirit, but, but we see in them this, this raw talent that, that needs
55:53
to be helped along the way, you know, as God, as God directs them.
55:59
So, you know, that's another way, just continually trying to find ways to formalize.
56:07
I don't know if that's the word, but it's just there, you know, they're going to get
56:10
catechized somewhere.
56:11
That's the biggest pushback to catechism is like, you're going to cut it.
56:14
Isn't that like, you know, it's like watching brainwashing is like, man, they're getting
56:17
catechized wherever they go.
56:19
Yeah.
56:20
Yeah.
56:21
Yeah.
56:22
So I just want, you know, these, these powerful moments like that, that, that just give
56:23
them the opportunity and be like, Oh man, that was really cool.
56:26
And that's something memorable and, and it was, there was a lot of meaning behind that, even
56:30
if they were six, even if they were seven, you know, they're still going to look back
56:33
on that.
56:34
Yeah.
56:35
I think, I think for me, being a dad has changed my outlook.
56:39
Like I used to be the guy that knew all the athletes, we're talking NBA NFL soccer, baseball
56:46
to a certain extent, um, like I could spit stats.
56:50
I had a PhD in sports stats like, cause I looked at that all the time and then I, then
56:54
I, you know, you become a father and it's like, your kids will, well, it, what is important
57:00
to you will be important to them.
57:03
And I'll never forget, like I'm a huge soccer fan.
57:06
I'll never forget, you might, my son, he's named after a soccer stadium and we watched
57:10
soccer together.
57:11
And, you know, he's not, he's not a huge soccer fan.
57:15
And that's fine.
57:16
Like I don't, if he doesn't play, if he never plays soccer the rest of his life, like cool,
57:20
but I'll never forget like he doesn't know this, but like we're watching a game together
57:24
and he, it was a really big game and he like, didn't want to watch it.
57:28
And I remember thinking like, oh, you're named after this stadium, you don't want to watch
57:31
this.
57:32
And I, but then I thought like, like, who cares if he doesn't want to watch it?
57:37
Like he will either grow into that and say, okay, dad, watch a soccer, great.
57:43
But like in the grand scheme of things, that doesn't matter.
57:46
But if I only am concentrated on like all these worldly things, like sports stats, like
57:53
how many guys have PhDs, I know that this is a really sarcastic term to use with PhDs
57:59
and sports stats, but couldn't, but couldn't tell you all 66 books of the Bible, couldn't
58:04
tell you anything about what scripture says.
58:07
And that's important to me.
58:08
And I, I'm probably, this is probably me beating a dead horse, but like knowing the word is
58:14
maybe the most important thing you can do for your own kids is you personally knowing
58:21
what's in the Bible.
58:23
And you can't tell them to read the Bible if you're not willing to read the Bible.
58:28
And I.
58:29
Yeah.
58:30
What better authority?
58:31
Yeah.
58:32
You know, it's like, well, why do I do this?
58:33
Because I said, so no, you can be like, because is written.
58:36
Yeah.
58:37
And these men, they love to lament when they don't have the impact on their wife and children
58:41
that they want, but then they signed up for another fancy football draft.
58:44
They signed up for another beer league softball tournament.
58:47
They signed up for all these other different things.
58:48
And I'm not saying any of those things in and of themselves are bad, but whenever that
58:52
becomes an overwhelming focus of who you are as a person and you wrap up your identity
58:56
in that, your kids will notice, right?
58:58
And so if dad can name everybody on Manchester United, you know, for the last 10 years that
59:02
there was a roster, but he can't say what your kids favorite book from school was this
59:07
year because there's a lot of dads that they don't know that they can't remember the name
59:11
of their kids teacher.
59:12
They can't remember the name of their kid's best friend, the first girl that they had
59:15
a crush on.
59:16
But gosh, they can name you some obscure guy that came off the bench during the World
59:19
Series hit a pinch at home run.
59:21
And the thing is, is like, it's because of where our focus is, because when you put so
59:24
much effort and focus into the EPL or the NFL or NASCAR, wherever your thing is, then
59:29
you will absorb where you are focused.
59:32
And so if you were focused on your family, you will absorb things and you will be ready
59:36
to step in in those moments in those exact moments where here's the book that would be
59:40
great for where my kid is right now.
59:42
Here's the date night that needs to happen with which kid and with which parent.
59:46
Here's the next step in their maturation as a person.
59:49
Here's a life first that will apply to them because I'm I've become an expert in my young
59:53
child to where I know the things that they're going to struggle with as they continue to
59:57
age and the things that they're going to do amazing with.
59:59
But go for it.
1:00:00
I just think this is what I love about and don't it is just teaching men to like I feel
1:00:06
like that's what's been lacking in the in modern Christianity is men leading their homes
1:00:11
men leading their wives to church their children's to church their children to church on Sunday.
1:00:18
Like I could I can tell you times like six years ago what I wasn't on fire for church.
1:00:23
I wasn't getting anything really out of it.
1:00:25
It wasn't built towards me, you know, on me being a leader in my family like we'd skip
1:00:30
it.
1:00:31
Like let's just skip church.
1:00:32
That doesn't happen in my house.
1:00:33
If we skip church somebody sick and usually somebody staying home with a one kid that's
1:00:38
sick and everybody else is going to church.
1:00:40
So I just think like if we can lead in the word and we can lead our children to church
1:00:45
and our wives to church and we can show our leadership at our love and our and what we
1:00:50
cherish the most through scripture was going to bleed off onto them.
1:00:54
I hundred percent agree with that.
1:00:56
You made me think of this this sermon by Paul washer.
1:00:58
I love Paul washer.
1:00:59
He's he's great.
1:01:00
He's a guy that will bring truth.
1:01:01
He does not care.
1:01:03
This kind of changed my whole perspective and I pulled out my phone to read it.
1:01:07
This is sermon.
1:01:08
He's talking about men's authority and I like and I titled this note my authority.
1:01:12
I have the authority to make every decision I make for the glory of God for the benefit
1:01:17
of my wife for the benefit of my children.
1:01:20
But what about me?
1:01:21
Like I'm not in the formula as ahead of my home.
1:01:23
I have the right to serve everyone in my home and go to bed more tired than everyone else
1:01:29
in my home.
1:01:30
I have the authority to work very hard at the mission come home and know that my day
1:01:35
has just begun and that is completely shifted how I view my role is that like authority
1:01:42
that carries a lot of weight like we think like oh do this do that.
1:01:46
But when I heard that I was like oh man it's literally the Bible is talking about your
1:01:51
authority as a as a man as a head of your family is to serve.
1:01:55
You have the authority to serve until your knuckles bleed and so like what you're talking
1:02:00
about just make me think of that and that's just such a beautiful depiction of what we
1:02:04
are called to do as men and if if we miss on that man we're gonna we're gonna have to
1:02:10
answer for it.
1:02:11
I just I look at it as if my wife sees me cherish God cherishes like she's gonna do the
1:02:19
same.
1:02:20
And then if my children see the same thing they're gonna do the same.
1:02:22
My children see me cherish their mother like Christ does the church they're going to do
1:02:27
the same thing.
1:02:28
Yeah.
1:02:29
Yeah.
1:02:30
And it's just it's modeling that and that's the thing that we find a lot of dads don't
1:02:33
do is they they will not model the things they want to see in their children and especially
1:02:38
for us as men we all have sons and this goes back to the beginning of Galatians 4.
1:02:43
It's adoption as sons and there is something different whenever you are modeling after
1:02:47
your father and so if you are digging into this book you're going to help be able to
1:02:50
catacize your kids in the direction of modeling after the Heavenly Father.
1:02:54
So there is certainly more that could be said on this but we got to leave it there but come
1:02:57
back next Sunday where we will dig into Galatians 5.
1:03:00
Make sure you read that so you're prepared for next week and before we let you go we
1:03:03
are going to do a quick resilience boost.
1:03:05
Add an adulted life our mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that
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1:03:10
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Thank you guys for listening to this episode wherever you're listening to this please
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1:03:40
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Let's go to www.andontin.life and as always we want to thank the band August Burns Red
1:03:50
for allowing us to use their music for our content.
1:03:52
The music on this podcast is our song "Cutting the Tides" which is off their 10th anniversary
1:03:56
re-recording of their album Leveler.
1:03:58
The links are in the description.
1:04:00
I'm your host Kyle Thompson remember keep pushing back darkness keep forging spiritual
1:04:06
mental and physical resilience keep seeking the lion of Judah.
1:04:36
you.