THE FORGING TABLE | Matthew 18 (Ep. 556)

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0:50 Welcome back to the Forging Table. The mission of Undaunted Life is equipping men to push

1:00 back darkness with content that forges spiritual, mental, and physical resilience. At the Forging

1:05 Table, you'll see a group of regular guys forging spiritual resilience by digging into

1:09 God's Word and we're welcoming all of you to come along with that journey with us.

1:12 That's Zach. That's Winkler. That's Caleb. Guys, we got a lot of ground to cover like

1:15 I mentioned last week. You know, we kind of took Matthew 17 a little bit short because

1:19 they're so, so very much in Matthew 18. So we're not going to waste any time with the

1:24 funnies from the beginning. We're just going to dig right in. So Zach, if you will hit this

1:27 first section and I'm going to change it just a little bit from my original plan, just read

1:32 one through four to start. At that time, the disciples came to Jesus saying, who is the

1:38 greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of

1:43 them and said, "Truly I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will

1:48 never enter the kingdom of heaven." Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest

1:54 in the kingdom of heaven. So who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? I don't know how

2:01 to take the question initially. So I want to know how y'all think about this because

2:05 how I initially took the question was they're like, hey, who's going to be best up in heaven?

2:11 Kind of like whenever they were like, hey, who's, can we be the inner circle? Jesus?

2:14 So it kind of feels like that. But also it could be taken another way to where it's just

2:18 like extreme curiosity. So in the kingdom of heaven, like Jesus, who's the greatest? Like

2:24 who's going to be the Michael Jordan of heaven? Right? So like, how did y'all take that?

2:28 Because my commentaries didn't really clear that up for me. I mean, human nature, I immediately

2:34 went to. All right. So you're going to be at the right hand of the father. Who's going

2:37 to be at the right hand of the right hand of the father? I mean, I immediately am going

2:41 to be like, who's going to have the most stroke up in heaven? Like, you know, and it's got

2:46 to be one of us. I mean, we're like, you picked us. Right. So when we get to heaven,

2:51 who's going to be right next to you? And then who will be right next to them? It's like,

2:55 can you rank us? You know, it's like they're playing March Madness. It's March Madness

2:59 for the disciples right now. I mean, they're just trying to, who's going to be the winner?

3:03 That's the way I took it. Right. That's how I took it to. What about you guys? I mean,

3:07 that's I feel like Zach's got something cooking. So I'll go first and then let you he's always

3:11 got that look in his eyes. You're starting to see it. You're sparking to see it. I'm

3:16 going to tell the other wrong right after this. So I mean, I don't know why, but originally

3:22 when I first read it, I thought of the transfiguration with Moses and Elijah Jesus. And you know,

3:31 even talking about God, the father and, you know, maybe the disciples as well. Maybe it

3:35 was just more of an honest question of who's the greatest, like, including all, you know,

3:40 all those people as well, all the prophets. You know, maybe not just as self centered as

3:45 maybe we would expect, you know, lately from the disciples. Right. So I mean, I didn't

3:51 read it necessarily in a way that they're asking like, they all lined up and they said,

3:54 okay, of us, who's the best, rank order. Who's your favorite? I'm following you. That guy

3:59 sucks. He has no stories in the Bible. Like no one's talking about that guy.

4:03 Number 11. I think we know who number 12 is. Right. Right.

4:08 Zach, what do you think? I think option A, I mean, that's just off the cuff. I think

4:12 that it's, it's a human nature kind of a thing. And they're trying to figure out what their

4:15 position is going to be in this great new kingdom. Right. And I think I love the way

4:19 Jesus responds, what he's talking about them becoming like children. And what he means

4:22 by that is what, what are children? They're simple. They're helpless. They're trusting.

4:30 They're super dependent. And so once we become adults with, you know, fancy jobs or fancy

4:35 businesses or, or, you know, fancy houses of fancy, what we think we know stuff. Like

4:41 I remember recently, Elon Musk came on, I think it was on Halloween, he went on the

4:45 Joe Rogan experience. And at the end, they're talking about how you were supposed to fight

4:50 Mike's Mark Zuckerberg and how they were trying to work it out. And they were going to like

4:52 fight in the Colseum like the, you know, the city of Rome gave them permission to like

4:56 fight in the Colseum. And then apparently Mark Zuckerberg didn't want to do it or something,

4:59 whatever, who who cares. But Elon Musk started describing certain positions in fighting in

5:06 Joe Rogan is a black belt in Jiu Jitsu. He has his black belts from two different highly

5:11 respected professors. He's been common, commentating on fights for a couple of decades. He knows

5:18 everything there is to know. And then Elon Musk starts talking about these positions.

5:21 And I'm just like, that's no, that's, I'm a purple belt. And it's like, that's not how

5:25 you do that. And Joe's kind of being nice and asking him about this and about like, and

5:29 you could tell that Elon, it's like he's fallen for the trap that because I'm smart and good,

5:35 it's one thing that I'm smart and good at everything. It's kind of like when people

5:38 take their political opinions from celebrities, it's like just because the person did great

5:43 in the movie heat, that doesn't mean you should vote based on their preferences or to follow

5:47 their things. So that kind of feel like in here, it's the same thing like, look, we're,

5:52 we need to act like children where we need to be humble and we need to, we need to act

5:57 as if we couldn't provide for ourselves if we wanted to.

6:00 Well, and he just got through explaining that he was going to have to be crucified, killed

6:06 and resurrected. And now they come at him with, yeah, but what's our place going to

6:10 be children? So I get it, I get explained to you.

6:13 Yeah. I think the other thing that kind of the important, other important distinction

6:17 when you start talking about children is they've kind of accomplished nothing. I mean, they

6:22 haven't done anything with their life yet. They're kids. And I think as an adult, we measure

6:29 our worth by accomplishments. I mean, it's it's again,

6:32 If you do that with kids, like they're literally the most worthless things on the planet. I

6:37 mean, you were just Carolina, you dearly, but the, but no, they, I mean, they haven't accomplished

6:43 anything. And generally, when we measure our accomplishments, especially as a, you know,

6:49 we're adults, we measure our accomplishments. And the other thing is we always look at

6:53 the ones where we're like, Oh, we'll look how sacrificial I have, you know, I worked

6:58 so hard at this. I sacrifice so much to accomplish this goal. And we wave our flag and look how

7:04 amazing we are. And I think what Jesus is showing us with the child that a transformed

7:12 life is not done by personal efforts, but by humbling, allowing God to bring spiritual renewal.

7:17 That's it. I think that, you know, I still think that the whole idea of if I accomplish

7:26 certain things or if I do certain things, number one, you probably didn't do it. You

7:32 actually not probably you definitely didn't do that on your own, but it's not in the way

7:36 of, Oh, well, you know, you didn't just bootstrap your way through this. God was there. God

7:43 was helping. God was making a way for you. Or God was saying, this is not the path to

7:49 go down and putting those road signs up. So absolutely, Zach hit versus five and six because

7:55 it goes along with all this, but I did want to take a little detour. Whoever receives

7:59 one such child and my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who

8:03 believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around

8:09 his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. Literally one of the most gangster

8:14 things that Jesus said in a book full of gangster quotes and things like that. Now, what you

8:19 will find when you read this text in context is there are a lot of people culturally, specifically

8:25 on the conservative side of the aisle that will use this. So like there are different

8:29 municipalities that are calling their legislation, the millstone act and it has to do with children

8:34 and transgenderism and those types of things. And they will quote this like, Hey, the Bible

8:38 says it's, you know, better to have a millstone tied around your neck and you'd be thrown

8:41 in the sea, then to, you know, do something to one of the kids. They're not talking, you

8:46 know, about like kids in the sense of how yeah, three year old, a seven year old, they're

8:50 talking about this in terms of the sense of kids like kids of faith, which there could

8:54 be 85 year olds that are kids in terms of the context. So that's very, very important.

8:59 But so it's, it's good not to miss that. There's another thing that's good not to miss

9:02 her that I did not know until I was doing my research, Gentiles during this time period,

9:08 use this as an actual form of execution. They would literally tie millstones to people's

9:14 necks and throw them into the sea as a form of punishment. And so this would have been,

9:20 this wouldn't have been extreme just extreme for Jesus's audience to hear it would have

9:24 been repulsive. Like when we hear about like honor killings over in the Middle East here

9:29 in the US, that's not just shocking to us. It's completely repulsive. When we hear about,

9:34 I think it was like different Indian cultures or I can't remember the exact context, but

9:37 it's like when the husband died, they would put the wife on the husband's funeral pyre.

9:43 And as they would light him up into ashes, she would be killed as well. That's not just

9:48 shocking. It's repulsive. And so we have to remember how did the audience that heard

9:52 this receive it and they would have received it as just this extreme example of what Jesus

9:56 was talking about. There would have been no way to not take him seriously when he was

10:00 talking about this. Did you guys learn anything else about that little section? I thought

10:04 that was amazing. Yeah, it was really good. Not like that. Strike one, strike two. Good

10:10 strike two. Yeah, I got you guys. So good. See any co-fax over here? All right. So Winkler

10:16 read verses seven through nine, please.

10:19 Okay. Woe to the world for temptations to sin for it is necessary that temptations come,

10:24 but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes. And if your hand or your foot causes

10:29 you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled

10:33 or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your

10:39 eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life

10:44 with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.

10:49 So verse seven for it is necessary that temptation comes. We can't escape it. So for anyone that's

10:55 like, Oh, I'm being so tempted. What's wrong? Nothing. It's just the it's just life. This

11:00 is just kind of what happens. But the big thing that I want to focus on with this section

11:03 leads to begin with for the biblical literists, like literalists out there. How do you read

11:11 this particular scripture for the people that get on to old earth people? So the younger

11:15 earth people, people that are like, Hey, the Bible says seven days. That means seven 24

11:21 hour days. It's not longer than that. You know, the dinosaur bones were put in the soil to

11:25 test our faith. Stop running people the opposite direction. I would like them to read this section

11:31 and tell me how is it that you still have both of your eyes? How is that possible? Are

11:35 you better than everybody else? Is Jesus actually a vine? As according to john 15, is

11:40 he actually a door? Do we need to knock on Jesus or is he a dude? Like, you know, help

11:44 me understand that. So again, I think it's a problem. And this is a hermeneutics approach

11:49 as well. And you know, Douglas O'Donnell talks about in his book there from crossway about

11:53 the different genres. But I find it increasingly frustrating when Christians get on to other

11:59 Christians for not reading the Bible literally enough. When there are clearly sections, even

12:04 in the gospels where it's like, Jesus didn't mean this literally, he meant it in a in an

12:10 ethereal way that, you know, relates to your next body in the next life. So it's not just

12:17 like this right now. We don't see Christians walking around with one eye for a reason.

12:22 So I just want to kind of throw that out there. Do you all see that? Have you all seen the

12:24 same thing? Because again, I feel like it's just been ratcheting up here recently.

12:28 I mean, you're, you're talking to somebody who's more of a young Earth guy. I mean, to

12:33 be perfectly blunt with you. But I mean, it's, it's more just looking at some of the

12:39 timelines and everything now. I mean, I did remember somebody, I heard this the other

12:43 day and I actually was like, Oh, that makes sense. God could have created the whole Earth

12:48 in seven days. It could be as old as we, you know, are as we put the timelines in the ages

12:53 to the people who are in the Bible, it could literally be that old. But God created Adam.

13:01 He did not create infant newborn baby Adam. So the idea that God could not, he created

13:07 a man who had essentially in grown age, could do the same thing with the Earth where it's

13:12 like, okay, it may be quote, unquote, look like it's billions of years old. But at the

13:20 same time, it could have been created with billions of years of age. Have you heard him

13:24 use the same example for the wine when Jesus turned water in a wine? I have not. That's

13:30 another one. Yeah, wine, typically would have to be fermented and processed and all that

13:33 stuff. And it was instantaneous. That's really good. Yeah. I have not thought about the wine,

13:38 but you are 100% correct. Have you the best the best wines old wine? Should be. That's

13:44 a difficult. Well, let's hold off. That's a deep hole. It seems like it is. So do you

13:51 realize why I talk about why I won't go down this path with people? Because it's impossible

13:57 to get out quickly. Because here's the thing about this debate is no one can know for sure.

14:02 Correct. And so if you spend the majority of your free time going down either rabbit hole,

14:09 trying to disprove the other, my God, let me suggest you get a hobby or a dog. Like there's

14:14 something that you could be doing better with your time. I think even to this to this passage

14:18 that you're talking about here, going back to this, I mean, to the point of reading it

14:22 literally, or is it metaphorical? Or what are we talking about here? You know, I sometimes

14:29 I wonder like when when there's something like this, God is basically, I mean, some lot of

14:36 the Bible was almost written like in riddles, like you're just trying to discern like, what

14:41 is he talking about? It's almost like God made this really challenging. So we will spend

14:46 more time in it. Right. It's not as easily accessible. It just says this. Okay, well,

14:52 I'll go do that then. It know it's going to be a little more complex than that. And

14:55 you're going to have to come back to this over and over again, because you're going to

14:59 have to figure out what this means. Right? What did what did our pastor say this morning?

15:02 He said it's it's deep enough for a baby not to drown, but also deep enough for an elephant

15:07 to swim. Yeah, you all remember him saying that this morning? Is that the only one paying

15:11 attention to church? But it was basically like, you know, a baby won't drown in the waters

15:16 of the Bible, but also an elephant, it's deep enough for him to maybe that maybe that was

15:20 Matt Chandler. Maybe that was not our church. But I think it was that that same thing. But

15:24 it's like, so if you are a high minded, older individual with all your mental faculty faculties

15:28 and a brain that's fully functioning and grown, then there's enough water to swim in for you.

15:34 But also if you're if you're a child, you can have childlike faith and it's almost in

15:38 a way easier. I really like that. It's good saying. I think go ahead. No, please, you're

15:43 good. I'll go next. Caleb, you go. Wait, arm wrestle, arm wrestle for the rights to speak

15:48 next. Okay, roshambo one one for one. So it's one, two, three, shoot. Okay. For the next

15:53 one who goes do it. Let's go pay Roxas. One, two, three, shoot. Hang it. Go. One, two, three,

15:58 shoot. Guys. Bam. Bam. Caleb, see ball. Don't lie. Let's go. I mean, I probably was going

16:07 to change it a little bit. I don't know what you were going to say, but the I mean, I kind

16:10 of read this to just from a parenting perspective. And it's very convicting. You know, when you

16:14 think about being a stumbling block for your kids and you know, I just feel like because

16:20 we're already we're talking about children, right? I mean, I think one of the things I

16:23 was going to say from that previous section was just have has there ever been a time in

16:27 history where children are valued less than right now. I don't think so. I could be wrong.

16:33 But at seven to 11, I mean, that that's really where my head went was, how can I make sure

16:38 that I'm not a stumbling block to my own kids? Are you talking about now like 2023 or at

16:44 the time of scripture? Like right now 2023. I mean, I would argue that at that time, they

16:50 were certainly worth less at the time that this was written because let's just look at

16:54 it in a Roman context. So in the first century Roman context, the head of the household had

17:00 the power of life and death over his entire household. So if his wife did something that

17:06 he found to be egregious and like mortal as a sin to him that he wouldn't have said sin,

17:11 then he could have killed her and had no punishment whatsoever for it. Children that had any types

17:17 of deformities could be left out for exposure. And there would be no issue with that. That's

17:21 part of the reason why the church grew in a Roman context was because these babies that

17:25 would be left out to die would be gathered up by the Christians and be raised by those

17:29 Christians, Christian families, because Roman fathers would just cast the babies out if

17:33 they weren't perfect or if they were the wrong gender or something like that. So there's,

17:38 I mean, in a country where we'd kill 850,000 babies a year via abortion, it's certainly

17:44 different. But in the context there, like the value of human life outside the womb was

17:50 astonishingly low compared to today because if someone were to put their three month old

17:55 outside in the woods, like it would be shock of all shocks like they would stop the presses

18:01 around the entire world. But back in that day, that was just another day. I didn't know

18:07 if you're thinking about abortion. Otherwise, I would definitely agree with that. I mean,

18:10 it's like 60 or 70 million babies worldwide with abortion. I can go down the same path

18:16 just taking this, you know, different direction would be with marriage. You know, one of the

18:20 things that said here is the truly humble person helps to build up others and not tear

18:25 them down. This person is a stepping stone, not a stumbling block. Thus, we must remove

18:30 from our lives anything that makes us stumble. If we don't, we will cause others to stumble.

18:35 So if I think about circumstances where I'm the most prone to just act out, it could certainly

18:41 be inside those really deep personal relationships, you know, where you can really cause somebody

18:48 else to sin. And so that's been something that, you know, I've tried to think more about

18:53 is in order for my marriage to be better, I have to make sure that I'm not a stumbling

18:56 block to my spouse. Even with kids, it can happen. But I'd argue with a marriage, it's

19:02 almost more difficult. It's much more difficult for me in that scenario than it is with external

19:06 people that I can generally, you know, stay calm and collected with.

19:10 I think the other, I mean, one other example I would actually give here would, you know,

19:15 you have kids, you have your spouse. I think the other thing is just people who have just

19:20 begun this walk and their faith. I think, you know, we're incredibly privileged. You

19:27 know, many of us were probably raised in a home by Christian parents. And we've had

19:32 the privilege of knowing what a life looks like living on like living with and seeing

19:39 as an example, people who are trying to live a godly life. We have that privilege. And

19:44 a lot of people have not had that privilege. It's probably more true. I mean, you think

19:48 of the next generation that are to come through, it's going to be, I mean, so many of them

19:52 have no idea what this life is like, they don't know what it looks like. We have to

19:57 be real careful as Christians, like, you know, who have been making this walk for a

20:01 while for those new Christians, we don't want to be that stumbling block. We don't want

20:05 to act like, you know, don't behave like you hit a triple when you were born on third base.

20:10 You know, be humble in what you know, that you started at a certain point, but you probably

20:16 started at a point that was much further down the line than the person, the person who just

20:20 started this walk, especially if they haven't had that good influence in their life.

20:23 Well, I think another thing going back to the first section, talking about the children

20:27 in the millstone. This is where I think it's a good reminder for us to call out false sheep

20:34 or sorry. What am I trying to say? False prophets, false prophets, wolves who are praying on

20:41 the sheep. There you go. Made it made it there. I got there eventually. But like, that's why

20:45 I think when when people, something that Ryan Horne, Ryan Horne actually said something

20:49 smart today in some high school, I know, I know, but no, I can say that because he's

20:56 not here to defend himself. But he was basically talking about how in any other context, Christians

21:04 is it's okay for them to kind of call certain things out and other people until it's another

21:08 church. Right. So if it's a church down the road, let's call it new hope or something

21:13 like that. Maybe that's down the road from our church where they have like a lady pastor

21:16 and they say a bunch of kind of weird things from the stage. If we make any commentary

21:20 about that, oh, judgmental. Don't do that. You shouldn't judge. Oh, no, no, no, no. That's

21:27 just the way they like to do things. And you're you don't know, you don't know better than

21:30 those people. But I think that this is a good reminder that there are young Christians in

21:36 every church. Yeah. Of any size, if you have a 50 person congregation or a 25,000 person

21:42 congregation, there are young Christians. And the lead pastor is is going to be able

21:47 to easily mold that clay. That clay is sopping wet so they could very easily mold it. And

21:53 so that's why I think it's okay, you know, for people like me that are more on the profit

21:57 side of the profit and shepherd scale to throw those fire bombs to throw those grenades because

22:02 it's like, look, this isn't just a preference thing. I'm not I'm not dying on my sword of

22:07 I don't like this version of music over that version of music. Right. If you like Hillsong

22:11 music and its songs that are theologically correct. And I like songs from a Christian

22:16 death core band called impending doom. And that's also theologically correct. Neither

22:19 one of his right. That's preference. But it's when a pastor is saying something to their

22:23 flock that could lead them to hell is making them convince convince that look, you know,

22:29 Christ wants your entire life. But you know, he doesn't really care about your sexuality.

22:33 You know, he made you that way. So it's okay to act out that way. Right. The way Joby describes

22:38 it, Joby Martin describes it is when he talks about the nights back in the day that knew

22:42 they were going to be slaying people. And they got baptized with both of their hands

22:46 out of the water, because they knew their hands holding their swords were going to do

22:50 on like really diabolically evil things, potentially. And he says in a modern context, people have

22:56 two hands out of the water, one hand has their wallet and the other hand has their sexuality.

22:59 Yeah, it's super good. But how many churches are teaching that? Oh, yeah, Joby's using

23:05 that as an example to repudiate in a really bad dark ideology. But a bunch of churches

23:12 are like, no, they're they're embracing that. Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I know with with

23:17 my church, going to Joby's analogy of the sexuality and the wallet. Yeah. I mean, going

23:26 to the wallet side of things. Okay, we have a lot of people who go to that church who probably

23:31 are going like, Oh, they shouldn't be doing this. And that's sinful. And they shouldn't

23:34 be doing that. And you know, you know, probably casting some aspersions to people outside

23:41 of the church or two other churches. And yet I want to say are like the number of people

23:48 who tie through attend our church regularly is like, maybe 25% or something like that.

23:55 Yeah, I mean, it's it's a low, low number. And you're going every single one of you,

24:01 every single one of you are benefiting from this church in some way, shape, fashion, or

24:04 form. And you're giving nothing. And it's, you know, and, and I'd Marty's real good about

24:09 like, you know, Marty grubs is the pastor. Marty's real good about it. He's like, look,

24:13 I'm not saying that you have to give 10%. I'm just saying that you need to give give what

24:17 you can. Sometimes that's going to be more than 10%. That's how Joby describes as he's

24:22 like, you know, yes, you're right. The tide is an Old Testament concept. So he's like,

24:27 so he's like, you can give more now. How awesome is that? Like you don't have to stop

24:31 it 10% like that. That's a different way of thinking about it for sure. We need to keep

24:35 this train moving. So we're going to do the parable of the lost sheep. So Winkler, if you

24:38 can hit versus 10, or 14 see that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell

24:46 you that in heaven, their angels always see the face of my father who is in heaven. What

24:50 do you think? If a man has 100 sheep and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave

24:54 the 99 on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds

24:59 it truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than more than over the 99 that never

25:05 went astray. So it is not the will of my father who is in heaven that one of these little

25:10 ones should perish. So first time I heard this again, not growing up in church. I was

25:15 reading reading along like, yeah, yeah. And it's like, okay, one sheep went away. I'm

25:19 like, cool, cool. Just stick with the 99. Yeah, like that one got away. You know, it's all

25:23 good. That one had it coming. Let's stick with the 99. And then I read a couple of verses

25:28 later. I'm like, all right, cool, cool. Sorry. My bad. Like, okay, you got to go for apparently

25:32 sheep will stay in one place except for the adventurous ones. You got to go get that one.

25:37 So for anyone that's out there like me, leave a comment and let me know. But again, this

25:43 is just an interesting way to refresh. Think about in that culture, this was a sheep hurting

25:47 culture. Everyone would have understood what he meant. And no one would have been dumb

25:51 like me and thought, Oh, yeah, to stay with the 99 that one had it coming, they would

25:54 have like left the 99 to go and get the one. And I think about it in terms of how we share

26:00 the gospel with certain people. And I will, I will be the first one to admit, feel free

26:05 to say that you're better than me and hovering above me in this way. But there are people

26:09 that I that I thought for a long time, I'm not there now because I've, I've literally

26:13 hung out with rapists and murderers now. So it's like, I feel like this has been completely

26:16 ran out of my system where I was like, man, the gospel ain't going to work all that guy.

26:21 Like dude, he is ratchet like, you know, the gospel is good. It's not that good. And I

26:26 just remember thinking that for a long time. And now it's like, when you hear about these,

26:32 these people that have led these crazy lives, and I'll tell you when this first started

26:38 to shift from me, I've told this story before, but the University of Central Oklahoma, which

26:41 is a matter where my wife and I met and got scholarships and where we went here in the

26:45 town that we currently live in the while we were there, they started a hockey team. And

26:49 so this hockey team was going to compete. It's technically club because of title nine

26:52 and all that BS, but you know, they were going to start a hockey team. And so it was,

26:55 you know, some guys from Canada, some guys from the Chicago area and Detroit area and

26:59 all that. And so they're getting the thing going and within a few years they won a national

27:03 title. So shout out to the UC hockey team. But there was one guy on the team that was

27:08 brought in to fight. Now you might watch a lot of baseball and think to yourself, well,

27:14 who's the guy on the San Diego Padres that's just there to fight people? The guy doesn't

27:17 exist. They don't have that job in Major League Baseball. But in all levels of hockey,

27:23 some even youth hockey all the way up to the NHL. There are guys whose main job there.

27:28 Their job title is defense men, but really they're enforcer and they're, yeah, they're

27:32 the goon fight and the guy on the other team. Well, the goon on this team is a guy named

27:35 Kevin [inaudible]. And this guy looked about as crazy as he acted. So he had like scars on

27:41 his face. I think he had two different color eyes. Like, and he got in fights all the time

27:47 on the ice and off the ice, but every team needed one of those, right? And so we had

27:51 a well worn reputation as a guy that, you know, you didn't have to cross him for him

27:56 to fight you. He would just fight you. And so Kelsey and I had been married like probably

28:00 six months and we're at Walmart over there on I 35. And across the produce aisle, I see

28:06 Kevin [inaudible] and we lock eyes and he just looks right through my soul and decides to

28:12 make a beeline right for me. And at the time, I don't know anything about fighting. I'm

28:16 like 22 years old. I had never done jujitsu. I'm like, all right, I don't know if I'm

28:21 going to whoop him, but it's going to hurt regardless. And so I'm like, you know, I'm

28:25 a newly married guy. I don't want to get beat up in front of my wife. So I'm just figuring

28:28 out what I'm going to do here. How hard can I hit him with a tomato? But he comes up to

28:32 me. And he literally, he's intense the whole way. I remember this so vividly. He's intense

28:38 the whole way. And then as soon as he gets to me, his countenance softened, his shoulders

28:44 came down lower, he goes, Kyle, hey, man, it's great to see you. And Kelsey, he knew my wife

28:50 as well. And it's like, Oh my gosh, it's so great to see you guys. Hey, I just accepted

28:53 Jesus here recently. Can I tell you all about it? Oh, man. And to go back in time in Chicago,

29:01 this guy was a street enforcer for street gangs in Chicago. So we didn't just fight on

29:06 for hockey teams. He was helping run girls and drugs and weapons and fighting in his entire

29:13 world was violence. But the chaplain of the UCL hockey team shared Jesus with this guy

29:19 in a, in a car, just the two of them could have died. But he shared Christ with this

29:24 dude. And even a gang banger, right? The blood of Jesus washed that guy just as clean as

29:30 it does that four year old girl that somehow, some way understands that Christ died for

29:34 her. That's, that's what it really started to shift for me to being like, maybe the gospel

29:40 is good news for everybody and can be for everybody. I know it took a while to tell that

29:45 story. But I just, I love that story because it's just like, all of us kind of have a Kevin

29:50 [inaudible] in our life that we know. And it's just like, if you're ever wondering if the gospel's

29:55 not sweet enough or not good enough, bro, you don't need to add anything to it. You just

29:59 need to preach it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this, this parable. I mean, it's, it's so wonderful

30:04 to know that God does not look at anybody as expendable. I mean, every one of us is actually

30:12 valued by him. I mean, much in the same way that much in the same way, I think that when

30:18 you look at our your own children, it's like none of them are going to be expendable. You

30:23 know, it's like, I, you know, I'm committed to making sure that, you know, I don't care

30:27 how far away you go. I'm going to be there to help you get back. Now, one thing I will

30:33 say about this, and also the prodigal son, I think, you know, they're wonderful parables.

30:40 I think a lot of times people will use those. And then it's some sort of, I don't know,

30:46 I call it, it seems like it's an odd, like odd justification for like, well, I'm not

30:52 in a good spot right now. But you know, the Lord will come and get me, he'll leave to

30:56 get the one from the 99. And kind of just ignoring the process of sanctification and

31:03 what that takes. I think the important lesson here is both on the prodigal son and on the

31:12 the sheet, the one that gets the one, the parable of the lost sheep, I think in both

31:15 of those situations, God may be going to seek you out and find you, or God may be going

31:20 to find this one lost lamb, right? But ultimately the lamb has to come back. The prodigal son

31:28 may have wandered far away, but he had to come back. Okay. God is like God will be there

31:35 waiting for you to come back, but you have to make the effort to do so. Okay, pause real

31:41 quick. So this is one of those moments where all kidding aside, I wish Matt or Ryan were

31:44 here because they are, they're way more into the whole Calvinist theology thing. So I've

31:47 never really thought about the 99. Did the shepherd go and get the sheep and convince

31:52 him to come back and the sheep turned around and came back, or did the shepherd go and snatch

31:58 the sheep, gave him no choice, threw him over his shoulder and brought him back. See, and

32:03 I just don't think that God is grabbing people by his, by their ear and saying you are coming

32:06 with me. And you see a cage stager would be all over that and say that's exactly what

32:11 you're doing. You're dead. You can't reach out your hand while you're drowning. You're

32:14 just dead. You're dead and drowning somehow. What'd you call it a cage? What cage stager?

32:21 So cage stage Calvinism, that's like Nicholas cage where he's like in his most crazy, crazy

32:25 eye situation. Like that's how people will get about Calvinism to where it's like that

32:29 is literally the only way into his own and own admission, the horns that I've talked

32:34 about about him while he's not here. He said he has softened from his cage stage. So he

32:38 ramped up to cage stage and now he's kind of settled into somewhere else on the spectrum,

32:41 which I don't know exactly where he's settled into. But you see the, I mean, even just asking

32:47 you guys that question gave me consternation. I'm like, what, how did the sheep come back?

32:52 We know that the sheep came back, but did it choose to? And that's where he is at sovereigners

32:56 and free will. Is that what you think? Because again, I, we're always ending up here. It's

33:00 the same answer. Yeah. They're both true at the same time and you'll figure it out on

33:05 the other side. On this deal, I heard Joby talk about his dad and he prayed for him for

33:10 years. Yep. 30 some years, I think. Yeah. And like with your story, I've got a small

33:15 list of people that I pray for every day to come to Christ. And it kind of has the spectrum.

33:21 It's the crazy people that are going through tremendously difficult circumstances right

33:24 now in their life, all the way up to some people that are very close to me that are

33:29 very successful. So successful that they don't need Christ effectively, whether they would

33:35 say that or not. That's the way that they, you know, sort of live. And probably those

33:39 are the ones that I'm, I prayed the most for, with the most skepticism that it's actually

33:45 going to occur at some point. You know, I know deathbed conversions are common when

33:48 you have to confront all that, but I definitely have to hold out that anybody, anybody can

33:55 be, can be saved, right? Including the thief on the cross. But I'd say for those that,

34:00 um, you know, have everything going for them, especially in conditions we live in, you know,

34:04 where we're at, that's, that's the one that concerns me the most. If I can add to that

34:08 a little bit, I mean, this is still within the scope of scripture, because this came

34:11 up and what apparently a bunch of great stuff came up in Sunday school today, but this was

34:15 not Ryan Horns doing, this was actually his wife's doing. So we're describing certain

34:19 people and Ryan's wife, lovely wife has a friend who lives in the same neighborhood,

34:25 who lives in a successful family. They have healthy, they're healthy. They have healthy

34:30 children. They're doing the type of education they want to have for their children. They're,

34:36 you know, they have two cars, both of them work, the house is fancy. Like all the boxes

34:41 are being checked. And so this woman doesn't feel her depravity in any way, because she's

34:49 lovely. I'm not Ryan Horns wife, Ryan Horns wife's friend. She's a lovely woman who runs

34:55 a lovely household of a bunch of rule following, you know, checkboxers or box checkers, I guess.

35:01 Like, and so I think about, you know, you're super well off buddy, that can literally insulate

35:06 themselves from the world and they can go full prepper or they can go full open handed,

35:11 you know, generosity and do all that without any connection to Christ whatsoever. Or the

35:16 stay at home mom, that has always been nice sat in the front of the class, got good grades,

35:22 was well liked, well respected by her peers, was doted on by adults. And it's harder for

35:27 them to see their depravity, whereas the gang banging, you know, dope dealing, murdering

35:32 whoever that type of person, when they hear the gospel, they're like, Oh, shoot, I super

35:37 need me some of that. Whereas, you know, the suburban housewife without any type of Judeo

35:42 Christian ethic running through her bloodstream, I'd be like, do I really need that seems seems

35:47 like it's going to be complicated. There's, I mean, there's a lot of people like that

35:50 too, that are miserable and that would admit that they're miserable. But there's, I feel

35:56 like the ones you're talking about are the ones that like, no, everything's good. You

36:00 know, I mean, and that's, those are, that's tough for sure.

36:03 It gets complicated too. Like one individual I can think of, they work with some some investors

36:08 out of New York who are all Jewish. And so one of the things that this person will say

36:12 as well, you know, these are all great people doing great things. And they don't believe

36:16 that necessarily Christ is the only way. And this person grew up in the church in a sense,

36:20 right? So it's just really difficult. You know, I think that's what it gets back to

36:25 this whole conversation comes back to, how do you know if your pastor is telling you

36:29 what's right? How do you know what truth is? You've actually got to be greeting it word

36:33 for word like we are. Well, and you could say Jesus is, right? Like we just, we read a couple

36:39 chapters ago, when you can, right. And you can, and Caleb, you can be very easily swayed.

36:44 Just today I was listening to Dennis Prager. He has a great 30 minute podcast every week

36:48 called a fireside chat. And he was asked a question about Judaism and Christianity. And

36:55 again, he is a he's a Jew. And he's not Orthodox, but he's like, he's like a serious Jew. He's

37:00 not just a cultural Jew. And he's written commentaries on, you know, four out of the five books of

37:05 the Pentateuch and you know, you know, he's he's full on Jew, right? And then is that a

37:10 category of Jew? There's, yeah, full on Jews. There's Orthodox full ons. And so in this

37:17 particular context, he basically was asked like, Hey, Jews tend to believe that, you

37:23 know, you just have to live a good enough life to make it to heaven. Whereas Christians

37:27 believe that you can't live a good enough life, but you have to have the sacrifice of

37:31 Christ for that. And so again, a guy that has almost no context for the New Testament,

37:36 but a deep respect for Christians and what their impact that they've had on culture.

37:40 He basically said after he, you know, kind of weaved in and out of his explanation that,

37:45 yeah, I mean, you know, there are Jews that will keep kosher and that will, you know,

37:51 do the Jewish Shabats and they'll do the Sabbath and all that, that won't go to heaven because

37:54 they're not good people. And the way he looked at it from a pragmatic side was would if you

38:00 had a business partner and you had two options. One was a pagan that was honest. And the other

38:04 one was a Christian that was really dishonest. Who would you want to be your business partner?

38:10 People were like, well, obviously I want he will, he didn't say pagan. He said, wicking.

38:12 He's like, I would take the wicking. But the problem with where he stopped his answer is

38:17 is, what do you mean by good? That's it. Like, like, so if I were sitting there with him,

38:23 he's like, okay, so good people go to heaven, right, Dennis? Yes, they do. How good? What

38:29 is good? What we're appealing to a, and he uses the 10 commandments all time. He said

38:33 if society abided by the 10 commandments, we wouldn't need police. We wouldn't need lawyers.

38:36 We wouldn't need any of that. And he's probably right. But it's like, okay, so let's say someone

38:41 nails the 10 commandments, but they, they break a bunch of other like laws, like, how

38:46 many laws can you break and still be good? How many commandments can you break and still

38:50 be good? How many times can you break a commandment and still be good? Where is the line? And

38:55 that's when you start getting into, you know, your worldview has to answer four questions.

38:59 Origin meaning morality destiny. Robbie Zachary is taught me this. So origin, where do we

39:03 come from? Meaning why are we all here? Morality. What's the difference between good and evil?

39:08 How can we tell the difference, right? Destiny, where do you go when you die? Judaism does

39:12 not answer those four questions in a cogent manner. Also, Islam is essentially the same

39:16 thing in a sense. Right. How's that saying? How many good things have I done? Yeah. Yeah,

39:20 you have a different definition, right? Well, I mean, and frankly, I mean, Catholicism

39:26 isn't too far off of that either. I mean, it's a very workspace religion. And, you know,

39:32 they just incorporate the sacrifice of Christ into that as well. So it's like, well, he

39:38 did this. So you need to go and do the following things. I always struggle with the whole idea

39:43 of like, well, I'm a good person. And it's like, okay, well, fundamentally, no one's

39:47 a good person. We all, I mean, I don't remember. I don't know the guy that he's got a big

39:53 old thick Australian accent. Ray comfort. Thank you. Ray comfort. Thank you. It's New Zealand.

39:57 And I love Kiwi. Yeah. Okay. Well, you're stupid in multiple ways, Jake. Keep going.

40:04 So, but I love his little thingy where he's going. Okay, like, have you ever lied before?

40:10 Well, yeah. So you're a liar. Have you ever taken anything that wasn't yours before? Yeah.

40:14 So you're a lying thief. And it's like, look, no one, no one on this planet should be classified

40:24 as a quote unquote good person. If you are going off of scripture, we are not good people.

40:32 All of us are flawed. We may be good by societal standards. But even then, if you think about

40:39 what has been defined as good over time by society, like think about what's defined as

40:45 good right now, societal. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a mess. But then you go back and

40:50 like, okay, what was defined as good and Spartan society? Like what was okay for them? What

40:56 was good and moral by the societal standards of that time that we would find to be an

41:01 abomination? It's a problem. And you can't, that's why that's why the Prager's idea doesn't

41:06 stand up. It's like, well, if they're good, well, who defines it? Right. And it's only

41:11 defined one way. And he will constantly rail against postmodernism, this, you know, moral

41:17 relativism, where it's like, what's true for you is not necessarily true for me. But when

41:22 you appeal to that, what you're appealing to is that objective truth is not real, objective

41:27 morality is not real. And it goes back again, another Robbie Zacharias example, where he

41:32 was at some debate. And you know, he used a very extreme examples. He's like, if I were

41:36 to pull a newborn baby onto stage and take a knife and cut its head off, would that be

41:40 wrong? And the guy paused. And he said, well, I wouldn't like it. But I couldn't say that

41:47 it was wrong, which is a deeply consistent intellectual position for a moral relativist,

41:55 a naturalist, like a biological evolutionist, like a humanist, of course, if we're just

42:01 stardust, right, that evolved into fish that, you know, evolved into, you know, champs that

42:05 evolved into us, then that's exactly correct. And you know, the crowd, you know, kind of had

42:12 an audible gas, but it's like, that is the logical intellectual outworking of that worldview.

42:16 Right. But Ray Comfort does a fantastic job and has done for decades, but he just looks at the

42:21 10 commandments. And he's like, are you a liar? Yes. You know, have you ever had sexual thoughts

42:26 about a woman that wasn't your wife? Yes. Have you ever disrespected your mother or father?

42:30 Yes. Have you ever blasphemy the Holy Spirit said GD or use God's name in vain? It's like,

42:34 well, that's for the 10 commandments. And you check, check, check, check, like, and how are you

42:40 good enough? Like, what is your standard by which you would be good enough when you got a 60 on the

42:45 test just with the questions that you were just asked right now. And we haven't even covered the

42:49 other categories real quick before we get into church discipline, which is going to be super fun.

42:54 Who's excited about that? I need to talk about that stack of books there at the end.

42:57 So I'm not always great with the cameras. So if you watch us on YouTube, sometimes I point to

43:02 the stack of books, and there's no stack of books like I remember. So a couple of weeks ago,

43:06 we were talking about the world's smallest Bible purse that Caleb has, and then I ended up realizing

43:11 we didn't have the video of it. So anybody that wanted to know exactly what that looks like.

43:15 Look at that cute little thing. Isn't it wonderful? But back to that stack of books. We know there are

43:19 guys out there that want to start their own forging tables. Crossways has been a tremendous

43:23 partner with us to get us authors on the podcast. But also we told them the same thing. Guys want

43:27 to start their own forging table, but they don't know what to buy. So we figured out here's a five

43:32 book forging table starter set for you guys. It includes an ESV men's study Bible and do this

43:38 year. It's fantastic. The book of Romans scripture journal study edition. So it's just like these

43:42 journals that Winkler and I have in front of us, but they have the study edition notes from the

43:46 ESV Bible there. There's a devotional from Paul David trip called New Morning Mercies.

43:50 There's a book by Douglas O'Donnell that describes the different types of writings in the Bible,

43:54 and then a great book by Vody Bockham called family shepherds. And so it's a quick and easy

43:58 three step process to get that book at a tremendous discount of 50% step one. Go to crossway.org and

44:04 create a free crossway plus account. It's not like, Oh, it's free for three months. And then we

44:07 put charge you $15 a month. No, it's just always free. They just need to know how they can get in

44:11 touch with you. Step two, put all of those books, which are here in the show notes into your cart.

44:15 And then the final step is at checkout, put in this promo code B S S P 50 to get 50% off of that

44:22 stack. That's Bravo Sierra Sierra Papa five zero to get 50% off that stack. Guys, is a tremendous

44:28 resource. We do not get paid. This is not a paid commercial. We literally just wanted to do this

44:32 for your edification. So who's not read yet? Okay, we're going to read from the world's smallest

44:36 mini Bible. Let's hit it. It's going to be Matthew 18 versus 15 through 20.

44:41 If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private. If he listens to you, you have won your

44:47 brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you so that by the mouth of

44:52 two or three witnesses, every fact may be confirmed. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the

44:57 church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax

45:02 collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth, shall have been bound in heaven.

45:07 And whatever you loose on earth, shall have been loose in heaven. Again,

45:11 now pause, pause, I set you up incorrectly. But we're going to get back to a to 19 and 20. Okay,

45:16 but I want to talk about this thing first, because people refer to 19 and 20, but they don't think

45:22 about it in the context of everything else. So to go back to this context, this is colloquially

45:27 inside the church called church discipline. Okay, how many churches do you know of that do this?

45:33 I can't say that ours does. I don't know one. I don't think yours does.

45:38 Have y'all literally have y'all ever seen this worked out where someone went to someone in private

45:46 and address something and it didn't work out. And then they took two or three witnesses

45:51 and it didn't work out. And then they were brought before the congregation

45:54 and then expelled from the congregation. Nope. I've never seen it. It could just be that it's

46:00 very effective. They never make it to know phase three. They never make it to step three. They

46:05 never make it to the third step of the process. Are they bow out before then? It's so good, Zach.

46:09 It's very diplomatic. Yeah, it's very diplomatic. Right, diplomatic, but maybe incorrect. And so

46:15 that's the problem is you might be right, because there's options. It's it's taking care of it step

46:20 one or step two. The person that's in the process is like, if you guys I'm not going through this

46:23 process, I can think of some examples in our church recently, really things changed. Can you

46:27 describe it in a way that's not going to give it away? No, but we had some we had some some some

46:33 people that are no longer with us. And did they die or are they just not at the church anymore?

46:38 Not at the church anymore. Roger. Okay. But I'm just saying and it seemed to me that there might

46:43 have been some examples like that, but they were able to work it out before they needed to come

46:46 before the congregation. That's my main point. I'm sure that's happened. Right. I mean,

46:51 you would think that and it would be interesting to know kind of what the stance is of a lot of

46:55 churches. Yeah, they do that. Well, I mean, I can tell you like in the Catholic church, you know,

47:01 there is this whole thing of communion, right? And we're not allowed to take communion.

47:08 If we have not if we've missed mass, we have we can't take communion. If I mean, there's a whole

47:16 catechism of rules, it's going to sound very familiar. For those of you who have been following

47:23 along, there's a whole catechism of rules that Catholics have to follow. And if you break those

47:28 rules, you got to go to confession and you got to confess that sin. If you have not gone to

47:32 confession and been done to your penance, you can't take communion. And to me, the parallel here is

47:39 that, you know, what are we calling people out? Well, the Catholic church is essentially signifying

47:45 by your inability to take communion that you are not right with God in this very moment. So you

47:52 don't get to do this. Now, do Catholics really follow that? No, they still go up and take their

47:59 communion and they just, you know, no, I get to do it anyway, because I went through confirmation.

48:05 But again, I mean, to your point, Zach, I mean, I think it probably does happen. It probably is

48:12 happening more behind closed doors. I imagine that there are pastors who are holding each other

48:17 accountable. And maybe not airing that publicly. But to your point, I think maybe it just never

48:25 gets that far. This is probably not exactly the same thing and I hesitate to bring this up for a

48:29 lot of reasons. But Matt Chandler's example recently, where I think he was sort of, there were some

48:34 public things that were said, a brief period, and then he came back was probably the closest

48:38 example I could think of. I think that's well, who's the pastor that you said went up in Stephen

48:43 Furtick's church and Matt Chandler. Okay, yeah, let it on fire. Okay, yeah, that's yeah, never mind.

48:48 Yeah, so so basically for those that kind of missed the threat on this. So Matt Chandler

48:53 came up and there was apparently an altercation in the lobby at the vilt church down in the Dallas

48:58 area, where a woman came up and was like hooting and hollering now apparently, like in Matt Chandler's

49:03 face apparently. Now this woman knew a gal that Matt Chandler had been DMing with. Okay. And so

49:11 automatically when you hear about any prominent man DMing with some random woman, you think sexual

49:17 explicit affair, that type of thing. Matt Chandler gets before the church. And with the support of

49:24 the elder board said these texts were not sexual or inappropriate in nature. And when they were

49:31 describing the situation, Matt Chandler refused to use the word sin to describe what was going on

49:37 in these messages back and forth. He called it unhealth is like it. This situation revealed some

49:43 unhealth in me that I need to work with. The elder board has suggested that I take,

49:48 take some time away from the pulpit to get healing and get blah, blah, blah, and all this. But no

49:54 one ever used the word sin. And as I'm racking my brain, it's like, well, he wasn't making physical

50:00 threats against this woman. He wasn't making sexual advances towards this woman. Was he just

50:06 sending her memes that were off color? Were they political memers sending sending these things back

50:11 and forth? No part of the story made sense whatsoever. It still doesn't make sense. But the elders came

50:18 out and said, Hey, the best thing to do here is just to give him some time away. And then he was

50:22 brought back to the pulpit with much fanfare. And then he's just kind of continued trucking along

50:26 from there. No part of that made sense. And the sense that I get, and I can't say why I have this

50:32 opinion, but it is a well formed opinion. I'll say it that way. Is that the staff in and around

50:37 Matt Chandler, make some very [inaudible] poor decisions. And this is one of the one of the highest ones

50:43 of that order. Because if there's no there there, then just move on. Right? Like, but if there is a

50:51 there there, don't call it on health, call it sin, call it what it is. Like maybe he can be, you know,

50:56 restored back to his position, or maybe he can't be. But no part of that made sense in terms of the

51:02 narrative that they were espousing for the public. Because again, if if there was sin here, if there

51:07 was some sort of appropriateness, but then also I've gone through crisis PR training before,

51:12 which is only admit to what the public already knows. And then if more information comes out,

51:17 give an additional apology, you don't get extra bonus points for admitting to stuff that no one

51:21 knew about. And so I'm like, are they following that tactic? Because if they are, yeah, they're

51:27 just going to say, Hey, no one else is going to find out this particular detail. So we just won't

51:31 talk about it. They also made it a point, if I remember correctly, to save both other spouses,

51:35 we're like, they knew in the know on all that they knew that they were messaging back and forth.

51:38 So it's like, so it's like in your biggest imagination, right in your biggest imagination,

51:43 what were they doing that would cause your pastor to not be able to preach from the pulpit for four

51:47 months? Right. I didn't realize it was that low. Yeah, it was like three or four months,

51:51 it was a very extended absence. And it's just like, okay, both spouses are involved. Like,

51:57 if I fall that's only up and up like, and it's not sexual, then what is it? Were they gambling?

52:01 Were they sports betting? What? What exactly were they doing? Well, I mean, can you imagine a

52:07 scenario as a husband, can you imagine a scenario where your wife would be DMing or texting another

52:16 man individually who is not like a blood relative of hers, like where they would have like a constant

52:24 stream of communication? Can you imagine a scenario where that would be possible with your spouse?

52:29 It would be a very rare case. But if I knew about it, it would have to be like, oh, this is

52:34 some sort of business connection for her. They just happened to be communicating via the Instagram

52:38 app as opposed to the SMS app on their phone. Like, yeah, I don't know. I just have this whole

52:44 thing of like, I mean, and maybe it's my own a hang up, but I'm just, you know, I can't imagine a

52:50 scenario like beyond like, okay, I have a business partner and, you know, I have employees who work

52:55 for me. And but all of those messages are completely 100% business related. Like, there would be

53:00 nothing where they would go, well, you need to go up and apologize or reveal some unhealthy.

53:04 It's like, no, this is all literally just business talk. Right. I look at it more like, well,

53:09 maybe it hadn't risen to this scenario yet. But you are playing with fire in that moment. If you

53:16 have decided to have some sort of personal connection through a direct message chain,

53:22 I think you're playing with fire. I think that it probably does reveal something that you that

53:29 is within you, a desire that's there, there's a temptation that's there that probably doesn't

53:33 need to be rooted out. I mean, it's that whole idea of like, you know, are you is, it's not enough

53:39 to not send. It's also the, it's the, you know, if your eyes are causing you to send, right? We just,

53:43 we just went through it. So, um, I don't know, I just can't imagine a scenario where I would have,

53:51 if it was not 100% business, and there would be zero question marks. Right. I don't think

53:56 there would be any question marks. And again, to put a put a bow on the match handler thing is,

54:00 if there was no there there, then your elder board decided to make this an international

54:05 incident because every single Christian publication on the planet had to talk about this and had

54:09 a headline about it. As opposed to if just some ratchet woman comes running through the lobby and

54:15 starts making a ruckus, there's maybe a few hundred people that knew that that happened. And the

54:20 story disappears in a weekend. And so it's like, but here we are over a year later still talking

54:25 about it. So it's just weird. But let's go back to verse 19 and 20 because this, you know,

54:29 goes right into the context, what we were just talking about with the, with the church discipline.

54:34 Right. Again, I say to you that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask,

54:38 it shall be done for them by my father, who is in heaven, or where two or three have gathered

54:43 together in my name, I am there in their midst. So this is describing Jesus's omnipresence. But

54:49 the context is his presence will be with them in a disciplined situation. So I've heard people

54:54 use verse 20 for where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them. And they're

54:58 talking about having coffee with their buddies, right? Or with the girlfriends, right? So they're

55:03 drinking their pumpkin spice lattes and there's three of them at a table. It's like, Oh, Jesus,

55:06 you're with us. It's like, that's not the context of this verse. The context is really,

55:10 I mean, step two of discipline, like if they refuse to take others along with you, you know,

55:15 so that you have the evidence or two or three witnesses, which goes back to Deuteronomy 19.

55:19 And so I think that that's important here with that. You have anything else on this before we

55:23 move to the parable of the unforgiving servant. Okay, the boldest among you, you're going to read

55:28 this large chunk, but I'm going to keep interrupting you. So who is okay with being interrupted a lot?

55:33 Caleb, you seem to have the most positive and happy countenance. So let's start with verse 21

55:38 and we'll go from there. Then Peter came and said to him, Lord, how often shall my brother

55:43 sin against me? And I forget up to seven times, Jesus said to him, I do not say up, I do not say

55:50 to you up to seven times, but up to 70 times seven pause. So some versions say 77 times,

55:56 some say 70 times seven. Now, the interesting context here for those numbers is the rabbis taught

56:02 that you should forgive people three times. So Peter is thinking he's being especially generous

56:07 by saying seven. So it's double plus one as our pastor described it this morning, double plus one.

56:11 And Jesus is like, no, man, 70 times seven or 77 times. Again, I ask,

56:17 literalists, do you take this part literally? Do you have a check sheet inside your office that

56:24 says, I've forgiven this clown 74 times three more to go like that type of thing. So obviously,

56:31 the point that he's making is that you should continue to forgive people forgiveness doesn't

56:36 erase consequences or immediately reconcile relationships. You know, you still need repentance and the

56:41 rebuilding of trust and all that. But just wanted to make that point there. Anything else on that

56:45 for Caleb gets back on. All right, back into verse 23. For this reason, the kingdom of heaven

56:51 be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he had begun to settle them,

56:56 one who owed him 10,000 talents was brought to him pause. So 10,000 talents on this.

57:01 We need to talk about this. That'll probably be the last pause and I'll let you kind of get

57:05 through it. But this kind of shades the entire story. So if you don't understand what he means,

57:09 he's given us a parable of 10,000 talents. It's almost impossible to calculate that. Some people

57:16 have tried to do the math on it. But it's an impossible amount to pay back. For some context,

57:21 again, our pastor Mark Hitchcock of faith Bible talked about this this morning. So I'm getting

57:25 this information from him. That 10,000 talents was more than 10 X the entire tax revenue of Israel

57:31 on an annual basis. So that's the amount of debt being described here 10 times, right? 10 times the

57:39 amount of tax revenue for all of Israel for an entire year. Also, there are well, there's different

57:46 things to describe later. But the point is not 10,000 talents. The point is that be like someone

57:52 saying you owe me 11 D bajillion dollars. Like that's a basically what it's, it's a number that

57:57 doesn't even make sense in an ancient context, much less a modern one with, you know, new exchange

58:01 rates or whatever. So let's pick it back up in verse 25 and go ahead and read through the end.

58:05 But since he did not have the means to repay, his Lord commanded him to be sold along with his

58:10 wife and children and all that he had and repayment to be made. So the slave fell to the ground and

58:16 prostrated himself before him saying, have patience with me and I will repay you everything.

58:21 And the Lord of that slave felt compassion and released him and forgave him the debt. But that

58:26 slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him 100 denari and he seized him and

58:30 began to choke him saying pay back what you owe. So his fellow slave fell to the ground and began

58:36 to plead with him saying, have patience with me and I will repay you. But he was unwilling and went

58:41 and threw him in prison until he should pay back what he was owed. So when his fellow slaves saw

58:45 what had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their Lord all that had happened.

58:50 Then summoning him, his Lord said to him, you wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt

58:54 because you pleaded with me. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave in the same way

58:59 that I had mercy on you? And his Lord moved with anger handed him over to the tortures

59:04 until he should repay all that was owed him. My heavenly father will also do the same to you.

59:09 If each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.

59:11 So there's a lot of lessons here in this parable. One of the big lessons is this is

59:16 essentially about Christians that judge other Christians and withhold forgiveness from them.

59:21 Because when you're called a wicked slave, according to the nazbi or a wicked servant,

59:24 according to the ESV, it's saying that it is categorically wicked to not forgive people.

59:31 Now that doesn't mean, again, this doesn't mean that the relationship is reconciled

59:36 immediately. It doesn't mean there are consequences. I use this extreme example a lot, but Dylan Roof,

59:41 he went into a black church. He's a white supremacist that specifically went to a black

59:45 church to kill black people. He did so killed a lot of people. And within like a day or two,

59:50 one by one, the congregants of that church, the family members of those that had been slain,

59:55 one by one went up to Dylan Roof, you know, through the glass at the, the, you know,

59:59 courthouse or whatever, forgiving him and begging him to turn to Christ to repent and turn to Christ.

1:00:04 None of them, though, advocated that Dylan Roof should not be punished for his actions.

1:00:08 So he was forgiven, but, but not like without consequences, right? So that's something that's

1:00:13 very important. One other thing about this, you know, 10,000 talents thing is in verse 26, you see

1:00:19 the person here saying, I will pay everything. I have patience with me. I will pay you everything.

1:00:22 In order to do that, and you take the average worker's salary at that time period in history,

1:00:28 that person would have to work for roughly 200,000 years to come up with 10,000 talents worth of money.

1:00:34 So no, there was no amount of patience that the master could have given this slave or the

1:00:39 servant to be able to pay off this debt. So again, the point is that it's this innumerable debt.

1:00:44 But then you have a debt that is easy to think of 100 denari. That's about three months wages.

1:00:50 So everybody in the context at this time period would have known what they were talking about.

1:00:54 But the whole point is, is that there are people here that that love to be aggrieved.

1:00:59 There are people that love to be angry people that love to be a victim.

1:01:03 But when you withhold forgiveness from your brothers, it's not just affecting them. It's deeply

1:01:10 affecting you. And we see that as evidence in verse 34, whenever he gives them over to the

1:01:15 jailers, according to the ESV, but in, you know, in the NASB, it's he gives them over to the torturers.

1:01:20 This is an allusion to the eternal punishment of hell. And so there's a lot here, guys.

1:01:26 I know I just kind of gave a basic overview of a couple of the high points, but hop in wherever

1:01:30 you want to on the parable of the unforgiving servant. I think one of the first things that

1:01:34 comes to mind here is, you know, mercy truly experienced will produce mercy demonstrated.

1:01:42 If you have truly experienced the forgiveness for your own sin and the forgiveness that comes with

1:01:53 the salvation from Jesus, then forgiving others would not be something that, I mean,

1:02:00 it should not be a hindrance. Like you've been given a great mercy. And when people do things

1:02:09 that you feel are an injustice towards you or whatever, I mean, you are called upon to forgive

1:02:16 them. Again, to Kyle's point, I mean, it's not like, you know, yeah, you're forgiven. Come on back

1:02:22 in. You know, yeah, I loaned you $10,000. You didn't pay it back. Come on back in. I forgive

1:02:28 you for not paying me back. Do you need any more money? Like not talking about doing something

1:02:33 like that. But I do think it's like, no, I forgive you. Like, you know, we can still be, you know,

1:02:38 you can be welcome back in to the kingdom. And I think that's the other thing. I mean, it's the

1:02:43 idea of you really have changed. You don't get to sit in this seat anymore of like, I have to be

1:02:49 on top of things. Like, I mean, it's I have like, I need to be satisfied that justice has been done.

1:02:56 We don't get to sit in that seat. Not if you've not if you've been given that mercy.

1:03:01 One thing that Pastor Mark Hitchcock said today, he gave a definition of forgiveness that I hadn't

1:03:08 considered. So I thought I'd look it up here that the definition that this actually says here is

1:03:13 stop feeling angry or resentful towards someone for an offense, flaw, or mistake,

1:03:17 which is different from what he said. Essentially, what he said was, you're absolving yourself

1:03:23 of the requirement to pay them back. Something along those lines. So to your point, I mean,

1:03:29 they didn't say, well, he doesn't need to go to prison or be punished or whatever. But they're

1:03:34 saying I'm absolving myself of the need to have payback. But there's still going to be consequences.

1:03:40 I'm still I'm still going to potentially have issue with you, etc. But I'm not going to come

1:03:44 after you. That's different from what this definition says. This is the one that I've always read it

1:03:48 as. And that's very difficult to process sometimes, you know, because that's almost something that

1:03:53 I don't know if I have the ability emotionally, I could I could think about circumstances where I

1:04:00 could not emotionally actually forgive somebody if they had committed something. I could see where

1:04:06 that would be difficult. Examples like Jobe Martin's, you know, one about the guy who someone was

1:04:11 killed and then he eventually adopts emulates and print like unbelievable, right? It'd be very

1:04:15 difficult for me to come to peace with that without a whole lot of grace, right? But I could absolutely

1:04:22 say, I'm not going to come after you for something. But you're going to suffer the consequences of

1:04:26 what you've, you know, put yourself in. So I don't know, one what I feel like. So the thing you're

1:04:32 describing was there was a guy whose son was shot and killed. The guy that shot and killed his son

1:04:37 went to prison. And the first time that father saw the the murderer of his child brought into the

1:04:43 courtroom, he said he was overwhelmed with love for that boy. And man, you get choked up even

1:04:48 thinking about that's like love. Of all the words love. And he couldn't shake it. And to make a long

1:04:55 story short, he ends up writing the kid and basically saying, Hey, you know, I don't have a son anymore.

1:05:00 But I would like for you to be my son if you'll have me. And the kid writes him back from prison.

1:05:05 And like, yes, like this is a kid without a dad that shot a kid that had a dad. And that dad ends

1:05:12 up adopting him as his son. Right? Tell me that's not the gospel though. And so this is what I think

1:05:19 Zach. So this just came to me as you were describing this. We talked all fair about Monty Williams,

1:05:24 the coach for the Detroit Pistons right now. When he was an assistant coach for the Oklahoma City

1:05:29 Thunder, his wife was in a car accident where she was hit by someone who was like high on meth or

1:05:34 or alcohol or something like that. And killed his wife. And he goes to the funeral and look this up

1:05:42 on YouTube guys just type in Monty Williams funeral right into YouTube or whatever. And he delivers a

1:05:47 eulogy for his wife that I can't listen to without crying. And he doesn't even crack his voice

1:05:54 doesn't crack at all. And he implores the congregation to pray for the family of that woman who also

1:06:00 died in the crash, the woman that killed his wife and say why she maybe she didn't die. But she got

1:06:05 really interesting. But she's like, Hey, there are more people suffering here than just my family.

1:06:09 We need to be praying for them too. And it was like a supernatural amount of strength and poise.

1:06:15 I've talked about my cousin Jennifer when her husband, you know, CJ, my cousin,

1:06:20 uh, Edmund police department officer that was killed in line of duty last year. She delivered

1:06:25 the eulogy. I didn't know she was going to deliver the eulogy. I'm in pieces at the fact that she's

1:06:30 even walking on stage. And she calmly and with the tremendous amount of grace and courage delivers

1:06:35 the eulogy for her husband, doesn't crack doesn't waver shows tremendous strength for her two young

1:06:40 children gets off the stage very subtly walks. And just runs her hand along the casket, the flag

1:06:50 drape casket and sits back down. And I'm sitting there like, how, how can you do that? And it's like,

1:06:59 I don't think I can understand because I haven't been given the understanding. You know why? Because

1:07:04 my wife's alive. My kids are here. But what would happen if, you know, Kelsey or James or Eli were

1:07:11 taken? What would happen to me? And I would like to think that there would be some sort of eternal

1:07:17 other worldly, ethereal level of strength and courage that would be delivered to me

1:07:22 so that I could stand up there like that rock that Jordan Peterson talks about to be the guy

1:07:26 at your father's funeral that everybody can attach themselves to. And it's just like,

1:07:31 so that's what I think about that, Zach, is I hope that in that type of scenario that that

1:07:37 is given to you to where after the fact, no one can say, Oh, that was just Kyle being tough.

1:07:44 They're like, Kyle got that from somewhere. Where did Kyle get that from in that moment?

1:07:50 I'm my father passed away in March, and I gave his eulogy at his funeral. And, you know,

1:07:58 I had, I would, I there's a whole long story about it. And I'd love to share it sometime. But,

1:08:06 you know, I read that thing. I don't know how many times practiced it because I was,

1:08:14 I wanted to be strong and I want to break down. But I read it over and over again.

1:08:20 And I couldn't get through it. I asked some of the guys that I was close to at my Sunday school

1:08:27 and do Bible study with if they could just pray for me that I could get through it.

1:08:32 And six of them showed up at the funeral didn't know my dad from Adam. They showed up at the funeral.

1:08:38 And when I went up on stage, they prayed for me. They were in the audience and they were praying

1:08:44 for me. And I got through it, cracked one time. But I did get through it. And I got off the stage,

1:08:55 and I fell to pieces. But for the moment that I wanted to honor my father,

1:09:01 it was the only thing that was holding me up was the Holy Spirit. And that's the only thing I,

1:09:10 it's like, I had six people that were praying for me and the Holy Spirit just kind of basically,

1:09:13 it's like, you're going to get through this. And I did. And probably, in terms of just spiritual

1:09:24 things that I kind of point to as landmark events in my life, it's a big one. Because you just,

1:09:32 you know, there's no way I tried over and over again to get through this. And I could not get

1:09:37 through it without breaking down. And finally, you know, the moment whenever I probably would have

1:09:43 been more vulnerable than ever, I was able to get through it. And I truly believe it's because

1:09:47 there was six guys sitting in a crowd who were praying for me just so I could get through it.

1:09:51 And guys, there's your commercial for a foxhole. So a lot of guys that are listening to this right

1:09:58 now, you're, you're up against it in your life. And there's no one that can shoulder any of your

1:10:04 burden. You got a bunch of weight on your back and no one else to take it off of you. And so if

1:10:10 you have a foxhole of guys that you can roll eye on, not six p.m. friends, but three a.m. friends,

1:10:16 right? And for any of you guys in the audience that are new, because I know we get new people

1:10:20 every week, a six p.m. friend is that guy that you can call right up until about six p.m. And then

1:10:25 he's just not really available. Oh, you know, we got soccer practice. Oh, you know, we got this

1:10:28 and all you know, the old battle actually wants me to fix the whatever hole in the wall. So there's

1:10:32 those guys. And then there's your three a.m. friends. Those are the dudes where you call them at 3 a.m.

1:10:38 Not only do they answer, but you can hear him putting on their jeans. They're pulling out their

1:10:42 pistol. They're grabbing a shovel because they assume you're not calling at three o'clock in the

1:10:45 morning to ask for, you know, tax advice. But we're probably burying a body, right? But also,

1:10:52 that's, you know, the extreme funny example. But it's also those guys that will show up

1:10:56 at your father's funeral. Because we've done that. We know a guy who remained nameless, but you know,

1:11:04 his father died. And you and I were there. And a bunch of other this guy's foxhole guys were there.

1:11:10 None of us have ever met his dad. But we were there for him. And we were there for his mother,

1:11:16 the deceased widow for his sister for the rest of the family, right? And you got to have people

1:11:23 like that in your life. Because at some point, dudes, things are going to fall apart for you.

1:11:28 It's just coming for you. Even if you got a lot of money in the bank and a lot of good

1:11:32 circumstances head in your direction, most of us are one visit from the highway patrolman

1:11:36 or one phone call away from absolutely crushing ourselves into the ground.

1:11:41 And we all immediately thought of that one or two examples that would put us to that point.

1:11:47 And if you don't have a band of brothers, a foxhole or whatever the hell you want to call

1:11:50 to try the dudes around you that are going to be able to come by and help you pick up the pieces,

1:11:54 then you're going to be so well when the time comes. So there's a lot more that could be said

1:11:59 about Matthew 18. But guys, I think that's probably a good time to put a bow on it. But come back

1:12:02 here next week where we're going to talk about Matthew 19. So be prepared to talk about that.

1:12:07 Before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost. Add a dog to life. Our mission

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1:12:28 because we have donors like you that are dedicated to what we do and how we do it. And we need more

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1:12:46 email to info@undonton.life. That's I N F O at undonton.life. Follow us on Instagram and like us on

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1:13:12 I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Remember keep pushing back darkness. Keep forging spiritual

1:13:18 mental and physical resilience. Keep seeking the lion of Judah.