Don’t Fall for This DECEIVING Anti-ICE Church Propaganda!! | Live Free with Josh Howerton

You may have to commit a radical amputation in order to walk in holiness and discipleship. What I have found is that for almost everybody when they get serious about following Jesus, the radical amputation they have to do is a relationship. When you're having doubts for those of questions, the last thing that Jesus wants you to do is look away from them. If anything, he wants you to press into him with those questions, because by the way, he's the only one who can actually answer them for you. Don't let the need for enforcement of immigration laws turn you into somebody who has no love for immigrants. Let us kick this pig. Let us kick this big. Welcome back to another episode of the live free podcast. Let us kick this big. Let us have time. Hey man. We got seven seconds in before we're already interrupted. We're having fun here. Coming to you from Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas. My name is Carlos Arraz, and I'm here with Pastor Josh, who is speaking with what kind of accent is that? I don't know. Talk me. I don't know. What kind of movie? No, that's like a bad British accent. It's Cho's diet, isn't it? British? I don't know. Keep going. And the epistle missile Pastor Paul, can you have a look? Are you changing his nickname? We settled on Chagy Paul to eat. You can't be changing nicknames. I can be all things self-people. Bro, that's how I literally had so night of Richmond prayer just happened. Guys, glory. We put 7200 people into a 4200 person room. I think, yeah, I don't have words. We had literally like so many people fly and drive from like... Didn't you put... Show me a picture of some day drove from Florida. So this is... We do. So from Indiana, this is David and Joshua, and they literally decided like a couple days before to drive from Indiana over 12 hours with the whole family just to come to pray and worship with us. They're free nations. They're free nations. Shed out. More importantly, team Jesus. That's right. That's what we need Jesus. Let's go. And by the way, they did say, hi to the epistle missile. That's why I brought it up. They didn't say hi to me. No, you were leading us in the stage. They told me they talked to you. That's why. Oh, good. Well, actually, yeah, I talked to so many people. I can remember. Oh, so what are we talking about, this is... Amen. Today we're going to be talking about multiple things, and we're going to be going on... We're going to be talking about facts about the disciples. Most Christians don't know. I got some good easy. It was really interesting. I'm excited for this. How to build a man-to-brothers in your life? That's right. And we're going to talk about the protest disrupting a church service in Minnesota last week. And we're going to be reacting to a video of Don Lemon interviewing the pastor during the church service. And viewing is a very loosely used word in this context. And how should Christians think about this? By the way, my father-in-law and my mother-in-law, they actually came to the night of worship and prayer, and from Michigan. And my father-in-law wanted you to have this. Well, you got to be lured. What? So these are really nice, apparently, for bass. Come on, man. So just wanted to give you that. That's also fair. Live free nation. Let's go. The media family. Michigan. Come on, man. Hey, over 60% of people joining this podcast on YouTube have not subscribed yet. So here's- How dare you. That's right. You need to change that right now. You can literally subscribe on YouTube, like it, comment, share all this. It really helps. And we had a winner for the giveaway of last week's Live Free merch hat, which was Kevin from Switzerland. We got international family. Oh, no. Go. We are. How much are we paying to ship that thing in Switzerland? We got to get something up in green. That's why I said that. Hey, if anybody from Greenland is listening to- We got Arthur on that one. To participate in this week's giveaway, comment hat below on YouTube. And- Yes, let me highlight that. Please. I'm making executive decision. For the next few episodes, we're giving away 10 hats. So drop on YouTube, the comment hat. And we're going to pick 10. 10 people. All caps because that's how you set it. We're going to pick 10 people. We're going to give away 10 hats. And listen, we need you to head over to- By the way, I get no money from the hats. I see people in the comments like, oh, is your hat should be written- Rich on these. I don't get any money for the hats. These podcasts aren't free. We got to pay for cameras and stuff. So live free dot shop. Go get your hat. Rep live free nation. We're going to give 10 away free in the comments. We live free. The hats are not free. The podcast is not free. It's good. And also, if you live outside of driving distance from any of our lake point campuses here in the DFW area, if you come visit in person to one of our physical locations and you come and you let us know, hey, for the first time, I'm new here. We have a gift for you and this is the gift. Live free hat. Just for you. Come say hi. Find the guest services tent that says new here and tell them that you came from live free and you'll get a free live free hat like this. One more thing that I'm super excited about. Pester Josh, a lot of people haven't been asking for a daily Bible reading plan. Oh, mom. And we are responding by re-engineering our whole lake point app. Yes, right. So you can download that and we just basically want to help you with all of your discipleship rhythm. So you can download the app, listen to the weekly sermon. Check out the early release of this episode. By the way, we're going to talk about that in just a second. Find the discipleship guide there that you can use with your life group and also find a daily Bible reading plan to download the lake point church app. Go out to your phone and text the word app to 2041 or go to Apple or Google Play and you can download it. Paul, have you downloaded the app? I have downloaded it. Let's go, man. Wow, put me on the spot and I was ready. Yeah, yeah, I've downloaded it. That was a little aggressive. You're right. Yeah. I'm a password Josh. I will say this last episode. You and Janet did a phenomenal job. I think you did. That was two episodes ago. For people who actually listen to the podcast. Right. Yeah. What are you talking about? I was literally here when you recorded that thing. You see, he was actually, if you watch back the telleriko episode, you see me glance over like twice. It's because like, who's that tall guy that just walked in? It was literally me behind the scenes. Every single episode. I'm going to surprise you with something right now. Okay. I'm always ready. You play that video. Oh, no. Oh, no, what is going on? Something's about to go down right now. Go away, pause, pause, pause. Listen, this is exactly one year ago. Bro, by the way, we should have turned the lights on for that. Yeah, we should turn the lights on. This is exactly one year ago from the early days of the live free pod. Oh, wow. Roll that beautiful beast. I want to be more dedicated lifting weights. And one of my girls, Mark, because you asked me. Yes. I'm going to be the first one. One of my goals is to beat Pastor Josh in arm wrestling. So you could probably do that now. I would like to see it. We got excited here. Yeah, listen. I think it would be a challenge. I don't know. You know, you could, A, you could probably do it already. B, we should pick a date. And we will do a on the podcast arm wrestling competition. I'm from which Carlos will humble me public. No, I'm, I do think. Okay. Wait, did we say it's in the clip? We say a year, right? It'll be a challenge here. We didn't say a day. I've seen you, I've seen you work out. And so you have, we didn't say it. I'm just going to ask you how much you're 20 seconds right now. Oh, this right now. It's been a year. It has been a year. We're doing this right now. I wish I would have known you would have gotten me on my bulky session. But what did you do on today? Come on right now. But you know what? I meant it. And I'm ready. And let's go. I feel like this is over the top of Sylvester salon. Here we go. I am right handed by your way. I don't want to be able to miss this because this is important. Liz, Liz, I'm excited about this. I don't even know what to do right now. Call it. Get locked. Get locked. Oh, wait, hold on. You can't, you got to keep this thing. Oh, okay. Carly, just Carlos, you ready? Hold on. Oh, he's got to hit it. I'm not feeling it. He brings out a chalk bag, hold on. Okay, are we ready? Pastor Josh, you ready? Hold on, ready. I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm ready. Go. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. He never heard of it. You just go watch it. It looks party. That's what I'll say. That's what I'll say. I'm out of breath. All right. Let's start talking about the Bible. We got a lot to get to you. So we're about to do that lift. This is what I have. Hey. Wow. That's not expecting that. It's a good job with the podcast. A couple of years ago. You did a phenomenal job last podcast. Thank you. And the podcast before you and Jan are did a great job. Thank you. And you guys talked about the. Do you guys said it's one thing that some. I thought. I got a pretty strong response. But some people thought otherwise. Yes. About a particular book. Yes. Called the Book of Mormon. Yes. I think you said something along blind self. What did you say again? I said you should burn it. Because it's demonically inspired. It's garbage. It's corruption. Get it out. Training. Can you pull up like this one time? I just want to read. It's like all of Mormon social media. There's two things that people say. Can you actually not that one? There's another one. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. to Smart Misspelled 2. He did. Yeah, that's another thing for those of you. But there's much grace. Much grace. But on my demo. So let me just say, so there was a couple of objections to this, like all of Mormon Twitter seem to respond to the social media. First of all, of course, I know that. Back in, oh, I was studying for sermon that included Mormonism, probably six, seven years ago. I just got curious. I read about a third of the book of Mormon. So yeah, I clearly wasn't, I didn't think that a book this long was a Bible translation. No, my point was, hey man, this is claimed to be what Mormon, they call it, quote, sacred scripture. So my point was, hey man, while we're covering things that are, you think they're scripture. Let me talk about this. So obviously, I don't think the book of Mormon is a literal translation of the Bible is a quote-unquote in their mind, a sacred scripture in addition to. And I was saying, bro, get that out. Well, basically, I'm covering stuff that was scripture. The other thing that I will point out is a lot of, honestly, from reading Mormon social media comments, I think some of them don't know this. Because of what a lot of them were saying is, does this guy literally not know? We use the unedited KJV. That's like a bunch of the comments for that. I do know that. What some of you don't know is that, historically, the Mormon church is called the Joseph Smith translation, where Joseph Smith updated, edited, added. He added an entire chapter to the Bible. Multiple chapters, actually. Multiple, it's over 3,000 verses. And the Mormon church calls it the Jehovah Smith translation, the JST now. They've called it the inspired version, by the way. Somebody even called it the inspired version. Yeah. Now, they've quietly sort of backshelved it, gradually over time. And now, I think in either most or some, Mormon quote unquote, Bible, that are KJV. They'll have footnotes in the KJV that link down at the bottom to the 3,000 plus verses that Joseph Smith altered, edited, or added. So yeah, actually, my point is like, yeah, you guys do. Yeah, actually do have a false actual Bible translation. Yeah. I think he basically put himself in Genesis to prophesy about a future seer with additional revelation, because the official position of the Mormon church is that the current English Bible translation of the King James Bible is corrupted and incomplete. And so there is an additional revelation that's necessary. That's demonic. Which is demonic. Yes, demonic. And we said we hit that. If you're somebody that is either Mormon or interested in Mormon or one foot and one foot out, I'm not trying to be a jerk. My idea is, I attack ideas not people in general. Like I hit on the Tallerico episode, there are sometimes where it's like actually necessary to confront an attack a person when they're like a false teacher. But in general, my thing is attack ideas not people. And I gently want to say to you, hey man, we've hit this on a show before with relationship to Islam. But when Paul said in Galatians 1-8, he said, but even if we or an angel from heaven should present to you another gospel. And Mormons know this. What they believe, what Joseph Smith claimed was that an angel named Moroni appeared to him and led him through revelation. Guess what was quote unquote revealed? Another gospel. So like I would just gently point out that because, I guess that would have been 1800, 1800 years before the birth of Mormonism, you have the Apostle Paul warning. There's going to come a day where demonic spirits masquerading as angels of light come and reveal false religions and false gospels in order to lead people astray to damn them. That is true of Islam. It is true of Moronism. I would actually, I like to ask people, what do Mormons progressives and Muslims have in common? I'm very curious. They distort the doctrine of God by distorting or denying the word of God. Wow, here you go. And by distorting can also be adding to it. And so to your point when you add in other sacred scriptures, well you call them sacred. And you say these are as authoritative and they help interpret the Bible at that point you're distorting. And it's not just the doctrine of God, it's the doctrine of Christ, all those things. So even to people who listen to that are Muslim, male, Muslim, Mormons, is even if you use the same words, if you mean different things than what we mean by those, then we're talking about a different God. Even if you're using the same words. And so the idea of the gospel, even in Galatians, that's not just how God saves us, it's also who saves us. And if you're beginning to tell us things that no Christian, and by the way, no Jew would have believed for 1800 years, that you're distorting the doctrine of God by distorting and adding to the word of God. So. And Jesus is not returning to Independence, Missouri. No. No, I'm saying to Independence. I mean, give that a day. That's right. We're gonna do a full episode on Mormon. We will at some point. There's so much there that honestly, I bet you a lot of people just don't know, even a bunch of Mormons. Jesus clearly stated that not one Iota, not a dot of the smallest Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek stroke of the book will fail to come to pass. In Matthew 23, he also said, well, to those who claim authority, while distorting the word of God, and that brings us straight to Luke chapter five. Yeah, let's talk. Pastor Josh, I have a question for you. What are you making this sermon? Well, obviously this week's quote-unquote sermon was a little different. I since no week. It's been a little chilly. Okay, let me hit a couple, dude, I love this passage. Who were in Luke five? This is the passage where Jesus calls the first disciples. Let me just rifle through a few things real quick. And then dude, I had a blast. Honestly, my sermon prep this week just turned into a personal Bible study. Because I started like, deep to have it on the disciples. And honestly, man, I felt like an idiot. There was all this stuff about the disciples. I didn't know. So here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna run through this. And then we're gonna rapid fire the 12 disciples. I'm gonna give one fact about each disciple. Most Christians don't know. Okay. And you're gonna quiz us in some? Yeah. We're gonna quiz you. It's gonna be awesome. Paul's not gonna have an issue with that. I think whoever lost the arm wrestling competition should have to answer those things. I'm in. I'll get it over there, man. Let me do this real quick. I'm stuff to do making in. First of all, Luke five is a great example of this. In Luke five, it says that Jesus calls the disciples at quote the lake of Ganesirat. This is something that confuses a lot of Christians. There's like five different names in the Bible for the same lake or sea. And when most Christians read their Bibles, they think it's talking about five different places, talking about the same place. All of them are talking about the Sea of Galilee. It just had five different names. So in Luke chapter five, it's called the lake of Ganesirat. That comes from the Hebrew word kinaret, meaning harp shaped. If you've ever been to Israel, by the way, I wish to come to Israel with me at least one time. If you've never been to Israel, there's like a, when you can see it, the Sea of Galilee is shaped like harp. So that's why in Hebrew, they called it, you know, Ganesirat after kinaret, which means harp shape. Other names. In Numbers and Deuteronomy, it's called the Sea of Chinareth in the book of Joshua. It's called Chinaroth. Most of the most common name in the New Testament is just Sea of Galilee. It's referring to the surrounding region, Ganesirat. And then the Gospel of John, and the Gospel of John only, calls it the Sea of Tiberius. But again, that confuses a lot of Christians. Like, oh, they're all the same. I've got some pictures of it because me and Jan love the Sea of Galilee. It's a pretty cool spot. That is, by the way, this is a super cool spot. Do you know where that is? I've been there yet. You haven't been. I haven't been. I've never been. For a month and a half. For a month and a month and a half. You've got to go, right? A month and a half from now, I'm going to get to go. It's like your Bible goes from being black and white to color. So that right there, you're standing at the spot where Jesus fed the 5,000. So that's where that is. So this is a whole different thing. I didn't mean to talk about this. But if you go to the G's feed the 5,000, he's preaching. Actually, wait, no, this is where the sermon, my bad. This is where the sermon on the Mount was preached. And people wondered like, okay, dude, how did he preach to so many people, no microphone? So this spot, they've pinpointed it. You can see it on YouTube with us right now. The land forms like a natural amphitheater. So Jesus was almost certainly standing at the bottom of that deal. And if you, sure enough, if you stand down there and shout, you hear it. That's cool. This is pretty cool sets. That's C. Galley. Go to the other one. That's Janah on a boat on the C. Galley. It was like heaven kissing earth. It was like, you know, Narnia is happening here. This little seagull is Janah's like feeding it out of her hand. And then here's the last one. And this is this picture, as Jean's to tight, this picture hangs in my office at home because that is the exact spot where Jesus restored Peter to ministry. Wow. In John chapter, I think it's 21. Wow. And I wanted that because all of us have had a moment where it's like, man, I betrayed and I failed my Lord. And he just keeps chasing you down. Wow. I'm not gonna get into that again. So I wanted a picture of me there because to remember that. So I think that's cool. Let me do another couple of super cool things and then I got a deep cut that's sticking awesome about this passage. Okay, this one. So he calls them and Peter James and John. Or no, no, not Peter James John. But the disciples he calls right here. I don't want to get that wrong. They're fishing, obviously. Here's what's really cool, if you ever get a, again, Israel with us. This right here, go ahead and show that thing. This is called the Jesus boat. So this is pretty cool, all right? So this passage in Luke five mentions that they're on a boat getting ready to fish. What's cool about this? So there was a big drought around the Sea of Galilee in 1986. These dudes are walking out there and they notice some woods sticking out and they start messing around with the mud. And they dig up this boat. Now here's why this is really cool. When they get in and they do the dating on this boat, that's a sea of Galilee fishing boat. It dates to, they dated it. Their best dating guess was 40 BC. But the way that they dated it gives it a plus or a minus 80 years. So this boat, it's 27 feet long, is a Galilee fishing boat, which means it's possible date ranges from 120 BC to 40 AD. And what they're reporting out, you know, total long shot. That actually could have been the boat that one of these guys actually fished on in the Sea of Galilee. It would have been exactly like that. So amazing. Super cool. So whenever you go to the passage where Jesus, the wind in the waves of the day and then he's taking it out in the fishing, by the way, I always like reading that passage and I'll make this joke with Jana. I was like, babe, I just want to fish a whole lot and take naps just like Jesus. That's true. But go to that next picture. That's what it would look like. Restore it. Say, yeah, it's kind of cool. Other thing, that's kind of fun. Do you guys something to say? No, I think it's cool. Other thing that's kind of fun, a lot of people don't realize this. This passage kind of shows us that a lot of people think of Peter James John in particular, the fisherman, as being poor, they weren't. Number one, we know from this passage they owned a boat, which was a big deal back then. Number two, if you go to Mark 120, I learned this message prep this week. Never noticed this before. Mark 120 specifically mentions they had hired servants. So these guys actually, they were more like, kind of like successful business owners running a fishing organization that seemed to have subsidiaries and employees and vessels and that kind of thing. Like, here's what you need to get in your head when you think about the disciples. That if you read the gospels, you really quick get the vibe. These dudes were alphas, they were highly competitive, they were high testosterone guys. It's kind of the vibe you get. So I was just kind of interesting. I love it. I'm curious to ask you, or go ahead, I'm gonna let you finish. Yeah, I got one more thing. And this is this kind of thing. You just wish you could make it every time. This right here is one of the daggum coolest things in the entire New Testament, okay. The compassion of Jesus. All right. So right here, you're in Luke five. Jesus calls Peter, bro, this is gonna blow your mind. Jesus calls Peter and there's a few things to notice on this. All right, so he calls him and Peter's on a boat and he's fishing. And then he doesn't catch anything. So he's got an empty net. Then Jesus tells him, I want you to throw the net back in there. And Peter does it. And then he gets a big catch. And then Jesus tells him, hey, you're not just gonna be a fisherman. You're gonna be a fisherman. You read it and you're like, oh, it's cool, very cool, very cool, Jesus. Okay, well then you fast forward to John chapter 21. Peter, who is the guy who promised Jesus, I'll never betray you. I love you, so I'm never. I'll never, I die before I betrayed you. And he denies his best friend in his Lord three times. And then you find Peter in John 21 and he's out fishing and he went back. He thought that his ministry was over. And so he just thought, you know what man, I failed. And I'm definitely out of ministry. And so he's like, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm just gonna go back the only thing that I know. And Jesus finds him and he's fishing again. He just went back to that old life. Now, side note, where Jesus comes to restore Peter in John 21 was 80 miles from where Jesus was resurrected. So think about this. Jesus is resurrected and you know the first thing on his mind, I'm gonna go get Peter. I'm gonna make sure that he knows we're good and that God's still calling in a purpose on his life. And Jesus walks 80 miles to go find Peter. Now here's what gets really cool, let's go there deeper. Jesus finds Peter thinking his ministry's over because of his sin in John 21. And Jesus recreates the exact scenario of when he called Peter. You go to John 21, Peter's on a boat. He's fishing. He didn't catch anything. Here's empty net. Jesus tells him, hey man, why don't you throw that thing back in again. Big old catch. And Jesus does the do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? Feed my sheep. Feed my sheep. Feed my sheep. And Peter finds out once again, Peter, you're not just gonna be a fisherman. You're gonna be a fisher of men. And Jesus finds him. And what he said, what he's saying to Peter is, hey man, you think that your sin just disqualified you from me using you and have a tremendous purpose for your life. And Jesus is going, hey Peter, it ain't over till I say it's over. The callings still on. Mm hmm. Now dude, I'll go, I'll just make this personal. What I've found is that when in my life, because everybody, you have these moments where it's like, I screwed up or something went wrong. What I've found that when I'm in one of those spots, this had me in 2019, I had all the anxiety stuff and I thought it was gonna stop preaching. If you ever get in a spot, this little spiritual discipleship hack. If you ever get in a spot in your ministry or in your discipleship where you're like, it's over, man. Go back to some place where God moved in your life, go to that actual physical place and go back and remember what he did. So like, I won't go into all this. Been 2019, when I had all the anxiety attacks, I thought it was gonna have stopped preaching. You know what I did, is when I planted a church in Nashville, we couldn't afford offices. So my office was Starbucks. And I wrote all my sermons and Starbucks paid $1.86 to get a black coffee and sit there for nine hours a day. And I'd write all my sermons Starbucks. And I'm at Lake Point Church like 11,000 people and we got all the staff and microphones and lights. And I was like, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to keep preaching. And it was like the spirit whisper to me, why don't you go back to when it was just like you and me and there was nothing else. And I just, I did, over there on Ridge Road, I just went over there and I started writing my sermons and Starbucks again and just remembered, this is what was like when there was no big staff, no big church, no lights, no cameras, just me and Jesus and you just recover something. Here's a big idea, man. My God is not just the Alpha. He doesn't just start things. He's the Omega. He finishes things. That's right. It's good. That's really good. One thing you also add to everything you just said is that when Peter denied Jesus, the Bible says that there was a fire going on. And it was so good. Yeah, so. And so, but then when Jesus meets Peter again, what Jesus is so detailed oriented, he recreates the same environment where Peter denied Jesus. And the Bible says he made breakfast, Jesus made breakfast and so there was a fire as well. And so I can just imagine the smell even of what reminded Peter of his failure and his betrayal of Jesus. Jesus even redeems that so that now that same smell reminds him of his restoration. That's something. You're on to more than you know. So that's in the Gospel, John. But even you probably know this. It's the only time. There are only two times in Gospel, John, it specifically mentions charcoal fire. Only two times in John, it mentions charcoal fire. And you're talking about smell. All of it, you know, you ever grilled something. You know this, a charcoal fire has a very distinct smell. And smell just has a way of stirring up memories and feelings and science to show that it's actually one of the biggest memories. Like that's crazy. Like I didn't know that. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, that's wild. So you're going to be able to. Not so I see. Yeah, that's it. That's amazing. The Bible's amazing. That is amazing. Yeah, that's amazing man. Okay, so I want to ask you about some of the disciples. I want, let's go on order. Is that work? Let's go man. Okay, we're going to hit a quick fact. Most Christians don't know. So here's what happens. Most Christians read the list of the disciples and they're kind of like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a big group. The chosen by the way. How have you seen the chosen by the way? Yeah, I love it. Yeah, I like it a lot. So question, do you think the chosen is a fairly ish accurate portrayal of the personalities of the disciples? Ah, that's a good question. I actually think so from the limit. Yeah. I think I've watched two seasons with Jana. They're great actually. Yeah. Oh, we like we plike every other episode. Yes. Okay, I'll go in order. All right, quick hitters. Let's go, let's go Matthew. Okay, Matthew, here's a deal about Matthew. Tax collector dude was good at making money. Yeah, oh, we've got pictures. Matthew, look at all Matthew. Matthew, tax collector. So he would have been a viewed as a race trader by all the Jews because he had to betray the Jewish people to work for the oppressive Roman government and then steal all their money and give it to the Romans who were oppressing them. Everybody hated him. Dude was obviously good at making money. Love to good spreadsheet. Here's a little known fact about Matthew. I think I'm gonna make a little guess here. I think he was kind of a money spreadsheet being counter-nerd. Did you know his gospel is the only one that records Jesus saying you cannot serve both God and money. That's amazing. I seriously, I think that might be why. Ah, I think that might be why. So there you go. There's Matthew. Simon the zealot. All right, Simon the zealot. Here we go. I like this guy. I like this guy. Oh, bro, you've been gaming with a dagger. I like that we're doing these two guys back to back by the way. Yeah. Cause this guy would have hated Matthew. Yes, and that's part of the point. So you got Matthew, tax collector, Jewish race trader working for the Roman government. Simon the zealot, exact opposite. The zealots were a, it was primarily a political movement and it was like, brought like legit, guerilla warfare, assassin stuff. So zealot is a political title when you read that in your Bible. This was a group of Jewish people who believe that paying taxes to Rome was a sin. So the reason I do is got a big dagger in his hand is literally what these guys would do is they would like infiltrate, they would do it in crowds and they would sneak up to Roman sympathizers exactly like Matthew, by the way, and they would like, shiv them, like legit, like, like, shiv them and stab them and then just like disappear. So like Jewish ninjas, ninjas is kind of what I have in my head is what you got here. And I do just want to say this. So I'm a, especially at like point, we got a bunch of alpha, alpha dudes at like point, you know, it's a bunch of combat vets and MMA guys and NFL players. And there's a bunch of guys who are like, man, do I really fit in here? You know, I'm kind of good at putting double taps in the A-zone and rear naked choke holds and yeah, man, yeah. Kingdom needs some aggressive guys. That's what I want. Andrew, Peter's brother. All right, I can't wait to see what picture you guys did for all these guys. Oh, wow. All right. That's clear. There you go, man. That escalated quickly. Here we go. So there you go. You can see how he church history tells us he died on an X-shaped cross. I think, oh, and they got it right in this painting that he was actually not nailed to the cross according to tradition. He was tied to it. And so tradition tells us that he stayed up there. I think it was like for two days preaching the gospel of the people who were, you know, whatever. Here's a cool thing about this guy. A lot of people don't know. He's obviously Peter's brother. He's a connector. Have you ever met one of those people who just like, they just know everybody? Yeah. And they're always connecting like everybody to everybody? Yeah. John Eric, we've got a guy that sure he's named John Eric on this like. The guy knows everybody's always connecting everybody to everybody. So here's the thing about Andrew. This is really interesting. He's like constantly depicted as a connector. So he's the guy that brings Peter to meet Jesus. He's the guy that brings the boy with the loaves and the fishes. He's like, oh, let me introduce you to Jesus. You need to know this guy. And John chapter 12, he's the one that there's a bunch of Greeks that are like, we wonder about Jesus. And he's like, oh, let me introduce you. So he's just kind of that guy. Social butterfly would have been a lead greeter on the greeting team. That's one of that kind of guy. He didn't have one more card. He had a hundred more card. Yeah, one of those guys just knows everybody. And yeah, there's a lot of people at church like that. And dude, that kind of person, God uses like radically. Yeah. Because you don't really see him out there teaching a lot. Nope. But man, he had an indispensable part to play in the kingdom. Exactly. I love it. Thomas Dittamus. Okay. Thomas, the worst PR campaign in the history of the world. So obviously what you got here on a painting, that is very... I was the graphic. I was the graphic thing. Yeah. I think I saw that painting actually in the loop. So obviously he gets a bad rap called doubting Thomas. I'll explain something real quick. So you will see sometimes in the New Testament, he'll be called Dittamus. Dittamus is the Greek word for twin. So Thomas had a twin, but the Bible never mentions who it was. So obviously wasn't a disciple. So somewhere out there was a Thomas twin. I will say this guy gets a totally unfair bad rap. We know him as doubting Thomas. Doubting Thomas. Good job. Good job. Here's what I hate. Thank you. I'm not proud of that one. Here's what I hate. Is that everybody paints him by the only bad moment he ever had in the gospels. Every other moment in the gospels is awesome for Thomas. But we, you know, here's a little thing that we say. Peter like literally cursed Jesus before the... We don't call him profanity Peter. Yeah, Jesus called Peter Satan. Yeah, that's right. Not great. Yeah, Satanic seaface. Like we don't do that with Peter. I made that. Wait, wait a minute. That's right. That's right. A little rage. You're really good at that. You're really good at that. You should be a preacher. I like that guy. All right. And here's the thing about... So here's my point. In John 11, I'm going to give an example of this. Jesus is getting ready to go... So here's who Thomas really was and what he really was like. John 11, Jesus getting ready to go back to Judea. And the apostles are assuming he's going to be stoned to death by a bunch of Jewish authorities. Thomas was the one dude that looks at all the other apostles and goes, let's go with him that we might die with him. You're right. So it's like, man, we call him doubting. Let's call him tough Thomas. Let's call him faithful Thomas. And here's my point on this. We could riff on this, but we won't. My point on this is, hey man, if you got a lot of doubts, you'd make a great disciple. Oh, I love... Go ahead. Okay. You got a lot of doubts. You make a great disciple. The disciples were not guys who didn't have doubts. The disciples were guys like, you know what, man, there's a bunch of questions I can't answer. I'm a man, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to pick up these doubts. I'm going to carry him to that guy. And I'm going to follow him in the midst of my doubts because that dude was raised from the dead. And so he'll sort it all out later. I was going to say that from the flip side, what you don't see happening is Thomas has that doubt. And Jesus is like, how dare you? Exactly. Get that question and get out of here. He's like, no, hey, come investigate. Seek your finger on my side and see. And so it's like, hey, to your point, it's like, man, when you're having doubts, your troubles and questions, the last thing that Jesus wants you to do is for that to cause you to walk away from him. It ain't anything. He wants you to press into him with those questions. Because by the way, he's the only one who can actually answer them for you. Thank you. I like it. Philip. Okay, Philip. All right. So, Philip, okay, here's some of some things about Philip. I like, when you really, like I spend a whole day deep diving this stuff and it just, you know, their personalities come out. So Philip, almost every recorded interaction of Philip in the gospels, he's talking about things like logistics, math, facts, procedures. He's the guy that accepted Microsoft Excel into his heart. He's this guy, okay? So I'll give you, like for instance, in John 6, when Jesus does the feeding of the 5,000 and they bring the little loaves and the fishes, okay, all the other disciples, you know, this is the little kid of hands, the five loaves and two fish. All the other disciples are probably thinking, well, we've seen him. He's like, walk on water and raise people from the dead and they were all going, I'm sure Jesus is going to sort it out. And Philip was the guy that was like, actually. He's sitting back there doing math and it said, he's going, okay, well, there's 5,000 people and this, oh, that fish usually costs this much and the bread usually costs this much. And then he pipes up and he goes, Jesus, it would take more than a half years wages to buy enough bread for each one to have about, he did the math. He's the guy in the meeting who's like, how are we going to pay for all this? Yeah. I say this in a loving way. He's Rod Cadenhead. No. He's a guy with basically chief operations. Yeah, he's got CPA on staff. Very important role by the way. Listen, very important role. He's the goat. Shout out, we love Rod. But he's that guy, you know, and he's got to, and here's as we go through these real quick, where's what starts to happen? As you study the disciples, you start seeing yourself somewhere and you're like, I can, there's a spot for me on team Jesus. Let's go. Yeah. Bethalem, you. Okay. I learned some things about Bartholomew I never knew before. This came, by the way, if you're on YouTube, his, I don't know how I'll say this, this does sound weird. His genitals are covered in this painting. So, okay, this is interesting. I've seen this up close. You guys may have heard this earlier. Do you either know where this is? Yeah. It's the 16 chapel. Yes. I know, hey, Paul, I know what it smells like in the 16 chapel. Name that movie. Oh, goodwill hunting. Goodwill hunting. Do you know what I'm saying about? I'm not saying that. You don't even know what it's okay. You haven't seen it? No, but I've read about it. Get it on the Carlos movie, ladies. I was, parents, not something to watch for kids. Well, he's mad. I haven't seen it in years. Well, if it's a language, yeah. If you, yeah, unedited a lot of language, but it's, it's an incredible movie. All right. That scene where he goes to that whole thing is one of the greatest, like, let me put you into place, but it's nice as we possible. We need to watch the TBS version. Oh, yeah. That's an amazing movie. Okay. So here's what this is. Now, on a, first of all, fun fact, in the 16 chapel, when he originally painted the 16 chapel, he painted them in kind of the Greek style where they were all nudes. And then it was like hundreds of years later, the Catholics came around and they were like, feels a little, feels a little shady. And they painted little, genital coverings on all the figures in the system. 16 chapel. That's fun little fact. So disciples were probably mums and thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. All right. So here's the thing about Bartholomew. So here's Bartholomew. Now, you'll notice he's holding, it looks really disgusting. He's holding skin. Do either of you know why he's holding skin? He is very often depicted. He was feeling that this way. All right. You didn't know. Potchache, potchache, potchache, got it. All right. Let me, let me talk about this. So this can get confusing for Christians too. Here's in the Gospel, he's called Bartholomew. Sometimes he's called Nathaniel. It's the same guy. So here's what this is. The word Bartholomew is a, it's a Greek compound word. Bar means son of and Talmai was probably his dad's name. So Bartholomew literally just means son of Talmai. So here's what a lot of people think is that Nathaniel was his first name and Bartholomew was like his last name. So here's the fun fact I didn't know. So in John 1, when he meets Jesus, Jesus tells him, hey, I saw you under, and he says, under the fig tree. And Jesus wasn't around him physically when Bartholomew was under the fig tree. Under the fig tree, some Bible scholars say was a Jewish euphemism for what they would say when they were studying the Torah. So then after Jesus says, I saw you under the fig tree. Essentially what's going on is I saw you study in my word. The next thing Bartholomew says at his calling is Rabbi, you are the son of God, you are the king of Israel. This is a guess. It's an educated guess. It's a, but here's a theological guess is that he was reading things and when Jesus did that, he immediately realized that guy is the fulfillment of these prophecies I was just studying. Now, Cheshiree Balti got it. The reason he is often depicted in Renaissance era paintings is holding his skin. His church history tells us that he had the worst death of all the apostles. He was, the tradition says he was flayed alive and then beheaded after he was skinned alive for converting a king. So that's why he's holding his skin there. I didn't know that until today. I didn't knew. Anyways, James, little James. Okay. So I'm going to be honest. This is the dumbest I've felt in sermprep in a long time. So that's him right there. Okay. I felt in sermprep in a long time. Until this week, I didn't know there was three different James's. I thought there was just two. So there's three, the reason they call them little James. By the way, little James, that's not a great nickname if you're a guy. His name's Little James. There's three James's in the Bible. There's big James that was one of the big three Peter James and John. Then there's James that wrote the book of James, the New Testament, Jesus, half brother. And then this guy is Little James. That's what Bible scholars call him, Little James. The reason that I didn't know until I was this many years old that this was the three James's, he has zero recorded words in the gospels. He has never recorded as saying one day I'm worried. Now here's what we do know that's very interesting. His mom was one of the women who stayed with Jesus at the cross. So I will just say like, man, it really says something about his family. His mom was that type of faithful woman of God. And she raised the type of son that Jesus would go, I want to, that's the kind of guy I want to use. Okay. So there you go. Judas is scary. Yeah. Now, obviously we all know this one. Here's why they call him Judas Iscariot. He was obviously the one that would raise Jesus. Iscariot just means man from Curia. There are, this is a little side note, by the way, I'm so sorry, Janna, for what I'm about to say. There are some Bible scholars that think Ascariot was like a riff on a word that read head. So I saw it. You know, we don't need Judas getting pinned. Janna's always frustrated at redhead, the depictions and movies. We don't need to start pinning Judas on redheads. But some, some Bible scholars think that. Now here is the question that some people have is they'll ask a question was, did Judas lose the salvation? And this is one of my favorite things to teach because it's like you start picking this up. Bro, this is honestly, it's terrifying. It's one of the things that most terrifies me the entire Bible. Most Christians will read their New Testament a hundred times. They'll never notice this. When you get to Matthew 26 and Jesus doing the last supper, he's there and he goes, hey, man, somebody at this table is going to trade me. And then he says, it's the one who puts his hand in dips and in this thing is going to be the one. And if you read that passage really carefully, most people miss this one tiny little word. You read that passage real carefully. Every one of the disciples, one by one, says, is it I, Lord? Is it I, Lord? Is it I, Lord? 11 dudes. And then if you pay close attention when Judas does it, he says, is it I, Rabbi? And that one tiny little word. And the point is, every one of those guys, had bent their knee to the Lordship of Jesus, Judas just liked him. You can be around Jesus and you can like Jesus and you can listen to Jesus and you cannot be saved by Jesus. So here's a big, here's a big question. Did Judas lose his salvation? Nope. He faked it. Yep. Wow. And with the emotional gear shift, I think it's worth it while we're here because a lot of people get confused on this regarding this is. Unfortunately, a lot of people say, oh, he went to hell because he killed himself. No. Good point. We'll probably worth it doing a little bit of a short, we're seven, another podcast around that. That is not why it's because he had not placed his faith in Jesus and Messiah because the thing is, oh, the last thing he did was sin. So he went to hell and or it was a bad. And I'm like, that kind of logic is like if I'm driving down I 30 and someone cuts me off and I give him the finger that I get an accident. Well, Paul, sorry, but you believed me, but the last thing you did was sin. And so I'm not making a lot of that. I'm just saying like, just wanted to swear we're on the sick clarify. That has nothing to do with that. That the reason that he did not to get spent turning with Jesus was because he was never actually a true believer in Jesus, not because of what his last act in life was. Fabius, aka Judas or Jude. The world's greatest PR crisis. I'm serious. The world's greatest PR crisis. So Thaddeus, he is also known in the gospels as Jude or tremendously more unfortunate than Jesus. And finally his real name was Judas. There were two Judas'. So the reason he's called Thaddeus or Jude is because obviously after Judas betrays Jesus and then dies, he's left going, well, that gum. I'm walking around. I'm a disciple of Jesus and my name is Judas. This is a little awkward. It'd be like a kid in the 50s having the name eight off. I'm serious. It's like, what do you? Now what do we do? So if you'll notice in the gospels' Matthew and Mark, they call him Thaddeus. In Luke and Acts, they call him every single time. It's really fun. These are little details. You got to pay close attention. It's really funny. In Luke and Acts, every time what he calls him is Judas son of James. It's real quick. Judas. The son of James. The son of James. I'm just imagining because Luke is known for being really detailed. He's like, bro, really? I asked Matthew and Mark to please change his name and you just had to be hyperagric. Appreciate that. Thanks. Looks like none of this is your name. This is your name. The funniest one is the gospel of John. Calls him Judas, not a scary. It's clarification. So John writes Judas, not a scary. I'm sorry, I'm screaming. It's a monster of tragedy. I'm sorry. It's really not a scary hit. Now, John's the nice one. Yeah, not a scary hit. Not a scary hit. So here's a really interesting thing about Thaddeus. This kind of thing, dude. I love a love sermon prep. So Catholics, and there's some things obviously we differ. Shout out, we love our Catholic brothers and sisters. But Catholics traditionally, they called, let me do this really fast. So Catholics in a few hundred years after Jesus, they started doing this thing where they would pray to saints. Heads up, don't do that. The Bible literally says there is one mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ. So you can't pray to anybody except Jesus. That's it. To God. That's it. So anyway, but they started, and they would name these saints and they would give them like a, this is the patron saint of these people. And if you're in this situation, you should pray to this saint and then he'll take it to God and see what they can work out up there. Let's make a deal. So they called Thaddeus because of his unfortunate situation, they called him the patron saint of lost causes is what they called him. Now this is really interesting. So what Catholics would do in the early church is they would pray to him of all the 12 disciples. They'd pray to him last. And this is literally true because they were afraid if they started praying to him, what if we accidentally are praying to Judas and the wrong, the lines get crossed and the wrong Judas, the prayer goes to the wrong Judas. So they would pray to him very last. This is where it gets really interesting. They would pray to him last, okay? So they ended up calling him Jude. Think about this. I'm putting all this together. praying to Jude. And this is your last chance. This is where Catholics started calling the hospitals Saint Jude's hospital. When all hope everywhere else has run out, Saint Jude, that's what you go to. That's this dude. That's dude. James Big James, aka son of somebody. Big James. Big James. We got little James. I'm feeling, and we got big James. I'm feeling something. He's like a football player. I got ears. He's an old line man. Was he a big guy? He's an old line. He's from Wisconsin. He's a lefty. Lefty lefty. We got big James. That was a big James. Oh, you switched it up. Oh, you switched it up. I will figure it out. I'll fix it, James. I'll fix it. Okay, so he's not that big. I'll tell you what, dude. That is not an old line man from Wisconsin. That's not what I'm saying. That's not what I'm saying. They're not that good. Sorry. Sorry, bad, just to be honest. So here's James. So he's obviously called one of the sons of Zebidi. He's known as Big James, because we had little James. So obviously the disciples, there were three that were different. There were Jesus in a circle. It was Peter, James and John. They were the only ones who went up the mount for transfiguration. They were the only ones that Jesus let see him when he raises Javers' daughter from the dead. They were the only ones that Jesus takes into the garden to give him any. Now Jesus gives these three the coolest nickname ever. Carlos. That's a funer. And Chaggy, Baltic. Well, do you know the Greek word? Because it... Don't you look at anything? Stop looking at your screen. Do you remember what it is? Oh, you mean the brothers, the sons of thunder? Yeah, that's it. Yeah, but you remember the word. Bonarcious. Yeah, bonarcious. It's like Bonar, or bow-ass, bow-energy. Yeah, bow-energy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it means sons of thunder. Yeah. Man. Just come on. Bro, if Jesus calls you, I would like tattoo that on my forehead. I'd like Mike Tyson, like stick that thing on the deck on the son of thunder. That's awesome. If you get to have from Jesus, that's amazing. That's amazing. That's pretty great. It's not that great. Well, I still... Oh, come on, man. So for instance, in Luke 9, these guys, James and John, the two brothers, here's why Jesus called him the sons of thunder. There were these Samaritans who were like being little maind of Jesus, and James and John go, Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to destroy him? It's a little, you know, little, little spicy, you know? So again, again, when you think about these guys, here's a big idea when you're studying the disciples. A lot of people, you see these, like I'll be honest, like look at that picture. That guy looks kind of a feminine, looks like you just walked out of Sephora without a tan. I don't know. I, hair products. Hair products. I'm poor hair. I don't know, really into cats. Just that's how it looks in all these pictures. I'm gonna stop myself from the other. That's how it looks like. But these guys, like again, these were like very competitive, high-testosterone, aggressive alpha guys. They're like literally competing, like with Jesus, like I want the, I want to sit at your right hand and it's your left, okay? The other thing about this guy, about Big James, that we should honor him for. He was the first apostle martyrs. Yeah. The first one, and it's recorded in the Bible in Acts 2. He gets beheaded. Side note, if you start thinking about what it would have been like, you know, Jesus resurrected, ascended into heaven, pouring out the Holy Spirit, 3000 people are gonna be saved in Acts 2. You're on this big high. You gotta imagine it would have been a big gut punch, like dude. Big James just got beheaded. This is not how I thought it was gonna go. But, so there you go, first apostle martyr. John, other son of somebody. Okay. This is one of my favorite ones, okay? Obviously, I joke about this all the time. He's the one that gives himself the nickname. Yeah, yeah, he's the one that leans his head against the chest of Jesus. And the Bible literally records that he rested his head against, I think the King James version literally says he rested his head against the breast of Jesus. You know, I'm always like, man, how many friends you got during our recline their head against your chest while they're eating? Zero. Zero. I'm real, we're probably not gonna be friends very well. But he, like the big deal is that he and Jesus were clearly very tight. Like very, very tight. He calls himself the one whom Jesus loved throughout the gospel of John. We've mentioned this before. John, obviously, wrote John. And he, he won't say stuff about himself. He does the whole little thing about beaten Peter and the foot race to the, we don't have to go back there, but he's awesome. Now, here's the cool thing about John. He's the only apostle that died of old age. He was not martyred. He was exiled, obviously the Isle of Patmos. You can go to the Isle of Patmos. You can actually see a cave on the Isle of Patmos. I think it's the only cave on the Isle of Patmos where almost everyone is like, that's literally where he received the revelation, the book of revelation. Now, here's what I love about this guy is if you pay close attention, he changed radically as he aged. So what's really cool about this guy is when he's young, he's young, hot-headed, brash. The youngest of the disciples. Oh, really? I never heard that. Does it say that? Yes, youngest. No, it's the doose. Yeah, it's the doose. Some things, too. Oh, interesting. I didn't know that. See, I learned stuff all every time. He's young and brash, fire from heaven, toaster mixer crispy. But then as each, as he got older, he became this old man, lived into at least his 80s, we think. He became this old, very sweet, kind, loving man. If you go read first, second, and third John, he's constantly like, beloved. My little children, my dear children, God is love, you know. And he changed over his life from this young, hot-headed, toaster mixer crispy to loving, grandpa John. And he honestly, this shouldn't really do something for all of us. Like as we age, we don't want to become sort of like bitter, crusty, crispy, like, welcome to the book of third opinions. You're going to read mine. No, man, he just, he, the older we get, the longer we walk with Jesus, we should become deeply convinced. Yeah. I am really loved by God. And I really love people. Last but not least, Peter the Rock. Peter the Rock. Rocky. The Rock? He crucified upside down. That's why you got that picture there. Church tradition tells us he's one of the ones that actually church tradition is a little more solid on. Some of the others is pure conjecture, how they died. I find or stand correctly, church history has a much more firm grasp that he was crucified and that he may have been, he may have requested, you see in that painting, to be crucified upside down, because he did not feel like he was worthy of dying in the same way as the Lord. He was almost certainly the oldest disciple. We know this because of Matthew 17. They're going into the temple and you had to pay a little temple tax going to the temple. We've talked about this. And you only had to pay that if you were a 20. Jesus in that passage, he tells them, hey man, go get a little fish out of the sea galley and it's going to have a drachma in its mouth and you can use that for the temple tax and he only told Peter that. So probably Peter was the only apostle over, over the age of 20. Here's the other little, this is a little weird thing for Catholic staff to navigate. Peter was married. So the guy that I love you, but I'll just say it. The guy that you say was the first Pope was married. And then so why are we telling all the priests, can't be married. We know this because in Matthew 8, it specifically mentions that Jesus went to Peter's quote, mother in house, mother in law's house. And then in 1 Corinthians 9, 5, the apostle Paul, I'm going to read it. He says, do we not have the right to take along a believing wife as the other apostles? So we don't know who, but more than one of the disciples was married. But then he says as the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and seifas and seifas was another name for Peter. So Peter was married. So ladies and gentlemen, there you have it. That's great. I'm curious. What did I just say? I learned a bunch of that stuff, wasn't it? What did I just say that she didn't know that before? Is there anything that was like? Yeah, I'd bertholomew in the skin, but I didn't know it. Yeah, I've maybe heard it, but it was a guess when you just said the skin, I think I knew one of them in the flesh. I knew one of them in the flesh. So I just had to, I just added, I'm like, if he's holding the skin of his own body, just a deduction there. He's pretending he doesn't know. Yeah, that's a good question. Wow. I love it. I love it. Yeah. Let me give him one. Hey, Pastor George, we are running out of time, but I have a question for you both. Do you impress your Paul? How do I build the band of brothers? Yeah. Let me just do this for a quiz. Oh, yes. No, no, it dovetails your question. So first of all, this is obviously what the Bible teaching was on this weekend. You will, like literally, I cannot emphasize this hard enough. There's a lot of things I say and it's like, you know, goes in one ear out the other. Literally, if you just get this one thing right, literally every other aspect of discipleship to Jesus, all the dominoes will start falling. It is literally impossible for you to live the right life with the wrong friends. And conversely, I would say over time, it's really almost impossible for you to live the wrong life when you're deeply embedded in a group of Jesus loving God saturated guys that love Jesus. It's like almost impossible. So honestly, I'll just do this, you know, super quick, is you can see how Jesus structured his own thing. You toss that thing up. So one on that little diagram, the concentric circles, this right here, this is how Jesus structured his own relational life. So you got care influence intimacy. Jesus had the crowds and he cared for everybody, you know, that whole deal. Then he had a circle of influence that was like, you know, you had about 120, you had, or you could even say the 12 however you want to do it. And these are people that he influenced and that had direct access into his life. But then Jesus had three Peter, James and John that were the circle of intimacy that was like, these are my right or dies. Like these are the guys when they walk in a room, it's like, everything goes into slow motion and they're, you know, their background music comes on. Good enough for Jesus, good enough for me. So honestly, what you're going to notice about your life, whether you like it or not, whether you acknowledge it or not, you as a man or a woman of God, your future is dependent upon who you choose in your life to put in that circle of intimacy. I don't listen, that law is undefeated. Yes. That law is undefeated. Whoever are the three to four closest people in your life that you share your heart with, that they share your heart with you, you are going to become like those people. Yes. So honestly, if you want to change your life, change your circles. Good. You get that right. Everything else is going to get. So that's like, honestly, man, I feel like a, I feel like I'm, you know, beating a dead horse or whatever, but like there's a reason I talk about rooted and I talk about life groups literally all the time. And I smoke what I sell like I've got that in my life. Literally, I'm not joking. What they say. So two days ago, literally two days ago, I drove all the way across the FW an hour and 15 minutes. So I could spend 30 to 45 minutes with one of my guys this in that circle to talk about prayer and fasting. He's a pastor that loves Jesus as a convictional man and he is a man of deep prayer and fasting. We're on a, we text multiple times every day. And I, why? Because I am determined to get that right. Because if I get that right, everything else is going to fall into place. So like it ain't no joke, man, you, you doing the rooted discipleship thing and you have an abandoned brothers that's going to determine your future as a disciple. Now, I'm curious, Paul and Carlos, do a quick, quick snapshot. Give me an example like you got thoughts or how this looked like in your life. Well, Hayley Free Nation, one of the reasons we're so passionate about conversations like this is because real discipleship doesn't happen in isolation. It happens in relationships around tables and honest conversations with people walking together towards Jesus. And if you've been listening to this podcast thinking, I want more than just content, I want community. This is for you. Our next rooted experience begins Tuesday, February 3. And this is an in person only 10 week discipleship journey designed to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God, build meaningful, life-giving relationships and discover the purpose God created you for. But here's the thing, rooted only happens three times a year and spots fill up fast. And so once registration closes, that's it until the next session. And so to take your next step in your spiritual growth, don't wait, text, root it to 20411. Or you can also visit latepoint.church slash root it to get signed up today. And by the way, this is just another class. It is an invitation to real faith, real community and real freedom in Christ. Yeah, when I was in my early 20s, I had a crisis of faith. I'm a recent graduate at college, a very entrepreneurial, recently married, always busy, always working, traveling a lot of social media stuff, reading a lot of Bible, faith, apologetics, books. And then I started flirting with deconstructing my faith. I just started reading all these deconstruction books. What year was this? Literally over 10 years ago. Ish. You know what I mean? I was asking all of the book. Oh yeah, I mean I can give you names. All of them. All of them on Rachel Held Evans, Richard War, or a year of living biblically. I didn't read that one, but I know of it. By the way, if anybody's hearing these names, I strongly do not recommend these people or their writings. Even names that are not even mainstream, they're more like academic and theological. Yeah, like I read them all. And they hurt me because they made me question. And I started reading a whole bunch of different things. And it's not like I stopped being a Christian, but I started having some serious questions. But then looking back, I think I probably went through a little depression there even. I was thinking like, man, what about that season that made me go there? That was probably one of my most isolated seasons in my life. I just do it in my own thing. Again, we just moved to Dallas at the time. We didn't have a church community. I'm also at the time what I would call a product of my social media generation. We're basically a generation that is viewed, not seen. So we are online and we know of this person or that person, but man, you don't have a person that can actually like see you who you are. We were very isolated, basically no friends. We were known and knew a lot of people. We just didn't have a community. And so I started praying and I received a prophetic word that God was going to surround me with the right older folks in my life to help me basically just shape me. And that was literally, before coming to Lake Point, coming to Lake Point was basically one of the ways God answered that prayer. And I brought today, I mean, I just being surrounded by the people that I'm surrounded today, I have been shaped significantly and God has used the people around me to literally not be right here today if it wasn't for the people that God put in my life in the last five to six years. So I have been, everything you just said, absolutely. My life is a testimony to that. Amen. Yeah. Paul. Well, wait, what was that? The first time we met, we got coffee over there at Stater's Service. I remember that. Or lunch. What book were you reading? Do you remember? He brought in some books. There's a book. Yeah, I think he did. I mean, I'm always reading something. Yeah. Sort of my favorite things about you. It's probably like at the time. I don't know you. Yeah. I used to remember. Yeah. I get old. You good? Yeah. Man, mine, two significant moments. I'm like one really short, more significant one, even a couple years ago. But when I was in a teenager, how the guy looked at me and he said, Paul, you're one of the biggest underachievers I've ever seen in my entire life. Actually, in this case, it was actually an order. It was the chap of the most important podcast in America. Well, so, but what he said is like Paul, like you've got, he just sent him a video of an episode of what the podcast is. He actually says, dude, I've been Q and track pastor Josh. And I saw you like, it's insane. And I actually, the message like, dude, like, got it in and that because like he is in the middle of a class too. Very in class, he said it and is like, you've got a memory, like a bear trap. And you remember everything you read in here and your mind is insane. He's like, but you're just coasting through life and not doing barely anything to give God gave you. And I was at that point, like in high school, some of us also was going through some stuff with my family, but I was. I was just coasting and just making decent grades, but nothing special. And then from that moment on, just lit a fire in me and I never made below any. I'm not doing that to brag. I'm more to say, hey, I'm going to take this stuff seriously. Take the gifts. God gave me seriously, but it took someone to be willing to call me out. So part of community is actually sometimes where someone was speaking of tough word, but it was in love. It wasn't trying to shame. It wasn't trying to come down, but it was like saying, it's calling you up to your God-given potential. That was a huge moment, but yet two years ago, two, three years ago, I was really struggling. So a different moment. I was really struggling in life just with hidden depression. I've had a few periods of my life and it's one that it just came back and I was just getting overwhelmed. I think I've actually shared before where I felt like it was a ball of not. Like I mean, a ball of yarn that's going to not, and I just couldn't untangle myself. And I get, I had a pretty dark 24 to 48 hours of just some thoughts I hadn't had in a long time. That had come back to me. And it was with, I was sitting there with actually one of the other pastors on staff, it was a close friend. And he just said, he just notices we were talking, he's like, hey man, what's off? Like something's wrong. He could just tell, just looking at me. I was trying to, I'm usually pretty good at hiding, but he said, what's wrong? And I just, I clamped up. I wasn't willing to share. But then he said, Paul, just so you know, the house rules are for you too. Well, the house rules were at the church we were at. We had a house, a bunch of crunkled rules for our house, but it was things like, hey, it's okay to not be okay. Everyone's a work in progress. And he just said, hey, it's not just for the people of culture, it's for you too. And that just flooded over me. And he said, hey, if you, if you need it, man, I would love to help you get some counseling. And when you feel ready, you can share with me too. And that was a turning point. It was a trauma. I thought, I was just trying to hand, hold it on my own. I've got kind of a superman syndrome. Sometimes when life gets hard, something I just put on a cape and I'm like, I'm great. And he saw something was off. And he was one of that cases who lovingly calm me out, but then speak a word of grace. So I mean, it was a turning point. I don't know what would have happened if he had not done that in that moment. Dude, so first of all, bless God for that, man. I mean, there's something, especially for dudes, I'll point out is guys are not as good at building friendships as women. And here's, and that story is a great example of how to do it. Because girls, first of all, we have a deep conviction at Lake Point that girls and boys are different. And that means that they do relationships different. So with women, I'll walk in on Janna hanging out with her friends. And I'll be like, this feels like an alien experience. They'll just be all sitting in a circle, looking right at each other's eyes in a closed circle, talking about their feelings. And I'm like, yeah. If a guy was ever like, hey, Josh, do you want to come over and sit on my couch and talk? I'd be like, a, no, and b, now I'm suspicious of you. So like, so what guys do? Like if you're a guy, like, how do I find, how do I build a band of brothers, this like a team Jesus band of brothers? So I'm noticing about that. You guys worked together, right? We were already, yeah, we were already like, that's how it works. We find some guys this like, hey, let's, we're building something together or honestly, we like this hobby together. We like hitting a golf ball. We like throwing a, we like throwing a crankbait, you know, whatever you just, you find the, it's shoulder to shoulder. And then you're like, hey man, why don't we just add, let's add the word to this thing. Let's start listening to, let's start listening to live free. And then while we're out fishing in golfing, let's spend three holes talking about that. And well guys, that's how it works. Yes. Exactly. I was really going to say, I know we had to move on to another thing, but like a lot of it is just injecting Jesus into the relationship you already have. Yes. But to your point, if, if, if, if I was going to, I was actually going to go back to your circle drawing, if you're a circle of intimacy right now, and the people you are alongside with are just people who are going to drag you further away from Jesus. Your friends are like a rip type. So they're either going to drag you to Jesus or away depending on who those friends are. Run. And in that case, that's where something like rooted is so great. Because at that point, it's like, hey, a lot of times those groups are people who don't know each other beforehand. But the stories we've already heard is that they didn't know each other first week and by the end, they're best friends and they're sharing everything with them. And so I'll say, if you don't have those people, that is where the body of Christ, the church is so great because we can help you find those people. Any other anecdotes on your end? I just just, I'll just highlight this and then let's talk about this, the people, Minnesota protesters, interrupt the church and all the thing. The thing I'm going to point out is in the sermon on the mount. So here, I'll just say a very hard thing. There are a lot of people that are listening to this. The most important thing that you could do is cut somebody out of your life. Yes. I'm just going to let that sit. It'll be the hardest thing you do. It'll be the most important thing you do. If there are wicked, godless evil people that are in your circle of intimacy, you are not going to meet. You are not going to follow Jesus closely with that. And so when Jesus in the sermon on the mount is like, hey man, if your hand calls you to sing, cut it off, right? And what he's saying is you may have to commit a radical amputation in order to walk in holiness and discipleship to me. What I have found is that for almost everybody when they get serious about following Jesus, the radical amputation they have to do as a relationship. So man, it doesn't mean you got a black ballam and I'm never speaking to you again. What it does mean is you need to, you need to aggressively and quickly shift what circle they're in. It's like, hey man, this is not my right or die anymore. Like, I'll send you, actually if you're a guy, you're not going to send a guy a card on their birthday. I'll send you a text on your birthday. If they come to me and they got a problem, I'm going to pray for them. But honestly, man, that's not the guy that I'm calling when I'm having a hard time or my golf buddy every week anymore. So heads up. That's how it's probably going to work in your life. That's good. All right, man. Well, this has been a news, basically, for a bit now. A church in St. Paul, Minneapolis, Minnesota called city's church, which is rupted by protesters during the service and the situation kind of became a whole thing online, including Don Lemon, who is people know, an American journalist famous for his work in CNN. He was basically their interviewing infamous, infamous, this, all the caveats and there's a video of him with interviewing the pastor, but basically, I just want to throw out it to you, Pastor Josh. I know we're going to, we're going to go through that. So let me just say, yeah, we're going to react to this. We're going to show this. There is a lot here. That moment and what happens in the next few weeks will be one of the most significant turning points for the church in America in the last decade, depending on which way things go. So this is why I want to talk about this, okay? First of all, so here's what's happening. What you're getting ready to see is a group of protesters, the infiltrated church called city's church. They sat in the service. They waited for, if I understand it correctly, the sermon to start and then they all coordinated stood up to diser up the service because they found out one of the pastors was working with ICE, was an ICE agent. Now, I'll find her stand correctly. This dude is a good, good and godly man, law enforcement. And I find her stand correctly. This guy's literally been working with ICE for like two decades. So there's not like a brand new ICE agent that just was like, oh, I want to, so it will not be the guy we'll see in the video, it would be like the lead pastor of the church. That's correct. That's right. Yeah, as you're going to see now. So here's what I'm, and obviously what they're doing is you're going to see this. They're very aggressively, you're going to see like scared children in the church. They're very aggressively protesting what ICE is doing rounding up predominantly in Minnesota right now. It's predominantly convicted felons that are, that are also illegal immigrants. Now, before we show this, dude, again, let me just set this. We are not, we have no loyalty. If you are on Team Jesus, you should have no loyalty to a political party. We're on Team Jesus. And what we should be doing is we're like, no, no, no, I'm going to be for whichever group it most closely aligns with Team Jesus. And if that's you, great, if not, I'm out. Because our loyalty is to Jesus above everything else. That said, right now, they're just not a way around it. The proposed policies of the right are considerably more or closer to the ethics of Team Jesus than the proposed publicly stated policies of the left. Now, what I want to point out, when you see this, what I want to point out is here's why progressives are getting really, really worked up about anything having to do with illegal immigration. Show these three pictures. And then when you see these, all of a sudden it's going to make sense, oh, that's one of the reasons that they're so worked up about this. Show those three. So number one, this is the voting tally on a proposal for someone to have to show proof of American citizenship to vote. Okay, that's all this is. And what you have is every single democratic political leader except 598 voted against it, only 5 voted for it. Here's another one. Here's another one. Here's another voting tally. Another bill. The House just passed a bill to declare the illegal aliens who commit sex crimes or domestic violence are in a misid and miscible and deportable. The vast majority, 145 Democrats voted against it. Again, this isn't about right or left, but you do have to acknowledge the moral asymmetry. We have to. And again, this is going to be a make or break response for churches in America. Let's check this out. Oh, she's guy here. Look. Here's a buddy, Don. You know, I've imagined it's uncomfortable and traumatic for the people here. But again, careful. It's very slippery right here. That's what protesting is about. Whoopsie, Daisy. Okay. Number one. So he's been really walking in the church. That's what protesting is about. Oh, no, it isn't. No, it isn't. You are allowed to have private gatherings like protesters can't come up and Carlos's home and protest how brook is parenting your kid. There are spaces that are protected in the United States. And your Chad G. Palatee is going to talk about this here in a second. There was clear that that laws were broken in what you're about to see. I also just want to point out biblically the Apostle Paul consists. So here's what some Christians did. I saw this online. Some Christians are like, hey man, Jesus said turn the other cheek. So what those Christians should have done is just let them. Okay. No, this is very interesting. If you pay close attention to the book of Acts, the Apostle Paul is. Consistently appealing to the laws of the Roman Empire to get people to quit disrupting his ministry and stopped interrupting and stopped interrupting in Acts 16. He's beaten and imprisoned without trial. And Paul invokes his citizenship rights. He says he goes, here's what the Roman Empire says you can and can't do to me. In Acts 22, same thing. He's getting ready to be flagged by Roman soldiers. And Paul goes, hey, according to a Roman law, are you allowed to flag a Roman citizen? And he scares the heck out of him. Same thing again in Acts 25. It's kind of hard to see in the text. When he's on trial in front of Festus, Paul pulls his Roman Empire citizenship. He knows the legal procedures required in Rome. And he goes, I appeal to Caesar. And essentially he short circuits the Roman judicial system. So Paul consistently appeals to the laws of the land for self protection of his ministry. That's what he does here. Now, in a second, I'm going to have you talk about what laws were violated here in the spirit of the same. So let's keep going. Go to this next thing. René God. René God. René God. René God. René God. René God. René God. René God. René God. René God. René God. René God. René God. René God. René God. I'm not saying anything's out here. See, do you hear what this saying? I want to show you what's happening. If you hear what they're saying, they're saying, just this for René God and they say, has up, don't shoot. So here's what you got to watch out for. It's possible for people to have real feelings based on wrong thinking. Yes. Okay. That's what you have right there. Real feelings based on wrong thinking. First of all, this was like before the René God thing became like super clear about what happened and the body cam came out that clearly shows the officers are getting struck by a 4,000 pound deadly missile that she drove into his body. And again, what you got is you've got real feelings based on wrong thinking. And then they're doing hands up, don't shoot. That's obviously for Michael Brown, Ferguson, Missouri, 2015. Exact same thing. Is you have nationwide protests. Cities get burned down. I think 13 people end up killed in BLM riots. And then whoopsy daisy on the back end, everybody figures out, hands up, don't shoot literally never happened. What happened? People feelings based on wrong thinking. Trinity, will you pull out that X thread? Okay. So here's what people, and we don't get a deep dive into this. Here's what people got to realize is happening right now. First of all, what I'm not saying is that every single action by every single ICE agent in all of America is completely righteous and approved of. No, it's not. They're not. You are going to see agents do wrong things. They're people. In Vice President Vance today said they should be investigated. So where it's happening, Vice President said, hey, if that is happening, those people should be investigated. If ICE, if I see you doing wrong things, they should be investigated. That's right. Why? Yeah. Because it nobody's above the law. That's right. Which by the way, includes the people that they're trying to police on the immigration thing. So here's what you got to watch out. This, this happened right now, man. Is you people are not realizing, I'm just saying this, they are not realizing the degree to which you are in the middle of a propaganda war right now. It's like, dude, the exact same thing with Renee Good, the exact same thing with Hands Up Don't Shoot. That's happening right now with all the ICE stuff. So go down Trinity. Like I got this go down to the next one. So like, I don't want to go through this whole thread. But like what I've been doing lately, I started noticing, whoa, like this is like legit a propaganda war. I started screenshotting every example where you get like a highly emotionally incendiary image or video that later it's discovered was selectively edited and that like an actual rational story about what happened was hidden from you. Why? The goal is to emotionally manipulate people into like a frenzy against law enforcement. So here's what you got. I'm going to just give a couple examples. So this goes viral. A baby was hospitalized after being tear gas by ICE. By the way, this is a congressman. The little image says the family was not legal and not even was not illegal and not even protesting. They were just driving home from their son's basketball game. This can't be reformed time to abolish ICE. Now, and they show a picture of the baby that's in the hospital. You see that from a US congressman and you're like, dude, how any human is like, how awful. Okay. But then later, here's what you find. Here's reality. You find out they find video. So the family claimed we weren't even protesting. We were just trying to get to our son's basketball game. They raised $175,000 and I go, fund me. Everybody's like rallying around them. Then later you get a video. You can see it right there. Keep it right there, Trinity. You get a video. They find that exact same family in the riot in obstructing law enforcement in the video. And then they find out the family lied that actually they went and protested for multiple hours, left their baby alone in a car in the middle of a riot. People that were rebelling against law enforcement caused law enforcement to have to in self-defense, do tear gas. And their baby that they left alone in a car in the middle of a riot received some of that because they left it alone in a car. So again, selectively edited, highly emotionally manipulative image, but then oh, wait, here's what happened. I'll just do, you know, let's do, let's do one more here. We see a tweet's deaths in ice custody reached 20 year high amid Trump enforcement push. And you see that like dang man must be awful. Then you find out what actually is going on yet again, the media is trying to twist data to smear law enforcement. There's been no spikes in death consistent with data over the last decade. Death rates in custody are 0.0000007%. As bed space has expanded, we have maintained higher standards of care than most prisons that hold US citizens. Again, the only reason the deaths are I think higher by like seven people or something like that is because they're doing more law enforcement. I'll just do one other one and then we'll shut this down. All these went mega viral like that was because here's a deal. It's Charles Spurgeon's thing that Elias halfway around the world before the truth ties it's shoelaces. This went crazy viral. This little white girl just losing her mind sobbing because she was watching a neighbor, an elderly neighbor get detained by ice agents. This goes crazy viral. Honestly, you see that and you're like, oh man, my heart breaks and you're seeing an elderly neighbor get escorted out of the house and everything in you is like, stop. Y'all stop doing that. But then the story comes out actually what was happening is ice was detaining to convicted child rapists that were living at this elderly man's house. The elderly man was either harboring or refusing to comply with police officers to try to detain, oh by the way, to convicted child rapists. So again, it's like this is what you got to watch out for. People have to be people who we take time to reflect proverbs. Who states his case first seems right until another comes in examines him instead of just emotionally reacting. And that's what you see there in the Justice for Renee Good. Hands up don't shoot. All right, let's. There's more. Yeah, I mean, I won't do the whole thread. There's literally, there's like 20 of those. There's like 20 examples like that. We got more in the video. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, go to keep going on the video there. What do you think of this? I mean, this is unacceptable. It's shameful. It's shameful to interrupt. Pause this real quick. By the way, that pastor well done. Yes, well done, brother. This dude called ice cold stays calm talks about Jesus. Great job. Keep it. Let's keep going. A public gathering of Christians in worship. But their reports will just have to take care of my flock. Listen, we live in a there's a constitution, the first amendment to freedom of speech and freedom to assemble and protect. Whoopsie Daisy. Nope. Paul, talk about this. Yeah, this is one of Don Lemon's favorite taxes in general. And especially, honestly, just progressive. Let's selectively take one part and leave out other things that may weigh in on this. Later, he's actually later in that week, he was in an interview with the Attorney General of Minnesota. Because immediately people are like, hey, this is a violation what's called the FACE Act, FACE CE. And the Attorney General comes on there and basically is like, what are you talking about? Only a moron would quote something that is free access to clinic entrances for the reproductive health clinic entrances and say that this could be applied to a house of worship. Well, the reason that people believe that is because we can read. Yes. Good. Good. So either that guy has not read it. And he's the Attorney General, which says something. Or he has. And he's assuming we haven't. So he's assuming we're idiots. And so if you actually go and read it, what happened was originally this act was about freedom of access to clinic entrances for reproductive health like clinics. But then it was expanded. And what often happens is when extra things are added onto it, it keeps its original name. So in the first part of it, it is about free access. And you can't intimidate people or do violence. But then in section two, it says, whoever by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction, intentionally injuring people or intimidating or interfering with, then it goes on. Those seeking to exercise their first amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship shall be subject to penalties. There you go. First penalty for first offense is either finding up to a year in jail. Second offense is up to three years. So literally, they added on a segment because Congress was concerned that we need also in addition to protecting these clinics, we need to protect houses of worship and not in need that they literally said you cannot go in there and interfere or intimidate the people that are doing that while they are doing it. Yeah. There it is. That's it. This is like Donnie's wrong. Yeah. This is wrong. Just go read it. That's not a protected thing. OK, then we can come up to my favorite, my favorite character in the whole ordeal. All these comfortable white people who are living lavish, comfortable lives while children are dragged into constant training. My man took his add-on. You're living real life, nice lives in your lattes, doing absolutely nothing for your Latino and Somali brothers and sisters. You come here to a man wearing a suit is a preacher to Jesus wear a suit. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. OK. First of all, let me just point this out. You can hear kind of like the racist centralism. Yeah. Yeah, well, why be able to do that? I will just point this out. Imagine. Here's what I like to do. Imagine it's reversed. So imagine it's reversed. OK. Imagine what you had was a bunch of like white conservatives, white conservative Christians that break into a predominantly African-American church to disrupt a church service and protest because they were in support of BLM. Would Don Lemon be there saying, I'm in for some amendment rights? There's no. If they did that, like nuclear bombs would be falling for three decades. Oh, well, that's what's going to work. There's going to be Bradley who there's half that's on. I don't know if you know Anthony. There's half that's on the whole stuff. Like it says my hair and fire and then there's something like, oh, that's awesome. And this was one. He pointed by the way for those who don't know anything about the African-American. Yep. So he basically just said Professor in New York, right? Yeah, believe me in New York. Yeah. Yeah, theology. I mean, he's great. He's great on so many things. But he just pointed out. He just said, listen, like if they had gone to an African-American church because a black ICE agent, which by the way, there are some, was a pastor. Would they have done that? And he's like, no way. Of course. No way they would have even done it. So even getting more close to the home situation, it's like, yeah, let's just call this what it is. And with that, that's why I say like one thing and I want to tell you guys like what fear and furious me is like lemon comes off is like, I'm bold. I'm going to do it. No one else would do like, do you're a coward? Yeah. Yeah. You're a coward. You did some of that look bow, but it was actually pretty cowardly. So keep going. That's right. Now, so here's the big, like, bro, here's the big thing on this. Ask yourself the question, why church? Why a church? Okay. So you have to get good at is understanding there's a spirit behind the situation. So I want you to stop and think about this. If you zoom out and you start going man, I wanted to turn the times. What's the spirit behind the situation? I think about this in the Bible. Sin is sometimes referred to as lawlessness. It's called lawlessness. Interestingly, when Satan empowers the anti Christ, guess what he's called? The man of lawlessness. So check this out. Whenever you start seeing groups of people that protect law breakers and attack, now just, I'm talking about just laws, attack, just law enforcers, watch this. You can almost always know what's the spirit behind the situation. So dude, I just want you to stop and think about this. Sometimes people will, they think that I'm a little tinfoil, Addy, on saying that some of the secular progressive stuff, that there's demonic things laced into it. I'm tentos down on that. So just stop and think about this. So in the scriptures, we talk about this often. There are three institutions for authority that got established in the Bible, the family, the church, and the state. If you pay attention, secular progressivism aggressively seeks to tear down all three. So think about this. When it comes to the family, what you got over there, and secular progressivism, you got like hypertherapy culture, you got critical theory, queer theory, all the things, all of them end up resulting. They disciple people's kids to view their parents as the primary problem in their lives, and things like the kids going no contact. Okay? Let's do the church. Secular progressivism, watch what it does. It's the whole deconstruction movement. It's all laced into secular progressivism. I would say the off-rails excesses of the Me Too movement, that whole thing, it trained a generation to view the church as repressive, pastors as the bad guys, any correction at all as like spiritual abuse and to leave the faith. Okay? Now, let's go to the third one. What about the state? Well, you're seeing it right there. The whole movement, it tends toward protecting law breakers and opposing law enforcement. That's where the whole hashtag defund the police, it comes from. It ends up reframing any civil authorities that enforce any law as fascists. Now watch this. If you're looking at a movement, and the whole spirit behind the movement seems trained at literally deconstructing all three of the authority structures that God has established in the world. Listen, put on your head and open your Bible. You can figure out pretty quick what the spirit behind that situation is. That's what's got white churches, that's why. There's a spirit behind the situation. Final thoughts, boys? Yeah, I mean, I think I was just thinking about this and what was happening, and I just began reflecting immediately. Obviously, what we need to do is Christians and what churches need to do in response to something like this, in response to verse Q, or things like that, and you hit a big thing, which is learning to think through and discern the times of what's happening in general. Then I also wrote down three responses, and honestly, what I see is that Christians only want to lean into one or two of these. But I'm going to say all three of these have to be present and go to. I'll just read it off. I get it right. Number one, we have to remember Christians are people who love their enemies. That's right. And we pray for those who persecute us because we're people who believe Romans 12, 21, which says, we don't overcome evil with evil. We come over, come evil with good. So we don't retaliate. We don't do it. They're doing it so hard. But we're those people. As you said, turning over to you doesn't mean that we don't then follow us. We'll do this next one with the second point. But it is like we've got to march our own spirit, and we don't need to let the enemy get a foothold in our hearts of bitterness to those who are against us. Man, we pray that the same thing happened. The Apostle Paul would happen to every single person that just stormed into that church. But number two, we are also a people who believe in Romans 13, 4. And that says that the government is God's servant for justice and order. And so we say that those protesters should be put in jail. Yes, right. Book them. Book them. And I would say the same thing if it happened in a church that I didn't agree with their theology. That's exactly right. Period. So we believe both that we aren't going to retaliate against our enemies, but we can also say that God has put in the government and people there to enforce laws and they broke the laws, so they're being jailed. But then finally, number three, we're a people who will then go to that jail. And we will extend radical grace and forgiveness and share the gospel with them. Because we are also people who believe Romans 116. That's where not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for satification, for everyone who believes, including all the people that were in their protesting. So it's all those three. All three have to be present. We don't retaliate against our enemies. We pray for them. But number two, we also are fine with them saying that they should be arrested. And you know, we will go preach the gospel to them and love them and hope they become our brothers, sisters and Christ. All three have to be present in our response. I'm going to add a fourth and then we can show you that. Please add a fourth. I'll add a fourth. The fourth, I would say, is there are some little niche movements, particularly primarily on the political right that I would say, hey, bro, you need to watch it. Don't let the need for enforcement of immigration laws turn you into somebody who has no love for immigrants. And you start like, there's this thing now where there's like a blanket demonization. I'm saying, man, that ain't team Jesus. That ain't so. I'll add a fourth. That's great. That's good, man. Yeah, Jesus said this would happen. Opposition. That's right. Expect it. I hate you. It's when the culture hates you. And so may the Lord give us wisdom to respond like Jesus would. Pastor Joshua, to refer us. Yeah, man. Father, thank you for this. Lord, I'm still, I'm thankful for what you did this week. I'm not a prayer and worship. And, Lord, I'm just going to keep saying, man, give us more, Lord, more. Porture spirit and immeasurable greatness on the people of Lake Point and all the people listening to this podcast. Father, I pray that they are by listening. There's some people that are listening alone and in their lives they feel alone. Father, I pray that you would move them to quickly assemble a band of brothers or a band of sisters that loves you with their whole heart and that will point them and encourage them towards Jesus Christ with their whole life. Father, grace them with that quickly and bring those people to them. I pray for mass amounts of people at Lake Point to move into rooted for exactly that reason. So there lives to be changed forever. And I pray in Jesus Christ, great name. Amen. Amen. Hey man. Hey man. Good free brother.