Speaker 1: Life audio.
Speaker 2: But it's so important to be filled with the spirit
Speaker 2: of God, to be humble Amen, broken time with the
Speaker 2: Lord in his word, and then from that reservoir of
Speaker 2: intimacy with him, you're going to know how to handle
Speaker 2: these issues.
Speaker 1: What just struck me is like a humility and a
Speaker 1: willingness to speak about your brokenness.
Speaker 2: Right before God uses a man greatly, he often hurts
Speaker 2: him deeply, and so it's just a series of God
Speaker 2: just continuing to break and break, and it's going to
Speaker 2: be a process till the day I die. And actually
Speaker 2: the more I broke, the more He used me.
Speaker 1: After the death of Charlie Kirk, there seems to be
Speaker 1: two general responses. One, now is the time to go
Speaker 1: on the offensive. The time for charity and kindness is over. Two,
Speaker 1: we need to talk with one another more than ever,
Speaker 1: and we need to calm down some of the rhetoric.
Speaker 1: Bill Bridges, I know that's a simplification, but tell me
Speaker 1: where you land on that and why.
Speaker 2: I think you know and you might hear me say
Speaker 2: this a few times as we talk. But it's so
Speaker 2: important to be filled with the spirit of God, to
Speaker 2: be humble, Amen, broken time with the Lord in his word,
Speaker 2: and then from that reservoir of intimate intimacy with him,
Speaker 2: you're going to know how to handle these issues because
Speaker 2: both cowardliness not saying anything and arrogantly beating people up
Speaker 2: with your words both come from a fleshly desire. It's
Speaker 2: it's a flesh taking over. So I think, on one hand,
Speaker 2: we need to speak the truth and love a lot more.
Speaker 2: But on the other hand, we've got to make sure
Speaker 2: it's the right tone, the right the rhetoric and the anger.
Speaker 2: I mean, America right now is extremely angry. But are
Speaker 2: we broken? You know, we're upset, but are we humble?
Speaker 2: And so I know some people won't to hear that,
Speaker 2: but it needs to come from that type of heart
Speaker 2: because it's hard to say here's how you need to act.
Speaker 2: When what about if my actions require silence and just
Speaker 2: loving the person listening to them, what about my actions
Speaker 2: it is at a different point required me. You know
Speaker 2: what I've had You're going to say something school board
Speaker 2: meetings or whatever's going on, I know, and so being
Speaker 2: sensitive to the leading of the spirit, because I don't
Speaker 2: think we can just throw a blanket statement on everything.
Speaker 2: You know, For example, if I said, yeah, speak the
Speaker 2: truth and love and fight back, and that's going to
Speaker 2: send the wrong message. But at the same time, don't
Speaker 2: say anything, just turn the other cheek. It's funny. Jesus
Speaker 2: didn't turn the other cheek when he was.
Speaker 1: Slabbed, That's true.
Speaker 2: He said why, why? What evil have I done? Why
Speaker 2: have you slapped me? And so I think there's no
Speaker 2: blanket approach. If that makes sense.
Speaker 1: It does. So your person is not going to be
Speaker 1: lack of a better I guess, dictated by the cultural
Speaker 1: moment whatever that is. No, not at all, and even
Speaker 1: one bit. It's more like I get my life right
Speaker 1: before the Lord filled with the spirit. There's a time
Speaker 1: for grace, there's a time for truth, and that's the
Speaker 1: way it's always been since the beginning, the way it
Speaker 1: always will. Is that a fair synopsis, I think it is.
Speaker 2: But of course we have to be sense of where
Speaker 2: the culture is, you know, because there is a time
Speaker 2: and a place to put on the big boy pants
Speaker 2: and say something you know or do? I mean you
Speaker 2: look at where the state of our nation is. I
Speaker 2: think a lot of it has to do with the
Speaker 2: silence and the pulpits. The pulpits are not to proclaim
Speaker 2: you look at the top ten pastors right now and
Speaker 2: watch their messages. You're not going to hear repentance, the
Speaker 2: Blood of Christ, judgment, the cross, all these foundational things.
Speaker 2: So looking at the state of the church and the culture,
Speaker 2: I think it will require action. But also it has
Speaker 2: to come from the reservoir that time spent with God.
Speaker 2: And I've noticed, maybe you have to The more time
Speaker 2: I spend with God, the bolder I become interesting. Right now,
Speaker 2: boldness doesn't always mean loud and in your face. It
Speaker 2: sometimes means that gentle unwavering or that gentle pushback. And
Speaker 2: I've just noticed, over seasons of fasting and spending time
Speaker 2: with God, the word of lie word of God come alive.
Speaker 2: Like just last week when God told Jeremiah, don't diminish
Speaker 2: one word, don't diminish one word. Preach what I've called
Speaker 2: you to preach. And you look at Jeremiah twenty three.
Speaker 2: The false prophets, actually a sure sign of a false
Speaker 2: prophet is saying peace, Peace, God's happy with our life.
Speaker 2: Don't worry man. God's not upset. He's a doting grandfather,
Speaker 2: He's a cosmic ball of love. Peace man. And God said,
Speaker 2: I've not sent these prophets, yet they ran. I've not spoken,
Speaker 2: but they spoke. But had they truly stood in my
Speaker 2: counsel the word of God, they could have turned this
Speaker 2: nation back to me. My words like a hammer. It's
Speaker 2: like a fire that devours.
Speaker 1: So that's part of the tension, right. We are called
Speaker 1: to be peacemakers, yes, but not false peace that avoids
Speaker 1: the truth of the Gospel and sin before for the Lord,
Speaker 1: et cetera. How we balance those two is kind of
Speaker 1: the constant tension. And I want to come back, not
Speaker 1: right now, but I don't come back to a few
Speaker 1: things you said about the purpose of the pulpit, which
Speaker 1: is really important today.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how being in scripture it gives you more boldness.
Speaker 1: But for me, I was thinking about this conversation. Some
Speaker 1: of the hardest issues that I deal with as an
Speaker 1: apologist are not violenced in the Old Testament, and those
Speaker 1: are legitimate tough questions. Are not like the morality of say, hell,
Speaker 1: how God could be justifiled out, or claims that the
Speaker 1: Gospels contradict or scientific challenges to God. Those are not
Speaker 1: the toughest ones. The hardest questions I tend to deal
Speaker 1: with are more personal for people and for myself. How
Speaker 1: do I balance grace and how do I balance truth?
Speaker 1: And our culture where there's such competing different world views.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'm like, I don't know which voice is the
Speaker 1: best for right now, so help me. And I have
Speaker 1: my response to that in some ways, but I want
Speaker 1: to know how you think about balancing grace and truth,
Speaker 1: and I would just frame it. You're right that there
Speaker 1: should be eternal principles, but we live in such an angry,
Speaker 1: divided culture, angry divided church that rewards people for responding
Speaker 1: in a certain way, which some ways militates against what
Speaker 1: should be a biblical approach. So what's your thinking through
Speaker 1: and how you balance grace and truth in your life
Speaker 1: and maybe with people in your church.
Speaker 2: Well, you know what, right at the beginning, what you
Speaker 2: just said is so important for people to realize the
Speaker 2: reason it's easier for us to answer, you know, how
Speaker 2: could a loving God allow this in the Old Testament?
Speaker 2: All right? Wipe out the city? Or how do you
Speaker 2: how do you know the Pauline epistles, or how do
Speaker 2: you know the gospels are accurate? Or how do you
Speaker 2: you know? Because there's there's a standard answer that's very
Speaker 2: no matter who. I mean, your Dad's book really helped
Speaker 2: me when I came back to the Lord on evidence
Speaker 2: that demands a verge. Absolutely, I couldn't put that thing down.
Speaker 2: I highlighted it and it really internalized it.
Speaker 1: My goodness.
Speaker 2: But when it comes to these issues, it's like, where
Speaker 2: do you offer you know, as one example, the pronoun idea,
Speaker 2: if I'm in Starbucks and I say, hey, thanks, grace,
Speaker 2: he goes, I'm he him, probably not gonna you know, okay,
Speaker 2: thanks and have a good day. But if it's a constant,
Speaker 2: like I'm working with him or I'm seeing him every day,
Speaker 2: at some point maybe maybe I'm Lordy, what do you
Speaker 2: want me to do? I want to just have grace
Speaker 2: and love. But at the same time, this is I
Speaker 2: can't personally do that, and so maybe the boldness to say, hey,
Speaker 2: why do you say and open that conversation. So it
Speaker 2: depends on the situation. It depends on Sometimes you need
Speaker 2: to speak up, you know, but other times we need
Speaker 2: to offer that that love and grace. So how do
Speaker 2: I find the balance? Well, number one, I know we're
Speaker 2: not Jesus right he equally balanced truth and grace. But
Speaker 2: I also look at I love context, which I know
Speaker 2: you do as well. Context and you actually challenge me.
Speaker 2: You probably don't remember this. About ten years ago, we
Speaker 2: spoke together humulate and I used, if my people are
Speaker 2: called by my name, humble themselves. You said, that's really
Speaker 2: for Israel. I'm like, oh, that's a good point, and
Speaker 2: so it is.
Speaker 1: I say that you. I don't even remember I was
Speaker 1: going to go to you, and I just said, like,
Speaker 1: I just challenged.
Speaker 2: You, but that was it, and I didn't push back
Speaker 2: because it's like, because you're right, because you know, God
Speaker 2: said when I bring pestilent, famin drought, if my people
Speaker 2: are called by my name, so you can have Okay,
Speaker 2: that context is Israel. But I think the principle still applies.
Speaker 2: For example, if America humbled her self, but God judged
Speaker 2: judges people differently nation, I mean, that's a whole another yea.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So my point is I look at context of speak
Speaker 2: the truth in love. Right, well, if you look at
Speaker 2: the beginning, in the end, it's about maturing and growing
Speaker 2: up in the faith. So it's like we must speak
Speaker 2: the truth and love in order that people mature and
Speaker 2: grow up in the faith. Ironically, I'm driving here this
Speaker 2: morning and I had this perfect example. A friend of
Speaker 2: mine spoke for me last night and Wednesday night because
Speaker 2: name's Chris, and I challenged him over a decade ago
Speaker 2: because he was involved with what I say, hyper charismatic,
Speaker 2: you know kind of and and I just lovingly times
Speaker 2: I would say, man, you got to just be careful
Speaker 2: because and then now he thanks me, but back then
Speaker 2: it was a little well and you know, you're not overly,
Speaker 2: you know, pushy, but like, hey, have you thought about this?
Speaker 2: So to answer the question more directly, each situation requires
Speaker 2: probably and I have to watch it because if I'm
Speaker 2: if I'm moody, if I'm gonna I mean type a personality.
Speaker 2: I mean, you talked about this, which we agree on.
Speaker 2: There are different callings. Yeah, you know your calling is
Speaker 2: going to be maybe more gentler and more just love,
Speaker 2: you know, John, John the Beloved where God's wired me
Speaker 2: as John the Baptist. Right, So I'm gonna be I'm
Speaker 2: gonna be a little bit more in your face with
Speaker 2: the sermons. And and but I see the fruit, I
Speaker 2: see the change lies. I see that, and so knowing
Speaker 2: I can't equally balance that tension, right, I don't think. Man,
Speaker 2: I've lived perfectly this week. I perfectly balance grace and
Speaker 2: love and grace and truth. So speaking the truth and
Speaker 2: love when it needs to be said, spending that time
Speaker 2: with God. I think the New Testaments clear you err
Speaker 2: on the side of grace. I you know, I think
Speaker 2: we could agree. If you're gonna air, you're probably gonna
Speaker 2: air on the side of grace. But there comes a
Speaker 2: time and a place where you've got to speak the
Speaker 2: truth and love. And what does grace look like? It
Speaker 2: doesn't mean sweeping sin underneath the carpet. It means to me,
Speaker 2: grace means, hey, you know what. I know you fell.
Speaker 2: We've talked about that before. You know where I stand.
Speaker 2: But you know what, you got to get back up
Speaker 2: and keep fighting. And so you were able to lovingly rebuke.
Speaker 2: And so that's what I do at my church. It
Speaker 2: depends what a person's going through. If I've got a
Speaker 2: dad who's unrepentant, I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna shoot
Speaker 2: him pretty straight. And look what you're doing to your family,
Speaker 2: Look what's costing your kids, and I'll put on this,
Speaker 2: you know. But if there's another guy just came in
Speaker 2: and he's he's struggling with alcohol and he fell again. Man,
Speaker 2: just get back up, get to that altar. So it
Speaker 2: depends on unreally where the where the spirit's leading me.
Speaker 2: I mean that's not a cop out, but I think
Speaker 2: it's you know, and being and being careful because our
Speaker 2: emotions play a role in that too.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's a cop out. I think we
Speaker 1: all want a line of exactly what we're supposed to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's natural, but life is messy.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: Part of my answer I get when I get asked
Speaker 1: this question is I say, we're gonna have to live
Speaker 1: in the tension of grace and truth. And if you're
Speaker 1: not living in that tension, either you're probably speaking too
Speaker 1: much truth or showing too much grace in the sense
Speaker 1: of not speaking truth true. So there's kind of a
Speaker 1: natural push and pull because I hear new circumstances, I
Speaker 1: hear new issues. I'm in the moment, So I think
Speaker 1: all of us are gonna have to live in a
Speaker 1: certain tension. But the other piece I also think is
Speaker 1: you said we were an event, I don't know, six
Speaker 1: or eight weeks ago Pastor's conference for KKLA, and you
Speaker 1: also said something that's been in the back of my mind,
Speaker 1: you said to me, you said, you said, I'm more
Speaker 1: like referring to yourself a John the Baptist, you might
Speaker 1: be more like a John the Beloved right, And that
Speaker 1: like really hit me. I've been thinking about that because
Speaker 1: I remember a spiritually pivotal moment for me is I
Speaker 1: was sitting here at Biola in the Eagle's Nest and
Speaker 1: I was reading a book by Brennan Manning and he
Speaker 1: made a point. This scene so obvious now, but at
Speaker 1: the point was game changing. He said, spiritual maturity for
Speaker 1: different people will look different based on their giftings, and
Speaker 1: for me, at that point, spiritual maturity was my father right,
Speaker 1: And so I thought, if I'm not as bold as
Speaker 1: he is, and I had certain characteristics that define him,
Speaker 1: then I'm not spiritually mature. And I remember reading that going,
Speaker 1: oh my goodness, there are certain spirits of the fruit
Speaker 1: in his life I want. But I'm also wired differently,
Speaker 1: so it might look a little bit differently. Do you
Speaker 1: agree that that when we talk about like the tension
Speaker 1: between grace and truth, we have different wirings and it's
Speaker 1: not gonna look the same for you as it does
Speaker 1: for me. And should we celebrate that, and maybe we
Speaker 1: go wrong when we think I'm a true teller and
Speaker 1: if everybody's not like me, then they're airing. That's what
Speaker 1: I think concerns me. Or on the flip side, someone's like,
Speaker 1: I just I show grace. Everybody needs to show grace.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, but I do have a prophetic voice
Speaker 1: and this person needs to repent. That's kind of what
Speaker 1: I see your thoughts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it's exactly you summed up well, because how
Speaker 2: God has wired us and I've I think what this
Speaker 2: conversation started with you. I don't remember how it came up,
Speaker 2: but why and even why I started thinking I think
Speaker 2: that many years ago. Is I've got pastor friends and
Speaker 2: they are just incredible. I mean I've listened to sermons.
Speaker 2: I don't think they ever get what's a good word,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Fired up, animated, animated.
Speaker 2: Right, It's just they're just man, good teachers and solid
Speaker 2: And you know Chuck Smith's example, you know Dan hear
Speaker 2: Cover Chapels or uh, I mean we can list a
Speaker 2: lot of good, good teachers. Even John MacArthur's kind of
Speaker 2: just just just straight, but he was bold. So you
Speaker 2: compare him with Chuck say or you know, like when
Speaker 2: I was studying theology, I would read Jack K. Fred
Speaker 2: and John MacArthur, you know, try to find that ballance interesting.
Speaker 2: So I think there is a wiring like God, you know,
Speaker 2: let's say, God, I've given you this burden in your
Speaker 2: heart to call the nation to repentance, and and you're
Speaker 2: going to be bold and repentance and and just press
Speaker 2: in and animated like a Whitfield or Wesley. And you
Speaker 2: read their journals compared to Jonathan Edwards who is very
Speaker 2: just reading his manuscript, where other people preach their whole
Speaker 2: body and their messages were different. And so that's what
Speaker 2: I mean. It's kind of a compliment people, because I
Speaker 2: would get a lot of people. I wish my pastor
Speaker 2: was like you, well, no, you don't, you're just you're
Speaker 2: just you're just glad I'm bold and you're not. You know,
Speaker 2: six months from now you'll have issues with me too, right,
Speaker 2: or or other church a man Shamey's a calm down
Speaker 2: a little bit right, he's just too like, you know,
Speaker 2: and so you realize, you know, I'm just gonna be
Speaker 2: comfortable in how God designed me. And there are I believe,
Speaker 2: there are different callings and we talked about before, even
Speaker 2: with political arena. Thank God for the Tony Perkins Ordopsin's
Speaker 2: or those, even though that might not be somebody else's wheelhouse,
Speaker 2: Like why are they so involved? We should think them
Speaker 2: that they are, and why are you so involved? I'm
Speaker 2: not And okay, glad you're not because your main calling
Speaker 2: is a homeless in your ministry and you know you
Speaker 2: don't say what happens is we've become wrongly judgmental is
Speaker 2: where I'm trying to get to. I see a lot
Speaker 2: of people wrongly judgmental, Like I I'm bold. I'm this
Speaker 2: bold pastor. I've got one hundred thousand Instagram followers and
Speaker 2: I call it out and these other pastors are weak
Speaker 2: and they're woke and not necessarily it could be different callings,
Speaker 2: you know, different the way God has wired us differently,
Speaker 2: and thank God for that. So it just was a
Speaker 2: real I went through a Pharisee season. Can all that.
Speaker 1: I want to come back to that this is actually
Speaker 1: really important. But when you said to your comfort, I
Speaker 1: think you use the word I'm comfortable in my calling. Yes,
Speaker 1: I want to clarify what you mean by that, because
Speaker 1: I'm comfortable in the sense of I know who God
Speaker 1: has called me to be, and I'm an apologist. I
Speaker 1: speak truth, but I consider myself a relational apologist. I
Speaker 1: like to have conversations. I'm not threatened by people who
Speaker 1: see the world differently. I've had some debates, and I
Speaker 1: enjoy it as much as the next person. I have
Speaker 1: a competitive edge about me. I'm just drawn to like
Speaker 1: sit down and connect with people's That's my lane. So
Speaker 1: I'm comfortable in that. But I also don't want to
Speaker 1: be too comfortable. I do like just two weeks ago, oh,
Speaker 1: I have a professor here and he goes Sean. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you say things like you know this gives me pause. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you go sometimes just tell people what you think. And
Speaker 1: I was like, you know what, You're probably right about that.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I might nuance things too much because I want
Speaker 1: to think about it, like that's a fair challenge to me.
Speaker 1: So I'm comfortable in my arena, but I also want
Speaker 1: to be made uncomfortable so I can grow and get better.
Speaker 1: So tell me what that means for you to be
Speaker 1: comfortable on God's design but uncomfortable at the same time
Speaker 1: when someone pushes you.
Speaker 2: You actually just reveal the gold mine here. I hope
Speaker 2: people realize because some people can be comfortable and not offending,
Speaker 2: like that's my goal, or maybe a bolden creatures pastors
Speaker 2: can be they man they want to offend, and that's
Speaker 2: not good either.
Speaker 1: They've got to they got the sake of offending.
Speaker 2: They got to put on the brakes or somebody else
Speaker 2: might need to put on the gas. So what I
Speaker 2: mean is, and I don't know who you used to like,
Speaker 2: who do you gravitate towards as you when you're younger?
Speaker 2: I mean what type of books and speakers for me?
Speaker 2: I loved books on revival American church history, first grade Awakening,
Speaker 2: second grade Awakening. I mean I devoured those new Hebridge revivals.
Speaker 2: Duncan Campbell, d Martin, Lloyd Jones recommended. De Martin Lloyd
Speaker 2: Jones recommended a series of books men like Hal Harris, Griffin, Jones,
Speaker 2: Daniel Rowlands in Welsh and Scotland. I don't know why,
Speaker 2: but God, because that's how I'm wired. And then so
Speaker 2: I like the Wilkerson raven Hilltosers, okay, because that's how
Speaker 2: I'm wired. But that that's a hard calling because you
Speaker 2: do convict, you do upset more than most. You say
Speaker 2: it like it is, and I finally just got comfortable
Speaker 2: with that, like, Okay, this is how I'm wired, you know,
Speaker 2: because I came out of the fitness industry as a
Speaker 2: district manager running fitness centers, and so I was a
Speaker 2: motivational speaker, right, so.
Speaker 1: This is before you're even a Christian.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a transitionary period. God use that to bring
Speaker 2: me back the prodigal son come home. But I would
Speaker 2: go in like, okay, fill out surveys. You know what
Speaker 2: was the speaker's appearance, How did they And so it's
Speaker 2: all based on men's approval. A motivational speaker motivation. Now
Speaker 2: it's like spending time with God, the words coming alive
Speaker 2: in my heart and just preach it. And it's when
Speaker 2: you do that, you know, it's not always popular. And
Speaker 2: so I had to become comfortable in the calling that
Speaker 2: God has given me to say the hard things. And
Speaker 2: I believe the more God has called a person to
Speaker 2: be that that voice of truth and that, like you said,
Speaker 2: that prophetic voice, I believe there are different you. Actually,
Speaker 2: the more humble you have to be because pride is
Speaker 2: self exaltation and I'm always right and that's how you
Speaker 2: fall in ministry is because of pride. So you have
Speaker 2: pride on the sense of us who are bold, but
Speaker 2: you also have pride on the other hand what we
Speaker 2: call the woke or whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 2: the cowardly, that they don't want to offend anybody. They
Speaker 2: don't upset anybody. And in the Gospel, Oswald Chambers actually
Speaker 2: says the message of the Gospel hurts and offense until
Speaker 2: there's nothing left to hurting to offend. And he's true.
Speaker 2: And so so that side, I'm not saying you that
Speaker 2: the other side has. They have to. They have to.
Speaker 2: They have to spend time with God and get that
Speaker 2: boldness back, get that fire the spirit back, and then
Speaker 2: others of us have to spend that time with God
Speaker 2: to stay humble and to be broken, impliable and usable
Speaker 2: by Him. So that's I have to get comfortable, because
Speaker 2: it's a hard calling to to. I mean, you look
Speaker 2: at Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Mica
Speaker 2: and Nahem, you know, the minor, the major, the voices
Speaker 2: that really spoke God's word faithfully and even difficult to
Speaker 2: a nation that didn't want to hear it. It's it
Speaker 2: is hard. So that's why Matt became comfortable with I'm
Speaker 2: going to ruffle feathers.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: But the testimonies that come in are are just amazing,
Speaker 2: and so you have to look at that fruit as well.
Speaker 1: So let's go to your backstory. Well, he said at
Speaker 1: the beginning, it was something effective being bold, like America.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a truth in boldness, but as America broken.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: You and I were speaking event a few weeks ago,
Speaker 1: and you texted me on my way out as I'm
Speaker 1: driving home, like right, and I got in my card,
Speaker 1: hit traffic for like two hours, perfect time, and it
Speaker 1: was a message that you shared and Shane, I was
Speaker 1: in tears as I was driving down I don't know
Speaker 1: if it was the five or whatever freeway it was,
Speaker 1: and just thinking, oh my goodness, here's somebody from the
Speaker 1: outside is like a bold truth speaker. We've done a
Speaker 1: few events together, that's my sense. But whoa like this
Speaker 1: story and what just struck me as like a humility
Speaker 1: and a willingness to speak about your brokenness, talk about
Speaker 1: that season and what happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was that was at a pastor's conference in Ohio,
Speaker 2: Salem web networkers, and I was a keynote speaker, and
Speaker 2: you know, before before God uses the man greatly, he
Speaker 2: often hurts him deeply. Aw Towser would say. So it's
Speaker 2: been a process of I don't know how much open
Speaker 2: up with, but in my twenties walking away from God.
Speaker 2: You know, it costs a lot and a lot of pain.
Speaker 2: And then finally when the prodigal son came home and
Speaker 2: just the tears and the fullness of the spirit, you know,
Speaker 2: it was it was incredible. And then when the work
Speaker 2: comes alive, you know, the Bible talks about knowledge puffs up,
Speaker 2: so you know, five years into it, I'm quote Spurgeon
Speaker 2: and the Puritans and Tulip and and all these things,
Speaker 2: and I'm just, you know, I'm just grudom Systemacteology I
Speaker 2: devoured in June July August one summer and Hodge's System
Speaker 2: Acteology and lectures to my students Spurgeon and Lloyd Joan.
Speaker 2: Just like, man, I'm just man, I'm just telling people off,
Speaker 2: and I'm just putting my people, you know, just like
Speaker 2: kind of like here's what you gotta do. And my
Speaker 2: mom finally came to me. She says, hey, nobody wants
Speaker 2: to be around you. By the way, by then I
Speaker 2: am twenty nine.
Speaker 1: Twenty nine, thirty fired up theologically truth teller.
Speaker 2: Oh no, but then five years later, so thirty thirty four,
Speaker 2: thirty five.
Speaker 1: So you're thirty four. It was your mom, of all
Speaker 1: people that came to you, Okay, paint that picture what happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and she said, uh, Shane, nobody wants to be
Speaker 2: around you anymore. And I said, well, they're just convicted, right,
Speaker 2: because you know, alcoholism or this, and they're just convicted.
Speaker 2: They don't like what I have to say. It's like, no,
Speaker 2: it's not what you say, it's it's how you say it.
Speaker 2: You're And so that that Phariseeism had to be broken
Speaker 2: out of me. And it's a process and many many,
Speaker 2: I'm sure listening to this will will need to spend
Speaker 2: some time with the Lord to get broken before him
Speaker 2: because they're bold, but they're arrogant, and that's you know,
Speaker 2: that's that's you gotta have boldness, but you've got to
Speaker 2: like Whitfield wouldn't preach without about hell without tears in
Speaker 2: his eyes, you know, and having So that that's what
Speaker 2: happened at that Ohio event. It was just just that
Speaker 2: breaking process. And there are other times I shared with you.
Speaker 2: I am twenty seventeen. Maybe I had a young girl
Speaker 2: come in sixteen seventeen. She said, you just made me
Speaker 2: feel so bad. Today I'm struggling the same sex attraction.
Speaker 2: And I preach, because I preach, here's the difficult of
Speaker 2: the person, right, and you want to help them and
Speaker 2: share God, but you the agendas killing me. Right. It's
Speaker 2: like the schools like how.
Speaker 1: Do you how do you balance that?
Speaker 2: How do you love the one? But call out the agenda?
Speaker 2: And so I cried with her and I learned a
Speaker 2: valuable lesson that day. I've had other you know, just
Speaker 2: that breaking process where because when you're strong and bold,
Speaker 2: you know, you'll steamroll people if you're not careful. And
Speaker 2: so it's just a series of God just continuing to
Speaker 2: break and break, and it's going to be a process
Speaker 2: till the day I die. But and so I think,
Speaker 2: and actually the more I broke, the more He used me,
Speaker 2: you know, So so opportunities would open, God would would
Speaker 2: open more doors, and it was just it was it
Speaker 2: was incredible. So that's kind of my framework of where
Speaker 2: I come from.
Speaker 1: So I want to pro I want to probe it
Speaker 1: out a little bit, and I don't want to frame
Speaker 1: from people like boldness can turn into arrogance very easily.
Speaker 1: Meekness can turn into cowardice. Yeah, So the key is
Speaker 1: how we balance the two of these without and maybe again,
Speaker 1: I think because of our wiring or our experience, some
Speaker 1: of us are naturally grace givers. Some of us are
Speaker 1: naturally truthtelligent. I think some of that is just wired
Speaker 1: into our DNA. Yeah, it's not going to change, but
Speaker 1: take us like, paint that picture a little bit more.
Speaker 1: Your mom comes to you, you're about thirty four, how
Speaker 1: you responded, and then kind of the steps of working
Speaker 1: through that brokenness, because there's probably a lot of people
Speaker 1: watching this that I do want to be challenged a
Speaker 1: little bit to maybe think, you know what, I need
Speaker 1: to do some of this similar work in my own
Speaker 1: life and for the record, not just for them, for
Speaker 1: me too, write I need to keep working do this well.
Speaker 2: I think I shared this in one of my books
Speaker 2: and articles and different things. Another point after this time,
Speaker 2: I think my wife down purpose but I don't think
Speaker 2: we even had kids yet, just married. She left her
Speaker 2: journal open, you know, and it said, I married a
Speaker 2: man who is you know, heart domineering or controlling in this.
Speaker 2: You know, I can't do much about it. I wouldn't
Speaker 2: want to have, you know, affect the kids. I'm like, what,
Speaker 2: I took it a drive. I was so angry and upset,
Speaker 2: but what I was doing. I was like, no, you
Speaker 2: can't start a makeup business, or you can't do this.
Speaker 2: We're saving money, We're saving So it wasn't controlling it
Speaker 2: psych a It was just like, no, we're not going
Speaker 2: to spend money doing that. We're not, you know, just
Speaker 2: kind of not respecting the wife's thoughts that you show
Speaker 2: become one. And so we talked it through and that
Speaker 2: really got me to another spot of brokenness as well.
Speaker 2: And then I mentioned actually this Sunday that we we
Speaker 2: our church began to visit hospital homes. Do you know
Speaker 2: what those are? Their hospitals inside neighborhoods where people will
Speaker 2: investors will buy a house and then they'll turn it
Speaker 2: into four bedroom you know, and they get they get
Speaker 2: income and they put patients there with nurses. So our
Speaker 2: church was given like five of these to go and
Speaker 2: minister too. And the stuff I saw there, I would
Speaker 2: leave just crying, you know, I remember one suicide fell,
Speaker 2: suicide attempt, half of her skulls missing. She's blind and
Speaker 2: she's depressed and suicidal. I'm there to minister to her.
Speaker 2: She can't see, but I'm crying my tears on the
Speaker 2: floor and I'm praying for her about when she was
Speaker 2: abused as a four year old. And just and I
Speaker 2: go to another guy's a paraplegic, and these things that
Speaker 2: are just breaking and breaking. But God, that's how he
Speaker 2: keeps your heart tender and pliable because you can have
Speaker 2: you can be straight as a gun barrel theologically, but
Speaker 2: just as empty, you know, dead inside. Uh, just arrogant
Speaker 2: and we see that that Bible thumping in your face,
Speaker 2: you know, certain and just that they're just you can
Speaker 2: tell those people there's just too much arrogance. They don't
Speaker 2: there's not enough. And again that's that's something I'm working
Speaker 2: on till the day I die. So don't look at
Speaker 2: me and go, oh, that's of course, that's a great example.
Speaker 2: Now I struggle with it often, you know, but so yeah,
Speaker 2: my mom's thing, my wife's journal, just other things that
Speaker 2: just God keeps breaking and breaking and uh, and it
Speaker 2: just gets to a point where and now worship, you know,
Speaker 2: during worship, you know, just praying, preparing for that message
Speaker 2: you you heard. Actually what broke me there is before
Speaker 2: they told this lady she became a Christian because of
Speaker 2: the Samaritans purse those shoe boxes. Oh yeah, And so
Speaker 2: she's talking about how they were delivered to her and
Speaker 2: I ran or Iraq or something like that and became believers.
Speaker 2: Her father was actually threatened for his, like her life,
Speaker 2: like we're going to kill you and your family, and
Speaker 2: like just she only had like okay, you got five minutes,
Speaker 2: you got six minutes, right, And and I'm naxt I'm
Speaker 2: thinking that's that's the keynote speaker. She needed to be
Speaker 2: the keynote speaker. God help. And I just went up
Speaker 2: there already already kind of just in tears because like
Speaker 2: we can't rush her through this, like this is, this
Speaker 2: is so important. This is and Pastor Shane our guest speaker,
Speaker 2: and like like those things just break you and you
Speaker 2: have to be you have to not think so highly
Speaker 2: of yourself and you have to be broken before God
Speaker 2: and through that brokenness, you know, the more when the
Speaker 2: more we the more we do that, the lower we
Speaker 2: go the more he'll elevate too. And of course we
Speaker 2: get into my background dyslexia, graduate high school at the
Speaker 2: one point eight, re reading and learn new disabilities. Came
Speaker 2: from a hard working construction family, was destined to be nothing, really,
Speaker 2: and then once I committed to myself to the Lord
Speaker 2: and that everything just shifted. You know.
Speaker 1: I went to school here in ninety four to ninety
Speaker 1: eight at Biola and had a number of different friends,
Speaker 1: but one friend in particular who was in some ways
Speaker 1: my perception the way you're describing yourself when you were younger.
Speaker 1: He was a truth teller. He would go out and
Speaker 1: do evangelism all the time, stood up in chapel a
Speaker 1: few times and called out a speaker and left. And
Speaker 1: let's just say we ended on not great terms. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe I shouldn't say this, but he's He's the only
Speaker 1: person I was inches away from just punching and trying
Speaker 1: to knock him out. I was so upset. I'm not
Speaker 1: proud of that. And we, you know, we were in
Speaker 1: touch a little bit all the time, but mostly lost touch.
Speaker 1: He left, went to another university, and it was shortly
Speaker 1: after the death of Charlie Kirr that he sent me
Speaker 1: an email and he apologized for the way that he
Speaker 1: acted here. And I'm not going to pretend that I
Speaker 1: did everything right. That's not the point here, but I
Speaker 1: got that and I was like, first off, I didn't
Speaker 1: expect that. Second, it was so moving that somebody three
Speaker 1: decades later is like, you know what, God convicted my
Speaker 1: heart and I just see a difference in his character
Speaker 1: and he's coming out here soon. I'm heading to where
Speaker 1: he lives and we're gonna like hang out, and it's
Speaker 1: like literally just like I'm really looking forward to seeing
Speaker 1: him because of this, and just an example of somebody
Speaker 1: that in some ways it seems to kind of mirror
Speaker 1: your story a little bit. What would you say to
Speaker 1: that person? Because you and I have talked about individuals.
Speaker 1: We don't need to name names at all, but when
Speaker 1: you see people maybe on social media, YouTube, pastors, conferences,
Speaker 1: in conversation wherever, and you kind of see yourself in
Speaker 1: somebody who's younger and going, you know what, I think
Speaker 1: you need to be humbled. You know, you can fill
Speaker 1: in the blank. What would you say to yourself twenty
Speaker 1: years ago?
Speaker 2: First, my mind is going to I wonder why he
Speaker 2: called him out, like is it something to call the personality?
Speaker 2: You know what?
Speaker 1: I will actually tell you he was right about it.
Speaker 2: He was right.
Speaker 1: Well, so that's a fair question. He stood up called
Speaker 1: a guy a heretic, and this guy's completely left his
Speaker 1: faith and has become a humanist. So he saw stuff
Speaker 1: that I didn't see. So there was you know, he
Speaker 1: was right about certain things. The timing I don't know
Speaker 1: the answer to that. But to answer your question, I
Speaker 1: was like, well, he was right on that one.
Speaker 2: That sounds like I mean I would I've thought about
Speaker 2: that before. You know, when do you call people out?
Speaker 2: And when do you not? You know, when you say
Speaker 2: But what was the question? I forgot again?
Speaker 1: So the question was what you would say to your
Speaker 1: younger self? Oh my god, by the way, before you
Speaker 1: answer that, I think the line this person said was
Speaker 1: something effective. You think you'll be saved without shedding some
Speaker 1: of your own blood?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah?
Speaker 1: And he just called it out. And in my mind
Speaker 1: I'm still at that now, I like, see it crystal clear,
Speaker 1: but that day, what does he mean? And trying to
Speaker 1: figure it out. He just called it out, and I
Speaker 1: think he was right that he's preaching a false gospel.
Speaker 1: But my question for you is what would you say
Speaker 1: to yourself, my younger or somebody twenty years ago.
Speaker 2: Boy, you know what, I actually write about it and
Speaker 2: preach it in sermons. So that's how I try to
Speaker 2: get it out out of out there. And I do
Speaker 2: come to younger pastors and leaders. The problem with pride
Speaker 2: is you don't see it. And you can tell people
Speaker 2: certain things hopefully it'll stick, but really life has got
Speaker 2: to break them. God's got to break them. So you
Speaker 2: can say and they're like, oh yeah, I God, I'll
Speaker 2: be different. You know I'm not. That's what can happen
Speaker 2: to me. I don't remember if you remember Steve Farrar's
Speaker 2: book Finishing Strong.
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 2: I'll never forget. He interviewed or somebody did two hundred
Speaker 2: and eighty of the top Christian men who fell in ministry,
Speaker 2: and at the top of the list was that will
Speaker 2: never happen to me. That will never happen to me.
Speaker 2: And see they don't want to and other people I
Speaker 2: don't want to, you know. But back in the eighty
Speaker 2: some of these big ministries that fell, like David Wilkerson
Speaker 2: went to some of these people or other people, and
Speaker 2: they don't want to hear it. They don't want to,
Speaker 2: so I would. I would probably pray for the person
Speaker 2: for God to wake them up, and I would share, Hey,
Speaker 2: you know, we're sensing some and usually that want to
Speaker 2: be challenged, so they'll push back. Oh no, I'm just
Speaker 2: I'm just convicting. You know, that's a guy. That's a
Speaker 2: message God gave me. And I'm just I'm just a
Speaker 2: straight shooter. I've heard that before. I'm just a straight shooter.
Speaker 2: You know. No, you're arrogant. You're arrogant because you can tell.
Speaker 2: You can tell when somebody's just feisty. And but then
Speaker 2: you have that that bold prophetic voice too that we
Speaker 2: see sometimes on Instagram. There's that he's actually exploding right
Speaker 2: now that the guy in Georgia, black guy incredible. You know,
Speaker 2: I sense truth and love and other people, but you
Speaker 2: can sense that just that arrogance, wanting likes, wanting more followers,
Speaker 2: wanting more views. And so I would try to say
Speaker 2: something to my younger self, but my younger self wouldn't.
Speaker 1: You're not even sure the person would would hear it.
Speaker 1: That's totally that's a fair point. Yeah, yeah, I've had
Speaker 1: conversations with people have gone both ways. I've seen people
Speaker 1: on it, and I've said, really kindly in relationship, I
Speaker 1: think you're head in the direction it's going to be destructive.
Speaker 1: And just know when you get there, I love you
Speaker 1: and I'm here for you.
Speaker 2: Amen.
Speaker 1: That's a good And I've said to people like this,
Speaker 1: you're arrogant and you need to change and you need
Speaker 1: to repent, and neither worked in the moment now that
Speaker 1: I figure about it, Yeah, And I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe it's just a matter of, like you said, following
Speaker 1: your conviction before the Lord, hope your full spirit pray
Speaker 1: for that person.
Speaker 2: And and I should add it's not like I wouldn't
Speaker 2: say anything. Sure, I'm just not confident it's going to fair.
Speaker 2: That's fair, and believe it. I mean there's times I
Speaker 2: can't tell you how many times I'll get an email
Speaker 2: a year or two later and say, Hey, just want
Speaker 2: to let you know you're right, thank you for challenging me.
Speaker 2: I really thought about it. Most people aren't going to
Speaker 2: respond well initially because it takes humility to respond well.
Speaker 2: And if they're prideful, they're not going to respond well.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of like, you know, they're like I
Speaker 2: can say Oh yeah, thanks for pointing that out. I
Speaker 2: need to work on that because we all need to
Speaker 2: work on something, you know. I mean, if people like
Speaker 2: we see in the media, social media, that all these
Speaker 2: people are accusing people that they should say, you know,
Speaker 2: I do need to work on some of that. Thank
Speaker 2: you for bringing it up and move forward. But there's
Speaker 2: pride won't let you do that. It's guarding. It's self preservation.
Speaker 2: That's what pride is. That's what legalism is. It's self
Speaker 2: preservation rules versus wisdom of following God's rules. Right, you
Speaker 2: want to you want to follow God's rules. You want
Speaker 2: to you want to build that relationship. And I don't
Speaker 2: consider them rules or guardrails through the canyons of life.
Speaker 1: Really, how much do you think about long term with people?
Speaker 1: Because I think about my students. And I had a
Speaker 1: student who really was in my class and became an atheist,
Speaker 1: and we had coffee a couple of times. It was
Speaker 1: really good and it was just clear to me he
Speaker 1: has made up his mind, not open. And I just
Speaker 1: graciously at the end, I said, you know, you went
Speaker 1: down this road without me being a part of the
Speaker 1: conver station, became an atheist. Did it alone? If you
Speaker 1: ever just open the door up and are considering God again,
Speaker 1: will you shake my hand, look me in the eyes,
Speaker 1: and promise me that you'll at least invite me into
Speaker 1: the conversation. Shook my hand and said, yes, I haven't
Speaker 1: heard from him yet. You know, he's twenty some years
Speaker 1: behind me. But I think about playing the long term
Speaker 1: with people. But then the voice in the back of
Speaker 1: my mind sometimes is like, but you know what, they
Speaker 1: could get hit by a car tonight. And maybe that's
Speaker 1: the evangelist in me true that I go back to,
Speaker 1: and I don't know how to. I just don't always
Speaker 1: know how to balance that. And maybe it is like
Speaker 1: you said, we're back to just like before the Lord,
Speaker 1: just speak truth with a heart of that person as
Speaker 1: best as I can. And maybe I didn't do it perfectly,
Speaker 1: but that's where grace comes in, and I can just
Speaker 1: trust God's sobeimntying that person's life.
Speaker 2: I mean, well, you know what, you just made me
Speaker 2: think of something I've I've not a good example of
Speaker 2: this in the past, because you know what, you say
Speaker 2: something lovingly confront you want to you want to follow
Speaker 2: up a couple of weeks later, a month later and
Speaker 2: you keep pressing where you should just left it, and
Speaker 2: I actually push people farther away, you know, like what
Speaker 2: you had me thinking, but now you're upsetting me and like, oh,
Speaker 2: I like with kids that are rebellion, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: your kids know where you stand. You just love them.
Speaker 2: You don't you don't allow certain things under your roof,
Speaker 2: but they you know, they need that grace. And I
Speaker 2: think I've seen so many kids walk away, yes from
Speaker 2: Luke war mccarnal Holmes, but also from the modern day
Speaker 2: Pharisee homes where their dad rules at home like a
Speaker 2: rod of iron and it's rules and they don't see
Speaker 2: the brokenness and gentleness and love and grace of Christ.
Speaker 2: And you that's actually I think it was. I think
Speaker 2: it was your dad again. Oh my goodness, he said, uh,
Speaker 2: he said. One of the most common questions he gets,
Speaker 2: this is like thirty years ago, from young adults that
Speaker 2: he travels the country. This is one of the number
Speaker 2: one questions he gets from young adults is how can
Speaker 2: I live for Christ when I don't want the Christ
Speaker 2: my parents have? Wow, I remember reading that. I highlight
Speaker 2: it and I just how can I live? And their
Speaker 2: number one question all the young adults. Is how can
Speaker 2: I live for Christ when I don't want the Christ
Speaker 2: my parents out? I mean that if that doesn't bring
Speaker 2: you to tears, you know that that broke. And that's
Speaker 2: how I believe our kids are, at least our kids
Speaker 2: so far doing well because we show them that brokeness
Speaker 2: and that humility. I could have handled that better, but
Speaker 2: we stand strong on certain things. But they see that grace,
Speaker 2: They see that that's powerful because when it breaks you,
Speaker 2: it breaks them. But that arrogance, they'll push back on
Speaker 2: that legalism.
Speaker 1: So you're pastor and you're dealing with a lot of
Speaker 1: families and individuals, And you've talked about families who leave
Speaker 1: a lukewarm home, families who leave a legalistic home. My experience,
Speaker 1: haven't done some writing and thinking a lot of conversations
Speaker 1: on deconstruction and deconversion. Yeah, it's far more those who
Speaker 1: have come from the legalistic home and are reacting against it. Now,
Speaker 1: it might be that those who leave lukewarm home just
Speaker 1: end up they're not upset about it, and then I'll
Speaker 1: talk about it. So I don't have a number on
Speaker 1: which one is more significant statistically, but those are the
Speaker 1: stories that I hear more do you hear those kinds
Speaker 1: of stories far more? And how would you counsel a
Speaker 1: parent when you know that this element is present and
Speaker 1: their kids are questioning these kinds of you know, they're
Speaker 1: questioning their faith, they're concerned about them. But you see
Speaker 1: that legalism present in the family. So I guess it's
Speaker 1: a two part question. Do you see more reacting in
Speaker 1: the way that I describe from that fundamentalist, legalistic, harsh family,
Speaker 1: and how do you navigate that when it comes to you?
Speaker 2: Well, here's a good test for your listeners. The legalist
Speaker 2: is not going to like what you just said. And
Speaker 2: if you don't like what I said, it's because you
Speaker 2: need to hear what I said basically. But let me qualify.
Speaker 2: Neither home is good, okay, neither home rightly, lukewarm, carnal,
Speaker 2: any type of lukewarm would be Yeah, Concerts that maybe
Speaker 2: aren't God honoring, movies that aren't God honoring Netflix, Okay.
Speaker 1: So is it fair to say these other priority these
Speaker 1: things matter at the spense of church and living out
Speaker 1: your faith as opposed to like, you can be a
Speaker 1: vibrant Christian but engage certain things and culture wisely?
Speaker 2: Is that for Surekaya? Leave that, you leave that up
Speaker 2: to the individual.
Speaker 1: So your point was when I cut you off, is
Speaker 1: that that lukewarm family is not good. Neither is the
Speaker 1: legalistic family is not good.
Speaker 2: Right, I'm not I'm not promoting. Just because we're harping
Speaker 2: on the legalistic one doesn't mean the lukewarm carnal whatever
Speaker 2: you want to call that. Yeah, but here's what happens
Speaker 2: in the lukewarm carnal type homes where they're not on
Speaker 2: fire for the lord. It's pretty clear that they're not
Speaker 2: on fire for the lord. So the kids are not man,
Speaker 2: my mom, dad, aren't living it. They know they're not
Speaker 2: living it. You know, you're not really sending a mixed
Speaker 2: signal other unless you're trying to live it out and
Speaker 2: you're being false and fake and a hypocrite. You know,
Speaker 2: that's what hypocrite was, right. They show up the mask
Speaker 2: and thing on Sunday, somebody else on Monday. But kids
Speaker 2: with carnality and lukewarmness, it's dangerous, but you know, they
Speaker 2: see it and they see in themselves and their parents.
Speaker 2: But with legalism and what we call you know, I
Speaker 2: don't know what term you used. Fundamentalist, Yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: that's that term comes from nineteen oh four nineteen oh
Speaker 2: five when our A Torri wrote his Fundamentals of the Faith.
Speaker 2: So it's it's okay term, but what we.
Speaker 1: Taught here by the way, they have a Tory conference. Yeah,
Speaker 1: use a violin.
Speaker 2: That's that's pretty cool. So so that word isn't neutral.
Speaker 2: The problem is when it's and I've just seen it.
Speaker 2: I mean, the kids just not only do they totally rebellious,
Speaker 2: they're just hurt, and they're the deconstructionism for people. I'm
Speaker 2: sure people know who follow your channel, but it's deconstructing
Speaker 2: their faith, right, working it back the opposite way. Well,
Speaker 2: maybe if this and the worst thing you can do
Speaker 2: is show God's truth without his love principles to follow
Speaker 2: without the grace that you need to get back up
Speaker 2: and keep fighting. So that's what it does. It Actually
Speaker 2: I legalistic. A home sets a standard that nobody can hit.
Speaker 2: But you're acting like you're hitting it because you're the
Speaker 2: you know, not in mind, we don't go to the movies,
Speaker 2: you know, we don't do this. We have a certain
Speaker 2: translation of the Bible we use and and women have
Speaker 2: to wear dresses and head coverings. Now get into the whole,
Speaker 2: which which is fine if you want, but it's the
Speaker 2: attitude behind it. See, it's not necessarily the rules, it's
Speaker 2: the attitude behind it. And the kids. It pushes them
Speaker 2: away because I need grace. I can't measure up all
Speaker 2: these rules and and locked up in your room for
Speaker 2: half a day and this, and you just there's no
Speaker 2: there's no breathing room to grow in your faith, because
Speaker 2: faith is following God's law, following is his commandments, but
Speaker 2: also having the grace and the mercy to get back
Speaker 2: up and to keep fighting and to have people in
Speaker 2: your corner. Hey, you can keep doing this. This is
Speaker 2: not allowed. You cannot come home at midnight again. But
Speaker 2: you know, and you and you you know you have
Speaker 2: the grace with the truth, and so that's legalistic. Homes
Speaker 2: just don't provide the incubator of genuine faith because they
Speaker 2: constantly feel they will never measure up, they're never good enough.
Speaker 2: They can never please mom, never please dad, and they
Speaker 2: just live like that and it's kind of sad.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to ask you a somewhat difficult question.
Speaker 1: Maybe it won't be hard for you, but I know
Speaker 1: you can take it. This is probably fifteen years ago.
Speaker 1: And it's not like a theological question or apologetic question.
Speaker 1: It's a scenario because I get emails daily from people
Speaker 1: like parents and families. How do I navigate this with
Speaker 1: my kid? How do I navigate this in the church?
Speaker 1: And it's always like I want them to have truth,
Speaker 1: but I value the relationship. Where do I draw the line?
Speaker 1: And so I'm just curious how you play this one
Speaker 1: out again. Probably fifteen maybe twenty years ago, when there
Speaker 1: was so much conversation about same sex marriage, a pastor
Speaker 1: shared with me that at his church they were having
Speaker 1: trying to remember some of the details, They're having kind
Speaker 1: of a marriage day or kind of retreat celebration, and
Speaker 1: they had couple stand who had been married the longest,
Speaker 1: and the last couple standing was a same sex couple now,
Speaker 1: and they were going to get some kind of award
Speaker 1: from the church and recognition for this in front of
Speaker 1: the church. Now they obviously they hadn't been legally married,
Speaker 1: because this just goes back to twenty fifteen. But that's
Speaker 1: the kind of situation I sit there. I'm like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: if I'm sitting in that situation, I want to speak truth,
Speaker 1: but I also don't want to shame this couple in
Speaker 1: a way that's unnecessary to me in my mind. That
Speaker 1: is almost so often like highlighted this tension between how
Speaker 1: do you just show grace and kindness to people and
Speaker 1: how do you balance truth? What goes through your mind
Speaker 1: as a pastor if you're sitting there and this unexpected
Speaker 1: couple stands when you're trying to celebrate God's sign for marriage,
Speaker 1: and if you're like, I need to think about this
Speaker 1: because I've been thinking about it for like fifteen years,
Speaker 1: I'm totally fine with that.
Speaker 2: Well, no, I mean it's I think I answered pretty
Speaker 2: pretty quickly because what I do is anytime we measure
Speaker 2: grace or truth, right, I look at what is the
Speaker 2: greater harm. So my silence is going to be more
Speaker 2: harm to my congregation. So yes, I might have fend.
Speaker 2: So I probably say, hey, guys, let's talk about this
Speaker 2: one after church, you know. But also I don't know
Speaker 2: if they would be all are welcome right at church,
Speaker 2: but we don't affirm so because of my preaching and
Speaker 2: preaching them, they probably for openly same sex couple to
Speaker 2: be coming to church. Maybe they're new, brand new, I
Speaker 2: don't know, it could be. But if they're probably not
Speaker 2: going to come and stay in sin, if that makes sense,
Speaker 2: because it's just the convicting of the message, not targeting them,
Speaker 2: but just the conviction of God's word. So for me me,
Speaker 2: I would because of the congregation, my role as a leader,
Speaker 2: my kids might be there, my wife. I probably say, okay, guys,
Speaker 2: and let's talk about that later. I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 2: do a sermon at some point on God's design for marriage.
Speaker 2: But I'm looking for those who've been married according to
Speaker 2: God's design. So yes, it might shame them, but they
Speaker 2: actually created this environment. I didn't create it. I'm responding
Speaker 2: to it. So to me, that silence would have spoke
Speaker 2: volumes and it would have actually done more damage to
Speaker 2: my testimony and to the members of my church. I
Speaker 2: love that.
Speaker 1: I think that's really whise. And you email me something
Speaker 1: about how sometimes silence can actually cause harm and this
Speaker 1: is example of doing so. So it sounds smack when
Speaker 1: it came to the pronoun issue earlier. If somebody is
Speaker 1: that call me, he him, you don't feel the need
Speaker 1: to go out of your way and correct that person immediately.
Speaker 1: But I'm not going to go along with this right
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna look for the more opportune time to
Speaker 1: address that wisely. In this circumstance, I'm goten away to
Speaker 1: shame this couple, but this is public. I've already preached
Speaker 1: on where our church stands. I'm gonna shift to the
Speaker 1: right one, move on, and then fall up with that
Speaker 1: couple as lovingly and graciously as I can.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So for me, I weigh what is the what's
Speaker 2: the greater damage? That's smart, you know, And then you know,
Speaker 2: now it depends on the person. Though. If I'm at
Speaker 2: Starbucks and I've got my my sixteen year old and
Speaker 2: my eighteen year old, and I've got somebody saying, like,
Speaker 2: you know to my daughter, no, I'm hear him, and
Speaker 2: i say, hey, hey, we're not lying here. You're not
Speaker 2: hear him. It's a linguistically pronoun like, I don't understand
Speaker 2: this whole thing because it's to me, it's lying. It's
Speaker 2: not being honest. However, it depends on the situation. Most
Speaker 2: of the time it's just like, okay, thanks Chris, nice
Speaker 2: to meet You're But if it's going to be a
Speaker 2: constant thing, and depending what the environment is where it's at,
Speaker 2: I mean, if it's at church. I'm in the prayer room.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a very different, you.
Speaker 2: Know, And I say, hey, what's your name, Chris? Can
Speaker 2: I pray with you? No it's not, it's he him
Speaker 2: And I say, oh no, no, I love you, but can't.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about he him word. And I use that
Speaker 2: as opportunity. But I'm not gonna call them. I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna honor what I think is dishonoring to God. You know.
Speaker 2: Again with the wighing, the silence speaks volumes, and that's
Speaker 2: what I think. Many what I consider I don't know
Speaker 2: if you want to use the term. It's been used
Speaker 2: the wrong way sometimes woke or liberal or progressive. And
Speaker 2: I have friends and that consider, you know, they're more
Speaker 2: kind of that leaning. But there it's almost an arrogance
Speaker 2: in their silence. And I talked to him, why don't
Speaker 2: you ever I don't mention sin much because that's God's
Speaker 2: job to convict. I'm like, no, it's really yours from
Speaker 2: the pulpit too. You're a watchman, you're a preacher of
Speaker 2: God's truth. It's not He's gonna have you as well
Speaker 2: convict them. And so there's this thought that it's not
Speaker 2: my job to convict, it's my job to love. Know,
Speaker 2: it's actually your job to do both. That's why Paul
Speaker 2: said be ready in and out season. The time will
Speaker 2: come when they're not going to put up with sound doctrine,
Speaker 2: you know, exhort, encourage, long suffering, genterally. I mean, so
Speaker 2: we have we have the scriptural man to preach all
Speaker 2: of God's and I think the most powerful preaching of
Speaker 2: God's word comes from the truth being preached in love.
Speaker 2: If you if you go, if you go any side,
Speaker 2: if you're just, if you're all truth, and I'm meant,
Speaker 2: if you're if you're a, if you're gay in here,
Speaker 2: if you're you know you're and you're just beating the
Speaker 2: pulpit and you're just putting down people, it's not gonna
Speaker 2: it's just you just hurt a lot of people. But
Speaker 2: if you're like, you know what, I'm not gonna not
Speaker 2: gonna go there. I'm not gonna I mean, just look
Speaker 2: at all the political hot buttons or whatever you want
Speaker 2: to call them. They're they're biblical, they're biblical hot buttons.
Speaker 2: And so if I just going to remain silent, it's
Speaker 2: really it's really because I've struggled with this. It's cowardliness,
Speaker 2: isn't it. I don't want to deal with this. I
Speaker 2: don't want upset anybody. It's cowardliness. And that's why I
Speaker 2: said earlier. The more time I spend with God the Boulder,
Speaker 2: I become okay.
Speaker 1: So hold that I want to. I'll explore that. But
Speaker 1: your point about the sphere, I think is really really
Speaker 1: wise and helpful. I want to make sure we don't
Speaker 1: miss this. I was just I teach a class here
Speaker 1: at at BIOL called Gospel Kingdom Cold, and it's apologetics, evangelism,
Speaker 1: spiritual conversations, and the thorniest cultural issues people can talk about.
Speaker 1: So we talk about race, we talk about transgender we
Speaker 1: talk about poverty, we talk about artificial intelligence. And the
Speaker 1: board down like directed it for Thattius Williams and I
Speaker 1: to write this course. And we were just talking about
Speaker 1: pronouns this week, and I said, before we just answer this,
Speaker 1: maybe there's a differen between a Christian and a non Christian,
Speaker 1: an adult and a child. There's so many different settings
Speaker 1: that are taking place here. And you're right, like in
Speaker 1: Starbucks when somebody's dropping off your coffee really fast, and
Speaker 1: it's like abrupt versus somebody who's in the church asking
Speaker 1: for prayer. Yeah, even that nuance is makes a big
Speaker 1: difference when and how we speak truth. So I just
Speaker 1: want I want to make sure because I want to
Speaker 1: ruminate on that even more myself. I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot of wisdom in that. Let's go back to scripture.
Speaker 2: Well, the wisdom came from a lot of failure too,
Speaker 2: so that's where.
Speaker 1: Well, most wisdom does, doesn't it. I think most wisdom does.
Speaker 1: I think. I think that's right. And the wise people
Speaker 1: learn from other people's failures. Yes, that's true, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about scripture making us more bold. Now
Speaker 1: I have my thoughts about this, but I want to
Speaker 1: hear from you first what you mean by that and
Speaker 1: how that works.
Speaker 2: The boulder I become. Yeah, well, because I think by nature,
Speaker 2: and what I mean by nature is you know, if
Speaker 2: you jump in a river, you're just going to go
Speaker 2: to the flow, You're not gonna so by nature, most
Speaker 2: people are not confrontational, right, I just don't want to
Speaker 2: give a good sermon. I want people to like me.
Speaker 2: I want them to come back next Sunday, you know,
Speaker 2: And sadly, a lot of a lot of pastors. I've
Speaker 2: got pastor friends that are subject to deacon boards, and
Speaker 2: if they start really speaking the truth, they're going to
Speaker 2: lose some of their audience and the financial budgets. And
Speaker 2: so what I mean by that is the those things
Speaker 2: are just put aside. Like the more time I spend
Speaker 2: in God's word, the bolder I become for cultural issues.
Speaker 1: And pastors pulpit like I want to make sure we're
Speaker 1: connecting everybody, but keep going how it relates to you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so these things that are that are human nature,
Speaker 2: whatever you want to call them, wired by default to
Speaker 2: be quiet, cowardly, timid. You know, that's kind of our
Speaker 2: Most people want to be liked by people, right, Jesus said,
Speaker 2: we'll be to you when all men speak well of you,
Speaker 2: or if you're trying to please men, you won't be
Speaker 2: a pleaser of God. And so when it comes to
Speaker 2: what we're talking about, speaking the truth and loved cultural issues,
Speaker 2: the more time I spend with God, the boulder I
Speaker 2: become on these issues that most of us are inclined
Speaker 2: to be silent about. That makes sense, it does, Yeah,
Speaker 2: So I think it is two reasons for me.
Speaker 1: The more I study scripture. The more I'm confident about
Speaker 1: what scripture says, and so I have a certain confidence
Speaker 1: of life. You know what, I can take criticism from
Speaker 1: people if I know that I'm standing on a position
Speaker 1: that is the most reasonable, likely biblical position. It just
Speaker 1: gives me confidence to say, fine, I've got the Lord
Speaker 1: at my back and I've thought about this. So personally,
Speaker 1: I find that that happens a lot the more I
Speaker 1: study an issue and have conviction about it and get
Speaker 1: into the scriptures. But the second is I just see
Speaker 1: over and over again in the scriptures how much it
Speaker 1: says to be bold. So I've been studying Deuteronomy over
Speaker 1: and over again in the morning, and it's like a
Speaker 1: drum beat in that book. Now, of course, this is
Speaker 1: Moses's final speech before they enter the Promised Land, so
Speaker 1: he's got to tell them be bold, do not be afraid.
Speaker 1: I should do a quick search how many times, but
Speaker 1: it's probably dozens of times. So I read that, I'm like, wow,
Speaker 1: be bold, be bold, don't be afraid, speak truth. And
Speaker 1: so just being in scripture reminds me of that. The
Speaker 1: other thing that jumped out is I was before dude,
Speaker 1: I was studying Luke and when Luke, I'm sorry. When
Speaker 1: Jesus stands up in the gospel route Luke and reads
Speaker 1: from Isaiah sixty one, I believe it is, and he's like,
Speaker 1: these things have been fulfilled in your presence. It says
Speaker 1: twice about how everybody was praising him and everybody loved him,
Speaker 1: but by the end of that chapter they want to
Speaker 1: throw him off a cliff. At Nazareth, I'm like, wow,
Speaker 1: they shifted from loving him and caring for him to
Speaker 1: wanting to throw him off the cliff. I've signed up
Speaker 1: to follow this guy. What audience am I playing for?
Speaker 1: Am I playing for being pleased by men? If so,
Speaker 1: my life is like a roller coaster. I'm at the
Speaker 1: whims of what people think about me. But if I'm
Speaker 1: trying to please God and be on his side, it's
Speaker 1: actually freeing for me and gives me more boldness just
Speaker 1: by being in scripture in that fast That's more my
Speaker 1: experience with it.
Speaker 2: And and you'll read because people have a misconception of Jesus, right,
Speaker 2: turn the other cheek, this nice guy. But man, you
Speaker 2: brew to vipers. Can you imagine looking at religious leaders
Speaker 2: and saying you're you're you look great on the outside
Speaker 2: like whitewashed tunbs, but you're dead on the inside. Woe
Speaker 2: be to you. Well, did Isaiah speak of you? You
Speaker 2: draw nye to me with your lips, with your heart,
Speaker 2: and he just, I mean, he was bold when need
Speaker 2: to be bold. And that's the hard part. It's fine
Speaker 2: because also what happens is I call it reaction, and
Speaker 2: you know, somebody's doing something, I want to react, And
Speaker 2: that's arrogance, right because you're you're guarding or you're defending,
Speaker 2: and oh yeah, well let me tell you this, and
Speaker 2: you want to text back. And so it's that it's
Speaker 2: that time of not reacting but responding and waiting on God.
Speaker 2: And for most some people they know they just need
Speaker 2: to just put on the brakes. For other people, they
Speaker 2: need to step on the gas and start being a
Speaker 2: little bit more bold, you know. And that's one of
Speaker 2: the things we talked about earlier with the pulpits in America.
Speaker 2: You know how much that has shifted from from years ago.
Speaker 1: Now hold that we might come back to the pulpit,
Speaker 1: but so why wouldn't we be bold? In the opposite
Speaker 1: of boldness either could be cowardice or or fear right.
Speaker 2: You don't want to deal with it right now, I
Speaker 2: mean right like, I don't want to say anything. I
Speaker 2: don't want to deal with you know, let me just
Speaker 2: it's it's easy, easy to do for sure.
Speaker 1: I also think, like I asked myself, how much am
Speaker 1: I motivated by fear in my life? And it's so
Speaker 1: easy to succumb to that absolutely, which prevents somebody from
Speaker 1: being bold because it could be fear for a reputation,
Speaker 1: fear for a job, fear for whatever the kind of
Speaker 1: issue is. But the biblical solution to fear is in
Speaker 1: First John four eighteen. Perfect love cast out fear. And
Speaker 1: when I think about this, you know, one of the
Speaker 1: leading Just yesterday I was talking to students here by
Speaker 1: All about this one of the leading fears. It's like
Speaker 1: death and then it's like public speaking.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's true.
Speaker 1: It's like always top three or top five, And it's
Speaker 1: like why because so many people are looking at me
Speaker 1: and I don't want to be embarrassed or shamed in
Speaker 1: front of people. So that's where fear comes from. Fear
Speaker 1: is selfish, Love is self lists. Fear is self focused.
Speaker 1: Love is other focused. So in some ways, when I
Speaker 1: look at the church today, when we get overly defensive,
Speaker 1: and we're overly angry. I sometimes think we're acting out
Speaker 1: of fear, and some of those concerns are not illegitimate,
Speaker 1: whatever those concerns may be. But our reaction is looking
Speaker 1: at ourselves rather than asking what's the loving response to
Speaker 1: somebody else. So I've had different people call me out
Speaker 1: in different ways, and I always think, you know what
Speaker 1: you're thinking about yourself, rather than if I really want
Speaker 1: to persuade Sean to change or anybody change, this is
Speaker 1: it about me? How do I speak in a way
Speaker 1: that this is best received? And so like, like I
Speaker 1: was a calm major here, and communication very simply put,
Speaker 1: it would be like a sender and it would be
Speaker 1: a message, and it would be a receiver, right, and
Speaker 1: the message is the communication. Well, most people have their
Speaker 1: idea and the message they want to send. This is
Speaker 1: the truth I want to convey, but they're not thinking
Speaker 1: about the receiver and whether or not the receiver will
Speaker 1: at least hear them. And the question is what makes
Speaker 1: somebody more likely to hear them. Sometimes it's somebody getting
Speaker 1: in their face and yelling at them and correct like
Speaker 1: sometimes that's the time. But that seems to me to
Speaker 1: be more the exception of the time, and there's often
Speaker 1: more of a relationship behind that that makes it happened.
Speaker 1: I try to ask myself, if I have something I
Speaker 1: think is true and I want somebody to hear it,
Speaker 1: how do I speak it in love? Because A that's
Speaker 1: actually loving somebody, whether they respond or not, I'm called
Speaker 1: to love somebody. But b it sure seems walls come
Speaker 1: down and they're more likely to hear it if I
Speaker 1: speak the truth in love. So I just I'm going
Speaker 1: to look at the church, I look at pastors today,
Speaker 1: I look at myself and I ask myself how much
Speaker 1: am I speaking out of fear, which is selfish versus
Speaker 1: saying am I speaking out of love? And that's why
Speaker 1: I mean last point in this I'm rambling a little bit,
Speaker 1: but when people get nervous for speaking, part of my
Speaker 1: response is stop thinking about yourself. Just ask yourself, how
Speaker 1: can I love my.
Speaker 2: Audience about opinions?
Speaker 1: Because we're worried about opinions? And I go, well, how
Speaker 1: can I tell stories that help them? How can I
Speaker 1: make a PowerPoint that helps them? How can I actually
Speaker 1: help them? Then the focus shifts from me to others,
Speaker 1: and I think if we Christians would just stop focusing
Speaker 1: on ourselves and our fear inwardly and just say, how
Speaker 1: will people most likely hear the true man or Christ.
Speaker 1: I think we'd communicate very differently, and.
Speaker 2: This one might be helpful. That was a great point
Speaker 2: and it made me think of this for your listeners.
Speaker 2: You know, you'll have probably a pastor's listening, lay leaders,
Speaker 2: Christians of art. How I preach to a mass audience
Speaker 2: or whatever is a lot different than how I talk
Speaker 2: to an individual. Amen to that, so there's different dynamics people.
Speaker 2: I just need to be like, no, no, I'm don't
Speaker 2: be like I'm preaching, don't talk to an individual that way.
Speaker 2: When it's a mass, you have the advantage of not
Speaker 2: knowing what God's doing in their hearts, and people don't
Speaker 2: take it personally because there's a group of people. But
Speaker 2: when I'm talking to an individual, it's going to be
Speaker 2: obviously a little bit different. However, like you said earlier,
Speaker 2: there are times to really shoot people straight, when they're
Speaker 2: destroying their family, when they need to wake up. There's
Speaker 2: other times where you need to come up alongside and
Speaker 2: just listen to them speak the truth and love. But also,
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, I would say airing on the side
Speaker 2: of grace. But also when I was younger, I did.
Speaker 2: I really was into just I just love like football coaches,
Speaker 2: like good teams. You know, Cowboys, I think it's Tom Laundry,
Speaker 2: laundry writer, and and Green Bay was Vince Lombardi. And
Speaker 2: just studying all these guys, I think I did it.
Speaker 2: I don't know why I did actually, but I realize
Speaker 2: all these great coaches weren't too nice all the time,
Speaker 2: were they. I mean, most most good coaches basketball down
Speaker 2: here at USC or UCLA basketball coaches, even football, you know,
Speaker 2: they pull out of you. It's inside of you. So
Speaker 2: they're really they're not like, hey, no problem, They're like,
Speaker 2: get back up. You don't do that. And so there
Speaker 2: is a different dynamic that takes place there. So again,
Speaker 2: as a past or what type of past or the
Speaker 2: calling that maybe I have or others habits that that
Speaker 2: coach to really challenge them and to really have them
Speaker 2: dig deep. Also like like Navy Seal podcasts, watching those guys,
Speaker 2: it's not it's uh, it's just how I'm bent. And
Speaker 2: so my point was that there's not a one size
Speaker 2: fits all approach. It really depends on who the person is,
Speaker 2: your relationship with them. What is God wanting you to say?
Speaker 2: Going back to what I said earlier, the most important
Speaker 2: takeaway here, even to a cardinal home, a Lukewarmholm, a
Speaker 2: legalistic home, is to get time with the Lord. Spend
Speaker 2: time with him, open his word, praying, fasting, broken by him.
Speaker 2: Because because the problem we're the problem that many people
Speaker 2: are having because the fruit the spirit is not present,
Speaker 2: is because they're not filled with the spirit. So the
Speaker 2: more filled you are, the more fruit's going to come out.
Speaker 2: That's just that's a biblical truth, right, The love, the joy,
Speaker 2: the peace and contentment, but also the boldness that's all
Speaker 2: going to come out from the from the fullness of
Speaker 2: the spirit. And we're all leaky vessels, deal Mood said,
Speaker 2: So we have to stay underneath the fountain of living
Speaker 2: water every day. That's I hate to keep saying that,
Speaker 2: but that's where all of this. Or should I say
Speaker 2: this to this person? When should I talk to the truth,
Speaker 2: speak the truth and love? What should I confront that
Speaker 2: when you're when you're with the intimacy with the Lord
Speaker 2: in that relationship is going to going to navigate these
Speaker 2: waters much more effectively.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I'm kind of end with this point. I
Speaker 1: think this is really helpful that you've identified kind of
Speaker 1: your lane, and you're drawn towards coach football, you're drawn
Speaker 1: towards Navy seals, which just fits your personality, your competitive nature,
Speaker 1: your a personality, your drive. But you also recognize that
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people that go, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm I'm not the coach, I'm not the pastor coach.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm the pastor counselor exactly. Maybe I'm the pastor philosopher.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm the pastor business man. Your message, I guess
Speaker 1: two part question A. How do you balance out not
Speaker 1: just listening to the voices like I would imagine seal
Speaker 1: and football coaches would make you go, yeah, Shane, be tough, Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's speak truth. It's like, wait a minute, I'm filling
Speaker 1: myself with the voices I'm naturally inclined towards. I don't
Speaker 1: want to do that too much. And then what would
Speaker 1: you say to other pastors who are like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't want to listen to seals, I don't want to
Speaker 1: play football. That's not me. But I want to be
Speaker 1: a good pastor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that's it. Goes back to your DNA.
Speaker 2: You're wiring how God has called you, and I don't
Speaker 2: listen to those all the time. I balance it off.
Speaker 2: You do balance it out, Oh for sure, I like
Speaker 2: you know, I like the I don't know what a
Speaker 2: good example would be, but softer podcasts, right, just learning,
Speaker 2: growing in your faith and things like that, plus that
Speaker 2: time with the Lord. I've been getting up for twenty
Speaker 2: five years really early, you know, three to three thirty
Speaker 2: in the morning, and so I've got I've got three
Speaker 2: hours from here on out. Usually you know that I'll
Speaker 2: spend worship in the word prayer. It's dark out, nobody's up,
Speaker 2: and that's the time to really get refueled and reinspired
Speaker 2: and back into into into God's Word. And so also
Speaker 2: though I remember you said counseling, as some of my
Speaker 2: pastor friends like they love counseling and they don't like
Speaker 2: preaching or sermon prep. That's like, oh, that's the hardest
Speaker 2: thing for me. I love sermon prep and preaching. It's
Speaker 2: like that that's what fills me up. So you have
Speaker 2: to find out what fills up that tank and what
Speaker 2: drained you. I think I got that from a book
Speaker 2: leading on empty. It's about when pastors get burned out,
Speaker 2: and it said, find what fills you up, and find
Speaker 2: what drains you and try to minimize you know it
Speaker 2: drains you, and focus on what fills you up. So
Speaker 2: trying to find you know, exercise, of course, I mean
Speaker 2: just I think the physical how we take care of
Speaker 2: our body, affects the spiritual. Right. If I'm not disciplined physically,
Speaker 2: if I'm not disciplined physically, I'm not going to be
Speaker 2: disciplined spiritually. So I think finding that balance of taking
Speaker 2: care of my body physically, especially as I get older,
Speaker 2: and then you know, balancing out what you listen to,
Speaker 2: the podcast who influences you? Be very careful social media nowadays?
Speaker 2: You know that, man. I mean some people they get
Speaker 2: caught up in all these conspiracy theories and yeah on
Speaker 2: this and they just get they.
Speaker 1: Just get lots drama of it and drama.
Speaker 2: Yeah. We were not designed to be hit with all
Speaker 2: this information. And I don't think and.
Speaker 1: I think your point about you know, being filled up
Speaker 1: when you're empty. I only have so much emotional capacity,
Speaker 1: and when I spend it getting ticked on Twitter, I
Speaker 1: have less for my wife and less for my son,
Speaker 1: and it's just I've learned that, like you said, the
Speaker 1: older that I get. So let's kind of let's bring
Speaker 1: this back.
Speaker 2: Let me add this too. Yeah, I want to say
Speaker 2: it earlier, but one of the biggest things that has
Speaker 2: really helped me. Now, let me clarify it because people
Speaker 2: are going to take it wrong, say you're not open
Speaker 2: for feedback, you're not teachable. But I don't really look
Speaker 2: at it. I don't good comments, and I don't look
Speaker 2: at YouTube comments or Facebook. I don't. I mean maybe
Speaker 2: one percent. But I have elders and deacons and a
Speaker 2: core group around me of a lot of people that
Speaker 2: will speak into my life. And so I don't know
Speaker 2: if this person is in Iowa in the basement of
Speaker 2: their mom trying to, you know, go off on me
Speaker 2: because they don't agree with some non essential or this,
Speaker 2: or my attitude or you're prideful? How do you? How
Speaker 2: do you know who I am? So I think we
Speaker 2: put too much into comments and likes and followers. You know,
Speaker 2: we get up. We have to look at Instagram to
Speaker 2: have followers, and even that can affect That's what's affecting
Speaker 2: our teenagers right now in our country, is is this
Speaker 2: this people pleasing and bullying get off social media. Doesn't
Speaker 2: matter what they say, they don't know you. Well, just
Speaker 2: surround yourself by those people who truly know you and
Speaker 2: love you. I won't listen to constructive criticism either, much
Speaker 2: from critical hearts. I want to make sure it's somebody
Speaker 2: who truly loves me, because there's enough criticism coming in
Speaker 2: from those who you know, truly Hey in that sermon,
Speaker 2: had that sermon you kind of you know you really,
Speaker 2: you know, overstep, you know, and so the elders will
Speaker 2: speak truth into my life as well. So we do
Speaker 2: have those people. But I think just that social media
Speaker 2: constantly feeding that, you know, on Mondays, I turn it
Speaker 2: off and it's like I'm looking at my pocket like
Speaker 2: four or five times.
Speaker 1: And then you realize how like why our brains.
Speaker 2: Are so I read.
Speaker 1: I tried to read enough criticism to just say, do
Speaker 1: I need to pivot? It's just something I need to
Speaker 1: learn without spending too much time and energy on it.
Speaker 1: But I can think of a handful of YouTube videos,
Speaker 1: some Twitter posts, emails I've gotten that are a little
Speaker 1: bit more substantive. And I've always in every case when
Speaker 1: I feel like there might be something here, I have
Speaker 1: a board. I'll send it to people on my board.
Speaker 1: I've sent it to my son professors here at Talbot
Speaker 1: and just go. I've said a couple of times I
Speaker 1: don't actually have the emotional energy to watch all of
Speaker 1: this right now. I'm exhausted, But watch it. I only
Speaker 1: tell me if there's anything I really need to learn
Speaker 1: from on this and speak truth to me, and some
Speaker 1: helpful conversations have come out of that. Well, maybe let's
Speaker 1: just kind of sum up some of the key points
Speaker 1: in this conversation. I wish I had taken notes, because
Speaker 1: there's some principle here I want to remember. I'm going
Speaker 1: to go back through this, but it seems so some
Speaker 1: takeaways are. Number One, our boldness and our our energy
Speaker 1: is going to come from being in the word, truth
Speaker 1: and grace aside, be in the word, be filled with
Speaker 1: the spirits. Yes, it's okay to find our own unique wirings.
Speaker 1: Where there's John the Baptist, John the Beloved, and God
Speaker 1: has called us uniquely, we should be comfortable in terms
Speaker 1: of who God has called us Steward Steward Stewart, that
Speaker 1: is a good way to put it. But open to
Speaker 1: always growing and being challenged. Yes, What are some of
Speaker 1: the other key takeaways from this time?
Speaker 2: I think the word well, the word nice, like I remember,
Speaker 2: I looked up it's it means pleasant and agreeable, and
Speaker 2: it's not always biblical. So you know, I want to
Speaker 2: be nice. Okay, that means I guess you'd be. It
Speaker 2: would depend on how you define it, right, But you're
Speaker 2: not always going to be pleasant and agreeable if you
Speaker 2: have to lovingly challenge someone. I mean, so, I think
Speaker 2: the idea is to err on the side of grace
Speaker 2: and to be bold when God calls you to be bold.
Speaker 2: And I think most people know, we know what we
Speaker 2: need to work on, right, Like, I don't need to
Speaker 2: work on being silent. I mean, that's not my that's
Speaker 2: not my that's not my weakness. I need to work
Speaker 2: on not getting the last word in and being lovingly
Speaker 2: more gentle. And just because you, pastors also preach with
Speaker 2: their emotions, you know, I always say I do not
Speaker 2: preach a sixty minute perfect sermon. I guarantee my emotion
Speaker 2: is in there, my motives are in there, my perspectives.
Speaker 2: Sometimes even though we stick with truth all the principles,
Speaker 2: you know, you and manytimes, I like bang, why did
Speaker 2: I go off on somebody like not a name necessarily,
Speaker 2: but just like critics or and and just realizing that
Speaker 2: working on those areas you know you need to work on.
Speaker 2: So some listening are quiet or silent, they don't want
Speaker 2: to say anything, they don't upset. Maybe God's calling them to
Speaker 2: to to be a little bit more bold, maybe sharing
Speaker 2: scripture or lovingly challenging. For other of us, it's it's
Speaker 2: this could be a great call to repentance, to say, God,
Speaker 2: my heart is growing hard and callous. I've look at
Speaker 2: what Jesus said. You have sound doctrine to the church,
Speaker 2: and you help people in this, but you've left your
Speaker 2: first love. I mean that was the model church right
Speaker 2: there and then but they left their first love. And
Speaker 2: so I think it would be a good a good
Speaker 2: call to remind people to repentance. Don't just get if
Speaker 2: something is triggering you in this interview, it's probably because
Speaker 2: you need to hear it. I mean, that's that's how
Speaker 2: it works. I don't like they said that. I don't
Speaker 2: wish I wish or I wish Sean would be more bold. Well,
Speaker 2: it's probably because you need to work on being more
Speaker 2: loving or I wish Shane, it's probably because you need
Speaker 2: to be you, don't You know the people when they
Speaker 2: get it's like when you throw a rock into a
Speaker 2: pile of dogs, you know the one, the one that
Speaker 2: barks is when you hit. And so these types of
Speaker 2: podcasts will will cause people to really think, and I
Speaker 2: would just encourage them to repent and get their heart
Speaker 2: right with the Lord.
Speaker 1: This is really good is one I'm gonna go back
Speaker 1: through and pull out some of the principles and just
Speaker 1: think about a lot. And I think you're landing on
Speaker 1: a point that I believe that we're going to be
Speaker 1: living in this tension of grace and truth relationally with
Speaker 1: people in our family. This is true with people where
Speaker 1: we work, true with people in our church and beyond.
Speaker 1: And if we're not living in that tension a little bit,
Speaker 1: then we're stale and we're not growing. Whether it's more
Speaker 1: truth or whether it's more grace. But that's the formula.
Speaker 2: And let me add before I forget, it's so important
Speaker 2: to be apologetic and keep relationships healthy. Like Sunday, for example,
Speaker 2: a guy I was twelve minutes, I twelve minutes before
Speaker 2: the service, and I'm running late to church right and
Speaker 2: he comes in. I was kind of like, oh, and
Speaker 2: so I went to him say, hey, sorry about that
Speaker 2: was twelve minutes. Oh, no problem. And so you're constantly
Speaker 2: repenting and repairing and like, hey, I came across strong
Speaker 2: and I've apologized to my car. I said, hey, last month,
Speaker 2: I mean I came across really strong. I was upset
Speaker 2: at some things. And that transparency, that meekness, that uh
Speaker 2: that that because meekness is not.
Speaker 1: Weakness, Amen, I agree.
Speaker 2: Weak meekness is strength under control. You have the strength,
Speaker 2: but you're controlling it. That's meekness. Weakness is a complete opposite.
Speaker 2: So apologizing to people. I just apologize to my my
Speaker 2: uh my son a couple of days ago because I
Speaker 2: was on and about, hey, you need to start coming
Speaker 2: to church more. Why and and you know, and it's okay,
Speaker 2: I can see that understand always but not always trying
Speaker 2: to be the right one. You know, you're always the
Speaker 2: right one. You're always you Never you want to listen
Speaker 2: to them. You don't want to hear them having the
Speaker 2: attitude of of of repentance and humility and say okay,
Speaker 2: I could own that we need to work on that.
Speaker 2: Let's you know, I apologize for that that keeps that
Speaker 2: keeps you very tender, and and you'll become more careful
Speaker 2: what you say, because you.
Speaker 1: Know it's not fun to have to know, not at all,
Speaker 1: not at all. And in some ways this brings us
Speaker 1: full circle that we need to speak truth more boldly
Speaker 1: than ever, because it's the truth that sets people free.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: But my first question was tied to the death of
Speaker 1: Charlie Kirk. What we need and in some ways I
Speaker 1: just I can't shake it what Erica Kirk said offering
Speaker 1: forgiveness within days. What is eleven days to the man
Speaker 1: who murdered her husband, father of her kids. That's supernatural?
Speaker 1: In my book, it was there's a whole lot of
Speaker 1: people that shocked them and were like some people were
Speaker 1: offended by it. Well, okay, at least you saw the
Speaker 1: power of the Gospel of what that looks like. You
Speaker 1: saw it demonstrated clearly. So it's not either or. I
Speaker 1: think we need to be more gracious and more kind,
Speaker 1: not nice, but kind and me than ever speaking truth boldly.
Speaker 1: And may everybody who's watched this be challenged in one
Speaker 1: fashion or another, because I think that's what Christ wants
Speaker 1: us to do.
Speaker 2: You know, and just to maybe on that point for
Speaker 2: a minute, getting getting the full story on something. Like
Speaker 2: many of us, I've done this before. I just comment
Speaker 2: on what I think I know and you learn later.
Speaker 2: So even trying to Kurk, a lot of people that
Speaker 2: had issues didn't really understand what he said in context.
Speaker 2: They would hear just little snippets of things, so they
Speaker 2: built an opinion. And now you see, you know, that
Speaker 2: whole thing is being attacked right now from conspiracy theorists
Speaker 2: and all this thing that breaks my heart. It's all
Speaker 2: over the unbelievable, and those people are not most of
Speaker 2: the people. There's no humility. You're not going to see
Speaker 2: humility in a lot of what they're they're saying and doing.
Speaker 2: It's all about likes and followers and get in. It's
Speaker 2: it's I don't know if it can be demonic to
Speaker 2: some degree because that the enemy is planting those fiery
Speaker 2: darts and it's feeding ego. That's what he does. It
Speaker 2: feeds ego, pride comings before a fall, and so you're
Speaker 2: not seeing a lot of humility, and that's what's happening.
Speaker 2: It's sad.
Speaker 1: Really appreciate you coming on and talking about this. This
Speaker 1: is a great conversation. With time, we'll definitely do it again.
Speaker 2: And think biblically.
Speaker 1: How people follow all listen your sermons, follow your writing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I forgot. Actually all of my books are available
Speaker 2: as free downloads nice at the church website. Yeah, Westside
Speaker 2: Christianfellowship dot org. Westside Christianfellowship dot org. All I think
Speaker 2: there's thirteen books there. I just wrote one. I was
Speaker 2: on Jack Hibbs's podcast about quitting. I almost quit the ministry. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so I worked through that discouragement fear and things like that.
Speaker 2: But mainly they're Westside Christianfellowship dot org or Shaneidelman you
Speaker 2: know on Instagram and Shane s A H, A and E.
Speaker 2: And then I was named after Alan Ladd who was
Speaker 2: in the movie Shane. My parents told me when I
Speaker 2: was younger, and then Idleman I D L E M
Speaker 2: an Shane Idelman. But yeah, I would love to hear
Speaker 2: from people. I'll read these comments from.
Speaker 1: From Oh you committed yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I once in a while, But you
Speaker 2: can't live off those things because.
Speaker 1: You're you're you're I get it.
Speaker 2: You're too bold, you're too quiet too. It's like you're
Speaker 2: too political. You're not political enough. It's like you're tossed
Speaker 2: to and fro by the opinions of people. So just
Speaker 2: being careful who influences you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, good word. Enjoy the conversation.
Speaker 2: Thanks, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, give you a shake man way to end it. Hey, friends,
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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Sean McDowell Show, brought to
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