S1: Coming to you from the Morning Star Mission sponsored studio.
S1: This is Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
S2: Every. Healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree
S2: bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit,
S2: nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. That's really
S2: simple teaching.
S3: Yeah. No doubt. I mean, that's hard.
S2: That's really basic stuff. But if you need another analogy,
S2: Allie's got a perfect one. She got a front porch
S2: that was going south in a hurry.
S4: Yeah, we didn't know how bad it was. First. Just
S4: started with the crack in one of the risers. Then
S4: we noticed the treads were getting more and more wobbly.
S4: It felt unsteady and unsafe, so we got a couple
S4: people out to look at it. And at first it
S4: seemed like, okay, you know, this is going to be
S4: not too expensive. Simple fix. Replace this here and this here.
S4: But as they started to pull things apart, it became
S4: clear that the porch had been built in a really
S4: hasty and not great construction kind of way, if you
S4: know what I mean.
S2: Lousy.
S4: Yeah. Sometimes these things go up quick and they're not
S4: done well. And so they would identify an issue here
S4: and they'd say, well, we can leave it. The joists
S4: are a little bit too far apart for the size
S4: of the porch. We could leave it or I thought, well, no,
S4: you can't leave it. I don't want a porch that's
S4: going to look good, but then sag and start to
S4: crumble again in a couple of years. So it ended
S4: up being a much more expensive project and rebuild than
S4: we had bargained for. But once we saw the underlying issues,
S4: we said, we can't ignore these and just slap a
S4: coat of paint on it. We actually have to fix
S4: what's underneath.
S2: That's the point. And today, when it comes to marriage,
S2: here's the big idea. I know I've done it. Well,
S2: let's put a little caulk on this marriage and let's
S2: get a little bit of paint.
S3: Feels a little.
S4: Cheaper at the moment. Easier, cheaper.
S2: Let me just get her some flowers. I know I
S2: left her crying yesterday, but let's just get some flowers
S2: and let's just kind of that'll kind of patch things
S2: up a little bit. But underlying what's going on sometimes
S2: flowers can't fix dip diddly squat.
S4: Not until you deal with dip diddly squat.
S2: Yeah, well, he's been working with me too long.
S3: Yeah, he's starting to so good. I'm sorry. I'm trying
S3: to control my smile.
S2: My heart just leapt for joy when she.
S3: Said, dip.
S2: Diddly squat.
S3: You know.
S2: Oh, hang on, Dan Allender's going to help us get
S2: to the root of this. This is one of the
S2: most important, kind of really salient issues in marriage. Look,
S2: becoming friends like we hit with Arlene and cultivating that liking.
S2: That's important. That's vital. All these things play together. But
S2: we can't leave this one out. What is it? Getting
S2: to the root of the issue in marriage and in life.
S1: Romans eight brought her to Jesus while broadcasting traffic overnight.
S1: Super dei is in the crew. It's Colonel and crew
S1: on Moody Radio.
S2: Well, everybody's got a theory until it gets tested. Sometimes
S2: those theories are then good or abandoned. I've got a
S2: man that I dearly love. And I mean, I love
S2: this guy. I don't get any time with him. We
S2: used to bump into one another on occasion, but I
S2: love him from afar. He's written some amazing books and
S2: he's a phenomenal thinker. And he's got a theory. And
S2: I want to know if this theory holds any water.
S2: It's the gender theory. Doctor Dan, does your theory work?
S5: Carl? It works about as well as, you know, a sieve.
S2: What is what is the theory that's been driving you
S2: for three decades, my friend?
S5: Well, it's so simple. It is so simple. You cannot
S5: change what you refuse to name. So when we open
S5: the door to facing reality in our own brokenness, but
S5: in our own image of God, beauty deep things happen
S5: in the human heart when we engage our story and
S5: our story of how we came to be who we are,
S5: but also the story of what we're meant to bring
S5: to the glory of God in life today.
S2: That is beautiful. What? Give us a story of someone
S2: who named it and what that did for them.
S6: Well, I'm going to say me.
S5: When my wife and I just had a conflict over
S5: whether or not a baked potato was actually done. Now,
S5: that sounds fairly pathetic for a couple that's been married
S5: for 48 years, but we were in the middle of this.
S5: We're sharing a baked potato. And when I put the
S5: fork in, I thought, no, it's not done. She thought
S5: it was done. Come now. That's pretty surface. Do our stories.
S5: The kitchen was the context where my wife knew the
S5: love of her mother, and almost nowhere else in terms
S5: of food, was the way that she was shown love. Now,
S5: for me, in my family, the kitchen was a war
S5: zone of incredible conflict. So what we're living out over
S5: a silly baked potato are the stories that have formed
S5: us with regard to how we manage being in that
S5: particular world called the kitchen.
S2: How important is it? Get to the bottom of the stories.
S2: I had something happen. Amazing. Recently I was asked by
S2: someone first recollection of life. My first recollection of life
S2: was the great earthquake, Alaskan earthquake of 1964. I was
S2: four years old and it's the first recollection is seeing
S2: two and a half stories of cinder blocks fall to
S2: the ground and see the earth split open in front
S2: of me. And if not for a dad that loved
S2: me even while I peed my bed for the next
S2: many years, that embarrassed me, filled with shame. It was
S2: good for me to go back to that moment out
S2: in front of that home, when the whole earth was
S2: shaking under me. Those things matter, don't they? Dan.
S5: Oh, Carl. Such a profound story of seeing the earth
S5: break into two. And in that sense, you're entering trauma.
S5: You're entering capital T trauma. But most of us have
S5: small traumas nonetheless. They shape the neurological structure of how
S5: we respond to the realities of the world around us.
S5: And if back to that phrase, if we can't name,
S5: we can't see change. And that's why Scripture constantly calls
S5: us back into facing reality and remembering. Choosing to remember
S5: so that we can indeed take the good and let
S5: it shape us, and to take that which has brought
S5: us harm and allow our hearts to, in one sense,
S5: come to a new level of healing like you did
S5: when you come face to face with that memory.
S2: Yeah. It's powerful. Dan Allender, Doctor Dan Alander is my
S2: guest right now. Prolific author, phenomenal communicator and wise beyond
S2: his years. And that's true because he's not a young
S2: man anymore. But he's got a lot of wisdom. So
S2: here's where we're going. And that is deeply rooted. Marriage
S2: is a brand new book. He has. We're drilling down
S2: on this all week long. But I've got to ask this.
S2: How does someone embrace a story that they can't stand?
S2: They hate it. They don't even want to remember it.
S2: How do you embrace it?
S5: Well, I don't think any of us can enter those
S5: stories without the sense of the Spirit of God coming
S5: before us, behind us, above and below. But we have
S5: to actually believe the spirit is leading us into those
S5: stories so that we have an awareness of why a
S5: baked potato is causing conflict. Oh my gosh. You know, like,
S5: that's just ridiculous. Until Becky and I were able to
S5: step back and go, wait a minute. We're each in
S5: a different kind of war zone. We're in a world
S5: where we're not just responding to the surface moment. There's
S5: a deep current. There are deep roots to this issue. Now,
S5: we're not going to spend a million years trying to
S5: work it through, but having the language of knowing that
S5: trauma is shaping the triggers in your conflicts, instead of
S5: trying to just resolve the conflict. Could we go to
S5: the roots? I mean, look, you are a gardener. You
S5: know that if you cut something off at the top,
S5: a weed at the top. It's not going to get better.
S5: It's going to get worse. So we got to get
S5: to the roots. But in doing so, we can only
S5: do so with the power of the spirit guiding us,
S5: because we know John 13 through 15 tells us that
S5: one of the one of the works of the spirit
S5: is that it brings back to memory. So if we
S5: can step back, as you did to that four year
S5: old young Carl who is shattered, then there is a
S5: healing that can occur that gives you so much more
S5: freedom than what you would have had before.
S2: Yeah. Beautiful. There's hope on the way here. Boom crew.
S2: You know, coming up here in a moment, Dan, it
S2: seems like the the generally broad brushing the Christian church,
S2: knowing there's plenty of exceptions. We have, we have seconded
S2: ourselves or reduced ourselves to working on the leaves and
S2: external branches. And your supposition is. Now let's go down
S2: to the root. Let's not even pay those. No, never
S2: mind for a little bit. Let's get down to the
S2: root and watch what God can do. Coming up here.
S2: Doctor Dan Allender brand new book, Deep Rooted Marriage. Let's
S2: get to the root. Straight ahead.
S1: This is Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
S2: Got a good man with us here. Boom. Crew. His
S2: name is Doctor Dan Allender. He is developed a theory.
S2: And that theory actually drives his work, which is really cool,
S2: isn't it, Dan? That that what you're passionate about drives
S2: what you do. You must you must calculatedly make it
S2: so right. I mean, it must just flow out of you.
S5: Absolutely. From the heart flows all the matters of what
S5: we do in a day and how we live our lives.
S2: All right. How does a marriage move from surface behavior
S2: modifications into a deeply rooted marriage that then flourishes as
S2: God intended. How does that work?
S6: Well, you got to start with the problems.
S5: You know, when we look at most marriages, you've got
S5: those four top issues sex, money, children, in-laws, family. And
S5: when you begin to go, look, we still get triggered
S5: over certain things that frankly, in most occasions are pretty ridiculous. However,
S5: underneath you've got to begin to open the door to
S5: what is shaping my way of responding to these kinds of. Well,
S5: in the moment seem like big deals, but when you
S5: begin to look at the roots, you're often looking at
S5: where real harm has occurred in your own past. And
S5: then the question is, how do you invite God into
S5: those parts for healing?
S2: When you speak of these roots, that's often associated with
S2: a lot of pain and a lot of lot of shame. How?
S2: What's the payoff for going there? I mean, let's just
S2: cut to the chase. Somebody's sitting here going, you know what?
S2: I don't want to go back to my alcoholic home
S2: where my dad said, you're a blankety blank. You'll never
S2: amount to this as he hit me.
S6: Absolutely.
S5: Look, if you look in the mirror and you see
S5: this little black mole on your face and you go, ah,
S5: no big deal, I'll just, you know, maybe cover it over. Well,
S5: you have the possibility of letting a carcinoma grow. You
S5: have the potential of that particular skin cancer literally moving
S5: in to taking over your body. And let me put
S5: it bluntly, killing you. Yeah. That's the reality of not
S5: dealing with the things that have shaped and bound us
S5: and created, as you put it brilliantly, the reality of shame. Look,
S5: when you enter shame, you're going to going to feel
S5: shame when you enter those stories. You're going to feel
S5: a level of hurt or heartache or anger and it
S5: seems like too much. Well, you got to go. You
S5: got to go to the doctor and begin the process
S5: of dealing with what's on your face. Even more so,
S5: we've got to go to God and begin the process
S5: of dealing what's really in our heart. Otherwise, do you
S5: want death? Look, most marriages, even good ones, don't want
S5: to mess with the things that are really, really at
S5: core of our own war. But that's the fundamental point
S5: that marriage is meant to reveal. It's it's a relationship
S5: that exposes the best of who you are and in
S5: some ways, the worst. So if we have the humility
S5: to say, we need help, I need to grow, then
S5: we're going to open the door to dealing with what
S5: is at some level cancer within us.
S2: Let me ask you, if I went deep enough rooted
S2: in my marriage, I was confronted seven years into our
S2: marriage that my bride and at this time, we're knee
S2: deep in ministry and we're seeing lives changed. And I'm
S2: walking through our home and my wife reaches out and
S2: grabs my wrist and I look down. Her chin is
S2: quivering in a nanosecond. I said, what's wrong? Because I
S2: thought someone died. Well, someone died, all right. She looked
S2: at me and Dan, I am unafraid to share this
S2: because this is too common. She looked at me and
S2: she said, Bob, I am scared to death because I
S2: don't love you anymore.
S5: Hmm.
S2: Now we're both radically transformed by Jesus. We're both genuinely saved.
S2: There's no question about it. The Holy Spirit fills us.
S2: But I was in a battle then, and I had
S2: to face the embarrassment of being an Alaskan. Build it,
S2: fix it. We can repair it. And I had no
S2: answers for this girl, Dan. None. I walked around the corner,
S2: looked in the mirror of our vanity, and I was
S2: in a hellacious war. Satan was telling me, blame her
S2: for all of her stuff, and she would have readily
S2: admitted it. And I had to come face to face
S2: with the fact that I didn't know how to love
S2: my wife as Christ loved the church, and I was
S2: a pitiful husband. And then I had to dig down
S2: to what? What in the world made me that way?
S2: And it was a hard journey, to be honest with you. Dan,
S2: now we're 37 years marriage and she's my best buddy,
S2: and that's genuine. Now, we aren't perfect, but she's my buddy.
S2: I mean, we love each other and she loves me.
S2: But what keeps people from facing those really tough things?
S5: Well, Carl. Well, I mean, one of the things that
S5: I've loved about you for decades is your humility. Uh,
S5: you you can be brazen. You can be bold, but
S5: there is a humility of acknowledgment that there's something I need,
S5: something at times that's deeply wrong with me, and that's
S5: how do you put it better then? That's a biblical
S5: view of self that then says, but there is something
S5: in me that can bring goodness and that core. Two things.
S5: Number one, I know I need, I know I need,
S5: but I also know I want and what's the want.
S5: I want to be more of who God has made
S5: me to be, even with regard to that humility of
S5: I'm a mess. And there are reasons in my failure
S5: of my wife that has kept her from being free
S5: to love me in the way that I do desire.
S5: So that interplay I need, I want that's so core
S5: to indeed a deep rooted marriage.
S2: Yeah, there's a notion in some Christian circles that to
S2: want something is somehow unspiritual. That's a performance metric, Symmetric,
S2: isn't it?
S6: It is, but.
S5: It comes right back to Genesis 218. And God said,
S5: it is not good. Look, he has said every day
S5: it is good, it is good. But the one point
S5: he says, it's not good. It's for man to be alone.
S5: So you obviously know he is put within us, wired
S5: us to need to, in one sense, be in a
S5: relationship where we're interdependent. Yet for many men, that's a
S5: level of vulnerability.
S2: Yeah.
S5: Yeah. That opens the door to that fear of shame.
S2: Why is that for men? More so than women? Why?
S6: Well, well.
S5: Gosh, let's at least begin with the whole notion that
S5: men don't cry.
S2: Oh, I cry like a baby sometimes.
S5: Well, but you know that that's a cultural law. Uh, explicit?
S5: sometimes implicit, so that that notion of strength and invulnerability
S5: versus seeing that indeed, you know, the Apostle Paul says,
S5: it is in my weakness that I'm strong. That's the
S5: framework of being able to say, I need my wife,
S5: but I need not so much for her to cover
S5: over or just resolve. I need her to be honest.
S5: I need her to open the door to the realities
S5: my own heart would not naturally face without the reality
S5: of her calling me to be a better man than
S5: at times I am.
S2: That's beautiful. Well, we have barely even scratched it. Boom! Crew.
S2: I want you to spread the word far and wide.
S2: And here's why. A lot of what you will read,
S2: or you suppose, is that I've got to rearrange some
S2: of the branches that are outward facing Doctor Dan Allender.
S2: His supposition is different. We got to go to the
S2: root deep rooted marriage. We've got a link for you
S2: right now. I want you to text the word deep.
S2: We're going to make it easy. We've got a link
S2: where you can get a copy of this today or two,
S2: and maybe bring it to a small group and say,
S2: let's go through this. Maybe it's a men's group. You say,
S2: let's go through this, let's do some hard work here.
S2: Let's get down to the bottom. If you got the
S2: courage to do it, I invite you in. Text the
S2: word deep right now, just the word deep to 805, 55, 78, 98.
S2: Deep to 855 578, 98.
S1: A basketball mom who's mastered the dad joke, Ali is
S1: in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
S2: You don't have to look far in the scriptures, and
S2: you find over and over again the need to Understand
S2: that the greatest issues in our life we can tackle
S2: are below the surface. I say this all the time,
S2: but it's true. The unseen things matter. Most guys. It's
S2: below the water line.
S4: How often do you say that the presenting issue is
S4: rarely the real issue? I mean, I'm sure you see
S4: this as a pastor. Somebody comes into your office and says,
S4: I want to deal with this. You know, let's take marriage.
S4: My my wife just doesn't get it. She doesn't understand
S4: me or vice versa. You go. Okay, let's. That's probably
S4: not really what's going on? Let's dig a little bit deeper.
S2: When I heard that counseling idiom, the presenting issue is
S2: rarely the issue.
S3: Yeah.
S2: Uh, it was probably three decades ago I first heard that.
S2: I'm like, bingo.
S3: Oh, yeah.
S2: Bingo.
S7: You know where I feel like this? This plays out
S7: a lot in, like, you know how we respond to
S7: people sometimes. Maybe, like, maybe you have a history of
S7: Snapping at people, you know. Someone's talking to you, and
S7: just all of a sudden you just snap and kind
S7: of say something back. That's like a little mean. You
S7: don't usually say, oh, man, I just like to snap
S7: at people every now and then for no reason. No.
S7: You go, oh, I'm sorry. You know what? I'm just
S7: having a bad day. I'm really stressed right now. There's
S7: always something that causes you to snap. And so and
S7: that's the same with every issue that we deal with.
S7: Every single one has something underneath that. Hey, this is
S7: why you're doing that. You don't just do it because
S7: you do it because of this.
S2: Yeah. You're meddling now, young Thunder.
S3: It's true.
S2: Because that's a big one. We can. It's so true
S2: that we blame surface issues for things that if we
S2: dig a little bit deeper, it's like, yeah, there's something
S2: else going on here. That's why I love James, man.
S2: You see, disorder and every evil practice, you go below
S2: the surface. There is envy and selfish Ambition. I mean,
S2: it's just great. I mean, I got a whole list
S2: of these here that are just outstanding. We find over
S2: and over again in Scripture that this whole tree and
S2: fruit versus root issue. And Jesus says it best in
S2: the sermon on the Mount. So every healthy tree bears
S2: good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A
S2: healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased
S2: tree bear good fruit. I'll tell you what, man, if
S2: you walk away from that and go. Huh?
S3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
S2: I mean, that's just like, that is the most simple,
S2: clear and profound principle of how lives change and how
S2: marriages grow.
S4: I mean, it's the biblical equivalent of one plus one
S4: equals two. Healthy tree. Healthy fruit. Root disease tree. Bad fruit.
S4: I mean, it's pretty simple.
S2: It's really simple. But isn't it interesting? We find ourselves
S2: putting and I. And I'm not trying to be crass
S2: or crude. I've done that a time or two. I
S2: haven't been crass or crude on purpose, but I've. I've
S2: done it a time or two. And you know what?
S2: If I dig below the surface, there's probably something else
S2: driving that there. But I'm going to I'm going to
S2: say something here, not for the expediency of being cool
S2: or hip, but to be clear, we try to put
S2: lipstick on pigs and we try to polish turds. And
S2: when we are and I mean this from the bottom
S2: of my heart. And as a pastor, I need you
S2: to hear me. Sometimes the answer isn't more prayer, more
S2: Bible reading. Get busier. Go to a new small group.
S2: Sometimes the issue is deep introspection Going, why am I
S2: doing this? And if we dig down to the bottom, Katie,
S2: bar the door. Coming up here. We've got Ali's got
S2: a graphic for you. That is epic. She just whipped
S2: this thing up this morning on the fly. I don't
S2: know how you do that. If I had to do that. Oh,
S2: forget about it. But she whipped up a graphic, and
S2: she's also got a perfect illustration that captures this whole
S2: issue of, in its true, of marriage. And here's the beauty.
S2: If you go to the root of marriage issues, you're
S2: actually going to the root of yourself. And this will
S2: have huge ripple effects. We're going to break it down
S2: for you coming up. We're going to go to Ali's
S2: front porch. It's a little rickety. Well, maybe it's better now.
S1: He's a sports fanatic with a stat for anything you
S1: can think of. Young Thunder is in the crew. It's
S1: curl and crew on Moody Radio.
S2: Yeah, we're in a spiritual battle here. And sometimes praise
S2: is the best thing that we can do. If you
S2: see David ministering to Saul, he's playing a harp. And
S2: it drove demonic forces away. What an amazing picture, by
S2: the way. A man who knew that he was targeted
S2: by Saul, and yet he ministered to him in that way.
S2: All these songs matter. Most of them are baked in
S2: with great theology. And it matters. Give God praise today.
S2: Let's watch. Demonic forces flee. It's a powerful principle. Well,
S2: he's got a front porch that was going south, and
S2: I got photos sent to me.
S3: And said, oh, boy, so good.
S2: Yeah, man. I'm the I'm the fiddling dad when her
S2: dad's not close by. I'm the fill in dad. And
S2: I don't mind being a filling dad, especially when it
S2: comes to construction and home projects. And I've seen a lot.
S2: I've seen sump pumps in her basement. I've seen it all, guys.
S3: Yeah.
S4: I've called upon Karl a couple of times. I sent
S4: him some pictures of my of my front porch, which
S4: had developed a crack in one of the risers. That
S4: was our first clue that something might be up because
S4: the porch is only maybe six years old. This is
S4: not an old home. This was a gut rehab that
S4: was redone. Yeah. So I thought, why is our porch
S4: starting to crack? And why does it seem like some
S4: of the steps are getting more and more wobbly to
S4: where I almost want to put a sign up that
S4: says watch your step, that this isn't good.
S3: And so you get inside.
S2: It's all good. But getting here could be.
S3: Treacherous, right?
S4: Be super careful when you deliver that mail. But I
S4: really started to be concerned about the safety of the
S4: front porch. And so got a couple people to check
S4: it out, and they said, yeah, you know, the riser.
S4: We need to check the stringers and make sure things
S4: are are stable and sound. And we got a couple
S4: estimates that weren't crazy. It's like, okay, this is this
S4: seems like a fairly easy fix. But as they started
S4: to pull things apart to fix what was wrong, it
S4: became clear that the problems were much deeper than what
S4: we could see on the surface. It wasn't just a
S4: cracked riser. It was a whole structure that was not
S4: built properly. The joists were too far apart. The porch
S4: was starting to sag in the middle because the ends
S4: were not leveled out. So there were many, many problems
S4: and at each step, knowing that the price tag was
S4: going up, they would ask us, do you want us
S4: to keep going? We could just leave it as is,
S4: you know, patch things up and kind of get you
S4: back with the front porch. One day, two days, three
S4: days turn to like a week without being able to
S4: go through our front door. But I thought, you know what?
S4: We can't just ignore this and pretend it's not there.
S4: So we had them do each step. Yep. Go ahead
S4: and fix it. Get it right, fix the structure, make
S4: it even, make it. So we're not going to be
S4: revisiting this in a year or two. Many days later,
S4: some thousands of dollars, thousands of dollars later, we have
S4: a brand new front porch. We didn't want to do it,
S4: but it was the obvious choice. If we wanted to
S4: have a home that stands the test of time.
S3: This is true in life. Beautiful story. Holly.
S8: This is life. You get these.
S2: Overarching. And I'm going to use the word sin because
S2: that means missing the mark. Of pride and greed and
S2: hoarding and gluttony and lust and envy and cowardice and laziness.
S2: But what's the underlying sin? What's the underlying sin? Well,
S2: Allie built a graphic that has a compare and contrast.
S2: And guys, this is freeing. And it's simple. If you
S2: haven't followed us yet, today is the day because it's
S2: the it's the most recent post up there, right?
S4: It is. And it's on Facebook and Instagram. Just search
S4: Carl and crew if you want to look at this.
S4: What is if you pride is at the surface what's
S4: the underlying sin. What about gluttony greed. Once you see
S4: it it makes perfect sense. Go ahead and check it
S4: out on Facebook and Instagram. Carl and crew.
S2: Okay. Coming up we're going to tackle that a little
S2: bit and give you some hope. Is it hard to
S2: face it. Yeah. It's like getting a bid. It's like
S2: oh yeah this porch we porch, we can fix it
S2: up for, you know, a grand. Then it's like, oh,
S2: the risers are snapped. Now we can put some gooky
S2: putty on that thing and paint it up, or we
S2: can fix it. And it's that fixing it that we
S2: want to talk about spiritually. Will it help your marriage
S2: and your life radically? This is this is real discipleship.
S2: Hang on.
S1: He was running from God, but God's love brought him home.
S1: Carl is in the crew. It's Carl and crew on
S1: Moody Radio.
S2: I use some graphic language around here at times. I
S2: don't try to do it gratuitously. I'm sure I've slipped
S2: up a couple of times. That's called coarse jesting. But
S2: when I say we're spending too much time polishing turds,
S2: I know it's a little crass, but we need to.
S2: I just need to pour out my heart to you.
S2: The analogy breaks down because you're not a turd, But
S2: sometimes we get into a spiritual kind of routine that
S2: tries to get busier for God, that we try to
S2: read more in Scripture about God. We try to prove
S2: our worth to God. We try to prove our worth
S2: to others. Oh, isn't that horrible? Yeah, we try to
S2: gain approval. And you know what? We're just putting lipstick
S2: on this thing, man. And God loves us so much
S2: that he wants us to go below the surface to
S2: find out what's really going on here. We're talking about this.
S2: If you want to rock in marriage, you want to
S2: rock in abundant relationship with Jesus. Part of the reason
S2: you're disillusioned with faith is because you're putting lipstick on
S2: this thing rather than going, what? What's going on down here?
S2: And I'm not against lipstick.
S3: I just want.
S2: To clarify.
S3: That.
S2: Sure, but but guys, you think about lust. Men listen
S2: to me. Women too. This is growing, by the way,
S2: in our society. You know what lust is? It's an
S2: overarching sin of an underlying issue. In real sin, it's
S2: gratification apart from God. God doesn't want to say to you, oh,
S2: quit satisfying this and that. Whatever. Lust and lust comes
S2: in lots of different ways, by the way, manifesting greed to.
S2: But lust is just gratification apart from God. God wants
S2: to satisfy what we're doing. Surface stuff for greed is
S2: just being discontent with the generosity of God that he's
S2: already lavished on us. Every good and perfect gift comes
S2: down from above. The father of lights, in whom there
S2: is no shifting shadow. Oh my goodness. I'm filled with
S2: joy this morning. Because if we can get to the
S2: point where we quit polishing stuff and quit lipstick and stuff,
S2: and we go below the surface and say, as David
S2: did in this, I'm convinced, is the essential discipline plan
S2: of introspection. Search me, know me, try me. See if
S2: there'd be any hurtful way. Deep inside me. And lead
S2: me in the way. Everlasting. Now all of a sudden,
S2: Bible reading has meaning. Now all of a sudden, using
S2: our spiritual gifts has greater joy. Now all of us
S2: see what I'm saying, guys?
S3: Yeah.
S7: And it's so important to handle that foundational stuff, understand
S7: what it is that's hurting us, and then do something
S7: about it. Because if we just address that top, top
S7: floor issue, then it's always going to come back. Like
S7: Ali's analogy. Carl, uh, I think of the story you've
S7: shared on, on the air before, when you were apart
S7: from God, you struggled with alcoholism and you tried taking
S7: an abuse, which is a medication that makes you sick
S7: for drinking alcohol, but it didn't. It may have helped
S7: for a little while, but didn't stop you. You eventually
S7: went back to it or drank through it because the
S7: the root problem wasn't being addressed.
S2: Perfect. Perfect. Thank you for reminding me of that. Because
S2: Antabuse was this. I don't even know if they still
S2: sell this stuff.
S7: I think they do.
S2: But I got a prescription. I think I had to
S2: get a prescription, I get a prescription for antabuse. And
S2: the goal of Antabuse is it makes you so sick
S2: if you drink that you don't want to drink. Well,
S2: it didn't stop me. It just snorted more cocaine to
S2: make the alcohol go down. That's a crazy maker, isn't it?
S2: But even when we are in Christ Jesus, it's easy
S2: to do, isn't it, sister? We can avoid the root issues.
S4: Because the root issues are harder to deal with.
S3: Much harder.
S4: I mean, it's easy to look at and say, well,
S4: let's take an issue like lust. It's easy to just, well,
S4: I need to stop looking at those websites or, you know,
S4: whatever however you describe it, but not deal with the
S4: underlying issue that's driving you to that. That you're trying
S4: to find gratification or satisfaction apart from God.
S2: And I mean, that can be painfully. That can sound
S2: like really painful. But if you can cross that threshold,
S2: we can all testify. Every one of us here, super
S2: die young Thunder Alley myself can testify. As tough as
S2: it is to look at those underlying issues, if you
S2: dare to cross that threshold and let God meet you there. Oh, baby,
S2: the payoff is so huge. Right, guys?
S3: Come on.
S7: And it's the only place where lasting victory can be found.
S7: It's the only place God wants you to handle the
S7: foundation of the problems. Because he wants to tackle. He
S7: wants to. You take out the bottom. And everything that's
S7: standing on top of it falls out. So if you
S7: take out the foundation of a sin issue, you take
S7: out the foundation of a hurt of a pain. Then
S7: everything that's been built on top of it can collapse.
S7: But if you take off the top, that top part
S7: can just come right back.
S2: How great that our savior didn't say if you're if
S2: if the tree's not looking right. Really work on making
S2: the tree look right.
S3: No.
S2: What did he say? He said it's a root issue.
S3: Yeah.
S2: And God loves us enough. And here's what's great. Our
S2: God is way less condemning than the average parishioner you
S2: go to church with.
S7: No doubt.
S2: He wants to meet you. He wants to cry with you.
S2: He wants to man up with you. Man. I I'm this.
S2: This to me is. And I've said this before. This
S2: is the point. If if we have the courage to
S2: let God search the inner man and to help us
S2: discover why we do what we're doing, that's producing some
S2: fruit that's really not in keeping even what we with
S2: what we want. Katie, bar the door. Oh my goodness.
S2: This is the stuff right here.
S4: It really is. And if you want to go a
S4: little bit deeper with this, explore this overarching sin versus
S4: underlying issue. I put together a quick graphic on Facebook,
S4: point you to our Facebook page, Carl and Crew Mornings.
S4: Check that out. You can download it. You can study
S4: it out. You can link to the book Killing Sin
S4: by Carl Claussen. That's the source here. So thanks, Carl,
S4: for letting us borrow this. This is this is good stuff.
S2: Yeah. This is this is one of those moments when
S2: you're doing radio where you're like, this is the issue.
S2: If you want to go deeper, young Thunder, they can.
S7: That's right. Just text the word conquer. You can get
S7: the whole book to text the word conquer to (800) 555-7898.
S7: That's for Carl's book. Kill, sin, conquer to 855 57898.