Speaker 1: So interesting question came in today on the podcast, and
Speaker 1: by the way, if you need to email me, email
Speaker 1: podcast at grangersmith dot com and we'll walk through whatever
Speaker 1: you got going on. Whatever your question is could be
Speaker 1: about work or love or church or faith or struggle
Speaker 1: or heartache or music. We haven't had a good music
Speaker 1: question in a long time, but whatever it might be,
Speaker 1: feel free. We just walked through this like people sitting
Speaker 1: in the cab of a truck and walking through something.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to read this one. I think it's
Speaker 1: an interesting question. I think it's kind of worth digging
Speaker 1: into here. And the question comes from Ali Ali from Georgia,
Speaker 1: and Ali says, I know I should keep my focus
Speaker 1: on Jesus, but should I still seek truth in my curiosities?
Speaker 1: I know God doesn't want me to be ignorant. However,
Speaker 1: the Internet is full of opinions and people claiming to
Speaker 1: know something that I don't, such as the Earth is flat,
Speaker 1: Antarctica is there's a wall around it, our government is
Speaker 1: a deep state, so I shouldn't vote. I'm twenty eight
Speaker 1: years old and I'm feeling very dumb. Is the answer
Speaker 1: to not buy into any of it? Or does knowing
Speaker 1: prepare me for the future. Thanks for all you do
Speaker 1: and for others and for God. Ali, that's crazy. I
Speaker 1: think it's a good question, and I don't think it's
Speaker 1: It's ever been asked in that way, in that form,
Speaker 1: and so that's why I think it's I think it's
Speaker 1: an interesting question to kind of start this podcast with. Really,
Speaker 1: you're saying it's interesting. Your second sentence is interesting where
Speaker 1: you said, but should I seek? But should I still
Speaker 1: seek truth in my curiosities? And you know, I think
Speaker 1: what you're also asking at the same time by saying
Speaker 1: that is are there other truths out there? Granger? Is
Speaker 1: there one truth? Or are there many truths? I know
Speaker 1: I should keep my focus on Jesus, but I'm kind
Speaker 1: of wondering how many truths I should think about. And
Speaker 1: that kind of leads me to a discussion I was
Speaker 1: having on my radio show after midnight, and that the
Speaker 1: question was is morality subjective or objective? And what I
Speaker 1: meant by that is, how do you know what's right
Speaker 1: or wrong? How do you know right from wrong? And
Speaker 1: it's deeper than just saying well, you're raised that way.
Speaker 1: You're raised as a kid to know right from wrong
Speaker 1: by whoever raised you. But that's that's easy to rebuke
Speaker 1: that because you could just say, well, who taught the
Speaker 1: people that taught you? Well, you say their parents, who
Speaker 1: taught them? Where does it come from? Like, where's the
Speaker 1: source of morality? Right from wrong? And is it subjective
Speaker 1: or objective? Like I said, and that means is it
Speaker 1: your truth or my truth? Or is there does everyone
Speaker 1: have an opinion about morality? Which is I think Ali,
Speaker 1: you're mainly asking that. I don't think you're saying, how
Speaker 1: can I know if the Earth is flat? I mean
Speaker 1: you can get on an airplane. You know that, like
Speaker 1: you can. There are some things you could know today.
Speaker 1: Does Antarctica have a wall around it? Do you really
Speaker 1: want to know that? Are you really interested in that question?
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I think you could. You could
Speaker 1: find that out if you dedicated your life to discovering
Speaker 1: more about antarctica, you could. But I don't think that's
Speaker 1: what you're asking. I think you're you're asking as you
Speaker 1: look at social media and you see everyone's got an
Speaker 1: opinion about something, You're you're kind of asking, who do
Speaker 1: I know how to trust? Who do I know who
Speaker 1: to trust? And how to trust? And where does trust
Speaker 1: come from? And more importantly, I think your question is
Speaker 1: what is truth? It's it's crazy, ponscious Pilot asked Jesus
Speaker 1: that same question, what is truth? We don't know? And
Speaker 1: the way that was written in the Gospel, we don't know.
Speaker 1: Probably we probably think most people would interpret that is Pilots.
Speaker 1: It's kind of saying that in a frivolous way, like
Speaker 1: what is truth? I don't know? Could anyone know that?
Speaker 1: That's kind of a tone that it seems Pilot had
Speaker 1: what is truth? He's not really asking like what is truth?
Speaker 1: Tell me? You know he's not. It's it's more of
Speaker 1: just a retort of hey, here, I don't know what
Speaker 1: you're talking about. No one could know that. So let's
Speaker 1: dig into this. This is what I've been saying on
Speaker 1: the radio show when it comes to morality. C. S.
Speaker 1: Lewis had something pretty interesting about this, and he was
Speaker 1: commissioned during World War Two. C. S. Lewis the author
Speaker 1: Chronicles of Narnia and many many other books. He was
Speaker 1: commissioned in World War Two in England to host a
Speaker 1: radio show, and so they wanted him to write a monologue.
Speaker 1: There would be multiple shows for multiple radio shows in
Speaker 1: England during World War Two, during a time when people
Speaker 1: needed to know truth, they needed to know about morality,
Speaker 1: about right and wrong, where morality came from, is it
Speaker 1: subjective or objective? And they got C. S. Lewis to
Speaker 1: write about this, not saying it like I just said it,
Speaker 1: but instead going through the back door and just making
Speaker 1: people think, exploring this. And the reason this this is
Speaker 1: going down like this is because you gotta imagine, you
Speaker 1: got mamas in England that could not understand the atrocities
Speaker 1: that were happening in Germany in the Nazi regime. They
Speaker 1: couldn't understand that kind of evil that their sons were
Speaker 1: going in to fight against. And I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: German boys. I'm talking about the Nazi regime, the idea
Speaker 1: of the Nazi regime and what that was doing. People
Speaker 1: could not reconcile. And I can't either because I didn't
Speaker 1: live in that time, and no one listening can really either.
Speaker 1: It's very difficult to reconcile, especially raising, raising a Christian
Speaker 1: boy and sending him into that kind of evil and
Speaker 1: he he leaves on the train with his uniform on,
Speaker 1: and you're crying and you're saying goodbye as the train
Speaker 1: rolls away, and he's going into the jaws of hell,
Speaker 1: the unthinkable horrors of World War two. And they knew
Speaker 1: a little bit about this because a lot of the
Speaker 1: husbands and our grandfathers were in World War One fighting
Speaker 1: a different kind of evil from the same enemy. And
Speaker 1: so in order to reconcile, how do I how do
Speaker 1: I sleep at night knowing my boy is over there.
Speaker 1: I'm now I'm questioning morality. I'm questioning humanity. I'm questioning
Speaker 1: evil and good, all of it together. They get C. S.
Speaker 1: Lewis and he comes in, and he comes at it
Speaker 1: a very different way. I promise, Ali, I promise, I'm
Speaker 1: getting to your question. C. S. Lewis comes in and
Speaker 1: he starts with human nature, and he calls it the
Speaker 1: law of nature, and he says something interesting. Somebody called,
Speaker 1: let me say it this way. Someone called my radio
Speaker 1: show and said, Granger, I got an answer for you.
Speaker 1: I got an answer to where does right and wrong
Speaker 1: come from? How do you know what's right and what's wrong?
Speaker 1: I got an answer to how you know that? And
Speaker 1: it's because you'll react according to your fears. And that's
Speaker 1: the way we've evolved. He says, you do what inherently
Speaker 1: you go against, inherently what you fear. It's basically what
Speaker 1: he's saying. So if you trace that back far enough
Speaker 1: through human evolution, whatever we fear, whatever our ancestors feared,
Speaker 1: we built a system in avoiding that. So murder, we
Speaker 1: know murder is wrong, the caller says, because we've grown
Speaker 1: and we've evolved to be afraid of death. Therefore, afraid
Speaker 1: of someone that would lead someone to their death, Murder
Speaker 1: is wrong morally because we've learned to fear it. Basically,
Speaker 1: he said, everything that all morals could be taken from that,
Speaker 1: and it's really an evolutionary standpoint. And so C. S
Speaker 1: Lewis kind of tackles that idea, and it's isn't it
Speaker 1: crazy that all the years, all these years have gone
Speaker 1: by and we're still dealing with these same kind of questions.
Speaker 1: So C. S Lewis says, okay, you have you have
Speaker 1: a fire. Now I'm making this up. C. S. Lewis
Speaker 1: had a different scenario. I'm gonna say the scenario that
Speaker 1: I set on the radio. Say there's a fire in
Speaker 1: an apartment complex and you're walking by and you see
Speaker 1: this fire, so you rush in to see if you
Speaker 1: could help. And there are people, able bodied people and
Speaker 1: you're helping them, and you're you're getting out. There's a
Speaker 1: mother and she's got a child, a baby, and you
Speaker 1: want to help them, get them out. All of us
Speaker 1: would say that's morally right, you need to help. And
Speaker 1: the evolutionist, the the guy that's very practical in this, says, yes,
Speaker 1: there's something in you that driven by fear. Ultimately that says,
Speaker 1: I got to get this woman out and this baby
Speaker 1: out because this is how the human race survives. We
Speaker 1: have to do this otherwise we all we all die
Speaker 1: and the human race is no more so instinctively, through
Speaker 1: our evolution, we're going to we're gonna be we're gonna
Speaker 1: desire to help someone, to pull him out of this fire.
Speaker 1: So you're helping out these able body people. You got
Speaker 1: this woman and you got the child, and you're you're
Speaker 1: helping everyone out. Right. Now, there's a problem. This C. S.
Speaker 1: Lewis recognized this problem. This is what he's saying on
Speaker 1: the radio show. Essentially, what happens then when in that
Speaker 1: fire you see the old man in the corner and
Speaker 1: he's in a wheelchair. This is the scenario built on
Speaker 1: the radio and say, say this old man. Not only
Speaker 1: is he old and he's in a wheelchair and he's paralyzed,
Speaker 1: but he also has some kind of dementia. There's often
Speaker 1: there's obviously something wrong with him. He can't think straight.
Speaker 1: He to put it practically, he's just a drag on society.
Speaker 1: He ain't helping anybody. He's not helping the community. In fact, evolutionary,
Speaker 1: evolutionarily speaking, if he dies in that fire, we're actually better.
Speaker 1: We're better as a species because he's kind of a
Speaker 1: drag on the healthcare system. He's just kind of a
Speaker 1: waste of food that you know, he's a waste of resources.
Speaker 1: We're spending time and effort on this old man in
Speaker 1: a wheelchair who's got dementia, and we're kind of wasting
Speaker 1: when we need to be focused on the woman and
Speaker 1: the child and the able buddied people to move on
Speaker 1: as a species. But that's not what happens, is it.
Speaker 1: See as Lewis recognizes this, and the listener of this
Speaker 1: podcast recognizes this, that when you see that old man,
Speaker 1: something in you goes against that evolutionary spirit and says,
Speaker 1: help this old man. I gotta get this old man
Speaker 1: out of here. Hang on, sir, I'm gonna help. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna get this. I'm gonna get these boards
Speaker 1: pulled out of here. I'm gonna hang on a second. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get this wheelchair up over this thing. I
Speaker 1: know you're stuck here, but i'm gonna get you out.
Speaker 1: You hang on, sir, We're gonna we're gonna get this
Speaker 1: figured out. And you start helping the old man out
Speaker 1: of the burning fire, and that goes against it, that
Speaker 1: goes against everything that's practical, that says we evolved and
Speaker 1: we're driven by fear because you just went into the fire,
Speaker 1: which is fear driven, and then you're doing something that's
Speaker 1: against everything that helps the species evolve. Animals don't do this.
Speaker 1: My chickens, when one of my chickens gets sick, they
Speaker 1: they the other one's peck her till she dies, because
Speaker 1: it's survival the fittest, and it's you know, only the
Speaker 1: strong will survive, and they help their own little communities
Speaker 1: by just getting rid of the week. It helps everything.
Speaker 1: Humans don't do this. There's a nut there's something else
Speaker 1: outside of us, outside of everything that's practical and outside
Speaker 1: of everything that your brain says you should do, there's
Speaker 1: something else. There's a consciousness that says, help the old man.
Speaker 1: What is that? Where does that come from? That's what
Speaker 1: we need to know. Why do we have that in
Speaker 1: us to help that old man. Now we can do
Speaker 1: a whole podcast about just that what is that? But
Speaker 1: my point to Ali from Georgia is there that is
Speaker 1: enough evidence that there is a truth out there outside
Speaker 1: of ourselves, outside of our opinions, outside of our subjective
Speaker 1: I like this, you like this. There's something else pulling
Speaker 1: at us from our gut, from a guttural instinct, from
Speaker 1: deep down in our heart. There's something else that says,
Speaker 1: say that old man, Get that old man. Why that
Speaker 1: defies all odds. So you say, Ali, I know I
Speaker 1: should keep my focus on Jesus, but I'm going to
Speaker 1: stop you at the butt and said, to keep your
Speaker 1: focus on Jesus, you have to go to his word,
Speaker 1: as he's revealed himself in the Bible. Jesus has revealed
Speaker 1: himself in one way, and that is through his revealed word.
Speaker 1: The Book of John starts in the Gospel. The Book
Speaker 1: of John starts in the beginning, was the Word and
Speaker 1: the word was with God, and the word was God.
Speaker 1: And then you see in John one fourteen it says,
Speaker 1: and the word became flesh. Jesus is the Word. He's
Speaker 1: revealed himself in the Word, and the word became flesh.
Speaker 1: So to know him, to keep your focus on him,
Speaker 1: would be to go back to his word, or to
Speaker 1: be involved with the preaching of his word. To be
Speaker 1: in a faithful church that declares and preaches his word
Speaker 1: on Sundays, to be around other people who hear his
Speaker 1: word and talk about his word, and wrestle with his
Speaker 1: word and pray his word. To be close to Jesus.
Speaker 1: To keep your focus on him, what be to keep
Speaker 1: your focus on his word. When you do that, and
Speaker 1: when you seek instead seek you seek the Kingdom. As
Speaker 1: Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, all these
Speaker 1: things will be added to you. So when you say
Speaker 1: your second sentences, But should I still seek truth in
Speaker 1: my curiosities? I think your curiosities are fine, your desires
Speaker 1: are fine. Seek the Lord. First. Delight in the Lord,
Speaker 1: and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Speaker 1: You see, So, if you're seeking Jesus through his revealed word,
Speaker 1: through his people, in a church revolving around his word.
Speaker 1: That's really revolving around the preaching of his word that
Speaker 1: if you're seeking that he will give you the desires
Speaker 1: of your heart. In fact, he will give you the
Speaker 1: delight in his word that then lead to the desires
Speaker 1: of your heart, which I think is the same thing
Speaker 1: you're asking when you say my curiosities. So I've kind
Speaker 1: of established here is that there is a truth outside
Speaker 1: of ourselves. There is something pulling us to save the
Speaker 1: old man on the fire. And recognizing that there is
Speaker 1: a truth outside of ourselves, we know that we need
Speaker 1: to keep our focus on Jesus, knowing that he is
Speaker 1: the source, a source of truth capital t and when
Speaker 1: we keep our focus on him, everything else just seems
Speaker 1: to work out. Either you're talking about our government is
Speaker 1: a deep state and should you vote or not? It
Speaker 1: leads right back to his word. How because you're you're
Speaker 1: in a church, you're in a local church lowercase C.
Speaker 1: You're with people that you trust that are focused on
Speaker 1: his word just like you. You're doing it in community,
Speaker 1: and you go, what do we think about this government?
Speaker 1: Do you? What do we think about this voting thing?
Speaker 1: And you wrestle with it. But you're wrestling with people
Speaker 1: and you're you're having a discussion with people who are
Speaker 1: first focused on the Kingdom of Heaven. They're eternally minded
Speaker 1: people instead of temporarily minded people. People that go, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this could happen, and this could happen really bad. But
Speaker 1: in the end, we know who the king is, we
Speaker 1: know who wins in the end, and so yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: we should vote depending on these policies, and I agree
Speaker 1: with this policy, you agree with this policy. We disagree here,
Speaker 1: assuming that morality is out of this, because morality should
Speaker 1: be objective for a Christian. But you're wrestling with these
Speaker 1: things in a community, with the church, and these other
Speaker 1: things like the flat Earth, the Antarctic at the wall,
Speaker 1: the government, the deep state, everything else you see on
Speaker 1: social media just starts to fade away in the background.
Speaker 1: It it just becomes white noise that you could slowly
Speaker 1: turn that volume down to nothing. Understand, there is a
Speaker 1: capital T truth. It is objective. Jesus is the way,
Speaker 1: the truth and the life seek Him, seek the Kingdom
Speaker 1: of Heaven, the reign of Jesus in your heart. Essentially
Speaker 1: that means and all these other things will be added
Speaker 1: to you all the other things you need will be
Speaker 1: added to you. All your desires, your curiosities will bring
Speaker 1: him glory because you won't worry about other worldly temporal things. Okay,
Speaker 1: if you want to get a hold of me, go
Speaker 1: to cameo dot com slash granger Smith and I could
Speaker 1: send you a video message made right here on my
Speaker 1: phone whatever you want me to say, Happy birthday, happy anniversary.
Speaker 1: It's a great way for you and I to stay
Speaker 1: in contact and to get someone a gift that might
Speaker 1: seem to have everything. Hey, get him a gift at
Speaker 1: cameo dot com slash Grangersmith. Next question, says Granger, Please
Speaker 1: keep me anonymous. I'm not sure if they are listening
Speaker 1: to your podcast, It says Hey, Grangeer recently lost her
Speaker 1: relationship with someone I truly love. The old me was
Speaker 1: the party type. I finally found a woman that I
Speaker 1: wanted to share the rest of my life with. Our
Speaker 1: relationship was great, but all this all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: it ended, and it wasn't the best excuse me. I
Speaker 1: wasn't the best boyfriend or step parent by any means,
Speaker 1: but I tried the best I could. The person was
Speaker 1: literally the best thing I knew I just couldn't figure
Speaker 1: out how to tell them in their language that they
Speaker 1: were Fast forward a couple months later. We now live
Speaker 1: separately and rarely talk. I've done everything to get them back,
Speaker 1: including quitting that dip in my lip and gotten so
Speaker 1: close to God. I go to church a lot, found
Speaker 1: a lot of brothers and sisters in Christ, made amends
Speaker 1: with my family, improved to myself that I don't have
Speaker 1: to live that party mentality. I want to prove to
Speaker 1: her so badly that the old me is out, but
Speaker 1: she doesn't seem to believe me because in the past
Speaker 1: I didn't change. What are some of the ways to
Speaker 1: understand if this is God's will to let them go
Speaker 1: or if he wants me to keep fighting for my
Speaker 1: family talking about God, I'm honestly scared of this going
Speaker 1: on the podcast because of them hearing, and I'm scared
Speaker 1: of losing my faith and going back to my old
Speaker 1: sinful way. Is please help me get over this? Help
Speaker 1: me please? Okay? Interesting, I wonder if if the person
Speaker 1: is actually hearing this on the podcast, wouldn't that be something? Okay,
Speaker 1: So let's get into this, Anonymous, Where to start? I'm
Speaker 1: seeing four paragraphs here By the way, if you want to,
Speaker 1: if you want to email me podcast at grangersmith dot com,
Speaker 1: I'll answer this any any question you have, I'll put
Speaker 1: it into the queue, just like I'm doing right now.
Speaker 1: First of all, I want to say, this sounds just
Speaker 1: like a country song. You see, this kind of stuff
Speaker 1: happen all the time. Many country songs are written situations
Speaker 1: just like this. You had someone, you lost to someone
Speaker 1: and you wish you had them back. You wish you
Speaker 1: could just have said the things that that person needed
Speaker 1: to hear and then everything would have been right. You know,
Speaker 1: there's that old song by Steve Warner says it's not
Speaker 1: what I did, It's what I didn't do, And that
Speaker 1: sounds like a nineties country song wrapped around your situation. So,
Speaker 1: first of all, I say that in a way to
Speaker 1: just say, hey, you're not alone. This is a good
Speaker 1: old fashioned heartbreak. But there are some things that worry
Speaker 1: me in in it itself, and I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't know how old you are. It's it's always concerning
Speaker 1: when there's when there is kids involved, and there's there's
Speaker 1: kids involved in this scenario, because you're you're talking about
Speaker 1: I wasn't the best boyfriend, I wasn't the best step dad.
Speaker 1: And then so I'll probably start there. Out of everything,
Speaker 1: I'll probably start there and go, oh man, it's so
Speaker 1: tough when you're you're not only making a mistake to
Speaker 1: the the girlfriend, but you're also making a mistake to
Speaker 1: the girlfriend's kid. And it's just it puts a whole
Speaker 1: new wrinkle on it. It makes it that much more difficult.
Speaker 1: And I say to everyone else that's listening, got you
Speaker 1: gotta be so careful when when she has a child.
Speaker 1: And I'll say this to the single mother as well.
Speaker 1: You can't get serious like this in a way that
Speaker 1: you can get hurt in front of the child, because
Speaker 1: it's confusing for the kid. The kid's going the kid's
Speaker 1: now going through the breakup as well. Right, I guess
Speaker 1: you could say the same thing, especially that one line
Speaker 1: that says I wasn't the best stepdad. I think I
Speaker 1: would probably say too. I would. I don't even like
Speaker 1: that word stepdad. If you weren't you weren't a stepdad
Speaker 1: to begin with. How you said stepparent, I wasn't the
Speaker 1: best boyfriend or stepparent by any means, but but you
Speaker 1: weren't you weren't a parent, you weren't a step parent.
Speaker 1: You were just dating the mom carelessly, okay, And so
Speaker 1: we're gonna put that aside. We're gonna put that part
Speaker 1: of it on the shelf. That's the first paragraph. The
Speaker 1: second paragraph, you you live separately, and you know what
Speaker 1: that implies, right, you say, fast forward a couple months later.
Speaker 1: Now we live separately and rarely talk. The implication of
Speaker 1: that is that you were you guys were living together.
Speaker 1: You're dating her, and she had a kid with another man,
Speaker 1: and you moved in with her, and then you screwed
Speaker 1: it up and she's gone. And it's one thing for
Speaker 1: the mom. For the girl, it's bad for her, But
Speaker 1: think of what you're doing for the kid. What what
Speaker 1: message is it sending for the kid? You say, I
Speaker 1: go to church a lot, and I found a lot
Speaker 1: of brothers and sisters in Christ lower case C. I
Speaker 1: made amends with my family and proved to myself that
Speaker 1: I don't want to live that party mentality. I want
Speaker 1: to prove to her so badly that the old me
Speaker 1: is out, but she doesn't seem to believe me, and
Speaker 1: I don't either, Because, first of all, here's the reasons
Speaker 1: and brother By the way, this is tough love. This
Speaker 1: is not a knock on you. I'm doing my best
Speaker 1: here to give you the information that I think you need.
Speaker 1: And first of all, only a couple months you say
Speaker 1: have gone by. If you say it's been seven years,
Speaker 1: I'm a new man. Now I'm believing you. You say
Speaker 1: a couple months have gone by and I've changed my
Speaker 1: way as granger, I don't believe you, and that's okay.
Speaker 1: Time will build trust. So consistency and time will build trust.
Speaker 1: You're going to church a lot and being around brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters in Christ. That's a good step, But that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you're healed. That just means something you're doing.
Speaker 1: You where do you say you gave what? You gave
Speaker 1: up some bad habits and you've gotten so close to God?
Speaker 1: First go First of all, God didn't want you live
Speaker 1: in with that woman. That's what you would call a
Speaker 1: sexual sin, which is really bad in the Bible. Not
Speaker 1: that not that Christianity is work based, but meaning let me,
Speaker 1: let me explain that you don't do anything to earn
Speaker 1: your relationship with God. You don't give up dip and
Speaker 1: you don't you don't move out from your girlfriend's house
Speaker 1: and quit sexual sin to get close to God. It
Speaker 1: doesn't work. God goes, oh, you've already messed it up.
Speaker 1: You're already guilty. That's like saying to the judge. Imagine
Speaker 1: you get convicted of murder and you go to the
Speaker 1: trial and they're trying you for murder, and the jury
Speaker 1: comes in with their verdict and it is guilty. All evidence.
Speaker 1: You're guilty. You're caught on video, it's just obvious. They
Speaker 1: have the murder weapon. And the judge says, you're convicted, guilty.
Speaker 1: What do you have to say? And you say, Judge,
Speaker 1: that was a couple of months ago. I've been going
Speaker 1: to church and i've been I've quit some things and
Speaker 1: I don't do that murder stuff anymore. The judge goes,
Speaker 1: thanks for the story. You're still guilty, right, So that's
Speaker 1: what God says. When you say, but God, I've gotten
Speaker 1: a lot better. He goes, you're guilty. In fact, you've
Speaker 1: always been guilty. And same with me, same with everyone listening.
Speaker 1: We were born with this sin. We've inherited sin as humans,
Speaker 1: and it is so bad. It has infested us so
Speaker 1: bad that we have broken the law of God and
Speaker 1: the worst sin we could do, the worst implication of
Speaker 1: sin that we could do is break the commandments of
Speaker 1: God God, and we've all done that, and the verdict
Speaker 1: is guilty. So he says, you can't earn your way back.
Speaker 1: It's already done. There is nothing you could do. In fact,
Speaker 1: the Bible says that all your good works, all your
Speaker 1: good deeds, are like garbage to me. It's like dung
Speaker 1: to me. It means nothing. And so knowing this, God
Speaker 1: sent forth his son Jesus one hundred percent God, one
Speaker 1: hundred percent man to earth to live the life that
Speaker 1: you couldn't, the perfect life that didn't live with a girlfriend,
Speaker 1: who had a kid, that didn't do all the bad
Speaker 1: habits that you did, didn't have the party life that
Speaker 1: you have. Instead, Jesus fulfilled all God's commands perfectly. And
Speaker 1: then it was taken to the cross and murdered, becoming
Speaker 1: But it was planned, purposed so that he could become
Speaker 1: the final sacrifice, the ultimate sacrifice that took on that death,
Speaker 1: that punishment of your guilty verdict. He was made guilty.
Speaker 1: He who was innocent was made guilty for the sake
Speaker 1: of the guilty. To be innocent, you you see what
Speaker 1: it means. So Jesus became guilty for you. He was
Speaker 1: the only innocent man that became guilty for you, so
Speaker 1: that you, a guilty man, could be made innocent if
Speaker 1: you trust in him. So those with trust in Jesus
Speaker 1: are set free. They're released from the penalty that you've
Speaker 1: been accused of. That's the gospel. But let me go
Speaker 1: back full circle to what I was saying. I will
Speaker 1: know and anyone will know that that gospel truth has
Speaker 1: taken root in your heart because you will no longer
Speaker 1: want to be part of anything that remotely smells or
Speaker 1: looks like sin. That's not to say that you won't,
Speaker 1: but you will hate it and you'll do everything you'll
Speaker 1: scratch and claw to get away from it, because it's
Speaker 1: an infestation of sin. And that's the sign of a believer,
Speaker 1: is not that he's sinless. It's that he is doing
Speaker 1: everything he can to eradicate the sin itself. So he's
Speaker 1: doing everything you can't to get away from it. And
Speaker 1: two months go by and you've moved out from your
Speaker 1: girlfriend's house and you've quit putting dip in your lip
Speaker 1: and you're not partying as much. That's not enough. Of
Speaker 1: a track record for me to go, Oh yeah, that
Speaker 1: gospel has taken root in your heart, you see what
Speaker 1: I mean? And then lastly, your last your last question here,
Speaker 1: what are some ways to understand that that is God's
Speaker 1: will for me to let this girl go or if
Speaker 1: he wants me to keep fighting for my family? It's
Speaker 1: not your family. Don't say it that way. You're not
Speaker 1: a step parent and it's not your family. This is
Speaker 1: a girl friend until it's time to get things together
Speaker 1: and put a ring on her finger. It's a girlfriend.
Speaker 1: And so that you've messed up by the way, And
Speaker 1: so you say, I'm honestly scared. I don't know. I'm
Speaker 1: scared of going back into my old sinful ways over this.
Speaker 1: That sums it up right there. If you see Jesus
Speaker 1: for the value that he is, the sacrifice that he
Speaker 1: made to free you from hell. When you see that,
Speaker 1: when you see that, you deserve hell and you have
Speaker 1: a ticket punched for it, same as me, and you
Speaker 1: realize what Jesus did to free you from that. If
Speaker 1: you realize that, then you're saved and you don't want
Speaker 1: to go back into those old ways again. Once again,
Speaker 1: It's not like you were free and clear of it.
Speaker 1: But you don't want to. You don't sit around and
Speaker 1: go I'm so worried I'm going to get back into
Speaker 1: my old sinful ways. You go, I'm not going back there.
Speaker 1: I've seen the truth, I've seen the treasure. I don't
Speaker 1: want any part of it. So what do you do?
Speaker 1: You go back to hearing the truth again. Hopefully that's
Speaker 1: preached in a good church. If you're in college station,
Speaker 1: which I think you are, I would go to Mosaic Church.
Speaker 1: My buddy Sam Chrites is the pastor there, and that
Speaker 1: is a good gospel teaching church. Mosaic Church, Sam Christes,
Speaker 1: he's a good friend of mine. Tell him I sent you.
Speaker 1: And let's deal with this last question here. How do
Speaker 1: you know God's will? How do you know if it's
Speaker 1: God's will for you to get back with this girl
Speaker 1: or not? Romans twelfth two. There's always a good good
Speaker 1: go to It says, do not conform to this world,
Speaker 1: but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that
Speaker 1: by testing you can discern the will of God what
Speaker 1: is good and acceptable and perfect. So don't be transferred.
Speaker 1: Don't look like this world, don't don't conform to this
Speaker 1: world instead be renewed by by the Word, by being
Speaker 1: around other believers that keep you accountable to say, hey man,
Speaker 1: don't go back into that sense. Hey man here, let
Speaker 1: me save the gospel to you again, like Granger did
Speaker 1: on the podcast, let me show you the treasure so
Speaker 1: you could so show you what you've been saved from
Speaker 1: if you are that person that has faith in Christ
Speaker 1: and then all of those things when you realize that
Speaker 1: your main issue right now is that is that you
Speaker 1: have a one way ticket punched to hell. If you
Speaker 1: realize that that's your main problem right now, you're not
Speaker 1: gonna worry as much about the girlfriend. But the crazy
Speaker 1: thing is, as you start considering what Jesus did for
Speaker 1: sinners to redeem them to God, to make things right
Speaker 1: in that court room, remember to make things right. After
Speaker 1: you got declared guilty by the jury, Jesus comes and says,
Speaker 1: I'll take the fine, put it on me, put it
Speaker 1: on my body. I pay the penalty for him. He's mine.
Speaker 1: That one's my child. I redeem him, I restore him,
Speaker 1: I adopt him as a son. He's an heir, a
Speaker 1: co heir to the kingdom. It's everything the Father has
Speaker 1: given to me by my divine right. I give it
Speaker 1: to him by implication of what it did on the cross.
Speaker 1: That one's mine. Don't touch him when you realize that's you.
Speaker 1: When you realize you are that child, everything changes. Everything
Speaker 1: comes off of that. Everything is as far as the
Speaker 1: way you treat this girl, the way you interact with
Speaker 1: your friends, the way you want to want or not
Speaker 1: want to party anymore with them, the way you treat
Speaker 1: this step kid, the way you treat your boss and
Speaker 1: your employees and your coworkers, and your mom and your dad,
Speaker 1: the way you value church and your brothers and sisters there,
Speaker 1: the way you value your own finances, the way you
Speaker 1: value your free time. Everything changes when you realize you're
Speaker 1: that guy that Jesus says, that's mine. Don't touch him.
Speaker 1: Jesus says, my sheep hear my voice, and they follow me,
Speaker 1: and I know them. I give them eternal life, and
Speaker 1: no one will snatch them out of my hand. That's mine.
Speaker 1: No one snatches him out of my hand. When you
Speaker 1: realize that's you, everything changes. So to you, Anonymous, I'm
Speaker 1: saying is that you are you realizing that? Are you
Speaker 1: still like? Yeah, I'm trying to get close to the
Speaker 1: lowercase Gee God, I'm trying to understand my brother's in
Speaker 1: lower case see Christ. But what I really want, Granger,
Speaker 1: is I really want to get all my stuff and
Speaker 1: bring my truck back in the driveway and move back
Speaker 1: in with that girl who I really like, and I
Speaker 1: want to make things good again, and I kind of
Speaker 1: want to party too. I think I've been really clear
Speaker 1: on this answer. Next question comes from Bryn. Brnn says, Hey, Granger,
Speaker 1: I've been going to the same church my whole life,
Speaker 1: and I've recently been baptized as a teenager, and I'm
Speaker 1: not exactly sure on what my church thinks about women
Speaker 1: preaching the gospel. I'm not referring to leading the church. Instead,
Speaker 1: I would like to know if I could speak at
Speaker 1: my school's FCA Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and would that
Speaker 1: be okay and not against what the Lord says about
Speaker 1: women preaching the gospel. I could just share my testimony,
Speaker 1: and I feel like others would get more out of
Speaker 1: this if I gave them a little bit of a
Speaker 1: short speech. I guess you could call it. She says.
Speaker 1: It would just be a short sermon and I would
Speaker 1: talk about my relationship with the Lord. I've attended FCAA
Speaker 1: meetings where women either give testimonies or short sermons. I
Speaker 1: think it's okay for women to share the gospel, just
Speaker 1: as long as they're not leading a church as a
Speaker 1: preacher would. And I've asked my youth leader about it,
Speaker 1: and he really couldn't give me an answer. I just
Speaker 1: need help on this, and I hope your answer could
Speaker 1: be helpful to me in some way. I hope you're
Speaker 1: able to help me. Thank you and God bless Okay, Brent, Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for the question. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with you
Speaker 1: sharing your testimony and sharing the gospel. In fact, it
Speaker 1: would be weird if you didn't. As Christians, all of
Speaker 1: us men women were called to be ministers in our lives,
Speaker 1: and we are ambassadors for Christ and God makes his
Speaker 1: appeal through us. Isn't that crazy? So yeah, share your testimony,
Speaker 1: share the gospel. This is not talking about the qualifications
Speaker 1: for elders like a Titus one qualification for elder or
Speaker 1: shepherd or pastor or church leader. This is not talking
Speaker 1: about anything that I think you're trying to confuse. You
Speaker 1: giving a Sunday morning sermon with sharing the gospel and
Speaker 1: your testimony at an FCA meeting. Absolutely nothing wrong and
Speaker 1: absolutely there's no discrepancy there. Next question comes from Jared says, hey, grangdeer,
Speaker 1: my name is Jared. I'm twenty years old. I am
Speaker 1: pursuing a Sorry. I'll keep putting on these glasses because
Speaker 1: it's just so much easier to see. I'm twenty years
Speaker 1: old and I'm pursuing a career in electrical construction. I'm
Speaker 1: a Christian man pursuing a relationship. For a good couple
Speaker 1: of years now. I couldn't help but notice that my
Speaker 1: church here in small town Cottonwood, Arizona, is dying. My
Speaker 1: church is fairly large and has around six hundred seats,
Speaker 1: but only about fifty people attend. The congregation consists of
Speaker 1: mainly older folk around sixty years and up, and there's
Speaker 1: no young people. I've got a good group of buddies
Speaker 1: that I've grown up with that attend here, and that's
Speaker 1: about it for young people. It's hard because this church,
Speaker 1: this is my home church and I grew up here,
Speaker 1: but I also want to branch out and meet new people.
Speaker 1: It's sad to see my home church that I believe
Speaker 1: is dying. Any ideas for tackling a dying church. I
Speaker 1: was thinking about your second sentence, I'm a single Christian
Speaker 1: man pursuing a relationship. I kind of threw me off
Speaker 1: a little bit because that's nothing to do with that.
Speaker 1: I think that was just background information. Okay, yeah, so
Speaker 1: so Jared, I appreciate the question, and yes, you're right,
Speaker 1: it is sad to see a church dying, and we
Speaker 1: see we see many churches dying, especially in towns like this,
Speaker 1: and there are many symptoms of a dying church. I
Speaker 1: think I could say here I should probably insert that
Speaker 1: the Lord will keep his church, the Lord will sustain
Speaker 1: his church capital c. It doesn't always have to mean
Speaker 1: that a certain churches needs to be meeting in a certain location,
Speaker 1: and that door could be closing, a door could be
Speaker 1: opening towards a merger. Maybe there's another church that's doing
Speaker 1: that's doing well, and they woult e merge with your
Speaker 1: fifty people and they're three hundred people, and then you
Speaker 1: got a new church of three fifty. You emerge leadership
Speaker 1: if if you guys have really close on doctrine and
Speaker 1: you agree on leadership, a church merger is a good thing.
Speaker 1: I don't think you're into that. I don't think you're
Speaker 1: interested in that. I think you are more about leaving,
Speaker 1: because it seems to me that you're saying, I want
Speaker 1: to branch out and meet new people. So certainly it's
Speaker 1: you know, a merger could be cool, but it sounds
Speaker 1: like you're wanting to just move on the thing. To
Speaker 1: prepare yourself against the best way to prepare your church
Speaker 1: against dying is having a good leader or leaders that
Speaker 1: preach the Gospel, that teach expositionally through the Bible, where
Speaker 1: the point of the message is the point of the sermon,
Speaker 1: the point of the passage or the Bible verse, that
Speaker 1: the pastor's reading is the point of the message, and
Speaker 1: not the other way around. If you want, you want
Speaker 1: more messages that come expositionally, meaning the point of the
Speaker 1: message is the point of the sermon. Unless there's a
Speaker 1: topic and this is a really cool lesson on finances
Speaker 1: or love or relationships or heartbreak or loss or careers
Speaker 1: or friendships, and we're going to use the Bible to
Speaker 1: support the topic at hand. It's a man centered gospel,
Speaker 1: it's a man centered teaching, and it typically fails, whether
Speaker 1: sooner or later. That's a good way to kill a
Speaker 1: church a good way to sustain a church and to
Speaker 1: fuel it, and think of it as an engine and
Speaker 1: the church, the engine loses fuel without the gospel. The
Speaker 1: gospel is going to fuel the church and more people
Speaker 1: will be sustained by it. Man man center teaching. Man
Speaker 1: centered preaching eventually is going to drive out everyone because
Speaker 1: they're gonna be they're gonna be left hungry and they're
Speaker 1: gonna be starving, and they're gonna need real food and
Speaker 1: not fast food that they're getting or salad. They're gonna
Speaker 1: want steak and potatoes, and they're only gonna get steak
Speaker 1: and potatoes with a church that teaches expositionally, I don't
Speaker 1: even say, if you've noticed on this podcast of the
Speaker 1: last several years, I don't even say things like a
Speaker 1: church that preaches that teaches from the Bible. I don't
Speaker 1: use that anymore because that seems to be what everyone says,
Speaker 1: Thank goodness, my church teaches from the Bible. Well, it'd
Speaker 1: be weird if you wouldn't even be a Christian church
Speaker 1: at all if you didn't teach from the Bible. So
Speaker 1: let's let's say there's a new level of course, you
Speaker 1: teach from the Bible. But I'm talking about teaching from
Speaker 1: a passage, and the passage is the point, the whole point. Like, welcome,
Speaker 1: open your bibles. Today, We're gonna be in First Corinthians,
Speaker 1: and I want you to turn to this page, this chapter,
Speaker 1: and we're going to read these eleven verses, and then
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the point of those eleven verses,
Speaker 1: and then we're going to talk about how this applies
Speaker 1: to our lives today. What can we learn from Paul
Speaker 1: in this message that he was speaking to the Corinthians
Speaker 1: that we could apply to our lives today. Here we'll
Speaker 1: here's some applications for us in light of what Paul
Speaker 1: was saying. Instead of saying, Hey, we've got these problems,
Speaker 1: let's go thumb through the Bible and see if we
Speaker 1: could find some solutions to it. You see what I mean.
Speaker 1: I don't I can go a thousand directions on answering
Speaker 1: how what to do with your dying church? And it's
Speaker 1: tragic either way. But having a pastor that is bold
Speaker 1: and courageous and loves the Word and loves people and
Speaker 1: loves the sheep, and has given his life to faithfully
Speaker 1: preaching a solid gospel that uses the Bible and teaching
Speaker 1: expositionally out of it. You're in good shape if you
Speaker 1: have that. Even if you have fifty people, there's nothing
Speaker 1: wrong with fifty people. Essentially. I've been in churches around
Speaker 1: the world that meet under a tree and there's seven people,
Speaker 1: and it's a healthy church. It's not based on it's
Speaker 1: never been based on numbers. And so you have a
Speaker 1: bunch of empty seats, that doesn't necessarily mean it's a
Speaker 1: bad church. I think the sign that is dying is
Speaker 1: there's less and less every week. I think that's what
Speaker 1: you're saying. And there's no young people. That's a good
Speaker 1: sign too. So I hope that answers and I don't
Speaker 1: think that I don't think any of that's your question.
Speaker 1: I think truly your question is grangeer. I think I'm leaving.
Speaker 1: Where should I go? And so I say, Okay, it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily your job to save the church you grew
Speaker 1: up in. That's not your job. You are a you're
Speaker 1: pursuing a career in electrical construction. Okay, that's not you
Speaker 1: to save the church. But what you can do, being
Speaker 1: twenty is plant yourself in a church that's teaching expositionally
Speaker 1: with a pastor who loves people and loves Jesus and
Speaker 1: cannot wait every Sunday to give you the message that
Speaker 1: you need to hear from the Bible. Rights. That's where
Speaker 1: I would go with this. I think that's what you
Speaker 1: want to do, and you'll know a healthy church when
Speaker 1: you see it. Let me say one more thing. There's
Speaker 1: a great book. It's a nine marks book. It's called
Speaker 1: What is a Healthy Church? Everyone? Write that down? What
Speaker 1: is a healthy Church? It's a very short book. If
Speaker 1: you're not a reader, grab it on audible or some
Speaker 1: kind of audio book format. What is a healthy church?
Speaker 1: What is a healthy church? Read it? Super short, super simple.
Speaker 1: A dear dear brother of mine wrote that book, and
Speaker 1: I think it will give you. It would expound on
Speaker 1: all the ideas I said, plus some. Okay, I love
Speaker 1: you guys, See you next Monday. Thanks for joining me
Speaker 1: on the Granger Smith podcast. I appreciate all of you guys.
Speaker 1: You could help me out by writing this podcast on iTunes.
Speaker 1: If you're on YouTube, subscribe to this channel. Hit that
Speaker 1: little like button and notification spell so that you never
Speaker 1: miss anytime I upload a video. Yi