C (1:43)

Figure it out. The best part, man, here's. Here's a question. This one. I. I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain in Ephesus. So here's a. Here's a question for y'. All. Can you think of a time in your ministry like somebody was getting you ready and said, all right, you know, shoved you out the nest a little bit and said, go do it. Left. Left you in Ephesus.

A (2:07)

Oh, my gosh. I have many of these stories. Coach Lee, dude, his discipleship strategy was. It was get in the truck, and you're in charge of this. So for sure, the first time I preached, which Everybody's heard that 10 million times, you're going to go talk. So then I end up. Or my senior year of high school, I think. So I'm, like 17 years old, and I'm at camp as a camper and then stay around for, like, two more Weeks. So intern at camp. And it's all college students are the counselors. And I'm a high school senior and he's like, you're in charge of the counselor devotions every morning. We did these things every morning before the kids woke up. And I mean it was hardcore, man. So you gotta, you know, it's like 5:36 in the morning or whatever. And I'm like, I don't. Okay, yes sir, no problem. And I was clueless. So if you've ever been on a mission trip with me, the first thing we do, we get up in the morning, we meet and we do 30 minutes of on your own in the scriptures. It started at Campine Hill. The reason I did that because I was like guys, before we hear what we need, what we're going to say, we need to just be with the Lord. I, I did it as a, as kind of a goof so that I could go find something to talk about for the devo thing. And I thought, well that's pretty good. So that is a result of that scramble because I didn't know what to talk about.

B (3:33)

When I was. This has got nothing to do with your question but when I was a teenager and I was first learning to drive my I lived in north of Atlanta and my dad took me down to 285 in a stick shift and that's how I learned how to drive a stick was on 285 at 4 o' clock in the afternoon. So I learned real quick. So it's pretty smart on his part. A little risky when I was in doing camp ministry in college. So the way camp ministry works is a lot of churches would come to this one location and we would put the camp on. So call it 50, 60 churches all meeting in one location. We run this big event. Well, the churches that would come, they would ask you to come. They would. There was youth groups like student ministries and they would say hey, will you come to our house or our hotel or wherever we're staying and will you do a devotion tonight with our youth group? Because I was on staff at the camp and they thought you were cool or whatever.

C (4:26)

And.

B (4:27)

And so we would always go in pairs for a lot of reasons. And we started learning this. One of the ways we learned how to teach the Bible is right before I would knock on the door or ring the doorbell to go into the place to do Devot was with me would give me the text that I was going to do a devotion on. So I didn't have like canned ones I just had to pick. I just had. And the first time I was reading it was when I was sitting in front of the kids. I mean, I had read it before at some point in my life, probably.

C (4:55)

Are they trying to trick you, like, but giving you the real obscure?

B (4:58)

Oh, man, they. I would get verses about donkeys and verses about all kinds of, like, is just crazy Leviticus stuff that, like. And I learned real quick that you just had to keep reading. You know, they'd give you one verse and you would just keep. I would just keep reading until I found something that smelled like gospel.

A (5:17)

You go see Jesus.

B (5:18)

Yeah.

A (5:21)

Every page.

B (5:22)

So that was one of the ways that I learned how to like, just handle the word, you know? And so I kind of feel like that's a.

C (5:29)

A little bit lost in our generation that, like, permission to fail, like before you're ready set somebody loose to do something. And maybe it's just the age I'm at and parenting, but I think the things you learn the most are in situations like that, it's the freeway in rush hour and you're like, oh, if I don't do this, then we're like, everybody is behind us, hon.

A (5:54)

Yeah, most people can do way more than you give yourself credit for. You know, you look at the a generation of 18 year olds, you think, oh, he's a bunch of lazy losers. And all they do is play video games and think, okay, I'm telling you, man, if they all got drafted today, they'd be the baddest fighting army ever. Because that's what America produces. Because there's something in us that just doesn't step up until you are required to.

C (6:19)

Yeah.

A (6:20)

And you know, that can be a lost part of discipleship, as we've talked about a lot, man. It's not just learning things. It is actually doing things like disciples. Make disciples and you get discipled so that you can disciple. Petey is one of the best in his group. You know, he's got a bunch of old guys in his group and they're all, almost all of them are pretty savvy businessmen and you. And they scramble when he puts them in charge, but he does not let him out, man. You know, and they do big board meetings and they do presentations and they make multi million dollar decisions all the time for these companies that they run. And then he's like, all right, next week you're up, Rick. Rick's like, what? And Dr. Paul will do the same thing, bro. That is a Pauline method of discipleship.

B (7:09)

Yeah, yeah, watch me do it. Do it with me. You go do it. That's the way to teach anybody to do anything.

C (7:17)

Yeah. By the way, if you're watching this and you didn't see the whole. What a freaking great video. Pre year sermon with Pastor Jerry and Ryan and then your daughter, I was like, if that's my daughter, I'm like.

A (7:31)

Dude, if you want to talk about. Reagan always comes on Thursday. She's got the whole front row of all of her friends and then they all go and serve at our Ponte Vedra campus on Sunday and they worship their faces off. It's incredible. But because she was in the, the bumper video, in case you didn't watch.

C (7:48)

It, it's worth going back to. What?

A (7:51)

Well, a part, a big part of Timothy is, you know, Paul is training up Timothy. And so, you know, one of my Pauls is Pastor Jerry. And it's really cool that Pastor Jerry brings me to Jacksonville to be the youth pastor at his church, Beach Church. And one of my kids is Ryan Sweat. He was a senior, this is in 2001. Now he's what, 38 or something with, married with three kids. And he is the student pastor here at San Pablo. And my daughter is in his student ministry. So this kid that I used to teach the Bible 24 years ago is now teaching my kid the Bible and it's just like this link of discipleship. So anyway, dude, I mean my 15 year old little girl, God bless her, she just sends me a very simple text on our family text. It just says dad, next text. That was so good. You, I mean I, I'm sure I have plenty of credit because then I also have plenty of people that say nice things. Bro, there's Nothing like your 15 year old. So sitting in one of a, in a sermon when I even made fun of her for a while on the swerving.

C (8:49)

Right.

A (8:51)

But yeah, man, I'm so I, I mentioned it in the sermon, but to all the volunteers, all the serve staff, all the paid staff and our kids in student ministry, I, I cannot thank you enough. You know, I mean like her leader Kendall and, and a bunch of, you know, honestly, Ms. Nita was my kids preschool teacher. Adults that have helped me raise my kids in the gospel, there's no way I could do it without them. So thanks.

C (9:24)

Weren't you talking about a family member of yours who was it that taught the Sunday school for 60 years or something?

B (9:31)

Yeah, man, you're kind of forcing my hand to let the cat out of the bag here. So I will tease it, but I'm Going to preach it later. The. Yeah. My wife's grandmother passed away and she taught, she taught fourth grade Sunday school in the same church for 60 years. And at her funeral there were ladies that were in their 50s.

A (9:53)

Wow.

B (9:54)

That were in her Sunday school. Same church, 60 years, same Sunday school class. Incredible.

A (10:00)

What a legacy, man.

B (10:01)

Incredible.

C (10:03)

That just, that just leaves me wanting more. So I think it's perfect.

B (10:07)

All in due time. All in due time.

C (10:11)

We're going to dig in a little bit to the. What's the situation in Ephesus? Because it has a lot to do with obviously what Paul's going to address here. It's. It's not Rome, it's a territory of Rome, but very successful city. And the gospel invades this, this city. And so how is it that the gospel can be trans cultural in any environment? And what was the environment that it came into in this, in the city?

A (10:40)

So this is a hustling, bustling metropolis, man. This is a whole bunch of makes and mixes of different people. It was also could be a very transient place, you know, with all the ports and those kinds of things. And so one of the things that pops up is this temple to Artemis, which was like a fertility goddess. And so that is like the nice Sunday school way of saying just this incredible sexual immorality and debauchery bestiality in a place where you visit and don't necessarily live, you know, or even a place so big without social media that you could go to the other side of town and do what you wanted to do. There was a lot of what, what eventually would be called Gnosticism there, like all things fleshly or evil and all things good must be spiritual. And so you could just kind do whatever you wanted to with your body. There was a pantheon of belief and so it would be customary to just like I could believe in my God and you could believe in your God and that's fine, it doesn't matter. And even my God and your God might even be the same God and have different names depending on what part of the world you are, but they don't really care about each other. Then this idea that there's only one true God and his name is Jesus comes on the scene. And it is, it is remarkable the gospel impact that happens. And there's a series that we're going to do later called in the arena where we're going to walk through Acts 19. There's these, what are called. So Paul plants this church and then Paul is doing these miracles. I mean in fact the Book of Acts says there are miracles that were unique only to the town of Ephesus. That he was healing people with his apron and like handkerchiefs, like just clothes that had touched him would touch people and they would be healed. And then there are these, the seven sons of Ska. We won't dig in too much because we're going to do a whole sermon on them. So then they try to operate in a power without knowledge of Jesus. They're like Christ adjacent. We've heard of this. And so they get overwhelmed by this demoniac. And then word begins to spread and the fear of the Lord comes upon this city and their response is worship. They extol the name of Jesus. And so we walk through the five things that kind of mark the beginning of the Ephesus church. But the, the this one has always. If you. I went back through some of my notes, man. I preached this in 2012 before we launched when we were service. I preached it in 2013 in the middle, for the first 18 months of the life of our church, we went through the whole book of Acts. And in the middle of that, when we got to Acts 19 and 20, I diverted for a minute and did a series just on Ephesus, you know, because it's never. It's always hit me hard that in some different ways, but there are some similarities in the way 1122 started and the way Ephesus started in regards to. We went from a service to a church overnight and over 3,000 people showed up the first day. And the first year at our one year birthday, outreach magazine puts us in as the fastest growing church, you know, so. And they did it again this year, so. Or not V but on the list.

B (14:04)

Oh yeah, on the list.

A (14:05)

Yeah. And to me it's a big warning because it ain't how you start, man, it's how you finish.

B (14:12)

Amen.

A (14:13)

And they didn't finish. Well, they started. You couldn't ask for a better church plant, right? The apostle Paul plants that. Timothy's the pastor. John is one of the elders. A riot breaks out in the right kind of way. Everything's tracking in the right direction. You get this letter, this letter of encouragement that Paul writes you as you're. And then by the end, Jesus is like, hey man, I got something against you. Like you missed the whole. You missed the most important thing. So I say that because the, the measurables. And while I don't think we're in danger of this right now, I bet ephesus wasn't either 13 years in. But all the measurables can be going great. And if you lose love, man, you lost it all.

B (15:03)

Well, one of the things that happened in Ephesus, really all across Asia Minor, which is where the seven churches of Revelation are all located, there's an argument to be made. I don't think it's this singular, but I think there's a part of the argument to be made that Ephesus was a pretty wealthy city and a lot of that was rooted in trade. But one of the primary economic engines in the city of Ephesus was the temple system. And so one of the things you have to think about in regards to the reach of Acts and what's happening in Ephesus through Ephesians and here as Timothy's pastoring it, is that a lot of these people are losing a lot by choosing to trust and follow Jesus because they're having to quit their jobs, they're having to find different forms of employment because it wasn't your only option in the temple system. Wasn't all only to prostitute yourself. There was all this like, you know, like icons and symbols and I small idols. And the temple system is where you would go for your daily interchange. The whole thing was built around how all these, this network of temples existed. And so it was high cost. And a lot of people, you know, I've heard it argued a few different ways that, you know, if you track the Roman emperors and then eventually Constantine has his miraculous vision on the battlefield in Rome and that's where Christianity really begins to spread. Like, well, it really begins to be embraced as one of the official religions in Rome. That much of that decision was economic because the, the economy had been so impacted by the organic and grassroots growth of Christianity. And the temple system's economy was failing in a lot of cities like Ephesus because Christians were no longer creating the goods. You know, people had walked away and God was providing for them in a different way. And so I think that's a fascinating angle to what is happening in Ephesians because it puts it on the ground level with us. I mean, it's like if, at what point, you know, do when my faith is going to cost me my job.

A (17:13)

Can I tell you a story? A long story now Same. It's still happening today, of course. So I as, you know, 7:22 gets done, I go stand in the hall in the thing out there, pray with people, what all the things, man. And this girl, mid-20s is like, I just want to share my testimony with you. Like, okay, great. Kind of grew up in church a little bit. Went on a mission trip, sort of some, sort of some easy believism, you know, Goes to college kind of. She says, barely one big toe in my faith walk and pretty much everything else in the world. Then she graduates college, gets a decent job and she thinks, man, if I could just meet a guy then I'll be fully, finally satisfied. She meets a guy at Pete's bar. It's probably your first red flag. Things move along pretty quick. She gets pregnant. They've been dating five months. They're like, all right, let's do it, we should get married. She has a miscarriage. But they still move along. They're still thinking they're going to get married. So they buy a house together as boyfriend and girlfriend. She moves in and she is wrought with anxiety. Like she can't describe it. She's trying to do all things. She's exercising, she's trying to take stuff. She's, you know, and she finds an 1122 sermon and, and the second one that she listens to is, is something like, why do you keep going back to that? And I talked about lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, pride of life. And she is over. She says, first of all, her anxiety begins to dissipate in a way that she can't describe. And then she surrenders her life to Jesus and she realizes she is completely, unequally yoked, not doing this thing the way God wants her to do it. So she breaks up with her boyfriend. She took half of her life savings to help buy this house together with him. You want to talk about costing you something now they're not going to get married. I mean, man, when you're a 26 year old girl, what else did this world have to offer? You know what I mean? So she doesn't even have. So this guy, poor guy, you know, he don't know, he's like, well, you got to pay half. He wasn't. She. She originally didn't have enough money to cover half the mortgage because they were going to do this together. And he, you know, whatever. But she's like, all right. And she's praying and praying and praying and praying and she's got to get this thing sold by the end of this year. And sure enough, December 31st at 8:20, they get an offer, sell the house. She's in here to me right now, going now, volunteering students. You want to talk about a piece that transcends understanding? Jesus has changed my life. She is not talking about sacrifice at all. What she Thought was the most important thing. A house, a relationship, half of her life savings. Now she considers it all loss because she knows Jesus and she's just sharing testimony. Dude, that is this she. I mean, we should probably tell her story at some point, but she has this like, dividing line moment, right? She feels Christ calling her and she's like, this is going to cost me all that I know. And then on the other side of it, she's going, worth every penny. I, I don't know, man. I. That's different than my life sucks and I want better and Jesus is better than suck.

B (20:35)

Totally.

C (20:35)

Yeah. You mentioned that as one of the evidences, you know, like, there was great sacrifice that happened.

A (20:41)

You.

C (20:41)

You read that Acts passage, you know, you think it's going to be comfortable to, like, divulge all your practices. You think, you know, then you burn all those valuables. And I mean, just. It's pretty incredible. They just walk away, you know, so something. Something grabbed a hold of them. And Paul's words, I can't remember, honestly, if you read this, but he says, I know that after my departure, the fierce wolves are going to come. It reminds me a little bit of Moses. Remember, I just read Deuteronomy. This is why he's like, hey, there's gonna be another leader and don't turn to idols. But when you do, it's like he just knows, you know what I mean? And so something about Paul's presence there had this for. He's talking about how he's defending against, you know, so he was a strong force to defend against these things. And then he. When he leaves, it becomes a lot harder.

A (21:34)

Did I. I love when the Lord does this. I wasn't even intending to go this direction. I was just gonna, like, basically redo one of the sermons from Galatians on no other gospel, you know, and go through a bunch of like, false gospels. But it's the first time I've ever put together that Paul gives him the reason to fight against false doctrine. The aim of our charge is love.

B (22:07)

That might be. That's the anchor verse for the whole.

A (22:10)

The whole letter. Right.

B (22:11)

No question.

A (22:12)

But then particularly to the pastor of the church at Ephesus. And the warning in Acts 19 and then the result in Revelation 2, you get to see the whole. That's beautiful picture that you could do all the right things and believe all the right things and miss the whole point and abandon your first love. Hmm.

C (22:38)

I do circle things in my Bible. Just if you just, you know, a quick look over this doesn't take long to read this letter. And if you circle it, every time he gives a charge, you know, and to your point, you just connect that charge back. This is my. My love for you is causing this charge. You know, he has several times in this first section, he says, I charge you to keep these rules without prejudging. I charge you in the presence of God who gives all things to keep the commandment unstained. He then ends by saying, charge the rich in this age to be generous. And so that's like. It's a command. It's an imperative. And you talked a lot about the different things that were the reasons for. The reasons for the need for the purity of the doctrine. So is there anything else that you didn't get a chance to say about what was going on there? Why would he say that? In Acts, he says, as soon as I leave, there's going to be some people coming in and twisting.

A (23:40)

Well, the. The primary problem in the churches that were mostly reaching Jewish people is Judaizers would come in and be like, jesus is not enough. The primary problem in the Roman cities and provinces was syncretism, which is when you just add Jesus to the rest of your life versus submit and surrender all of your life to him. And that was a part of what was going on. This is why they're all caught up in things like genealogies and myths of the current culture. And they. And what begins to happen is they allow those things to carry the same weight as the good news of the gospel in their life, and Jesus is not an add on.

B (24:19)

Yeah, there's. There's a. There's a few primary false gospels that Pastor Joby covered and then talked about the ones that we deal with, which are really just aberrations of very, very old.

A (24:33)

Right. Yeah.

B (24:34)

You know, false gospels. But I heard a great sermon one time called the Genesis of False Gospels, where a guy just walked through Genesis and showed every false gospel.

A (24:44)

Wow.

B (24:45)

It was like, you know, I do, but I'm not gonna say, okay, that good, huh? And. And because you might listen to other things that I don't think are. Are that good. So anyway, that said, one of the. One of the. If you read commentaries on this, which there's some great ones on the pastoral epistles, but Paul's battling against what he calls the doctrine of demons. That's a really interesting phrase. But one of the teachings was that marriage didn't matter. You shouldn't give yourself to marriage. I think some of that was rooted economically in the sense that in Rome Women could own property or could have wealth until they got married. And that made a lot of sense as to why later in the letter, Paul addresses women specifically and men specifically because they were like targeted. It was inciting men and women different based on the, the, the false gospel that. You see what I'm saying, like there. And so I always thought that he talks about the genealogies and speculations here, myths and endless genealogies. And if you travel in Africa, for example, which I've been over there so many times, but one of the things, syncretism, a great way to understand this is in Africa, in the rural areas, what they'll do is they do ancestry worship and then they blend it in with Christianity. And you're talking with someone and they, they know all the Christian words. Specifically in a country like Kenya, that was a British colony that has been declared reach for a long time. There's been a lot of missionaries there. Bible and all the different languages, they know the words and they're, they'll you be preaching the gospel to them and they'll be like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

C (26:42)

And.

B (26:45)

They also do have witch doctors that perform ceremonies. And so there, you see what I'm saying? And that's true syncretism.

A (26:52)

Almost like you're trying to cover all their bases.

B (26:54)

Exactly.

A (26:54)

Yeah. You see it a lot in Jamaica with Rastafarians, no problem with Jesus and all that. But then you start digging around and we've talked about this before, we're using the same words in different dictionaries, bro. You know, and that Ra is the real God and that Jesus, you know, it's kind of some myths and made up stuff I read a.

C (27:12)

One of the things I read was that a lot of it was Jewish legend, you know, like, because we know that there's a lot, there's a lot of extra. What even for them would be considered extra biblical writings of rabbis and stuff like that. But there were these like almost think about tall tales that we know from like the American West. They had a lot of those to do with founders of the faith or heroes of the past. And those would be taught like as it says and you know, you know the story Abraham when he chopped down the cherry tree or what? I mean, something like that.

B (27:43)

Yeah, I could easily see that. Especially with a lot of them being gentiles and not they're being introduced to Abraham into the genealogies of the Old Testament for the first time. They're learning about this and they're trying to find themselves in the story and then like you said, it just swerves and keeps swerving and keeps swerving. And then all of a sudden we've lost our mind.

A (28:04)

Something. Me for the first time too in studying this as I was kind of walking through some of the modern day twisting. I love the way that's what, that's the language Paul uses in Acts. He's like, man, there's people, people that twist words. That's what the enemy does. Like he takes something good, a good gift from God, food, and then he twists it. And either you worship food and try to find comfort in food, or you think food is evil and you've got to avoid it because you know, same thing with sex, same thing with money. It's all twisting the thing in and of itself is not the problem. Okay? All of those twistings, whether it's like legalism or licentiousness, whether it's universalism or hyper, hyper Calvinism, whether it's all, all the ones I went through, if you really look at it, the thing they all have in common is the root of it is self. Like it all centers around self. Like legalism is Jesus, you didn't do enough. Let me help itself. Moralism is, I got this in my own behavior itself. Tolerance is, I don't. For my own self satisfaction. I don't want to make anybody else uncomfortable with truth. These are all selfish. And the real one today is it's really like self actualization bathed in selfish behavior. And that's it. Like I'm God, I'm going to tell you who I am. You are not telling me who I am. That's all rooted in the worship of self. And the fundamental difference in the gospel is it ain't about you that it's rooted in him and the best. So this is back to like what Jesus says. Hey man, you want to find your life? Don't make it about you. Lose yourself in him and in so doing you'll find your life. You want to lose yourself, make it all about you and then that's all you will have is yourself and yourself will always let yourself down.

C (30:09)

That's literal meaning of the word pervert is to twist, to turn. You know, think about the word invert. Oh yeah, to turn, turn over or whatever. So pervert is. It's the same. This might be sideways, but you talk about the self being at the root of all these things and, and we're talking about the wolves and reading in Acts. You know, what's wild is what people, what lengths these people would go to when they had, whether it's Jewish leaders or even the temple worshipers in Ephesus, the lengths they'll go to because of jealousy when that self worship is threatened. You got religious leaders. This happened with, to Jesus too. Religious leaders. It's not like they're cloaking it in euphemisms. They're saying, how can we murder this person?

A (31:03)

Yeah.

C (31:04)

Because they're causing so much problems and we're going to lose control here. We need to murder them.

A (31:10)

Right.

C (31:10)

And you are a religious leader. And the Ten Commandments do not murder.

A (31:15)

They won't pick grain on the Sabbath because it breaks the law, but they will conspire to murder. Yeah. And somehow that's, that doesn't break open in their conscience.

C (31:26)

Yeah.

A (31:26)

Either way, I think I'm off.

C (31:28)

That's twisting, right. That's twisted. And I think that all the things that you mentioned, all the false gospels that you mentioned will, will eventually lead you to some place of if you could objectively step back and see it, it would be that ridiculous.

A (31:44)

And so with that in mind, isn't it, doesn't it inform you a lot on the content of the book of Ephesians? Yeah, the first half is just the gospel. If you break that down in half, it's like, like Chandler would say, it's the gospel from the air and the gospel on the ground. You know, there's like the cosmic gospel of Jesus coming to make all things new. Then there's the very personal. And you were dead in your trespasses, but God being rich in mercy, saved you individually with your by grace through faith. And then it shifts gears in like chapter, the end of chapter three, and it's the implications of the gospel in the church, at work, at home. And then it ends with spiritual warfare. Because again, he's. If you think about the spiritual warfare, the whole series we did, in light of Paul saying what you're actually fighting against, when you're not just fighting against false teachers, your fight is not against flesh and blood. And it's not just an idea battle that there are demonic forces trying to twist the truth to kill, steal and destroy the people at the Church of Ephesus.

C (32:49)

It makes so much sense that, that it's such a robust, forceful argument and treat us for, for those things.

A (32:57)

So how do you know if you're, you know, we have people that listen to all kind of stuff. There are people go to Live 22 and they tell me who they listen to and I'm like, how do you listen to us preach here and name that person. So how do you know if you're listening to a false teacher?

B (33:15)

What's at the center is one way to get there. What's at the center of the teaching? That's one way. Is it proclamation of self? Do are they teaching a gospel where Jesus is primarily interested in the your best life now for you or are they teaching a Christ centered gospel that Christ is in the business of exalting Christ for the sake of Christ, for the glory of Christ and it's only in. That is our joy. That's one way is what's at the center of the message. You have an answer. But that's my answer.

A (33:56)

I do, yeah. Because I've had to think about this because people have been like, what do you think about Name that name. And a lot of times I would just, I would just be like, that's trash. What are you doing? But I've come up with a way. I've got, I've got an answer. But I want to hear from you.

C (34:13)

The first thing I thought, the first thing I thought of is that old youth group illustration when they say to no counterfeit money.

A (34:20)

Oh yeah.

C (34:20)

You don't study the counterfeits, you study the real thing.

A (34:23)

Sure.

C (34:23)

And so it's some combination of, like when you become familiar with what's in there, then your, your sensibility about something's a little off there. And like you said a minute ago, all these heresies, it's kind of a handful of the same stuff.

A (34:40)

Right.

C (34:40)

Where something else is at the middle of it. And, and once you, once you know that you're. You can snip on it.

A (34:47)

Here's what I tell people when they're like I love. And they name a person that's very famous and I would put them in the false teacher category. I've instructed people to say, I would say, when's the last time this person preached the gospel? The life, death and resurrection of Jesus as the way of salvation. Paul says in First Corinthians that it is of first importance. So go find me the sermon where they preach. Now this doesn't, this isn't the only test because there are some people that will talk about Jesus died on the cross because he loves you and if you put your faith in him, you will be saved. And then also swerve away from other what are technically secondary issues. But the main issue is they don't believe the Bible. So. But you'd be amazed. I've yet to have the person bring back the clip and be like here he is. This is when he talked about creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. I don't even care what words they use, but especially when you get into, like, the prosperity world or some of that, what really, really is just like religious gnosticism, you know, or just these deep new revelations of the. You know, I'm like, all right, so when's the last time that person preached the gospel? The life, death and resurrection for salvation? Yeah, that's a great test.

C (36:12)

Yeah.

A (36:13)

And if it was 23 years ago and they hadn't brought it up since then, there's a real problem.

C (36:19)

Right. I. I think there are those two. You could say that there's those two categories. One is it's very surfacy and there's not enough substance. There's no gospel. That's. It's like, you know, tips and tricks.

A (36:33)

Yeah.

C (36:34)

And then there's the. There's an ancient tradition that is when you cough seven times in the presence of your grandfather, you will adapt his. You're just like, what. You know, it's the myths direction. So it's like, you know, it's cotton candy fluff. Or it's like, I don't even know what you're talking about. You know, that. I think those two things, in the.

A (36:56)

Age of YouTube, people are suckers of that too, because it seems like. It just seems like that's deep. Like anything confusing or that you've never heard before, you feel like, oh, wow, this person's really got something. So be careful with that stuff.

C (37:10)

There were these books that were coming out years ago that would. That were like code.

A (37:16)

Oh, yeah, the Bible codes. Yeah, man.

C (37:18)

You know, that was like. If you count a certain number of things and you put all the letters together, the words, and then it tells you a meaning. It's like. Like something from a cereal box, you know, like a decoder ring. But people are super into that, too.

B (37:31)

Paul.

C (37:32)

Paul in here, in his. What you might say thesis verse for the entire letter, the amvar charge is love. What struck me about that is that sometimes there's a. Yeah. Maybe it's not always explicitly said, but it is a unspoken law sometimes in Christian cultures and subcultures is that love equals nice. And so when he says he's going to be pretty aggressive in here, he's aggressive in a lot of his letters. And he's saying, go after these people who are twisting and correct them boldly. Like he's. He's admonishing Timothy. So sometimes maybe somebody's listening. Be like, that smacks like it's. How is that love, you know, it's conflict, like correcting somebody's doctrine and they disagree and you have like a debate about it. That's love. That is a ver. That is what he's saying is loving. So let's unpack that a little bit.

A (38:32)

Well, I've said it a million times. Doctrine matters because you can't rightly love God without right thoughts about God. It's a dumb illustration, but if I were to write a love song to Gretchen about her beautiful red hair, she wouldn't like it because she didn't have red hair. She's like, I don't think you're talking about me. And so if you say false things about God, it, what it leads to, it always is going to diminish your love for God. So the most loving thing that you can do is help somebody walk in truth and make sure though. I mean, I think about it too, on my best moments as a parent, the aim of my correction is love. On my worst days is control and compliance. Yeah. And I think there's a lot of that in church too. You know that the leaders really, whether you're like a disciple, group leader or a pastor of the church, you've really got to, you got to really have your heart submitted to the Lord to make sure you don't shift into control and compliance or just a preferred outcome for the benefit of you and your group that you're leading versus now, the reason I'm sharing this hard news with you is because I love you. And to live out of step in accordance with God is going to hurt you. Like if I. An example I've used is you can use a vacuum cleaner as a sledgehammer for a minute and eventually everything breaks. You don't hammer the spike well and you don't have a vacuum cleaner anymore. And so when you live, when you see somebody living outside of the precepts of God, you're going to break yourself against it. And so the least loving thing that you can do is just say, yeah, just keep, keep doing it that way. The most loving thing you can do is help them see their error.

C (40:19)

Yeah.

A (40:20)

And walk differently.

B (40:21)

The rest of us, the rest of the verse matters a lot. I mean, it would be, you'd be short changing to stop at the word love, that the aim of our charge is love. Because it's that love that issues from a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith. And that a good conscience, a pure heart, innocence, sincere faith issues, love, you know, it's, it's, it's Writing the checks of love. And that's if you're, you know, I mean, you know that if you are trying to manipulate people, if you're trying to manipulate your children, if you're trying to manipulate your spouse, if you're trying to use people in your game of you, you don't have a good conscience, your conscience is going to nag you if you have the spirit of God in you. And so that's in large part what Paul's talking about is that the aim of our charge is to be pure hearted. And part of that is that we're not trying to control outcomes. We can't make these people abandon these false gospels. All we can do is preach the truth, declare the truth, stand on the truth and draw boundaries around anybody who's willing to stand with us to keep the wolves out.

C (41:35)

And, and there's a difference between two friends talking about a view that they have and then the authority structures in the church. Remember you said pastoral epistle. And so this is a leader in this church who is part of his responsibility is to protect this. So it's a bit. So a pastor is going to view the protection of doctrine, you know, different by, by what's allowed, by what's, who's invited to preach those kinds of things as opposed to just me talking to a buddy and being like, oh, I have to correct you, you know what I mean? We can talk about it on a different level.

B (42:13)

I think part of it's interesting what you bring up is that that word authority pops up a few times throughout the, the letter and Paul's writings, especially when he's addressing things in the church. First Corinthians here Titus will see it as well the, the word authority, it doesn't only mean this, but it means in large part it means the word responsibility. And Paul never separates and you can, you can never truly separate authority from responsibility. And the only way to walk in the authority that God has given you is to accept the responsibility that God has given you. And there's a lot of times that I, it would be easy to try to have authority or to try to be in control without accepting the respons for the thing that you're trying to be in control of. Does that make sense?

A (43:04)

Yeah. Another way to say it is biblically speaking, authority always comes with accountability. So I have authority over my children, which means two things. I am responsible for them, but it means one day I will stand accountable for how I stewarded them, led them, loved them. I think in our modern day vernacular we Use authority primarily in a negative way. The, the term. Honestly, it's a bunch of like invasion of Marxist ideas that all authority is evil and bad and you know, corrupt and all that.

B (43:38)

And so it's fallen ears making fallen definitions.

A (43:41)

Yeah, 100 at our, @ our creative off site this week. You had a really good illustration. You, I don't know if you're using a sermon. You probably should, that sin infecting everything you said like dust man, the image I had is, remember those old 80 Cold War movies and the bomb would go off and that like nuclear ash would be on everything. Yeah, that's sin. The fallout is on everything. Your car, your relationship, your job, your sales, the weather system all has sin fallout on it and has impacted it. So God, the ultimate authority, says you leverage it for love. You, Christ, though, he was in authority over all things. He humbled himself, made himself nothing. He showed him the full extent of his love by dressing himself as a service he did authority for sure. He's got all authority in heaven on earth, but he demonstrates it and manifests it differently. And that's how we are to demonstrate authority.

B (44:43)

Well, that's why he is the highest authority, because he accepted all responsibility even though it wasn't his fault.

A (44:50)

That's a GROSS Right. Yes, 100%. And by the way, when you, when I say men, you can either be right or you can be married. That's what I'm talking about. Christ loved us and took responsibility for things that weren't our fault. Typically when I'm sideways with Gretchen, it's because I want, I want her to take responsibility for things. And that's not how Jesus loved me. You know what I mean? Or it's basically I didn't get what I wanted. And Jesus never does that with us. Jesus pays a price that he doesn't owe on our behalf. And so yeah, pure authority from God is to be leveraged for the benefit of others, not using others for the benefit of self.

B (45:35)

That's, that's one of the things you're talking about tonight about when you went to revelation and you're talking about them losing their first love. And my brain just always goes to first. My, the image I always see in my brain whenever I'm like, okay, have I lost my first love? I just like take captive my own mind and I just try to imagine and picture Christ hanging on the cross. I just go there first and I'm like, if I can just think about this and then move my way forward and backward from this moment, I feel all the feels again. And I can start to really put myself in that moment to the best of my limited ability. And when you just think about how incredible Christ is, you can read simple words and you go, pure heart and good conscience and sincere faith and think, yeah, I got to do that. I got to have that. And if I do that, then love will issue out, okay? That said, the only hope in me having a good conscience and a pure heart and sincere faith is to think about Christ and to be focused on him, you know what I mean? And that's to me, it's like, if we'll just stop and if I just will stop and think about how incredible Christ is. I mean, really think about it. What he's done for us and where he went. I mean, imagine that. Like, I can't even get my head all the way around it, but the sounds and the weight and the significance and the commotion when Jesus took that first step off the throne to head into this freaking mess to save the likes of a person like me. Come on, man, what are we even talking about?

A (47:37)

Well, I think when Jesus tells the church at Ephesus, so remember, that's what you're doing. Repent, change your mind, and redo the things you used to do. All the things they used to do were just means to a cross centered focus, like worship, like Bible study, like confessing and divulging their evil practices to one another, like being real, like sacrificial giving, like killing the things that were sinful and demonic in their lives. Though none of those things in and of themselves are the point. It's kind of like dating your wife. The point of dating your wife is not Applebee's, you know, it's just a means to an end so that you remember. Remember what it's like when you got her to go out with you. Remember when you're like, dear God, you know, I think I'll. I think I'm in love with this girl, you know? So remember it is. Make sure you don't conform to the pattern of this world, but rewire your mind to stay focused on the way God has called us to live. And then, man, don't ever stop verb loving her. I met this couple again tonight. Or another story from line. So awesome, bro. They've been married 30 years. And she was like. We were separated and somebody sent him a sermon and I said, if the tomb is empty, anything is possible. And it ain't over till God says it's over. And now they're back together. Wow. You know, amen that's cool. And I just looked at the dude and I was like, bro, you just got to keep loving her. And I don't mean the feels, I mean do the things pursue her.

C (49:20)

So tease that out a little bit more because it's almost like I hear a, I don't know, devil's advocate or like a. An argument against that. That line of reasoning. Right. So when you first meet somebody, like you first meet your spouse, or even when you first come to Christ, you have like, a high level of zeal, but a lot of times it's in ignorance. Right. It's kind of like. And so how is. How is go back to your first love different than, like, you don't want to go back there necessarily? Like, you have a crush on. You had a crush on your wife when you first met her, and part of the fascination was you knew nothing about her, and it's impossible for you to go back to that place to know nothing about her. So help anybody who might think that way know the difference between go back to your first love versus go back to that. I mean, even Paul uses this language, former ignorance, or like, you don't want to become immature or infatuated again in this. In the negative sense. You got thoughts on that?

A (50:23)

Yeah. Paul does not say, go back and feel the way you felt at first. He says, go back and do the things you did at first. Because it was in that doing that created the kind of environment that allowed the feelings to flourish. So the illustration in the sermon I used is a garden. Like, it takes a lot of dang work and you can't make anything grow, but you can create the kind of environment where God makes things grow. And nobody's ever neglected any relationship, relationship with the Lord or relationship with your spouse. Nobody's ever neglected it into a place of deep abiding.

C (51:00)

Yeah, then my wife laughed really loud, dude.

A (51:02)

She had testimony in the front row. I love it.

C (51:10)

This is going to come up. Did you have something you want to say about that?

B (51:14)

Negative.

C (51:14)

Okay, this is going to come up a few times in the letter to Timothy, but. And we've even said it a couple times here. Primary issues theologically. Secondary issues theologically. And so there's a lot of denominations out there, a lot of different Bible teachers. So what are some handles to grab a hold of for people to know? Hey, that person can have a slightly different view on that thing, but here's where the line is to where it's like they're in false teacher land.

A (51:48)

The first two that come to Mind are matters of salvation and biblical authority.

B (51:54)

I wrote salvation and inerrancy.

A (51:56)

Yeah, let's go. So there. Okay. So an easy one for me would be paid infant baptism versus believers baptism. The. Where I would divide over it is if somebody's like, I don't care what the book says. This is how my grandma did it, and that's how we're going to do it. Like, hold on. Your grandma's not your authority. The word of God is your authority. If Tim Keller goes through the Bible and he, he, in my opinion, he makes this a little Old Testament. This is. This is. Presbyterians do this. It might be a little bit too Calvinistic. And they mix an Old Testament covenant with a New Testament practice, and they come up with a covenant theology that says that's why you baptize babies. But their authority, they're getting it from the Bible.

C (52:39)

Okay.

A (52:40)

Like, my man Leon Crump, who's preached here before and probably will again, believes that, but he's doing it from his understanding of scripture. A believer's baptism looks at the scriptures and says, I come to a different conclusion. So what's primary there is who's the authority, My denomination or the Bible? So if the primary thing is that. So if we agree on that, then I'm good to go on the baptism front.

B (53:05)

On the other side of somebody added immersive water baptism and required it for salvation.

A (53:12)

Correct.

B (53:12)

We divide on that.

A (53:13)

Correct.

B (53:14)

You know, because you. It's.

A (53:15)

You're now salvation.

B (53:16)

Messing with salvation. Secondary would be it's not a salvific thing. It's an evidence of salvation. It's a good thing to do. I think we should get baptized all the time. And it's like, well, I don't think you have to get baptized more than once. Post.

A (53:32)

Right.

B (53:32)

As. As a confession of Jesus's lordship in your life and a public demonstration of that grace. That said, if you want to get baptized more than once, I'm not going to divide with you over that.

A (53:44)

Right.

B (53:45)

That would be a secondary issue in my opinion. Gifts, spiritual gifts. How spiritual gifts are practiced in the church is certainly a secondary issue.

A (53:55)

Until it crosses into salvific.

B (53:56)

Until it crosses into salvific. Meaning if you. That if you do this specific gift, the one that people mostly do this with would be the gift of tongues. They'll say that tongues is. They'll dance around it with all kinds of words. And no, I'm not saying it's that you have to do it in order to be saved. We're saying it is an evidence of the fact that you are saved. And it's like yeah, but so as soon as you connect it to salvation beyond grace and beyond faith then we've crossed from secondary. But spiritual gifts falls into the secondary category anywhere. It doesn't get into requirements for salvation. How that's practiced.

C (54:39)

I can't ever say the word cessationism.

B (54:41)

Cessationism and a lot of the different understandings of specifically Paul's teachings. And I think sometimes to keep in mind on primary and secondary issues, the apostle Peter who at one point was like kind of a dumb luck, seemingly like Jewish redneck a little bit that's just out there fishing, doing his thing. You read his letters by the end divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit. That dude's pretty smart.

A (55:04)

Yeah, no doubt.

B (55:05)

He's no dummy. He writes about Paul sometimes he's like that guy's hard to understand. You know what I mean? And it doesn't mean that's God. Paul's words are any less inspired. But there's a lot of description. Paul does some prescription but there is a lot of description that is left to discussion. And the idea the heart would be deepening. So other secondary issues versus primary. I think a good. If anybody's curious, if you go to our website and look at our statement of faith there may be one or two on there that would fall into the secondary category. But I don't think so. I think the majority of them are outworkings of inerrancy and principles. Doctrinal tenets of salvation.

A (55:53)

Right.

B (55:54)

And so that's a pretty good place to start in regards to here's some closed fisted things at least from where we sit. And then other things may be a little more open handed. And a lot of times on secondary issues. It's hard to preach on secondary issues in my opinion because it's way better to drink coffee and talk about it.

A (56:12)

Yep.

B (56:13)

You know and. And not to say you when the text goes there, you should go there and talk about it and but you.

A (56:19)

Know, role of women in the church.

C (56:21)

Be a secondary issue or just general governance, leadership structures, you know that might even be tertiary.

A (56:27)

I think that's one step beyond a.

C (56:30)

View of science or like the origin like exactly what does it mean that how God created the world.

B (56:37)

The.

C (56:38)

There's lots of different views and you can be on a spectrum there. I thought of a view of the sacraments and the role, you know, like what's happening in a sacrament or how I. How present is God, how active is it, you know That's. I don't know if it's secondary or tertiary. Tertiary is a great word to say though, isn't it?

B (56:55)

Creation there. There are certain things about how God created that are primary, that are closed fisted. What I like, does that make sense? So like let's just take the fact.

C (57:04)

That he created you. There's no debate there.

B (57:07)

The fact that he created. No debate. The fact that he created male and female.

C (57:11)

Exactly.

B (57:12)

Not debated. Marriage. Marriage being under attack there. That's an issue where we would have to divide. If you don't believe what the Bible teaches about marriage in regards to one man, one woman, one lifetime.

A (57:24)

Yeah. And the actual thing there, the actual primary on the marriage issue is the authority of the Bible.

B (57:32)

Inerrancy covers so much, so much so.

A (57:35)

On, on some of these things that are debated, like young earth or old earth, there's a fun one.

C (57:42)

Flat earth.

A (57:46)

What I find most helpful when I'm, when I'm researching these things are the people that will just say here are the categories of belief. These are still orthodox. This is outside of orthodoxy. This is heterodox. That's very helpful.

C (58:03)

Yeah.

A (58:04)

One of the places, Driscoll, I think he rewrote it, but he had a book, I think it was called Doctrine.

B (58:12)

And there was him and Jerry Beshears.

A (58:14)

There was a section on creation and he gave about seven different views of creation. One was as literal as it can be. Then there was like the gap theory. There's, there's all these things. And so, and I may be, I may be wrong on the details, but basically he was like these four would still find themselves under the umbrella of we believe the inspired word of God and here's how we kind of come up with these things.

C (58:39)

Yeah, that's real.

A (58:39)

And then these three are outside of orthodox Christianity. That to me is very helpful. And another thing, this is just like Bible study hack. If you get to a place and you're like, I don't know what I think about that. Find the people that you've seemed to agree, you know, like you're like, no, that's a Bible teacher. And then find out what that camp thinks about whatever the thing is that can be really, really helpful. And then where there are disagreements. So how about end times?

C (59:09)

Yeah, I thought of that one.

A (59:10)

Views on the end times. That would be a secondary issue. So you know, there's that.

B (59:15)

Not that he's, he is coming back correct. The details in between here and there.

C (59:19)

Millennium, the rapture, dragons, all that kind of stuff.

B (59:22)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

A (59:23)

But like that, that night of. So night of eschatology thing where Sam Storms and there's four guys that have four different views and all of them understand they're all in the family of God. And all of them, if you'll notice the primary issue there was the authority of the word and they are all referencing it to come up with their conclusion. That's what's important.

C (59:44)

Would you apply. What would you put more of, like a free will approach toward salvation versus sovereignty? Reformed.

A (59:54)

I'd have to have. I'd have to really dig in.

B (59:56)

There's more to that.

A (59:57)

Yeah, yeah. The people. Okay.

B (60:01)

You can't suck me into your.

C (60:06)

I think that there are so. I. I think that I know people who would fall more in the line of like, no, no. Yeah. Armenian. And I believe they're Christians. You know, it's just not like you're.

A (60:17)

For now, they believe they can lose their salvation.

B (60:22)

So maybe true Armenians do believe that.

A (60:24)

Yeah. 100. That's the thing. So I think. I think I had this conversation with Kyle on Undaunted all the time because he's. He's reluctant to just use the words the Bible uses. So the people that are reluctant. Oh, here, here's. Here's the danger. This always comes up when it comes to soteriology and who saves. Quit telling me what you think. Just what do the words say in the Bible?

C (60:51)

Right.

A (60:51)

You're going to end up in Romans 9 no matter where you start. That's the bottom of the barrel. Okay? The people. And I get this.

B (60:59)

The people.

A (61:00)

And there is. There is a bit of a hyper Calvinism that you don't want to be more reformed about salvation than the Scriptures itself. Okay. And. And I get it. The people that really have this heartburn about election and that kind of thing, in the best version, they. They're trying. They're standing most firm on the character and nature of the love of God. That's what they're trying to, like, protect. So the person that does that and is afraid to use certain words because they think it tarnishes the character and nature of the loving grace of God. I get that that person's a Christian. The person that thinks that God is responding and reacting to you. Again, we're actually back to where we started, which is a twisting where self is the center and not God.

C (61:46)

Right.

B (61:47)

That's actually a different theology. Theology altogether called open theism. And it falls outside of orthodoxy. It's a whole different thing. And so 100, you know, definitions matter. And that's the whole. The cup of coffee thing is like, you can sit here and ask, well, let's talk about free will. And it's like, what do you mean by free? And what do you mean by will? Like, we actually got to get down and talk about definitions here. And what are we talking about? Decisive impulse? Or are we talking about, you know, there's a lot of. There's a lot of conversation that has to happen in order for us to get on the same page.

A (62:18)

Love them.

B (62:19)

And I. Yeah, I agree. And I think when people are like.

A (62:22)

You believe in free will? I go, no. They're like, what, will yourself to be taller? Like, well, I can't exactly, you know. Yeah. Now, if what you're talking about is responsibility and Autonomy and then 100 make.

B (62:40)

Choices and have consequences, choose for yourself.

A (62:42)

Yeah, no problem. But that phrase is a bummer, man.

C (62:46)

A lot of the terms can become very charged, very. They can mean varying things.

A (62:50)

So I am. I. I believe in agency. But free will, can you will yourself to love a thing that you hate? Can you love God on your own?

C (63:05)

You're free to choose as much sin as you want.

A (63:07)

Yeah.

C (63:08)

Especially as a lost person.

A (63:08)

That's no good one. No, man. The Bible just says, you didn't choose me. I chose you.

C (63:14)

Right?

A (63:14)

And it says, for God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten Son. All these things are true. And Joshua says, choose for yourself this day. The real question again, is not. Not. It's not that you choose or not, but how do you have the ability, right, to love God? Because he first loved you and sent his son as a propitiation for your sin.

B (63:32)

I'm so glad that he did.

C (63:34)

There's me first. So much that you just like.

A (63:36)

Like Spurgeon said, he had to let me first because if not, I'm not lovable.

B (63:39)

No doubt.

C (63:42)

Well, we're almost out of time. But speaking of. Speaking of losing your salvation or whatever, he ends up this little section with certain persons, which I haven't. I think he just doesn't want to name names because he uses that phrase. I think he knows who he's talking about, hasn't he? Somewhere in here, certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion. And so let's just say we know some people that maybe the modern equivalent would be somebody gets really into, like, angels or Jewish rituals or, like, stuff that we would say is, like, certain person. It's like this is getting kind of like. It's a. It's a secondary issue that you're making. So. So Important. So does this. Does this mean that that person is, like, totally falling away now? They're false or, like, well, wandering away?

A (64:33)

Like, I would take you back to. You know, Jesus said you've. You've lost your. You've abandoned. He doesn't say lost. He doesn't say lost. It says left or abandoned. You're first loved, but apparently you can. You can, like, rekindle. I don't think this. That was a salvation issue. Yeah, you know, I. You know, one time we were talking about this, and I was talking about if I ever do marriage counseling, which I don't really do, but I would just ask the question, like, do you love your wife? Like, man, you're talking about, here's two things. She doesn't do enough for you. And that's like. That's like getting caught up in the secondary stuff. But just, do you love her? Do you. I mean, do you love her? So that's kind of the question. If somebody goes down the rabbit hole of young earth, old earth, or if they go down the rabbit hole or whatever, be like, hold on. Do you love God? And how is. Help me understand how this is helping? Because maybe it is helping you, but it's not helping any of us. So cool. Do this in your own quiet time in your prayer closet, and you and God just yuck it up with the young earth or old earth, or which everyone helps, you love him more. I think that's helping. And as pastors, if you go to the preeminent text in the Old Testament about being a pastor, a shepherd, the role of the shepherd is to lead the sheep by green pastures and still waters. And some of these secondary issues that cause division does not bring. It's not still. It's rough water, and it's like dicey food. So you got to pay very close attention to that.

B (66:09)

My dad used to say, people follow passion. You don't even have to be right. You just have to be passionate. And he wasn't saying that this was a good thing.

C (66:20)

Yeah.

B (66:21)

And that's a lot of what Paul's saying here is like, these people are very passionate about their opinions, and they're making these very confident assertions. And a lot of times, if people make confident assertions, you would just go, well, because of their confidence, you believe them or you. You'll follow their passion. And Paul's saying there are more important things like, and. And that letter goes on to say, especially when he starts giving instructions to elders and deacons, and. And he's saying in the church, people Follow integrity.

C (66:54)

Right.

B (66:55)

You know, and that. That people follow character and people follow trustworthiness over time. And he also. He says the other thing. He's like, they're making these confident assertions loud. And just a few verses later, he says, I desire that everybody that we pray for people that. And even though kings and people in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life. And he's like, you don't run around just talking about stuff to talk about stuff.

A (67:21)

Right.

B (67:21)

You keep your mouth shut and only talk about the most important things. You know what I mean?

A (67:26)

And there's a difference between guarding and hunting, right?

B (67:29)

Totally.

A (67:31)

And so I'm charged. We as pastors are charged to guard the flock. We don't go out in the streets hunting the wolves.

C (67:39)

You know, it really matters where the person is, too. Like you said before, sometimes people outside the faith can get hung up on something, like, what about the dinosaurs? Or whatever. And that's. That can often be a defense mechanism for sure. You know what I mean? And so that conversation's different than the person who's inside and just wants to argue.

A (68:00)

Yes. And then there are people that are just legitimately curious.

C (68:03)

Right.

A (68:04)

Which one of the greatest questions when somebody asks you questions like that? The two is, well, what do you think the Bible, like, show me in this book, you know, or like a real. You talked about this last time. To be an illuminator is ask a lot more questions than you just give straight answers to help them find that the source is the word of God. Speaking of, you can make bold claims with passion and get real popular. That guy, Billy whatever his name is that Wesley Huff, the Canadian apologist, they had a debate. Have you seen all of this online? Oh, my gosh. That's why you need to get on the interwebs more, bro. Not gonna happen. So this guy, he's got quite the following. I can't remember his last name, this guy named Billy something. And he's basically trying to dismantle the credibility of the Bible and Jesus. And he's quoting all of these stuff, and he's like, will anybody debate me? There's a guy named Wesley Huff who is a Canadian apologist who has his PhD in ancient texts. I mean, this is the smartest guy you've ever seen in your life. So he. It's more of a conversation on a podcast than a debate. So there's not like an opening statement and a rebuttal. It's just them talking. And with such humility and grace, he just rebuts everything the guy says with the truth. Well, the guy sends a cease and desist order because he's just embarrassed, bro. He just got. Finally, he just got busted with a guy that could call out all of his lies because he'd be like, well, in the Gospel of Peter. And people are like, what? And then this Wesley Heaven's like, the Gospel of Peter was written in, like, 1500, and it's actually like a recreation of Dante's Inferno. It's not. Everybody knows that's fault, you know? So anyway, well, Rogan just had him on, and the brother just, in the most endearing way, shares the gospel on Joe Rogan podcast. Like. Like you've never seen. He's never trying. He's never trying to convince. He's never trying to get Joe Rogan. But Joe Rogan has such an inquisitive and curious mind. And this guy has been so winsome the whole time, and he's so smart, and he's such an expert in the biblical text and all the ancient texts that he's just like, Rogan's getting wooed in by that, and then just straight up sears life, death, resurrection, like, in a real way. And you can tell he's been listening to a bunch of the shows, and he even talks about Jordan Peterson and how he still believes, like, in the idea of Jesus. But does he. Has he trusted the person? Dude, it is incredible.

B (70:35)

I'm gonna listen to it.

A (70:36)

But it is. It. It's truth. Rebutting a passionate guy saying untrue things. And this guy is also passionate, but in a real, like, PhD, but. But this guy's. This guy Huff loves the Lord.

B (70:50)

Amen.

A (70:51)

In a very personal way. He's got a great story, too.

B (70:54)

He.

A (70:54)

He came down with this illness that left him paralyzed when he was a child. And they were like, there's no cure, there's no hope. And his parents prayed for him and over time, and then one day he just stood up and walked. And the doctor's like, it's a miracle. That led him and his inquisitive mind, and he was raised in the church. It led him to, like, why do I believe what I believe? And now he is. I mean, like, he's one of the guys that, you know, he's like a Dead Sea scroll expert. He's expert in all ancient texts of all kinds of religions, but he's a really, really, really solid believer. But it's a really good picture if people will watch it again, if I'm never condoning Rogan. So he's going to say the F word about a hundred million times, which is the weirdest thing to me. You got this Christian apologist and he's just dropping F bombs just because he doesn't even know better, but whatever. But the winsomeness in which he just stands on the truth of God and knows what he's talking about, not just technically, but personally and theologically, it's really impressive.

C (72:03)

Well, you talked about it's not about how you start, it's how you finish. And we want to finish well. I know we all do. And we pray that for our church, you know, that we would. That we would be a people who doesn't lose or abandon the first love. So. Closing thoughts, Pastor Toby in a prayer.

A (72:21)

Yeah, I mean, something really impacted me in regards to that about finishing well was Pastor Britt's dad's funeral. You know, they had a verse like on the back of the church or the front behind you, where you were talking, you and your brother, and said, I had. I fought the good fight. I fought the good fight. I finished the race. And I remember calling. I was at an event when your dad passed away and had to kind of do some stuff to get there, right? So we get there and I called Gretchen on the way home and I was like, I figured out how to be the greatest pastor in America. And she said, what are you talking about? You've never said words like that. I was like, no, I figured it out. If you just finish well, you won. It's not about size of crowds, it's not about your fruitfulness. It's just that just be faithful to finish well.

C (73:18)

Amen.

B (73:19)

Amen.

A (73:20)

Let's pray. Father in heaven, thinking back to that bumper video, I thank you for faithful men and women like Pastor Jerry and Ryan Sweat and Billy, Brit and Craig Stone, Dr. Bill Ross. And we could go on and on and on about the Pauls that you have put in our life. And Lord, we pray that it would not terminate on us and God. We wouldn't get distracted by the things of ministry, but we would keep first things first and we would love you well. And that we would just make disciples that make disciples, that make disciples to the glory of God until you return to take us home. Pray in Jesus name.

C (74:07)

Amen.

B (74:08)

Thank you for listening to the podcast the End.

A (74:10)

You nailed it. It.