Debunking The Worst Lies Spreading About Charlie Kirk | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Summary

Live Free with Josh Howerton

Episode Title: Debunking The Worst Lies Spreading About Charlie Kirk
Podcast by: Lakepointe Church
Release Date: September 22, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Pastor Josh Howerton, joined by co-host Carlos Araza, Paul Cunningham, and later guest Sabrina Cosmos from PragerU, tackles the misinformation and widespread falsehoods circulating about Charlie Kirk, particularly in the wake of his assassination. The episode aims to debunk viral accusations and provide context for controversial quotes, while reflecting on the impact of Charlie Kirk’s life and faith in current American culture. The conversation also covers church governance, preaching strategy, and the essential need for clear biblical teaching in today’s climate.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction & Setting the Table

• Hosts: Josh Howerton, Carlos Araza, Paul Cunningham, later joined by Sabrina Cosmos [00:38]
• Opening Conversation: Light banter about Texas, PragerU, sermon planning, and shifts in church strategy.
• Purpose Statement: "We're going to be debunking some of the most popular lies... was Charlie Kirk a racist? Did he actually believe that empathy was not a thing? Was he opposed to the Civil Rights act, etc." — Josh [03:34]

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2. Charlie Kirk’s Impact, Assassination & Ministry Fruit

• Reflection on Recent Events:

  • Lakepointe Church saw a surge in attendance and baptisms following Charlie Kirk’s assassination ([05:11]), described as a spiritual “fruit” born out of tragedy.
  • Illustration: The “seed dying in the ground” (John 12:24).
  • Notable Quote: "When anybody spills their blood for me, it’s like that seed and it produces a bunch of fruit." — Josh [07:52]

• Celebrating Revival:

  • Challenge to skepticism about revival and encouragement to celebrate God’s work, even through tragedy.
  • Paul: "Unfortunately...in a lot of the Christian circles...they meet it with skepticism. It's like, yo, this is the thing we've all been praying for and longing for." [08:45]

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3. Martyrdom and Public Misperceptions

• Controversy Over the Word ‘Martyr’:
  • Josh defends calling Charlie Kirk a martyr, linking the term biblically to “witness” and connecting it to public stands on Christian faith and suffering, like John the Baptist.
  • Notable Quote: "Where do you think he got the belief that he should oppose transgender ideology? ...he rooted that belief in his biblical Christian faith and he was killed for that, that belief." [12:12]

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4. Acts 20, Discipleship, and Leadership Structure

• Life Verses:
  • Josh’s life verse: Acts 20:24.
  • Emphasis on gospel-centered mission and “finishing the race.”
• Band of Brothers/Church Community:
  • Importance of tight-knit spiritual community and rooted discipleship for men and all believers [16:53].
  • Launch of "Rooted" groups at Lakepointe [16:56].
• Preaching Strategy Shift:
  • Josh recounts his transition from seeker-sensitive strategies to biblical boldness, aiming to “please God, not men” (Galatians 1:10).
  • “I realized I was accidentally starving the sheep to attract some goats.” — Josh [46:33]
  • Result: More conversions and baptisms, not fewer [50:07].

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5. Church Governance Explained [28:17+]

• Elders and Overseers:
  • New Testament language, practical church structure.
• Models of Church Governance:
  • Episcopal: Hierarchical (e.g., Catholic/Anglican).
  • Presbyterian: Shared authority (elders/presbyteries).
  • Congregational: Local autonomy (Baptist/SBC, Lakepointe's model is "staff-guided, elder-guarded").
• Key Insight:
  • “If you show me a dysfunctional, weak church, I'll show you a church that has dysfunctional, weak leadership every single time.” — Paul [41:37]

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6. Tasks & Purpose: Everyone’s Calling

• Personal Discipleship:
  • Encouragement for every listener to ask God for their “task,” referencing the words of Mary at Cana: “Do whatever He tells you.” — Josh [51:35]
• Vocation & Calling:
  • “God will often turn our greatest misery into our greatest ministry.” — Paul [52:47]

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7. Special Segment: Debunking Lies About Charlie Kirk with Sabrina Cosmos

Starts at [55:39]

A. Why the Lies?

• Spiritual & Cultural Dynamics:
  • “Lost people or people who don’t like the truth...use labels as steering wheels to steer Christians into not saying things they don’t like.” — Josh [59:16]
  • Romans 1: suppression of truth as a spiritual phenomenon.

B. List of Common Accusations Addressed:

(Segments include timestamp ranges and significant quotes)

i. Did Charlie Kirk Call Someone a Racial Slur? (“Chink” clip)

• Viral accusation: He used a racial slur in a debate.
• Reality: He was referring to Cenk Uygur (pronounced 'Chenk'), the host from The Young Turks, calling out his name in an angry exchange.
• Clip played: [64:44] — clear he is using Cenk’s name and not referencing an Asian slur.
• Sabrina: "It's ironic, but he's literally using a man's first name. That is Cenk." [65:58]

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ii. “Gun Deaths Are Worth It”

• Viral accusation: He said gun deaths are worth keeping Second Amendment rights.
• Context: Kirk was discussing tragic trade-offs in liberty (e.g., car deaths for driving) and advocating for armed citizenry as a protection against tyranny, not celebrating gun deaths.
• Full Clip played: [71:31]
• Sabrina: "He advocated for our Second Amendment rights...That doesn't mean that he thinks people should just get shot, innocent people." [73:31]

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iii. “Opposed Civil Rights Act”

• Viral accusation: Claimed “we made a huge mistake passing the Civil Rights Act.”
• Context: Kirk supported its intent (against racial discrimination) but critiqued its later application to gender/identity laws that enable men to claim women’s sports status, etc.
• Quote: "He believes that the intention of the civil rights of 1964 was good. Unfortunately, the application does not apply today because that included things like gender." — Sabrina [76:28]

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iv. “Black Americans Were Better Off Under Jim Crow”

• Viral accusation: Implied support for segregation-era oppression.
• Full clip: Kirk discusses economic and family structure outcomes, not validating segregation.
  • Cites stats about fatherlessness and its catastrophic effects, using Obama-era data. [81:01–84:07]
• Josh: “Fatherlessness, according to the data, is a better predictor of incarceration than race or poverty.” [84:00]

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v. “Said Gay People Should Be Stoned to Death”

• Viral accusation: Stephen King tweet w/11 million views.
• Context: Kirk responded to Ms. Rachel’s use of Leviticus 19 (“Love your neighbor”) on Pride Month by quoting Leviticus 18, not advocating, but demonstrating biblical context. He explicitly clarified a New Testament ethic supercedes this.
• Clip & apology referenced: [86:00–89:29]
• Josh: "He's literally just reading a Bible verse ...not advocating for Old Testament law to be enacted on America..."

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vi. “Transphobic / Lacked Compassion for Trans Youth”

• Viral accusation: Bigotry toward trans individuals.
• Full exchange played: With transgender person, Kirk is notably gentle and pastoral, steering the conversation toward mental and spiritual health, not “waging war” on their body.
• Josh: “‘Let’s bring our mind in alignment with our God-given body instead of trying to bring our body in alignment with our mind that’s struggling’ – that’s brilliant, that’s compassionate.” [94:22]

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vii. “Empathy is a made-up word” / Lacked Compassion

• Viral accusation: Lack of empathy, justification for violence towards him.
• Context: Kirk was critiquing empathy as a concept weaponized in politics, not rejecting compassion or sympathy.
• Sabrina: "He differentiates; he prefers sympathy because...you can feel for someone." [100:14]

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viii. “Racist about Black Pilots / DEI”

• Viral accusation: Kirk distrusted black pilots due to their race.
• Context: Kirk was critiquing DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) policies that lower standards for the sake of quotas, not expressing racist beliefs.
• Discussion of biblical justice: Equal weights/measures vs. engineered outcomes for groups [105:00–108:05].
• Josh: "If anytime you see a black person you're like, 'they're not qualified,' that would actually be racist. That's not what he's saying." [101:39]

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ix. “Misogynist”

• Claim: Disparaged women.
• Full clip: Kirk praises his wife's intuition and the God-given differences between men and women ([110:41]), promotes countless female leaders in his organizations, and supports events for women.
• Sabrina: "I don't know a lot of misogynists that would put on a women's conference that empowers women." [112:40]

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C. Charlie Kirk’s Actual Heart and Christian Witness

• Clip played: Confronting an actual racist; Kirk unequivocally rebukes white nationalism and defends American identity as not being about race [114:36].
• Closing Quote:
  • "You will never be the best version of yourself if you allow other people to convince you that you can't be better because of your skin color, because of your sexual identity, because of the community you came from. You must resist those narratives at all costs if you truly want to be successful in America." — Charlie Kirk [117:03]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “Where do you think he got the belief that he should oppose transgender ideology? ...he rooted that belief in his biblical Christian faith.” — Josh [12:12]
• “A lot of times what people do is they have real feelings based on wrong thinking.” — Josh [59:16]
• “If you show me a weak church, I’ll show you a church with weak leaders.” — Paul [41:37]
• “I realized I was accidentally starving the sheep to try to attract some goats.” — Josh [46:33]
• “He was not saying black Americans were better off under Jim Crow. He’s asking: what caused the economic/family outcomes to change, and is fatherlessness a key variable?” — Sabrina [81:21]
• “If he’s a racist, he’s really bad at it.” — Josh [85:34]
• “Politics is about addition and multiplication. ...We welcome you into the conservative movement.” — Charlie Kirk [91:28]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Topic | Timestamp | |------------------------------------------------------------|--------------| | Podcast Welcome & Purpose | 00:01–03:34 | | Reflection on Charlie Kirk’s Legacy | 05:11–08:45 | | The Martyr Controversy | 10:52–14:28 | | Acts 20 & Discipleship—Life Verse | 14:47–16:53 | | Church Governance Models | 28:17–41:07 | | Shifts in Preaching Strategy | 42:14–50:07 | | "What’s My Task?"—Everyone’s Calling | 51:35–55:39 | | Debunking Charlie Kirk Myths (with Sabrina Cosmos) | 55:39–114:05 | | Racial Slur Claim ("Chink") | 62:57–66:18 | | Gun Deaths “Worth It” Claim | 69:44–74:39 | | Civil Rights Act Opposition | 74:50–79:04 | | Jim Crow/Fatherlessness | 79:29–84:30 | | Anti-Gay/Stoning Accusation | 86:00–90:32 | | Transphobia/Trans Youth Clip | 93:04–98:51 | | Empathy/Sympathy Discussion | 99:02–101:08 | | Black Pilots/DEI/Justice | 101:12–109:22| | Misogyny Allegation | 110:19–114:04| | Charlie Confronts Real Racist | 114:36–116:18| | Kirk’s Vision for All People | 117:03–117:25|

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Appendix: Tone and Speaker Attribution

• Josh Howerton – Pastoral, direct, mix of doctrinal insight and pragmatic leadership, transparent about his own shifts and repentance.
• Carlos Araza – Warm, supportive co-host, facilitating practical questions and perspective for everyday listeners.
• Paul Cunningham – Theologically informed, provides scholarly context and gentle humor.
• Sabrina Cosmos – Experienced in political PR, personal acquaintance of Charlie Kirk, delivers clarity, context, and behind-the-scenes insights.
• Charlie Kirk (in clips) – Articulate, blending conviction with compassion, firm but often pastoral when addressed directly by questioners.

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Summary for New Listeners

This episode provides a measured, fact-based rebuttal to the most virulent posthumous accusations against Charlie Kirk, showing how misleading soundbites can be—and why Christian leaders must be people of both truth and compassion. From church leadership structures to confronting the lies and misunderstandings multiplying on social media, the discussion is rich in theology, cultural literacy, and practical discipleship. If you’re wondering about any of the public controversies mentioned, or the true heart behind Charlie Kirk’s words and actions, this episode leaves little doubt.

“Whatever you do, do whatever He tells you to do.” — Josh [52:47]

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to Live Free with Pastor Josh Howerton. We're so glad you're here. Lake Pointe Church is a movement for all people to know Jesus, live free, and make a difference with their lives. And this weekly podcast is all about helping you do just that. Each episode is a deep dive into the word of God, tackling life, culture, and faith with truth and clarity so you can be equipped to live free in Christ. Thanks for tuning in, and be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And follow us on all our social platforms to stay connected to everything happening with Live Free. Now, let's dive into today's episode.

[B]

Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the Live Free podcast. My name is Carlos Araza, and I'm here with Pastor Josh.

[A]

How are you, Carlos? I can't see you. Oh, okay. Oh, wow. Where are you? Where are you, Carlos?

[B]

Here's what you need to know. This is literally, like, my first, like, this kind of shirt.

[A]

What's that called?

[B]

Camel.

[C]

He's been Texas fun, bro.

[B]

I'm telling you, like, this is like nine years in living in Texas.

[A]

Come on, man.

[B]

You're going to see me wearing a cowboy hat soon.

[C]

Come on, let's go.

[B]

Driving a truck.

[A]

Oh, hey, listen, once you go truck, you. You're never going to go back. You got to have. Once you do it, you.

[B]

It's a slippery slope from here.

[A]

Come on, man.

[B]

Well, thank you.

[A]

You look great.

[C]

You do.

[B]

I appreciate that. You do, too.

[A]

And wait, wait. And right before we started this podcast, Carlos said, let's kick this pig.

[B]

My goodness. I bet you have a lot of bro. I actually talked people from Kentucky, and I asked them, hey, I just want to make sure that, you know, this is like a legit Kentucky thing. And they're like, we've never heard of Kentucky.

[A]

That's so dumb. Well, it was at Greenwood High School in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

Maybe more of a West Virginia thing.

[A]

Dan.

[C]

We'll lean on West Virginia.

[A]

I don't know, man.

[D]

I was in.

[A]

I was in Kentucky.

[B]

Paul Cunningham. Welcome.

[C]

Ah, thanks, man.

[B]

How are you, man?

[C]

Yeah, I'm so good.

[A]

Good to be back with you guys.

[B]

Good to have you here.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I love that you got your notes. I need a nickname for Paul.

[A]

Do we have a nickname for Paul yet?

[C]

Oh, well, you sometimes call me the Theologian, which every time you do makes. It makes me embarrassed. So. Yeah, if you. If you want to do it different with that. I was.

[A]

I'm. I'll look. I'll think of something. Let's keep going, dude.

[B]

When you Tell me anything about Paul. I can't know. I don't know if you're talking about Paul the theologian or Paul.

[A]

Paul the apostle.

[B]

I know it's hard to tell.

[A]

It's very confusing.

[B]

Hey, man, we're going to have a great episode today. We are going to be talking about Acts, chapter 20, talking about church governance. Pastor Josh, I want to ask you, at some point today also, you had a little bit of a. A preaching strategy shift. At some point, we're going to go there and. Because there's lots of misinformation around Charlie Kirk and what's actually being said about what he said and what he did not say, what he meant, who he was, man. Later on, we're having a friend, Sabrina Cosmetics, joining the show.

[E]

She's right here.

[B]

Right there, Right behind.

[A]

I see her.

[B]

And so we're excited for that. We're going to be debunking some of the most popular lies.

[A]

Yeah, dude, this could be right now. Yeah, it's going to be awesome. Sabrina works for Prageru. Prager U is. Sabrina is the CEO of PragerU.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

I'm just joking. If you can hear. If you can hear off microphone, she said, no, I'm not. No. But she does work for Prager U.

[B]

Let's go.

[A]

And Prager U, for a long time has been like, one of my favorite cultural commentary spots. And so Sabrina and her husband are amazing Great Lake Point members. And she's gonna hop on and help us with that some of the Charlie Kirk misinformation stuff.

[B]

Fun fact. Even before starting this podcast, man, Prager U was one of our, you know, like, hey, you see what they're doing?

[A]

Yeah. Literally, me and Carlos were like, dude, we should build. Like, we liter said that. Now we should build the Prager U. But, like, for. For Christian cultural engagement.

[B]

That's right. So anyways, it'll be fun.

[A]

By the way, Prager U has a lot of Christians on there. Yeah.

[B]

And so we'll be addressing, you know, was Charlie Kirga racist? Did he actually believe that empathy was not a thing? Was he opposed to the Civil Rights act, etc. Etc.

[A]

Yeah, I'm going to read them. These are some of the ones we'll do. Charlie Kirk called somebody a racial slur. The racial slur that he was accused of was calling somebody a chink gun. Deaths are worth it, Charlie. Charlie Kirk said the Civil Rights act was bad. Charlie Kirk said black Americans are better off under Jim Crow. He's Kurt. Charlie Kirk said gay people should be stoned to death. We're gonna. Like that's a lot. Let me just say. Like, people will be absolutely shocked when they see like this is the accusation and this is reality. And there's. I actually, this is actually a very spiritual discipleship thing that I need people to understand. We'll get to that later. Wait, can I debunk one thing?

[C]

Yeah, go.

[A]

Wait, should we do this first?

[B]

We're debunk a lot of things, but go ahead. I don't know what you're.

[A]

I'm doing right now. I'll just do it right now. The one SO one. No, I'm not. No, I'm not. You go ahead. Okay.

[B]

Hey man, this show is unedited.

[A]

It's gonna be great.

[B]

It's wrong, man. We first of all, thank you for liking subscribing all the things. By the way, our YouTube channel just surpassed 300,000. My goodness, bro, I, I'm not kidding. I think that thing grew like a hundred thousand subscribers in like a month.

[A]

That's stupid.

[B]

So, man, thank you. That's you. That's people joining right now. So thank you so much. And by the way, most people that actually watch it on YouTube, they're not subscribed yet. So if that's you, man, there's a little button a subscribe. You're going to be seeing it right now. And then, man, recently there's some things we want to celebrate in the life of a church.

[A]

Well, number one, I'll just say, you know, last weekend and this weekend, like I think God used some of the assassination of Charlie Kirk to shake some people. So number one, go ahead and toss that picture of last week's services. Now this is last week. So like a lot of the services were like this. I mean it's like full up what you're seeing, right there is a bunch of college students sitting on the stairs just because they were just like, dude, I gotta hear what. You know, when stuff happens like that, people walk in, in going, is there a word from the Lord? Yes. And it was like that. I think, you know, I think we pushed. We were between 26, 27,000 people in person last week. It was just absolutely stupid. And then that led to an absolutely enormous baptism weekend this weekend. Like enormous. Um, heading into this weekend, we are. We had more people registered to be baptized than we baptized total with all the walk ups. Last year, same time. And it's just, dude, there's just something, it just, it does, there's something shifting in there. And actually we got a Bible verse for this in the end of the Gospel of John, Jesus says, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground, it dies. It remains alone, but if it dies, it will bear much fruit. And what he's saying is when a person of faith in, in Jesus Christ, he's talk about himself. But you can apply the principle. When somebody lays down their life, it's like a seed that dies in the ground. And unless the seed dies and deteriorates in the ground, it can never spring up to produce a plant that produces fruit. And Jesus is saying, when anybody spills their blood, for me, it's like that seed and it produces a bunch of fruit. So that's what you're seeing. I'm going to show you one other thing because this, like now we're going to Trinity. You guys will blur out any personal information, but I got this today. And if, by the way, if she sees this, I just want this person to know how much this meant to me. So this is almost 10 years ago. I walked into a Gap store and I ended up still exist. Well, they did 10 years ago. And I ended up just sharing the gospel with the worker there. I could tell like she was kind of asking some questions and I was just like, you know, what do you want to go hang out in the food court? And I just want to answer some of your questions. And you know, she didn't trust Christ that day, but I answered her questions and prayed for her 10 years later. Have not heard for her for 10 years. And just this weekend she's responding to a post I did about Charlie's death and she just said, Josh, my friend, you're doing a great job. Still back here in blank. Following your messages. Forever grateful for that chat we had in the. And it's the name of the mall, I'll just say it. Cool Springs Galleria Food Court. It was the beginning of my seeing the light on so many things and a major right turn for me. I'm grateful to God for sending you and Janet into my little Gap shoe box that you needed something to wear for that 10 year anniversary trip to Italy. We were, we were taking a little, this ten year anniversary thing. God bless you. I miss seeing you guys. But it's like, dude, what's, what I feel like is happening right now is like for decades, if I get emotional, it'll be right here for decades. There's all these little gospel seeds people are planting and then it's like the fulfillment of exactly what Jesus said in the Gospel of John. It's like one of my servants Lost his life for beliefs they had because of me. And he's going, I promise I'm gonna make sure that was worth it.

[C]

And I think it's just appropriate and, like, we need as a church to stop and celebrate, because unfortunately, when a lot of stuff's been happening even over the last few weeks, is we've seen some things shifting is that. It's just shocking to me that in a lot of the Christian circles that I see, they just. They meet it with skepticism. It's like, yo, this is the thing we've all been praying for and longing for. I've, since I was a kid, I've heard, oh, we long for revival. And then when it finally comes, some are like, it's not the real thing. And I'm like, you know, it's almost like, you know, the people who are praying for Peter's released, and then he was released, and then they don't open the door for him, you know, and so I just. I just think it is so probably like, we celebrate. We thank you, God, for what you're doing, including through tragedy. There's not a single tragedy that God can't use for his our good and for his glory.

[A]

Amen, man.

[B]

And by the way, we had a special episode drop also last week where you address that more in depth about just what's happening in the American church. What are we seeing?

[A]

Me and. And R. Yeah. See if you miss. As three pastors, we just all hopped on, we kind of did an episode for pastors, church nerds, and church leaders. And, yeah, we were talking about that.

[B]

That's our first bonus episode, by the way. Feel free. Let's go. That's awesome, man.

[A]

Live free, brother.

[B]

Well, before we. Before I ask you, I have a question for you, Pastor Josh.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[B]

You know where that's from, by the way?

[A]

No. What is that from?

[B]

I'm not sure.

[C]

I thought we were getting a big revelation.

[B]

Somebody will let us know in the comment section right now.

[A]

Is that Monty Python? Oh, let's keep going.

[B]

I've heard it before before we go there, man. Everything that we're going to be discussing will be in the show notes as well. And so if somebody has not yet downloaded those, you can do that right now. The show notes are basically that document that you can download on each episode and will include key takeaways, all the highlights, nuggets, additional content, and discussion questions as well, for you to take them to your life group and continue to deepen your discipleship together. Because discipleship happens in relationships, and this is your next step. After this podcast, we want you to do what we're doing right now. And so to get those, text the word notes to 20411 and we'll send them straight to your phone or go to Lakepoint Church Notes. Pastor Josh, I have a question for you.

[A]

I will allow it.

[B]

Thank you. What did not make it into the sermon?

[A]

All right, real quick. Before I do that, let me talk about. I want to respond to the most common objection to last week's sermon. Can I do that? Yeah. There are a significant number of people, in addition to the people who were like, you should not have. You should not have celebrated the life and death of Charlie as much as you did, because all the. Charlie was a racist. Charlie wanted gay people to be stoned. Charlie, like in the. The incorrect accusations, which we'll get to later. The number one objection to last week's sermon was I was insistent that it was appropriate to use the word martyr for Charlie. That was the number one thing. So I want to talk about that real quick, and then I'll answer your question. Is that okay?

[B]

I'll allow it.

[A]

Okay. All right. So first of all, actually, this is really easy with what people said is. And it usually. It was probably. Probably people who didn't like his, of course, his message, you know, but the. The objection was, oh, man, are you crazy? You can't call him a martyr because he didn't die for his faith. He died for opposing transgender ideology. There's two things I want to say that is, number one. Number one, the word martyr. The word martyr, it literally is just Greek word witness. That's. That's what that means. And actually, I talked about this in one of the services that the word witness and the word martyr became essentially the same thing. Because in the first century, if somebody was very clear and public about being a Christian, it always resulted in trial, opposition, and some form of persecution. And so the words. It's one Greek word, but two English words. Because originally, if you were a clear witness, you were always going to receive persecution. So I just want to point out, man, you. You might say, oh, he wasn't a martyr. He wasn't killed for his faith. He was killed for opposing transgender ideology. My response to that is, where do you think he got the belief that he should oppose transgender ideology? He was extremely clear. We'll talk about this later in the podcast. He got that because. And, like, he would literally consistently quote the book of Genesis that in the beginning, God created them in. In his image, and male and female, he created them. So he rooted that belief in his biblical Christian faith and he was killed for that, that belief. The other thing I would say, and this is why I'm like, dude, I make no apologies for Colin Martyr dude. It's the same thing, like if somebody, John the Baptist was beheaded in the gospels because he spoke up that King Herod had an unlawful, perverse marriage with his sister in law and that was why he ended up getting, getting beheaded. Literally no Christian anywhere would say, ah, John the Baptist wasn't a martyr.

[C]

Not technically.

[A]

He wasn't technically a martyr because he didn't die for his faith. He died for opposing king's marriage. Well, no, he like, he opposed the king's marriage because he was saying, what you're doing is wrong before God and the people of the nation will never be blessed while the leaders of the nation lead them into open defiance of the living God. And he was killed for the same thing in the same way. I think it's honestly really naive to say, oh, Charlie's not a martyr because he didn't die for his faith. He just died for opposing transgender ideology. It's the exact same thing. So if you're going to call John the Baptist a martyr, you should be calling Charlie Charlie 1. And I do. And I do it because it honors him correctly. So there it is. I just want to get that out, man.

[B]

And obviously we're going to be addressing that even more towards the end of this video.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Because honestly, you just, you just hear him and if, if you just, if you're not familiar with him, then maybe you might think that. But if you just, just listen to what he's saying.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It's like, it's just evidently his faith is on everything.

[A]

Everything. Yeah, everything, man.

[B]

Cool. Well, you're gonna say you're gonna tell us a little bit more about what did it.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Okay. So here's what didn't make it in the sermon. First of all, this was really fun about this sermon is my life verse since middle school is in this sermon.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

Acts 20:24. Whenever middle schoolers ask me to sign their Bibles, I always do. I used to, I used to say no. Yeah. And then finally I was like, you know what, man? They want a memory, but I always sign it. You know, Josh Howard And I signed X 2024, which is. And I memorized it in the NIV. Was. Is it the NIV 8486.

[C]

NIV 84.

[A]

NIV 84.

[C]

That's my one of my favorites.

[A]

Yeah. 84. 1984 translation. NIV. I'm interested in that. It's however I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may complete the race and finish the task. The Lord Jesus has given me the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace. So that's right. Right in the middle of this. So it's fun preaching my live verse. A couple other things I just want to point out and a couple of these things I got to in like one service, but not in all the services. Trinity, Will you pull up that map real quick? So number one is this is one of the passages that seemed to make it clear that Ephesus was Paul's favorite church. He spen three years there that's mentioned the passage. This is like a lame back year Bible map, you know, but just so the red little dot here is. So the passage says that Paul's in Miletus and calls the elders of the Ephesian church. Hey, come hang out with me real quick. So if you look up there, Ephesus, obviously north of this coastal city, Milus, you know, this kind of thing, you kind of miss if you don't really, really, really know your Bible. Like, dude, he was asking them, will you guys walk 40 miles and come see me? I mean that's like, that ain't no joke, man. That's no joke. So how big a deal they were to Paul and Paul was to them is they were willing to walk 40 miles from Ephesus to Miletus to be with Paul. And I'll just emphasize like you need, if you're a dude, you need a band of brothers around you that love Jesus and love you. You need the kind of guys who will walk 40 miles to be with you in your moment of need. Yeah, and he had that. Number two, I mentioned this last week. Please do.

[B]

We just launched here at Lake Point what we call rooted.

[A]

Wait, yeah, wait, you talk.

[B]

No, no. Okay, I know you're gonna say this, but so because you're talking about a band of brothers. And so this is really exciting because actually we're really passionate about this at Lake Point. And so rooted is a. For people that don't know, it's a 10 week discipleship experience where you get to again, find your band of brothers, find your group of people and basically go through the different rhythms, real everyday discipleship, prayer, community, generosity. I actually spoken to quite a bit of people saying that this is literally the first time they've ever joined a group.

[A]

Almost all of them.

[B]

And it's Lifechanging.

[A]

Yeah, it's all awesome.

[B]

That's right. And so, dude, it's amazing.

[A]

It's like boot camp. You're leading one, I'm leading one. It's boot camp for team Jesus is what it is. So this is. Dude, Janet and I are having a blast. This is a pic. I hope none of my rooter group members care about this. This is a picture of my. Our rooted group at our house. This is two nights ago. And dude, we feel like we're doing youth ministry again. Ours is all young adults, so it's like some of them are dating. It's fun. We're like giving dating advice after, you know. And, you know, that's just. That's. That's our little group. They hung out our house till like 10pm this week. And this is, you know, there it is. We're just having a blast, man. Total blast.

[B]

If somebody has not yet joined a group and is interested, man, just text the word rooted to 20411 and we'll get you plugged in.

[A]

You want me to keep going?

[B]

Keep going.

[A]

Okay. A couple other things didn't make it in the sermon or did, but. But slightly. This was what I'm preaching now is what I plan to preach a year from now. And then very. The spirit made it really clear last week. I need you to shift it. What's interesting about this, I. I titled, you know, this. I titled the sermon series for next year. There is more Colon. Endgame. I named it after I. It's got a little ridiculous, but I named it after the Avengers Endgame. In the Avengers deal, I'm not a huge superhero movie guy, but whatever. The end game deal is where they essentially, they come up with their plan to defeat the enemy. And there's one person that's willing to trade his life in order to take down the enemy. This acts 20. Paul starts talking about, I'm going to Rome and I'm going to Jerusalem. And I know hardships and trials await me. And then he tells the Ephesian elders, none of you will ever see my face again. So he's been given this essentially prophetic revelation. Paul knows I'm going to trade my. I'm going to die when I do this. But in Paul's math was if I can trade my one dude. And just in the light of everything happened in our nation, this like hits even deeper. Paul was gone. If I can trade my one life to see the gospel sweep over the entire nation of Rome. Worth it. So this right here initiates Paul's death sequence. And from here to the end of the book of Acts. Acts is Paul intentionally moving towards what he knows will kill him because he's going, I will trade my life for the salvation of this nation. Wow. So I love that. In fact, you even see this in when Jesus saves Saul in Acts chapter nine. A lot of people miss this. What Jesus tells Ananias, who was like a Jewish dude that. That loved Jesus. He tells Ananias to go pray for Saul because he's blind and heal him. And he's like, I don't want to. That's a guy that kills Christians. And Jesus tells him, listen close. Way back in Acts 9, go. For he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and Kings. That's why Paul's trying to go to Rome and the children of Israel. And then Jesus said this for I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name. So from the minute Paul's converted, he knows, you're going to trade your life for this thing, brother.

[C]

But when you read his letters, you don't get the sense that, oh, and he's miserable because of it. Like in Philippians, he's in a situation where he's in jail and that's where you see him all and over again say, rejoice, rejoice, rejoice. He just over and over again talks about how this thing that he feels called to is bringing him joy even as he's suffering in the midst.

[A]

100%, in fact. So this is like super cool Bible nerdy stuff. So I'm gonna give away. We're gonna do like an old lost flash forward. If you remember the TV show. I do. Carlos, you didn't watch last.

[B]

I actually did.

[A]

Oh, you did?

[B]

Yeah, I did.

[A]

All right, all right.

[B]

You're, like, so surprised. Like a couple seasons.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, he gave up.

[B]

But I did hear you. Like, you totally spoil it.

[A]

Like, they do flash forwards.

[C]

End of season three.

[A]

Epic. There you go. So I'm gonna do a flash forward because it ties in. So what happens? The Apostle Paul is. He does all of. He does Acts. He goes to Rome, he gets thrown in prison. Apparently he gets out. Acts chapter 28, which is the last chapter of Book of Acts, ends with Paul under house arrest. Church history tells us he apparently gets out and then he gets. He gets thrown back into prison and he eventually he's beheaded in Rome. And that's how his life ends. Okay, so that's how it ends. Now what's really, really Stinking cool is if you go to Rome, you can walk into the jail cell that the apostle Paul was imprisoned in before his. Go ahead and toss that picture up on the screen. This is. We were debating before this thing. Is it Mamertine or Mamertine Prison, but this is it. Now, here's what's. This is a little. This is amazing. We know this is the. We know this is the jail cell that he's in. He was in for a few reasons. I'm gonna do the coolest reasons last. Number one, this is the jail cell that is closest to the Roman Forum. In fact, if you walk out. I was just there with a group from Lake Point last year. If you walk out of Mamertine Prison and you look to the right, you're looking at the road that ends up running right through the Roman Forum. Which church historians are. You know, they. They say that's almost certainly the road the Apostle Paul walked down to go to the place where he was beheaded. So you walk out of that thing and look to the right and you see that road, and you see the Roman Forum. Okay, number two. So it's close to where he was beheaded. Number two, the history of Mauritine prison says this is where Nero kept prisoners who were under threat of public execution. Like, this was the one. So we know that. So it's the only prison around there. It's close to the Roman Forum. It's the one that. That Nero kept capital. You know, people were awaiting capital offense, you know, public execution in. But then, dude, this is really this amazing. There are three letters that church historians say Paul wrote from whatever jail cell he was in before his death. They're the three. They're called the Pastoral Epistles, first and second Timothy and Titus. So he writes these three letters, these three young pastors now, dude. All right, this. This is going to run it. Run a chill down your spine. So you can barely see it in this picture. But what's right above. Hang on, hang on. Let me see something real quick. Yeah. All right, so in maritime prison, you go in, and this, this jail, this prison cell is the only one that's under the ground. So that's where they kept the people waiting. Public execution, because it was the safest, most confined one. So it's underground. Bookmark that in your head. Number two, if you look real close under that little sign, you're going to see these little holes in the wall. Those are the holes where they would run chains through the wall so that they could chain prisoners on that. That little seat and, and you know, they would be bound right there. Okay, now with all that in mind, remember Paul writes the books first and second Timothy and Titus from whatever jail cell he's in now. This is crazy. Number one, second Timothy four, 13 says, Paul says, when you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas and my scrolls and especially the parchment. Parchments. Now, a lot of people read that and they go, man, why would Paul be asking for a cloak? He Rome, Rome's hot, okay? But when you walk into that jail cell, it's far enough underground, it's cold. So you're going, huh, wow. He was apparently number one. That's it. Now, number two, second Timothy two, eight, nine. Paul says, remember Christ Jesus risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my Gospel. Listen to this. For which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal, but the word of God is not bound. And then you look on the holes in that wall and literally those are the holes in the wall where the chains he's referencing in second Timothy 2, 8, 9 went right through those holes. And he's writing about it right there.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

So, dude, you right there are staring at the exact jail cell that the Apostle Paul was in.

[C]

Just two things come to mind when you talked about that. Number one is just a reminder. People like, this is not fairy tales. These are real people in real places and these things really happened. I think it's just always important. Remember that when we're seeing pictures of this. To your point, this happened. Number two, I love just a connection. Do you know what the last word in the book of Acts is in the Greek?

[A]

I don't.

[C]

Unhindered or unhinderedly. And so it ends. I'll even just read for us in the English. Basically, he was there in prison. He was basically under house arrest, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance. It doesn't say without opposition. So that's the idea. We're always going to have opposition, but the idea is it's unhindered. Because the end of the day, nothing can stop the movement of the Gospel. And so the thing is, that's not an excuse for us to not get in the game, like, oh, it's going to happen anyway, so I don't need to do anything. The whole point is because nothing can hinder the spread of the gospel and what God can do through you. It's your reason to get in the game and to use your life to advance the gospel.

[B]

Gospel.

[A]

Come on, man.

[B]

That's good, man. This is really good. That was really good.

[A]

I know, man.

[B]

That's amazing.

[A]

I think that's. Yeah, yeah, that's. That's it. Oh, wait, wait. One more thing. Let me do a little fun fact. Two other little fun facts about Acts 20. This is the only sermon in the whole book of Acts that Paul preaches to Christians. Wait, we just talked about Eutychus last week. I think I got a bad Bible fact.

[C]

Call that a Bible study.

[A]

No, disregard that.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah, it's just. That's not true. We just talked about Eutychus last week. Disregard that. I got that from a Bible commentary, but I'm like, I think that's wrong, but this one is right. In verse 35, Paul quotes Jesus as saying, it's more blessed to give than receive. But if you go read all four Gospels, Jesus never says that in the Gospels. So this is what was called part of the logia, part of the oral tradition. Like, you know, the Gospel of John says many more things Jesus did and taught. If I were to record all of them, all the. Essentially goes, all the books in the world would not record. So this is one of the things that Jesus definitely did say that just didn't get recorded in the four Gospels as part of the oral tradition. Yeah.

[B]

Amazing.

[A]

There you go, man.

[B]

I have a. I have a question for you guys. So obviously, thank you for allowing it.

[A]

Yeah, I'm gonna stop saying that. It sounds right.

[B]

I know. I was tempted to say that multiple times before, and I myself, man, the. So in this passage, the Apostle Paul talks about two things. He mentions elders and overseers. And obviously he's talking about church leadership. So, you know, first of all, is there a difference between those two terms? And if so, what do they mean? And I'm curious, what is Lake Point's, you know, church governance thing?

[A]

So Paul the Prophet or whatever, we gotta come up with a nickname for Paul. He's gonna talk about this real quick. But it is interesting. You got two words here, presbuterol. In the Greek, it's presbyteroi, not presbyteros. Oi is the plural suffix for a Greek word that gets translated elders. And then later in the passage, you have episcopal, episcopoi, episcopus, which is the.

[C]

Plural version of episcopal.

[A]

And it gets translated overseers. And so it's two different words that refer to the elders of the church at Ephesus. I'll say one thing, and then I'll give it to Paul the Word Press, Butyroi in particular. Honestly, here's all it means. It means old guys. I'm not joking. Like, literally, if you go read that book, it's referring to like ancient, like 1st century tribal cultures where there would be a group of the oldest men in the city that were considered wise men and they would almost form like a tribal council. Not talking about survivor. They would form like a tribal council and they would sort of like help make decisions on behalf of the tribe. It's talking about those guys. So, like, in the church, we have this at Lake Point. We have a group of elders there. No offense to any of them. They're old guys. They're old guys. They got great families, great marriages, they love Jesus, they lead life groups and they serve as like, this council that helps for us guard the doctrine of the church and the policy of the church. And they walk alongside of me for encouragement, accountability, that kind of thing. Now, Paul, you want to talk about, like, we're going to real quick, for Bible nerds, we're going to do a, you know, a short crash course on church governance structures.

[B]

Honestly, a lot of people probably don't know that's a thing.

[A]

It's a thing.

[C]

Wait, it's a thing.

[B]

The church governance.

[C]

Okay, I know everybody gets really excited, but it actually is really important when done correctly because it's basically how Christ leads now through people on earth. And so that's actually probably the best starting point is to actually say Jesus Christ is the leader of the church. He is the chief shepherd of the church. But what we also see in the Bible is that he leads to biblically qualified leaders here on earth through his extension. So basically, sometimes people use a word, it's not often used popularly, but basically that elders are under shepherds and the lead pastor is the under shepherd, under Jesus Christ.

[A]

But then the question that comes straight from the New Testament, it says Jesus the chief shepherd.

[C]

Yeah, the chief shepherd. And so then the question is, okay, like, how is that leadership arranged? To whom did they report? How did they come about historically? You have three different overarching models of how that comes about. We're just gonna walk them through. I think we actually have some stuff for the screen. Comes from our guy. John Wayne Grudem.

[A]

Is his middle name Wayne?

[C]

I was actually joking. I was not gonna say his name is not John Wayne.

[A]

I've never heard that before.

[C]

Now that I've said it, it should be, but nah, Wayne Grudem, great theologian of the church. And so you have Episcopalian, really, the idea of Episcopalian is. You actually said episcopos is the word that is used for overseer. And so Episcopalian form this, by the way, the denomination, this would also be the form that the Catholic Church follows. Anglican Church, you have archbishops who oversee bishops, who oversee rectors, who would kind of be like the lead pastor of a local congregation. Very hierarchical, very top down. So authority comes from the top down. The archbishop appoints the bishops, who appoints directors and so on and so forth. So much more of a top down structure and very centralized. So at the end of the day, bishops and archbishops are going to decide what is the official doctrine of that church and everybody must fall in line. So if you're the rector, lead pastor of that church and you don't like it, well, that's nice. But get out, you fall in line or you get out kind of a thing. So more of a hierarchical structure. If you go to the next one, you see more of what's called a Presbyterian form of government. The idea here is that you see a dotted line from the congregation up is that in a Presbyterian form of government, you kind of have authority going both top down and bottom up. Local congregations choose their own elders, elders being the people who lead the church. And you look throughout the New Testament, the elders are the people who are leading and then protecting. So they will pick their own elders. But then those elders have shared leadership. So the lead pastor, lead elder usually is called the first among equals. So lead pastor is on the elder.

[A]

Board, first amongst questions. Can I interrupt?

[C]

Oh goodness, where are we going?

[A]

Is there a biblical precedent for the concept of a senior pastor?

[C]

I would say yes, definitely yes.

[A]

So you have the church at Jerusalem, but you have James, you have the church at Ephesus, but you have Timothy. Exactly. Now those guys are, are one of the elders of church, but there is kind of that first among equals.

[C]

And those even says, those who lead by teaching.

[A]

I only say that I run into guys, especially like a lot of reform guys and house church guys. Shocker. Yeah, I'll refrain from coming. But they're, they're. You do run into people who are like, like there shouldn't even be a senior pastor. It should just be a bunch of equal, you know, that kind of thing. And that's kind of the thing of, you know, a body without a head's a corpse. A body with multiple heads is a freak. Yeah, go ahead.

[C]

Apart from the biblical argument, then usually when I'm talking to people like, then why wasn't that done from the early history of the church, if that's the obvious thing, you know, no one else came that conclusion for a long, long time anyway, so moving on. But here's the key thing, because you'll see in actually, the next one, don't put it up there yet. More of what's called a congregational style, which is a third model, can have elders. Here's a distinction is that you'll see the elders, what's called a session, as the elders at each church, they also report up to what's called a presbytery, which is the idea of elders from multiple churches get together and they have authority over the elder boards of those churches. Let's say you get a local church, their elder board goes off the rail, starts teaching things that are not in the Bible. It's like, okay, well, what do we do? The congregation can't actually do anything. They have to submit to their elders. That's why they would say, we have a presbytery who can actually remove a board of elders from a local church. So there is a structure where it still goes up. So even though local churches elect their elders, they have people outside of their church that they are still under their authority and report to.

[A]

Is which. Which one did the United Methodist Church that went apostate, which one were they? They.

[C]

So they actually have a little bit of a mixture. And that's why I will say this is a good. This is a good clarification here, is that sometimes there'll be mixtures. And so they actually do have bishops that they appoint, and they can actually appoint them to local churches or say, hey, we're going to take this person out as well. So they had a little bit of a mixed thing.

[A]

Gotcha.

[C]

So, yeah, let's go to the final one, congregational. So this is the third major. You have a big distinction. This is why you don't see anything above the church board. I say the church board because some churches will call them elders, which I think they should be called. Some will have them be called deacons. There's nothing above because in congregational model, the local church is autonomous. Now, they may belong to denomination in a sense of partnership, but at the end of the day, there's not an outside church or an outside board that's saying, you have to do this. Rather, it's saying, hey, if we're going to partner with this denomination, then yeah, we need to believe the same big things. But there's not a sense of, hey, you have to believe this or we're going to remove your church board kind of thing. Here's the other distinction is that the congregations, if you see those dotted lines, a congregation will vote for their lead pastor and then will often vote for their elders, but then will submit to the leadership of those people. I, I will add maybe one more thing. And, and Josh, we can, you can lean in if you have it, or you too, Carlos, if you have any questions. On the congregational model, there is a pretty big spectrum. So some congregational models, literally it is, you have a lead pastor, but every decision is made by the entire church. You'll have business meetings where you have to vote to change the color of the walls, the carpet, all that kind of stuff.

[A]

Total disaster.

[C]

Yes, total disaster. Not biblical.

[A]

Can I tell you my favorite quote on. Yeah, you said not biblical. Can I tell you my favorite quote on congregationalism? I think it was Driscoll. I think Driscoll one time said there's more evidence for unicorns in the Bible that congregational leaders. I thought it was hilarious.

[B]

That's not it though. Right? Obviously. Is that congregational leadership. Is that it?

[C]

Well, and so the idea here is it can function on an extreme where literally the entire congregation, but really I would say that we're supposed to, I think this may be where we're going is that the congregation would vote on who the lead pastor is and who the elders are, and then those people oversee and lead the congregation. In a sense, it's almost like representative government. A little bit is the best, maybe you can use to describe it. But yeah, that's the idea.

[A]

That's what's supposed to happen. And I grew up at Southern Baptist churches. I'm a third generation Baptist pastor. Or what happens in toxic congregational cultures is this is not the case at Lake Point in any way, shape or form. In toxic congregational cultures, the church members image spiritually immature church members. Like some dude that literally got saved last week and has the spiritual maturity of like an aunt, he all of a sudden is like, well, it's congregational church. You know, I guess I'm, I'm in charge here now. And then you get people like that, that view themselves as in authority over their pastor and it's extremely, extremely toxic because the sheep are acting like they're in authority over the shepherds. That's a great way to destroy a flock.

[C]

You often, not always be careful not to stereotype too much, but you often get the most spiritually immature people and dysfunctional people making decisions for the entire church and just all they got to do is have a majority vote. Whereas if you actually go to like Titus 1, 1 Timothy 3, when you look at the qualifications for elders only, actually. One is a skill, the ability to teach. All of the other are character attributes. So you're looking for people of high spiritual maturity, high character, who can lead the church and then protect the church. That's actually the big thing that Paul hits here in Acts 20. He's like, hey, wolves are going to come and you got to protect. So to your point, you got to be a shepherd and be willing to fight off the wolves and fight off bad teaching. So makes sense. And then in terms of that overview.

[B]

Yes. So Lake Point is we are, first.

[A]

Of all, we obviously have a senior pastor. I'm one of the elders. So what we say is that we are staff guided, elder guarded. So at Lake Point, actually let me go back biblically. So there's, you know, what people sometimes do is they'll look at passages like Acts 20 and they'll kind of parse down presbyteroy and episcopiskopus, that kind of thing, and try to extract like from tiny little wisps of hints. This is what the Bible says. Honestly, man, the New Testament doesn't have a ton of specific things to say about that. Here's what it does. It's very clear. Churches should have elders. Yes. You can't get away from First Timothy 3, Titus 1 Church should have elders. Then you go to Acts chapter seven and this. I'm going to be like, we're going to be a little church nerdy for a second here. And just like everybody's going to think like a pastor for a second. You go to Acts chapter 7. Church starts growing in Acts chapter 7. All of a sudden what happens is the widows in the church, they essentially their benevolence funds. We got that at least point. How do we help people in need? And the people in need start going, hey, where the stuff's not getting to us. Like, hey. Because they're going, man, the apostles who were leading the church, like, there's only like 12 of you guys. And the church is real big and we can't. How are we going to get your attention? So what they do is they go, oh, you know, we should do. We should add a layer of leadership. And they add. It's that it's called, I think it's called seven Chosen to serve is how it's the. The passage is titled. And they add a layer of leadership that often gets called deacons. The Greek word is just diaconos, I think. And it literally, A lot of times churches will turn that into like an official office Diaconos just means servants. Yeah.

[C]

When Jesus says, I did not come to serve, but not come to be served, but to serve, he literally says, I had not come to be deacons, but to deacon, but to deacon.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. So. So honestly, man, it's like, in. In one sense, all it's talking about is we added volunteer ministry team members.

[E]

Yep.

[A]

So basically, what happen, they restructure the organizational structure of the church. In Acts Chapter seven, they're reverse engineering the organizational structure of the church from what would best accomplish the mission. So really, man, you know, it's like at Lake Point, just like the Bible, we have elders. We have. We have elders just like the Bible. We have a senior pastor, just like the Bible. And then we are. We are led by the. Guided by the staff, guarded by the elders. The elders guard the doctrine and the policy of church. They walk alongside of me for help, encouragement, accountability. And the elders are a bunch of, you know, they're old guys that love Jesus and are men of character, got great families, and that's how we roll.

[C]

And just so people know, I mean, well, two things in terms of, like you said, sometimes people, like, really parse out the words. And that's where. Even going back to the Episcopalian model, like, oh, there is an Episcopal. There was a bishop. But we have to realize in Acts 20, that's being used interchangeably because he calls the elders to him and then he's talking to that same group of people, and then he says, you serve as overseers, as Episcopal. So we gotta be careful not to make these two fine distinctions when it's not. Another thing, just so people know, like, why this matters practically, is that if you show me a dysfunctional, weak church, I will show you a church that.

[A]

Has dysfunctional, weak leadership every single time.

[C]

Every single time. So with that being said, I would just encourage, in terms of, like, what does it mean for me practically? Number one, be praying for your leaders, be praying for your pastors, for your elders. Number two, we need more godly men and women, especially more godly men, to be developing as leaders in the local church who can one day be pastors who are going to be elders. So, like, it matters.

[A]

Matters big time, man.

[B]

By the grace of God here, like, when we have very strong leadership. Josh, speaking of that, you mentioned in at least one of the services that you at some point made a shift in your. Yes. Leadership, but more specifically, your preaching strategy. Say more.

[A]

Yeah, dude, I do want to talk about this just real quick. So in this passage, one of the things Paul does And this is another thing that didn't make it into the sermon in all the services is Paul mentions. He uses this phrase. He says, I did not shrink back from declaring anything that was profitable to you. Instead, I declared the whole council of God. And then he says publicly and from house to house. I'll just point out that's how Lake Point structured. We gather on the weekends and we proclaim the word of God publicly. And then you just saw a picture of my ruder group in my living room. And then we. We scat. Gather, and then we scatter house to house to get around the word of God. From house to house. So publicly, from house to house. And then he used this phrase, face. He says, I am innocent of the blood of all of you. And what he's doing is. He's. He's actually bro. He's. He's pointing back to Ezekiel. I think it's Ezekiel 33, if I remember right, where Ezekiel, God gives him this vision of, hey, man, I'm appointing you as a watchman on the wall. Like a military thing. I'm appointing you as a watchman on the wall.

[B]

Ezekiel 3.

[A]

Ezekiel 3. I knew there's a 3 in there somewhere. I'm appointing you as a watchman on the wall. And then God tells Ezekiel, the prophet, he goes, hey, man, if. In the same way that if a watchman's on the wall and an enemy approaches and the watchman on the wall sounds a clear warning an enemy is coming, but then the people don't do anything in response to his call, the people might die and get killed by the enemy, but the watchman is innocent because he sounded the one warning. On the other hand, if an enemy approaches and the watchman's asleep at the wheel and he sounds no alarm, and then the enemy breaks in and ravages the people, then not only do the people die, but the. The God says, I will require their blood at your hands because you were the watchman and you didn't do your job. And what Paul's saying in this passage is he's going, listen, man, I did my job. There is nothing in the Word that I failed to declare to you and your families and your children. And after I did that, it was your responsibility to walk in a loving relationship with the Father and obedience to his word. And Paul, with a totally clear conscience, can say, I am innocent of your blood because there was not one thing that I shrank back from in the Word. Now, real quick, I will. Just real briefly, I made a shift in my preaching Strategy where I realized a way that I was, quote, shrinking back and I didn't realize it, and it happened in 2020, I'll be honest. So here's what I used to do. I used to. I'd sit down and I wanted to be a good evangelistic pastor. And I would sit down and start writing my sermon, and I would, like, have this imaginary lost person in my head. And it was usually like, you know, like, aggressively, you know, secular progressive, hates the Bible, hates Jesus, you know, all the things. And I would write my whole sermon with that, reverse engineering with that person in mind. And, like, how can I get them to, like, this sermon? And then. And what that would do is, honestly, man, there would be passages in the Bible that I would almost take, like, a soft approach on. I would almost sometimes come across apologetic. Like, man, this is really tough, dude. I. Man, I wish the word didn't say this, but it does. I would take that approach, and then I would say, I would teach it real gentle and soft, and then I'll look out. And if that type of person didn't like it, then I would feel like I did something wrong. And I would say it even softer. And then I'll be really honest. I started watching around in 2020, 2021, and I started noticing, like, man, there's these, like, actually really ungodly ideologies. And I'm watching large segments of my people that are actually getting persuaded by these things, things. And I started realizing, like, hey, man, you're the watchman. And so I noticed that one. I noticed a few things. One, the Christians and the families in my churches weren't getting, like, clear teaching that they needed to grow in their faith, have confidence and boldness when they walked out the door. This is a big one, dude. Their kids. Kids weren't hearing, like, clear, you know, just like, clear, unapologetic, like, actually joyful Bible teaching about what the Word said. And the world was being more bold and courageous with its preaching than I was with mine at the points of conflict. So here's a decision I made. And some people in our church have even said this. Like, man, I kind of noticed, like, somewhere around 2021, it just felt like something was different in you, and it's because I was repenting. And so once upon a time, you know, there was a bit of a seeker time where I would sit down and write my sermon with, what a lost person, man? What would a lost person think of this? And then if I'm being really honest, there was a little, like, almost Like a social justice era where I would sit down and I would have an imagined aggrieved group in my mind and I would like, okay, what would that aggrieved group think about my sermon or reverse engineer from that? And I read a passage like this about how I did not shrink back from declaring anything to you, and I realized I was accidentally doing that. And the shift I made was, you know, now I'm not going to think about will a lost person like it. And I'm not going to think about will an aggrieved group like it. The only question I'm going to ask is, will God like it? Is God going to like this? And when I made that shift, what I realized I had been doing is I'd been starving the sheep to try to attract some goats. And I just made that decision like, man, okay, here's what I'm going to do now. And here's how I write my sermons. Now is Galatians 1:10 for, am I. Am I trying to please man, or am I trying to please God? If I'm trying to please man, I'm no longer a servant of Christ. So what I do now is I try to write my sermons and kind of go, man, what I want to do is build up the wise people, the Christians in the church that love Jesus, committed to his Word. I want to build them up in their faith, their confidence, their courage, their boldness, all those things I want to correct foolish people, people who are like, man, you know, I'm in on the Word, but I just struggle with these things. That's a person that's foolish. But they're going to get there because the spirit's inside of them and they just need some help. And then this is the part that can be a little, like, sticky with some people when they hear it is there are. The Bible says there are evil people. This passage, in fact says. It says, when I leave, fierce wolves. And it says, will arise from among you. So he says there's going to be divisive church members in your church, that they're going to walk out of the sermon and then they're going to walk into their life group and be like, I don't know, I don't know, man. I didn't like how he said that, that kind of thing. And, and there, there are evil people. And so what I just decided is I want to build up the wise, correct the foolish, and then I intentionally want to drive out the evil people from my church because they'll get up in our Life groups. And they'll do. They'll do division and they'll do reverse discipleship among the people.

[B]

Yeah, and by the way, you do that because you love the sheep.

[A]

Because I love the.

[B]

Yes, it's because you're trying to be. Oh, that's so mean. You're not trying to be mean. You love the sheep.

[C]

And it's in this passage, even as you're speaking about Ezekiel, Episcopal literally means to watch over or to be, in a sense, a watchman.

[A]

I did not know that.

[C]

And so even, like, that's the Episcopal is just to watch over, to look out, to guard. And so that's the idea is. I mean, that is part of the role of leaders in the church is to watch out. Because not everybody is a sheep. There are people that are wolves that are wearing sheep's clothing to try to get in and deceive people intentionally.

[B]

It's part of our role, man. Last thing before we start talking about Charlie Kirk and some of the lifestyle.

[A]

I got one thing I want to say.

[B]

Oh, you got one more thing?

[A]

Yeah. You want to do yours first?

[B]

You know. Well, I was going to ask you something.

[A]

Okay, let me take this on.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So here's what did. Here's what's really interesting is I thought when I made that shift, like, oh, dang, we're not going to reach as many lost people. And like, dude, the exact opposite. I just. And here's my math on this thing. What I found is that the clearer I preach, it's like, the clearer I preach, the bigger we get. It's like, the more lost. We will baptize more than 2,500 people this year. In a year. And here's my math on this thing is that the spirit of God authored the word of God. And so the spirit of God is always going to anoint the teaching of the word of God. So now I'm like, dude, I don't gotta always just focus on, quote, unquote, attracting people. Yes, we are good missiologists. Yes. I became all things to all men in order that I might save some. All the things, blah, blah, blah. But at the end of the day, the foundation is man. I want to preach in such a way that the preaching attracts the presence of God. And if you attract the presence of God, the presence of God will attract the people. So honestly, it's been the opposite. We're reaching more people than ever before, man.

[B]

Somebody's listening right now and they're probably thinking, man, that's awesome. Josh, you're a Pastor, obviously, you know, when it comes to that verse in Acts 20, my only aim is to finish the task. You, you seem to have a very clear task. But what about like, what about me if somebody maybe might be asking, well, you know, I have a quote unquote non church related job. How do people know? Man, this is my task. This is what I need to be focusing on on and how do I complete it?

[A]

The biggest thing that somebody needs to do is they need to walk out of this week and go, what's the task the Lord Jesus is asking me to do? And I'm going to do that this week. So not everything from heaven has your name on it, but something does. So honestly here's a prayer that I found. God never doesn't answer for me. Father, what do you want me to do this week? To be more conformed into the image of Jesus or what do you want me to do this week? Week to advance the purposes of God and man? There's a verse in, in the Gospel of John, it's at the wedding at Cana where somebody just says it's the, it's Jesus mom Mary. She looks at the, the, the wedding host and she's getting ready to do a miracle and she says, do whatever he tells you to do. And I'll just say for any person like man, pause, ask the Holy Spirit, what do you want me to do this way week to be more conformed into your image or to advance your purposes? Ask the Holy Spirit that and then do whatever he tells you to do. May it may have this week been I need to be publicly baptized. There may be somebody that's like I need to share my faith with that person. I need to start reading the word for the first whatever it is man. But just ask he's going to answer.

[C]

That prayer, I think with that one thing that I, I used to do when I worked with young adults mainly. But I think it works for all of us. In case you even wonder how, how do I take my career and do that is you just draw three circles. I took this from someone else is basically it's like, hey, what are, what is the interse of my passions, my talents, my experiences and really what's at most of the intersection Because I might have some passions, but I might not be good at it. Those are the people in American Idol who stink and no one will tell me they stink. So you're looking for the intersection of all those things and experiences. One thing I'd also say is like, hey, what is misery? I've been through because often God will turn our greatest misery into our greatest ministry. And so just saying, okay, where do those overlap? And then asking, hey, what has God called all of us to do? And then how do I do those things as I'm doing the specific thing he's called me to do, which is where they overlap that. So to your point, we've all been called to make disciples, We've all been called to raise our families, if you're a family. So as you're doing the specific thing God has called you to do, but do the things he's called all of us to do. And then I'll just share one more thing in case you're just wondering even more. I get this from Nehemiah. When Nehemiah heard about the broken down walls of the city, it caused him to weep. And so sometimes what I'll ask people is, hey, what is brokenness in the world that produces brokenness inside of you? And by the way, it may not be the same thing for everybody. Probably is not. I think God has actually put different burdens on different people so that he can do more minist more places. And so nothing else. Just be asking like, and when I say the world, it doesn't have to be overseas. It can literally be in your neighborhood, it can be in your home. What is the brokenness in your home, in the world, neighborhood, whatever it is that's producing a brokenness inside of you. And then to be like, just simply ask and God, what do you want me to do about it? And then go do it.

[A]

Amen.

[B]

That's really helpful, thank you. We have a special guest, Sabrina Cosmus, coming up in just a second. So we're going to be debunking some lies of Charlie Kirk. So stay tuned. Well, hey guys, one of the reasons we are intentional in creating these kind of podcast episodes is because we believe that discipleship happens in relationships. Having said that, what we want to do through the live free podcast is we want to model what it looks like to be in a discipleship group where we come together and open up the word of God together and honestly just grow together as followers of Jesus to live free in Christ.

[A]

Christ.

[B]

For this reason, we love that you're tuning in, but honestly, we don't just want you to be a passive listener. We want you to be an active participant. And so if you have not yet joined a group, whether that's in person or online, I want to challenge you to test drive one. To do that, just text the word group to 20411. Or you can also go to Lakepoint church groups, because listen, you're not one podcast away, one habit away, one decision away. One book away, one sermon away. You are one relationship away to experience freedom in Christ, in community. And now let's get back to the podcast.

[A]

Ladies and gentlemen, we are here with special guests Sabrina. And I say make sure I pronounce it right. Sabrina. Cosmos. Cosmos. Cosmos. Cosmos. Like rhymes with Christmas. A little bit.

[D]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

Okay. Sabrina, the Cuban wonder.

[B]

We just learned your parents are from.

[A]

Cuba, Both of them, first generation Cuban American. That's incredible. So there's a few fun facts right here. So first of all, now I am very embarrassed. Early in the podcast, I called it Prager U. Sabrina works for Prager. Yeah, Prageru.

[D]

Cosmos. Prager. It's a lot of, you know, there's a lot there.

[A]

I know. That's right. There's a lot there. Which again, that's your. So, like, that platform is one of my favorite. It's like one of my favorite platforms has been for years. And like I mentioned with Carlos earlier, when we first started in the podcast, literally our texts were like, dude, we should build a Prageru for, like, Christian cultural engagement. It's like, you guys have inspired us, man.

[D]

Thank you. That means a lot.

[A]

I know. So a couple other fun facts about Sabrina. So number one, Cuban wonder. Number two, works for Prager. Number three, has a baby due this week.

[D]

One week. Yeah, from today.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[D]

Yeah. Maybe you're earlier.

[A]

Congratulations, baby. Number three.

[D]

Thank you.

[A]

It's awesome. Sabrina and her man, our Lake Point members, just. We love y'. All. You guys have hopped up into my office before and just been really, really fun. And then the other thing that's really significant about you, Sabrina, because, you know, we talk about this a little bit, is, you know, you worked with and interacted with both Charlie and his team. And so, you know, last week, probably, like a lot of us, like, it was felt kind of personal.

[D]

Yeah. Very personal.

[A]

Yeah. So here's what we're gonna do in the next few minutes. So what happened is Char, you know, Charlie. Charlie's assassinated. Then there's a big outpouring of positive, like, oh, my gosh, we just lost a great one. And then what. What always happens is then it was like a backfill of like, just like, I'm going to read some of the, you know, some of the things you started hearing. Charlie. Charlie called somebody a racial slur. They called. So he called somebody a chef Chink. He said, gun deaths are Worth it, in fact, that that thing went crazy after because obviously, you know, he was shot. So then people were mocking him. Charlie said the Civil Rights act was bad. Charlie said black Americans were better off under Jim Crow. Lots of like racist, you know, stuff said gay people should be stoned to death. I mean there's a bunch of stuff we're going to get into this and what you're, the, the, the this is what is claimed and then this is what was actual is insane. It is, it's insane.

[B]

It's, it's honestly surprising the amount of like, it's just, it's not hard to, to find the context for some of these videos and people are very quick to, to go ahead and jump the gun.

[A]

Well, dude, so there's a reason for that. So let me talk about like the spiritual dynamic, dynamic of this and why I wanted to do this. And then me and Sabrina will kind of go, we can get into it here. So number, there's a spiritual reason for that. Number one. Romans chapter one says that what people do is, it says they suppress the truth in their unrighteous righteousness. So when, when people like, they're committed to ideologies and actions that like are actually in rebellion against the Lord, that what Romans 1 says is they have their conscience testifies. So then what they do is they have to come up with reasons that they can like suppress both the truth and the truth tellers. And so what they'll do, you'll see, you will always see that you see truth or you see a truth teller. And people will come up with reasons to delegitimize. So there's a spiritual element to it. They're also like, just as a pastor, there were some people who heard my sermon last week and they were like, ah, I didn't like that guy. And honestly, I think a lot of times is possible to have real feelings based on wrong thinking. And I think there's a lot of people who, they, they've just heard these little sound bites and honestly, if I, if this stuff was true, I wouldn't feel great about your early. If these things were actually true. So I think there's that. And then here's the other reason, man, that I wanted to hit this is Christians, you gotta watch out for this. What can happen is lost people or people who don't like the truth that a Christian stands for, they'll use labels as steering wheels. And what I mean is like somebody will accuse you of, you're a bigot or you're hurtful or you're being racist or whatever it is. And hey, we don't want any of those things to actually be true. But they'll use the label as a steering wheel. And then a well meaning but naive Christian will go, oh, well, then what do I got to do for you not to call me a bigot or a racist or a hurtful? And then it's a way that lost people can steer Christians into not saying things they don't like. And it's actually like, no, man, you just have to not care. You have to not care. Error. And just go, dude, I'm gonna, you know, say what's true and whatever happens, happens. So, Sabrina, it's gonna be fun.

[D]

Yeah. In the wise words of Charlie Kirk, he called for Christians to enter the public arena and confront and correct error with truth. And that's what we really have to do now more than ever. I never thought I'd be using that quote in this context, but here we are.

[A]

Here we are. Here we are, man. So this is the experience a lot of people have been having. Can you go ahead and toss out that tweet from Jason from the all in pod? So one of my little side hobbies is do you know the all in podcast?

[D]

No, I'm not familiar.

[A]

Dude, why does nobody. So this is like one of the biggest podcasts in America. For real. It's like every week it's like, top 10 total podcasts in America. It's like three. Sam. It's four San Francisco Tech billionaires that, like, they all used to be, like, pretty hard secular, progressive, left. And then in the last four years, they've all kind of had this, like, this doesn't seem to be working. And they've all, like, really shifted. So Jason is one of those guys, is like one of the largest podcasts in America. He's the most progressive of the four. So this week he tweets this. I think it was like two days ago. Okay. I've watched 40 Charlie Kirk videos at this point. None of them were outrageous. His opinions were the exact same as the Catholics I grew up with. And was one. He used to be Catholic. I think he walked away from it. I disagree with many of those traditional beliefs, but none of them are shocking. In fact. In fact, they're extremely predictable for a Catholic. And I've started seeing this. You're probably seeing the same thing too. Sabrina is like, there's all these people who. They've just heard these, like, accusations, and then they're like, dang, did he really say that the civil rights act was bad, but then they go find the clip, and they're like, that's not at all what he said. And tons of people are having this. So we want to help more people have this experience. So do you want to pick the first one, or do you want me, Sabrina?

[D]

Absolutely. I'll let you pick. I think we'd probably pick the same one. Start on a light.

[A]

Now let's start on a light note.

[D]

We're going to do some heavy ones.

[A]

All right, that's it. So here's what we'll do. I'll say the. The. The claim, and then you introduce the clip, and then we'll. We'll just talk about it and do some commentary and then move on. Okay. This would be fun. So number one, and I don't know how to say it, just by saying it, number one is it went, like, crazy viral, actually. Emmanuel Acho, who is a Christian former NFL player.

[D]

He.

[A]

This was one of his accusations. Oh, there you go. This was one of his accusations, and it went, like, viral.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

Here's claim number one. Charlie Kirk used a racial slur to call an Asian person. And I'm just gonna say what they said. I don't know how else to do it. He called somebody a chink in a. In a public debate. Sabrina, what say you?

[D]

Okay, so also, to give everyone a little context, I'm gonna give some background information from the political movement and perspectives. I've done PR in the political movement for about five. Over five years now. And so the irony is that this clip. And I remember when this clip went super viral when it happened a few years ago. So Charlie was very notorious for matching people's tones. So if he was in a debate on a college campus and a student came up and was very soft spoken with him, he was usually matching and soft spoken back. If a student came up and was more snarky or sarcastic, he usually would kind of match the tone. So he's at Politikon, this big conference with other political podcasts. I think it was him and Hasan Piker and a few others on stage.

[A]

Hasan Piker.

[D]

He's on stage with him.

[A]

He's that guy who had that clip about, like, wanting to kill all the capitalists and their blood flow through the. That guy.

[D]

Yep.

[A]

Who, by the way, was published in the New York Times this week.

[D]

Yes.

[A]

Okay. Sorry. You can.

[D]

Oh, that's a whole other destiny and all those. Man. If I could use this brain knowledge for something more productive, I'd be Elon Musk. But yeah, yeah. So anyways, he's on panel at Politicon and he's trying to do this panel discussion front of a lot of people. And Chank Ugar, who is. I'm probably butchering his name, which is ironic, but Chenk Ugar with the Young Turks. He is the face of the Young Turks, which is a pretty far left media company. He's just harassing Charlie from the audience, yelling at him, heckling him. And Charlie lost it. And he starts yelling and he yells, chink. But everyone thought he said.

[A]

Yeah, he said that. All right. Yeah. So you want to see the clip? Yeah, let's take a look. Let's show clip here.

[C]

Me, which is ridiculous.

[A]

Like asking me what my salary is.

[E]

Sure, I'll reveal it willingly. You brought it up in context. I'm ask, why don't you look like a socialist? Go live like a socialist.

[A]

Larger. The point is larger than that, Charlie.

[E]

I live like a capitalist every single day. Chank. I live as a capitalist.

[A]

I live. He is hot.

[B]

What do I do?

[E]

I get charity every single year.

[A]

Hold on, hold on.

[D]

There's j.

[A]

So that's him right there. He doing. Take a seat, Take a seat. All right. No, no, take a seat. You're going to take a seat.

[B]

You're going to take a seat over here.

[E]

What's my salary?

[A]

All right, he does it one more time. All right, behave everyone.

[E]

Okay, I practice what I. Charlie, Charlie.

[A]

Okay, you can clip it. You can clip it. So there it is.

[D]

Yeah. And the irony is that Cenk is a very wealthy socialist who was giving him a hard time for being a capitalist. How much money he makes. And you know, a lot of people don't know. Know this, but Charlie is very generous, not just to the church, to profits. He's been very generous over the years with Prageru and other organizations. So he was defending his charity, essentially, and it was ironic.

[A]

Okay, so there, there. So that's number one. You just. If you're on the Internet and you just read like he called somebody a chink, you know, whatever. I don't know how to handle this.

[D]

And you don't know who chink is.

[A]

You don't know who that is. He's literally using a Muslim man's first name. That is Chink.

[B]

And by the way, it's rare for me to see. Because I remember when that went viral, like, you know, a couple years ago, it's rare for me to see a video where Charlie's so like in. Caught up in the moment. He's such a. Usually most of the videos if not every single video out there, he's like, extremely composed.

[A]

That's the only video I've ever seen of him, like, losing. Losing his cool.

[D]

Yeah, same.

[A]

So I do just want to point out something Sabrina said that I think is important. And Sabrina, obviously, I hope you don't. You don't mind, like, Sabrina, obviously. Family origin? Cuba. People in general, people come from Cuba. They are out on anything that smells like socialism for. For some very obvious reasons. Do you want. What's the two second explanation of that for people who may not be aware?

[D]

Yeah. So essentially, socialism is the fundamental value behind communism, which, you know, has enabled dictators in Cuba and other countries, which is the reason my family as well as many others fled as political refugees. My family fled in the mid-60s. But yeah, so it's just anything that seems like, you know, the more power that you give the government, whether that's financially, politically, it's a very scary thing. And that's why a lot of conservative or, sorry, Cubans tend to be very conservative. Tend to be very loud and proud. Proud of their support for Republican candidates. They tend to be very politically engaged. I mean, I think it's just a natural nature. Growing up, you know, we didn't talk about hardcore politics until we were a little older growing up. But I think that there are certain values that were instilled in us about hard work, the importance of capitalism and things like that. Because of what my family fled.

[A]

That's right. Well, and just to point out, like, this is a whole different. Someday we should do this. Like, socialism and biblical economics are completely irreconcilable for a few different reasons. Number one, in the Old Testament, the basis of the Old Testament law is private property ownership.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

So I just want to, like, there's a ton of Old Testament laws that are that revolve around private property ownership, which is incompatible with at least consistent socialism. Number two, socialism. It removes all of the incentives for hard work. And entrepreneur entrepreneurialism, which is why, actually I've seen clips of Charlie doing this. He'll debate socialists, first of all. He'll point out, like he did with Jink right there, he'll point out that everybody who publicly advocates for socialism lives like a capitalist. Yeah, like that. That dude Jake is like a multi millionaire. All of them multimillionaire. They are not generous with their own finances. So what people who lean socialist or kind of redistribution of wealth always do is where. What Christians do. When we talk about charity and generosity, we're talking about our own decision to use our Resources for the good of others and the glory of God. When you talk to people who are more like secular progressive, lean socialists, what they're talking about is lemme vote. Vote so that to use other people's money to help and their data shows they're extremely ungenerous. And then last thing I'll say, socialism incompatible with biblical economics is you just have. I think it's first Thessalonians, Paul just says, man, here's how a church needs to operate. If somebody won't work, they can't eat. So it's like, you know, this is right in there. We want incentives built into society to move people towards work and entrepreneurs.

[B]

Realism coming soon in the next podcast.

[A]

Okay, yeah, we'll do that at some point. Sabrina, do you want to pick the next one? You want me.

[D]

Oh, let's do it. Sorry, my phone keeps walking.

[A]

I'll pick it while you're looking. Yeah, I'll pick it. So the other one that went. So Trinity, you see under where it says gun deaths are worth it. And then go to. I've got that link. This an example of this? Yeah, See if you can open that link. Can you open that? Maybe, maybe not.

[B]

That's probably one of the, the things that I saw the most when, you know, Charlie was killed and everybody was. Everybody's still talking about it. But even. Especially when it happened, people were saying, well, he spoke about this and it was ironic.

[D]

Wanted this.

[B]

He was okay with it.

[E]

That's right.

[B]

He was okay with it. I feel like that this is one of the, the ones I heard the most.

[A]

That's right. And Trinity, what I'm saying, you're having a little trouble over there. So I'm assuming. Assuming that we're gonna give you a second. Yeah, we're gonna give you a second. So the, The. The example was he's talking about the Second Amendment, and the charge was that he said that essentially gun deaths are worth it. That's the price you got to pay.

[D]

For in order to protect the Second Amendment. Now, very clear differentiation between our Second Amendment right to defend ourselves against a tyrannical government versus someone being murdered in broad daylight for their religious and political beliefs.

[A]

Those are a smidge different.

[D]

Very. A little bit. You wouldn't know what the memes and videos you've seen on the Internet this past week. So it's pretty discouraging. He also, even at the end of this clip, I don't know if we'll get a chance to. Or if you guys want to add it later. We'll get it.

[A]

Let's show. Can we show the clip? We got the clip. So people were taking this clip and very convenient. Editing it down to 14 seconds. Do you have any background on this? We're just going to go right into it.

[D]

I will say this was one of the more sickening things I saw online this week was how many people, celebrities, everyday people were using this to condone what happened to him. And that was pretty disturbing.

[A]

It was disgusting. So they were like mocking him and after being killed.

[D]

Yeah. Essentially saying that he would have wanted.

[B]

This or he approved of what happened.

[A]

Well, you said gun deaths were worth it there. You got what you wanted, buddy. That's kind of what, what they're doing is disgusting. So this was the clip they were talking about.

[E]

It's. I think it's worth it. I think it's worth. To have a cost of unfortunately some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other God given rights. That is a prudent deal.

[A]

Okay. So they would very conveniently clip that 14 seconds. Now, Sabrina, you take it from here. What was the actual thing that was happening here?

[D]

Yeah, I think we could actually pull it up and listen from here for a little bit and then I'll kind of reiterate what he's saying.

[A]

Okay.

[E]

It would be wiser than wherever you're living because C.S. lewis was really smart. So I don't know what alternative universe you're living in. You just don't want to face reality that governments tend to get tyrannical and that if people need an ability to protect themselves and their communities and their families. Now we must also be real, we must be honest with the population. Having an armed citizenry comes with a price. And that, that is part of liberty. Driving comes with a price. Fifty thousand. Fifty thousand. Fifty thousand people die on the road every year. That's a price. You get rid of driving, you'd have 50,000 less auto fatalities. But we have decided that the benefit of driving, speed, accessibility, mobility, having products, services, is worth the cost of 50,000 people dying on the road. So we need to be very clear that you're not going to get gun deaths to zero. It will not happen. You can significantly reduce them through having more fathers in the home.

[A]

Yes.

[E]

By having more armed guards in front of schools.

[A]

Bingo.

[E]

We should have a honest and clear reductionist view of gun violence, but we should not have a utopian. You will never live in a society when you have an armed citizenry and you won't have a single gun death. That is nonsense. It's dribble.

[D]

Yeah, I think you cut it off there, Trini.

[A]

You can cut it right there because.

[B]

That'S literally when the 14 second clip started. Right, right there. But yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great.

[D]

Absolutely. So, yeah, I mean, he advocated for our Second amendment rights to, you know, defer a tyrannical government. That doesn't mean that he thinks that people should just get shot, innocent people. And the stretch is just really, like, disheartening. Especially the fact that he offers solutions too culturally. Like, you know, if we arm our banks and our baseball stadiums with security, why are we not arming our schools where our children are? You know, we need to look at cultural issues that are leading to higher crime rates in the country.

[A]

Yeah. He's like, it's very, very obvious. He's not advocating for gun deaths.

[D]

No.

[A]

He's saying, hey, this is a tragic trade off that we have to make for a greater good. This is what he's saying. Right. And this. I always, you know, whenever I had this convers, and, dude, I do not have all the answers on how to do gun regulation. I don't have all the answers on that. But I do know this. If you like the First Amendment, you got to have the Second Amendment and keep that first one. And so that's kind of the principle that he's going after there. Yeah. But very, very obvious. He's not gleefully celebrating gun deaths. He's saying, this is a tragic trade off. We have to make for a greater good. Good.

[D]

Perfect.

[A]

Okay. You want to pick one?

[D]

Okay, let's do. I think I want to do one of the. Charlie opposed the Civil Rights Act. Oh, that's what I'm seeing, dude.

[A]

I watched a lot on this one. Yeah. So this is interesting to me. First of all, obviously, my family is. Is diverse. It's like, you know, I am probably. I'm probably. I'm very, very comfortable in race conversations because we have them in my house all the time. But this one, this one was really interesting. So to watch. So here's the charge, Sabrina. Charlie said the Civil Rights act was a bad thing. Huge mistake. Huge mistake. Okay. In fact, this is how you'll see it quoted online. People say in December 2023, Charlie said we made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights act in the 1960s. End quote. But they're very careful where they. They put the end quote. Let's show people why y. If you had the opportunity, you would get rid of the Civil Rights Act.

[E]

No, I think you should Have a one page bill that says that racial discrimination based on race is illegal and will not be tolerated in the United States of America. Most black Americans don't support is men and female sports. Would you agree? Yeah, I know this. No, no for sure.

[A]

Right.

[E]

Believe it or not, the Civil Rights act is now being used to keep men playing in women's sports. So it's a Civil Rights Act. Was used to help black America originally. Totally get that. But now the way it was written is that any claim of identification, so someone says, I'm a woman, therefore I can compete in your volleyball team, they come in with a civil rights claim. And so what we're saying is no, no, it should be specified to racial, not gender. All that other stuff. And there were all these other provisions as well.

[A]

Okay, there it is. Yeah, it's like painfully obvious.

[D]

Yes. So again, he believes that the intention of the civil rights of 1964 was good. Unfortunately, the application does not apply today because that included things like gender. And as we've all seen over the last few years, gender is now a changing construct.

[A]

That's right.

[D]

So now people are using it in lawsuits in order to basically advocate for biological men to be in women's sports. Women's bathrooms, women's spaces. You even have. On a different totally political level, our former Attorney General Merrick Garland used the Civil Rights act of 1964 to sue certainly states into not using voter ID because it was considered discriminatory. And he used the Civil Rights Act.

[A]

Really? That's how that happened?

[D]

Yep.

[A]

Use the Civil Rights Act.

[D]

Yep. Our own government against the states.

[A]

Okay.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

So you see right there, he's not saying, hey, the Civil Rights act is bad. You know, I'm against African American, the African American community having equality. What he's saying right there is. It was a good idea executed in an imperfect way that led to bad things.

[D]

Exactly. There's too many loopholes with the present day, unfortunately. It should just be what it was intended to be originally.

[A]

Bingo. Okay. Actually, Trinity, do you have that? The one that I put up about that with, about the Civil Rights act with a. This African American black pastor commenting on this.

[C]

This is what Charlie Kirk had to.

[A]

Say about the Civil Rights Act. If you had the opportunity, you would get rid of the Civil Rights Act.

[E]

Again, no, I think you should have a one page bill that says that racial discrimination based on race is illegal and will not be tolerated in the United States of America. Most black Americans don't support is men and female sports. Would you agree? Yeah, I know. No no, for sure.

[A]

Right.

[E]

Believe it or not, the Civil Rights act is now being used to keep men playing in women's sports. So it's a Civil Rights Act. Was used to help black America originally. Totally get that. But now the way it was written is that any claim of identification. So someone says, I'm a woman.

[A]

Click to the part where he gives a commentary. No, no, go back. What we're saying is.

[E]

No, no.

[A]

Now do you get it?

[C]

He was not trying to say that blacks should lose their rights and equal protections under the law.

[A]

He was saying that homosexuals, the LGBTQIA.

[C]

Plus and counting community, you know, there's.

[A]

72 genders in counting. He was saying that those individuals should not have special. Special rights. We should have equal rights under the law, but not special. Right. There it is. Is that a good way to say that?

[D]

Correct. Yes.

[A]

Okay, so let's do another one. This dude, this one you. I've seen this one a lot. Charlie said black Americans were better off under Jim Crow. Okay, so let's show. Let's see. Is that the one? Hang on, hang on. Let me see it. Yeah, yeah, that's the one. So let's go ahead and show this.

[E]

Black Americans are poorer today in 2024 than they were in the 1950s.

[D]

Yes. Why do you think that is?

[E]

Good question. So we have the Civil Rights Act. We have more benefits, more government.

[A]

Will you pause it?

[E]

Trinity something.

[A]

Actually, never mind. You go right ahead. Go right.

[E]

Change between the 1950s and 2024. So there's two answers to this question. Either America got more racist since 1950s to 2020 24. So, like that 70 year period, because blacks, America, Black Americans are worse off today per capita. Yeah, we agree with that.

[B]

Okay, good.

[E]

Than in the 1950s. Or there's another explanation, and I think the truth is somewhere in the middle, which is, I think you would acknowledge that the app. The disappearance of the black father has been the number one driver of black poverty in this country. Now, there are reasons for that that we can.

[D]

What do you think the reasons for that are?

[E]

Well, culture is one. Would you agree?

[D]

So actually, let's go back to the.

[E]

Foundation, school, to prison, pipeline, all that stuff. But do you at least. Can we at least agree that black dads not being around is a bad thing?

[D]

Anyone's father not being around is a bad thing?

[E]

No, of course, but 75% of black youth are not raised with a father in the home. It's the highest of any group in the country.

[D]

Whether you like what he has to say or not. You don't get to just misquote him. And I understand because when I was on the left, I thought that I could trust my party, so I could just trust the headlines or trust the 10 second clip because they wouldn't just character assassinate or physically assassinate anybody that disagrees with them politically.

[A]

Right.

[D]

Actually what I realized is that they call anybody a racist that has a difference of opinion in order to shut the conversation down. Because why would you listen to what a racist has to say?

[A]

Yeah, you can stop right there. So there it was. Yeah, yeah. Any comment here?

[D]

Yeah. So I mean, he recognizes that segregation, he does this in multiple different environments. He recognizes that segregation was a horrible thing. However, he wants to have the conversation about why this is happening. Why are 75% of black youth being raised without a father or in a single parent household? And how is that affecting the fact that they're doing worse economically?

[A]

No, no, I got, I got some.

[D]

Stats and we have more social welfare programs than we've ever had before. Yet black Americans are doing the worst economically. And this is a conversation people are very scared to have because they're going to be labeled a racist. If you even talk about that and not part of that demographic.

[A]

That's the, there's the little joke of again, sometimes I can be may. You know, I'm very comfortable with these conversations because I have them, you know, at home. But there's the little joke of man a racist. Anybody that's winning an argument with a progressive, you know, that's kind of generally what can tend to happen. But let me just go back to that. Is that a lot of the policies. I'll just, you know, it's very interesting talking about this. We've never done this on the POD before. A lot of the, what the Bible does is that same thing from first Thessalonians is the, it assumes that in some incentives are. We need to build incentives that incentivize the correct things. That's why it says whoever doesn't work won't eat. It's saying we need incentives to incentivize you to self reliance and personal responsibility. So in government, here's what people will always find is you will get more of what you incentivize and less of what you penalize. So what'll happen is whenever people like, dude, you know what we need to do to eliminate poverty is we need more and more and more and more welfare programs. Actually what you're doing is you're creating incentives to not work will always get more of what you incentivize and less of what you penalize. Now, to your point, Sabrina, talking about the fatherhood thing, I'm going to give some data from President Obama. Okay, so these are stats from President Obama. Okay, 71%. So if we're going like, hey, man, what causes children of any race. What causes children of any race to struggle? Okay, I don't care which it goes back is. Fatherlessness is the number one contributor. I don't care what, which. Okay, 71% of inmates and 81% of rapists come from fatherless homes. 90% of all homeless and runaway children, fatherless homes. 60% of youth suicides, fatherless homes. Again, this is President Obama. Children without present fathers are 500% more likely to live in poverty and commit crime. 900% more likely to drop out of schools. 2000% more likely to end up in prison. And fatherlessness is the number one contributor to all five of the following societal ills. Crime, homelessness, unwed pregnancy, poverty, and future fatherlessness. So you solve fatherlessness, you solve all five of those things. And this is the one that can be a little. People, you know, people don't always love hearing this. Fatherlessness, according to the data, is a better predictor of incarceration than race or poverty. Fatherlessness, Fatherlessness. So, men, you want to solve the problem, Problems fix the fathers?

[D]

Absolutely.

[A]

Yeah, that's it. So he, again, he's. He's not saying in any way shape or he's not saying black Americans are better off under Jim Crow. He's actually just pointing to the data that actually, in some measurable ways, man, that community actually was doing better then. And he's trying to figure. He's asking the question what caused the. You see what. That's what he's doing right there.

[D]

Yeah, absolutely. And a little quick insider knowledge, too. You know, they try to paint him as a racist, and quite frankly, he's the worst racist there ever was. So a lot of people don't know, but Turning Point usa, his organization, they also acquired a group called Blexit, which was previously run by Candace Owens and Brandon Tatum, both of who are black political commentators whose careers Charlie helped launch. I know Brandon and his wife pretty.

[A]

Well, and I like what I've seen from him.

[D]

Oh, he's awesome. We gotta get him on the pod. He's a fan of yours?

[A]

Yeah, he's commented a few times. DM me a couple.

[D]

Yeah, he comes out to Texas quite a bit, so we'll get him on.

[C]

That's awesome.

[D]

But anyways, so they have an organization that does a lot of community service outreach, a lot of political education events in lower income black communities. And it's like, why would Charlie take over an organization like that and invest more money and energy and resources and staff into that if he's such a racist? Charlie also, back during the first Trump administration, brought a group of over 100 young black people to the White House to meet the president.

[A]

It.

[D]

Why would a racist do that?

[A]

You know, he's a racist. He's real bad at it.

[D]

He's really bad. And he's launched the careers, as I mentioned, of so many black commentators of all different sizes. You know, everyone from like Amir Odom, Rob Smith to Candace Owens, Brandon Tatum, the list goes on. Savannah Craven. I've worked with a lot of these people and known them for years. Like, they all have been some of the loudest voices online defending Charlie this week.

[A]

That's cool, man. That's cool. All right, let's. Let's do another one. Do you want to do the. You want to do the. Charlie said gay people should be stoned to death.

[D]

Yes.

[A]

Okay, so let's show the Stephen King tweet. All right, so Stephen King tweets this. It gets 11 million views. So he does a little quote tweet, and Stephen King says he, speaking of Charlie, advocated stoning gays to death. Just saying that gets 11 million views. Charles Spurgeon said that a lie is halfway around the world before the truth can get his pants on. That's a great example of that. That gets 11 million views. But then Stephen King eventually has to pull down his tweet and apologize. Because that's not what Charlie said.

[D]

No, and I will say I've never seen him apologize ever, let alone so fast. He apologized very fast as soon as he tweeted that. And I think someone was very scared of a lawsuit. Yeah, he quite frankly deserved for this.

[A]

So do we want to show. There's two clips we want to show right here. Because I've seen this accusation a lot. Let's click on that one right there. Trinity. That's Great.

[E]

Is Deuteronomy 6.

[A]

All right, so here's the deal, Char. I. Because I. I actually looked up the background of this. Charlie's responding to Ms. Rachel. Oh, yeah, you. You give the background. You know, the background.

[D]

I know too much about this stuff. But, yeah, so Ms. Rachel, who is a very popular, very, very liberal, I would say, like, pretty left wing, you know, children's entertainer. She's got the very popular YouTube channel. She had you.

[A]

She's not the one that asked about me coming on her podcast last week, is she? Not her.

[D]

I would be shocked.

[A]

I can't remember who it was. And we don't have to say right now. There was some like, really big, extremely progressive, kind of like female, like, feminist podcast asked me to come on.

[B]

Not Ms. Rachel.

[A]

Okay, all right, all right. You keep going.

[D]

She does like kids edutainment, I would say. So Anyways, she had for Pride Month, I believe it was either this past year or the year before. For Pride month was quoting. What was it? I wrote it down, Leviticus 19. Love thy neighbor as yourself to promote Pride Month. So Charlie came back and is referencing Leviticus 8, 18, which we'll see here in a second.

[A]

Okay.

[E]

Compart is Leviticus 19. So you love God, so you must love his law. How do you love somebody?

[B]

Here we go.

[E]

You love them by telling them the truth, not by confirming or affirming their sin. And it says, by the way, Ms. Rachel, you might want to crack open that Bible of yours. In a lesser referenced part of the same part of Scripture is in Leviticus 18 is that thou shall lay with another man shall be stoned to death. Just saying. So, Ms. Rachel, you quote Leviticus 19, love your neighbor as yourself. The chapter before affirms God's perfect law when it comes to sexual matters.

[A]

Bingo.

[B]

Interesting that Ms. Rachel went Leviticus and not Jesus.

[A]

It is interesting.

[B]

I mean, I can imagine she's probably thinking, let me just go Judeo, you know, Old Testament to make sure Christian. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. I don't know.

[A]

So commentary on this, Sabrina?

[D]

Yes. So this is fascinating because again, Charlie was probably the worst homophobic person ever, because Charlie, you know, was always very welcoming in the conservative movement. He actually got a lot of heat from a lot of people over the years in the conservative movement for allowing so many gay and lesbian and other commentators to be a part of it, to speak at his conferences, to be guests on his show. Everyone from Dave Rubin to Rob Smith and Amir Odom, who I mentioned earlier.

[A]

You know, I don't know these people.

[D]

And he welcomed all these people, but he did not affirm their sin. And he had very important conversations.

[A]

He was very good at that. I'm going to show a clip here in a second on that. You keep going.

[D]

Yeah. So it's ironic that, you know, he's literally just basically defending the Bible against how Ms. Rachel grossly misquotes the Bible, which is ironically, after he's being very grossly misquoted yeah, he's not.

[A]

It's very obvious. Again, all you gotta do is just watch the clip. Yeah, he's not actually advocating for the Old Testament law. Like a, for the Old Testament law to be enacted in America and for gay people to be stoned. That's not what. He's literally just reading a Bible verse now. And I've seen other clips where Charlie understood a New Testament, a New Testament theological application that, hey, man, in the New Covenant, that's not how we operate. You know, the Old Testament laws, some of it was abrogated, that kind of thing. So that, that's a whole different discussion. But all he's doing right there, he's just reading a Bible verse that, that is, is by the way, an actual Bible verse. Now this next clip is a great example of how Charlie, as a Christian did a great job of grace and truth with people who were in same sex relationships. Let's, let's see it.

[B]

I'm a gay conservative and I just want to ask you what do you have to say for people like me who kind of feel like, I guess it's kind of hard for gay conservatives because there's not a lot of us. So, like, what do you have to say to, to other gay people who need to realize like, they do have a choice?

[E]

Yeah. First of all, welcome to the conservative movement. I don't think you should introduce yourself just based on your sexual attraction.

[A]

I agree.

[B]

I like to.

[E]

That's not who you are.

[A]

I like to be thought of as a person.

[E]

And for sure you are a complete human being. And I'm sure you treat people well and you're studying something. So I want to get away with this idea that you're gay.

[A]

Anything.

[E]

I just think that we have gone a long way in the negative direction in this country where we act as if the most important part of your identity. Identity is what you do in the bedroom. It doesn't mean that much to me. But if you ask from a perspective as a Christian, I, I don't agree with that lifestyle. But politics is about addition and multiplication. I imagine you agree with a lot.

[B]

Of what we talk about.

[E]

Absolutely right. Strong borders, strong country. And for that we, we welcome you into the conservative movement.

[A]

That's it, man. I mean, it's. Yeah, you can just see his heart right there. He. Honestly, that's like a textbook example of like, okay, I'm a Christian. I'm going to be honest about what I believe. He's actually even trying to disciple that guy.

[B]

Yeah, he's pastoring him in Terms of his identity. He's saying, hey, you don't have to define yourself by your sexuality. It's, you know, just because culture says so.

[A]

That's right.

[D]

And this is the Charlie I wish more people saw. And I have to say, you know, I've worked behind the scenes in the conservative movement. I've seen some nasty things. I've seen people throw each other under the bus, their friends under the bus for political gain, for economic gain. I've seen a few things over the years with Charlie and his team, and they have been so stand up every time. And Charlie really was a God. God fearing, honest, loyal man of God and a loyal friend.

[A]

He is the best of us. I saw it was a clip from, I guess, a girl that had been an intern at tpusa, and I guess they were out on some trip, and it was. It wasn't anything salacious, but just her and some girls, I guess, were getting in a hot tub and they were. They hollered at Charlie and a couple guys, you guys want to come get it? You know, come have hang out with us? And she just told this story. Charlie was like, absolutely not. He's like, I don't even want the appearance of, you know, just like, dude, that's a man of integrity. Yeah, yeah, it's fantastic. All right, where are we going next, Sabrina?

[D]

All right, I think we should do. Charlie was, let's see, transphobic.

[A]

Oh, interesting.

[D]

A little different than that.

[A]

All right, here we go. So Charlie was transferring. Phobic. All right, let's see.

[D]

Say I'm a transgender male. What age should kids be able to get things like hormone therapy? Because I don't know what's true, what's not.

[E]

Tell me, are you comfortable telling me your story?

[D]

I've known we pause that since, like.

[A]

What he just did right there is like Jedi pastoral move. Somebody's asking you a question, and his first thing is essential. Tell me your story. Let me figure out why this is important to you. So he's discerning what's in this person's heart. Are they coming to me for help or are they coming for an argument? Like, that's brilliant. It's compassionate.

[D]

It's compassion.

[A]

Yeah, it's compassionate. All right, let's keep going.

[D]

Since, like, third grade, and I'm currently 19, almost 20. I've known basically since then. I didn't start going by, like, a different name until 7th and 8th grade. I just don't know, like, with the Met, like, the whole medical stuff, like, what's true, what's not what's helpful because I've heard so many different opinions.

[E]

First of all, thank you so much for that. So I'm gonna have an opinion that very few people will ever tell you, which is I want you to be very cautious putting drugs into your system in the pursuit of changing your body. I instead encourage you to work on what's on.

[A]

Going. Going on in your brain first. Okay, here's what I love.

[B]

Dude.

[A]

He's doing theology here. So Romans. Sorry, yeah. Romans 12. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So, dude, this is brilliant. He's like, he's a Christian, man, applying his theology to this person and this issue. Like the. Because the transgenderism issue is. Hey, man, there's a. It feels like there's discontinuity between my. My mind in my body and what the transgender movement says is, oh, change your body to come in alignment with your mind. The Bible says, no, no, no, let's renew our mind to come in alignment with the truth. And Charlie's going out. Let's bring our mind in alignment with our God given body instead of trying to bring our body in alignment with our mind that's struggling right now, which, by the way, that's impossible. You can't make a male body female. Okay. So anyway, I just want to point that out. Let's keep going.

[E]

First and foremost is just a diagnosis. Just someone that is going to listen to what you've gone through, listen to what else is going on. My prayer for you. And again, very few will say this. I actually want to see you be comfortable in how you were born.

[D]

Yeah.

[E]

I know that you might not feel that way, but I think that is something that you can achieve. I think that with the right team and the right people, you don't have to wage war on your body. You can learn to love your body, dude.

[B]

So, so interesting for, you know, this clip. Obviously, Charlie would talk to all kinds of people, but, man, you can hear, like, her in her voice. You can hear her pain.

[A]

She's hurting.

[B]

She's. She's hurting. And she. And obviously Charlie was able to quickly discern that. And it's interesting because obviously when people watch these kind of videos, they're like, oh, we just want to see Charlie destroy something, somebody else. And, you know, the Bible calls Christians to do two things. We want to love people and we want to destroy arguments. We don't want to destroy people. And then love arguing. That's arguing. And so this is a great example of him, very compassionately, very gently, man, this is A person in need. Let me be as gentle as possible as I share the truth.

[A]

Yeah, Sabrina.

[D]

He totally matched her tone. And I think that this is what a lot of us feel when it comes to the trans community. It's not hatred that we feel towards the trans community. It's actually sympathy concerned. Because blind affirmation of gender dysphoria is not the solution. There are other issues. And then when you have young people. We have about a 400% increase in American or people worldwide identifying as trans.

[A]

Over the last 400.

[D]

Yeah, I gotta remember what the years are, but it's about 400. Any other social contagion like that, our society would be flipping itself upside down trying to figure out what's going on now. Instead, our solution has been to blindly affect firm and now put a lot of especially young people on cross sex hormones, SSRIs. And it's just not the solution. I have a lot of sympathy, yes, because they're lost. They're lost. And they need compassion and love, but they also need actual scientific help and psychological help that they're not getting by just being affirmed blindly. One of. Aside from last Wednesday, probably the second worst day at work I've ever had was Prageru has an amazing short documentary called D Trans, where we interviewed several D transitioners. And for this documentary, I helped interview some of the people we featured on the documentary, all of whom had very similar, you know, backstories, a lot of history of trauma, sexual abuse, sexual confusion, a lot of them broken homes. And it was interesting to see the trend with a lot of these young people before transitioning. And thank God, like, most of them have found the Lord and a lot of them just have d transitioned. Thank God.

[A]

Yeah, dude, we have. It's. I mean, Carl knows this there. By the way. There are more people than people would think at Lake Point who came from a previously identified as transgender. And then the Lord saved them and brought them out. And that, by the way, that's why. That's why the scriptures say, you shall know the truth and the truth will set you free. Well, why? Why will the truth set you free? The truth sets you free when you've been enslaved by a lie. And somebody that's in that spot, like, you can see it in that person's body, like, not okay. And it's actually a lie that's enslaving her. So it's like telling somebody the truth in that situation that that's not hateful and it's not hurtful. The most loving thing you can do is explode the lie that's enslaving the person. And he did that. And he did it compassionately. It's beautiful. Where are we going next?

[D]

Let's see. We got through quite a few.

[A]

Let's see.

[D]

That is. Do you want to do the empathy or misogyny?

[A]

Let's. Let's do. Let's do the empathy.

[D]

Empathy is kind of a good transition with this.

[A]

Yeah, let's do the empathy.

[B]

Speaking of compassion.

[A]

Speaking of compassion. Here we go. Do we have the. No, that's not it. This is not it. That's not it. No. Yeah. Do you have the. What's the empathy?

[D]

The YouTube link, I believe. Were he. Oh, he's.

[A]

There it is. Here it is. So is this the full one or it.

[D]

This is the clip.

[A]

Okay. So this is the selectively edited clip.

[D]

Yes.

[A]

All right. So the charge will be what, Sabrina? People will say, Charlie said.

[D]

Charlie said he doesn't feel empathy. Charlie wasn't empathetic. So I don't feel empathy for him now that he's been murdered.

[A]

Okay.

[E]

Instead it is to say, you're actually not in pain. So let's just a little bit. Very short clip. Bill Clinton in the 1990s, it was all about empathy and sympathy. I can't stand the word empathy. Actually. I think empathy is a made up new age term that does a lot of damage, but it is very effective when it comes to politics. Sympathy I prefer more than empathy. That's a separate topic for a different time.

[D]

Actually, I think that was essentially the whole clip.

[A]

That's it.

[D]

So.

[B]

Yeah, but people, people quote. That's the part the empathy is.

[A]

I don't like the term. He said he didn't like empathy.

[B]

It's a new age term.

[D]

Yeah. So why would we be empathetic towards him? And no, he differentiates. He prefers sympathy because the meaning of empathy is essentially that you can feel what someone else feels, which we can't as humans. Whereas sympathy is. You can feel for someone.

[A]

Yes. So yeah. So we actually have an old app where we had Ali Bas Duckian on her book. Her. What's. What was her book called? Toxic Empathy. And she correctly points out that what drives a lot of. Likes the societal evils that. That have advanced is the weaponization of empathy. Like you're not allowed to disagree with me because you have to feel what I feel. Okay. And so it. And he points out, man, sympathy is, I care about you, but I'm going to keep one foot in what's true and I can speak what's True, but empathy is like, I demand that you just feel what I feel and get in. Get in the feelings with me.

[B]

Yeah. Because if I'm in your feelings, if you're feeling something and I'm just feeling what you're feeling, how can I help you?

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Because we're feeling the same thing.

[A]

Yeah, that's. That's exactly right.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

Now, do we have one of the clips on the. On any of the DEI stuff?

[D]

Yeah, the pilots.

[A]

Do you want to do the pilots one? Because this is like a big one.

[B]

Huge one.

[A]

This has been a huge one. Okay. Okay. Is this the.

[D]

This was like, the full context.

[A]

The full context or.

[D]

Yeah, full context where he explains him.

[A]

So the charge is, Sabrina, that when.

[D]

He gets on an airplane, if he sees a black pilot, he worries he's not qualified.

[A]

They're probably not. So. Which is, if that were true, if anytime you see a black person, you're like, oh, they're probably not qualified. And for just baseline, that would actually be racist. That's an actual racist thing. Now let's see what he said ahead of time.

[E]

Yes, sir.

[B]

How you doing, Charlie?

[A]

Oh, wait, are we playing this whole clip?

[B]

Three minutes.

[A]

Okay, Three minutes. But this is important.

[B]

Okay, cool.

[A]

All right, so I'm gonna quote you real quick.

[B]

You said, if I see a black pilot, I'm gonna be like, boy, I hope he's qualified.

[A]

Are you gonna do that?

[E]

Yeah, I mean. I mean, that's. That is correct.

[B]

Yeah, that's correct.

[A]

Okay, now pause. If you just hear that, you're like, huh? Okay. All right, let's keep going.

[B]

So can we both agree what was.

[E]

The context of what I said, though?

[A]

I don't even want to get into.

[B]

DEI because your opinion on di. It doesn't really help it in this. In this case.

[A]

So if the content.

[B]

The context between what you brought up.

[A]

Was that you believe that because they.

[E]

Were being hired because they were black.

[B]

Okay, so can we both agree that.

[A]

Every single pilot, rather black, white, whoever.

[B]

Has to go through FFA certification?

[E]

No, actually, we can't. New lawsuit shows that black pilots and female pilots have the standards being relaxed.

[A]

No, sir. Can we agree at the time of.

[B]

February 29th or 2023, when you said it at the time?

[E]

No, no, actually, I said said it. That's why you don't know. The context is that new lawsuits were showing that they were relaxing the standards for air traffic control and pilots in order to meet the standards.

[B]

The context of that was diversity, equity, and inclusion.

[A]

What does that have to do with.

[E]

Hiring Everything DEI definitionally, is that we will hire more of a race versus a different race. So, for example, United Airlines said that they want 50% of their new pilots to either be women or black currently. Just so you understand, it's like 8%. So they want to go from 8% to 50%. And every time. Decide DEI is implemented every single time, the lowering of standards occurs. Every single time.

[B]

Lowering of standards.

[A]

Correct. So I'll.

[E]

Can I prove it to you? We both want excellence, right?

[A]

Okay.

[E]

If you. And I said, hey, we want 50 of the new people going in the NBA are white.

[A]

Okay.

[E]

With the NBA drop, they would have.

[A]

To significantly lower the.

[D]

Play basketball. And I can say I. I sat at the bench.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. All right, let's get.

[E]

Let's be on NBA drop in its standard.

[A]

No.

[B]

No, no. The national basketball.

[A]

Yeah.

[E]

No, if we said 50%.

[B]

If we say 50% of the NBA.

[A]

Drops and it was only white.

[E]

No, no, I said the standard go down. I'm not hearing what I'm saying. If 50% of all new people going in the NBA, NBA were white by decree, would the quality of play of the NBA decrease with the quality of.

[A]

Play in the NBA decrease? Yeah.

[B]

No. If they're.

[A]

If they're the same standard of basketball.

[E]

Hold on.

[A]

Let's talk.

[E]

Let's talk realistic. 75 of the NBA is black. 75.

[B]

So does that mean. Does that mean white players are less.

[A]

Better or does that mean, yeah, whites.

[E]

Are not as good at basketball?

[A]

That's just a fact. By the way, in general, we got some big exceptions.

[E]

We're very proud of Larry.

[B]

He says we have some big exceptions like Larry Bird we're really proud of.

[A]

I love that. I love Luca.

[B]

Like, you know, that's an exception, not a norm.

[A]

Okay. Is that the whole clip?

[B]

That's basically it.

[A]

Okay, can I say a few things about this? Because this is one I think a lot of Christians don't know how to think about. There's actually a theology under what Charlie just said. And let me just say Charlie is correct. Okay, so here. Here's the point. There are two different views. When somebody says justice, this is really, really important. When somebody says justice, you need to ask the question, what do you mean by that? Because even the Bible says. It says to execute true justice. The implication of the Bible is there is such a thing as false justice. Okay, so here's the question. Is justice equal standards for individual individuals, or is it equal outcomes for groups? That's the qu. And by the way, that is one of the primary distinctions, differentiations between how Christians view justice and how secular progressive people view justice. That's a Marxist view of justice. Equal outcomes for groups is a. Is a secular progressive, Marxist view of justice. The Bible's definition of justice. Do a little word search in the Bible. Am I stealing your thunder here, Sabrina? I'm learning the Bible's definition of justice. Do a little word search in the Bible. The Bible's definition of justice is always. It uses the phrase equal weights and measures. That's what justice is. When I look at you and I look at you and I go, I'm going to use equal weights and measures with you and you. So what the Bible's saying is what justice is is equal standards for individuals. What secular progressives do. This is what DEI is most of the time, is it's, hey, we're going to decide on an outcome, a predetermined outcome that is going to result in equal outcomes for racial groups. Sometimes they'll do gender groups or just however you want to divide up society. And they go, okay, we're going to do whatever it takes to get equal outcomes for the groups. And what they have to do to get to those equal outcomes for groups is they actually have to use unequal weights and measures for the individuals. So here's what the New Testament command like this is, by the way, that's actually a sin. The book of James gives us a command, you shall not show partiality. That's partiality. When I look at you and you and I apply different standards based on your skin color and your skin color. If an Asian student applies to Harvard and they have to score 40% better on anything to get in than somebody from a different race, I'm using unequal weights and measures and I'm showing favoritism to. To somebody, partiality against them based on their skin color. That's a sin. So that's what DEI very often does. Okay, so let me go back to the very beginning. And then, Sabrina, you can correct me if I'm getting this wrong. When Charlie goes, hey, man, I see a. He was commenting on dei. Oh, I see a black pilot. I'm like, I'm wondering. He's not saying black pilots are bad. He's saying DEI is bad because it puts bad thoughts into your head because you're like, I don't know if equal weights and measures were used for everybody. So he's clearly not saying black pallets are bad. He's saying DEI is bad because it produces these bad outcomes of thoughts in your head. Agree Disagree.

[D]

Additional comments yeah, and some of the lotto commentators that I know that speak out against DEI tend to be African American because they feel like they're being diminished. Their skill set and their merit is diminished. If people assume that they're there because of their skin color, it's ironically reverse discrimination to put skin color above merit.

[A]

That's right. Yeah, that's right.

[B]

Yeah. And if you decide the outcome in advance, that means like that you have to force that to happen. Therefore, if, if that means you have to compromise on the standards totally, then like, then you do it because you have to have the outcome that you have. So that's a, that's a concern. That's a legitimate concern.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Like, it's like, yeah, that's, that's what.

[A]

Pete Hegseth just did with the military where they were. They were literally using two different standards of entry for female applicants to the military and male applicants. And he didn't, he didn't go, oh, we're not letting women in the military. All he did is go, no, no, we're going to go equal weights and measures. If you want in to these certain aspects of military, you got to pass the same physical standards as the dudes. That's equal weights and measures. The example Charlie uses. Fantastic. If they were to tomorrow go, were to go, we're going to get to 50% white NBA. First of all, that it'd not be very much fun to watch. Lots of passing, assists and picks.

[B]

I'm really proud of Larry Bird.

[A]

I'm really, hey, I got a Larry Bird rookie card.

[B]

Nice.

[A]

Nice. Just kidding.

[B]

I mean, he was a, he was a, he was, you know, he was a goat, bro.

[A]

He's a legend.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

But equal weights and measures, like if they were trying to try to force a 50 wide NBA, they would have to go, well, for you guys with the paler skin, the high jump is going to have to be a little lower so that you can get in. And you know, seriously, I, that's, that's.

[D]

Just fact and on just like a softer side of Charlie is he was a big sports fan, especially big basketball. I didn't know that he played basketball in high school. His wife actually played basketball in college. Erica. She made a beautiful post yesterday. Just contributing to how much he loved athleticism because he loved excellence and athleticism across sports really is kind of like the exemplification of excellence.

[A]

That's awesome.

[D]

On a physical level.

[A]

So that's amazing.

[D]

Sweet little note.

[A]

I love that. I love it so much. Well, do we want to do One more. We feel like we got the main ones.

[D]

I'm trying to think. Unless you want to do the massaging. One. Unless we're. We've taken too much time.

[A]

Yeah, let's do it real quick. Why not? So the. The charge is Charlie Kirk was a misogynist. And the definition of misogynist is like. Has a. A derogatory view of women. Yeah.

[E]

My wife does things with my child that I can't even dream of doing, such as having an intuition, compassion, empathy. She can operate on 30 minutes of sleep. I need eight hours. Women have a different giftedness, I believe, given by God. The woman's intuition is far better than my intuition. I trust my wife's gut when it comes to people, when it comes to relationships, and she leans on me for investments or politics. We are giving, given different gifting. There is a general rule, and the general rule is that women are far more gifted at people and caretaking.

[A]

Sabrina, does that offend you?

[D]

So offended, clearly.

[A]

I see. You look very offended.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

And this one, I mean, this one's so ironic. So. Yeah. I mean, there's so many clips of Charlie. Charlie has again accelerated the. He's probably launched more political influencer careers in the movement than anyone else, including a. Of women. He has employed them, he has launched them, he has put them in positions. He has helped the president put women in positions of power with the cabinet. So it's so funny to see this claim because it's so false. Especially when you look at just the relationship with his wife, the fact that he has. The way that he treats his daughter. It's just heartbreaking that people think that of him, especially as a woman in the movement who has been, you know, positively impacted by him. His organization. His organization puts on. Actually, sorry, I'm gonna plug this. They put on an annual women's conference here in Dallas.

[A]

Really?

[D]

It was in June. I gotta go. And it's a great conference. They feature like, gosh, at least 30 to 40 female speakers. Everyone from stay at home moms to female entrepreneurs for some of the biggest companies in the com. In the world. And it's just very empowering. He had Bethany Hamilton, who spoke at the last one, on her faith. It's very inspiring. If you have a young daughter, especially teenage college, it's a great, great event to send your daughters to because they will find so much community appeal. People that share same spiritual and same political values. But it's very. I don't know a lot of misogynists that would put on a women's conference that empowers women. It seems a little weird.

[A]

If you're a misogynist, you're really bad at it. Yeah, dude. The other thing I'd say on that, when I watched Erica give her speech after Charlie's martyrdom, bro, she was a lioness.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

And honestly, my first thought was, you know, my theology tells me Charlie would never have become who he was when without Erica. But then my theology also tells me Erica never would have become who she was without Charlie. And I'm just telling you like a dude that has a, you know, a downgraded view of women and, you know, you don't got it in you. Erica does not become that, like, lioness unless she had a strong, godly husband that loved her very well.

[D]

Loved her like the church.

[A]

That's exactly right. Ephesians 5. The other thing, I'll just say this like every Christian, you just need to know this, man. If you're a Christian, this is going to happen to you. I don't care who you are. The Bible just clearly teaches that men and women are equals, but they are not equivalents. They are equal in value, but they are different in function. And that God has designed men and women differently and they have unique roles in the home, in the local church. And what our world does, it just flattens everything into sameness. It just like sameness. And if you don't toe the line on sameness, then you are going to get accused as a Christian of being a misogynist. I get that all the time. And dude, it's just not true. Like, you're just a. You're just a Bible guy or a Bible girl. That's all you are.

[B]

All right, man.

[A]

Can I close this?

[B]

Please do.

[A]

All right, I'm going to close this with. With two clips. We're going to do these real quick because the primary charges against. Yeah, let's show. I'm going first. We're going to show the. One of how Charlie responded to an actual racist, like a. A real one. And then, and then I want to close because a lot of the things I want to were about the accusation Charlie was racist. And I want to show. Show one final clip. So this is how Charlie responded to an actual racist.

[E]

I want to ask a question of you. What does it mean to be an American? Is it an idea or a history, a shared history, or is it a skin color?

[A]

Well, I mean, you could go back.

[B]

To the original Founding Fathers, the Immigration act of.

[A]

I believe it was.

[E]

What does it mean to be being American? Is it A skin color or something else.

[A]

So there's the current idea of what.

[B]

It means according to, you know, the.

[A]

Watch what this dude says here in a second and you're going to see why Charlie does this.

[C]

But if you go back to the.

[A]

Original founding fathers, they intended this to be a European nation for white men.

[B]

Of good stock and character.

[A]

So that. That's an actual. Let me, let me answer the question. That's an actual race. Watch out.

[B]

Charlie responds that it wasn't in the Constitution.

[E]

It wasn't in the Constitution because they didn't believe it.

[A]

The founding.

[E]

You, sir, they did not put it in the United States. Let me answer another question. Let me ask you another question. Since you support.

[A]

I love this.

[E]

Allow him to have the mic. Let me ask you another question, sir. What does the phrase in the United States Constitution, and they made it explicitly clear. What does the phrase E pluribus una mean? What does the phrase E pluribus una mean? Why is that relevant? Because it was on every founding document and presidential seal from our founding, which means out of many one. You, sir, and your ideology is not conservative. It is right wing, identitarian. It has no place in the conservative movement, my friend. Get out of line. Get out along.

[A]

Oh, my gosh. That's right.

[B]

That's an ending. That's an ending.

[A]

What a lion. What a lion. Again, man, if he's a racist, he's a really bad one. He's really bad at it. Let's finish with this last clip because I've been seeing stuff like this just go all over the place on this morning. Yeah. Did you do this was so heartwarming. Obviously, like, this affects even like my personal family, that kind of thing. But I like if people, if you hear some of the clips of Charlie, man, why did he. Why did he really want. Okay, let's say you're a Christian. You're like, okay, I don't agree with the DEI thing, but why did Charlie have to go after it so much? It's just uncomfortable. Why do you have to do that? You can really hear his heart for his why in this clip, you will.

[E]

Never be the best version of yourself if you allow other people to convince you that you can't be better because of yourself, skin color, because of your sexual identity, because of the community you came from. You must resist those narratives at all costs if you truly want to be successful in America.

[A]

Amen.

[D]

Amen.

[A]

Amen. Amen.

[B]

Pastor Josh, would you pray for us?

[A]

I will, I will, Father. We, we just continue. We thank you for your servant Charlie, our brother in Christ. And Lord, I pray that just like we started it on the pod, I pray that because a grain of wheat has fallen into the ground and died that you would use it to bear much fruit. Because what we care more about, more than any king in any kingdom, what we care more about than the United States of America or anything, we care about the kingdom of God, the lordship of Jesus Christ, and people coming to know Jesus. So, Father, would you please do that? Exalt him, save a whole bunch of people, God. And we pray it in Christ's name. Amen.

[D]

Amen.

[B]

Amen.

[A]

Thanks for tuning in to Live Free with Pastor Josh Howerton. We pray today's episode helped you take a step forward in life, culture and faith as you live free in Christ. If it encouraged you, be sure to rate, review and share the podcast. And don't forget to subscribe so you'll never miss an episode. Join us for Lake Point Church Online every weekend and find more resources at Lakepoint Church. Live Free. We'll see you next time.