Don’t Fall for This DECEIVING Anti-ICE Church Propaganda!! | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: Live Free with Josh Howerton
Host: Lakepointe Church
Episode: Don’t Fall for This DECEIVING Anti-ICE Church Propaganda!!
Date: January 25, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of “Live Free with Josh Howerton” dives into several current and provocative topics shaping both the church and broader society. The main focus centers on recent anti-ICE protests disrupting a church service in Minnesota, and how Christians should respond biblically and thoughtfully to such cultural flashpoints. Along the way, the hosts—a lively trio of Pastor Josh Howerton, Pastor Paul Cunningham, and Carlos Arazo—also unravel little-known facts about Jesus’ disciples, discuss how to build life-changing friendships (“a band of brothers”), and warn against common forms of spiritual deception in our times.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Necessity and Impact of Christian Community

• Opening Reflection (00:00 – 01:20):
  • Pastor Josh discusses the idea of “radical amputation” in following Jesus, explaining that most people, when they get serious about discipleship, have to cut off unhealthy relationships.
    • Quote [00:00] (Josh): “You may have to commit a radical amputation in order to walk in holiness and discipleship. For almost everybody, the radical amputation they have to do is a relationship.”
• Band of Brothers & Circles of Influence (58:15 – 72:48):
  • Emphasis on intentionally embedding oneself within a tight group of Jesus-loving, God-saturated friends.
  • Reflection on Jesus’ Model [58:15 - 60:32]: Jesus intentionally chose circles (the crowds, the twelve, and his three closest—Peter, James, John), modeling how to structure our own relationships.
  • Quote [60:32] (Josh): “It is literally impossible for you to live the right life with the wrong friends.”
  • Personal stories from each host illustrate the transformative power of authentic community.
    • Carlos [63:24]: Testifies to the impact of finding godly friends during a season of spiritual isolation and doubt.
    • Paul [66:02]: Describes how both loving confrontation and support from friends and mentors spurred him into his calling and brought healing from depression.

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2. Facts About the Disciples Most Christians Don’t Know

• Fun and Insightful Rapid-Fire Segment [16:34 – 57:36]:
  • Josh walks through lesser-known facts, quirks, and legends for each apostle, painting a vivid and relatable picture of the original disciples:
    • Matthew: A money-minded tax collector, likely the “bean counter” of the group, and the only gospel-writer to record Jesus' saying "You cannot serve both God and money." [29:57]
    • Simon the Zealot: A former guerrilla-type rebel—a literal Jewish 'ninja'—who hated Roman collaborators like Matthew. [30:12]
    • Andrew: The quintessential “connector,” always introducing others to Jesus but rarely teaching or preaching publicly. [32:58]
    • Thomas: Unfairly labeled "Doubting Thomas"—but actually a disciple of great faith and courage, who invited his doubts into his walk with Jesus. [34:52]
      • Quote [35:32] (Paul): "When you're having doubts or struggles, the last thing Jesus wants is for you to walk away... He wants you to press into him with those questions, because he’s the only one who can answer them for you."
    • Philip: The group’s practical, logistical thinker—a “Christian CPA.” [36:03]
    • Bartholomew (Nathaniel): Possibly flayed alive for his faith; deeply valued understanding scripture and recognizing Jesus as the Messiah. [39:34]
    • Little James: Entered history with perhaps the most humble role—he never speaks once in the Gospels, but his mother’s faithfulness is highlighted. [41:25]
    • Judas Iscariot: Did not "lose" salvation—he faked it, never referred to Jesus as "Lord." [42:41]
    • Thaddeus/Jude: Caught in the biggest PR crisis: sharing the name “Judas”! His legacy lives on in “St. Jude’s” as the patron of lost causes. [45:36]
    • Big James & John (Sons of Zebedee): Called “sons of thunder” for their fiery personalities—James was the first apostle martyred; John transitioned from firebrand to the “apostle of love.” [49:21, 52:57]
    • Peter: The elder leader, married, and crucified upside down—his life a testimony of redemption and resilience. [55:39]
  • The conclusion encourages listeners to identify with the unique disciples and recognize a place for every personality in the Kingdom.

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3. Confronting Spiritual Deception—Focus on Mormonism

• Discussion on the Book of Mormon & Spiritual Counterfeits [09:43 – 15:50]:
  • Josh and Paul unapologetically address criticism from past episodes regarding their stance on the Book of Mormon, reaffirming that both Mormonism and Islam add to and distort the doctrine of God by distorting or denying the authority and sufficiency of Scripture.
    • Quote [14:31] (Paul): “They distort the doctrine of God by distorting or denying the Word of God.”
    • Quote [13:08] (Josh): “That’s demonic. If you’re someone interested in Mormonism...I’m not attacking people, I attack ideas. Paul warned that demonic spirits would masquerade as angels and reveal false gospels—true of Islam, true of Mormonism.”

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4. Cultural Flashpoint: ICE, the Minnesota Church Protest, and Response

• Summary of the Incident [72:48 – 96:56]:
  • Recap: Protesters coordinated to disrupt a City’s Church service in Minnesota after learning that one pastor was an ICE agent. The confrontation attracted national attention and media interviews (notably Don Lemon).
• Host Analysis: Propaganda and the Spiritual Battle [73:22 – 96:56]:
  • Propaganda Warning: Josh urges listeners to recognize the ongoing “propaganda war.” He presents multiple viral stories where reality was hidden or twisted for emotional manipulation.
    • Quote [80:25] (Josh): “You are in the middle of a propaganda war right now…highly emotionally incendiary images that, when examined, obscure the real facts.”
  • Scriptural Precedent: Paul in Acts repeatedly appealed to the laws of the land to protect the church’s mission; Christians are not obligated to submit to law–breaking or interruptions within sacred assemblies. [76:47]
  • Face Act Explanation [86:01]: Paul breaks down federal protections (FACE Act), showing church disruption is illegal and carries federal penalties.
  • The Spiritual Dimension: Josh discerns a pattern in secular progressivism—seeking to undermine the family, the church, and the state—all God-given authorities. This, he asserts, is more than politics; it’s spiritual warfare.
    • Quote [90:02] (Josh): “If you’re looking at a movement intent on deconstructing the three authority structures God has established, put on your hat and open your Bible. You can tell what spirit is behind it.”
• Principled Christian Response:
  • Paul [93:39]: Lays out three (to which Josh adds a fourth) biblically-based countermeasures:
    1. Love your enemies; pray for those who persecute you. (Romans 12:21)
    2. Uphold God’s appointment of government and justice. Lawbreakers should be arrested (Romans 13:4).
    3. Extend radical grace—even to lawbreakers; evangelize the jail, not just the sanctuary. (Romans 1:16)
    4. (Josh): Avoid letting political concerns turn you into someone with no love for immigrants.
    • Quote [95:11] (Josh): “Don’t let the need for enforcement of immigration laws turn you into somebody who has no love for immigrants.”

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On doubts and discipleship:
  • "When you’re having doubts and struggles, the last thing Jesus wants is for that to cause you to walk away from him... he's the only one who can actually answer them for you." – Pastor Paul Cunningham, [35:32]
• On Christian community:
  • “If you want to change your life, change your circles.” – Pastor Josh Howerton, [60:32]
• On propaganda and discernment:
  • "Christians have to be people who take time to reflect...instead of just emotionally reacting." – Pastor Josh Howerton, [85:00]
• On discerning spiritual battle in social movements:
  • “If you’re looking at a movement and the whole spirit seems trained at literally deconstructing all three authority structures God has established... you can figure out pretty quick what the spirit behind that situation is.” – Pastor Josh Howerton, [90:02]
• On Christian response to persecution:
  • “We’re people who love our enemies, people who believe in justice, and people who extend radical grace—even to those who persecute us.” – Pastor Paul Cunningham, [93:39]
• On maintaining love for immigrants:
  • “Don’t let the need for enforcement of immigration laws turn you into somebody who has no love for immigrants.” – Pastor Josh Howerton, [95:11]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

| Segment | Time Range | |------------------------------------- |----------------| | Introduction, Community, & Armwrestling | 00:00 – 16:34 | | Facts About the Disciples | 16:34 – 57:36 | | Mormonism & Doctrinal Purity | 09:43 – 15:50 | | Real Faith & How to Build a Band of Brothers | 58:15 – 72:48 | | The ICE Protest Incident Explained | 72:48 – 96:56 | | Christian Response to Persecution | 93:10 – 96:56 |

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Tone & Style

• The episode is marked by brotherly camaraderie, playful banter, and honest vulnerability.
• Theological guidance is delivered in a direct, no-nonsense manner—yet blended with wit, practical experience, and a down–to–earth Texas sensibility.
• The hosts are unafraid to take clear stances on controversial issues, but always circle back to Scripture and the example of Jesus.

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Conclusion

For believers navigating cultural storms, this episode serves as both a clarion call to discernment and a pastoral hand up: to reject simplistic thinking, build real Christian community, understand spiritual warfare in societal shifts, and respond to opposition as Christ would—with truth, courage, love, and grace.

Transcript

[Pastor Josh]

You may have to commit a radical amputation in order to walk in holiness and discipleship. What I have found is that for almost everybody, when they get serious about following Jesus, the radical amputation they have to do as a relationship.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

When you're having doubts or struggles and questions, the last thing that Jesus wants you to do is walk away from him. If anything, he wants you to press into him with those questions because, by the way, he's the only one who can actually answer them for you.

[Pastor Josh]

Don't let the need for enforcement of immigration laws turn you into somebody who has no love for immigrants.

[Carlos Arazo]

Let us kick this pig.

[Pastor Josh]

Let us kick this pig.

[Carlos Arazo]

Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the live free podcast.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Hey, man, we got seven seconds in before we already interrupted them.

[Carlos Arazo]

We're having fun here. Coming to you from Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas. My name is Carlos Arazo, and I'm here with Pastor Josh, who is speaking with. What kind of accent is that?

[Pastor Josh]

I don't know. Cockney? I don't know.

[Carlos Arazo]

What kind of movie? Medieval movie is this?

[Pastor Josh]

No, that's like a bad British accent. It's Tuesday. Isn't it.

[Carlos Arazo]

British?

[Pastor Josh]

I don't know. Keep going.

[Carlos Arazo]

And the Epistle Missile. Pastor Paul Cunningham.

[Pastor Josh]

Are you changing his nickname? We settled on Chatgpt. Oh, man, you can't just be changing nicknames.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

I can be all things to all people. It's mean.

[Carlos Arazo]

Listen, bro, that's how I literally had so night of words from prayer just happened, guys.

[Pastor Josh]

Glory. Oh, my glory. We put 7200 people into a 4200 person room. I think it's. Yeah, I don't have words.

[Carlos Arazo]

We had literally, like, so many people come fly and drive from like.

[Pastor Josh]

Didn't you show me a picture? Somebody drove from Florida.

[Carlos Arazo]

So this is. We do so from Indiana. This is David and Joshua. And they literally decided like a couple of days before to drive From Indiana over 12 hours with the whole family just to come to pray and worship with us.

[Pastor Josh]

Live Free nation.

[Carlos Arazo]

Live free Nation.

[Pastor Josh]

Most importantly, team Jesus.

[Carlos Arazo]

That's right, Team Jesus. Let's go. And by the way, they did say hi to the epistle missile. That's why I brought it up.

[Pastor Josh]

They didn't say hi to me.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

No, you were, you know, leading us from the stage.

[Carlos Arazo]

They. They told me they talked to you. That's why.

[Pastor Josh]

Oh, good.

[Carlos Arazo]

Actually, yeah. I talked to so many people, I can't remember. Carlos, what are we talking about on this episode? Hey, man, today we're going to be talking about multiple things, and we're going to be going on. We're going to be talking about facts about the disciples most Christians don't know.

[Pastor Josh]

I got some goodies here.

[Carlos Arazo]

This is really interesting. I'm excited for this. How to build a band of brothers in your life.

[Pastor Josh]

That's right.

[Carlos Arazo]

And the. We're going to talk about the protest disrupting a church service in Minnesota last week. And we're going to be reacting to a video of Don Lemon interviewing the pastor during the church service.

[Pastor Josh]

Interviewing is a very loosely used word in this context.

[Carlos Arazo]

And how should Christians think about this, by the way? My father in law and my mother in law, they actually, they came to the night of worship and prayer from Michigan. And my father in law wanted you to have this, bro. Check this out. So these are really nice, apparently for bass.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Come on, man.

[Carlos Arazo]

So just wanted to give you that.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

That's awesome.

[Pastor Josh]

Shout out. Live free nation. Immediate family, Michigan. Come on, man.

[Carlos Arazo]

Hey. Over 60% of people joining this podcast on YouTube have not subscribed yet, so.

[Pastor Josh]

How dare you.

[Carlos Arazo]

That's right. You need to change that right now. You can literally subscribe on YouTube. Like it. Comment, share. All this really helps. And we had a winner for the giveaway of last week's live free merch hat, which was Kevin from Switzerland. Man. We got international family.

[Pastor Josh]

Oh, let's go.

[Carlos Arazo]

How much are we paying to ship that thing?

[Pastor Josh]

Switzerland? We got to get something up in green.

[Carlos Arazo]

That's what I said. Hey, if anybody from green, we got.

[Pastor Josh]

Arthur on that one.

[Carlos Arazo]

To participate in this week's giveaway comment hat below on YouTube.

[Pastor Josh]

And yes, let me highlight that, please. I'm making an executive decision for the next few episodes. We're giving away 10 hats. So drop on YouTube the comment hat and we're going to pick 10. 10 people caps.

[Carlos Arazo]

Because that's how you said it.

[Pastor Josh]

We're going to pick 10 people, we're going to give away 10 hats. And listen, we need you to head over to. By the way, I get no money from the hats. I see people in the comments like, oh, speaking rich. All these. I don't get any money for the hats. These podcasts aren't free. We got to pay for cameras and stuff. So live free shop, go get you a hat rep. Live free nation. But we can give 10 away free in the comments.

[Carlos Arazo]

We live free. The hats are not free. The podcast is not free anyways. And also, if you live outside of driving distance from any of our Lake Point campuses here in the DFW area, if you come visit in person to one of our physical locations, and you come and you let us know. Hey, for the first time, I. I'm. I'm. I'm new here. We have a gift for you. And this is the gift. Live Free hat just for you. Come say hi.

[Pastor Josh]

Find the guest services tent that says New here and tell them that you came from Live Free and you'll get a free Live Free hat.

[Carlos Arazo]

Like this one more thing that I'm super excited about. Pastor Josh, A lot of people have been asking for a daily Bible reading plan.

[Pastor Josh]

Oh, my.

[Carlos Arazo]

And we are responding by re engineering our whole Lake Point app.

[Pastor Josh]

That's right.

[Carlos Arazo]

So you can download that. And we just basically want to help you with. With all of your discipleship rhythm. So you can download the app, listen to the weekly sermon. Check out the. An early release of this episode, by the way. We're going to talk about that in just a second. Find a discipleship guide there that you can use within your life group. And also find a daily Bible reading plan. To download the Lakeland Church app, go to your phone and text the word app to 20411. Or go to Apple or Google Play and you can download it. Paul, have you downloaded the app?

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

I have downloaded the app.

[Carlos Arazo]

Let's go, man.

[Pastor Josh]

Wow.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Put me on the spot. And I was ready. Yeah, yeah, I've downloaded it.

[Carlos Arazo]

That was a little aggressive. You're right.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Yeah, just kidd.

[Carlos Arazo]

All right, man. Pastor Josh, I. I will say this last episode, you and Janet did a phenomenal job.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Yes, you did.

[Pastor Josh]

But that was two episodes ago. For people who actually listen to the podcast, you're right.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Carlos Arazo]

What are you talking. I was literally here when you recorded that thing.

[Pastor Josh]

He was actually. If you watch back the Talo episode, you see me glance over like twice. It's just like, who's that tall guy that just walked in?

[Carlos Arazo]

It was literally me behind the scenes. Every single episode, he.

[Pastor Josh]

Carl, I'm going to surprise you with something right now.

[Carlos Arazo]

Okay? I'm always ready.

[Pastor Josh]

Play that video.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Oh, no.

[Pastor Josh]

Play that video.

[Carlos Arazo]

Oh, no. What is going on?

[Pastor Josh]

Something's about to go down right now. Oh, wait, pause it, pause it, pause it. This is. Listen. This is exactly one year ago, bro.

[Carlos Arazo]

By the way, we should have turned the lights on for that.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, we should turn the lights on. This is exactly one year ago from the early days of the live free pod.

[Carlos Arazo]

Oh, wow.

[Pastor Josh]

Roll that beautiful beef.

[Carlos Arazo]

I just want to be more dedicated lifting weights. And one of my goals, Mark, because you asked me, I wanna. One of my goals is to. Is to beat Pastor Josh in arm wrestling.

[Pastor Josh]

He could probably do that now.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

I would like to see it.

[Carlos Arazo]

We got excited here. I think it would be a challenge. I don't know. You know, you could.

[Pastor Josh]

A, you could probably do it already. B, we should pick a date and we will do A on the podcast.

[Carlos Arazo]

Okay.

[Pastor Josh]

Arm wrestling competition in which Carlos will humble me publicly.

[Carlos Arazo]

No, I do think.

[Pastor Josh]

Okay, wait, did we say. It's in the clip. We say a year, right?

[Carlos Arazo]

It'll be a challenge here. We didn't set a date. I've seen you. I've seen you work out, and so you have.

[Pastor Josh]

We didn't say it.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

I'm just gonna.

[Carlos Arazo]

Is that what you were asking? How much I made?

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

20 seconds.

[Carlos Arazo]

Are we doing it right now?

[Pastor Josh]

It's been a year.

[Carlos Arazo]

It has been a year.

[Pastor Josh]

We're doing this right now.

[Carlos Arazo]

I wish I would have known. You would have gotten me on my bulky session.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Why did I do arms right now?

[Carlos Arazo]

But you know what? I meant it. And I'm ready.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Oh, man.

[Pastor Josh]

Let's go.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

I feel like this is over the top with Sylvester Stallone.

[Pastor Josh]

Are you right handed?

[Carlos Arazo]

I am.

[Pastor Josh]

Here we go.

[Carlos Arazo]

I am right handed, by the way. I don't want people to miss this because this is important.

[Pastor Josh]

Listen, listen, I'm excited about this.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

I don't even know what to do right now.

[Pastor Josh]

Call it, Paul.

[Carlos Arazo]

Oh, you got the mic.

[Pastor Josh]

Okay, hold on, hold on. Call it.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Get locked.

[Pastor Josh]

Get locked. Here we go.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Before we go. Get ready.

[Carlos Arazo]

Wait, wait, hold on. You can't. You gotta keep this thing like.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Carlos. You ready?

[Carlos Arazo]

Hold on.

[Pastor Josh]

Oh, he's got to beat me. I can feel it.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

He brings out a chalk bag. Hold on.

[Pastor Josh]

Okay, we ready?

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Pastor Josh, you ready?

[Pastor Josh]

I'm ready.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Go, Mar. Go.

[Pastor Josh]

Oh, no. Over the top.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Sylvester Stallone.

[Carlos Arazo]

Come on.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Live free, brother.

[Pastor Josh]

Live free, brother.

[Carlos Arazo]

Pastor Josh has been prepping for this moment the whole year.

[Pastor Josh]

I've been training every day. I'm. I haven't done anything but biceps in 12 months.

[Carlos Arazo]

Hey, I will say this. This stuff right here motivates me. So you know what? A year from now.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Oh, mark it.

[Carlos Arazo]

2027 market. I will come back, mark it, and I am motivated.

[Pastor Josh]

Joshua.

[Carlos Arazo]

Josh.

[Pastor Josh]

I'll be an old man by then.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

If you. Carlos, if you've never watched it just to inspire yourself, go watch a movie called over the Top with Sylvester Stone.

[Pastor Josh]

He never heard.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

You've never heard it? Just go watch it. It'll inspire you. That's what I'll say. That's what I'll say.

[Pastor Josh]

I'm out of breath. All right, let's start talking about The Bible. We got a lot to get to here.

[Carlos Arazo]

Somebody did not lift this morning. Hey.

[Pastor Josh]

Wow.

[Carlos Arazo]

That. It's not expecting that.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

So we're talking about good job on the podcast the last couple weeks.

[Carlos Arazo]

You did a phenomenal job last podcast, but then the podcast before you and Jana did a great job.

[Pastor Josh]

Thank you.

[Carlos Arazo]

And you guys talked about the. Do you guys said. It's one thing that some. I thought got a pretty strong response, but some people thought otherwise.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Yes.

[Carlos Arazo]

About a particular book.

[Pastor Josh]

Yes.

[Carlos Arazo]

Called the Book of Mormon.

[Pastor Josh]

Yes.

[Carlos Arazo]

I think you said something along the lines of. What did you say again?

[Pastor Josh]

I said you should burn it because it's demonically inspired. It's garbage. It's corruption. Get it out.

[Carlos Arazo]

Trina, can you pull up like there's one comment I just want to read.

[Pastor Josh]

It's like all of Mormon social media.

[Carlos Arazo]

There's two things that people said. Can you actually not that one. There's another one. Yeah. So somebody said, hey, Pastor Josh, you do know that the Book of Mormon is not a translation of the Bible, but another testament of Jesus Christ? What say you?

[Pastor Josh]

Well, you didn't read the last part.

[Carlos Arazo]

Oh, okay. This guy, you're right. This guy is not too smart.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

And he.

[Pastor Josh]

Don't say it.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

I really want to.

[Pastor Josh]

You can say it. He.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

The guy who said that you're not too smart misspelled two.

[Pastor Josh]

He did.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

But yeah, that's another thing for his much grace. Much grace.

[Pastor Josh]

We all make that mistake. So let me just say. So there was a couple objections to this. Like all of Mormon Twitter seem to respond to our social media. First of all, course I know that back in. Oh, I was studying for a sermon that included Mormonism probably six, seven years ago. I just got curious. I read like about a third of the Book of Mormon. So, yeah, I clearly wasn't. I didn't think that a book this long was a Bible translation. No, my point was, hey, man, this is claimed to be what Mormon. They call it, quote, sacred scripture. So my point was, hey, man, while we're covering things that are, you know, are you. You think they're scripture. Let me talk about this. So obviously, I don't think the Book of Mormon is a literal translation of the Bible. It's a sake quote unquote in their mind, a sacred scripture in addition to. And I was saying, bro, get that out. Basically, I'm covering stuff that was scripture. The other thing that I will point out is a lot of. Honestly, from reading Mormon social media comments, I think some of them don't know this because of what A lot of them were saying is to. Does this guy literally not know we use the unedited kjv? That's like a bunch of the comments for that. I do know that. What some of you don't know is that historically the Mormon Church has had. It's called the Joseph Smith Translation, where Joseph Smith updated, edited, added. He added an entire chapter to the Bible.

[Carlos Arazo]

Multiple chapters, actually, multiple.

[Pastor Josh]

It's over 3,000 verses. And the Mormon Church calls it the Jehovah Smith translation, the jst.

[Carlos Arazo]

Now Joseph Smith.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Some people call it the inspired version, by the way, some even called it the inspired version.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, yeah, the iv. Now they've quietly sort of back shelved it gradually over time. And now I think in either most or some Mormon quote unquote Bibles that are kjv, they'll have footnotes in the KJV that link down at the bottom to the 3,000 plus verses that Joseph Smith altered, edited or added. So, yeah, actually my point is like, yeah, you guys, do you actually do have a false actual Bible translation?

[Carlos Arazo]

Yeah, I think he basically put himself in Genesis to prophesy about a future seer with additional revelation. Because the official position of the Mormon Church is that the Bible, the current English Bible translation of the King James Bible is corrupted and incomplete. And so there is an additional revelation that's necessary, which is.

[Pastor Josh]

That's demonic.

[Carlos Arazo]

Which is demonic.

[Pastor Josh]

Yes, demonic. So, and we said we hit that like, man, if you, if you're somebody that is either Mormon or interested in Mormon or one foot in, one foot out, like, man, I'm not trying to be a jerk. My idea is I attack ideas, not people in general. Like I hit on the Talarico episode. There are some times where it's like actually necessary to confront and attack a person when they're like a false teacher. But in general, my thing is attack ideas, not people. And I just gently want to say to you, hey man, we've hit this on the show before with relationship to Islam. But when Paul said in Galatians 1:8, he said, but even if we or an angel from heaven should present to you another gospel, and Mormons know this, what they believe, what Joseph Smith claimed was that an angel named Moroni appeared to him and led him through revelation. Guess what was, quote, unquote, revealed another gospel. So like, I would just gently point out that because I guess that would have been 1800, 1800 years before the birth of Mormonism. You have the Apostle Paul warning there's going to come a day where demonic spirits masquerading as angels of light come and reveal false religions and false gospels in order to lead people astray to damn them. That is true of Islam. It is true of Mormonism.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

I would actually, I like to ask people, what do Mormons, progressives and Muslims have in common?

[Pastor Josh]

I'm very curious.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

They distort the doctrine of God by distorting or denying the word of God.

[Pastor Josh]

Wow. Period.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

And by distorting can also be adding to it. And so to your point, when you add in other sacred scriptures, well, you call them sacred and you say these are as authoritative and they help interpret the Bible. At that point you're distorting. It's not just the doctrine of God, it's the doctrine of Christ. All those things. So even to people who are listening that are Muslim, I mean, I was Mormons is. Even if you use the same words, if you mean different things than what we mean by those, then we're talking about a different God, even if you're using the same words. And so the idea of the gospel, even in Galatians, that's not just how God saves us, it's also who saves us. And if you're beginning to tell us things that no Christian, and by the way, no Jew would have believed for 1800 years that you're distorting the doctrine of God by distorting and adding to the word of God.

[Pastor Josh]

And Jesus is not returning to Independence, Missouri.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

No, no. Against independence.

[Pastor Josh]

I'm going to get that out. Hey, that's right.

[Carlos Arazo]

We're going to, we're going to do a full episode on Mormons at some point. There's so much there that honestly, I bet you a lot of people just don't know even a bunch of Mormons. Jesus clearly stated that not one iota, not a dot of the smallest Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek stroke of the book will fail to come to pass. In Matthew 23, he also said, woe to those who claim authority while distorting the word of God. And that brings us straight to Luke, chapter five.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, let's.

[Carlos Arazo]

Pastor Josh, I have a question for you. What are you making to the sermon?

[Pastor Josh]

Well, obviously this week's quote unquote sermon was a little different. That's right.

[Carlos Arazo]

And snow weekend, it's been a little chilly.

[Pastor Josh]

Okay, let me hit a couple. Dude, I love this passage. So we're in Luke 5. This is the passage where Jesus calls the first disciples. Let me just rifle through a few things real quick. And then. Dude, I had a blast. Honestly, my sermon prep this week just turned into personal Bible study because I started like, like deep diving on the disciples and honestly man, I felt like an idiot. There was all this stuff about the disciples I didn't know. So here's what we're going to do. I'm going to run through this and then we're going to rapid fire the 12 disciples. I'm going to give one fact about each disciple. Most Christians don't know.

[Carlos Arazo]

And you're going to quiz us in some.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, we're going to quiz you. It's going to be awesome.

[Carlos Arazo]

Paul's not going to have an issue with that.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

I think whoever lost the arm wrestling competition should have to answer those things.

[Carlos Arazo]

I'm in. I'm in.

[Pastor Josh]

Let me do this real quick. Something to make it in. First of all, Luke 5 is a great example of this. In Luke 5 it says that Jesus calls the disciples at quote, the Lake of Gennesaret. This is something that confuses a lot of Christians. There's like five different names in the Bible for the same lake or sea. And when most Christians read their Bibles they think of talking about five different places, talking about the same place. All of them are talking about the Sea of Galilee. It just had five different names. So in Luke chapter five it's called the Lake of Gennesaret. That comes from the Hebrew word Kinneret meaning harp shaped. If you've ever been to Israel, by the way, everybody should come to Israel with me at least one time. If you've never been to Israel, there's like when you can see it, the Sea of Galilee is shaped like harp. So that's why in Hebrew they called it, you know, Gennesaret after Kinneret which means harp shape. Other names in numbers. In Deuteronomy it's called the Sea of Chinnereth. In the book of Joshua it's called Chinneroth. Most the most common name in the New Testament is just Sea of Galilee. It's referring to the surrounding region, Galilee. And then the Gospel of John. And the Gospel of John only calls it the Sea of Tiberias. But again that confuses a lot of Christians. Like oh, they're all the same. I've got some pictures of it because me and Jana love the Sea of Galley. It's a pretty cool spot. That is by the way, this is a super cool spot. Do you know where that is? Anybody know where that is?

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

I haven't been there yet.

[Pastor Josh]

You haven't been? I have you been?

[Carlos Arazo]

Never been.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

First time, month and a half. First time in a month and a Half.

[Carlos Arazo]

You're about to go, right?

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

A month and a half from now, I'm gonna get to go.

[Pastor Josh]

Oh, dude. It's like your Bible goes from being black and white to color. So that right there, you're standing at the spot where Jesus fed the 5,000. So that's where that is. So if. And this is a whole different thing. I didn't mean to talk about this, but if you go to the Jesus, feed the 5,000. He's preaching. Actually, wait, no. This is where the sermon. My bad. This is where the Sermon on the Mount was preached. And people wondered, like, okay, dude, how did he preach to so many people? No microphone. So this spot, they've pinpointed it. You can see it on YouTube with us right now. The land forms, like, a natural amphitheater. So Jesus was almost certainly standing at the bottom of that deal. And if you sure enough, if you stand down there and shout, you hear it.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

That's cool.

[Pastor Josh]

This is pretty cool. So that's Sea of Galilee. Go to the other one. That's Janna on a boat on the Sea of Galilee. It was like heaven kissing earth. It was like, you know, Narnia is happening here. This little seagull is Jana's, like, feeding it out of her hand. And then here's the last one. And this is this picture. Those jeans are too tight. This picture hangs in my office at home because that is the exact spot where Jesus restored Peter to ministry.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Wow.

[Pastor Josh]

In John chapter, I think it's 21. And I wanted that because all of us have had a moment where it's like, man, I betrayed and I failed my Lord, and. And he just keeps chasing you down and putting you back in the game. So I wanted a picture of me there because. To remember that. So I think that's cool. Let me. Let me do another. A couple of super cool things. And then I got a deep cut that's stinking awesome about this passage. Okay, this one. So he calls them and Peter, James, and John. Or. No, no, no. Not Peter, James, John, but the disciples he calls right here. I don't want to get that wrong. They're fishing, obviously. And here's what's really cool. If you ever get again Israel with us. This right here. Go ahead and show that thing. This is called the Jesus boat. So this is pretty cool. All right, so this passage in Luke 5 mentions that they're on a boat getting ready to fish. What's cool about this? So there was a big drought around the Sea of Galilee in 1986. These dudes are walking out there and they notice some wood sticking out, and they start, you know, messing around with the mud, and they dig up this boat. Now, here's why this is really cool. When they get in and they do the dating on this boat. That's a Sea of Galilee fishing boat. It dates to. They dated it. Their best dating guess was 40 BC but the way that they dated it gives it a plus or a minus 80 years. Okay, so this boat is 27ft long, is a Galilean fishing boat, which means its possible date range is from 120bc to 40ad and what they were pointing out, you know, total long shot, that actually could have been the boat that one of these guys actually fished on in the Sea of Galilee. It would have been exactly like that.

[Carlos Arazo]

So amazing.

[Pastor Josh]

Super cool. So whenever you go to the passage where Jesus, the wind and the waves obey him, and he's taking a nap and they're fishing, by the way, I always like. I like reading that passage. I'll make this joke with Janna. I was like, babe, I just want to fish a whole lot and take naps, just like Jesus. But go to that next picture. That's what it would have looked like restored. Okay, so it's kind of cool. Other thing that's kind of fun. Do you got something to say?

[Carlos Arazo]

No, I think it's cool.

[Pastor Josh]

Other thing that's kind of fun. A lot of people don't realize this. This passage kind of shows us that a lot of people think of Peter, James, John, in particular the fishermen as being poor. They weren't, number one. We know from this passage they owned a boat, which was a big deal back then. Number two, if you go to Mark 1:20, I learned this in message prep this week. I never noticed this before. Mark 1:20 specifically mentions they had hired servants. So these guys, actually, they were more like kind of like successful business owners running a fishing organization that had seemed to have subsidiaries and employees and vessels and that kind of thing. Like, here's what you need to get in your head when you think about the disciples, that if you read the Gospels, you really quick get the vibe. These dudes were alphas. They were highly competitive. They were high testosterone. Guys. Yeah, it's kind of the vibe you get. So I was kind of interesting.

[Carlos Arazo]

I love it. I'm curious to ask you, but go ahead. I'm gonna let you finish.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, I got one more. I got one more thing. And this is. Dude, this kind of thing. You just wish you could make it at every sermon. This right here is one of the dadgum coolest things in the entire New Testament, okay? The compassion of Jesus. All right? So right here, you're in Luke 5. Jesus calls Peter. Bro, this is gonna blow your mind. Jesus calls Peter, and there's a few things to notice on this, all right? So he calls him, and Peter's on a boat, and he's fishing. And then he doesn't catch anything, so he's got an empty net. Then Jesus tells him, hey, man, why don't you throw that net back in there? And Peter does it. And then, you know, he gets a big catch. And then Jesus tells him, hey, you're not just going to be a fisher, you're going to be a fisherman. You read it and you're like, that's cool. Very cool. Very cool, Jesus. Okay, well, then you fast forward to John chapter 21. Peter, who was the guy who promised Jesus, I'll never betray you. I love you so. I'm never. I'll never. I'd die before I betrayed you. And he denies his best friend and his Lord three times. And then you find Peter in John 21, and he's out fishing. And he went back. He thought that his ministry was over. And so he just thought, you know what, man? I failed, and I'm definitely out of ministry. And so he's like, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm just gonna go back, the only thing that I know. And Jesus finds him, and he's fishing again. He just went back to that old life. Now, side note, where Jesus comes to restore Peter in John 21 was 80 miles from where Jesus was resurrected. So think about this. Jesus is resurrected, and, you know the first thing on his mind, I'm gonna go get Peter. I'm gonna make sure that he knows we're good and that God's still a calling and a purpose on his life. And Jesus walks 80 miles to go find Peter. Now, here's what gets really cool. Let's go a little deeper. Jesus finds Peter thinking his ministry's over because of his sin in John 21. And Jesus recreates the exact scenario of when he called Peter. You go to John 21. Peter's on a boat. He's fishing. He didn't catch anything. There is an empty net. Jesus tells him, hey, man, why don't you throw that thing back in again? Big old catch. And Jesus does the do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? Feed my sheep. Feed my sheep. Feed my sheep. And Peter finds out once again, Peter, you're not just going to be a fisherman. You're going to be a fisher of men. And Jesus finds him. And what he said, what he's saying to Peter is, hey, man, you think that your sin just disqualified you from me using you and have a tremendous purpose for your life. And Jesus is going, hey, Peter, it ain't over till I say it's over. The calling's still on now, dude, I'll go up. I'll just make this personal. What I've found is that when in my life, because everybody, you have these moments where it's like, I screwed up or something went wrong. What I've found that when I'm in one of those spots, this happened me in 2019. I had all the anxiety stuff, and I thought I was gonna have to stop preaching. If you ever get in a spot, this little spiritual discipleship hack, if you ever get in a spot in your ministry or in your discipleship where you're like, it's over, man. Go back to someplace where God moved in your life. Go to that actual physical place and go back and remember what he did. So, like, I won't go into all this, but in 2019, when I had all the anxiety attacks, I thought I was going to have to stop preaching. You know what I did? When I planted a church in Nashville, we couldn't afford offices, so my office was Starbucks, and I wrote all my sermons in Starbucks. Paid 186 to get a black coffee and sit there for nine hours a day. And I'd write all my sermons at Starbucks. And I'm at Lake point Church, like 11,000 people, and we got all the staff and microphones and lights. And I was like, I don't know if I'm going to be able to keep preaching. And it was like the spirit whispered to me, why don't you go back to when it was just like you and me and there was nothing else? And I just. I did over there on Ridge Road. I just went over there and I started writing my sermons in Starbucks again and just remembered this is what it was like when there was no big staff, no big church, no lights, no cameras. Just me and Jesus and you just recover something. Here's the big idea, man. My God is not just the alpha. He doesn't just start things. He's the omega. He finishes things.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

That's right. Amen.

[Pastor Josh]

That's good math.

[Carlos Arazo]

That's really good. One thing also to add to everything you just said is that when Peter denied Jesus the Bible says that there was a fire going on and that was so good. Yeah. And so. And so. But then when Jesus meets Peter again, Jesus is so detail oriented. He recreates the same environment where Peter denied Jesus. And the Bible says he made breakfast. Jesus made breakfast. And so there was a fire as well. And so I can just imagine the. The smell even of what reminded Peter of his failure and his betrayal of Jesus. Jesus even redeems that so that now that same smell reminds him of his restoration.

[Pastor Josh]

Dude, that's so good. You're. You're onto more than you know. So that's in the Gospel of John. But even you probably know this. It's. It's the only time. There are only two times in Gospel of John it specifically mentions charcoal fire. Only two times in John it mentions charcoal. And you're talking about smell all of a. You know, you ever grilled something? You know this. A charcoal fire has a very distinct smell. And smell just has a way of stirring up memories and feelings, and sciences.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Show that it's actually one of the biggest memory. Like, that's crazy.

[Carlos Arazo]

I didn't know that. Yeah. That's interesting.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Carlos Arazo]

That's wild.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

You're going somewhere. No, it's finished.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, that's. That's it.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Carlos Arazo]

That's amazing, bro.

[Pastor Josh]

The Bible's amazing. That is amazing. Yeah.

[Carlos Arazo]

Amazing, man. Okay, so I want to ask you about some of the disciples. Let's go, let's go. In order. So does that work?

[Pastor Josh]

Let's go, man. Okay, we're gonna hit a quick fact. Most Christians don't know. So here's what happens. Most Christians read the list of the disciples, and they're kind of like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a big group, the Chosen, blah, blah, blah.

[Carlos Arazo]

Have you seen the Chosen, by the way?

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, I love it.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Okay.

[Carlos Arazo]

Yeah, I like it a lot. So question. Do you think the Chosen is a fairly, ish, accurate portrayal of the personalities of the disciples?

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Ah, that's a good question.

[Pastor Josh]

I actually think so. From the limit. You know, I think I've watched two seasons with Janna.

[Carlos Arazo]

They're great.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah. Oh, we. We like, weep like every other episode.

[Carlos Arazo]

Yes. Okay, I'll go in order.

[Pastor Josh]

All right, quick hitters.

[Carlos Arazo]

Let's go. Let's go, Matthew.

[Pastor Josh]

Okay, Matthew. Here's the deal about Matthew. Tax collector. Dude was good at making money. Yeah. Oh, we even got pictures. Matthew. Look at old Matthew. Matthew, tax collector. So he would have been viewed as a race traitor by all the Jews because, you know, he had to betray the Jewish people to work for the oppressive Roman government. And then Steal all their money and give it to the Romans who were oppressing them. Everybody hated him. Dude was obviously good at making money. Loved a good spir spreadsheet. Here's a little known fact about Matthew. I think I'm going to make a little guess here. I think he was kind of a money spreadsheet bean counter nerd. Did you know his gospel is the only one that records Jesus saying, you cannot serve both God and money?

[Carlos Arazo]

That's amazing.

[Pastor Josh]

I, I seriously, I think that might be why. I think that might be why. So there you go. There's Matthew.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

It's good.

[Carlos Arazo]

Simon the Zealot.

[Pastor Josh]

All right, Simon the Zealot, here we go.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

I like this guy.

[Pastor Josh]

Oh, bro, you even gave him with a dagger.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

I like that. We're doing these two guys back to back, by the way.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Because this guy would have hated Matthew.

[Pastor Josh]

Yes. And that's part of the point. So you got Matthew, tax collector, Jewish race trader, working for the Roman government. Simon the Zealot. Exact opposite. The Zealots were a. It was primarily a political movement and it was like, bro, like legit guerrilla warfare assassin stuff. So Zealot is a political title when you read that in your Bible. This was a group of Jewish people who believed that paying taxes to Rome was a sin. So the reason that dude's got a big dagger in his hand is literally what these guys would do is they would like infiltrate. They would do it in crowds and they would sneak up to Roman sympathizers exactly like Matthew, by the way. And they would like shiv them. Like legit, like shiv them and stab them and then just like disappear. So, like, Jewish ninja ninjas is kind of what I have in my head is what you got here. And I do just want to say this. So I'm. Especially at Lake Point, we got a bunch of Alphas, Alpha dudes at Lake Point. You know, it's a bunch of combat vets and MMA guys and NFL players. And there's a bunch of guys are like, man, do I really fit in here? You know, I'm kind of good at putting double taps in the A zone and Rear Naked chokeholds and. Yeah, man.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Pastor Josh]

Kingdom needs some aggressive guys.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

That's right.

[Carlos Arazo]

Andrew, Peter's brother.

[Pastor Josh]

All right. I can't wait to see what picture you guys did for all these guys. Oh, wow. All right, There you go, man. That escalated quickly. Here we go. And so there you go. You can see how he. Church history tells us he died on an X shaped cross, I think. Oh. And they Got it right in the. They got it right in this painting, that he was actually not nailed to the cross. According to tradition. He was tied to it. And so tradition tells us that he stayed up there, I think it was like, for two days, preaching the gospel to the people who were, you know, whatever. Here's the cool thing about this guy a lot of people don't know. He's obviously Peter's brother. He's a connector. Have you ever met one of those people who just like. They just know everybody and they're always connecting, like, everybody to everybody. Yeah. John Church named John Aragon. That's like, that guy knows everybody. He's always connecting everybody to everybody. So here's the thing about Andrew. This is really interesting. He's, like, constantly depicted as a connector. So he's the guy that brings Peter to meet Jesus. He's the guy that brings the boy with the loaves and the fishes. He's like, oh, let me introduce you to Jesus. You need to know this guy In John, chapter 12, he's the one that. There's a bunch of Greeks that are like, we wonder about Jesus. And he's like, oh, let me introduce you. So he's just kind of that guy, Social butterfly would have been the lead greeter on the greeting team. That kind of. He's the kind of guy. He didn't have one more card. He had 100 more card. Yeah. One of those guys who just knows everybody. And, you know, there's a lot of people at church like that and, dude, that kind of person God uses, like.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Radically because you don't really see him out there teaching a lot, but, man, he had an indispensable, dispensable part to play in the kingdom.

[Pastor Josh]

Exactly.

[Carlos Arazo]

I love it. Thomas Didimus.

[Pastor Josh]

Okay, Thomas, the worst PR campaign in the history of the world. So obviously, what you got here on a painting that is very.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

I was thinking.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, that I saw. I think I saw that painting actually in the loof. So obviously, he gets a bad rap called Doubting Thomas. Let me explain something real quick. So you will see sometimes in the New Testament, he'll be called Didymus. Didymus is the Greek word for twin. So Thomas had a twin, but the Bible never mentions who it was. So he obviously wasn't a disciple. So somewhere out there was a Thomas twin. I will say this guy gets a total, totally unfair, bad rap. We know him as Doubting Thomas. Doubting Thomas. Good job. Good job. Here's what I hate.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Thank you.

[Carlos Arazo]

Thank you. Paul's not proud of that.

[Pastor Josh]

One, here's what I hate, is that everybody paints him by the only bad moment he ever had in the Gospels. Every other moment in the Gospels is awesome for Thomas. But we, you know, here's a little thing that I always say. Peter, like, literally cursed Jesus before. We don't call him profanity. Peter.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Carlos Arazo]

Jesus called Peter Satan.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, that's right.

[Carlos Arazo]

Not great.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, Satanic Cephas. Like, we don't do that with Peter. I made that up.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Way to go.

[Pastor Josh]

That's a spot.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Great alliteration.

[Pastor Josh]

I'm preaching.

[Carlos Arazo]

You're really good at saying you're really good at. You should be a preacher.

[Pastor Josh]

All right, so. And here's the thing about. So here's my point. In John 11, I'm going to give an example of this. Jesus is getting ready to go. So here's who Thomas really was and what he really was. Like John 11, Jesus getting ready to go back to Judea. And the apostles are assuming he's going to be stoned to death by a bunch of Jewish authorities. Thomas was the one dude that looks at all the other apostles and goes, let's go with him. That we might die with him.

[Carlos Arazo]

You're right.

[Pastor Josh]

So it's like, man, we call him doubting. Like, let's call him Tough Thomas. Yeah, let's call him Faithful Thomas. You know, it's kind of. And here's my point on this. We could riff on this, but we won't. My point on this is, hey, man, if you got a lot of doubts, you'd make a great disciple. You got a lot of doubts, you make a great disciple. The disciples were not guys who didn't have doubts. The disciples were guys like, you know what, man? There's a bunch of questions I can't answer, a bunch of stuff I don't understand. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to pick up these doubts, I'm going to carry them to that guy, and I'm going to follow him in the midst of my doubts because that dude was raised from the dead, and so he'll sort it all out later.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Yeah, I was going to say that. From the flip side, what you don't see happening is Thomas has that doubt and Jesus is like, how dare you?

[Pastor Josh]

Exactly. That's exactly.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Get that question and get out of here. He's like, no, hey, come investigate. Stick your finger in my side and see. And so it's like, hey, to your point, it's like, man, when you're having doubts or struggles and questions, the last Thing that Jesus wants you to do is for that to cause you to walk away from him. If anything, he wants you to press into him with those questions, because, by the way, he's the only one who can actually answer them for you.

[Pastor Josh]

Bingo.

[Carlos Arazo]

I like it. Philip.

[Pastor Josh]

Okay, Philip. All right, so, Philip, okay, here's.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Here's some.

[Pastor Josh]

Some things about Philip. Here's what I like. When you really, like, I spent a whole day deep diving this stuff, and it just. Their personalities come out. So, Philip, almost every recorded interaction of Philip and the Gospels, he's talking about things like logistics, math, facts, procedures. He's the guy that accepted Microsoft Excel into his heart. He's this guy. Okay, so I'll give you, like, for instance, in John 6, when Jesus does the feeding of the 5,000, and they bring the little loaves and the fishes, okay? All the other disciples, you know, this is the little kid who hands the five loaves and two fish. All the other disciples are probably thinking, well, we've seen him walk on water and raise people from the dead. And they were all going, I'm sure Jesus is going to sort it out. And Philip was the guy that was like. Actually kind of like he's sitting back there doing math in his head. He's going, okay, well, there's 5,000 people. And this. Oh, well, that fish usually costs this much and the bread usually costs this much. And then he pipes up and he goes, jesus. It would take more than a half year's wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite. He did the math.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

He's the guy in the meeting. He's like, how are we gonna pay for all this?

[Pastor Josh]

Listen, I say this in a loving way. He's Rod Cadenhead.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

He's like our basically chief operations.

[Pastor Josh]

He's our CPA on staff.

[Carlos Arazo]

Very important role, by the way.

[Pastor Josh]

Oh, listen. Very important role.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

He's the goat.

[Carlos Arazo]

He's awesome.

[Pastor Josh]

Shout out, Rob. We love Rod.

[Carlos Arazo]

Amazing.

[Pastor Josh]

But he's that guy, you know, and he's got to. And. And here's. As we go through these real quick, here's what starts to happen. As you study the disciples. You start seeing yourself somewhere and you're like, I can. There's a spot for me on Team Jesus.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Let's go. Yeah.

[Pastor Josh]

Love it.

[Carlos Arazo]

Bartholomew.

[Pastor Josh]

Okay. I learned some things about Bar Bartholomew I never knew before. This can, by the way, if you're on YouTube, his. I don't know how to say this. This doesn't sound weird. His genitals are covered in this painting side. I just wanna make that so. Okay, this is interesting. I've seen this up close. You guys may have heard this earlier. Do you either. You know where this is?

[Carlos Arazo]

Yeah, it's the Sistine Chapel.

[Pastor Josh]

Yes. Sistine Chapel. Hey, Paul, I know what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. Name that movie.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Oh, Good Will Hunting.

[Pastor Josh]

Good Will Hunting. Do you know what it's like in the Sistine Chapel? You don't even know what it's. Okay.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

You haven't seen it.

[Carlos Arazo]

No, but I. Bro, But I've read about it.

[Pastor Josh]

Put it on the Carlos movie list.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

I will say, not something to watch with the kids.

[Pastor Josh]

Is it bad? I haven't seen it.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Well, language version. Yeah. Unedited. A lot of language. But it's. It's an incredible movie.

[Carlos Arazo]

All right, it's Matt Damon, right?

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

That scene where he goes through that whole thing is one of the greatest. Like, let me put you in a place, but nice as well.

[Pastor Josh]

You need to watch the TBS version.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Oh, yeah, whatever. It's an amazing movie.

[Pastor Josh]

Okay, so here's what this is now on a. First of all, fun fact in the Sistine Chapel. When he originally painted the Sistine Chapel, he painted them in kind of the Greek style where they were all nudes. And then it was like hundreds of years later, the Catholics came around and they were like, feels a little. Feels a little shady. And they've. They painted little genital coverings on all the figures in the Sistine Chapel. That's fun little fact.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

So disciples were probably up and said, thank you.

[Pastor Josh]

Thank you. Yeah, thank you. All right, so here's the thing about Bartholomew. There's Bartholomew now. You'll notice he's holding. It looks really disgusting. He's holding skin. Do either of you know why he's holding skin? He is very often depicted.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

He was flying that this way.

[Pastor Josh]

All right, you did know. Chachi. Party. Got it. All right, let me. He got it. Let me talk about this. So this can get confusing for Christians, too. Sometimes in the Gospels, he's called Bartholomew, sometimes he's called Nathaniel. It's the same guy. So here's what this is. The word Bartholomew is a. It's a Greek compound word. Bar means son of and. And Talmai was probably his dad's name. So Bartholomew literally just means son of Talmai. So here's what a lot of people think is that Nathaniel was his first name and Bartholomew was like his last name. So here's the fun fact. I didn't know. So in John 1, when he meets Jesus, Jesus tells him, hey, I saw you under. And he says, under the fig tree. And Jesus wasn't around him physically when Bartholomew was under the fig tree. Under the fig tree, some Bible scholars say was a Jewish euphemism for what they would say when they were studying the Torah. So then after Jesus says, I saw you under the fig tree, essentially what's going is I saw you studying my word. The next thing Bartholomew says at his calling is, rabbi, you are the Son of God. You are the King of Israel. This is a guess. It's an educated guess. It's a. But here's a theological guess is that he was reading things. And when Jesus did that, he immediately realized that guy is the fulfillment of these prophecies. I was just studying now. Chad Galti. Got it. The reason he is often depicted in Renaissance era paintings is holding his skin. His church history tells us that he had the worst death of all the apostles. He was. Tradition says he was flayed alive and then beheaded after he was skinned alive for converting a king. So that's why he's holding his skin there.

[Carlos Arazo]

I, I didn't know that until today.

[Pastor Josh]

I didn't either.

[Carlos Arazo]

Anyways, James. Little James.

[Pastor Josh]

Okay, so I'm gonna be honest. This is the dumbest I felt in sermon prep in a long time. So that's him right there. Okay, good. This is the dumbest I felt in sermon prep in a long time. Until this week, I didn't know there was three different James's. I thought there was just two. So there's three. The reason they call him Little James, by the way. Little James, that's not a great nickname if you're a guy. His name's Little James. There's three James's in the Bible. There's Big James, that was one of the big three. Peter, James and John. Then there's James that wrote the book of James, the New Testament Jesus, half brother. And then this guy is Little James. That's what Bible scholars call him, Little James. The reason that I didn't know until I was this many years old that this was their three James's. He has zero recorded words in the Gospels. He is never recorded as saying one dagum word. Now here's what we do know that's very interesting. His mom was one of the women who stayed with Jesus at the cross. So I will just say, like man, it really says something about his family. Yeah. That his mom was that type of faithful woman of God and she raised the type of son that Jesus would go, I want to. That's the kind of guy I want to use. Okay, so there you go.

[Carlos Arazo]

Judas Iscariot.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah. Now, we, obviously, we all know this one. Here's why they call him Judas Iscariot. He was obviously the one that betrayed Jesus. Iscariot just means man from Kirioth. There are. This is a little side note, by the way. I'm so sorry, Janna, for what I'm about to say. There are some Bible scholars that think Iscariot was like a riff on a word that meant redhead. So, you know, we don't need Judas getting pinned. Janice always frustrated at redheaded depictions in movies. We don't need to start pinning Judas on redheads. But some Bible scholars think that. Now, here is the question that some people will have is they'll ask the question was, did Judas lose his salvation? And this is one of my favorite things to teach, because it's like, you start picking this up, bro. This is honestly, it's terrifying. It's one of the things that most terrifies me in the entire Bible. Most Christians will read their New Testament 100 times. They'll never notice this. When you get to Matthew 26 and Jesus is doing the Last Supper, he's there, and he goes, hey, man, somebody at this table is going to betray me. And then he says, it's the one who puts his hand and dips it in. This thing is going to be the one. And if you read that passage really carefully, most people miss this one tiny little word. If you read that passage real carefully, every one of the disciples, one by one, says, is it I, Lord? Is it I, Lord? Is it I, Lord? Eleven dudes. And then if you pay close attention, when Judas does it, he says, is it I, Rabbi? And that one tiny little word. And the point is, every one of those guys had bent their knee to the lordship of Jesus. Judas just liked him. You can be around Jesus and you can like Jesus, and you can listen to Jesus, and you cannot be saved by Jesus. So here's a big. Here's a big question. Did Judas lose his salvation? Nope. He faked it.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Yep.

[Carlos Arazo]

Wow.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

And with the emotional gearshift, I think it's worth it while we're here, because a lot of people get confused on this regarding. This is. Unfortunately, a lot of people say, oh, he went to hell because he killed himself.

[Pastor Josh]

No, good point.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Well, probably worth it. Doing a little bit of a shorter segment. Another podcast around that. That is not why. It's because he had not placed his faith in Jesus the Messiah. Because the thing is, oh, the last thing he did was sin and so he went to hell and. Or it was a bad sin. I'm like, that kind of logic is like if I'm driving down I30 and someone cuts me off and I give him the finger, that I get an accident. Well, Paul, sorry you believed me, but the last thing you did was sin. And so I'm not making light of that. I'm just saying, like, just wanted to swear. We're on this. To clarify, that has nothing to do with that. That the reason that he did not get to be eternity with Jesus was because he was never actually a true believer in Jesus, not because of what his last act in life was.

[Carlos Arazo]

Thaddeus, AKA Judas or Jude.

[Pastor Josh]

The world's greatest PR crisis. I'm serious. The world's greatest PR crisis. So Thaddeus, he is also known in the gospels as Jude or tremendously more unfortunately, his real name was Judas. There were two Judases. So the reason he's called Thaddeus or Jude is because obviously after Judas betrays Jesus and then dies, he's left going, well, dad gum, I'm walking around, I'm a disciple of Jesus and my name's Judas. This is a little awkward. It'd be like a kid in the 50s having the name Adolf. I'm serious. It's like, what do you now what do we do? So if you'll notice, in the gospels, Matthew and Mark, they call him Thaddeus. In Luke and Acts, they call him every single time. It's really fun. These are little details, you got to pay close attention. It's really funny in Luke and Acts, every time what he calls him is Judas, son of James. It's real quick. Judas, the son of James, the son of James, Jesus.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

I can just imagine because Luke is known for being really detailed. He's like, bro, really?

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

I asked, I asked Matthew to Mark to please change my name. And you just had to be hyper accurate. Appreciate that, thanks.

[Carlos Arazo]

Looks like. No, no, this is your name.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

This is your. No, this is your name, Doctor.

[Pastor Josh]

The funniest one is the Gospel of John calls him Judas, not Iscariot.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Clarification.

[Pastor Josh]

So when John writes, he's like, Judas, not Ascariot. I'm sorry, I'm screaming in the microphone. Trinity. Sorry. Not a scary kid.

[Carlos Arazo]

Okay, now John's the nice one.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, not as scary. Not as scary. So here's a really interesting thing about Thaddeus. So this kind of thing, dude, I love sermon prep. So Catholics, and there's some things, obviously we differ, but shout out. We love our Catholic brothers and Sisters. But Catholics, traditionally, they called. Let me do this really fast. So Catholics, in a few hundred years after Jesus, they started doing this thing where they would pray to saints. Heads up. Don't do that. There is. The Bible literally says there is one mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ. So you can't pray to anybody except Jesus. To God. That's it. So anyway, but they started, and they would name these saints, and they would give them like a. This is the patron saint of these people. And if you're in this situation, you should pray to this saint, and then he'll take it to God and see what they can work out up there. Let's make a deal. So they called Thaddeus because of his unfortunate situation. They called him the patron saint of lost causes, is what they called him. Now, this is really interesting. Okay, so what Catholics would do in the early church is they would pray to him. Of all the 12 disciples, they'd pray to him last. And this is literally true because they were afraid if they started praying to him. What if we accidentally are praying to Judas? And the wrong. The lines get crossed and the wrong Judas. The prayer goes to the wrong Judas. So they would pray to him very last. This is where it gets really interesting. They would pray to him last. Okay? So they ended up calling him Jude. Think about this. I'm putting all this together, praying to Jude, and this is your last chance. That's where Catholics started calling the hospitals St. Jude. Jude's Hospital. When all hope everywhere else has run out. St. Jude. That's who you go to. That's this dude.

[Carlos Arazo]

That's Dude James. Big James, AKA Son of Zebedee.

[Pastor Josh]

Big James. Big James.

[Carlos Arazo]

We got Little James.

[Pastor Josh]

I'm feeling.

[Carlos Arazo]

And we got Big James.

[Pastor Josh]

I'm feeling something.

[Carlos Arazo]

He's like a football player.

[Pastor Josh]

I got. He's a. He's an O lineman.

[Carlos Arazo]

Was he a big guy?

[Pastor Josh]

He's O line. He's from Wisconsin. We got Big James.

[Carlos Arazo]

Is that.

[Pastor Josh]

Oh, you switched it up.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Oh, you switched it up.

[Pastor Josh]

I will figure it out. Okay? We'll fix it, whatever it was.

[Carlos Arazo]

Okay, so he's not that big.

[Pastor Josh]

What? Dude, that is not an old lineman from Wisconsin.

[Carlos Arazo]

That's. That's not my picture.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

They're not that good.

[Pastor Josh]

Sorry. Sorry. Badgers.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Sorry, badgers.

[Pastor Josh]

If you're listening. So here's. Here's James. So he's. He's obviously called one of the sons of Zebedee. He's known as Big James because we had Little James. So obviously the. The disciples. There were three that Were different. They were Jesus inner circle. It was Peter, James and John. They were the only ones who went up on the mount for transfiguration. They were the only ones that Jesus let see him when he raises Jairus daughter from the dead. They were the only ones that Jesus takes into the garden of Gethsemane. Now Jesus gives these three the coolest nickname ever. Carlos and Chaz Balti. Well, do you know the Greek word? Because it. Don't you look at anything. Stop looking at your screen. Do you remember what. Do you remember what it is?

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Oh, you mean the brothers, the Sons of thunder?

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, yeah, but do you remember the word bo.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Narcissus?

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, it's like bonart or boanergy.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Pastor Josh]

But it means sons of thunder.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Yeah, I mean, just come on, bro.

[Pastor Josh]

If Jesus calls you, I would like tattoo that on my forehead. I'd like Mike Tyson, like, stick that thing on. On the deck of the Son of Thunder. That's awesome. If you get that from Jesus, it's awesome. That's amazing.

[Carlos Arazo]

Pretty great.

[Pastor Josh]

Now the reason is they were pretty dramatic. They were kind of drama kings.

[Carlos Arazo]

Maybe it's not that great.

[Pastor Josh]

Well, I still. I still. So for instance, in Luke 9, these guys, James and John, the two brothers, here's why Jesus called them the Sons of Thunder. There were these Samaritans who were like, being a little mean to Jesus and James and John go, lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to destroy them? It's a little, you know, little spicy, you know. So again, when you think about these guys, here's a big idea. When you're studying the disciples, a lot of people you see these, like, I'll be honest, like, look at that picture. That guy looks kind of effeminate. Looks like he just walked out of Sephora without a tan, you know, I don't know, hair products, I don't know, really into cats. Just that's how it looks in all these pictures. I'm going to stop myself from the other. That's how it looks like. But these guys, like, again, these were like very competitive, high testosterone, aggressive alpha guys. They're like literally competing, like, with Jesus. Like, I want, I want the. I want to sit at your right hand and it's your left. Okay. The other thing about this guy, about Big James, that we should honor him for. He was the first apostle martyred. Yeah, the first one. And it's recorded in the bible. In Acts 2, he gets beheaded. Side note, if you start thinking about what it would have been like, you know the. So you know, Jesus resurrected, ascended into heaven, pouring out the Holy Spirit. 3,000 people are going to be saved. In Acts 2. You're on this big high. You got to imagine it would have been a big gut punch. Like, dude, big. James just got beheaded. This is not how I thought it was going to go, but. So there you go.

[Carlos Arazo]

First apostle, martyr, John, other son of Siboney.

[Pastor Josh]

Okay, this is one of my favorite ones. Okay. Obviously I joke about this all the time. He's the one that gives himself the nickname. Yeah, yeah. He's the one that leans his head against the chest of Jesus and the Bible literally records that he rested his head against. I think the King James version literally says he rested his head against the breast of Jesus. You know, I'm always like, man, how many friends you got? They're gonna recline their head against your chest while they're eating. 0, 0. And if you do it, I'm real, we're probably not gonna be friends very long. But he like, the big deal is that he and Jesus were clearly very tight. Like very, very tight. He calls himself the one whom Jesus loved throughout the Gospel of John. We've mentioned this before. John obviously wrote John and he, he won't say stuff about himself. He does the whole little thing about beating Peter in the foot race to the. We don't have to go back there. But he's. It's awesome. Now here's the cool thing about John. He apostle that died of old age. He was not martyred, he was exiled, obviously. The Isle of Patmos. You can go to the Isle of Patmos. You can actually see a cave on the Isle of Patmos. I think it's the only cave on the Isle of Patmos where almost everyone is. Like, that's literally where he received the Revelation, the book of Revelation. Now here's what I love about this guy is if you pay close attention, he changed radically as he aged. So what's really cool about this guy is when he's young, he's young, hot.

[Carlos Arazo]

Headed, brash, the youngest of the disciples.

[Pastor Josh]

Oh, really? I never heard that.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Pastor Josh]

Does it say that?

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Youngest? Youngest?

[Carlos Arazo]

No. It's deduced.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, it's seduced.

[Carlos Arazo]

There's some things I didn't know that.

[Pastor Josh]

See, I learned stuff all. Every time he's young and brash, fire from heaven toast him extra crispy. But then as he got older, he became this old man. Lived into at least his 80s, we think he became this old, very sweet, kind, loving man. If you go read first, second and third, John, he's constantly like, beloved, my little children, my dear children, God is love, you know, and he changed over his life from this young hot headed toastem extra crispy to loving grandpa John. And dude, honestly, this should really do something for all of us. Like as we age, we don't want to become sort of like bitter, crusty, crispy, like welcome to the book of third opinions. You're going to read mine? No, man. The older we get, the longer we walk with Jesus. We should become deeply convinced. I am really loved by God and I really love people.

[Carlos Arazo]

Last but not least, Peter the Rock.

[Pastor Josh]

Peter the Rock. Rocky the Rock. Rocky crucified upside down. That's why you got that picture there. Church tradition tells us he's one of the ones that actually church tradition is a little more solid on some of the others is pure conjecture. How they died. If I understand correctly, church history has a much more firm grasp that he was crucified and that he may have requested, you see in that painting, to be crucified upside down because he did not feel like he was worthy of dying in the same way as the Lord. He was almost certainly the oldest disciple. We know this because in Matthew 17, they're going into the temple and you had to pay a little temple tax to go into the temple. We've talked about this. And you only had to pay that if you were a 20. Jesus in that passage, he tells him, hey man, go get a little fish out of the Sea of Galilee and it's going to have a drachma in its mouth and you can use that for the temple tax. And he only told Peter that. So probably Peter was the only apostle over, over the age of 20. Here's the other little. And you know, this is a little weird thing for Catholic staff to navigate. Peter was married. Yep. So the guy that they're like, I love you, but I'll just say it. First pope, the guy that you say was the first pope, was married. And then. So why are we telling all the priests you can't, can't be married? We know this because in Matthew 8, it specifically mentions that Jesus went to Peter's quote, mother and house, mother in law's house. And then in 1 Corinthians 9:5, the apostle Paul, I'm going to read it, he says, do we not have the right to take along a believing wife as the other apostles? So we don't know who, but more than one of the disciples was married. But then he says, as the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord. And. And Cephas. And Cephas was another name for Peter. So Peter was married. So, ladies and gentlemen, there you have it.

[Carlos Arazo]

That's great.

[Pastor Josh]

Hey, I'm curious. What did I just say? I learned a bunch of that stuff was new. What did I just say that was like, that you didn't know that before? Is there anything that was like, yeah.

[Carlos Arazo]

Bartholomew in the skin that you know, I didn't know that.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Yeah, I maybe have heard it, but that's. It was a guess. When you said the skin, I'm like, I think I knew one of them played. I knew one of them inflate. So I just had to. I just added. I'm like, if he's holding the skin of his own body, you know, just deduction there.

[Carlos Arazo]

He's pretending he doesn't know, so you know a little bit better. Let me give him one. Hey, Pastor Josh, we are running out of time, but I have a question for both you and Pastor Paul. How do I build a band of brothers?

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, let me just do this real quick because. No, no, it dovetails. Your question. So first of all, this is obviously what the Bible teaching was on this weekend. You will like, literally, I cannot emphasize this hard enough. There's a lot of things I say and it's like, you know, goes in one ear, out the other. Literally, if you just get this one thing right, literally every other aspect of discipleship to Jesus, all the dominoes will start falling. It is literally impossible for you to live the right life with the wrong friends. And conversely, I would say over time, it's really almost impossible for you to live the wrong life when you're deeply embedded in a group of Jesus loving, God saturated guys that love Jesus. It's like almost impossible. So honestly, I'll just do this super quick, is you can see how Jesus structured his own thing. Can you toss that thing up? So on that little diagram, the concentric circles, this right here, this is how Jesus structured his own relational life. So you got care, influence, intimacy. Jesus had the crowds and he cared for everybody. You know, did that whole deal. Then he had a circle of influence that was like, you know, you had about 120, or you could even say the 12, however you want to do it. And these were people that he influenced and they had direct access into his life. But then Jesus had three Peter, James and John that were the circle of intimacy. That it was like, these are my ride or dies. Like, these are the guys when they walk in a room, it's like everything goes into slow motion. And they're, you know, their background music comes on. Good enough for Jesus, good enough for me. So honestly, what you're going to notice about your life, whether you like it or not, whether you acknowledge it or not, you as a man or a woman of God, your future is dependent upon who you choose in your life to put in that circle of intimacy. I don't listen. That law is undefeated. Yes, that law is undefeated. Whoever are the three to four closest people in your life that you share your heart with, that they share your heart with you, you are going to become like those people.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Yes.

[Pastor Josh]

So honestly, if you want to change your life, change your circles, that's good. You get that, right? Everything else is going to get so that's like, honestly, man, I feel like a, I feel like I'm, you know, beating a dead horse or whatever. But like, there's a reason I talk about rooted and I talk about life groups literally all the time. And I smoke what I sell. Like, I've got that in my life, literally. I'm not joking what they say. So two days ago, literally two days ago, I drove all the way across DFW an hour and 15 minutes, so I could spend 30 to 45 minutes with one of my guys that's in that circle to talk about prayer and fasting. He's a pastor that loves Jesus. He's a convictional man, and he is a man of deep prayer and fasting. We're on a, we text multiple times every day. And I, I, why? Because I am determined to get that right.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Pastor Josh]

Because if I get that right, everything else is going to fall into place. So, like, it ain't no joke, man. You doing the rooted discipleship thing and you having a band of brothers, that's going to determine your future as a disciple. Now I'm curious. Paul and Carlos, do a quickie, quick snapshot. Give me an example, like you got thoughts or how this looked like in your life.

[Carlos Arazo]

Well, hey Ly free nation. One of the reasons we're so passionate about conversations like this is because real discipleship doesn't happen in isolation. It happens in relationships, around tables, in honest conversations with people walking together towards Jesus. And if you've been listening to this podcast, thinking, man, I want more than just content. I want community. This is for you. Our next rooted experience begins Tuesday, February 3rd. And this is an in person only 10 week discipleship journey design designed to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God, build meaningful life giving relationships and discover the purpose God created you for. But here's the thing rooted only happens three times a year and spots fill up fast. And so once registration closes, that's it until the next session. And so to take your next step in your spiritual growth, don't wait. Text Rooted to 204 or you can also visit Lakepoint Church, root it to get signed up today. And by the way, this isn't just another class. It is an invitation to real faith, real community, and real freedom in Christ. Yeah, when I was in my early 20s, I had a crisis of faith. You know, I'm recent graduated college, very entrepreneurial, recently married, always busy, always working, traveling a lot, a lot of social media stuff, reading a lot of Bible faith apologetics books. And then I started flirting with deconstructing my faith. I just, you know, just started reading all these deconstruction books.

[Pastor Josh]

What year was this?

[Carlos Arazo]

Literally over 10 years ago. Ish.

[Pastor Josh]

You mind me asking, like, what books?

[Carlos Arazo]

Oh, yeah. I mean, I can give you names. All of them. All of them on Rachel Held Evans, Richard Ward.

[Pastor Josh]

Did you do A Year of Living Biblically?

[Carlos Arazo]

I didn't read that one, but I know of it.

[Pastor Josh]

By the way, I strike if anybody's hearing these names. I strongly do not recommend these people or their writings.

[Carlos Arazo]

Even names that are not even mainstream. They're more like academic and theological. Yeah, like, I read them all and they hurt me because they made me like, question. And I started reading a whole bunch of different things. And, you know, it's not like I stopped being a Christian, but I started having some serious questions. But then looking back, I think I probably went through a little depression there even I was thinking, like, man, what about that season that, you know, made me go there? That was probably my most. One of my most isolated seasons, like, in my life. Like, I just doing my own thing again. We just moved to Dallas. At the time, we didn't have a church community. I'm also at the time, what I would call a product of my social media generation. We're basically a generation that is viewed, not seen. So we are online and, you know, we know of this person or that person, but, man, you don't have a person that can actually see you who you are. We were very isolated, basically no friends. We were known and knew a lot of people. We just didn't have a community. And so I started praying and I received a prophetic word that God was gonna surround me with the right older folks in my life to help me basically just shape me. And that was literally before Coming to Lake Point. Coming to Lake Point was basically one of the ways God answered that prayer. And, bro, today, I mean, I just being surrounded by the people that I'm surrounded today, I have been shaped significantly, and God has used the people around me to. I would literally, literally not be right here today if it wasn't for the people that God put in my life in the last five to six years. So I have been everything you just said. Absolutely. My life is a testimony to that.

[Pastor Josh]

Amen.

[Carlos Arazo]

Yeah.

[Pastor Josh]

Paul, wait. What was that the first time we met? We got coffee over there at standard service.

[Carlos Arazo]

I remember that.

[Pastor Josh]

Or lunch. What. What book were you reading? Do you remember you brought in some books?

[Carlos Arazo]

Like, two.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, I think you did.

[Carlos Arazo]

I mean, I'm always reading something.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah. It's one of my favorite things about you.

[Carlos Arazo]

It's probably, like, at the time, if.

[Pastor Josh]

You don't know, you don't know. I used to remember. I'm getting old.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

You good? Yeah, man. Mine, two significant moments. I'm like, one really short, more significant one, even a couple years ago. But when I was a teenager, had a guy look at me and he said, paul, you're one of the biggest underachievers I've ever seen in my entire life.

[Carlos Arazo]

Who said this?

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Actually, in this case, it was a little bit because it was actually an odor. Like, first, it was the chaplain.

[Pastor Josh]

You are on the most important podcast in America.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Well, so. But what he said is, it's like, paul, like, you've got.

[Carlos Arazo]

Did you send him a video of an episode of Literally Talking?

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

He reached out to me and said, dude, I've been keeping track of Pastor Josh, and I saw you, like, it's insane. And I sent a message like, dude, like, you gotta hate in that. Cause like, he was in the middle of a class, too, in class, and he said it, and it was like, you've got a memory like a bear trap, and you remember everything you read in here, and your mind is insane. He's like, but you're just coasting through life and not doing barely anything, the gifts God gave you. And up to that point, like in high school, some of us also was going through some stuff with my family, but I was. I was just coasting and just making decent grades, but nothing special. And then from that moment on, just lit a fire in me. And I never made below an A. I'm not doing that to brag. I'm more just saying, hey, I'm going to take this stuff seriously, take the gifts God gave me seriously. But it took someone to be willing to call me out. So part of community is Actually sometimes where someone will speak a tough word, but it was in love. It wasn't trying to shame, it wasn't trying to come down, but it was like saying it's calling you up to your God given potential. And that was a huge moment. But yeah, two years ago, two, three years ago, I was really struggling. So different moment. I was really struggling in life just with hidden depression. I've had a few periods in my life and it's one that it just came back and I was just getting overwhelmed. And I think I've actually shared before where I felt like it was a ball of knot. Like, I mean a ball of yarn that's going to knot. And I just couldn't untangle myself. And I had a pretty dark 24 to 48 hours of just some thoughts I hadn't had a long time that had come back to me. And it was with. I was sitting there with actually one of the other pastors on staff. It was a close friend. And he just said, he just noticed as we were talking, he's like, hey, man, what's off? Like something's wrong. He could just tell just looking at me. I was trying to hide it. I'm usually pretty good at hiding. But he said, what's wrong? And I just, I clammed up. I wasn't willing to share. But then he said, paul, just so you know, the house rules are for you too. And what the house rules were at the church we were at, we had a house, a bunch of rooms, quote unquote rules for her house. But it was things like, hey, it's okay to not be okay. Everyone's a work in progress. And he just said, hey, it's not just for the people who car church home. It's for you too. And that just flooded over me. And he said, hey, if you, if you need it, man, I would love to help you get some counseling and when you feel ready, you can share with me too. And that was a turning point. It was a trauma. I thought I was just trying to hand hold it on my own. I've got kind of a Superman syndrome sometimes when life gets hard or something. I just put on a cape and I like, I'm great.

[Pastor Josh]

And.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

And he saw something was off and he was willing in that case to lovingly call me out, but then speak a word of grace for me. And it was a turning point. I don't know what I would have, what would have happened if he had not done that in that moment, dude.

[Pastor Josh]

So first of all, bless God for that, man. There's something especially for. For dudes, I'll point out, is guys are not as good at building friendships as women. And here's. And that story is a great example of how to do it because, you know, girls, first of all, we have a deep conviction at Lake Point that girls and boys are different. And that means that, you know, they do relationships different. So, like with women, I'll walk in on Jana hanging out with her friends. I'll be like, this feels like an alien experience. They'll just be all sitting in a circle, looking right at each other's eyes in a close circle, talking about their feelings. And I'm like, yeah, you know, if a guy was ever like, hey, Josh, do you want to come over and sit on my couch and talk? I'd be like, a, no, and B, now I'm suspicious of you. Yeah. So, like, so what guys do, like, if you're a guy, like, how do I find. How do I build a band of brothers that's like a team Jesus Band of brothers. So I'm noticing about that you guys worked together, right?

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

We were already.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, we were already like, that's how it works. Yep. You find some guys this like, hey, let's. We're building something together. Or honestly, we like this hobby together. We like hitting a golf ball. We like throwing a. We like throwing a crankbait. You know, whatever. You just. You find the shoulder to shoulder.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Yes.

[Pastor Josh]

And then you're like, hey, man, why don't we just add. Let's add the word to this thing. Let's start listening to. Let's start listening to Live Free. And then while we're out fishing and golfing, let's spend three holes talking about that and what guys doing. That's how it works.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Yes, exactly.

[Pastor Josh]

So if you're a dude, that's how you do it.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

I was going to say, I know we have to move on to another thing, but, like, a lot of it is just injecting Jesus into the relationship you already have.

[Pastor Josh]

But to your point, what if.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

If. And I was going to say, I was actually go back to your circle drawing if your circle of intimacy right now. And the people you are alongside with are just people who are going to drag you further away from Jesus.

[Pastor Josh]

Run.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Your friends are like a riptide. So they're either going to drag you to Jesus or away, depending on who those friends are Run. And in that case, that's where something like rooted is so great. Because at that point it's like, hey, a lot of times those groups are people who don't know each other beforehand, but stories we've already heard is that they didn't know each other the first week and by the end they're best friends and they're sharing everything with them. And so I would say if you don't have those people, that is where the body of Christ, the church is. So great, because we can help you find those people.

[Carlos Arazo]

Any other anecdotes on your end? Josh?

[Pastor Josh]

Last. I'll just highlight this and then let's talk about this. The people, Minnesota protesters interrupting the church and all the things. The thing I'm going to point out is in the Sermon on the Mount. So here, I'll just say a very hard thing. There are a lot of people that are listening to this, that the most important thing that you could do is cut somebody out of your life.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Yes.

[Pastor Josh]

I'm just gonna let that sit. It'll be the hardest thing you do. It'll be the most important thing you do. If there are wicked, godless, evil people that are in your circle of intimacy, you are not going to make. You are not going to follow Jesus closely with that. And so when Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount is like, hey, man, if your hand caused you sin, cut it off, or I caused you sin, gouge it out. What he's saying is, you may have to commit a radical amputation in order to walk in holiness and discipleship. To me, what I have found is that for almost everybody, when they get serious about following Jesus, the radical amputation they have to do is a relationship. So, man, it doesn't mean you gotta blackball them and I'm never speaking to you again. What it does mean is you need to aggressively and quickly shift what circle they're in. It's like, hey, man, this is not my ride or die anymore. I'll send you. Actually, if you're a guy, you're not gonna send a guy a card on their birthday. I'll send you a text on your birthday. If they come to me and they got a problem, I'm gonna pray for them. But honestly, man, that's not the guy that I'm calling when I'm having a hard time or, you know, my golfing buddy every. Every week anymore. So heads up. That's how it's probably gonna work in your life.

[Carlos Arazo]

That's good. All right, man. Well, this has been in the news basically for a bit now. A Church in St. Paul, Minneapolis, Minnesota, called City's Church was disrupted by protesters during the service and the of became a Whole thing online, including Don Lemon, who is, people know, an American journalist famous for his work in cnn. He was basically there interviewing Infamous for his work. Infamous. That's right. All the caveats. And there's a video of him with interviewing the pastor. But basically, I just want to throw it out to you, Pastor Josh. I know we're gonna. We're gonna go through that.

[Pastor Josh]

So let me just say, yeah, we're gonna react to that. We're gonna show this. There is a lot here. That moment. And what happens in the next few weeks will be one of the most significant turning points for the church in America in the last decade, depending on which way things go. So this is why I want to talk about this. Okay, first of all, so here's what's happening. What you're getting ready to see is a group of protesters that infiltrated a church called City's Church. They sat in the service, they waited for, if I understand it correctly, the sermon to start. And then they all coordinated, stood up to disrupt the service because they found out one of the pastors had. Was working with ice, was an ICE agent. Now, if I understand correctly, this dude is a good, good and godly man, law enforcement. And if I understand correctly, this guy's literally been working with ICE for like two decades. So it's not like a brand new ICE agent that just was like, oh, I wanted it.

[Carlos Arazo]

So it will not be the guy we'll see in the video. It would be like the lead pastor of the church.

[Pastor Josh]

That's correct. That's right. As you're going to see now. So here's why. And obviously what they're doing is you're going to see this. They're very aggressively. You're going to see, like scared children in this church. They're very aggressively protesting what ICE is doing. Rounding up. Predominantly in Minnesota right now, it's predominantly convicted felons.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Pastor Josh]

That are. That are also illegal immigrants. Now, before we show this dude again, let me just say this. We are not. We have no loyalty. And if you are on Team Jesus, you should have no loyalty to a political party. We're on Team Jesus, and what we should be doing is we're like, no, no, no. I'm going to be for whichever group most closely aligns with Team Jesus. And if that's you, great. If not, I'm out. Because our loyalty is to Jesus above everything else. That said, right now, there's just not a way around it. The proposed policies of the right are considerably more closer to the ethics of Team Jesus. Than the prop. Publicly stated policies of the left. Okay, now what I want to point out when you see this, what I want to point out is here's why progressives are getting. Get really, really worked up about anything having to do with illegal immigration. Okay? Show these three. Show these three pictures. And then when you see these, all of a sudden, it's going to make sense. Oh, that's one of the reasons that they're so worked up about this. So show those three. So, number one, this is the. This is the voting tally on a. On a proposal for someone to have to show proof of American citizenship to vote. Okay? That's all this is. And what you have is every single Democratic political leader except five. 198 voted against it. Only five voted for it. Here's another one. Okay, here's another one. This is another voting tally. Another bill. The House just passed a bill to declare that illegal aliens who commit sex crimes or domestic violence are inadmissible and deportable. The vast majority, 145 Democrats, voted against it. Again, this isn't about right or left, but you do have to. You have to acknowledge the moral asymmetry. We have to. And again, this is going to be a make or break response for churches in America. Let's check this out. Here's your buddy, Don.

[Carlos Arazo]

You know, I imagine it's uncomfortable and.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Traumatic for the people here, but again.

[Carlos Arazo]

Careful, it's very slippery right here.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

That's what protesting is about.

[Pastor Josh]

Whoopsie daisy. Okay, number one. So he's getting ready to walk into the church. That's what protesting is about. No, it isn't. No, it isn't. You are allowed to have private gatherings. Like protesters can't come up in Carlos's home and protest how Brooke is parenting your kid. There are spaces that are protected in the United States. And Chad Chipotle is going to talk about this here in a second. It was clear that laws were broken in what you're about to see. I also just want to point out biblically, the Apostle Paul. So here's what some Christians did. I saw this online. Some Christians are like, hey, man, Jesus said, turn the other cheek. So what those Christians should have done is just let them. Okay, no, this is very interesting. If you pay close attention to the book of Acts, the Apostle Paul is consistently appealing to the laws of the Roman Empire to get people to quit disrupting his ministry and stopped interrupting and stopped interacting him. In Acts 16, he's beaten and imprisoned without trial. And Paul invokes his citizenship rights. He essentially Goes, here's what the Roman Empire says you can and can't do to me. In Acts 22, same thing, he's getting ready to be flogged by Roman soldiers. And Paul goes, hey, according to Roman law, are you allowed to flog a Roman citizen? And he scares the heck out of him. Same thing again in Acts 25. This is kind of hard to see in the text. When he's on trial in front of Festus, Paul pulls his Roman Empire citizenship. He knows the legal procedures required in Rome. And he goes, I appeal to Caesar. And essentially he short circuits the Roman judicial system. So Paul consistently appeals to the laws of the land for self protection of his ministry. That's what he does here. Now, in a second I'm gonna have you talk about what laws were violated here. In the spirit of the same. So let's keep going, go to this next thing. Renee Gu. That's crazy. Okay, now I want to point a couple things out here. So do you hear what they're saying? I want, I want to show you what's happening if you hear what they're saying. They're saying, justice for Renee Good. And they say, hands up, don't shoot. So here's what you got to watch out for. It's possible for people to have real feelings based on wrong thinking.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Yes.

[Pastor Josh]

Okay, that's what you have right there. Real feelings based on wrong thinking. First of all, this was like before the Renee Goode thing became like super clear about what happened. And the body cam came out that clearly shows the officer getting struck by a 4,000 pound deadly missile that she, you know, drove into his body. And again, what you got is you've got real feelings based on wrong thinking. And then he's, they're doing hands up, don't shoot. That's obviously for Michael Brown. Ferguson, Missouri, 2015. Exact same thing is you have nationwide protests, cities get burned down. I think 13 people end up killed in BLM riots. And then whoopsie daisy on the back end. Everybody figures out, hands up, don't shoot. Literally never happened. What happened? Real feelings based on wrong thinking. Trinity, will you pull up that X thread? Okay, so here's what people, and dude, we don't gotta deep dive into this. Here's what people gotta realize is happening right now. First of all, what I'm not saying is that every single action by every single ICE agent in all of America is completely righteous and approved of. No, it's not. They're not. You are going to see agents do wrong things.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

They're people And Vice President Vance today said that it should be investigated. So where it's happening, the Vice President said, hey, if that is happening, those people should be investigated. Like, if I see people doing wrong things, they should be investigated.

[Pastor Josh]

That's right. Why? Yeah, because nobody's above the law. That's right. Which, by the way, includes the people that they're trying to police on the immigration thing. So here's what you got to watch out. This happened right now, man, is people are not realizing. I'm just saying this. They are not realizing the degree to which you are in the middle of a propaganda war right now. So, like, dude, the exact same thing with Renee Goode. The exact same thing with hands up, don't shoot. That's happening right now with all the ICE stuff. So go down Trinity. Like, I got this. Go down to the next one. So, like, and I won't go through this whole thread, but, like, what I. What I've been doing lately, I started noticing, whoa, like, this is, like, legit, a propaganda war. I started screenshotting every example where you get, like, a highly emotionally incendiary image or video that later it's discovered was selectively edited and that, like, an actual rational story about what happened was hidden from view. Why? It's. The goal is to emotionally manipulate people into, like, a. A frenzy against law enforcement. So here's what you got. I'm going to just give a couple examples. So this goes viral. A baby was hospitalized after being tear gassed by ice. By the way, this is a congressman. The little image says the family was not legal and not Eve, was not illegal and not even protesting. They were just driving home from their son's basketball game. This can't be reformed. Time to abolish ICE now. And they show a picture of the baby that's in the hospital. You see that from a U.S. congressman, and you're like, dude, how Any human is like, how awful. Okay. But then later, here's what you find. Here's reality. You find out they find video. So the family claimed we weren't even protesting. We were just trying to get to our son's basketball game. They raised $175,000 in a GoFundMe. Everybody's, like, rallying around him. Then later, you get a video. You can see it right there. Keep it right there, Trinity. You get a video, they find that exact same family in the riot obstructing law enforcement in the video. And then they find out the family lied, that actually they went and protested for multiple hours, left their baby Alone in a car in the middle of a riot. People that were rebelling against law enforcement caused law enforcement to have to, in self defense, do tear gas. And their baby that they left alone in a car in the middle of a riot received some of that because they left it alone in a car. So again, selectively edited, highly emotionally manipulative image. But then, oh, wait, here's what happened. I'll just do, you know, let's do. Let's do one more here. Axios tweets. Deaths in ICE custody reached 20 year high amid Trump enforcement push. And you see that, you're like, dang, man, must be awful. Then you find out what actually is going on. Yet again, the media is trying to twist data to smear law enforcement. There has been no spikes in death. Consistent with data over the last decade, death rates in custody are 0.00000007%. As bed space has expanded, we have maintained higher standards of care than most prisons that hold US Citizens. Da, da, da, da. Again, the only reason the deaths are, I think, higher by like seven people or something like that is because they're doing more law enforcement. I'll just do one other one, and then we'll shut this down. All these went mega viral, like, because here's the deal. It's Charles Spurgeon's thing that a lie is halfway around the world before the truth ties its shoelaces. This went crazy viral. This little white girl just losing her mind, sobbing because she was watching a neighbor, an elderly neighbor, get detained by ICE agents. This goes crazy viral. Honestly, you see that and you're like, oh, man, my heart breaks. And you're seeing an elderly neighbor get escorted out of the house, and everything in you is like, stop. Y' all, stop doing that. But then the story comes out. Actually, what was happening is ICE was detaining two convicted child rapists that were living at this elderly man's house. The elderly man was either harboring or refusing to comply with police officers to try to detain. Oh, by the way, two convicted child rapists. So again, it's like, this is what you got to watch out for. Christians have to be people who we take time to reflect Proverbs. He who states his case first seems right until another comes and examines him instead of just emotionally reacting. Okay, so. And that's what you see there in the justice for Renee. Good. Hands up. Don't shoot. All right, let's.

[Carlos Arazo]

There's more.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, yeah, dude. Yeah. I mean, I won't do the whole thread. There's I literally. There's like 20 of those. There's like 20 examples like that.

[Carlos Arazo]

We got more in the video.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, yeah, keep. Yeah, go, go to. Keep going on the video there. What do you think of it?

[Carlos Arazo]

I mean, this is unacceptable. It's shameful. It's shameful to. To enter up.

[Pastor Josh]

Pause this real quick. By the way, that pastor. Well done.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Yes.

[Pastor Josh]

Well done, brother. This dude cold. Ice cold. Stays calm. Talks about Jesus. Great job. Keep. Let's keep going.

[Carlos Arazo]

A public gathering of Christians in worship.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

But there were folks.

[Carlos Arazo]

I have to take care of my flock.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Listen, we live in a.

[Carlos Arazo]

There's a constitution in the First Amendment.

[Pastor Josh]

To freedom of speech and freedom to assemble and protest. Whoopsie Daisy. Yeah. Nope. Paul, talk about this. Yeah.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

This is one of Don Lemon's favorite taxes in general and especially. Honestly, just progressive. Let's selectively take one part and leave out other things that may weigh in on this later. He's actually. Later in that week, he was in an interview with the Attorney General of Minnesota because immediately people are like, hey, this is a violation of what's called the Face Act, F, A, C, E. And the Attorney general comes on there and basically is like, what are you talking about? Only a would quote something that is free access to clinic entrances for reproductive health. Clinic entrances, and say that this could be applied to a house of worship. Well, the reason that people believe that is because we can read. That's right.

[Pastor Josh]

Good.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

So either that guy has not read it and he's the Attorney General, which says something, or he has and he's assuming we haven't, so he's assuming we're idiots. And so if you actually go and read it, what happened was originally this act was about freedom of access to clinic entrances for reproductive health like clinics. But then it was expanded. And what often happens is when extra things are added onto it, it keeps its original name.

[Pastor Josh]

Name.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

So in the first part of it, it is about free access and you can't intimidate people or do violence. But then in section two, it says, whoever by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction, intentionally injuring people or intimidating or interfering with. Then it goes on. Those seeking to exercise their First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship shall be subject to penalties.

[Pastor Josh]

There you go.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

First penalty for first offense is either fine and up to a year in jail. Second offense is up to three years. So literally, they added on a segment because Congress was concerned that we need to also, in addition to protect these clinics, we need to protect houses of worship and not Impede that. They literally said, you cannot go in there and interfere or intimidate the people that are doing that while they are doing it.

[Pastor Josh]

Yep, there it is.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

That's it.

[Pastor Josh]

This is like, Donnie's wrong. Yeah, he's wrong.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Just go read it.

[Pastor Josh]

That's not a protected thing. Okay. Then we can come up to my favorite. My favorite character in the whole ordeal. All these comfortable white people who are living lavish, comfortable lives while children are dragged into concentration. My man took his. Adam, you're living real life, nice lives with your lattes, doing absolutely nothing for your Latino and Somali brothers and sisters. You say you come here to a man wearing a suit, is a preacher. Did Jesus wear a suit? Okay, first of all, let me just point this out. You can. You can hear kind of like the. The. The racist sensualism. Yeah. White people. I. I will just point this out. Imagine here's. Here's what I like to do. Imagine it's reversed. So imagine it's reversed. Okay. Imagine what you had was a bunch of, like, white conservatives, white conservative Christians that break into a predominantly African American church to disrupt a church service and protest because they were in support of blm. Would Don Lemon be there saying, hey, man, first. First Amendment rights, you know? No. If they did that, like, nuclear bombs would be falling for three decades. Oh, well, like, that's.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

There's Anthony Bradley, who. There's half the time. I don't know if you know who Anthony is. Half the time, he does stuff. It, like, sets my hair on fire and other stuff. I'm like, oh, that's awesome. And this was one he just won by the. For those who don't know, Anthony Bradley, African American.

[Pastor Josh]

Yep, that's right. And so he basically just said, professor in New York, right?

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Yeah, I believe he's in New York.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Theology. I mean, he's great. He's great on so many things. But he just pointed out. He just said, listen, like, if they had gone to an African American church because a black ICE agents, which, by the way, there are some. Was a pastor, would they have done that? And he basically, like, no way. No way they would have even done it. So even getting more close to the home situation, it's like, y', all, let's just call this for what it is. It's a double standard. And with that, that's why I say, like, one thing, and I want to tell you, it's like, what. What fear infuriates me is like, lemon comes off is like, I'm bold. I'm gonna do what no One else would do like, dude, you're a coward. Yeah, yeah, you're a coward. You did, you did something that looked bold, but it was actually pretty cowardly. So keep going people.

[Pastor Josh]

That's right. Now. So here's the big like bro, here. So here's the big thing on this. Ask yourself the question, why a church? Why a church? Okay. What Christians have to get good at is understanding there's a spirit behind the situation. So I want you to stop and think about this. If you zoom out and you start going, man, I want to discern the times. What's the spirit behind the situation? Now think about this. In the Bible, sin is sometimes referred to as lawlessness. It's called lawlessness. Interestingly, when Satan empowers the Antichrist, guess what he's called the man of lawlessness. So check this out. Whenever you start seeing groups of people that protect law breakers and attack, now just, I'm talking about just laws attack, just law enforcers. Watch this, you can almost always know what's the spirit behind the situation. So dude, I just want you to stop and think about this. Sometimes people will, they think that I'm a little tinfoil Hatty on saying that some of the secular progressive stuff, that there's demonic things laced into it. I'm ten toes down on that. So just stop and think about this. So in the scriptures we talk about this often. There are three institutions for authority that God established in the Bible. The family, the church and the state. If you pay attention, secular progressivism aggressively seeks to tear down all three. So think about this. When it comes to the family, what you got over there in secular progressives, you got like hyper therapy culture. You got critical theory, queer theory, all the things, all of them end up resulting. They disciple people's kids to view their parents as the primary problem in their lives. And things like the kids going, no contact. Okay, let's do the church. Secular progressivism. Watch what it does. It's the whole deconstruction movement. It's all laced into secular progressivism and I would say the off rails excesses of the MeToo movement. That whole thing, it trained a generation generation to do to view the church as repressive, pastors as the bad guys. Any correction at all as like spiritual abuse and to leave the faith. Okay, now let's go to the third one. What about the state? Well, you're seeing it right there. The whole movement, it tends toward protecting law breakers and opposing law enforcement. That's where the whole hashtag defund the police comes from. And it ends up reframing any civil authorities that enforce any law as fascist. Now watch this. If you're looking at a movement, and the whole spirit behind the movement seems trained at literally deconstructing all three of the authority structures that God has established in the world. Listen, put on your hat and open your Bible. You can figure out pretty quick what the spirit behind that situation is. That's what's going why churches. That's why there's a spirit behind the situation. Final thoughts, boys?

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Yeah, I mean, I think I was just thinking about this and what was happening, and I just began reflecting immediately. And obviously what we need to do as Christians, what churches need to do in response to something like this, in response to persecution or things like that, you hit a big thing, which is learning to think through and discern the times and what's happening in general. Then I also wrote down three responses. And honestly, what I see is in Christianly, Christians only want to lean into one or two of these. But I'm going to say all three of these have to be present. I'm going to go to. I'll just read it off so I get it right. Number one, we have to remember Christians are people who love their enemies.

[Pastor Josh]

That's right.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

And we pray for those who persecute us because there are people who believe Romans 12:21, which says, we don't overcome evil with evil. We come over come evil with good. So we don't retaliate, we don't do what they're doing. I know it's so hard, but we're those people. As you said, turning of their cheek doesn't mean that we don't. Then follow us. We'll do this next one with the second point. But it is like we've got to march our own spirit. And we don't need to let the enemy get a foothold in our hearts of bitterness to those who are against us. Man. We pray that the same thing happened to the Apostle Paul would happen to every single person that just stormed into that church. But number two, we are also a people who believe in Romans 13:4.

[Pastor Josh]

That's right.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

And that says that the government is God's servant for justice and order. And so we say that those protesters should be put in jail.

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, that's right. Book them.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Book them. And I would say the same thing if it happened in a church that I didn't agree with their theology.

[Pastor Josh]

That's exactly right. Period.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Okay, so we believe both that we aren't going to retaliate against our Enemies. But we can also say that God has put in the government and people there to enforce laws, and they broke the law so they'd be in jail. But then finally, number three, we're a people who will then go to that jail and we will extend radical grace and forgiveness and share the gospel with them, because we're also people who believe Romans 1:16. That's. We're not ashamed of the gospel because the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes, including all the people that were in there protesting. So it's all those three. All three have to be present. We don't retaliate against their means. We pray for them.

[Pastor Josh]

That's right.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

But number two, we also are fine with them saying, then they should be arrested. And you know what? We will go preach the gospel to them and love them and hope they become our brothers and sisters in Christ. All three have to be present in our response.

[Pastor Josh]

I'll add a fourth, and then we can shut her down.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

Please add a fourth.

[Pastor Josh]

I'll add a fourth. The fourth, I would say is I'll just. There are some. There are some little niche movements, particularly primarily on the political right, that I would say, hey, bro, you need to watch it. Don't let the need for enforcement of immigration laws turn you into somebody who has no love for immigrants. And you start like, there's this thing now where there's like a blanket demonization. It's like, oh, man, that ain't Team Jesus. That ain't. So I'll add a fourth.

[Pastor Paul Cunningham]

That's great.

[Carlos Arazo]

That's good, man. That's good. Yeah. Jesus said this would happen. Opposition.

[Pastor Josh]

That's right.

[Carlos Arazo]

Expect it. It's not if the culture hates you, it's when the culture hates you. And so may the Lord give us wisdom to respond like Jesus would. Pastor Josh, would you pray for us?

[Pastor Josh]

Yeah, man. Father, thank you for this, Lord. I just. I'm still. I'm thankful for what you did this week. A night of prayer and worship. And, Lord, I'm just going to keep saying, man, give us more, Lord, more. Pour out your spirit and immeasurable greatness on the people of Lake Point and all the people listening to this podcast. Father, I pray that everybody listening, there's some people that are listening alone, and in their lives, they feel alone. Father, I pray that you would move them to quickly assemble a band of brothers or a band of sisters that loves you with their whole heart and that will point them and encourage them towards Jesus Christ with their whole life. Father, grace them with that quickly. And bring those people to them. I pray for mass amounts of people at Lake Point to move into rooted for exactly that reason so their lives will be changed forever. And I pray it in Jesus Christ's great name. Amen. Amen. Amen.

[Carlos Arazo]

Live free, brother.

[Pastor Josh]

Sam.