← The Deep End With Lecrae
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- [00:00]
A
I sit here amongst so much wisdom and legacy.
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B
The thing that I pray most is that God would give them an unusual heart to love Jesus, would you please tell us what women can do? I keep hearing what they can't. Please tell me what they can do. Because God poured out his spirit on his sons and his daughters, God will
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C
allow things in our lives that are not preferential to us but are glorifying to Him. The problem is we. When you want to have government without God, what you create is a man centered government. And a man centered government will produce a division. God never skips the church house to fix the White House.
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D
God told me to tell you. Cause we can always trust him to work, but he can't always trust us. Sometimes when we're looking at the church, we want to do like Elijah did. This is what's wrong with it. This was wrong with the people. This is what they did to your covenant God. If we're not careful, we'll focus on what's wrong with the church. But when I'm reflecting on the church, I'm not just looking at what's wrong with us, I'm looking at what's right with us.
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A
This is the deep end with Lecrae. Well, I'm excited for this unique episode of the Deep End at one of the most spiritually influential places in my life, Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship Church. I can't even begin to tell you the history. You know, I was just talking to Pastor Vaughn about, you know, what we did years ago. A little, you know, feel like it was yesterday, but it was actually 20 years ago. But it's an honor to be here, and I have some incredible guests. You guys ready for these guests? So our first guest, you got to hear him a little bit earlier, but I want to give a little more insight about our first guest. More than 45 years in ministry, three decades of faithful leadership at Eastern Star Church, took a congregation of 600 and made it into one of the most influential churches in the city of Indianapolis. Books and teachings like the Song of Solomon, dialogue with my sons, with my daughters. He's helped people think deeply about relationships, manhood, family, purpose, stewardship, a rare ability to be deep, biblically, culturally grounded and practical and funny all in the same sentence. And so, y', all, you got to hear from him earlier. And before he comes out, I'm going to introduce someone else who's going to come out alongside with him, because that is past Pastor Jeffrey A. Johnson Sr. But listen, coming out with Pastor Jeffrey A. Johnson, you saw him as well, more than 50 years of ministry. The founding pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship, the founder of the Urban Alternative, a global Bible teaching ministry. Carried his voice across the country. Over 125 books written. How, how, how? Books like Kingdom Agenda, Kingdom man, the Tony Evans Bible commentary book. Yeah, yeah. This man has made history. He's changed my life. I'm honored, honored, honored to, to know him and to have him here. So, y' all please welcome both Pastor Jeffrey A. Johnson and Pastor Dr. Tony Ev. You can sit wherever they told you to sit, gentlemen. Actually, Dr. Evans, you can sit wherever you want. It's just, you know, you built the place, so I guess there's one more chair. And who do you think it'll be? Think it's going to be Jonathan? Well, let me, let me read you a little bit about the next guest. Our Next guest has five, nearly five decades in ministry. A founder and visionary, written 25 Bible studies, sold over 17 million copies. Incredible. She is one of the most extraordinarily gifted Bible teachers in the world, male or female, and is as honest as they come. A gift for scripture. A gift for being deeply personal. Will you guys make some noise? For the founder of Living Proof Ministries, Beth Moore. And Beth, do you have a name for your Bible? Because it's a. It needs its own introduction. It looks like it's a. That is one of the largest Bibles that I have ever seen, Ms. Beth,
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B
because, because it is super giant print. Because I have ruined my eyes on the Bible. Absolutely ruined it. So I could. I don't even have to do PowerPoint. I can do like this.
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A
Oh, my goodness. Okay, so we have, you know, so much to talk about. And let's. First, let's talk about why we're all here. We're here because we're talking about Kingdom, right? Two words, two worlds. And, you know, Kingdom is God's agenda, right? It's not a black agenda, it's not a white agenda. It's not a red agenda, it's not a blue agenda. It's God's agenda. His rule over everything. And so that's actually Dr. Evans message. I was just, you know, I could preach it, but he's right here, so it really makes sense. But, but, you know, the first word is we, right? It's not my kingdom.
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C
It's.
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A
It's. It's we, the kingdom. It's, It's. It's God's kingdom. And so what we did today is we wanted every believer in every generation, every background, every story to be able to, to to appreciate what's happening going on here today, because we collectively are the kingdom. So what we asked you to do is we asked you to send in your questions ahead of time. Y' all did not hold back. I usually ask the deep questions, but y' all went deeper than I did. So I'm using some of these. So don't blame me panel for these questions that y' all are going to get, because I didn't ask them. Some of them, the, the people here did. I mean, this is the deep end. So. And one other caveat for all of you on the panel. You all are brilliant communicators, brilliant speakers. You've written all these books. We ain't got a lot of time. So if y' all could figure out a way to just, you know, not do a 40 minute sermon. If we could just do. So let's do a little practice run. This, this one, I want each of you to answer, but just give me like a sentence. This is just a practice. You can get paragraphs later. But just really quick, let's try a sentence. All right. It's just. Just a sentence. No sermon. What is one thing the Western American church is getting right right now? And where can we improve?
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B
Do we have to do the second part in one step?
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A
Come on now.
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B
I think we've got right that Jesus is Lord.
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D
That's good.
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B
And I think what we could use practice on is actually living out that. That is the point of all discipleship.
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A
That's excellent.
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C
I think what we've got gotten right is that people need to hear the gospel. What we need to do the gospel's content. What we need is a better understanding of applying the gospel scope so that people don't miss the content because they don't see its manifestation in the scope.
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A
It's good.
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C
Good.
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D
What I tell young preachers, you can't go wrong with Jesus. And so I think that the focus on Jesus Christ as savior, as Lord, we've gotten that right. We gotta get back to what the original writers meant when they wrote the Bible. Rather than trying to read our own ideas into the scripture, let's let the Holy Spirit reveal to us what the original writers were trying to get across us.
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C
Good.
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A
Look at that. Like a sentence. And we all learn so much. You see that? You guys are brilliant. Okay, now, I'm not gonna limit y' all to a sentence. I just wanted to see if you could do it honestly. You know, Dr. Evans, you and Dr. Lois Evans founded O.C.B.F. 50 years ago.
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C
50.
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A
And now your son Jonathan is leading the church. Let's be honest. What does that actually feel like? I don't want the press release answer.
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C
Well, it feels it has a negative and a positive. The negative is that you're not doing what you've been used to doing for the largest part of your life. And you can miss pieces of that. And so there are times when I do. At the same time, there is the positive of the excitement to see how God orchestrates the good, bad and ugly to accomplish his sovereign purposes and to see how he's done that in the life of Jonathan.
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A
That's great. Pastor Johnson, you. You were speaking about transition as well, and just, Just talking about you, you know, laying. Laying that mantle down and, you know, sacrificing the oxen, so to speak. I took notes. I'm. I'm curious. Like, what surprised you the most? And, and what do you wish somebody would have told you before you started this?
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D
Well, for one thing, I don't miss it. Like Dr. Evans, I don't miss it at all. 37 years in the same ministry, preaching 3, 4, 5 times every Sunday, plus a couple of times during the week, and 100 meetings every week. I don't miss any of that. What I didn't see coming was the grief that the congregation would go through. They. They wanted me to stay. Some people thinking he must be sick, that's why he leaving. I ain't sick. I wanted to get out of there before I got sick, But I didn't. I didn't know the stages of grief that the congregation would go through because I am not there. And I didn't see that coming. I wish somebody had given me a heads up on that. That was a great surprise, but it's been awesome to see them. And my son followed me. Jeffrey Johnson ii and his. It's been great to see the church being receptive to. And they, they helped raise him and they helped pay for his education and gave him the exposure to help equipped him for such a time as this. So that's been a joy to see. But I, I don't miss it at all.
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A
Your congregation is listening to you right now.
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D
They do grieve. It's been 18 months. They don't grieve anymore. They happy again. They.
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A
All right, that is good. I sit here amongst so much wisdom and legacy, and I'm curious about something. And we can start with you, Ms. Beth, on this. You know, as you get older, you can tend to see what younger generations are not seeing, right? Sometimes we only see what's in Front of us. And those younger than us only see what's in front of us. But you guys have a different vantage point. There are young, young people who are deconstructing, walking away from the faith. They're wrestling with issues with the church. What do you think they're observing about the church and what may they be seeing that, you know, leaders who are maybe a generation younger than you are not observing or, you know, unwilling to address?
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B
I think what they're seeing is a disconnect between what we are teaching and preaching and then what we are actually practicing so often and that so much of it's gotten promotional now that you can even hear messages that you can tell are orchestrated just for the clicks, you know, just. And that kind of thing. That people are looking for a platform instead of looking to Jesus. And I think that we in our generation want to somehow save them from that and say, listen, listen, this is the only thing that works. This is what makes everything fall into place, is that Jesus and only Jesus and the scriptures, that you stick with the scriptures and, and you don't just go every cultural avenue there is to make it, to make the scriptures match your position. We can see it because perhaps I'll speak for myself. We've made so many mistakes. And so you're like, oh my goodness, what I had to go through the chastisement that came from that. I wish I could save you that. Because I'm going to tell you, this is not going to look pretty on the other side. It's not going to. It's not going to be the flesh. It's not a spurt. The spirit is not a spurt. He's the Holy Spirit and it's a long obedience.
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A
That's good. Good, great. Anything you'd like to add to that? Yeah.
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D
Let me go before Dr. Evans. I know he Grace, say something profound and amazing. So let me get mine out of the way. Earlier when I was talking about rest right and eat right, I also mentioned and didn't spend too much time on it. Reflect right. Sometimes when we're looking at the church we want to do like Elijah did. This is what's wrong with it. This was wrong with the people. This is what they did to your covenant God. They hate your preachers, they trying to kill the prophets, all the great things, the miracles that God performed with him, the supernatural move of God. He didn't mention any of that. So if we're not careful, we'll focus on what's wrong with the church and we got our issues. We Got our challenge. But when I'm reflecting on the church, I'm not just looking at what's wrong with us. I'm looking at what's right with us. That's what got us through the middle passage. That's what's got us through slavery. It was the church that got us through the lynchings. It's the church that gave birth to the civil rights movement. It's the church that brought us safe thus far. And so all that history and even when we celebrate our black heroes and sheroes, y', all, they came out of church. Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, all these people we bring up, the church gave us and the Tony Evans, the church gave us these people. And then when we talk about the church, we only want to mention the negative things and then miss out on all the great things that the church has done and still is doing to lead us to where God wants us to be. Reflect right is what I'm trying to say.
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C
You know, the Bible is written over 1500 years by 40 different authors. It's not one book written at one time by one person. And over the movement of the Bible over these 1500 years, there are dispensations or administrations in which God gave specific revelation at the specific time for a specific group of people that unveiled further in the next group of people in the next series of times. So God didn't take what was for this later group and force it on the former group because the former group couldn't handle what would come for the later group that would be prepared to receive what the new information would be for them at that time. So when we look at contemporary application of the Word of God today, we've got to recognize that the Word of God has to be made relevant to the contemporary group that is hearing it without compromise. Its compromising its truth. We must speak to its relevant application. I think a lot of times, young people here, Christ is the answer, but we give the impression we don't understand the questions. So showing the relevancy of scripture to this generation without compromising its message is critical to show them that this message works today. That's good.
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A
Just want you all to know we are going to pass the plate around after this panel discussion and cause, man. Okay, so everybody up here has walked through a hard season. Whether that was publicly. Well, no, it was publicly. You know, for a few people, criticism, loss, leaving institutions or transitioning or starting over. I don't know anything about, you know, criticism or.
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B
No, I know you don't.
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A
But you know, for somebody like me. I'm just curious, maybe, you know, someone like you as you're going through these difficult seasons, what would you hope somebody would take from your walk? And. And again, I think we, we. We're going to start with you, Ms. Beth, again, because interestingly enough, I, I know during one of your hardest seasons, you had an unlikely friend when it felt like the church turned their back on you, you had an unlikely friend who picked up your phone calls. And it. It's Dr. Evans.
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C
Yes. Of all people.
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A
But I'm just curious, you know, what would you hope someone would take from your walk as you're battling all of this, whether it's loss or scrutiny or whatever the case may be.
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B
I'm. I'm thinking of the portion in Second Corinthians, chapter six, when it says, when Paul is talking about what is a ministry that can be approved, and he doesn't talk about the flashy things he says endurance in. And he starts this whole list of afflictions, hardships, calamities, honor and dishonor, slander and praise. And this I didn't think about at the time. I hope this is what they see. It's just what there truly was, and that was just pure endurance. I think, maybe. I don't know about controversies across this panel, but I think that I would be able to say that, you know, we were called into it by Jesus and He's who will also call us out and we're just gonna, you know, we can't force ourselves into a situation. But there's. The only person that can make me quit is the person of Jesus Christ. That's. That's it. That's it. Maybe the audience changes, maybe the numbers drastically reduce, but I'm in it for Jesus.
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D
Great.
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C
Well, for me, it's looking for the purpose and the pain when you're hurting due to loss or transition. Been through both of those. Whenever in Scripture, God was getting ready to do something new, there was trial or conflict or difficulty in the transition, and there was often even contradiction in the transition, things that didn't make sense, that didn't add up. But that's because God was doing something new. I mean, I probably would never have voluntarily relinquished my role here. I would have probably gone to my grave doing what I do. But God allows and causes and uses things in our lives to force things that he wants that we would never do.
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B
Yes. So, yes,
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C
I'm sure you would have walked away from your professor.
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D
I would have tried. When I was thinking through my stepping aside from being the lead Pastor, Eastern Star Church. I talked to Sam Chan out of Atlanta. George. George, some of y' all know him. And he kind of helped me to think through some things and walk through. Here's what Sam Chan said. The difference between a successful pastor like Tony had 50 years of success like that, and then those who are not as successful as you might think, whatever success is to you, so you got a successful pastor, and those who are not very successful. He said the difference is the threshold of pain. We do a documentary on Tony Evans, and 95% of it were high times. But the threshold of pain that comes with Christian leadership. What do we learn from that? Jesus said, you shall have tribulation.
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B
Yes, yes.
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D
But be of good cheer. I've already overcome the world. So each of the challenges and the suffering and the difficulties, I was able to just get stronger with each one. When you go to the gym and you see people in there working out the Jonathan's in there, they. They got like that because they. They pick up something heavy consistently. And when you keep picking up something heavy, you get stronger and stronger, and then you get to be that successful pastor because our Christian leader, because you endured the threshold of pain.
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A
That's good. It's really good. All right, so this is the deep end. So we. We're gonna go there. You know, nobody in the church. Well, I won't say nobody. Many churches want to sidestep or avoid American politics. There's a lot of unrest, unrighteousness, tension, fighting war in American politics. And I think Christians are often trying to understand what do we do, and what does the Bible even say about what we're seeing in American politics right now? So I'll just throw that in the sky. And whoever wants to grab it,
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B
I don't mind grabbing it.
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C
Okay.
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A
All right.
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B
One of the things that I've become absolutely convinced of in recent years is that we're not attentive enough to the actual Gospels. I believe. I think it would be so important for every single person who is in Christ to spend whatever they study in the Scriptures through the course of the year to always go. I mean, I'm talking about detail by detail and syllable by syllable through one of the Gospels. One of the things that I have a group doing right now, and I've done this for the last couple of years, for 31 days, is that we take an approach to prayer that can only come from God's own priorities as expressed through the Gospels, so that we're walking with him. And I said, you're setting aside your Agenda, I'm setting aside mine. I'm not asking for things for myself. I'm not asking for things that make life better for me, which is for my whole family to be happy. All of those things. No, no, we're going to walk with Jesus and we're going to see what his agenda is. And when we do that and when we start praying out of his agenda, this is what he wants. These are the people he wants our eyes drawn to. These are the situations that repel him. And then this over here, the one beating his chest like this, going, you know, son of David, have mercy on me, a sinner. Those are the things that would compel him. I think that we would see a whole different thing. I think I want to be careful here because listen, my, my dad was retired army. My grandson is army reserves. I am, I love my country. But our American version, our Americanized gospel, let me put it that way, our Americanized version of the gospel is very much independent center where he taught us interdependence. It's very much self centered where prosperity means that godliness, it indicates blessing and godliness instead of the biggest test you will be in in your entire life. You understand what I'm saying? So I think that, I think that is huge because he would feel differently for us to say that what is good for me is good for everyone. We would not find that in the Gospels. It is a sacrificial love, a love that looks out. If we are not looking out for the poor, we do not have the eyes of Jesus. We just don't, we don't.
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A
Any other takers?
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C
Well, God doesn't ride the backs of donkeys or elephants. We have to understand that the, the Bible is thickly political because the Bible says God established governments. He raises up kings, takes down kings, he appoints rulers, he, he discards rulers. You see God. And then of course Romans 13 says that the government is established by God. So politics is intricately tied to God as the author of the fourth covenant that God established, which was government. The problem is when you want to have government without God, what you create is a man centered government. And a man centered government will produce a division. God never skips the church house to fix the White House. So if you want to see politics handled rightly, the church has to be unified around the biblical principles that inform government, not the parties that represent government. And if you're informed by the biblical principles that inform government, then that means no party can own you because you transcend every party with the principles of the kingdom of God. That's right.
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B
That's right.
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D
When Israel, when the Hebrew people were in slavery In Egypt for 430 years, God sent a prophet by the name of Moses to address the head estate of Egypt. Tell Pharaoh I said, let my people go. Elijah went to the head of state of Israel, Ahab, and started talking to him about the wickedness and the wretchedness and the wrong that he was doing and the impact it was having on the nation. When Jesus was born in the Gospel of Matthew, it tells us the political climate. He, Herod was the king of the Jews. And then here comes John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus, addressing Herod the king of the Jews. And even as Jesus was getting ready down the cross for your sins and mine, he was dealing with the governor, Pilate, helping him to understand, you ain't got no power except my father give it to you. You're not taking my life. I lay my life down. If I lay it down, I'll pick it up again. But we don't need Christians, people of faith, to sit on the sideline doing nothing and allowing people to get in office, making these policies that are not inclusive, making policies that hurt our community, that come up with systems that pastor talked about in that documentary, Systemic racism and ageism and sexism and all. And then Christians sit back and do nothing. I want believers to get involved. I want us to choose who these leaders are. I want us to pick the people who are going to be making the policy. And I want us to do like Elijah and anoint them and set them apart and pick them and prepare them and place them and then empower them. I want Christians, the people of faith, to make that happen. And I guarantee you this nation will be a whole lot better than it is right now.
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A
Great, great. We've been saying we, the kingdom, because this is, you know, a kingdom conference. And you know, I want to press on that word we, because the church often says we while meaning some of us. And I think no conversation proves that more than women in ministry. And so, Dr. Evans, let me begin with you. You, you, you hold what is what I believe is a complementarian view. It's which, it means that women and men are complementary to one toward one another. But, but at the same time, you also raised this, this daughter named Priscilla who teaches the Word to millions. How do you hold these two in together, this complimentary view and this daughter
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C
who's teaching millions of people. Well, when you're starting with the scripture, those are very minor problems because the scripture holds them Together. And the way the scripture holds them together is that the Scripture makes a distinction between gifting and positions. The wife is different than the husband, but there is an order to the functional operation with the equality of people in the Godhead. The Godhead works this way. They're all equal, but their function is different. And therefore you can have unity with diversity of function while unity in the essence of persons. So a woman is equal to a man in terms of their personhood. But there is distinction in function when. And that's how covenants work, by the way. That's why First Corinthians 11 says, Christ is over God. God is over Christ. Christ is over every man. A man is over a woman. Not every woman, a woman. So there's an order to the covenant. When you get out of order, you break the covenant. When you break the covenant, you. You lose God, because God is a God of covenantal order.
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A
Miss Beth, I would like you to respond to Dr. Evans.
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C
Because.
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A
Because you're on the other side of this. In some senses, the church has. Has had a category for what women can do and what they're called to be. And what do you think a robust vision for women in the kingdom actually looks like?
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B
The thing that I have asked over and over again in so much emphasis on what women cannot do, I have said this, I've said it publicly, I've asked directly, I've used names in asking, then would you please tell us what women can do? I, I keep hearing what they can't. Please tell me what they can do. Because God poured out his spirit on his sons and his daughters. And so one of the things that I have really had taken issue with, because I've somehow come out of it with, because I got said about over and over again that I was initiating women to go for the pulpit of their church. Anyone that actually knows me knows that is not true. And many of the pastors who said such a thing knew that that was not true. There is nothing in my materials that would ever convey that. What I do convey and have conveyed over and over again is that women are very, very gifted. Give them an opportunity and watch what. Let them do what God has given. Yes. Okay. If you wanna say, okay, women are not elders, women are not pastors of churches. I can go with you right there. I can go with you. But when it then becomes that any way they act in a ministerial way. Wait a second. Now it's become subjective. That's no longer biblically objective. That's now subjective. You can just decide, well, we're not gonna have any. That. That woman can't teach Sunday school because her class is too big. So it's just like. You've got to be kidding me. You can't look at Jesus, look at how he, I mean, made a point out of including women in the work of the gospel. Even entrusting the message of the risen Christ to a woman who'd been demon possessed. I mean, and you know what? They told her to go home, but she didn't.
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A
There's some inside jokes happening.
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B
Oh, yeah. We've been friends for a long time,
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A
so remember I told you. I didn't, I didn't.
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D
Before we move on, can I say
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C
you got to that? Yeah.
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D
No, no, no. I'm not jumping in that. I'm not, I'm not jumping in that. I'm just going to answer with one sentence. One of the best preachers I've ever heard preach, black, white, young, old, male, female, is Priscilla Schreib.
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B
Amen. I said it. I said it.
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D
If you want to know if God can use women, she's an ocular demonstration of being used by the power of God to preach. That's my sentence. I'm done. I'm finished.
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A
I love it. If Priscilla could turn red, she would
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C
be red right now.
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A
Red. So like I said, I, I. Some of these questions are, you know, I didn't come up with all of these. There's a few here that people wrote in. And the number one thing on people's minds was relationships. So I have a couple relationship questions here. I'm gonna read this person's question. I'm 37, I'm single, never been married. God planted a desire in me for marriage and a family, but it feels like it's getting too late. I'm completely over singlehood. What's your advice for me in this season of continued waiting? And what scripture should I be pouring into to navigate these unmet desires? Pastor Johnson, you're the counselor, right? Didn't you say you was a. You, were you with a counselor?
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D
I'm a pass on that question. I'm going to. For real. And I wrote a book called the Song of Solomon. Love, sex and relate. Read my book, Song of Solomon. Love, sex and relationship. I'mma pass. I'm going to let the geniuses answer this question.
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A
They're trying to wrestle with singleness and getting over this season of continued waiting. Any advice?
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B
One of the things that I would say is I think it is tempting to imagine that marriage would be better than singlehood. And let Me tell you nothing. Let me tell you nothing is harder than a bad marriage. Nothing. Especially if you are a believer. Because when you're in Christ, it's not just, oh, I'm going to walk away. Oh, really? Are you walking in obedience to the Scriptures? So you, you don't want to be beating down that door is all I want to say. Invite the Lord. Yes. Tell him the psalmist said, you hear my every sighing, bring it to him. But in your wait, your waiting time is also your wind time. And I mean w h e n it's when you do everything you could possibly do in the name of Christ that you could not do with that kind of freedom. Mary, that's what I do. I'd be on a plane constantly. I'm sorry, I would, I'd preach anywhere I wanted to and let anybody tell me different, you know what I'm saying? So, you know, that's good.
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C
Cost of vacation, I ask. I have three sister in laws from my previous marriage to Lois who are unmarried. And I was talking to two of them. Not too long ago and about what they would say to single women who have not had the opportunity to be married and who are frustrated because I wanted not to speak as a man, a married man, but to speak as, to hear from people who are actually in that season. And they both gave me the same answer. And the answer was, our contentment is in the fulfilling of our calling because they were fulfilled in being used of God for what he had created and called them to do. That did not take away the desire to be married. It took away the dominance of the desire to be married.
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B
That's so good. Yes, yes, good.
- [42:25]
A
I mean, we could sit here for about two hours and I don't know anybody who would complain except Anthony, because. Yes, you know, for other reasons. No shade, Anthony, I'm just saying. But all of you are in this place of transition where you have built something incredible. You know, God has used you tremendously and now you are transitioning into a different season. Many of us who are younger, we don't imagine what transition looks like. We're focused on what's right in front of us. A lot of, you know, kids don't even imagine life past 30 years old. But for you three who have done so much incredible things, what can you tell us about this season of life that you're in now that we can hold on to and utilize as we go down the road?
- [43:39]
C
Heaven gets bigger and earth gets smaller. Because you understand, in a very practical way, time is not on your Side. Now that could be true in any season, but it is, it is most in your face in this season because God talks about, you know, three score and 10. I mean there, there, there is a termination time that the Bible even acknowledges. So what this season is saying to me is whatever you want to do, that you want to be rewarded at the judgment seat of Christ for and to reclaim and recapture any time that was lost, you can't when you're in a race, go back to the starting line. But what you can do is speed up the pace for the rest of the race that's left. So speed up the pace so that you cross the finish line having become a victor in the race God has called you to run.
- [44:43]
B
That's good.
- [44:46]
A
Before I want to speak, when you say speed of the pace, you don't mean like eat more fried chicken. I'm just for clarity.
- [44:53]
C
Well, that you just do that when you're relaxing.
- [44:56]
A
Okay.
- [44:58]
B
And reflecting.
- [44:59]
C
And reflecting, yes.
- [45:09]
D
Life is about choices. And each of the choices we make, consequences come with it. The enemy has a way of trying, trying to attack you when you young, to mess you up for when you older. When, when the policies in Egypt were to kill all the baby boys that if it's a girl, let her live, it's a boy, throw him in a Nile and kill him. And Moses mother hit him and, and then put him in that basket and. But the enemy was trying to get Moses when he was an infant so he wouldn't have to deal with him as an adult at the Red Sea. When Jesus was about 2 years old or so, King Herod put a policy in place Bethlehem, that if it's a, if he's two year old boy in Bethlehem, then, then kill him. If certain community, certain age, certain gender, certain color, trying to take Jesus out when he was 2 because if he could have got him when he was
- [46:38]
C
2,
- [46:40]
D
then they wouldn't have to worry about him. He was 33, dying on the cross for our sins. And life is a series of choices so that whatever choice you making now, when you my age, you're gonna still be living in the consequence of that. So the enemy's trying to get you early. So that some of the things that God has done in my life was because of the decisions I made when I was younger. What you walk away from always determines what you walk into. And so this transition for me is the right season, it's the right time based on the series of choices that I made and God honoring those choices. As I saw first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And then God honored that. So young people, don't try to put off living right till you my age. Do it now so you can benefit from it when you my age. Well, that's my take on that.
- [47:54]
B
I'll make mine as quick, as quick as possible, so we can stay right on schedule. I think that we're tested on this at different intervals of our lives with Christ, whether or not our identity is in position or if it is in the presence of God. And I think that if you and I say this to you who are young, so you will ask the Lord to keep that true of you all the way along, where this position does not define me. This place, this platform, this does not define me. I am defined by God. I'm a child of the. Of the Lord. And then when it gets to a point where. Where we're all getting and where I'll be in, you know, next June, I'm not leaving behind what my identity is in. I don't have to clamor to stay. And I will say, I do think one of the things we're seeing today is, is that boomers don't know when to leave. I really do. I really do. And if we're going to be. We've got to cheer on the generations behind us instead of just. I mean, just grit our teeth and hold onto that podium. That's not of the Lord. That's not of the Lord. This is time for us to cheer them on and for us to continue to nurture our relationship with Christ so that when we see see Him, I mean, we got as close to that thin veil as we could, and then, boom, there he was.
- [49:24]
A
Amazing. Were y' all blessed by this? I am. I am literally honored to be in the presence of you three. I am gleaning so much. It. It really is a privilege for me to even be sitting up here to be able to ask you these questions. I just feel prompted to just, man to pray for the next season of all of your lives. If y' all could just reach a hand up as we pray for this next season. Father God, we are eternally grateful for the work that yout have done, that yout continue to do in the lives of these three incredible individuals. Uh, Lord, the legacy that they have left and continue to leave, the mantle that they are passing on, the unselfishness and the sacrifice God that they exemplify. May we be able to learn from the three of them, Lord. Would you, Father God, allow their last day to be greater than their first Lord God, would you allow even days ahead, Lord, to blow the minds of them in the amount of time transformation and ministry legacy that they have contributed to all of us? Lord, I can attest I am a better man because of the ministry that exists on this stage. And we are better people. We, the Kingdom, are better Kingdom members because of their legacy. We ask this in Christ's name.
- [50:58]
C
Amen.
- [51:01]
A
This is the deep end with Lecrae.