#327 Josh Howerton - "In 50 Years, China Will Have More Christians Than America"

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Thanks to sheath for sponsoring the episode. If you spend any time off road like I do, you already know how easy it is to end up second guessing where you're at, whether you're still on a legal trail or if the route ahead is even worth taking. That's why I've been using on-x off-road. It's an off-road navigation app that shows trails, public and private land boundaries, places to camp, and detailed trail info all in one place. And what makes it really useful is the amount of actual trail data. You can check difficulty ratings, terrain details, trail photos, even recent reports from other riders before you head out there. The other big thing is you can download maps ahead of time because once you lose service out there, your phone is pretty much useless. But with on-x off-road, everything still works offline. And if you're riding with a group, their location sharing feature lets everybody stay on the same map so nobody gets lost or separated. What I like most about it is it gives me a lot more confidence when I'm exploring somewhere new. I'm not wasting time backtracking, accidentally ending up on private land or trying to figure things out once I'm already deep into the trail system. I can plan ahead, know what I'm getting into, and spend more time actually enjoying the ride instead of worrying about navigation the whole time. Search on-x off-road in the app store or Google Play. Again, that's on-x off-road in the app store or Google Play. Josh Howard to welcome to the show, man. Alright. It's an honor, my friend. It's an honor to have you. It's an honor. So yeah, I've been, you know, my chief staff came from Dallas and she kind of put you on my radar. I was watching some of the stuff. Like, I don't remember how you popped up, but she had made a suggestion about you coming on and I was like, he's already on the list. Well, dude, I think she's a former lake point member. She is. Yeah, he is. Yeah. So that was a very cool connection, man. Well, and you know, it's cool to meet the people you list. I've been watching you for a minute. Yeah. I appreciate you. Well, thank you for saying that. Yes, sir. But, um, so yeah, we've got a lot of stuff to talk about today. I'm in, man. I'm pumped. I'm in. Hey, before you, can I give you something? Yeah. I gotta give you a gift. Uh, I appreciate what you've done for our country. This is a big deal to me. It took me a long time to find this. Here's what this is. You may have seen this in here. I heard of a heart shield Bible. You ever heard of? No. This is like this. Make my sweat a little bit. So here's what this is. I want you to hold down. So that's a 1943 heart shield Bible. And what that is in 1943, uh, present FDR, he partnered with, I think, the Gideons. They handed out these little pocket new testaments to active World War II soldiers and broke what they did is here's why that thing. I don't know if the viewers can see the front of that thing is plated brass. And the reason they did that is they designed it so that it could fit in the front pocket of a active World War II soldier so that it could stop a bullet. No way. And dude, um, so that guy, you'll see it on the inside of the one I found. The guy, there was a, I think an Air Force colonel that wore that into active duty. And Sean, honestly, man, one of the reasons I said, I don't, I don't do this. I don't travel. I don't travel. Yeah. I've got kids and I'm focused. One of the reasons I said, yes, it is is just what I see God doing in Indian three. And the reason that that thing means so much to me, dude, that's what that is. It's a prayer that the president wrote for those soldiers to read that book. Wow. And the reason I want you to have that is a man, you know, I'm in it with you. There's that thing that above all, it would sit right over a soldier's heart. And there's that thing above all else, guard your heart from it, throws the, blows the wealth, well, spring of life. And how do you guard your heart? I've hidden your word in my heart that I might not send against you. So there you go, man. Thank you. No, thank you. Really cool. Thank you. Thank you. Wow. I thought it was pretty cool. Thank you. This is awesome, man. Yes, sir. Thank you. Yes, sir. Beautiful. Beautiful. Well, I got a present for you, but it's not that sentimental. Come on, man. Get your bag of gummy bears. I love going sugar, red dyes, yellow five, all the bad shit, but they taste amazing. So, and they'll probably be illegal here in a couple of months. I mean, is there a pot in those? I need to know right now. No pot. All right. Good. Sorry. I can have it. Sorry about that. But yeah, that's good, man. But just candy. Just candy. All right. But let me give you an introduction here. Pastor Josh Howardton, your senior pastor of Lake Point Church in Dallas, one of the largest churches in the country, you're known for addressing difficult issues at the intersection of faith, culture, politics, and apologetics. You're also the host of live free podcast, your husband, your wife, Jana, and the father of three adopted kids. Welcome to the show. It's an honor. So, before we get started, you want to pray? I would love to. You want to lead us? Yeah. I would love to, man. All right. Jesus Christ, thank you for being the sovereign and loving Lord of all the universe. And thank you, therefore, from before the foundations of the world. You picked this moment for me to have the honor of talking to Sean and every man and woman that will listen to this thing. A father, I pray that you would just kiss it from heaven. There'll be an open heavens over the conversation on the Lord. You would lead us in paths of righteousness for your namesake in a way that would be a blessing to Sean, his family, and everybody that listens. I pray that in the crucified risen name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you. All right. Here we go. Let's go, man. Here we go. So, third generation pastor. Correct? That is correct. And you were here. I was here. I was here, dude. So, my papal, Jerry Howard in, my life hero. He was kind of blue collar, Ozark Mountains kind of kid. And grew up, became a pastor. He was a little rural, rural church pastor all over Kentucky, Missouri, Michigan. I mean, all over the place. I moved a truck for a little while and became a pastor. And man, I miss him, one of the best men I've ever met. And then my dad Rick Howard in, pastor as well. And he started a church, rubbed two sticks together, started a little church here in the Spring Hill kind of around this area, the bridge church. Well, yeah. That's like 15 minutes out there. That's right, man. So my dad started that church and then I had one of the greatest honors in my life to this step into my dad's shoes and past that church for about 10 years. And was there for about 10 years. Lord did a really unique thing and then called us a douse. Right on. How did you, I'm just curious, how did Christ come into your life? I mean, how did you, what, what built your faith? Did you just always have it or was it something happened or, I mean, I'm a hard knocks guy. He had to slap me around a little bit to, he still does it, I'm going through one right now. But, but, but, you know what I mean, but, but I like, I don't, I don't like it in the moment, but it, you know, it, it'll 100x my faith, you know what I mean, every time it winds up has been and, and to the point where it's not in faith anymore for me, it's fact. And so I'm wondering, you know, did you just, did you always have it because you grew up in it or are there any specific events that really just hit you like, okay, all this stuff that we're talking about, it's real, this is for real, for real, man, honestly, I'd say both, you know, I'll just honor my parents, uh, I got, I got, uh, make my sweat a little bit, I got, I got good parents and they love me and, uh, man, you know, I grew up in the nine, I'm 80s baby, but the 90s made me kind of thing and, you know, grown up in the 90s, it was kind of like cool to be a pastor's kid and kind of rebel and, you know, I didn't understand that at all because I like every second of my life, I love being Rick Howard and kid, pastor rick's kid, loved every second of it. So whatever they had, the experience they had, I'd be opposite. So I grew up like my parents raised me just like awards says in the fear of, and I have edition of the Lord, you know, I got a million memories of mom sitting there. there and quiz me on Bible verses growing, you know, all the stuff. But I will say there definitely came moments where it was like, so here's how I say it sometimes like what you just said is like, man, every now and then you'll go through it a little bit. And, you know, you have those moments where, you know, you kind of get knocked flat on your back, but what you'll notice is whenever you get knocked flat on your back, you find a little look in the right direction kind of thing. And, you know, when I look back in my life, there were moments where it was like, oh, like I'm a, I'm a, I'm a for real for real center. And he's a for real, for real savior. And I, I need something, I don't got this. I need something a lot bigger than me. And so, you know, I think probably around college, you know, I had a couple head on collisions with my own depravity. And I remember I'll just, yeah, I haven't talked about this in a long time. I remember right now my journal in college, like where, you know, dude, you probably got the same stuff. I'm just like, just like you, that you send the same dumb sin for the millionth time. And, you know, thank God, I didn't journal back that. But I didn't go to college, but that age, yeah, yeah. I remember, I remember journal in college. And I was reading the gospels. And, you know, I think a lot of people think Christianity is like a bunch of good people tell bad people how to be good. And, you know, it's like, you figure out real quick, that is not what this thing is. The whole thing is like, I'm not good. It's actually, you know, it's a bunch of forgiven nobody's trying to tell everybody about somebody who can save anybody kind of thing. You know, I remember being in college and sin in the same dang sin for like a millionth time. And I remember reading about Jesus hanging out with prostitutes and tax collectors. And it was the first time, dude, I haven't talked about this. I maybe ever, it was like the first time my life for like, it hit me like, oh, like, I fit right prostitutes and thieves. I feel right in. And I remember journaling and going like, man, it really dawned on me today that, you know, Jesus didn't come for a good. He came for prostitutes and murderers and thieves and race traders and I remember journaling. And today I realize I fit perfectly into that category. And I honestly think that's usually the minute when somebody meets the real Jesus. Because you got, you got to know you're a sinner to realize he's a real savior, you know. So I had a bunch of moments like that. Right on. When did you know that you were going to kind of follow in the family footsteps? Did you ever become a pastor? You know, how long have you been a pastor? You know, I started traveling around in preaching, like in college. Actually, my youth pastor, Jeff Carlisle, he stood me out with a preaching. I was like 16 in the youth group. And I just honestly, you know, you probably seen the same thing. The difference between men that grow up and they become good men and builders and makers instead of takers and breakers kind of thing. It's usually they got other good men in their life. Like, that's literally the different, you know. And I had a bunch of good men in my life. And Jeff Carlisle, I was one of my youth pastor. And it was like, I was 16 and he stood me up there. And he was like, Hey man, I want you to I want you to preach a youth group. I don't know what I'm going to do. And, you know, I just explained a verse about red. And he grabbed me afterwards, like, Hey man, I want you know, like when you talked, everybody, everybody listened. There was like a little heat on that thing when you did that. And I just people around me kept saying, Hey man, we see you at high school, the, the guys who maybe weren't on the same path that I was. They're a little joke. They call me rev. You know, kind of thing. It's kind of half making fun of me a little bit maybe. But it was just something everybody kind of saw on me, you know. And then there was, I couldn't imagine to do anything else. How was your first, how was it ministering your first congregation? First time. You know, honestly, dude, not good, you know. So I was, I went up to, I went up to, uh, it was a Mount Washington, Kentucky. I was going to seminary, which for me to listen. And that's like post grad, that's like Bible, you get a theological degree. So I'm up there. I'm out washing in Kentucky, floor rural, first Baptist church up there, which sweetest people ever, like best experience ever. You know, I know some people have bad experience with churches. Whatever that is, I had all the opposite, you know. And, uh, the, I was there for like three years. And I grew it from like 150 students to like 120, you know. And it, yeah, honestly, it went okay. But, you know, it's one of those things like the, the order was with me. And I was figuring it out. Just like you, you know. Stop with it. Yeah. Right on that, man. All right. Let's get into some hard stuff. This is a new question. I just started asking. I'm going to ask everybody this question that comes on. It's, it's kind of in a position like yours. Why is Christianity the one religion that is totally acceptable to disparage? Yeah. All right. Can I give you, let me, let me just give a starting point here. Absolutely. I'm going to show you something. And I, I know you've seen it because it's right up there. So, do you remember this little thing? This, this is going to blow your mind. Do you remember that little thing? Oh, yeah. All right. So what that is? We'll put it up on screen. Yeah. So what that is, is that is a chart of every cross reference, uh, in the Bible. So what I want to talk about, I want to give a starting point. The answer to your question is, uh, in large part, because that's exactly what the Bible said was going to happen. So here, here's why I'm always going to go Bible. You know, I'm dumb about a lot of things. I try, I try to, I try to love the word of God. So here's a 16th that is every cross reference in the Bible, where the Bible references other parts of the Bible. There are 16,791 cross references, where parts of the Bible reference other parts of the Bible. And when you look at that, dude, it kind of blows your mind a little bit. Well, I just want to point this out. Did you say 16,000, 16,791 from what I understand. I thought it was 62,000. It may be six. Actually, you're right. Actually, Sean, you're right. I think it's 67,700. I was off by an order of magnitude. I think I do. I think it's 62,000 and some change. Okay. Okay. It's in the 60,000s. But when you look at that thing, I mean, you know, it'll blow your mind a little bit. And if you were to see that and one person wrote a book that did that, that many cross references and dovetails into other parts of the word, you would look at that person and you would think that is the greatest author who has ever lived like goat. No one will opus and masterpiece. Okay. But that book was not written by one man. It was written by over 40 men across 1500 years, across three continents, Asia, Europe, and Africa in three different languages, Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. It has one unified story. It has zero contradictions. Now, listen, when I see that, like that'll make my eyes wet a little bit because there is only one way to explain that. And it's that that book over there, it was written down by man, but it was authored by the word of God by God Himself. So when you ask that question, the response to question, why is it the one thing that everybody can disparage? Well, man, like when we open a word, what we know is from Genesis one, two, and three, we know immediately what Satan does after the fall mankind is he begins to wage war on the offspring that God is going to use to redeem the world. So that's the storyline of the entire Bible is word versus world. If you, if you skip forward all the way to the end, you go to the book of Revelation. A lot of people they get into Revelation and it's like, you know, they start reading and it's like, you know, Jesus looks like metal and his eyes are flames of fire. And it's, you know, three headed dragons eating babies. And, you know, I think people start to go, I didn't know they dropped acid and ancient Rome, you know, kind of what what are they doing? What the book of Revelation is, is this really, it's not a lot of the book of Revelation isn't revelation about what's going to happen in the future. It's revelation about what's been going on behind the scenes in the spiritual realm throughout all of human history. That's what a lot of the book of Revelation is. If you get to Revelation chapter 12, you get this little vision of a dragon that represents Satan. And what it says that he does is he wages war upon the woman, which most Bible scholars go, man, that's the church, the bride of Christ and her offspring. So, man, if you're going why is Christianity the one thing that you can disparage is because the Bible says the whole world lies under the power of the evil one. The Bible actually calls Satan, the little g God of this world. Actually, if you want to get this kind of little, this really interesting, that actually in the temptation of Jesus, Satan does this thing where he comes Jesus and Thank you guys, have a nice day. all the kings of the world. And he tells him, he's like, "Hey, man, if you'll bow down and worship me, I'll give you all of these kingdoms." Now, what's really interesting is Jesus doesn't say they're not yours to give. There's like this tacit assumption throughout the entire Bible that Satan is really over all of the world's systems. And that's why everything in the world aligns against one thing in particular, and it's Christianity, Christ, and Christians. That's baseline. Sleep is one of the biggest upgrades you can make, but shopping for a mattress is usually a nightmare. You walk into a store, land something for five minutes, and somehow you're supposed to know if that's the one you want to sleep on every night for the next ten years. And that's why I like Helix. Helix makes the process simple. You take their sleep quiz, tell them how you sleep, what you like, and what you need, and they match you with a mattress that actually fits you. They have over 20 mattress models, so you're not trying to force yourself into one generic option. And the mattress itself feels high quality, comfortable, supportive, built to last. 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That experience has just always made me extremely paranoid about what's being sucked out of my phone, what information are people getting. I wanted something that could protect everybody, and so we turned it into an application we call it the glacier app. We have secure DNS. Now what's secure DNS? Well, very simply put, secure DNS keeps your phone from being exploited while you're browsing the internet. Just a couple of buttons, your phone's protected, you got yourself a burner number, or more. You hit connect, done, you're protected. This is like the real James Bond shit, MI6 CIA level stuff made in the US. The glacierapp.com or just go on the app store and look up the glacier app. Take your privacy back. Download glacier today. It's a good answer. In fact, actually, Kagolair deeper. I'll give you an example of this. So, do you know who Raymond Ibrahim is? I do not. You need to know that guy. So Raymond Ibrahim. Do you see alive? He is. Raymond Ibrahim, he comes from an Egyptian, Coptic Christian family. I just had him on the free and he's like, he actually got famous around 9/11 because he's a doctorate in Arabic. He got a job at the Library of Congress. So he's back in the stacks. This is going somewhere, Ibrahim. He's back in the stacks. So those are the books no one has access to. And he finds in Arabic transmissions from Osama bin Laden out to a bunch of, you know, terror cells or whatever that have never been translated. And then he like blows the whistle on. Hey, dude, here's what this guy is saying. This is what they're saying on BBC and CNN about why they're doing all this stuff. Here's what Osama bin Laden is actually saying. And it's, you know, it's killed the infidel's also. So he blows the whistle on. That's where where Raymond Ibrahim comes to fame. So he's on the podcast. He's like a, he's a leading scholar on intersection of Christianity Islam. Very interesting. Okay. So Ibrahim's on the pod. And off air, he tells me he's like, Hey, you know what actually pushed me to Christianity? I started study in the world and I noticed everything aligns against this one thing. And then he gives, dude, he gives this example, which I think a lot of people wonder about this. The example he gives is like, have you ever noticed that progressivism and Islam, but they always seem to be on the same team at least in America. You kind of seeing that. Yeah. It's kind of, kind of, in general, kind of tends to be a thing, which makes no sense because you kind of got, Hey man, we're over here, you know, gay rights, women's rights, you know, freedom of expression, progressive. And then you kind of got Islam is kind of, you know, kind of oftentimes the opposite of those things. Well, if you start asking a question, why would this, the women's rights people kind of align with kind of the thing that at least in many countries, Hey man, the kind of, you know, they'll do something to a woman that's not not wearing a burqa, you know, I kind of, Hey man, why are we doing, you know, queers for Palestine, you know, that's kind of like chickens for KFC, you know, that didn't make sense. Well, the unify principle is the enemy of my enemy is my friend, anything but Christianity and anyone but Christ. And Ebrahim sees that and he's like, everything's aligned against one thing. There must be something to that one thing. Interesting. You know, do you know who Eli Krain is? I don't. Eli Krain is a Congressman out of Arizona who's a Navy, so he's a good friend of mine. And he's a huge fan of yours. He somehow, he must have saw the post where that's all they're coming on. So he wanted, I wanted to wait till the end to ask this, but me and Eli bat the Israel topic back and forth. Pretty consistently. Yeah. And we just disagree. We have wildly different ideas of, you know, what this is and what the relationship should be and what's going on. And, but I, you know, I respect Eli. He's a pretty really good friend of mine. And so he wanted me to ask you about Islam and prophecy. Oh, jeez. Okay. All right. Just go with it. Just go for it. All right. You already know if you watch this, you know, we go to some dark, dark direction. Yeah. Let's go. Okay. Well, quick caveat. I'm just going to start right here. I'm a pastor and what my heart beats for more than anything else. It's for everybody, everywhere to know Jesus Christ and the love of the Father. So that's my starting point. So before I say anything, I want you Eli and anybody else that listens to know, I love every person that calls himself a Muslim and I hate Islam because it destroys people and attorneys. And I can do both those things. I can love a person and I can hate what I believe is demonic ideology. So let me just point some things out. So like some things that are interesting to me. And let me give a quick, I want to set this up. So like, especially you, maybe you shan, or maybe some people that are listening, you're going to hear some things here in a minute and you're like, man, there's some real dark stuff in the world. Like, in fact, I think a lot of the reason that you're seeing a resurgence of the purposes of God, I think a rising hope. I think we got a chance to see something special, man. I do too. I think we got a chance. And I'm willing to pour my life out for it. I think part of the reason, dude, is in the era leading up to where we're at now. And I'm going to get back to what you just asked. I'm making my way there. Is the obviousness of darkness became so smack you in the face that people, they awakened to the reality that there was a non-ignorable dark force in the world. And then, dude, I think what a lot of people do, especially young men right now, is they're going, man, if there's a darkness, there must be a light. And that light has a name, and his name is Jesus Christ. I honestly think that's a lot of what's going on. Now, that dovetails, what you're saying. I just want to point some things out that, you know, you or anybody else can think, I'm an idiot, that's fine, you know, whatever, I'm going to point some things out. All right, so what Muslims do in general, what a lot of Muslims do is they trace their spiritual lineage to Ishmael. So we're going to do, we're going to bubble nerd out for a second and we're going to go, we're going to do some old Testament theology in the make our way forward. Okay, so we're, we're new a little Bible study, we're quick. So in the old covenant, God makes his covenant with Abram, who becomes Abraham. Okay. And he tells Abraham through you and your offspring. And it's very interesting, Sean. This is very interesting. Just for a, I'm a Bible guy. When it says offspring, it's singular. So in other words, you're going to have one future offspring. And through that one future offspring, somebody out of your lineage, Abraham is going to bless the entire world. Okay. How do you know it's singular? In the book of Galatians, it specifically talks about that. In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul calls attention to the fact that it says offspring. So Paul is what I'm doing right now is I'm making the same point the Apostle Paul makes in the New Testament and it so points that out. It's a singular. Okay. Now obviously there's nations that come out of him and all of that stuff. But there's the specific promise is going to find its termination in one future offspring that I'll just pull my punch is Jesus Christ. Okay. So that's where we start. Now the promise and the covenant that was given to Abraham, obviously he was going to have a child. Now the child, he has to wait for a long time and he's waiting around for the promise to happen and he takes matters into his own hands and and his wife is the whole deal. His wife Sarah gives him his servant Hagar and they have essentially a a covenantally illegitimate child named Ishmael. Then later he and Sarah have a child named Isaac. So here's what you got what you end up with because of he and Sarah's disobedience is you have one covenant but you have two sons and now we got a problem because now we got two sons. They're going to end up fighting and all of their offspring are going to end up fighting in the spiritual realm. I believe it's connected to that over this one covenant. So then what you have is you have the children of the promise who who that those are the Jewish people historically and then you have what Muslims do is they trace their lineage to Ishmael. So this is what the other son the other son. Okay. Okay. So now one covenant two sons now you got a thing going on. Okay, you got that thing going on. Okay. Now fast forward in Galatians one eight Paul says this. He says but even if we or an angel from heaven. Now this is really important. I'm going to give you two verses where you connect connect some dots. He says but even if we or an angel from heaven should appear to you and preach to you another gospel. Let him be a cursed bookmark that in your head. Then you got another Bible verse in the New Testament that says that what Satan does is he quote masquerades as an angel of light. All right. That dude. I'm a I'm a you know I'm a dumb rural Kentucky kid but you start putting some things together and in the the 600s what Muhammad says happens is he now first of all let me just say I'm not like some Islamic scholar. I'm doing 30,000 foot big rocks. What he says happens is he wanders in a cave and he essentially does this he goes man man I was in there and it's a real weird thing happened. I was in there and this angel of light appeared to me and he started revealing to me another way to God that's different than the one that we've had. Now dude all of a sudden I'm going well that's really interesting because 600 years before he's doing his thing you got a Bible Bible verse saying what Satan does is he masquerades an angel of light and then you have a specific you have a specific warning that throughout history that an angel from heaven may appear and reveal to you another gospel why because Jesus came and he said I am the way the truth and the life and nobody comes to the father except through me and you just want to say this and this gets me a little trouble you know you may have some experience with this every now and then you'll do something the internet I'll get mad at you that happens to me and and you know one of the things that pastors don't have to try to be controversial they just got to read Bible verses and one of the things that Jesus said the man people they just hate it but man I didn't say this Jesus said and man I what kind of I'd be a horror I'd be a liar not to tell you what Jesus said and he said he was the way the truth and the life and nobody comes the father accept through him what he didn't say is I am a way a truth and a life and some people come to the father accept through me or also through me so then you got that so you got the birth of Islam and it seems to me man like it's the fulfillment of exactly what was warned against in the scriptures now I give you two other things Jesus said I think it's in the gospel John he said the time will come and he's talking about the end okay I don't know a huge end times guy but he's talking about the end and he says the time is coming when they will kill you and think they're offering service to God now I think what a lot of people have done in especially in America for like the last 30 50 years is a lot of Christians have been like man we're nervous about the rise of secularism and the rise of atheism and people are just de-converting and you know apostatizing that kind of thing but you honestly you take that verse of Jesus said real clearly and what Jesus seems to be saying is it like the final boss like when Jesus like right before Jesus returns the final boss it's not going to be atheism it's not going to be secularism it's going to be some other religion that believes that killing infidels is offering service to God seems like that's one clear meaning of what Jesus said now I'll give you one other one and then I'll I'll just point this out in the book of Revelation again Revelation is peeling back the curtain online now what's been going on in the spiritual realm throughout human history one of the things that it says is John gets this vision of all the martyred saints like that all that means just Christians so all the Christians that were martyred because they refused to not worship the lamb they're like we're like that's Jesus we're Jesus people we're team Jesus and it doesn't just tell us they were martyred it tells us specifically how they were martyred and it says he saw the souls of those who were beheaded now dude again I always want to take this with a grain of salt like I'm not a big like here's all the charts and here's when Jesus went to all the stuff but dude I do want to have my eyes open with my Bible in front of me and it is interesting to me man that that I'm aware of there is one major world religion and one only that doesn't just specify two sometimes kill people who have a different faith in you it specifies how and the Quran calls it striking next is beheading so you got that and then I'll do one last one it's hard to do for memory but I'll do my very best in Islamic eschatology so that's what eschatology means it's two it's it's uh it's two Greek words eschaton means last synology means study of so study the last uh in Islamic eschatology like the end of the world what it says is there'll be this figure that rises up called the maddie m-a-h-d-i and different in the same way that in Christianity there's like different sex of Christianity that view end time stuff differently and that's like not my fastball but you know as well as it's the same thing in Islamic eschatology different Muslims believe different things but there's some really interesting things that they believe about the maddie they believe that he will rise to power during global tumult they believe that when he rises to power he will unite the world in a one-world Islamic government they believe that that government will be headquartered in Jerusalem they believe that when he does it he will slaughter the Jews they believe that he will usher in a seven-year peace treaty in that area they believe that he will ride in they believe things like this that he will ride in on a white horse a dude I just want to point this out if anybody's listening and like hair standing up on back your head there's little alarm bells going off I just want to point this out if a little alarm bells are going off in your head because you read your Bible before that's because a lot of the aspects of the Islamic maddie are the exact descriptions of the new testament antichrist so do I know that's what's going to happen nope I don't but I do have my Bible open and I want to be a guy that's like hey man I'm ready I got my eyes open I'm waiting that's interesting to me interesting interesting it's Christianity is it is it growing or is it shrinking uh it's globally growing globally growing if I understand correctly because it seems like but I've seen a lot of charts and I think it's globally I think it's growing I think there's a resurgence happening but um I mean you see all these college kids getting baptized and Ross invest you know what I mean and I just saw another one it was like a couple thousand people I think got baptized on the beach yes that's my buddy Joey Martin what do you mean that's my but my past my buddy pastor Joey Martin he's sure that's one church oh really oh one church church 1122 shout out uh one church they baptized I think it was almost 4,000 people on a beach down there of Florida yeah wow 4,000 4,000 people I mean what do we're seeing it man you know I'm not a super emotional guy but if there's one thing it makes my sweat is is that man we are I'll just say this so like in my lifetime Christianity in America has generally been declining I'm 43 1983 uh feels like the tides turning and every pastor I talk to man I'm like every pastor I talk to it's like more people getting saved they've ever seen more people getting baptized they've ever seen church attendance spike like tides turning that's what I feel like but then I see charts and it says you know, it's a decline. Yeah, I don't know that's real? Do you have any insight on any of that? Well, I'm, you know, I'm not a sociologist. What I can say is so, you know, I don't like talking about stuff that I don't know for sure. What I have been told is that in places that have generally been characterized as the West. Can I ask you a question a second? Am I allowed to do that? Yeah. All right. In a second, I want to ask you why you think the tide is turning. But from what I understand, places that have been generally characterized as the West. So you're talking about like Eastern Europe and North America and Canada. From what I understand, in my lifetime, Christianity has generally been declining in the global, what's been called the West? Okay. From what I understand, Christianity has been exploding in Africa, the global South Asia. That's from what I understand. So you're hearing stuff about like, you know, Chinese house church movement, that stuff starts to explode, especially in the last 50 years. You know, I read something a few years ago, and I may get a detail wrong on this, that at current growth rates of Christianity in China, there will be more Christians in China in 50 years than Christians in America. Wow. So now listen, that's like, wow. So there's stuff like, man, there's stuff like that that's happening. Well, here's some stats. In 2007, 78% of US adults identified as Christian by 2023, 24 only 62% of 16 point decline in just 15 years among women 18 to 29 43% religiously unaffiliated in 2025 up from 29% in 2013. Churches were losing 1.2 million members annually before COVID. This engagement has accelerated since for the first time in American history, young people grow up with Christianity as one option among many, not the baseline assumption. So you know, I don't, I don't, I mean, I just, but I live in a, you know, this area is a little different than most parts of the United States. You know, this is, this is trying to see where in the Bible build. So he's, he's everywhere you go, the first question is, you know, what church do you go to? And it's not like that. It's not like that for many other places. Right. But I mean, you asked me, why do I think we're seeing a resurgence? I think we're seeing a resurgence because, I mean, I agree with you with the darkness. I also think that nothing makes sense. I think, I think the search for it. I mean, there has never been more distrust in US institutions, world institutions, our government. We've been lied to a lot by pretty much both sides of the political spectrum. And I think people are looking for something that's concrete and they're finding it in the word. I agree. You know, I think, I think it's, it's that basic. I mean, we can't even figure out what gender people are anymore. We can't, everything has turned out to be a lie. These wars, lies, past wars, lies, government corruption, lies, does it get fixed? No, it continues on. You know, and there's just nothing to really ground yourself in anymore, anywhere except the word. That's right. That's right, Sean. That's right, Sean. Man, I think that's, you know, maybe it's a good thing all this shit's happening. There's a verse in, there's a verse in Hebrews 12. This is what God does is, he shakes the things that can be shaken so that only the things that cannot be shaken remain. And I think throughout human history, the Lord does that where he just decides, like, hey, man, I got to, almost like I got to flip, I got to flip them and I'll play board real quick so that you guys see, like, hey, man, stock markets and institutions and ideas and ideologies, they're going to come and go, Jesus Christ is saying yesterday, today and forever. I also think, I think, I think what you said, like our church, you know, it's, it's especially, it's recent, you know, a bunch of tons of young men, it's young dudes walking in with families. I think what we said earlier, like, that's a little thing, that's like a little bit of my theory, is that I think Satan is so real and so evil. You know, it's like that thing, like, the enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy, but I've, I've come that you might have life and have it the full. And I think he's so full of evil and hate that in every generation when he gets some momentum on the field, there's that thing I said earlier, the devil always overplays his hand. And I think a little bit of what happened in the last, like, 15 years is like, I think you nailed it. Like, you made good the illusion over there, Sean, right? I think what he did is we got to the spot where people are looking around and they're honestly like, like, just, I'm just like normal, normal guys, they're looking around and they're kind of going like, man, like, who's going to tell my son? He can't be a chick. Who's going, who's going, who's going, is that that constant? And honestly, you got to the spot where there wasn't many places in our culture left besides the Church of Jesus Christ. Even a lot of churches are putting that out. Yeah, I don't like Colin. I don't like. Probably not in Texas. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there are. You can go to the Northeast and you can see, you can see it, you know, yeah, bodies welcome. Everybody is welcome. Why do you have to say it like that? We know everybody's welcome. Yeah, that's right. You know, that's right. I would not call those churches, but I understand what you mean. I think another thing too, you know, is, I'm not, I'm not trying to get political here, but it just is what it is. I mean, I think that, you know, we've seen, and I'm guilty of it. You're probably guilty. I'm sure everybody's guilty of this at some point. But, you know, you, you, you know, we've just become so tribalized here and we've put our faith in, in men, in human beings. And, you know, you go on one side of the aisle and it's, this guy is going to save the country and 90% of it was fucking bullshit. You know, you go to the other side of the aisle, same thing. So you get these two groups that were both really, I mean, the majority of the statistics aren't lying. You know, the, the majority of both parties have been let down by the people that they stood behind and propped up and it's, it's disheartening and, and you can see what's happening and what's happened. And it doesn't align with, with, with what people want. You know, there's some kind of, something's going on in there. I mean, I think there probably always has been, you know, it's just the line lines kind of, on and these younger generations are a lot more skeptical than we ever were in the, in the, in the people who pull us. And so, when you see how bad it actually is, I mean, where do you? There's nowhere else to go. You know, it's nice. Like, I got a lot of thoughts on what you just said. I think you're on to something. There's a reason the word says trust not in princes. You know, it's like some things that I can hope that a human leader will do, you know. But at the end of the day, you know, I'm not going to trust a king. I, I really got to put something in a, in a king of kings, you know. Uh, yeah. Yeah. You know, you're a thing of like, at the end of the day, where are you going to go? I, I think, I think that's what people, you know, with that, what it reminds me of, I, I love know how this kind of lands on you is, you know, a parable of a prodigal son. And you, you got to, you know, you got the kid who, you know, great, great dad, the dad represents God. And he, he runs away and he spends all his money on parties and strippers and alcohol and, you know, whatever. And then if you read that, there's this little verse and everybody skips the verse that I think is the most important, where he gets the spot where he spends all the money and everything, everything that he thought was going to make him happy. And it, it just didn't. And so he, uh, he's out of money and he's, he's in pig slop. He's feeding pigs, which obviously for a first century Jewish guy is like a little, no, no. And then there's one little verse that says when he was feeding the pigs, it says, and then he came to his senses. And he started running back to the father. And I, you know, a little bit, man, I feel like, you know, we got a bit of a prodigal nation. You know, it's a, it's a, a little bit where you're saying, where am I going to go? I think that's what happened to the kid in the story. Is he woke up one day and he's like, where am I going to go? And honestly, man, he went, I mean, everything else didn't work. But I know I can go home to dad. And I think a little bit in our country, I think everybody's gone, man, we don't honestly do. We try everything else and it didn't work. And I think there's a little bit of people that's gone, you know, what I can do. I wonder if I can go home to my heavenly father. - I think that's a little bit what's happening. - I think so too. I think so too. Let's talk about forgiveness. - All right, I'd love to. - How do we forgive? Here's a question for you. Justice and forgiveness. - Yes, not at odds. - They're not at odds. - I know, yeah. No, how can you want justice and still be able to forgive? - Yeah. - Well, so let me just do a few things here. Yes, yeah. So a few things. One, let me just get one thing out of the way because what I don't want somebody to think if they hear what I'm about to say and they're like, man, somebody abused me or somebody committed a crime against me, somebody raped my daughter, whatever it is. And when they hear what I'm about to say, they think, oh, because I forgave them, I don't need to call the authorities. That's not true. Justice and forgiveness, I don't got to reconcile them because I don't reconcile friends. In fact, what I'll get to in a second is that actually the foundation of true forgiveness. And Sean, you probably figured this out. Some things that you've been through in your life. Nobody makes it unless they learn to really and deeply forgive. Dude, they just don't make it, man. I just, I've seen a lot of things that faster. One thing I can make you promise, nobody makes it. That doesn't learn to forgive. So let me just get this one thing out of the way. - What do you mean by that? Nobody makes it. - So do what I mean is, man, there's hardly anything that'll mess you up more than not, than clinging on to it. So there's a verse in Hebrews. It talks about a root of bitterness. Hey, you make sure that a root of bitterness doesn't spring up in you. The reason it calls it a root is because roots always grow up into fruits, right? So dude, what I've seen, like, let me just, okay, let me do it like this. If heaven is the place where everybody's forgiven and hell is the place where nobody's forgiven, when we forgive, we pull heaven down into our lives. And when we choose not to forgive, we pull hell up into our lives. Now, you know, what I want to point out is there's this really weird connection in the Bible between satanic and demonic activity and unforgiveness. I'll just give you a couple little examples. So first of all, Jesus calls Satan be elsabub. What that literally means, it literally translates to Lord of the flies. And the implication is like, man, if you get like a deep wound, like a flesh wound, what flies do is they get in there and they infest the wound. And then something that hurts you, when all of a sudden it becomes fatal because they get up there and they infest the wound in it. And so when Jesus calls Satan be elsabub, what he's saying is, hey, man, every wound you got, if you don't by the power of Jesus Christ, his blood and forgiveness, close that wound, yet that is a wide open pathway for Satan's work in your life. I'll give you another one. In the book of Ephesians, it says, hey, don't let the sun go down on your anger. Why? Because I don't want you to give any opportunity to the devil. The book of James, it does the same thing, this weird connection between demonic activity and unforgiveness. It says that bitter people, it says bitterness is quote, earthly, unspiritual, demonic. So do a lot of people miss that? That there's like a really powerful connection in the Bible. - Can you say that again? - Unforgiveness is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. All right. So they miss it. They do that apparently there is some in the supernatural realm, the spiritual realm. There's a way that unforgiveness is like a portal like straight in your soul for Satan and demons. I don't understand how that works. I just know that it works to get in your life. And one thing that it'll do, man, is like, you know, I'm 43 and my life go. I love being a pastor. I like teaching people the Bible. All that's awesome, man. My life go is to finish my race. I haven't been faithful to Jesus. I don't want to be one of those pastors that somebody tells a story about someday. Remember what that guy did, you know? I want to finish well. I want to be faithful to my wife. I want to sit in a rocking chair next to Janna, old wrinkly, holding her hand, watching our great-grandkids play around in the backyard. And they love us and they love Jesus. So one of the questions I ask myself the most as I get, you know, I'm getting a little older every year, you know, is if you watch people, there's some people who they get older and the older they get, the more cynical they get, and angry they get. And they just get a little crusty. And then I'll see some other people who just like, man, the older that guy gets, he's just a little more joyful, a little more, a little more soft in the right ways and not the wrong ways, you know? Just a little happier, you know, I don't know. And when I meet people who are the second one, you know, you ask me a question, you've started to ask everybody. When I meet people who's aged, it starts with like a six, seven, eight, nine. And they're just like old and happy. And they got a joyful heart. I always tell them, hey, it seems like people end up this way or this way, what's the difference? Here's what I think the difference is. One person, they cleaned out all that junk in their heart throughout their entire life with forgiveness. And one of them didn't. And over the years, they just almost become like just real slowly, man. It's real slow. In fact, if you let me bobble nerd out beyond the little thing, when you read, when you read in the gospels and it talks about people being quote, demon possessed, that's a bit of an ineligant translation of what that is. It's literally, it's one Greek word. We make it two English words. It's one Greek word, the word is demonized. So kind of like we say fossilized, demonized. Like in the same way that a fossil has started out as this, but then very, very, very slowly over time. It was this and now it's this. Honest amount, a lot of times that's how like demonic activity works in people's lives is slow, is imperceptible. Gets up there, maybe in a wound, something like that. And how that guy ended up old, angry, cynical, crusty. There's like no love in his heart. It's all anger, you know? Man, just very, very, very slowly. He didn't learn to clean it out with forgiveness, which brings me back to the beginning. Demonic activity and unforgiveness. If hell is a place where nobody's forgiven, and heaven is a place where everybody's forgiven, every time we learn to forgive Sean, you know, you pull heaven down into your life. Every time he's used not to, you pull hell up. That's a, I don't think that's a question you asked me. (whooshing) There are a lot of dog foods out there, and they all say they have the best ingredients, but when you actually look at a lot of them, it's still over processed kibble. Fillers and ingredients you can barely pronounce. That's why I like Sundays. Sundays keeps it simple. It's vet-founded human grade dog food made with real meat, super foods like kale, ginger, and blueberries, and they have no fillers. It's gently air-dried, so you get real nutrition without needing a fridge, freezer, prep, or mess. 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Every purchase directly supports the show and helps us continue bringing you independent conversations without compromise. Visit seanrionshow.com and grab yours today. I've been thinking about this for a couple of years, pretty hard about forgiveness, and I think it's more of a. For lack of a better term, I almost think it's kind of a selfish thing to do, because it's really, you know, what I've figured out, it is for yourself, which is what you're saying. I mean, you're healing wounds by forgiving. And the more I do, the more I figure it out, the better I feel because you are letting go of shit. That's right. And it doesn't mean you have to be around this person, pray, praise him, talk about him. But I mean, it's just, it's just kind of like letting it go wrong about that. Bro, you're dead on man. So man, the pat, like if I'm a self cleansing process, 100% man, it's really hard to do. But it's in some circumstances. But people who really haven't been through something, they don't realize this. You probably do realize this. I think very frequently the hardest thing a man ever has to do in his entire life is for you, if somebody very frequently. Now, when you say that, awesome, man, it's like, it's like, you're saying Bible versus and you may not even know it, you know, it's like, so I'm Matthew 18. You're talking about man, it honestly feels selfish. It feels like it's for me. Yeah, you know, like there's like, there's a reason we called the podcast, the live free podcast. Live as people who are free, only do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil. It's like, so I'm Matthew 18. Jesus tells this parable. And he, I'm a, you know, 21st century, I'll do my best. He tells this parable about a guy who like owes a money lender a bank and it says like 10,000 talents or something like that. But it's essentially a word. This guy, this guy, the net worth of Elon Musk, like that's what it's implying. He'll never, he'll literally never be able to repay it. And the guy's like, "Hey, man, you're dead to do." And he runs up and he falls on his knees and he begs and he's like, "Man, would you please, please, please, please, please, please, forgive me." And the guy, it says out of the, out of the kindness is how he forgives him. But then that guy, he turns around and he finds somebody in all 21st century it. He finds somebody that owes him, you know, like the cost of a postage stamp. And in Jesus parable, he like chokes lands the guy for real. He like starts laying hands on him. And he tells the guy like, you know, pay me back everything you owe me and, you know, I'm going to put you in prison. You're not going to get out to you, you pay the last penny. And honestly, man, I'm skipping ahead a little bit. Somebody may hear that and be like, what, how could the guy that was forgiven the net worth of Elon Musk turn around and exact revenge on the cost of a postage stamp? Who would do that? And Jesus' answer is you would. Jesus' answer is, hey, man, I'm cutting to the chase a little bit. Is the basis for us becoming forgiving people is understanding? I have been forgiven by God more than he will ever ask me to forgive anybody else. He forgave me the net worth of Elon Musk. And every time I hold a grudge against somebody, I'm like making them pay for the postage stamp. Now, what's interesting about that parable though, let's take it back to where you started is you're like, man, it kind of felt like it's selfish. In the parable, when the guy is not forgiven, what he is, it says that he's put in prison. And the implication, Bible scholars think what Jesus is saying is he's saying, hey, man, you know what unforgiveness is like? It's like a prison. And you know who's in the prison? You are. And you probably notice this man, the people who don't learn to forgive, what they do is honestly, they get stuck in time and they spend the rest of their life responding to something that happened ages ago. And they live the rest of their life out of that one event. Well, that becomes a prison. But I think there are definitely different degrees of maybe levels of forgiveness. You know, I mean, forgiven, forgiven somebody for, I don't know, stealing a water bottle out of your refrigerator is a little bit different from forgiving somebody that raped you your entire childhood. You know, and so it's made a difference. You know, it's it's that's sometimes it's more challenging than others and and you know, so how do you do it? You know, how do you do it? How do you do it when? Yes. Yeah. I mean, you're popular guy. You're borderline celebrity. People are used. Urban celebrity. I like to get in there. People are using you. People will abuse what you can what you what you have. You know, and the same with me. And I mean, it just is what it is. You know, there's no getting around that. I've seen people do that to you. So you can forgive them. And I have forgiven them. You probably have too. Then it keeps happening. It does the same people. Yeah. And every time it happens, it's a little fire comes up, you know, and it's you get pissed. And then you start thinking about things you probably shouldn't be thinking about. Yeah. And so my question is, is that is that forgiveness? Did I really forgive them for the original thing? And I've distanced myself and I've come to peace with it, but then it happens again. Yeah. And then it happens again. And you have no control over it happening. No, you do not. So how do you deal with that? How do you deal with that with forgiveness? Yeah. Something I personally struggle with. Welcome to team human. Yeah. Hey, brother, me kind of just get this on a table. Me too. I just want to be super honest, man. I need the same grace I preach every week. Me too. In fact, you know, there's no reason for me to go into it on here. That's one of the hardest, most consistent fights in my life. You know, it is. So let me just, you know, let me say a few things. Actually, can I tell you a story about what it looks like? Let me start here and then back up answer. So every now and then, you know, and you know, when I became a pastor, I knew what I was signing up for, you know. So every now and then I'll say something and, you know, the internet will get mad at me. One of the first times that happened to me, dude, I didn't know what was going on. And yeah, honestly, the first thing you probably, you probably remember the first one of the first times happened to you. The first time that happens to you, it's pretty disorienting, you know. I was a young pastor and, man, I remember I was taking a long walk and I remember thinking like, man, is my, maybe I wonder if my ministry is over. Like, I was getting, I was a, I wasn't going to it. I was getting crushed. And I came home and I was like, man, I wonder if, maybe my ministry is over and I honestly wonder if I've ruined everything and, man, how am I going to provide for my family y'all kind. And, dude, I walked in the door and I smelled, I smelled something. And as soon as I walked in the garage door, my wife, Jana, was there with my three little adopted kids. And they all yelled at the same time, welcome home, dad. And, and they, they, you know, they brought me in to the kitchen. And Jana had all the, like, she'd cleaned up everything. It looked spotless in there. And she got these candles out and she lit them on the table. And she had cooked, like, my favorite, my favorite meal. They like, takes a long time to make my little favorite meal. And I was like, hey, what is going on? And she said, um, she quoted a verse from the sermon of them out. She said, Jesus said, Josh, uh, blessed are you. When people revile you, insult you, slander you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account, rejoice and be glad for great will be your reward in the kingdom of heaven. And then she said, so tonight we feast. And, uh, we prayed, uh, Jana made me. We prayed for some of the people who, you know, they were just, you know, teeing off, you know, can I just say something to you without Jesus? There is a zero. I'm just telling you right now, dude, A is zero percent chance that we can be like that. So you asked the question, how do you do it? And man, you know, this is not you. But if somebody's listening and you don't, you don't know, Jesus, I'll be honest, man, I don't know what to tell you. I really don't. I don't know what to tell you. Uh, because if I did not believe that two things, that every single sin will be fully recompensed for either, and I'm just giving it a head, either, uh, that person that committed that sin against me will become a Christian. And at that point, their sin was paid for by Jesus dying on the cross, a gruesome horrific death. Or they won't become a Christian. I'm going to say something really straightforward. And I'm not trying to be a jerk. This is just like, this is just Bible. Or they won't become a Christian, they'll die and they'll go to hell, and they'll pay for that sin forever. One way or the other, that sin's getting paid for. If I didn't believe that man, in addition to the second thing, the reality that I know down to the deepest parts of my bones, I know I've been forgiven more than the Lord's ever gonna ask me to forgive anybody else. If I didn't believe that, I'll know what heck I'd do. I don't know what I'd do. So, like, I'll give you, you know, this, like, this honestly deserves a lot more time. But if somebody's like, "How do you do it, man?" I'll give you a quickie. Here's a quickie. - We don't need a quickie. - All right. We need the, we need the, we need the real deal. Like, here's an example, you know, I can't stand being used. I don't like being used. Try the church thing. I felt like that was good, very start happening. Then we do Bible study. Couple families, because I ate, in privacy, you know, we wanted, in privacy, things start getting leaked. Personal things. I call a lot of shit out on the show. A lot of evil. Pists is a lot of people off. Pists is evil off. I've had to hire a security. I've had to double that security. I haven't, had to triple that security. I've had to move. Now I have to move into a gated community because people can't shut their mouth and stop leaking shit. And every time it happens, I forgive them. I'll never do that Bible study ever again, ever again. Because of that. It put my family at danger. It continues to put my family at danger. But they get something out of it. Leakin' personal shit about my personal life and my personal family. When the whole thing was set up for discretion, how do you forgive that? Hey, first of all, man, you know, I'm a nobody. I'm sorry. Hey, it's, I mean, it is what it is. People are going to people. Yeah. That's a good way to say that. But people got people, you know, but how do you, you know, I mean, how do you forgive that? Yeah. You try to move on. That just keeps happening. Yeah, dude. And that's just one of a hundred examples. And I'm sure everybody's dealing with shit like this. You know, one way or another, the thing that keeps happening. Literally, everybody. There's a few things when you preach on them. You know, every single time it's got, you know, whatever you want to get, you know, people are going to talk about it. They love it. They need it. The view counts. Like it connects forgiveness, 100% hit rate, 100% hit rate, because what you just said. So, man, let me say a few things. Number one, the chat, if somebody's going to sit down and I'll just give listeners homework. If you're like, Hey, man, what do I do? This thing happened to me. What do I do? What you need to start doing is study Matthew chapter 18. Matthew 18 is where Jesus starts walking through Jesus essentially does a Bible study on what to do when your brother sins against you. Okay. So there's a few things. I'll just I'm a rapid fire these and just, you know, do my best here. He starts the passage saying, if your brother sins against you, there's a few things there. Number one, if you need to make sure did somebody actually sin against me or was it honestly was I just defended because and I'm not talking about you, by the way, these are just generalities. If your brother sins against you, the first thing I got to figure out is if do they really sin against me is like an actual Bible sin that that occurred, you know, that we're honest, a man, am I am I just being a little sensitive? Yeah, it's really just my feelings if your brother sins against you. Number two, it says if your brother sins against you. The second question I got to ask is, man, is this person a brother in Christ? Like, I'm just telling you how I'm going to pastor somebody through it. Is this person a brother in Christ? Because if not, man, me having a conversation about this forgiveness happening, that's really not the conversation I need to be happening. I need to be having a conversation about this like you and Jesus, man, like you all got to get good. You know, so if your brother, if your brother sins against you, okay, was it against me, making sure this thing, what I don't need to do is take up somebody else's offense. And then I'm angry on behalf of somebody else like we call that Twitter, you know, what are you going to do? So then it says, well, the next thing you do is it says go and show him his fault. You know, hey, I'm going to go talk to you, man, man, I'm just going to talk to you. Here's what you did. Okay. Now, you do all this stuff. You kind of walk that process. If that doesn't work, then it says what Jesus says is if that doesn't work, then take two or three others. You know, let me take a few other brothers like, hey, man, would y'all come with me? We all, we all love each other. We all love Jesus. This is our little band of brothers. Let's talk about this thing together with open Bible and open hearts, see we can figure this thing out reconcile. Let me pause and say this. There's a difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. Forgiveness takes one person and it's always possible. Reconciliation takes two people and it's not always possible. Forgiveness can like literally every time I can forgive anybody of anything because honestly, dude, that forgiveness, I just to put it in a straightforward way, I do not have a right not to forgive somebody who sins against me. Because Jesus paid the penalty for that sin and he has commanded me to forgive everyone who sins against me. So I wish it were different sometimes. I'm not allowed takes one. Okay. But reconciliation takes two people takes two. You got to want to reconcile. They got to want to reconcile and they got to be willing to own what they did. Ben the knee. I messed up. I'm sorry. And then you have to go. We're doing a little Bible study here. You got to go to the book of Proverbs and Proverbs gives a taxonomy of three types of people. And mash on just as I think I think there's a blessing on your life. And like the fact that you'll even have a pastor like I saw you have Bryson and some other guys Jeremiah some other guy. Like you're going to have some people who try to take advantage of you and sometimes that's going to be because the enemy is going to work in it. Okay. So you're going to have this, you know, you're going to have this thing happen. This like for for guys who man for whatever reason, they got a lot of people who know who they are like you. This little thing from the book of Proverbs might be one of the most important things you ever internalize in the book of Proverbs. There's three types of people wise foolish and evil. And so when you're deciding whether or not you reconcile with somebody and I say this not just Sean Ryan. I say it's anybody. You got to figure out is this a wise person. I probably want to reconcile with a wise person. Is this a foolish person. A question mark because fools fools can can hurt you. Right. Is this an evil person? You definitely want to stay away from an evil person. So I think you're going to ask that question. And then I think what I'd say if what you just go hey, how do you do it? Number one, if you don't get like due to like down deep, deep, deep in your soul, the reality of the gospel, the gospel is the good news that I am not a mistake or a need of a life coach. I'm a sinner in need of a savior and that God so loved the world they gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life that like that God so love Josh Howard and that he gave Jesus Christ so that if Josh Howard and believes in him, Josh Howard and what have eternal life. If I don't receive that forgiveness. It's like in Kentucky, I grew up in Kentucky might say it like this. You can't give what you what you don't got. So one, I got to start there. All right. Now I'm going to start there. Now I'll do these others try to try to be a little more. Try not not do a whole sermon here. The second you can do the sermon, babe. All right. It's all good. I'm trying to respect you. All right. I do my best here. There's no reason to speed it up. All right. What happens to most people in my opinion is awesome and they never fully realized what happened to them and it's still happening to them because of what happened to them. And it's like you can't forgive what you didn't identify. I can't solve a problem that I didn't define. If I can't define it, I can't solve it. So I got a buddy that recommended this and I've been recommended it for years. Is that parable in Matthew 18? It says that when somebody sins against you, it is as if a debt has been occurred. That person took something from you. Okay. So in your analogy, that person may have taken your ability to feel at ease and safe around pastors away from you. I hope the Lord redeems that and I would just say to anybody, this is not about you. This is just about anybody. Anybody who receives a wound, anybody, Satan will get in there and try to capitalize on it and that's the prison. Hey, because that thing happened to you, you can never, you'll, you make an interval. I'll never do that again. I'll never trust men again because that dude did that to me when I was six. I'll never go to what people don't realize when you start using that type of language, that's prison language. In other words, bars have been erected between me and that thing. And I just want to give a general watch out there by listening. Sometimes that thing is a really, really good thing. The Satan's trying to use an old wound to keep you from ever getting that good thing again. Okay. So what'd you get? If you're talking about, are you talking about my particular situation? No, I'm saying so. That's it. Never do it again. No, that's it. I use that analogy. I'm talking about anything doesn't mean I'll keep myself from the word it would just won't be Yeah particular of course. Yeah, that makes sense. I'm saying no No, what I'm saying is typically when somebody is deeply wounded and it doesn't make your thing anybody's thing and this is not what you're saying Was Satan will sometimes do I'm preaching my little sermon here Was saying will sometimes do is get them to make an interval like let's say a girl is abused when she's seven by her uncle She'll make an inner vow. It's like a demonic reverse covenant is what it is I'll never trust men again And what Satan is trying to do is cut her off From honestly a lot of men that she's gonna need in her life to become the beautiful Noble woman of God. You see what I'm saying. Does that make sense? That's perfect sense. There you go Now, let me ask you this do you think that wisdom can come from people sitting against you ball bro? Yes My gosh, yes, that's like Because if you you know what that comes experience and why you may maybe it would be foolish to say I'll never trust another man again I Think a lot of wisdom could be pulled from that and maybe I I will never trust this type of man again You can see through you know, you know A lot of times, you know, you can just see right through people, you know through experiences of Things happening and then you'd notice patterns that come with every human being that's like that. Yes I strongly agree with that That that that's exactly what the word means when it says that God works all things for the good of those who love him and are called a coordinators purpose and All things includes all the jacked up things They'll redeem all those things all right, so If we're going back to how do I do it man? This next thing that I'm gonna say It is like for real. It's one of the hardest things you're gonna do and it's one of these things you can't do it in five minutes Like you it's gonna take like five hours five weeks or five months But this thing is got recommended. I've been recommended ever since You got him you got to almost like make a debt ledger This is what Jan and I have had to do for people who have very Egregiously sinned against us and they were never gonna own it. They're never gonna own it You know, this is what we had to do So Jesus Matthew 18 says like a debt So what you do is you get out of sheet of paper. There's a little exercise and it's not fun And you sit down at first of all you pinpoint Who sinned against me and I need specificity what you got to watch out for is they? Yeah, you know, there was one time You know a lot of people don't think about this because people do get hurt by pastors see you get you got that story I wouldn't say I've been hurt by a pastor. There you know, I would not say that. I don't want to put that on anybody but you know Wait, what's that? It's trust, but yeah, it makes sense makes it but what you know, I'm not this is not a pity party At all, but what I will say was some people sometimes don't don't realize this man You know that pastor's pastor's getting get shot at she might So there was one time I was I went to counseling for a little bit When I was in Nashville because I was honestly part of because I was struggling with This guy asked me he was like, uh, you know, hey man. What's going on to you? And I was like man at this the church. You know, I'm a pastor The church hurt me. Oh, I'm not doing this thing in the and he paused and you know It was one of the most powerful things he ever did is he stopped me and I was like, hey man He did, you know, he did you don't move me. He said, well, hey wait a second man. What do you mean by the church hurt you? I said what church? I mean, man, this is we're going through this thing and it's a way of second Josh You're sure I think my church at the time was a thousand people or something like that Say, man, your church is a thousand did it did all thousand hurt you? I'm like, well, no, no, no no. It's a way out. Here's what you do right down the names of every single person who actually hurt you and I I wrote down those names with Jana and when we got done It was seven people, you know But but what I think Satan had done is he had gotten me to transmit the pain that came from seven people To the church, you know, so what you got to do is it starts with getting like specificity Who specifically sinned against me? I Think step two and it's not fun as you got to take inventory of what what was taken from you Right, it's like I'll give an example that probably a lot of guys that listen to this podcast like Now you better watch out this will get you is Your your story is one time you stood at alter and you said till death do us part and you meant it And then one day you woke up and found out she didn't And now Somebody else is talking your kids in a bed at night. All right What has up, man? That's gonna leave a mark You're gonna need some need to clean some things out When you get to that debt ledger what you got get down. Okay, this suits in against me now. I got to start going I need to name everything That was taken from me and dude you got to write down You got to write down like all the stuff like man It's hard for me to you know, let's say this example. I just use it's hard for me to trust women anymore That was taken from me man, I spent eight months in my life not sleeping good and drinking too much because of that girl Hey, you know what's taken from me is half my income You know what was taken from me is all the job opportunities that would have had if I'd have been able to focus for that year on My career hey, do you know what was what was taken from me the ability to now I see my kids You know 50% of the time I just lost 50% of being a debt like you got to get down and like And the reason I say that man is people who don't do that like if you don't get like This is this is what's going on was taken from me You can't cancel a debt that you never inventoryed And if you don't do that like okay Now once you got your debt ledger, okay, and that's that'll take you a minute You have two choices of what you're gonna do with that and the first one They're both suck but in different ways You can one you can hang on to it That ledger for the rest of my life, you know And everywhere I go everybody's gonna know the reason I'm pissing and angry and cross and crotchety is Everybody's gonna know it's because they did this and I'm holding on to the debt and actually and I'll say this One of the biggest reasons nobody likes to talk about that people don't forgive is Because if they forgive somebody they lose the excuse for why they act like they do It's a damn good point. It's like if I forgive them I don't got an excuse anymore For why I'm angry all the time and why I don't trust nobody and why I'm cynical all that you know, it's like you gotta watch out for that man, you know So you got that, you know You either you can hold on to it, but that comes at a real big price It cost you the joy for the rest of your life or I think it's the book of Colossians you can do this and it's not easy, but it's the best thing that'll ever happen to you It says that what God did is he canceled the record of debt Against us with its legal demands nailing them to the cross And what you can do is you can take that debt ledger and I'd encourage you like actually like physically do something like this like man Janna Janna burned hers She took it out our fire pit and burned it I got we got an old cross on our property this we bill has got some sentimental value to me Sometimes I'll walk out there and I'll literally just like old school Late 80s youth camp like I'll nail it. I'll nail it on there But you've got to make a decision to cancel that debt And just say okay Jesus, I'm trusting that either you paid the penalty for this sin on the cross or that person will pay the penalty for it in hell But what I know is it's not up to me vengeance is mine. I will repay declares the Lord Not not up to me What about forgiving yourself? Yeah, man, that's probably the biggest one of all. Yeah Yeah Yeah, so When people say forgiving themselves, that's a big ledger. It's a big ledger for some people It's the biggest one This one I had a guy write me from prison a few years ago after listening to a sermon And I was talking about the grace of God and how God can redeem anybody, you know, and he said He said he wrote me a letter and he was like, "Hey man, I want to believe that, but you don't know what I've done" And now what I would say that guy actually what I did say that guy is him and that's actually not the problem the problem is you don't know what he did Because Jesus Christ went to a cross and and he paid the penalty for sin for you Man, what about forgiving yourself. There's this really interesting thing that happens. happens, the longer somebody walks with the Lord, where the longer they walk with Jesus, there's a weird thing that happens where the better you are but the worse you feel. You know, it's actually a weird thing. I think John MacArthur and old dead pastor said that. And it's interesting. If you watch the life of the Apostle Paul, a lot of people miss this because the books of the Bible are not in chronological order of like when they were written, they're in a different sequence. But if you line all the books up in the order that the Apostle Paul wrote him, he starts by referring to himself as one of the Apostles. And then he goes a little farther and he says, "Oh, I'm the least of the Apostles." And then he goes a little farther and he says, "He calls himself the least of all the Saints." And then, and I think the last letter he ever wrote, he says, "This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Jesus Christ died for sinners of whom I am the foremost." So it's almost like a reverse testimony. It's almost like he started feeling. And the reason for that is the longer you walk with the Lord. You sort of know him a little better. And the more you know him, the more of his perfection you see and the more of your imperfections you see, and you feel that gap. So what happens is that gap gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Here's what I should be and here's what I am. And honestly, the longer you live some life, you send some more sins. It's like the gap gets bigger and bigger, you know. You've done some stuff and seen some stuff. But what happens is the longer you walk with the Lord, the gap gets bigger and bigger between you and what you should be and what you are. But if we're really understanding, we're looking at the cross and we're understanding what Jesus did for us. What really ends up happening is your understanding of the grace of God to you and what Jesus did for you on the cross. It gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. So John Newton who wrote the hymn, "Amazing Grace." He was involved in the slave trade. I think when he got saved, if I remember correctly, and had a pretty radical conversion and it bothered him for the rest of his life. At the end of his life, I think he had a little dementia. And at the end of his life, one of the last things he ever said was, "Though I am old and my memory is fading, I remember two things very clearly. I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior." And man, if somebody's gone, "How do I forgive myself?" Man, honestly, what I would say is you got to get your eyes off yourself. It's really not about what you've done. It's about what he did. And there's a little bit of me that just wants to gently, gently, with a pastoral heart. Look at a guy that says that and be like, "Hey, man, who do you think you are? Do you think you're a better sinner than he is a Savior?" I don't think so, man. I don't think so. So I think you just got to go back to the cross over and over and over again and no. That thing was nailed to the cross. And I'm really am free. I really am. The original question was, "How can you forgive still want justice, but not be overcome with vengeance?" Yes, right. That's good. This gets into a, it's something it's called, the theological term for it is fear sovereignty. I'm going to be a little nerdy for a second if that's okay. So in the Bible, God has established three institutions that when they work like they're supposed to work, it's good for people and it's good for societies. The three institutions are the family of the church and the state. All three institutions have different roles. So kind of the image that theologians have used to just be a Bible nerd for a second is what they'll say is you get the rod, the keys, and the sword is what they'll say. The sort of the image that's the logo of the family is the rod. Hey, we're good fathers discipline their children, raise them in the fear and avenge the Lord. The image of the church is the keys, as Jesus when He talks to Peter, I give you the keys, the kingdom, whatever you buy on earth will be bound in heaven, whatever you lose on earth will be loosed in heaven. That kind of thing, keys. It's about ordinances, you know, helping people understand, helping people be saved and then helping people understand that they are saved, okay, keys. And then the image for the state is the sword that comes from Romans 13. And it says that the government, the human governments as very imperfect as they are. I think we agree on that, that they have been instituted by God, that actually governments are a good thing, you know, bad governance is a real bad thing, but a world with no government is a real bad thing, right? And what it says is that God has, one of the roles of the government is to quote, bear the sword and be vengeance to the wrong doer. So you, to get back to this question, how can I forgive somebody and still seek justice? Well here's what you do, okay. Romans 13 is the passage where it talks about, the role of the government is the sword, it's to bring justice on the wrong doer. What's very interesting is right before that in Romans 12, it says this, you're actually alluding to it, it says, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. In other words, don't seek vengeance, don't ever do that. What this acknowledging is there's a difference between the role of an individual and the role of the state. So you as an individual, my job is to love you, to forgive you, to release you from your debt, like I'm not walking around trying to take vengeance on you. It's actually wrong for an individual to try to do the job of the government, okay. There, okay. So I can forgive you, but then it's still a good, godly and just thing for the government to do its job to try to bring justice on the wrong doer. So man, honestly, it's fully appropriate for somebody that like commits a crime against somebody, for you to forgive that person and then call the police and be like, hey man, this person just did this and report them. Those things are not in conflict. Mm-hmm. That makes sense. It does make sense. Why did Jesus have to die on the cross? Yeah. Why did he have to do it? I mean, he's God's son. He's God's only son. Why didn't God make another son? There were a lot of questions there. I mean, I just don't fully understand why it had to happen if he is God. Why couldn't he just forgive exactly? Yeah. Yeah. Man, that's like my favorite question I asked her ever. So the Bible says that God did it that way so that he could be both, let me say it and then explain it. So he could be both just and the justifier of the ungodly, all right. Just and justifier, all right. So my favorite way to illustrate this is by a story, okay? So best illustration of why God had, why Jesus had done the cross of every word, all right. It goes like this, "Once upon a time, in a far off kingdom, there was a king who was known by every one of the kingdom to be the most just and loving king who had ever lived." But then it was discovered that somebody was stealing from the king's treasury, and so the king being a just king, he sent out an edict that whenever it was discovered who was stealing from the king's treasury, that that person would receive ten lashes. Well, the theft continued and so he issued another decree when it's discovered who's stealing from the king's treasury to be twenty lashes. The theft continued, thirty lashes. Until finally the king issued a final decree and he said when it's discovered who's stealing from the king's treasury, it will be a sentence of forty lashes. Now the problem with that was that forty lashes was a death sentence. And so the theft continued until eventually it was discovered that none other than the king's daughter was the one who was stealing from the treasury. So then a question began to ripple through the kingdom. What would the king do? Some thought he would forgive her, but then how would he be just? Some thought that he would issue the sentence, but then how would he be loving? Well, it was decided, the king sat down and decided, "You know what? The sentence is just the punishment must fall and so the decree stands." And so one day the entire kingdom was gathered. And in front of everybody the king's own daughter was marched up to the podium. In front of the entire kingdom and she was bent over the podium and the back of her shirt was ripped open and the executioner stood there and it began to raise his whip to land the first slash and as soon as he did the king yelled, "Stop!" And there was a silence that fell. And the king strode forward and he took off his own shirt and he bent over and he wrapped his body around his own daughter and looked back at him. up over his shoulder and he said, "Now hit her." And the executioner objected and he said, "But King, those lashes, they'll fall on you." And he said, "The sentence must stand, it's just hit her." And so Forty lashes fell on the body of the King that protected the body of his daughter and the King died in the stead of his daughter. And what happened, Sean, in that story is the King was both just because payment for the sin had to be made and the King was the justifier of the ungodly. She went free because he took the penalty. See, the reason Jesus had it on the cross is because God is just and so payment for sin has to be made. Like if somebody walked into a courtroom and a judge just went, "You know what, man? You raped that girl when she was young, but you're real sorry. And I have the power to do it. You're forgiven." Nobody would think that was a just judge. So penalty for sin had to be made, but God is love, so He made the payment Himself. That's what the Bible means when it says, "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." So it's a substitutionary sacrifice in my place condemned He stood, "Wow, it's a great explanation." Does it make sense? It makes perfect sense. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Don't touch a break. Let's do it, man. A lot of guys think getting healthier means adding more and more things to the routine, more supplements, more tracking, more protocols, more complicated systems. But the older I get, the more I think it comes down to getting the fundamentals right in supporting your body at the source. And that's why I've been using armor a colostrum. Armor a colostrum is a bioactive whole food with over 400 bioactive nutrients that help support God health, strengthen immune health, fuel performance, and support overall vitality. Colostrum works at the cellular level, so you're supporting the systems your body already relies on every day. I've been using armor a colostrum, and I've noticed a difference in how I feel overall, especially with recovery and feeling stronger through demanding weeks. It's pure, potent, natural, and clean. It's also physician-founded, which I like, because this is something I'm putting into my body every day. And I want it to come from a brand that takes the science seriously. We've worked out a special offer for my audience. If 30% off your first subscription order, go to armora.com/srs or enter srs to get 30% off your first subscription order. That's a-r-m-r-a.com/srs. All right, Josh. Back from the break. We just wrapped up forgiveness, but I did have one more question. Is there anybody or anything you're struggling with to give forgiveness? You got any-any stories on that? Anything going on right now? Dude, I think we all struggle with it. Yeah. Tough. It's hard to do. Yeah. Man, you know, probably not, you know, I don't know if there's anything I would want to put on air. Gotcha. You know, there's probably like you, maybe something I could be transparent about. In a pastor is a weird thing. It's a peculiar life. And why do you say that? It's just a-it's a weird life, man. It's like, what's weird about it? Well, you know, everywhere you go, probably similar to you. At least where you are, people know who you are. And they have extremely strong opinions about what you do. And then you kind of, you know, you get on top of that. Man, my job is to say, to open the Word of God and then do my very best to apply it to your life. And man, you know, sometimes that's going to get up all in your-do you let those opinions get to you? Does that bother you? Not as much anymore. Not as much anymore. However, there are people who over the years, and what-usually it will last for like, this is weird. I've kind of talked about this publicly. There are people who for whatever reason might be a personality type, might be something else. Who they'll just decide they hate you. And they'll just-it's almost like a dog on a bunch, they'll like a latch on, and like, they make destroying you their life calling for a few years. And you know, man, it's like that affects. I'll give you an example. Here's how it affects me. Like this is a debt ledger kind of thing. You know, like I preached a sermon a couple years ago. They got into culture on political applications. That year our home insurance application was denied. They got-we were threatened by multiple people, lawsuits. They got ahold of Janus, my wife's cell phone number, and just spam the cell phone. They posted our address as probably-that happens to all of this public. They post our address a million places, a million stories, like, you know, it's like every time to open the internet, it was-he's a pedophile. He's a, I mean, like, insane, you know, stuff. Post-you know, pictures of our kids playing in our yard on the internet. I mean, it's like privacy violation. Yeah, dude. And it's like, what did you get out of that? Yeah. Why'd you do it? Did you get something? I hope you got something out of that. Yeah. Well, they know you didn't. Yeah, they don't. Wait, like, you think your friend gives a shit that you saw my kids playing out front? They don't. Yeah. They don't give a shit. Yeah. And then they do it again. Yes. And then they got a pretend to be your friend or the, you know, that's kind of like some of the stuff that I was kind of getting at earlier, you know what I mean? And it's just like, I just don't realize how much that, like, it's not even-it's a safety thing. Yeah. Yeah. I know you didn't mean anything, but what did you get out of that? Well, no, I think they do mean something by it sometimes. Well, yeah. I mean, okay. I'm talking, I was talking about, you know, people that don't mean you harm. There you go. But then there is the other side of it. But. Yeah, dude, when I got, you know, that year we had some-you know, I don't, I think it's okay to talk about it. We had somebody like arrested on our property. You know, I was, you know, our kids are coming home asking why is dad on the news, you know, because they're afraid-yeah, it's just like, honestly, it doesn't bother me when it starts messing with my kids. Yeah. That's a new ball game. Yeah. So yeah, yeah, I do. Yeah, I do. Dude, I want to go back to one thing you said earlier. You asked the question, it's like, man, the same thing will happen and it just-it just sends me. Like, I just keep feeling the same thing over and over again. One of the misconceptions I think people have about forgiveness is they think it's a one-time event. There is a reason Jesus says, "Hey, man, you're going to have to forgive seven times, seventy times." And honestly, Sean, what I've learned is a lot of times, all of them are for the same thing and the same person. Like, I'm going to have to forgive if somebody's husband cheats on them. They forgive him and they reconcile and they keep the marriage. That happens to our church all the time. Then every time they see their husband talk to a woman, even completely innocuously in the lobby at church, it's like just saying hi to somebody that's on their serve team. He may have all those same emotions shoot back up even though he's not doing anything wrong. She's going to have to forgive again and again and again for the same sin. So you're saying, every time somebody sees the perpetrator, it comes up again and you have to go through the process all over again. That thing Jesus said of, "How many times should I forgive Jesus seven times?" And Matthew 18 Jesus goes, "No Peter, it's actually going to be seven times, seven times, four hundred and ninety times." And what he's saying is, "Infinite." And honestly, a lot of times you just can't forgive the same one sin over and over because it keeps coming back up in your heart. The reason that's important is people will live with false guilt and they'll think, "Man, the fact that I still struggle with an anger on this, it means that I have him forgiven. I must not be a good Christian." It's like, "No man, you're a normal human." And you're just doing the forgiveness thing over and over and over. That's a good point. Let's go back to the comments. It sounds like people's opinions bother you. You know, at this point, does that, does that, is that in your head when you're up there giving your ministry? Oh gosh. You know, is this not at all? Good. No, not at all, man. The first few times it happened to me when I was younger. It does. It did. like you don't become a pastor unless you lie. and care about people. I hope, there's probably some psychopaths out there. So yeah, the default mode is you do, man. You want people to love and trust you. And the first time you get a little internet mob or whatever it is, it does mess with you. At this point, it's just so, there's always a little of, you just kinda get to the spot where it's Galatians 110. For a man out trying to please man, or am I trying to please God? If I'm trying to please man, I have no longer a servant of Christ. And you sort of, let me just turn it off. - Yeah, I was just gonna bring that up. I mean, it's interesting, you know, I'm kinda going through that right now. And I've never, I never thought that I was influenced by my audience, but really by anybody. And then, and that's really important to me that I'm not influenced by anybody. And I always say what I, I always say what I'm gonna say. I don't let anybody dictate what I say, what my opinions are, I don't care, you know, but I do care, I did care a little bit. You know, I would get the internet mobs and it would hurt. And then I would steer away from certain conversations for a little bit until I felt like I was healed. And then I'd dive back in the fight, you know. And I realized that, what am I trying to say here? You know what I realized? Ever since I came to Christ, probably about, I don't know, three years ago maybe, like fully committed. I've read this thing in the Bible once that said that many people, I'm not a guy that quotes scripture. So, but he was talking about many people will say they're doing things in my name and they aren't. And that's right. I kind of self reflected on that. And then that may have been like six months ago, maybe half a year ago. So I'm like, shit, man, like I feel like a, you know, he's always in my head, you know, I'm always trying to do the right thing. But then you get all these people coming up to you and they're like, oh, you're doing God's work. And you look at the comments and they're all like, oh, yeah. You're doing a great job, Sean. You look at the views and the likes and the negative shit too. You know, and you get pumped up, you know what I mean? By all these people. And then it, I mean, for lack of the better term, it mine fucks you. You're like, oh, shit, I am doing the right thing. But it's just a bunch of people that don't know any better than me or you or anybody, you know, and just go on with the flow. And so you are, you, you, it tricks you into thinking that you're doing the, and I'm not saying I was doing the wrong thing. I think I've done some stuff that's wrong, you know, on here that I thought was right, that I was influenced by praise, you know, and it feed off the, like, oh, well, if all these people think I'm doing the right thing, that I must be doing the right thing, right? But they don't know shit. Yeah. And I don't know shit. And so I just recently just cut it all off. I'm not on, I don't look at any of it anymore. I don't even look at the financials behind anything anymore. Really? Yeah. Because I don't, I just don't want to be, I want to be totally uninfluenced. And in touch with God as much as possible without man, human beings, getting in the middle of that relationship, you know, I really want to know, like, what do you want me to do here? What do you want me to talk about? What do you want me to do? Not what all these people, you know, six million people want me to do, where I know what you want me to do. So I cut it all off. I don't, I don't even have, I don't have any of it on my phone. I will watch YouTube and that's it on my TV. But I don't, I don't look at any of that shit anymore. Let's see how it goes. I could crash and burn. I bet not, but it feels pretty good so far. Dude up, I think you're heading the right direction. I think I love note you think about this. You know, kind of what, what I learned when some of that stuff started happening is like, you know, there's a proverb that says, whoever walks with a wise becomes wise, and a companion of fools will suffer harm. And it's kind of that principle of, man, over time, you and me, we will end up becoming whatever is like the average of the five people who are closest to us, whoever those five people are. You extrapolate out five years, ten years, that's who I'm going to be. And so, you know, I've kind of thought about it. I love note you think, how I've kind of thought about it is like, man, you know what, I'm going to try to do. What I'm really going to focus on is assembling the band of brothers around me and getting, I care who that is a lot. Like who are those like five right or die guys? That band of brothers like, they know my jump, I know their jump, and when it hits the fan, that's who I call. And those are the guys that like, I got those guys. I got five or six guys. They know, we text multiple times per day. They're praying for you today. And that, you know, it's like, hey, man, what do you see in me? Am I missing it? And it's like, hey, I need you to, 'cause I will say there are some people who like, who are they? Who did you put around you? Yeah. Do they work with you? Are they part of your ministry? There are. Are the guys out the side there? There's some of them. Yeah, actually, some of those guys do function like that. So our elders, we've got elders our church every year. I do the same thing. What do you all see? I'll say, what I do every year is I'll ask them. First of all, they've got an open door. The key to this that I've noticed is you probably felt the same is like, man, as a man, I, you know, I say this with humility, I hope that, you know, as your platform grows, your notoriety grows, it gets harder to find people who will be honest with you. So then what I've noticed is I have to like deputize people. Like, I'm giving you authority to call me if I'm breaking the speed limit. That's your job. Like, I'll say, I need you to keep me out of the newspaper. I'd rather be embarrassed in front of you than embarrassed in front of ever many millions of people or whatever, you know. So for me, we got elders our church. They're like, we're meeting constantly. And they know, like, hey man, tell me. Once a year, I asked those guys, what should I start doing? What should I stop doing? What should I keep doing? What do you see in my life? What I've obviously got, Jana, Jana should be number one. Jana, me and Jana, take a walk. I'm not saying everybody's got to do this. I got a lot of problems in my life. I got a real good marriage. Jana is a wise, very courageous, very godly woman. We take a walk at, we usually take two walks a day. So we usually walk about four miles a day together. And really all we're doing is it's just like, we're talking about Jesus, we're talking about life, we're talking about our kids, we're talking about ministry. And Jana will, Jana will tell me if she sees something, Jana will tell me, but she'll also be the person that if I were to ever like need to preach something that was difficult. I was like, I know this is gonna make people mad. If I flaked and I walked off stage, Jana will be the first person to be like, I love you. You flaked. So she'll speak into my life. She'll also put steel on my spine. She'll do that, nice. And then I got, I got some of these guys out here. I got a group of pastors that I've been friends with for a long, long, long time. They were on a group text and we keep in touch. These are guys, a guy in Arizona. There's a guy up in state of Washington. There's a guy over in Atlanta, those guys. But they, you know, I mean, it's interesting. I love it. And I do the same thing. And I've got, everybody's in, I mean, everybody, got four people in this building that have been with me since the beginning of this damn thing or right at the beginning. One of them came before that 17 years old when I was teaching tactics. It's been with me for 10 years now. And these, these people are like my family. So I have that. Now on the flip end, I love them and they love me. And we've been through a lot of shit together and we'll go through a lot more stuff. And I always take, you know what they say and do, and do account. And, but the interesting thing is they're also influenced by the success of this. And so you can't 100% buy into everything that they're telling you because they are influenced, their lives are influenced by this. So of course they're influenced by this. Same with your guys out there. They're influenced by the success of what you're doing. And so that's right. You have to keep that in mind. That's right. You got to have the outside. What that does, at least for me, is when stuff hits the fan, which I pray is not frequent, you know, that the little axiom becomes for me. Criticism should be weighed not counted. So I'm not taking a poll of how many people liked it and how many people didn't like it. And if more people didn't like it, then like to what I said, it was wrong. Now, man, we got Bible verses for that. Let God be true in every man alive. Amen. We're going to be in the minority on a whole bunch of stuff. We're going to stand on the word of God and let God be true in every man alive. We're okay with that. But when it hits the fan and I'm starting asking people, man, what'd you think? Do I miss it? I'm not counting how many criticisms did I get? I'm weighing who did it come from. If it came from Janna, I almost don't need to hear anything else. If it's one of my elders, I almost don't need to hear anything else. If it's one of those guys, it's like a writer die. So that's how I kind of think about it. 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And that matters because if you're going to put something into your daily routine, you want to know it's clean, tested, and backed by a company that stands behind it. For a limited time, our listeners get 50% off for life plus free shipping and three free gifts at mengoatomars.com. That's mengoatomars.com for 50% off for life and three free gifts when you check out. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them our show sent you. My wife is the same. It sounds like our wives are very similar. You know, my wife, there are days that she just is like, we can stop at any time. We don't need anything else. And I think about that. And I'm glad she's like that because, you know, if there's the other way, she'll just want more and more. And like I say, dude, that tells me everything about your wife. Yeah, because with that tells me she's into Sean. Now, what Sean can do. Yeah, she doesn't like this. She loves what I do. She doesn't like it. She doesn't like the notoriety that comes with. Jill, she low key. Yeah. That's how Janet would roll if she could. Yeah. We were going to do that editing room over there with all the computers. That was going to be our studio. We were going to do a husband, wife thing. And we did nine pilots. And they were wildly successful. And we deleted them all. Cause she didn't like that. She's like, I boss. She's like, we got kids. One person in the light is more than enough. And I don't want anything to do with it. And that's cool, man, because most women opposite. Yeah. Man, I don't know. I don't know anything about her. That's a good woman. Yeah. Is a, you know, Genesis, you know, pattern of marriage. And this is one thing that gets in trouble a little bit is a, you know, God honoring marriage. Husband's job is to be a loving head. And her job is to be a respectful helper. And there's nuances to that. But when it says helper, it's a, it's a, it's an A. So the Hebrew is, Evan Azar. It means a necessary ally. And the implication is that God designed her for Sean Ryan. And there's a whole bunch of battles that Sean could not win if that woman was not a Sean Ryan side. And, you know, if you watch every man, either marries a launch pad or a lid. And, you know, I, you probably feel the same way as me. There are guys that man do there. They were way, way more talented than me. And way, way better opportunities. That kind of thing. And a lot of the things that, that's one of the other things. I, there's a couple of things I can't talk about. My sweat and one of them, one of them is Jana. The reason that we've been able to, you know, just see, happen. Some of the things that happen is because I married a launch pad and not a lid. There's no way I'd go a tenth as far as, you know, we've, we've been graced to do if I had married Jana Howard in. Blind date, a blind date. Blind date. Blind date. I was a, I was a senior in college. And I was single. Jana was, she got saved. She gave her life to Christ in college. She was the president of her sorority over there at Western Kentucky University. And, uh, so the, she went to college in the town where I grew up. So the guy that discipled me, you know, for listeners, all that means like when I became a Christian, it was an older godly man that I met with to like, and he showed me, here's how you, here's how you be a Christian man. That's all that means he discipled me. The guy that discipled me, his wife discipled Jana after she gave her life to Christ in college. So then Jana's there. And she's president of sorority and everything. And they just, they just were asking her, "Hey, why are you single?" And they sat her down and, "Did you grow up in church at all?" Say that again. "Did you grow up in church at all?" Catholic Catholic. Did that, I don't, this is, I'm going to show my ignorance real quick. Did they have like a old, when I was growing up, we had church directories where they have everybody's names and pictures and phone numbers? Did they have that? Not that I'm aware of. All right. Well, I'm all Baptist churches. I had that. So they, uh, they were sitting there with Jana and they pulled out the church directory and started finding all the guys her age and they were like, "What about him? What about him?" They did, they did. And then they finally got to me and they were like, "What about him?" And she was like, "Man, I don't know." And, uh, so they sent me an email and, uh, his name is Jeff Carlisle. I mentioned him earlier in my youth pastor. And he was like, "Hey, man, I got this girl that you need to trust me. You need to meet this girl." And I'll be honest, man, the first time emailed, I was kind of like, "Well, man, y'all, I'm Josh Howard and I'm not desperate." And then he sent me a picture and I was like, "I'll be there next week." And I drove up the bowling green Kentucky and blind date and we dated for four months, got engaged, engaged for four months, got married, fast as we could. Best decision I ever made. What'd you like about her? What was the first thing that hit you? Well, first of all, she was very attractive. That's the first thing I noticed because I've got a picture. So I'm, you know, I say that, first thing I notice. When you met her? When I met her. Oh, what, say it again? What's the, what's other than that? What's the first thing that hit you? Man, she loved, she loved the Lord. Honestly, man, it was like in two seconds, like all she wanted to talk about was like, now she wanted to pour herself out for stuff that mattered. I figured out real fast. She obviously wanted to enjoy a great marriage. She wanted to find somebody that she could live and die with, throwing haymakers for the kingdom of God. I figured that out real fast. And she was wise. She is a wise, wise person. Very wise. Her judge of character is ridiculous. Every, you probably had a few moments where you got betrayed by somebody and it's like, are you kidding me? Like, I knew you for eight years or 12 years or whatever. She saw it. There has never been a time a 100% hit rate. That sound familiar? Oh, yeah. The Bible doesn't call my helper for nothing. Sounds like an amazing woman. Yes, she is. So these elders, do they have different opinions than you on topics? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Whoa. We'll have meetings and there's a great unity of spirit. But man, they love me. And they love me enough to, hey, man, what do you, here's what? we're thinking, we'll pray about it and talk about it and argue about it and then pray about it some more until we get consensus on a thing. That's very, oh, very, there's a very, very high level of trust and love among those guys. And those guys at our church, they're not, you know, like you said, hey, man, you got to watch out when somebody's, you know, it's like their livelihood is tied to the successive thing. That'll affect their judgment. These guys at our church, man, not every church like our church, at our church, they're, they're just, they're just godly church members that are getting a dime from the church. They're not tied to that, which gives them the ability to love, to love me enough and just like, hey, here's worth, here's what we're seeing, here's what we're thinking. Yeah. Now, the guys I'm talking about, I mean, they could, they, you know, they, yes, there's that aspect, but they're also, you know, just to give credit, they all tell me, like, hey, if you and this today, it's, we're good with it. We just want what's best for you. You know, so I got to give credit where credit's due. And like I said, I love those dudes, but I also like, you know, I like, so I like talking to Eli, you know, top product, be like rain earlier. And that's, you know, if you watch, you know, that's been a topic on the show, the Israel topic. And, and I always, I talked to him every couple of months, we, we battle it out. And he hasn't changed my opinion, but you know, maybe one day he will, and I love it when somebody does change my opinion because it means, you know, you're growing. That's right. And, but that's iron sharpening iron. Yeah. That's what you just described. We got a Bible verse for that. That's right. That's great. Sometimes barks fly when we went iron. It's iron. It's like, some of that. And usually a lot of times, those are the best friendships that take you the farthest. Yeah. He's a good dude. And I know there's, there's, there's no financial incentives behind him, you know, that are swaying his opinions. And I deeply respect that, especially, especially a man in politics, you know, so. But how many people are in your church on a normal week now, you know, let's say you're recently 30,000. How many 30,000? Yep. Holy cow. 30,000. I know, man, I know it's a lot of people. I know. Wow. Yeah. As you watch my episode about the religion business, I always sent clips. What'd you think? That I got a lot, a lot of texts. Well, man, you know, there's, you know, I don't like commenting on stuff that I didn't dig in on. I know there's a lot of misconceptions about that kind of thing. And, you know, there's some truths. It depends who you're talking about. So let me just, I'll, I'll shoot you real straight. There are some guys that are, you know, quote unquote, pastors. The M.S. like, that's not a good guy. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. But, you know, the weird thing about what I do is like a lot of those guys that are like pastors of, you know, bigger churches. Like, I know all those guys, you know, and it is the thing that I'll, you know, again, this stuff in there talked about publicly. The thing that can be tough for me is when a guy that I know, and I'm like the, the internet mile, whatever, the public perception is this. And I'm like, I know that guy. I know what you're commenting on. And I know how that is like a freakishly cartoonish caricature of this thing that actually happened. But because of the realities of the terrain, he's never going to, he's never going to correct the record. That's tough. That's tough to see, you know, again, because he's got something to gain off of it. That's what you, what do you mean? Is that what you're saying? So, somebody that will start controversy to make themselves relevant, even though they know it's not true. Is that what you're talking about? So it can be, you know, and dude, I'm not talking about anybody. I don't have a name in mind. I might, but I'm not going to, well, 30,000, it could be any name, you know what I mean? Oh, you're talking about church members. Oh, I don't know. I thought that's what you were talking about. Oh, I'm talking about just like in public when you'll see pastors get shredded. Like, you know, like kind of that, that kind of vibe. I'm talking about when there's like this massive gap between like, I know that guy, and I know the real story on that thing. Oh, you see what I'm saying? Okay. Yeah. That's what I'm talking about. Okay. That can be tough. When you're watching, okay. Yeah. When you're watching somebody that you know be defamed. Yeah. And I know, bro, that is not. Yeah. That anyway. And so what will happen to some of these, these guys is because, you know, the incentive you've, you, you, you, you just were mentioned, you've experienced this. The incentive structure of the internet is for people to be big game hunters. Who's got a big platform? If I can create that person, if I can create controversy by attacking that person, I can harvest some of their platform for me, which in not in all cases, let me just really quick say there are some people who abs, they are saying righteous and true things about people who are not good men. Absolutely. So let me just say that. I don't want anybody to get me wrong on that. Then there are other people who was like, man, what's real interesting is a, you know, you're at, you're at, you're saying this about this guy that he's just doing all this for, for money or whatever it is, when, when actually what's happening is you have a monetized website, and whenever you create a bunch of controversy, you drive a bunch of clicks to your monetized website, you know, it's, it's weird. It's, it comes off weird. What are some misconceptions? Man. Anything in particular? So first of all, my big caveat is there are guys. And I'm not, I'm not going to go there on public. There are guys that I don't know well enough. But when I hear about them, I'm like, that guy does not sound like a guy. That guy don't sound like a guy. I've been around some guys where I'm like, it's the, it just didn't feel integrity to me. I think I'm going to make my band of brothers these guys over here, you know. But sometimes man, the gap between reality and the kind of the vibe of like, man, all these, all these big church pat, they're all like, they're all having affairs and they're all just in it for the money. And they're just get exploiting people and get rich. I'm like, do that is, it's just not true, man. Like I hear, let me, I'll give an example of this. So I was 16 years old. God had just called me to ministry and I'm in high school. The past, I'm going to say his name. The pastor of the, at the time, I believe the second largest church in America, the man's name was Bob Russell. He pastored South East Christian church in Louisville, Kentucky. Okay. I'm 16 years old. God calls me a ministry and my dad because he was a good dad. My dad went, hey, Josh, so here's what you need to do. If you want to be a pastor someday, you need to find good, faithful, fruitful pastors. You need to go get in front of them. You need to ask them intelligent questions. You need to write down everything they say. And then you need to do everything that they said. That's the book of Proverbs. Step one of getting wisdom, get wisdom. You got to go get it. Okay. So I was like, well, you know, who's the best pastor I've ever heard of? And I was like, probably Bob Russell. The problem was he passed a church that like in the 90s was a church like 20,000 people or something, which back then, like that didn't even exist back then. So I'm a confessesan real quick. I was 16 and I drove up to the Southeast Christian church, a new members class. It was for people who were trying to become members of the church. And the reason I did it is because I knew on a weekend, because there's 20,000 people there, even though he's always in the lobby, I probably I might not be able to talk to him, but I knew he taught the new members class. And there was only a few people there. I was like, well, go to that. So I sat through the whole new members class. And then at the end, I came up and I said, Pat, Bob, I'm so sorry. I'm not trying to become a member of your church. I live two hours away. But God called me to be a pastor. Is there any way I could take you out to lunch? I'll only take 45 minutes of your time. I'll drive to you. I'll bring prepared questions. And I just want to ask you questions about how to be a pastor. And he said, he said, you know what, Josh, if you'll reach out to my assistant, you know, we'll see if we can set something up. So she sets something up for I think it was two years later, if I remember right. Now, that was probably a gentle way to see, is this kid going to fall through? You know, I think we like two years later. Now, I'm going to give you a date. Okay. I bookmarked this date in your head, because it's going to be important in a second. She set the date for I think it was September 13th, 2001. So, two years later, I'm in college and I wake up that day, and now remember, I just want to remember, this is the pastor of the second largest church in America. I'm a 16 year old nobody, even more of a nobody than I am now when he meets me. So that day I wake up and I drive five hours from Union University up to Louisville, something like that. And I get there and I sit down with him and back then it was pre-i-phone. So you remember those little taper quarters that you could put on a table and you press the thing? I brought one of those. I still have the tape and I sat there at the time I was 18 then and I put it on a table. And I had spent two years thinking of what are the twenty best questions I could ask a faithful pastor. And I sat there and Bob Russell, the pastor of the second largest church in America. He sat with a 16 then 18. He sat with an 18 year old nobody, college kid, didn't even go to his church. He sat there for two hours and two hours and answered my questions and I still have the tape. In fact, the story is not over the best parts to come. In fact, to talk about what we said earlier about our wives, I'll never forget this dude. The last thing I did as I said, Pastor Bob, is there anything that I need to know that I didn't ask you and he said, yeah, there is. You need to know that the most important decision you make for your ministry will not be what seminary you attend or what first church you take. It'll be what woman you marry. I never forgot it dude. I never forgot it. My drive. Alright, so we finish and then I drive him back in my little 96 Kia Sophia to his church and I drop him off and as I drop him off, his assistant goes, do you know what he just did for you? And I was like, man, yeah, he spent two hours with me. It was amazing. It was amazing. Thank you so much. And she said, no, no, did he tell you what he did to meet with you today? Now, I said earlier, it was September 13th. It was September 13th, 2001, two days after 9/11, there you go. She says there and explains that that morning, he had gotten called by the largest radio station in America and the largest TV station in America to do an interview, a nationally syndicated interview about God at 9/11. And Bob Russell said no because a righteous man swears to his own hurt and he does not change. And so instead of talking to the entire country that day, he said no to that so he could sit with a 18 year old nobody and tell him how to be a faithful Christian man and grow up and try to be a faithful Christian pastor. Now, some of me looks back and I'm like, I think I would have done the other. But what I will say is those are the types of stories. Sometimes it will bother me because all the, you'll hear these bad stories that go viral and it's like that story doesn't go viral. And there's a, brothers, there's a million, a million of those. That's a cool story, man. I like that. In fact, somebody said that one, so that's all that's somewhere I heard it somewhere, you know, you know who the most important person in the world to me is right now. You are not like that, not like that, I like that a lot, it means something to think about it. It sure does. And people feel that, they feel that from you, I'll sometimes want to y'all around these guys, you know, I won't use their names because they're the kind of guys they wouldn't like it. But it is weird because they're all my buddies, like I know them. So I got here, I'll just give like maybe just a couple examples, so like one and it's fun for me because all the names pop in my head, you know, one, one of the pastors of one of the three largest churches in America, nobody ever knows this. He asked his hell elders to cap his salary years ago, they don't raise it. And he and his wife sit down every single year and they go on a generosity retreat and they try to figure out how can we give more and they're now up to giving away 60% of their income just to help people and they give these a lot anonymous donations to people in our church and they're never going to know it came from that guy. One guy was a pastor of, I think one of the two largest churches, maybe an American history, maybe, maybe. He wrote a book at the time. He wrote a book that became, I think, one of the three or four bestselling books in America in world history. And what a lot of people don't know is what he did with all the money is he reversed first. He repaid the church every dollar that they'd ever salaried him. And then he and his wife sat down and they figured out how to reverse tithe on the money. So they gave away 90% and they only lived on 10 and he used that money to start a series and nonprofits that just helped the poor. This guy's name I will say, I'm a brag on him because he's on our teaching team at Lake Point. He's a guy named Pastor Mike Bro. He passed her church of over 10,000 people in Lexington, Kentucky. I grew up listening to him as a kid. Now he's on our teaching team at Lake Point and I'm a brag on him. He may kill me, but I'm just going to brag on him. My guy retired stepped away from his church when it was like I'm a peak like crushing. And he stepped away and you know what he ended up doing? He ended up helping his daughter plant a church in a city in California like rubbed two sticks together. Nobody's there. Help his daughter plant a church in a city that like didn't have many churches. And you know what that guy does now? Every Thursday. He wakes up and he leads a little Bible study at a local Starbucks for recovering addicts. And he volunteers his Thursday afternoon to help widows repair their homes and mow their lawns. This dude, like everybody would have been like, man, I can keep going. Like dude, I got, there's another guy who's, he sets aside one of the pastor of the largest church in America. They set aside a large portion of their personal income to help families in their church adopt kids and what they do is they set it up where every time somebody in their church is adopting, that person anonymously gets sent like thousands of dollars and they'll never know it. But it's from that guy. This is the senior pastor. And they've set a goal of funding at least 100 adoptions like, you know, with, with, with what's there. Now, I could just, I could keep going on and on and on and on. And when people hear that, I think a lot of people hear that about, you know, they've managed his pastors. And I think they go, well, man, Josh, yeah, but why don't I ever hear those stories? Because planes that land safely don't make the news. That's a good point. Thank you for sharing that. I always notice when somebody goes the extra step, it does not have to be some huge thing. It could be someone following up when they said they would. 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Try it for free, it's zippercruder.com/srs, that's zippercruder.com/srs, zippercruder, meet your match on Zippercruder. Zippercruder is the first to get a quality candidate within the first day. I'm sure everybody's wanting to get some time with you, they want your advice, they want some help. How do you determine, how do you determine who you personally give your time to because it's impossible to divide it up to 30,000 people, plus you got three kids and a wife. I do. And that's my first ministry. Well, a couple of things I say is that's true in any church, that's really over, you know, honestly, I don't know, six, 800 people, it's kind of the same thing. So what I'd say is a few things, do you give it to anybody? Give what your time to just anybody? Who do you give it to? Do you give it to-- Oh, do I give it to-- Oh, of course. Oh, my gosh, yes. Of course. Yeah, man, like what I've-- so let me say if you-- what I do now is what I try to have this motto of do for one what you wish you could do for all. Man, can I do it for 30,000? No. I can't always do that. I'll talk about that in a second. But I never want to get to the spot where the shepherd doesn't smell like the sheep, okay. So what I'll do is me, me and Janah, whoever it is. First of all, we're in the lobby after service is praying with people that I sat like after every service every week, unless I preached too long and I can't get out there, you know. And we're just praying with people. Any time I'm not preaching, I did this last weekend. You just travel all the campuses and we just get there early and stand in the lobby and we just sit there and pray with people. It's like the-- do this like the best thing. It's like my favorite. It's the best thing ever. Do that stuff. One thing that I'll do. And then what I do is-- so in the book of Acts, when the church gets-- it's the same thing, Sean. You know, the first church ever existed, actually, until you got 3,000 people by Acts three. It's 5,000 people. There's indications later in the book of Acts that the church definitely grew larger than that. So, you know, this has been around since the beginning. And in the book of Acts, I think it's in the book of Acts, when it gets to the spot where the church grows to the spot where there were a group of widows in the church that the pastors, the apostles themselves, they were like personally handing all the food to distribute to the widows to help them. The church eventually grew to a spot where they were spending so much time doing that that the Bible says they were distracted from two things-- prayer and the ministry of the word. So, then what they did, if you read the book of Acts, is they essentially restructured the leadership of the church. They added a layer of leadership that we now called deacons. That's where that came from. That deacon word just means servant, you know. They did a leadership restructure, added a layer of leadership, and it uncorked a little kink in the hose so that now, hey, man, these deacons are the ones, they're administering this ministry to you, so these guys can focus on prayer and the word. It's kind of been the same thing forever, so that's really what we try to do. Is, man, my job as the senior pastor at church is not to personally do every aspect of ministry in church. My job is to be responsible, as best I can, that ministry happens for every single person at church. It's like we have, you know, our team, we have hundreds of pastors that are trained. So when somebody grabs me in the lobby and they're like, hey, man, I need to meet with you. Well, one, I'll talk to you right now in the lobby. Let's talk. What can I help with? I pray. But one of my questions is I will sometimes ask, hey, man, which one do you want? Do you want help or do you want me? Because if you want help, I can get you with a person that's actually more gifted than me for the ministry that you need. This actually going to get you better help. That's why the Bible talks about how there's one body with many parts, everybody, including every pastor has different spiritual gifts. Let me get like, bro, you don't want me counseling you. I was like, you know, when I used to do some counseling, I'm just not great at it. I'm like, hey, man, quit doing that, you know, let me pray for you. And here's a sermon to listen to it, you know, but we have people on our team who like, you know, I'm not the best preacher in the world, but guys give me some good ability there. We are guys in our team who are like, they are way more anointed and gifted to personally counsel somebody going through a really traumatic thing than I ever will be. So I want to try to get them to the pastor that can help best help them. The last thing that we do is, you know, we just never want to get to the spot where the shepherds don't smell like sheep. So we constantly got people in our house. Really at our church called a rooted group, it's a little discipleship group. And Jan and I, we usually lead at least one per year last time. We just let a big discipleship group of 30 young adults just sort of random young adults, bunch of kids sitting around our living room and we're just disciples and 30 kids in church. Or if I hear sometimes about somebody that's like going through it, like, I'll just tell you man, we had one of my favorite church members in our whole church just died of cancer. He's hugging Jesus now, Kelly Gudro, best dude ever. For the last part of Kelly's life, you know, I'm calling Kelly and checking up on him. I'm praying with him. I'm seeing if I'm, hey man, what kind of, you know, and we interact almost every day for the last however many times. So what I try to do is do for one what you wish you could do for all and stay connected to the sheep. What does that make sense? It does make sense. That's why I try to do you. It does make sense. And I get it, I mean, I'm not a pastor, but I've got a lot of people who watch this, a lot of people who want to come on here. I look for the biggest impacts. Because the way I can make an impact. Let's move into passing the torch, meaning how do you get your kids, how do you get young adults, how do you, how do you, how do you really, I mean, like I told you, you know, I grew up Catholic, went to church every Sunday, did this Sunday school thing and it never sunk in. So I got slapped around a little bit and then it sunk in and but, you know, hopefully not everybody has to go through what I go through because it's tough, real tough. And so how do you successfully pass the torch and get them to get it, like really get it, not just sit there, you know, I mean, I, I'm still Catholic, you know, I bring my kids, but, you know, bring in a, bring in a five year old to a Catholic mass as a torture. Good luck, sir. You know, but I mean, how do, you know, how do you, how do you get the little guys engaged, how do you get them to get it without having to, you know, knocked around? Yeah. Well, one, I don't want to give somebody a promise, that's not a promise. So let me just say here, here's why I say that, like as a pastor, what I've learned is when I say what I'm about to say about how to do it, what you're going to have is hundreds of thousands or millions of dads, moms, grandpa's grandma's that when I say what I'm about to say, they're going to get overwhelmed with regret of what they wish they did and they're going to start blaming themselves for their kid getting sideways or going prodigal or whatever. So here's my caveat. It only works for you, you know what I mean, it's just one way, there's a, there's a hundred different ways to do this. I'm asking how you do it. Okay. Okay. That's good. That helps. And your way wouldn't necessarily work on everybody else, but I'm just curious, you know, how do you do it? Yeah. All right. That's good. All right. What you've got for those people to dovetail, you making that point is I do not see a promise in the scripture that if you do this 100% of the time, your kids will turn out this way. Okay. My example of that is garden of Eden, garden of Eden, you've got a perfect father, God's a father. That's pretty perfect. You got a perfect father. You actually have perfect kids. Adam and Eve don't got a sin nature yet. And you have a perfect environment, Eden, there's no, it's a perfect, so you have perfect father, perfect kids, perfect environment, and they still rebuild. So I will just say, hey, man, give yourself some grace. Yeah, that kind of thing. Now, I'll tell you, as far as how I'm doing it, my kids are 15, 11 and 7. So I'll be honest, man, Jerry's still out. We'll see. We'll see if I do my job. But I do know I'm going to give it everything I got. Okay, let me, here's, here's why like, here's what my dad did that I'm like, that worked. And I'm doing it with my kids and I'm going, that seems like that's working. Okay. I say three things. Okay. Number one, your faith doesn't got to be perfect. It does got to be real. So like, dude, I remember being a little kid, growing up in church, and my dad's sitting in the front row, and you know, we're worshiping, and they're singing hymns or whatever. And my dad's like not a super emotional guy, but like, I remember watching dad, and like, just a little, his eyes would just start sweating just a little bit, you know. And I remember being 13, 14, 15, 16, and watching that, and being like, that man is not just leading a service. That man is worshipping his God. And I remember thinking like, man. I want to know who he knows, he knows so much, I want to know his God because that's real. Like I remember, and there's a million times I saw stuff like that, like, "Whoa, that's real." Okay, so it doesn't got to be perfect, we're going to grace, but it does got to be real. Number two is, whatever I tell you when you're younger, you're a new parent, as you're like, man, here's a secret. You know, here's a secret, Sean. You got to get down in their world. If they're into blueie, you're into blueie. If they're in a coconut, you're in a coconut, whatever it is. Now, that strategy, that might be fine. I'd say until they're like six or seven. But eventually, reality kicks in, and oh, by the way, reality's undefeated, and I'm going to say something with a bit of an edge to it. But like, again, reality's undefeated. Kids are fools. Like, we got a Bible verse for that. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. Kids are fools. Their default mode is foolishness. That's why they need moms and dads, godly moms and dads. Okay, so here's the thing. I don't need to get down into their world as they get older. Their world is full of rebellious rebellion and foolishness. I don't want to get down in their world of rebellion and foolishness. Instead of getting down in their world, I want to pull them up into my world. So here's what I started to see. Like my dad, he's a pastor. He's got a good band of brothers. I remember growing up. It's like every, I think it was Tuesday night. Their whole discipleship group was coming over. Bunch of couples that like, they were awesome. Like they were like, like actual normal people that love Jesus and loved each other and had fun lives, you know. I'm seeing all of them like opening that book and talking about it and all this stuff. So then I get a little older and my dad started doing this thing and looking back, I'm like, I know what he was doing. I didn't know what he was doing in the moment. My dad started doing this thing where like the church staff who were all awesome, they would like go out for lunch and my dad would be like, hey, Josh, you want to duck out of the thing you got today? Once you come to lunch with the staff today. So then here's what's happening is now he's pulling me up into his world and his world was full of wisdom and righteousness. And he's pulling me out of my world of rebellion and foolishness. So then I'm growing up around all these people and I'm, dude, I'm growing up. Go on, man, the people that I respect the most, I'm like, it's Jeff Carlisle. That's one of my dad's adult buddies. It's this guy, like I can name all the families to this day. And what that did is I grew up sitting around at those lunches or at our home and going, you know, I want to be the type of person that can fit in with these people instead of looking at like foolish rebellion, rebellious kids and doing that thing. So Hillary Clinton wrote that, was it a book? This she wrote, I think called it takes a, it takes a village, something like that. I can't remember. She wrote something. I can't remember what it was. That's a lie. That's, I'll just tell you right now. That's a lie. Okay. Because if the village that you're using to raise your kids is a bunch of like woke pagan secular swifties or whatever, if that's the village, well, if the village is a bunch of pagans, they're just going to help raise a whole bunch of other pagans. So you don't need a village. Here's what you need is a dad. You need a redeemed village. The Bible calls that a church. So it's like, I got to grow up. What I'm doing right now. I'm doing exactly what my dad did. Like I'm just like literally this week. Yesterday was our all staff meeting. It's so funny. I don't even think about this. I literally yesterday did what my dad did growing up. My dad is awesome. My 15 year old Eliana right now. She loves Jesus. She loves people. And there's a call. There's like a, there's a little grace on her life, leading worship. You know, she loves serving at church, doing that stuff. So yesterday, I'm like, Hey, Eliana, why don't you, that's so funny, dude. I exactly what my dad did. I was like, Hey, Eliana, why don't you duck out of what you got today and come to staff meeting with me and your mom. So what's she doing? She's sitting around, I don't know, 400 pastors and their wives and people who love the Lord and they're trying to serve him and, and that's who she's around. Well, what am I doing? I'm not getting down into her world. I'm pulling her up into my world. Okay. Last thing I'd say is, is a, is a, and by the way, I got these from a buddy of mine named Josh McPherson. He's probably the best dad I've ever seen. Is whoever tells the best stories wins. Do this is a total, there's a total cheat code parenting hack, man. So what's interesting, if you go back and next time you read your old testament, you'll notice all these times where like God does like this amazing thing, parts of Red Sea or defeats AI or whatever it is. And then he tells all the people, Hey, before you leave, will you guys please set up a big pile of rocks right here? And, you know, and the Hebrew word is, there's a hymn that if, if you're listening and you grew up singing those old hymns, there's an old hymn called come thou fount. And one of the lyrics of come thou fount is here I raised my Ebenezer is with what is that? That word Ebenezer, it comes from two Hebrew words. Oh, I said it. I'm just realizing I said it wrong earlier to Hebrew words, Evan Azar, which means stone of help. Okay. So what all those little rocks were, they got said, pile those up is he was going, Hey, all throughout this little country, the size of New Jersey, where you're raising all your kids. Every time you walk past one of these piles of rocks, God was gone, Hey, hey, dad, what I want you to do is stop. And you're going to point to that rock and tell your son, man, when Papa was here 60 years ago, he was standing right there and him and all his buddies, they marched around that city seven time son. And you're never going to believe what happened. The Lord gave us this promise. You don't got to fight. You just got to be still and all fight for you. And son, you're never going to believe this, but our God is so powerful that when your grandpa was over there and did it, God conquered that thing. And so they grew up telling all these stories. So, so here's a deal. God was wiring into how the the culture was structured. He was given all the dads and moms. Here's all your story opportunity. So for me, growing up, like us sitting around the dinner table at night, you know, it's like I was just constantly hearing all these stories. Dad would come home from work. And I was constantly just hearing all these stories about and this widow that somebody just gave her a car. And I just because they out of nowhere. And this marriage guy healed his guys that addict that we've been praying for for three, but they just got free. And you know, I was just hearing all these stories. And it just, it just, it just gripped me. And the older I got, I was like, well, I want to be a part of the thing where all that cool stuff happens. You know, man, it just rubbed off on me. So I think the thing I say that the they just encouragement I'd give to, you know, guys who were in the thick apparent thing like you and me and all the guys listening and trying to figure it out, doing their imperfect best just like me is man, the most significant thing you do with your life, if you're a father, it's probably not going to be something you accomplish. It's probably going to be somebody you race support all in school. You said that, trying in your replacement. It's good stuff, man. That's what we're doing. Thank you. Yes, sir. We've got one last question. Oh, buddy. Actually, I've one here, but I got my own. Okay. What is your favorite miracle that Jesus performed in the Bible? And why? Well, am I allowed to cheat and go resurrection? You know, let's do it. All right. All right. You know, other than that one. That would dang man. Oh, that's fire. That's good. All right. This is shooting from the hip. If I have more time, I think something else. All right. I think it's, I think it's when Jesus touches the leper and he heals him. Can you go on to it? Can you tell the story? Yeah. Well, he heals lepers a few times. Okay. And honestly, there's not much description to this miracle, but there's a specific time, or maybe a couple times in the gospels where Jesus reaches out and he touches the leper. Now, there's a reason that like most people, it's not the kind of thing you see. There's a reason that's my favorite. Okay. Might be my favorite. So in the Old Testament, all these laws of the world. about what to do with somebody that's got leprosy. And in the Old Testament, if you had leprosy, you were ceremonially unclean. And the kind of the rules were that if a clean person touches an unclean person, the unclean person makes the clean person unclean. So then, you know, what you would have to do if you had leprosy is in that time, you would have to stand, you know, according to tradition, maybe fifty paces away from somebody and you'd have to yell unclean, unclean, unclean. So when I read that miracle about Jesus just walking right up to the guy, and he's like, "Hey, will you make me clean?" Yeah, and Jesus like, you know, I will. And he touches him, I will be clean. One, that guy that has spent his entire life having everybody stay fifty paces away. Jesus walks up and he's like, "Man, I'd really like to get right up in." I want to get right up where you are. I want to be close to you, brother. I get close to you. And then when Jesus touches him, it heals him. And for the first time in the entire Bible, instead of when a clean person touches an unclean thing, the unclean thing makes the clean thing unclean. Jesus works it backwards. And because he's clean, the clean thing touches the unclean thing and the clean thing makes the unclean thing clean. And it's like a, it's a picture of what happens when you by faith and repentance reach out and touch Jesus Christ. And when you touch him, he makes you clean. That's a good, I love it. How did the people react to that? Well, in different times they were acted different ways. A lot of people did not like it when Jesus did healings. They did not like it. Why? Because it messed with a lot of their traditions that had built up around the thing. In fact, one of the things that sets off the series of events that leads to the crucifixion of Jesus is him healing people on Sabbaths. They were like, "Hey, man, you ain't allowed to." That was like one of their little rules. What legalistic people do is they take the rules that God actually gave in the Bible and then legalistic people add rules to the rules and then they condemn you for not obeying the rules. They added to the rules that actually God didn't make in the first place. And they did that with the Sabbath laws. I think they're called the Targoms. They did that with the Sabbath laws. They took one command, "Hey, don't do work on the Sabbath. Keep it holy as unto the Lord." And they had a bunch of rules about what counts as work. And then they added rules to the rules and ended up all this time. Well, one of their rules was, "Hey, no healing on the Sabbath." Which is real dumb. Like God never said that. And so one of the reasons that they got mad is what you're breaking our little religious tradition. You're making us look like idiots. We said you couldn't do this and you're doing it. I'd never understood that. It seems and I'm not well versed. I read it. I don't understand how to stuff a read book. When I read the miracles that he did, it seems like the people were pissed every single time he performed what? Very frequently. But I don't understand. I mean, like he's doing unexplainable things unless you have faith in God. And so what, I mean, he's doing it right in front of him. How are they, what are they pissed? How do they not get it? Well, I think two things. You know, I think one, it was a threat to their fame and religious sort of the power that they had. It's like, hey, quit busting up our thing. We're the ones that are in charge of all the stuff. So when Jesus kind of rolls in and starts breaking everything, there's two things the Bible says about the Pharisees. Now, there's actually a time where Jesus pronounces woes on the Pharisees and I won't be able to rattle them all off off the top of my head, but he gives seven woes. And it's essentially like, here's what's wrong with you. You know, you ask people to tie the 10th of this and you neglect the way to your matters of the law, justice and mercy and love in your neighbor. And he goes through like seven different things. But two things the Bible said that Jesus says about Pharisees is they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. So one, what they cared about, like you're like, "Hey man, why wouldn't they want people to have faith in God?" Because that really, what they cared about, that's not what they cared about a whole lot. What they cared about a whole lot was people thinking they were awesome power. Yes, they loved the praise of men more than they love the praise of God. I think power plays into that. And they were like, "Man, what we really care about in their heart of hearts, everybody cheer us on and applaud us and us, and then it does say that they loved money, and so I think those two things, if Jesus rolls in and buss up their thing, that's a threat to their two things. - What's good miracle? - What I like to do. - I like it too. - Like I told that. - Well, Josh, it was an honor, man. - Josh, my honor. - Thank you. - Thank you. - I appreciate you. God bless you. - Yes, sir. (dramatic music) No matter where you're watching the Sean Ryan show from, if you get anything out of this at all, anything, please like, comment, and subscribe. And most importantly, share this everywhere you possibly can. And, if you're feeling extra generous, head to Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review. And we hope to see you again in the next episode of "The German Technic". We hope to see you again in the future, and in the future, and in the future, in the future. If you're going to buy a new one, it's a bit of a mess. See you soon, and we'll see you again in the next episode. See you in the next episode, and see you in the next episode.