Should Christians Speak in TONGUES!? | Live Free with Josh Howerton

in every system watch this not just societies but cities as godliness decreases socialism increases the reason we don't pray is not because we're not disciplined enough it's because we're not desperate enough god's will might not seem good to me but it is always good for me when spiritual gifts are abused people usually swing to one of the two extremes disorder or denial when we talk about the gifts of tongues we don't want disorder we don't want denial we want discernment well hey Live Free Nation. Thanks for watching today. Hey, here's what you need to know. This podcast is being recorded right here at Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas. But what God is doing here is not just for Dallas. We believe it is for you. No matter where you are, Lake Point Church Online is a real community, real people, real prayer, real discipleship. And so if you've been listening to the Live Free podcast and thinking, man, I wish I could be a part of something like that. Well, you can. Every weekend we stream live on YouTube, Facebook, and our church online platform. And it's not just a broadcast. We've got live hosts in the chat. We've got prayer teams ready to stand with you and clear next steps to help you grow from groups to serving and beyond. You don't have to just consume content. You can belong wherever you are. If you are traveling, deployed, or out of state, or just checking things out, this is our invitation to you. Join us live this weekend. We have services Saturday and Sunday. Jump in the chat. Let us know where you're watching from. The link is in the description below. And we'll see you next time. Bye-bye. Let us kick this pick. Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the Live Free podcast. My name is Carlos Arazun. I'm here with Pastor Josh Howerton and Pastor Paul Cunningham, aka ChatGPalsy. Coming to you from Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas. And today we're going to be talking, should Christians pray in tongues? We're going to be. I think we're going to surprise some people. I mean, it's going to be a good one. I'm going to share some personal stories. I don't think I've ever shared outside my fire pit before. I heard some, so I'm looking forward to see. Well, a singular one. There you go. Okay, well. Go ahead. You're saying there's more. There's more. There's more. We're going to be talking about. What else are we going to talk about? We've got an artist friend about speaking in tongues. Have a go. This is going to be a good one. We're going to talk about. We got the Mom Donny. How to pray. Yeah, how to pray. How to pray, that's right. We're going to talk about prayer stuff, deep cuts on the Lord's Prayer. That's right. We're going to talk. You are seeing play out in real time the advance of socialistic economic policy. And what we're going to talk about is Christians developing the ability to connect their theology to public policy in ways that they're not good at. There you go, man. It's going to be great. That's going to be awesome. Hey, first of all, I want to give a shout out. A Live Free listener sent this mug because they heard that my favorite movie is Back to the Future, and Paul didn't know that. I didn't. Literally, everybody else knew that, and Paul's like, well. I'm not sure how I missed that. Paul's like, have you seen Back to the Future? And I'm like. Do you even know. You didn't know, Carlos? And I'm like, who are you, bro? I didn't know. I was like. Hey, what's the guy that played Doc? The actor? Yeah, Christopher something. Christopher Lloyd. Christopher Lloyd, that's right. Did you know I met him? No way. Did I tell you this? In person, I think you did mention it. I'm really jealous. We're like real close friends now. No, stop. So we were at this, Jane and I, on an anniversary, we went to this, it was like a resort in rural England, and we're sitting there at dinner, and I'm like, that's Doc! And we became very close that week. I was walking past him. Yes, I was walking past him at all. He looks exactly the same. And I said, hello. And he said, hi. Did he say. And now we're friends. Did he say. Were you still wearing your Jane Austen? He did not. And I wanted to say it, but I didn't say it. Did you share the gossip with him? I did not. I said hi. Oh, okay. I said hi. Is this where you were wearing your Jane Austen gear that we got to see? Let's move. Let's move. Whoever sent this. I had that image imprinted in my mind. Where's Jane Austen? Where's the camera? Is it here? Oh, is it there? Thank you so much. Because they didn't say who it was. And so I appreciate that. This really blesses me, by the way. This is one of my love languages right here. And hey, props to you. I'm still. Have you seen Good Will Hunting yet? Because that was an assignment, I think. I have not seen that one yet. Come on, man. It's not your fault. Should I? Should I? Actually, at this point, it is your fault. You did warn me, though, that there's some scenes I need to. There are some things. But anyways, I'm impressed that that redeemed some of it. Because I'm just. My hot take on Back to the Future, at least the first one, is it's just still one of the most rewatchable movies that, like, today, it's not boring. It keeps going. It's just one of the top, I'd say, 20 movies ever. It's the greatest of all time, in my humble opinion. Okay. There we go. Hey, we got some merch that we want to give away. If you are ever in the area, if you're a Live Free Nation listener and you come visit us in person to any of our physical locations, we would love to give you a hat. Come say hi. Find us in our first-time guest tent, and we'd love to meet you. Come to our church in Dallas, Texas. Let's go. Also, we want to celebrate anybody that we get to meet. We have a couple I want to show a photo of. This is Jason and Miranda. Let's go. And this is what Jason said. Shout out to Jason. This is what he said. After 14 years, Miranda and I will finally be getting married. God led me to the podcast one random day, and through that, I turned my life to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. A month or so later, during Pastor Josh's sermon, God spoke to Miranda, and she gave her life to Jesus. Thank you, brother. Amen. Congratulations. We're celebrating with you. Shout out. All right. Before we move on, let's start talking about the Bible. Can I celebrate another thing? Please. All right. Honestly, this last weekend was one of, I think, the proudest I've ever been of our church. So one, obviously, last week, preached, honestly, a really difficult message on divorce and remarriage. Marriage, divorce, remarriage. You did a phenomenal job. Yes, you did. Thank you. It was very long, but every now and then, you just got to do that. Dude, honestly, in previous times in my ministry, I would have walked into that sermon knowing I'm going to take it on the chin for the next week. And, dude, like the way the people of Lake Point responded to that, it was just, it was like unanimous, just like, we love what the Word says. We love the Word. And not just that, but submission to it. So here's what I want to celebrate. If you didn't watch it, at the end of the sermon, after clearly explaining, you know, what God expects when it comes to marriage, you know, we're reaching thousands of young family, young adults, young families. So there's a bunch of people, very frankly, who are visiting our church that are sleeping together, living together, having kids together that are not married yet. So at the end of the message, after we clearly explained, you know, what God commands us to do because He loves us, we did this thing where we were like, hey, man, we never want to look down on somebody unless we're giving them a hand up. That's good. If you are coming under conviction and want to be married, that you realize you need to be married to honor God, we want to do it. And, dude, I don't know what the number is now. I'm sure it's higher. Within 24 hours of the end of that sermon, over 60 couples. 60 couples. 60 couples had gone, hey, man, we've come under conviction. We want to honor God in what we're doing and had signed up. So we're going to have a big mass wedding at Lake Point here in a few weeks. Obviously, all those people are going to meet with pastors for counsel, all the things. But, dude, it's going to be amazing. I've never seen anything like it. It's as if it comes right after the Love Life series, then the pod, and then this sermon. Now it's like, that's awesome. Come on, man. We're starting families. Hey, every single week we have a hat giveaway. So to participate in this week's giveaway, comment hat here on YouTube or Spotify. We got some hats for you. And also, we got these hats to give away as well. Oh. Dude, those are legit. They're great. Look, check it out. I can't do a flat bill. What? I've tried. Can't do it either. Back in the day, maybe. Today, I'm not sure. And so comment hat, and you will be participating. You can also buy some Live Free merch at livefree.shop, or you can text the word hat to 20411. Last thing, to find our daily Bible reading plan, plus the weekly sermon, plus an early release of the Live Free podcast episode, plus a discipleship guide, you can go to the Lake Point Church app. You can text the app to 20411, or go to the Apple or Google Play Store to get it. Good job, Carlos. Thank you. Pastor Josh, I have a question for you. I will allow it. I was waiting for you to say that. What did it make it to the sermon? Dude, I started saying that at home, and I'm like, I sound like a total jerk to my kids. I gotta quit doing that. Just from the Avengers. Yeah. Wait, no, not really. Oh, you're right. That's what I was starting to say. There you go. But before that, it's from another show, right? I think it was, yeah, it's from The Office. All right, anyway, listen, I wanna talk about the Bible. I wanna talk about the Bible. All right, let's get right at it. So obviously, so this week was week two of a series we're calling Investigating Jesus. And so each week of the series, we're doing this thing where we're asking a question that is a very frequently asked question about Jesus, because the gospel, we're preaching the gospel of Luke. Honestly, man, it's like, I'm chopping up Luke, and it's a way to preach verse by verse through a book, and people not even notice. So Luke begins the gospel talking to his one more, a guy named Theophilus, and going, "Hey, man, I've carefully investigated Jesus, "and I want you to understand these things." So this week, what we hit is if Jesus is real, why didn't he answer my prayer? It's like a very, very real thing. So here in a second, I'm gonna play a Shawn Ryan clip that I wanna use with a message. So a couple things, essentially what we did this week is we preached what's called the Lord's Prayer. So a couple interesting things. First of all, when you guys were growing up, so in Kentucky, we did the Lord's Prayer like before football games. And here's how we would do it. We'd do it in King James. We would do, "Our Father who art in heaven, "hallowed be your name, thy kingdom come, "thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. "Give us this day our daily bread, "and forgive us our trespasses." All the things. And then at the end, what we would say, is we would say, "For thine is the kingdom and the power, "and the glory forever, amen." Okay, that's not in the Lord's Prayer. - No, but it's fine. - In none of the gospels. So I grew up always thinking that was in the Lord's Prayer. Like literally, I'm a little embarrassed until this week. I just learned that right now. Okay. So what happens to people is they'll read, like, they'll read the Lord's Prayer in Luke, and they'll think, oh, that must be in the Matthew version. And they'll read it in Matthew. Oh, it must be in the Luke version. Maybe that's in Mark or whatever. It's in none of them. And what it is is around the fifth century, some, you know, Christian early church fathers, they grabbed it. That's actually a statement from First Chronicles 2911. And they grabbed it, and they sort of, like, just kind of ghetto-rigged it onto the end of the Lord's Prayer. So that's a little interesting. Let me do another one. So, honestly, the biggest thing about this section on prayer is it is a radically— we do not understand how radically disorienting it was for people for Jesus to pray with an explicit, our Father. Okay, so, like, just to put this in perspective, some of this was in the sermon, some of it wasn't. In the entire Old Testament, 39 books, 36, 39 books. 39. 39 books. 30 books. Spanning thousands of years, God is referred to as Father 14 times in the entire Old Testament. Jesus comes, and he immediately, he just starts praying, Father, Father, Father, Father, Father. Now, bro, this is amazing. Let me talk about why this is a really, really big deal. So, what I'm getting ready to show you right here, it's not going to make sense. And then when we get done, it's going to make a whole lot of sense. Okay? So, here's why this is a big deal when Jesus starts praying our Father in heaven. All right, so, throw up that first Holy of Holies pic. So, here's what you're seeing. This is in 2019. We went to Israel. Everybody should come at some point. If you go up on the top of the Temple Mount at your. Are you leaving next week? I'm leaving in two days. You're going to see this? I won't be here with you. I'll be there. Okay. You're going to see that in three days then. If you go up to the top of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, there is one spot. First of all, Orthodox Jews, some Orthodox Jews, they will not even step. On the Temple Mount. The reason is, the Temple Mount, the flat structure is where. It's called Second Temple Judaism. The second temple was there during Jesus' time. The reason is, they feel like they are unsure where the Holy of Holies was. They won't even step on top of the Temple Mount, lest they accidentally tread in wherever the spot was where the Holy of Holies was. And, you know, that was a death penalty in the Old Testament. All right? Now, here's what's amazing. If you walk up on top of the Holy of Holies, this is all going to make sense here in a second. You're going to see this little pavilion structure, this little octagonal thing at the bottom. Now, most Jews think that this structure was built directly on top of exactly where the Holy of Holies stood when the temple was there. Now, Trinity, can you zoom in on this picture? So, this is on the Temple Mount. Oh, good job. That's right. So, they think this for a few reasons. So, first. First of all, they know in general where the temple was before it was knocked down. Now, there's a big Muslim mosque called Al-Aqsa on the Temple Mount. But there's another part of the Temple Mount where the actual temple was. If you look, it's one of the only places on the top of this thing. Everywhere there's tile except this one spot. They left this one spot. And you can see on the corner outside of this little octagonal thing, there's this. You can see a spot right there. You see it? Where there's bedrock. Okay? So, that's the spot. That's the spot where they didn't tile over where the rock used to be. Now, that's exactly five cubits by five cubits. That's what you've got right there. So, it's a perfect square. Now, what they believed happened. So, one, it lines up to the exact spot where they think the Holy of Holies would have been. Okay? Number two is five by five cubits. There's a reason for that in the Old Testament. What they think happened is there was another stone that they placed. Because they didn't have the Ark of the Covenant in the second temple. What they think they did is they took another stone. It was two by two cubits. And they put it on top of that five by five cubit stone that was the same dimension as the Ark of the Covenant. And they put that there. Okay? Now, they blocked this off so that nobody will go in there. And you guys know the whole deal. Is this was the spot where the Ark of the Covenant stood. At the top of the Ark of the Covenant, there was two cherubs that were fashioned by gold. And it says that the presence of God stayed right there in between the wings of these two cherubs. So, like, just get this in your head. It's all going to make sense here in a second. So, this is the spot. This is the spot where the presence of God himself dwelt. And nobody could ever go there. Ever. Because if they did and walked into God's presence, they would die. There's literally tradition that when once a year the high priest would go in to intercede for the people, that they would tie a little string around his ankle lest he walked in with any impurified sin and died in God's presence. And then they could pull him out. All right? So, just stay with me. This is. This is why this prayer is amazing, what Jesus does here. So, if you go back 2,000 years, every part of the temple where you could go was dependent on who you were. So, what you had is, first of all, on the very outside, you had something that was called the Gentile court. And as far as any Gentile person could go, beggars, sick, poor people, ceremonial and clean, they could only go to the Gentile court. Okay? There were literally signs. We've showed it before on the podcast. Literally signs. There were literally signs posted above the spot from the Gentile court farther in that threatened a death penalty if you didn't belong anywhere inside of the Gentile court and you went farther. All right? So, then inside the Gentile court, there was something called the outer court. That's as far as women could go. Okay? Inside of the outer court, there was something called the inner court. And this is where male. The only people that go there, male Israelites were the only people that could go there if they were ceremonially unclean. Total silence. And that was where they made offerings. Sin offerings. Okay? Then inside of the inner court was the Holy of Holies. And you could only go there. Only priests could go there. And that's the spot where you go and you read your Old Testament and there's the candlestick and the incense that's going up, the table of presents that was all in there. And then, right in between that thing you just saw and the holy place, it was called the holy place. We talked about this, was a veil as thick as your hand. They separated. The holy place from the most holy place. And on the inside of that, the only person who could ever go there was the high priest. And he could go in one day per year. And only after a whole day of cleansing from sin, they would tie a little rope around his leg. And that's where the Ark of the Covenant was and the glory of God dwelt between the cherubim. Okay, now. Jesus comes along in the Lord's prayer. And he just starts praying, our Father. Our Father. Our dad. Literally, the Greek or Aramaic would have been something like Abba. Our dad. Our dad. Our dad is in heaven. And he just starts going, hey, man, do you know what you could do now? You can just walk up and talk to God like he's your dad. All right. Now, here's the big point. I want you to imagine you get in a time machine. You go back. You get in a time machine. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I want you to imagine, let's say none of us are this, but let's say you were a Gentile woman. And you're there. And all of a sudden, you're at the temple and you're on the very outer side. And you're like, man, I can't go into God's presence. And somebody you don't know, I just want you to imagine this. Somebody you don't know grabs your hand. And he just says, come with me. And you just start going, wow, I'm not allowed. I'm not allowed. I'm a Gentile woman. I'm not allowed to do that. And he's like, you're good if you're with me. So then he takes them all the way, you know, takes her all the way. And they go through to the outer court where women are supposed to be. And then he goes, come with me even farther. And then he takes you into the inner court. And it's only male Israelites. You're like, I'm not allowed. He's like, you are if you're with me. And then he's like, let's go a little farther. And he's still got you by the hand. And he says, well, why don't we go into the holy place? And you're like, well, I'm not a priest. He says, it's okay if you're with me. And then you walk right up to that veil thick as your hand. And with terror on your face, he pulls that veil to the side. And, you know, anybody that's ever entered that thing that didn't belong in there has died. And you go, I can't go there, you know. And he says, as long as you're with me, you're good. And then I want you to imagine that you walk in. And right there is the Ark of the Covenant that only a handful of people have ever seen. And you look right between the wings of those cherubs. And you see the face of God. And then all of a sudden something blows your mind. You look at that face. And then you look at the face of your guide. And you see the likeness of a son in the face of your guide. And you're going, boom. Boom. And all of a sudden you realize that your guide is the son of the presence of God, the son of. And then you get to Hebrews chapter 10. And it says this. And all of a sudden the reason that Jesus is saying, you know how you can pray now? You can just talk to God like he's your dad and walk right up to him. And you read Hebrews chapter 10. And it says, therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the most holy place, by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, open for us through the curtain that is his body. Because when Jesus died, that curtain was torn from top to bottom. The reason was this next verse. And since we have a great priest, Jesus, over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with a full assurance that faith brings. And all of a sudden it dawns on you that when Jesus died, that curtain was torn. Because now. God's saying, "Now?" Jesus has made Hebrews 10 a new and living way. Just come talk to me like a kid. And in one of the most emotional moments in my entire life, this right here, go to that next picture. Wow. I couldn't not do it when nobody else was looking. I stepped right over that little octagonal barrier and that's my feet standing right on the Holy of Holies where before the death of Jesus, anybody that stood would die. And I could stand there as a son of the Father. Why? Because Jesus Christ made a new and living way into the presence of God. And now we're sons. That's right. We can talk to him like kids. Amen. That's amazing. What I love, even as you're saying, is through the blood of Jesus. And that's connected to the idea of the judgment that we deserve fell on Jesus. That's right. And so this leads me to two of my favorite quotes that are connected to this ever is J.I. Packer in his book, Knowing God, which by the way, fantastic book. I'll let you, Derry. Top 10 book ever read. Yeah. Yeah. As he said, it's one thing to no longer have God as your judge, but it's a whole thing altogether to now have him as your father. Amen, man. It's like Jesus died, yes, to take on the judgment, but so that he would no longer be your judge, but even more than that. That's right. That he would now become your father. That's right, man. And then I love this from Tim Keller. He once talked about how, you know, only a child will go and wake up a king at 3 a.m. for a glass of water. And we have that kind of access. We have that kind of access. That's fantastic, dude. And so it's just, it just reminds us of just the grand privilege of being sons and daughters of God and the access that we now have to God through prayer. That's right. That we can go into his throne room at any time. Just talk to him like a kid, man. Amen. That's right. Let me kind of do one more thing here. Please, please. All right. So I got in some service that I didn't get in all services. So I want to respond to that because essentially this sermon, it responds to this question that gets raised here. So by the way, huge fan of Sean Ryan. I listen to his stuff. In fact, I kind of hope this makes it to him somehow because I want to answer his question here. I'm sure he will. All right. So check this out. And you're going to hear, essentially he's asking the question this sermon responds to. Check this out. And I know it's funny, but it's true. But, you know, this morning I was reading it and I was a couple of days behind, so I've caught up. But, you know, I was talking about a common thing in there is, it's always talking about hand over your problems to me. Hand them over to me. He's answering a very normal, you know, I'll take care of it. And I was, I just, I don't understand what that means. I mean, I've got all kinds of problems. I pray for them all the time. Years, some of these problems. And I'm not saying I have more problems or less problems than anybody else. They're just problems, you know? And I pray about them. A lot of them don't get answered. And then I think about it and I'm like, what does that mean? Okay. So he says, he says, what's that mean? I'm praying for something that doesn't get answered. What's that mean? I would like to, as a pastor, respond to Sean Ryan's question. Okay. So a lot of people know this. The Bible actually lists eight very specific reasons that God might not be answering your prayer. All right. And a lot of people don't like, I think it's very, very specific. All right. So I'm gonna run through these like super fast. One, God might not be answering your prayer. One, because you didn't pray the prayer. It's like some people, they just sit around like, I'm just sort of waiting. I ain't asking, but I'm waiting. You know, this is James 4.2. It says, you have not because you ask not. So like, hey man, we gotta ask. God's a dad. He wants us to ask. All right. Number two, God might not be answering your prayer. The Bible says, because you got un, it says unconfessed or cherished sin in your life. Like this is a specific thing. Psalm 66, 18 says this. If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. Okay. Now I just want to point this out. It doesn't say if I sin, it says if I cherish sin. So it's like, man, I'm protecting sin in my life. I'm covering sin in my life. I'm intentionally trying to grow and stay in sin in my life. That's what it's talking about. Okay. So if I cherish sin in my life. Okay. Number three, the Bible says that God might not be answering prayers in your life because of doubt. Because of doubt. By the way, I'll just say this. A lot of times, modern progressivism and progressive Christians, they will reframe doubt as like a positive thing. It's like a virtue. Yeah, it's a virtue. Literally in the Bible, doubt is, never, it is never, ever, ever a good thing. Ever. James 1 says this, but when you ask, you must believe and not doubt because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Okay. So there it is. Because of doubt. Number four, the Bible says you might not, God might not be answering your prayers because of wrong motives. So this is James 4, 3. It says, when you ask, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. By the way, this right here is what clears up the confusion about what Jesus means when he says, hey, if you ask anything in my name, it will be done for you. So just real quick, I'm asking something, praying in Jesus name is not just asking for like, whatever you want, like, you know, millions of dollars and Bentleys and vacations and hot girlfriends and then going, in Jesus name, amen. What it means to ask something in Jesus name, think about the, it's the, it's the, the third commandment. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. That doesn't just mean using God's name like a cuss word. It means not putting God's name on something that's not from God. So when somebody, when God didn't speak to somebody and somebody goes, hey man, I got a word from the Lord. That's taking God's name in vain. In the same way, praying in Jesus name is putting something, is praying for something that you know is from him. I know Jesus would want this so I'm praying for him. Number five, the Bible says, God might not be answering your prayer because you have unforgiveness in your life. Yeah. This is, this is a biggie, man. Mark 11, 25 and 26 says, and whenever you stand praying, forgive. If you have anything against anyone so that your father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. In other words, hey man, two Christians being reconciled is such a big deal to the father just like with me, with my kids. I'm like, I'm not going to talk to you about anything until you get with your brother or sister. God's going to talk to you and he's going, hey, same thing, man. I got one thing I'm willing to talk to you about right now. Get right with your brother or sister. Okay. Number six, God might not be answering your prayers because you are ignoring hurting people. This is Proverbs 21, 13. Whoever shuts his ears to the cry of the poor will also cry himself and not be heard. So God is saying, hey man, you can't ignore people made in my image and then ask for my help. Okay. Number seven, I know this is a weird one. This is only for the husbands. So ladies, close your ears. You're not allowed to listen. But this is a Bible verse. God might not be answering your prayers because you are being a bad husband. Yes. This is a verse a lot of people don't realize. 1 Peter 3, 7. It says, Husbands, likewise, dwell with your wives in an understanding way, giving honor to your wife as the weaker vessel, as being heirs together, of the grace of life. Listen, so that your prayers may not be hindered. So God is literally saying like, hey man, you think you're going to mistreat my daughter and then come and ask me for stuff and we're going to be good? He's like, no, that's not how this works. It's just like, if you were mistreating one of my daughters, it's like mistreat her and request things from me and I punch you. That's how that triangle is going to work. It's like, not really, but you know. Now, and then last one, number eight, God might not be answering your prayers for you. Um, very frankly, because he's got something better. That's right. And he actually is answering your prayer. That's right. Just in a way you didn't expect. That's right. So this was super emotional for me. Um, this week in message prep and I got this in some of the service now. Um, throw that picture up Trinity of this note. I ran across this note in my Bible, uh, this last year when I was doing my Bible reading plan and this is in Genesis and, uh, right over the verse where it says, and Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife because she was barren and the Lord granted his prayer. And, uh, right above that verse, I noticed this last year. Um, I had, uh, the ink is fading because on January 7th, 2013, I wrote in my Bible, I prayed this today for Jana because we were eight years into infertility at that point. And that was very hard for Jana. And I prayed for eight years. And it's right there. And, uh, God never answered my prayer. And if somebody asked me today, like, Hey man, why didn't God answer your prayer? Um, very frankly, part of me just goes, I don't know. But I will say this. Uh, every time I look at one of my three adopted kids, uh, or every time, uh, somebody walks up to me and Jan in the lobby and they tell us that their family chose to adopt because they were inspired by what they saw in our family. What I think is, I'm glad he didn't. And sometimes God is not answering your prayer because his thoughts are higher than your thoughts and his ways are higher than your ways. And you're praying for something and he has something better for you. - That's right. That's good, man. That's really, that's really good. Yeah, I think for, especially for the, somebody who becomes a Christian and they wrestle with that idea of like, man, but like I thought now I'm supposed to just ask anything and God's supposed to give it to me. I think it's a, you know, a gentle reminder would be, God is a loving Father, not a vending machine. And a vending machine gives you what you always want and a loving father gives you what you always need. And so if God says no, like you said, it's because he's got something better and it requires faith for you to trust him that he's good. And so I think that's why I think Jesus in the Lord's prayer says, your will be done. And so we tend to think that your will be done means, God, I want you to adapt to what I want. But oftentimes when you pray, your will be done is really God helped me align to what you want. And because we usually ask things that we think, oh, if I have this, it'll make me happy. And God wants you to be happy, but more than that, he wants you to be holy. And so when you are in that spot, there is something to be said about, hey, it takes time for you to work out that muscle of trust and faith that he is good. He is a good father. You can keep asking and you can keep trusting. That's exactly right. And I think with that is just have to remember, like God's will might not seem good to me, but it is always good for me. Yes. It may not seem good to me, but it is always good for me. That's right. And I think even though backtracking a little bit, I think maybe just a practical thing that people can do going through that list is like, if you're, it feels like your prayers are hitting a ceiling and they're not getting answered is probably, I would encourage people to just go back to that list that you just gave. And just almost like, okay, like, is there a thing here? And if you find that, by the way, the beautiful thing again, is that we have access to God. And it says, man, it actually first John one says that if we will confess our sin, he is faithful and just, and we'll forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So maybe if you find those things, confess them. But then once you've done those, I think it was the first seven, you get to it. Hey, it could be that number eight. Now it could also be weight, by the way. One of the things that I saw as I worked through Genesis this year is often they would pray for a child and God said, yeah, I'm going to give you one. And then they'd have to wait like decades. 30 years. Yeah, that's right. And so it could be just have to wait. By the way, I, uh, we do. You do not want to get pregnant when we're 70. I'm just going to get that on the record. In case I wasn't clear in my prayer, let me put that in right now. Dear Lord, just letting you know. But I think with that is this is that idea is like, if you get to that last one, it feels like, you know, you have to remember that what might not seem good to you is good for you. And even like, I love to like, just put some like actual stories to that from scripture. It's like, if you're Joseph in the book of Genesis and you've been, even though if you're a little bit of a turd to your brothers, it's still unjust. You know, get sold into slavery and then thrown in prison for stuff you didn't do. And he was in slavery in prison for over a decade of his life. And I have to imagine, even though it's the Lord was with him, it probably that's that situation didn't seem good to him. And yet at the end, he was able to see what God was doing and had done through it all. And he realized it was good for him and good for his family and good for the whole world. That's right. Because it allowed God to save lives because of what he had to go through. So it's just a reminder that God can be trusted. That's right. If we knew everything God knows, we would. We would answer the prayer just the way he did. That's right, man. That's right. Let's get practical. Yeah, let's do it, man. So somebody's like, great. How do I pray? Let's give some tips, practical applications. Okay. Let's do some things. Yeah. You want me to start? Yeah, let's go. Okay. So I'll do a couple of things. One, one of my favorite stories ever. Have you ever heard that, Paul, I bet you have. Have you heard this story about Martin Luther with his barber? Okay. This is amazing. Do you know what the name of that is? See if you can pull it up. See if you can pull the name of that thing up. So this is a true story. Martin Luther. Martin Luther got started the Protestant Reformation. Apparently his barber one time was like, hey, man, I'm real bad at prayer. What should I do? And total Martin Luther move. I think he wrote him like a 20-page treatise. Yeah. And Peter Beskendorf? Peter Beskendorf was his name. I don't know, man. And then, yeah. Yeah. And then he wrote, and there's a simple way to pray. I'm not going to try to. It's German. It's German. It literally is German. It's a simple way to pray in whatever German. I wanted to go there. You're way better at accents, even though sometimes you mix the cultures. You're way better at it. No, I'm just less politically correct. Hey, we're about there. Hey, we're not talking about tongues yet. So go ahead. We are going to talk about tongues in a second. We will. We will. But yeah. I think we very much just went off the rails. We just brought Italians and Germans back together. Okay. Okay. All right. So here's, my dad taught me this. Oh, it's a great way. Not this thing about the Martin Luther. I didn't. Yeah. But the method. So what he did was he taught me this. It is. Martin Luther said, so what some guys will do, dude, is like, honestly, Catholics will do this. I would say don't do this. Well, first of all, let me back up. What we don't, number one, we pray to God. Yeah. Now, Jesus is our mediator. We can go directly into the presence of the Father. We can pray to God. You do not have to pray to saints. You don't got to pray to Mary. You don't need any mediator between you and God. You can go right in because now he's your dad. That's literally Hebrews 10 is meaning. Now we've been given a new and living way. It's straight. So that's number one. Number two, my dad taught me this and he may have gotten it from Martin Luther because what Martin Luther did for his barber is he went, hey, man, use the Lord's prayer as a model prayer, but don't just recite it. So like what I'll do is for me, I'm just going to get super practical. There's this. I'm going to pull it up real quick. There's a, you know, in movies, they'll say that the fifth character is the soundtrack. Oh, sure. Absolutely. You know what this is? Do you guys use this? It's just like a random YouTube. It's by William Augusto. It's called, uh, I think the album is called soaking in his presence. Since you put this out on social, I've started using it. Okay. Yeah. So I don't know what it is, dude. Maybe this guy prayed over his little thing. I'll, I'll put this on. I got a room in my house where nobody can hear me. I'll put that on for some reason. I'm just getting super practical. What helps me? I'll put that on. And then what I'll do sometimes is I'll use the Lord's prayer as prayer prompt. Yes. So like, I just get super, maybe vulnerable, you know, so it starts, I'll pray like our father who are in heaven, may God today, I receive a spirit of sonship. Now I thank you that I'm no longer a slave. Thank you for adopting me as a son and Lord, I just wanted today, just crawl up into your presence and press my head real tight up against the chest of my father and just, you know, I'll just pray. And then our father who are in heaven, hallowed be your name. And then I'll take a few minutes to say, God, you are my father. You are holy. Now, father, thank you for what you've done for me. You are just, you are righteous. I could spend the rest of my life. And if you never did anything else for me, you've done enough for me to spend the rest of my life, giving thanks to you. Hallowed be your name, bless your name, father. And then he goes, your kingdom come, your will be done on the earth as it is in heaven. And I'll just start praying, whatever it is, my father, please save these people. Father, I'm praying for this unreached people group that we're getting ready to step into over in India. I pray that your kingdom will come. Father, I'm. I'm praying against the rising tide of evil and godlessness in our nation. But you can use the Lord's prayer almost as jumping off points. That's one. I've found that to be very, very helpful. All right. Well, let's round robin this thing. I may give some other things. What are the tips y'all got? Yeah, I love that one. I mean, I've done the same thing. Lord's prayer is a great one. Actually, Chris Hodges wrote a great book called Pray First, and he's got some model prayers in there. That's, I believe, is one of them, but he's got some others. I think part of the tabernacle prayer. Yeah, the tabernacle. Oh, that's my favorite. Tabernacle prayer is incredible. I was going to get there. That's my favorite. I won't steal it from you, but I just, part of it is the core is like Lord's prayer is a great one. I mean, it's literally the one he gave us as a model, but there's just, if you can find a model that can help get shape to it, because I think especially as you're learning to pray, but all the way, but even if you've been praying for a while, sometimes it just feels like it's just, you get in a rut. It's a great way to keep you focused and to kind of work through those kind of big categories. That's, that's a big one that I use. I use the Lord's prayer. Also, I encourage you, this is a great one to punch as you talked a few weeks ago about being people of the word and diving into the Bible. Like when you get, like when you're reading through the Bible, then pray through whatever passage you just read. Like, I mean, I was, I was in Psalm 111 yesterday and it talked about offering thanks and worship in the congregation. So I just took a moment and said, Lord, when I'm in worship with the people of God this week in the Lord, would you let that be authentic? Would you make us into a worshiping people? Like, I don't have to pray long. I'm like, I just, a few simple prayers over that verse. And you don't have to do that for every verse. I don't want to make it sound like that. I'm going to just say like, I saw that something stirred in me. And I just said a quick prayer. So I think when you've been combined, when you start combining your reading of God's word within your prayer to God, it becomes this back and forth conversation. Here's what I would say too. I think we think that prayer is primarily us initiating a conversation with God. And obviously that can be true. You can start a conversation with God at any point. But in what you see in scripture, it is prayer is primarily us responding to God who has already initiated a conversation with us. The Bible says that the first one to communicate is actually God. He reveals himself. Through his word, he speaks. And so to echo what you just said, this is literally what I do every single morning. I open up the word. I read first. And my prayer is my response to what I'm reading, to what God is speaking. That's right. Dude, like I'll give an example of this. Because when people learn to, instead of just reading the word, it's like I'm praying what I'm reading. Your Bible reading changes radically. So like this morning I'm in 2 Timothy. I read today the whole book of 2 Timothy. It was my Bible reading. So I'm going to give an example. So it starts, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. And dude, here's what I've noticed for me, is if I read something and like there's an emotion that rises in my heart, it's almost like deep calls to deep. It's like the Holy Spirit is prompting something in me and I'll want to turn. So honestly, man, I read that verse and I just thought, man, like, God, I can't believe you set me apart to be a pastor. And I just stopped reading the verse. I'm one verse in. I'm just like, Father, thank you for setting me apart. Thank you that you've set apart Christians from the world. Thank you that you've set me apart for ministry. Father, would you make that happen? me a holy vessel? Would you cleanse me from anything dishonorable so that I might be a vessel for honorable use? Lord, is there any, you know, I just prayed it right there. Lord, is there any hurtful way in me? Search me and try me. And it's just like, if you will start reading the word through the lens of I'm looking for a prayer prompt from the spirit, that's when deep calls to deep. And then like with that, I love 1 John 5, 14 says, if we ask anything according to his will, then those are answered. Well, how do I know his will? Through his word. Through his word. And so I think that's even connecting that as like, man, as I'm seeing these things, I'm like, oh, I see what God's will is. I want to pray that over myself. I want to pray it over my family, over my church. That's even sometimes what I'll do is like, hey, how can I pray this over myself, my family, my church, and even then go not into the world. It's just a really powerful way. If you could see my journal right now, I even sometimes divide the page into two. One is just notes and things I'm seeing from the passage. And then the other are prayers from the passage. I try to do both at the same time. Dude, that is a hack. And then I want to come to you, Carlos. I'm going to make you give a tip because you're a man of prayer. And I know your wife tells me you're a man of prayer, which by the way, that is a win. That's amazing. That your wife, when you're not around, she'll tell, like, I'll ask Brooke, I was checking on you. Is he praying? No. Hey, is he praying? I was like, oh, okay. Don't fire that guy. That's a joke. That's a joke. That's a joke. Watch vloggers. Mega church pastor will fire somebody that doesn't pray enough. You're on a podcast. Why is this only a two second clip? I'm going to come to you here in a second. Now that is like, just to get super practical. And here's why, listen, if you're listening, here's why we're doing this. You will never grow as a Christian and a disciple past your prayer life. So it's like, the reason we're getting super practical here is that it's going to change you. This is what changes your family. How are you going to be a man that has three generations deep after you're hugging Jesus that are still faithful? Serving God on this planet because you built monuments of prayer for the generations that would come after you when you're gone. So it's like, this stuff matters, man. Just to get super practical to what Paul said, like my prayer life radically changed when I started sitting there with a journal in front of me. And there's two reasons for that. I didn't plan to talk about this. There's two reasons for that. One, very frequently what God will do is he'll speak to you while you're praying. So you guys may disagree with this and this, I'm going to get, I'm going to get a little Pentecostal here for a second. So Acts chapter two, it says, I'm going to pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters are going to prophesy. We're going to talk about tongues here in a second. And then it says, your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams. Very frankly, what will happen to me, I want to know if this has ever happened to you. I've never talked about this before. What will happen to me when I'm praying, if I'm like caught up in a moment of deep and passionate prayer is it's almost like what's verbal will become visual. This happened to me three or four days ago. And it's like what I'm praying, I'll get a very vivid, it's almost like a spiritual daydream. And I'll give, I'll give an example of this. Um, the, uh, a couple of weeks ago, I was praying through a gospel of John where Jesus is like, Hey, I'm the vine, you're the branches. You can't do anything without me. And I'm praying and I'm just like, Lord, I want roots dug all the way deep. Now, you know, I'm praying like, I hope my grandchildren think about their granddad is a man who had deep roots. He was a man of prayer. I'm praying that. And while I'm praying, it's like very vivid visual, the verbal becomes visual. And I'll just see this almost like a big root or a trunk. And then these little, I know this sounds weird. I'm doing my best here. These little roots like growing really rapidly and wrapping themselves around the vine. And, uh, and honestly, man, there was like a, there was a heat on that thing. And it's like a spiritual daydream. Very frankly, I sometimes think that's what acts two means when it says you're going to see visions. It's almost like spiritual daydreams. You'll be in prayer and the verbal becomes visual. I honestly think sometimes people are having spiritual visions and they didn't even know it because they're having a spiritual daydream. The verbal becomes visual. And by the way, that lines right up with actual verses. So how do I know that it's in alignment with God, with God's will? Because it's in alignment with God's word. So the reason that it's like a prayer is a total cheat code to sit there with a journal is two things. One, I got the worst attention span so when I start praying, every dadgum thing from my whole to-do list is right there. I want to pray for my three kids. And I'm thinking about the sermon I got to write and the guy got an email and the speaking event that I got. So one is helpful if I can just grab my journal and I'll just, okay. I thought of this to-do list item. I don't got to keep it in my head. Boom. But then two, when God speaks to you in prayer, write that, write that stuff down, man. You want to be able to go back to that in 10 years and go, that's what God spoke to me. Carlos, what's your tip? Well, on that note, just real quick, I do have notes on my iPhone, God speaking to me. And this is every single day. There's something I need to know. What is God speaking to me today? And so agree to everything you just said. Man, I think for me, when I think about my prayer life, I'm legitimately afraid of unaddressed pride in my heart. And so before God, that is a legitimate fear that I have before God. I know God opposes the proud and he lifts up the humble. And so to me, once you know that, for me, that was a game changer. I think it's a game changer. I think it's one thing that when people say, man, I, you know, I don't, I want to pray, but I don't have time to pray. I'm really busy. And what a lot of people I think miss is oftentimes lack of prayer in your life is not a time issue. It is a pride issue. And so when people want to pray more, but you know, maybe you're in a business season or my job's kids, like, you know, I don't have time to pray. The deeper issue I believe is, man, we don't realize how much you need God. You actually need him way more than you think. And you know, what people don't understand is when somebody prays a lot is not necessarily a good thing. It's not necessarily a good thing. It's not necessarily because they have a lot of self-discipline or because they're really spiritually strong. In fact, the opposite is true. The reason someone prays a lot is because they realize how spiritually weak they are and how much they actually need God. And so the reason we don't pray is not because we're not disciplined enough. It's because we're not desperate enough. Prayer is the language of the dependent. And so when you look at scripture, the Bible says, Jesus prayed in the mornings. He prayed all night. He prayed regularly as he withdrew. Often he prayed before miracles. He prayed in the morning. And so when you look at scripture, the Bible says, Jesus prayed in the morning. He prayed all night. And so when you look at scripture, the Bible says, Jesus I have a spot in my house. I go to every single morning. I always have the word with me. I always have to write. I use my phone. I have a moment of worship. I started doing this recently and it's been a game changer where like, you know, I just play a worship song. By the way, worship music is not my genre of preference. I never, I was not that guy. You know, I've been into, you know, if you know a little bit of my past, I've been into like hip hop and kind of like the opposite of worship music. Uh, now I do worship music because it helps my soul connect, abide with my father. Uh, and this, I'm curious to hear what you guys think about this, but I time it. So I commit myself, uh, every single morning I have specific time. And for me, that's a, that's a, that's a, uh, that's a, it's a floor. So not a ceiling. So every single morning, you know, it's a spiritual discipline in the same way that if you go to the gym and you know, you don't want to go to the gym for 10 minutes. I mean, generally speaking, I shoot for like an hour, but, uh, you know, so those biceps get up to an hour and a half, you might be able to beat him in an arm wrestling competition. Sorry. I don't go to the gym because I'm physically strong. No, no, no, no, no. I go there because I'm physically weak and I think I'm better. So let's go, bro. Let's go. So, uh, so, so yes, I, I time it. I have to time it. And so like I shoot for it now. I don't hit it every single time, but it helps me commit, Hey, I'm making a commitment that I'm shooting for this amount of time every single day. And I have a conviction in my heart. You're not praying enough because if, if I want to see God move in my life, I asked myself, what if I doubled my life of prayer? What if I, what if it, you know, if instead of 30 minutes, you do an hour, if instead of an hour, you do two, like literally nobody does that generally speaking. But what if I did, what would God want to give me in that, in that those moments, what would he want to do in my life? And I, I hate the idea of missing out on something that God has for me on his anointing, his power, and I need it. I just want to say that is so God honoring Carlos is why you are the man that you are. And you know, what you just said there is something I don't think a lot of Christians internalize. That's a, you have not, cause you asked not dude, everybody just needs to get in their spirit. Like every one of us as a man, we got kids, we're going to have grandkids, God willing someday. And what we want, we want people with our last name to be be thrown haymakers for the kingdom. When we're all gone, there are things that God is willing to do that God wants to do that God has not yet done because we have not yet prayed. That is a simple biblical fact. So why would we not? Why would we not? Yeah. Um, let me do this. Uh, you want to do this one last thing right here? Yeah. All right. Live free nation. Listen up. This is one of our favorite weekends of the year. March 21st and 22nd is free t-shirt weekend at lake point church. And yes, we're talking free t-shirts for the whole family, all campuses, youth and adult size, all you gotta do is just show up. And here's why this matters. This isn't about free merch, it's about mission. You put that shirt on and you're representing what God is doing through Lake Point Church. You're showing people, you're not ashamed of your faith. And when somebody asks you about it, that's your moment, that's your open door to say, "Hey, you should come with me to Easter." It's one of the easiest ways to represent Jesus and invite someone to church without it being awkward. This, by the way, is an in-person only event and shirts are first come, first serve, so don't roll in late. Get there early and grab yours while supplies last. March 21st and 22nd, free t-shirt weekend. Let's wear the mission, let's invite courageously. We will see you there. - All right, so last thing. I'm gonna talk about this tabernacle prayer thing. Listen, if you're listening and you're like, "Ah, this right here, it completely changed my prayer life." So when it's warm enough, what I do is I take a walk in the morning. And this is how I pray. It takes me about 30 minutes, so it's not the whole day. This is how I do it. So I got this from old Chris Hodges. And what you got is, in the Old Testament, you've got, there was a way to approach God. Obviously, we just went through them earlier. That's like phases of the temple. And when you were trying to get into the Holy of Holies, you're trying to get in the presence of God, you would pass through these parts of the temple. Well, the book of Hebrews says that everything that was written, you know, in the past, you know, that was written, you know, in the past. In the Old Testament was written as a model and a pattern for us. So what Chris Hodges did is he turned this into a pattern for prayer. And I will say, man, unless you are the type of person I've never met before, having a mental model and map, it keeps your mind and your spirit focused and moving. Like, I'm just the kind of guy, dude, I'm gonna get, honestly, I'm just gonna be honest, I'm gonna get bored and my mind's gonna wander. If I don't have something in front of me that's like, okay, here's my, you know, here's my prayer. You know, here's, here's my model, okay? So here's the way it did. Just let me run through this real quick. And if you're listening, we're gonna stick this in the show notes, study guide, whatever we call it now. - Stop and subscribe. - Stop and subscribe, whatever. - Third time's a charm. - We're gonna stick this in here. What I have done is I've got a note on my iPhone with each of these, and then I will put verses that correspond to each of these in the iPhone note. So I'll be taking my prayer walk. I have the iPhone note up and I'll pray the verses that correspond. - Yeah. - Now let me explain it, okay? So when you came to the temple, first thing was the outer courts, okay? Well, the Bible says to enter his gates with? - Thanksgiving. - Thanksgiving. So that's how you start. I'll just, okay, Lord, I'm here to enter with Thanksgiving. And I'll just think, I'll stop and think, what are, what's every blessing that I experienced yesterday? And I wanna make sure that, you know, Jesus healed the 10 lepers, only one came back and said thank you. And every, almost every day I say the same thing. Today, Lord, I'm gonna be the one. Every single thing you gave me yesterday, thank you for that sweet time with Hudson before bed. Man, thank you for the, you know, the incredible generosity of the people, just, you know, that kind of thing. Lord, thank you for, what was it I was praying for yesterday? Man, Lord, thank you for that conversation I had with Jana where we talked about, thank you for my house. Thank you, all those things, okay? Enter his gates with Thanksgiving. Then the next thing you would encounter as soon as you walked in, the first thing you would see in the temple was the bronze altar where sin offerings were made. So here's how I do it. I roll right into thanking God for all the stuff he gave me into the biggest thing I'm thankful for is the sin offering of Jesus Christ on the cross. So then I'll just start praying. Man, Father, thank you for Christ crucified for sinners. Man, thank you that your word says that without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness or remission of sin. But thank you that with the shedding of blood, there is a guarantee of forgiveness and remission of sin. Thank you that there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Thank you that, you know, I'll just, that's how I pray. I'll just start praying. Thank you that, there's old hymns. I'll start praying. Thank you that five bleeding wounds he bears are received on Calvary. They pour effectual prayers and they strongly plead for me. Forgive him, oh Lord. Forgive him, Lord. Forgive, they cry. Forgive him, Lord. Forgive, they cry. Don't let that ransom sinner die. So I'll pray these things. Then as you moved farther into the temple, the next thing the priest would encounter, it was called the laver. It was this little thing that was like mirrors almost with water in it and they would cleanse themselves. And this is the spot where now I'll just start praying. If there's any unconfessed sin in my life, I'm praying it. But then here's the big thing I've started doing is I'll just start, they would wash parts of their body. I've started going body part by body part. So I'll just go, Lord, today, I wanna have the mind of Jesus Christ. Father, would you consecrate my mind to set my mind on things that are above and not the things of this world? Father, today I give you my eyes. I have made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a woman. Father, my eyes are yours today. Lord, I consecrate my tongue to you. I pray that there would not be one word of cursing that would come off my tongue, that it would be used to bless and not curse. I'll just go through, Lord, I pray that you, my hands. Lord, I got work to do today and I got a lot of work to do today. Would you please multiply the work of my hands? I set them apart for you. Well, then the next, as the priest would go in, so if you're listening, here's what you wanna do. You wanna get these down and then just use these as, start with 30 seconds. Don't start long, start with 30 seconds. I'm gonna pray through each phase because there's a way to enter God's presence. So then the priest, after the labor, they'd go into the holy place and the first thing it would see was that seven-pronged candlestick. And everywhere in the Bible, by the way, when you see fire and smoke, that's almost always a symbol of the Holy Spirit. So that's where, what I'll do is there's a passage in Isaiah 11 that talks about the seven-fold spirit of God, a spirit of wisdom and might, a spirit of, it goes through seven different things. And I'll pray through that. Sometimes I'll pray through the fruit of the spirit. Father, would you make me a man, make me a father and a pastor. Pastor today of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness. Sometimes I'll pray for the gifts of the spirit. Eagerly pray for the gifts of the spirit. We're gonna talk about praying in tongues here in a second, what that does and doesn't mean. I'll pray for all those things. And it says, especially that you may prophesy. And so I'll literally just be like, Lord, I especially wanna prophesy today. Would you give me a word of encouragement for somebody? So that's the next one. Well, then the next thing they would see is it was called the table of showbread. And there was these little loaves on there. Well, you get to the New Testament, Jesus goes, man does not live on bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. So the word of God is actually like bread that feeds our soul. And this is where what I'll do, and I'm not saying you gotta do it, is I'll be on my prayer walk. I'll pull up my Bible app, and then I'll take the two chapters that I'm gonna read, and I'll read them on my prayer walk. And then I'm turning verses into prayer while I'm praying. So I'm doing that. Then the next thing they would see is the altar of incense, as they went a little farther in. That's a representative of worship. And so sometimes I'll pause, I'll find a quick worship song or a hymn. I'm a hymn guy. I just like hymns. So I got iPhone notes with my favorite hymns and all their lyrics. And on my prayer walk, as long as nobody else is around, I'll just be singing my favorite hymns. - In Christ alone. - That is one of them, actually. That is one of them. - That's a great song. - I'll be singing it. And then the last place after the altar of incense, Holy of Holies. And this is really important. When the high priest got into the Holy of Holies, they weren't in there just to be like, "Oh great, now I'm just enjoying your presence." Their job was to be in there on behalf of the people. So that's where for me, I'll start going, I'm praying, I'm in the presence of God now. I'm praying for everybody that's not with me right now and I'm mediating for them. So that's when I'm praying for Jana. I'll work my way down. I'm praying for Jana. I'm praying for my three kids. I'm just gonna be really vulnerable with them. I'm already praying for the future spouses of my three kids. I'm praying for people in the church. I'm praying for friends. But I'll go through that little, I know that was long, but that's like this little pattern I'll use. - Well, even like not deconstructing, but basically like almost examining what you just did is like, imagine if some people were listening like, "Man, that's a lot." And what I wanted to just point out is you were just rattling those things off and then saying verses just off the top of your head. And it's because you've been doing them for a while. So analogy I sometimes like to use with this, whether it's tabernacle prayer, using the Lord's prayer, or any of these, as at first it's like, if you've ever learned to play golf, it feels really mechanical learning how to swing. - Yeah, this is a great analogy. - It's like, I've taken lessons. I took lessons a few years ago. I need to go back and take more. But literally when I took lessons, he put these straps in my arms that made me swing in a certain way. And it felt really constricted. And he just had me build the swing a thing at a time. It's like, all right, now I just want you to go back to here. And he would correct it and do some things. At first it felt really constricting and it felt really mechanical. But what happened is the more I did it, over time, it just felt natural. I was just swinging a golf club. And the same thing as I say, in any of these models, at first it's probably gonna feel a bit more mechanical and you're gonna have to look up the verses. You're gonna have to look at the songs. But what will happen is the more you do it, you're just gonna be praying. - That's right. - And so I tell people like, you know what the best way to learn how to pray is? To pray. - To pray, that's right. - To pray and to do it. And the last thing, and I know we gotta get to speaking in tongues. I say, hey, this has been like a model. I'd also say a little thing that I like to do to incorporate prayers throughout all my day, which 'cause Paul literally says, "Pray without ceasing." And that obviously can't mean that we literally every second of every day, but it's like weaving prayer into your all day. I call them either tweet prayers or hinge prayers. Tweet, I was in school and it was 140 characters or less. Oh, sometimes I wish that would come back. - Back in the day, man. - Back in the day. - Old school. - Is I just don't like, you know, prayers don't have to be long. I think now we've even been called the matchstick prayers. It's like sometimes throughout a day, I'll just say a brief prayer. And it could be that I'm walking by someone. I'm like, hey Lord, would you just bless that person? Seems like they're down. Saying quick prayers. And then hinge prayers is the idea of, hey, the hinges of my day are the transition times of my day. When I'm going from work to home, when I'm going from one meeting to the next meeting, if I would just take, Even again, it doesn't have to be five minutes. It can be 15 seconds. That's right, man. Say, God, thank you for being in that meeting. Would you give me wisdom for my next one? God, as I'm going home, would you fill me with energy so I can part with my kids? So that's just a thing. If you can incorporate short prayers throughout your day, that's part of how you become a man or a woman of prayer. Should Christians pray in tongues? Well, he just went for it. And there it is. Just went for it. There it is. Okay, here's what I want to talk about this because it is one of the most, honestly, it's probably not even close. It's one of the most frequent questions we get any time we talk about prayer. Yep. So let's talk about it, and I want to share some things. Paul, do you want to walk us through real quick? Like, let's get theological, put on our thinking caps real quick here. Let's do a fast. Yep. Give us like a quick theological outlay of different views of this, and then I'm going to talk about what I think. The right one. Well, with that, I'd say one thing to help, I think, take some of the weirdness off this is the word tongue in the original language just means language. That's right. Yeah, it just literally means language. The reason why often the word tongues are used is because we maybe don't want to make people think, oh, this is a language like Spanish or French. It can mean that. I'll get to that here in a second with the views, but that's part of the reason why I do think it helps to take some of the weirdness off. So let me talk about two broad views in terms of do they still exist or not. And then I'll talk about three views of what tongues are. You've got two broad views of if they exist or not. One is cessationism. Cessationism is the idea that gifts like speaking in tongues. Prophecy, healing were for the time of the apostles, but after the apostles died and after the scripture was closed, it was written, they ceased. They no longer authentically exist. By the way, that's why it's called cessationism. It ceased. Ceased. It ceased. So and they, by the way, they view any of those gifts as quote unquote sign gifts. Yes. Sign gifts. These are gifts that only the apostles got as a sign to the watching world of their apostleship. To authenticate their authority and their message. 12 dudes, 12 dudes only, actually 13. Then you have continuationism is kind of the same thing as the idea of these gifts. These specific gifts continued after the time of the apostles. So it's kind of the views in terms of are they existing or still or not. In terms of specifically tongues and what those are, there's really three broad views. I just say I would go as far as say there are three types of tongues in scripture. Proof tongues, prophetic tongues and private tongues. Hang on. Can I say that one more time? Okay, can I, let me do something real quick and then I want to, you can dovetail this. I want to say, so here's, I'll give my, here's how I view this. Yeah. And then I want to see if you're going the same way. So essentially what Paul's alluding to is there's one word. This is where Christians get tripped up. Yes. There's one word in the New Testament that we, I think we both believe. Yeah. Means three different things. Exactly. So the Greek word is glossolalia. This is really important, okay. So this word that gets translated tongues, people say speaking in tongues comes from the Greek word glossolalia. I think it means three different things. I want to see if you think the same thing. Okay. So number one, you got, it means that word is sometimes in the New Testament used to refer to preaching in other languages for the purpose of, of, of cross-cultural evangelism. Yes. So for instance, this is what you have in Acts chapter two, it specifically talks about them. Now we're hearing them in our own languages and there's a bunch of like rural Hicktown, Nazareth guys. It'd be like somebody from Kentucky. Speaking French, German. It'd be like a kid from rural Kentucky speaking fluent French. There's no way that you know it, but you're saying it. And that's a proof tongue because it is part of proof. Like the people that were hearing the apostles at Pentecost were like, wait a second, what did they all, and they were amazed. It helped authenticate the authority and the authenticity of what they were saying. Not only authenticate, but communicate. Yeah. Communicate. Exactly. It was a both and. Dude, I'm going to give an example of this. So Jack Hayford, this is, this is recorded in R.T. Kendall's book. Word and spirit, by the way, strong recommend if you're wanting to deep dive theology of the Holy spirit, R.T. Kendall's book, word and spirit is fantastic. So he records this Jack Hayford, who is a man of integrity. Jack Hayford is kind of that. This is not a guy that makes stuff up. So Jack Hayford, he records this story. He's on a plane and he all of a sudden gets this like uncontrollable urge to utter syllables to the guy sitting next to him that he doesn't know. He didn't know what they are. So I'm going to read what it said, felt led to utter a tongue to the person sitting next to him. He dreaded doing it and tried to avoid it, but it was on him. The desire was on him so strong. He gave in, turned to the man next to him and uttered a strange set of syllables he did not understand. Now, first of all, I can't even imagine doing it. That takes some guts. And let me just say like. Well, he couldn't help it, right? He didn't want to do it, but he did it. He did. That happens. So let me say, if you're a weird person that's prone to emotional outbursts, I do not recommend just going with every, but this is what happened to him. Okay. However, this is how it concludes. However, the man next to him was an Indian who turned to him and said, you have just said words that only my tribe speaks. Okay. So that's number one, it's preaching the gospel in languages you don't know. Number two, I think you've got a private prayer language in 1 Corinthians 14. So listen, I'm just, I think it's going to take a pair of scissors to get this out of the Bible. I'm going to talk about this here in a second. So you have 1 Corinthians 14:14, this specifically says, I pray with my spirit, but my mind is unfruitful. And then with that, people rebel against this so much, but I'm like you, like you have to cut it out. And it's so hard to explain, like Paul in verse 18 says he speaks in tongues more than all the Corinthians who, by the way, were speaking in tongues a lot. They were going, yep. But in the next verse, he says, but I would rather. I would rather in the church speak five intelligible words than 10,000 words in a tongue. So in other words, he's saying when I'm in church, I don't really do this. So then the question is if he has done it more than any of them, but if he doesn't do it in the church, then where exactly is he doing this? And it seems very obvious it's in his prayer closet. Because also in verse two of chapter of that chapter, you see that speaking in tongues is primarily, not only, but primarily prayer and praise to God. That's right. So this is, I'll say this is. And this is my view. This is also what, for instance, Romans 8 means when it talks about the spirit intercedes with us with groans too deep for words. If you tie that passage to Jude 20, there's only one chapter in Jude, so Jude 1:20, it's Jude 20. It specifically says, hey, build up your faith. And it says by praying in the spirit. Well, if you go to Romans 8 and it says, man, the spirit intercedes with us with groans too deep for words, I think what Jude 20 and Romans 8 are talking about is sometimes, a person with the gift of tongues in terms of prayer language, they will be so overwhelmed with something the spirit is birthing in their heart to pray for that it's too much for normal human words. And so they pray in the spirit and it builds their faith. I also think, I think, I don't know if you're, I'm actually curious. It's okay to disagree with me. I think when Paul gets to 1 Corinthians 13 and he opens up 1 Corinthians 13 and he says, if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am nothing. I think what Paul's doing is he's acknowledging the reality that in the Corinthian church, I want to know if you agree with this, that in the Corinthian church, when they had a private prayer language, their understanding of that was, I think I'm praying in the language of angels, the language of heaven. And Paul's going. That's great. Hey, you are doing that. That's great. But there's actually something that's even more important that you're a person who operates in love. That's right. That's your, so I think number two, you've got that, you've got that. Okay. I will say this was some people do my Pentecostal friends that I will gently disagree with and they'll disagree with me and we'll still love it. Love each other is they will say that praying in tongues is the evidence. In fact, I think the language they use is the initial physical evidence of being filled with the spirit. I disagree. Yeah, I disagree. You have examples in the book of Acts where people are filled with the spirit. They do. They are not recorded as speaking in tongues. And what the book of Acts says is evidence of being filled with the spirit is evangelism. That's if you want to know if you're filled the spirit, do you become somebody who is rabid in reaching one more power to be a witness? Yes, it says that you, but you will receive power. Acts 1:8, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you, it doesn't say, and you will speak in tongues. It says, and you will be my witnesses. Right. Okay. And then the third one I'll just say is. Third use of time, I want to know if this is what you think. Third thing that glossolalia can mean in the New Testament is it seems like at least pre-canonization of the New Testament that sometimes God would in a, like a house church setting, he would like download a word of prophecy to somebody. And then he would also give somebody else in the room an interpretation of that prophecy. And that was almost like a two key system to authenticate. That's actually from the Lord. Yeah. That's what I was referring to as prophetic tongue. And so like, I think in first Corinthians 14, you see both definitely obviously private prayer language, but I think you also see in first Corinthians 14, where he's saying, Hey, if you're doing this in the gathered, um, like gathering of the church, but again, in homes, that's probably to remember is that applying this modern day churches is so difficult because of the other principle of Paul gives, but I think he then says there has to be an interpretation. And if you go back to the first part of first Corinthians 14, he talks about words of encouragement and prayer. And, and prophecy and teaching. So I think that's what it's talking about is on certain occasions, these people were getting some kind of a prophetic or encouraging word in the church, but it's for the purpose of building up the church, but it is in an unknown language that the people are using. people do not understand that's right that's good so yeah so i'm right there with you so i'll give a oh wait no no no keep going i'll add some color but i'll let you guys finish i'll just say like as far as rules go yeah i will just put put the so one i think some people make the mistake of uh they're too essentially i would say they're too against something that's clearly biblical it's biblical man it's right there it's gonna take a pair of scissors to get out of the bible we literally have a verse that says do not forbid speaking in tongues like that's literally a bible verse okay um on the other hand i think some people they're a little too liberal with it and they'll they'll get in services i know some people disagree with this but this is how this is how we approach you here we're charismatic with a seat belt and here's the seat belt is uh we got specific commands in the book of first corinthians first corinthians 14 that says hey man this is not something for you to do publicly because if you do it publicly people are gonna think you're out of your mind and he's talking about a private prayer language or if you've received quote unquote a word of prophecy and there's not interpreted i'm gonna read the verse if anyone speaks in a tongue two or at most three should speak one at a time and someone must interpret if there is no interpreter the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and god so if i'll just i'll just say this if you're planning to after you hear this podcast roll up into a lake point service and start speaking in tongues in the middle of service uh we will gently escort you out or we'll tell you not because we got bible verses for how that should and should not happen on the church let me just add basically echo what you just said so this is what happens when you know a normal person kind of tries to make sense of this when spiritual gifts are abused people usually swing to one of the two extremes disorder or denial yeah that's good disorder this is my back pocket for the charismatic circles everything goes no boundaries emotion over edification experience elevators authority and then on the other extreme is denial this is the our association is friends hyper reform circles uh shut it down ban it forbid it it's not a thing that's you know paul in first corinthians 14 he refuses both so he corrects the disorder uh verse 40 let all things be done decently and in order but he also guards against denial do not forbid speaking in tongues and so when somebody's trying to figure out man what do i do with this when i see it when i don't see it uh when we talk about the gifts of tongues we don't want this order we don't want denial we want discernment yeah and that uh and when you see somebody uh maybe use it maybe use it maybe use it or you're in a church setting or you see somebody or maybe you're you know maybe speaking in time um you want holy spirit whatever it is you want have for me i want it if it's a gift for me i want it and help me distinguish between what is true and biblical and what it's not that's right well last thing i'll say is and we specifically have a verse this is not a spiritual gift everybody's gonna get no so i'll read this uh uh this is first corinthians 14 actually first corinthians 12. they're all rhetorical questions so paul's asking a series of rhetorical questions he goes are all apostles now what's the implied answer no no are all prophets no are all teachers no do all work miracles do all have gifts of healing no and then he says do all speak in tongues and the obvious implied answer is no no yeah i think with that is as people are discerning this is um really just what you're saying it's like for our friends who are more with us the continuationist but then who are kind of like oh well i'm just gonna do whatever i want like no no like the holy spirit would never have us use his gifts in a way that undermines his purposes there you go yeah ever and his purpose is to point people to jesus and to bring unity to the church and so often people use this gift in a way that is divisive or distracting i'll give you some more d stats the ones that you gave us divisive or distracting and so at that point it's like saying no like actually paul would say like this like the spirit of a prophet is basically you can submit yeah subject to the problem in other words like you can control it you can control it on you but then i would say for those who are still resisting you know people like well it's been abused i'm like and so has preaching and so has evangelism and so has every other spiritual gift that is listed the abuse of something does not negate the right use of it and i'll just be honest i'll try to say this in love the case that people try to make biblically that they have seized is one of the flimsiest weakest arguments i've ever encountered and it's just it's not there it's just not there and so i just say hey like to me when you say charismatic with the seatbelt that's where i was in like and i hope this doesn't sound arrogant i don't mean to be but like when i've heard you sit in the past mike well you just mean a biblical christian yeah my god to me that's just biblical christianity is that you're saying hey the gifts are there we should use them if we've been given them but we should also use them according to biblical guidelines that's right that's simple that's right that's great man any final words on tongues are you so let me look i'll give a little i've never shared this before yeah can i give a little person let's make it personal you mentioned that earlier okay um so this is not a gift that i've ever experienced uh i had ever i had ever experienced before and so i you know like honestly the same thing i'm doing my bible study and i come to this conviction like oh this is like this is a thing yeah it's gonna take parishes to get out of the bible so i uh i'm studying this thing and i'm reading a book by martin lloyd jones this is an old presbyterian super theological guy uh books called joy unspeakable it's about uh being filled with and gifts of the spirit from his reformed presbyterian perspective is really good while i'm reading it and i'm coming to this conclusion um honestly man there's like an agony i'm taking my prayer walks the only way i can describe it is like an agony began to build in me like an agony and it was this thing where i was like lord if there is anything that you have on offer for me that i have not experienced i want all of it and so i just started asking him like god if this is a thing i really i want that i don't know what it is i want this you know so i'm praying for it i've got a pastor buddy that is a uh a sane charismatic that's what i'll you know i'll say it that way it's kind of like you have to say like a fun presbyterian or baptist well he's the same charismatic and um and i i won't say i won't say who he is uh but he's a he's a godly man so i literally i paid for a plane ticket to fly to and from him in the same day literally just i was like can i get 30 minutes for time i just want you to pray for me that if god wants me to exercise this gift that he would give it to me and i go up there and he prays for me he's like josh if this is something that you feel like god's doing to you i just want you to if you feel like something just do it and uh we're there praying and nothing happens it's like nothing i'm like weeping like i'm not a big it's real weird i'm not a super i'm not crier except when i pray i've never understood that i start praying and the tears start flowing so i'm like begging god for this so then he explains to me hey josh sometimes guys like you who are a little more theological you're a little more heady he's like there's a reason that verse says um i pray with my spirit but my mind is unfruitful and you you can't get your mind to stop being unfruitful and so he just said he said hey watch out because sometimes god will do something to you to bypass your mind to teach you to pray with your spirit and i was like okay whatever uh i never shared this before um it was like three days later in the middle of the night it's like 2 a.m i have this extremely vivid dream and in the dream i'm praying in a language i don't understand uh spanish i don't know maybe you like totally killed the mood i'm so sorry i apologize i take it back i'm with you pastor i'm praying and it's like very it's very very vivid yeah yeah and in the middle of that dream i wake up and this the whatever you want to call them syllables utterances whatever you want calm they're just seared into my soul and i like just wake up and i just i'm i'm doing it i'm just praying i i think praying in the spirit and ever since then whenever i get caught up in prayer and it's just like it's more than i have words to express groans too deep for words i'll just start praying in that thing that was given to me and i think that's what's happening and guess what happened why did god have to do that in the dream because he had to bypass my mind so that i could pray with the spirit yeah there you go that's good you want to do a hard emotional gear shift about mom donnie i suppose we have to do that i do want to talk about this let's go let's do it then by the way thank you for sharing that yes hey thanks for your vote that's uh that's amazing praise the lord for that okay yeah and then what god does to you he can do it with us and for the people listening that's right that's a gift okay uh let's do this real quick so um i've been seeing this stuff on uh actually okay i've been we've been seeing this stuff that's going on new york city and by the way you're seeing it in a bunch of cities right now um you're seeing uh the rise of a massive at least socialism light movement whatever you want to call it uh rising you're already starting to see not just his popularity but his fruit okay so i want to give let's give some examples you want to start with this mom donny clip so you don't know this so what we got is uh zoramam donny he's a muslim socialist he's actually using explicitly communist language we've covered this before on the podcast so he gets elected just like always happens with socialists and communists on a on a series of promises about everything they're going to make free okay um and then uh you know what somebody's i've heard it said before that the greatest enemy of progressivism is reality so um so then he gets elected and uh and then i let's start here and just show what happened and then here's what i want to do I want to teach Christians to think and apply their Christian convictions to even things like economic policy and how we think about society. OK, so let's give an example of this and let's start right here. Here is what we stand for, my friends. We are going to freeze the rent for more than two million rent stabilized tenants. Hooray! And use every resource at our disposal to build housing for everyone who needs it. Anyone. We are going to eliminate the fare on every single bus line. Free. And make what are currently the slowest buses in the nation move around this city with ease. And we are going to create universal child care at no cost to parents so New Yorkers can raise their family in the city they love. A few moments later. In order to get to this point of closing the gap on both this fiscal year and the next fiscal year, we are forced to raid the Rainy Day Fund. The Retiree Health Benefits Trust Reserve and to increase property taxes across these other years. All right. So like, all right. So everything's free. We're going to make housing affordable. Buses are free. Government controlled grocery stores. It's all going to be low cost. And it's all going to be free. And then immediately, like within months of getting elected, man, I'm really sorry. We need to raid billions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars, whatever, from the Rainy Day Fund. And we need to raise your property taxes 9.5%. So what you're getting here is the greatest enemy of progressivism is reality. Now, first of all, let me just explain a few things because Christians need to get their head around this. You will notice that in every system, watch this, not just societies, but cities, as godliness decreases, socialism increases. Now, most Christians, they never think about that and they don't understand there is an actual spiritual and logical connection between those things. That is always true. Yes. Interesting. Historically, globally. Whenever godliness decreases, socialism increases. Why? Okay. Well, there's two reasons for that. First of all, when you subtract God from a society, then the government becomes God. Somebody's got to be at the top of the org chart. So you subtract God, government becomes God because God was the highest authority and now the government is the highest authority. And people start looking to the government to do what Christians historically trust God to do. So there's a reason for that. But you also notice this. We've never talked about this before on the podcast. You will notice a theme. There's a theme that in every society, less God requires more government. So I just get that axiom in your head and I want to explain this. It's probably not making sense right now. In every society, less God always requires more government. So think about this. When you have a nation full of Jesus-worshiping, spirit-filled, Bible-believing and Bible-obeying people, guess what you don't need a whole lot of? Police. When you've got a nation that are spirit-filled people. They're reading verses like, "Hey, man, if a guy won't work hard and provide for his family, he's worse than an unbeliever. So get out there and have a Protestant work ethic." When you have a nation full of those people, guess what you don't need a ton of? Government welfare. When you've got a nation that's full of spirit-filled people that like they actually want to conduct their lives and their businesses with integrity and scrupulousness, guess what you don't need a ton of? Government regulation. So here's what's interesting, man. A lot of people, they do not connect these things. Whenever there is a problem. There's a rise in godlessness. It requires a rise in government to stem the tide of rising evil that results from the godlessness. That is why globally, in societies in general, less God always requires more government. And as godliness decreases, socialism increases. I will just point this out. The same people, the exact same people who laugh at you guys for believing in an all-powerful, all-good God. They think, "Man, if we just made the government all-powerful, it would be all good." I just want to point that out. So subtract God, government becomes God. Now, let me just get into this. What I want Christians to do, we're going to rapid fire these. What I want Christians to do when they see this, because you're seeing it right now in New York City, you're seeing this, I'm going to get to this here in a second, you're seeing the effects of this in Chicago. You've seen the effects of this in California, a place like San Francisco, definitely in places like Washington, Portland, all those places. As you're seeing these things. Christians need to learn to think in a way where they apply their Christian convictions into how they view policies and government, apply those things in the social and political realm. So a few things I want Christians to be able to do. Number one, you've got to be able to differentiate between a Christian vision and definition of what human and civil rights are, and what a secular progressive vision and definition of what human and civil rights are. Number two, you've got to be able to differentiate between a Christian vision and definition of what human and civil rights are, and what a secular progressive vision and definition of what human and civil rights are. Number three, you've got to be able to differentiate between a Christian vision and definition of what human and civil rights are. Okay, do we get those other, the Mamdani clip? So for instance, I want to show you an example of this, so you as a Christian, watch this. Once you see this, you can't unsee it, you'll see it everywhere, and you'll start going, oh, that's that thing, that's that thing. But it's, watch, it's happening to you, and you don't know it's happening to you. So watching both these clips, watch the things that Mamdani, as a progressive person, defines. Defines as rights, and then ask the question, are these things that a Christian would go, that's a human right? Okay, so we're going to have two examples. Do this one first. New Yorkers have a right to quality health care, as do the nurses who provide that care. My job as mayor is to protect both of those rights, to stand alongside the working people who stand with us every day, and to build a city where everyone can live a life of dignity, not just those. Protect those with the most means. Okay, sorry about that. So what you noticed is, he said two things. He said health care, affordable health care is a right, and then he's specifically talking about the wages of the people providing the health care. That's also a right. Notice that. Now, if you're like, ah, maybe, okay, well, just stop. Let's stop and think. We'll come back to that in a second. Now, watch this. He's not going to use the word right, but he's going to use the word, what's he say? Entitled. Entitled, which is rights language. Yes. Now, watch in this clip. What does he refer to as an entitlement that comes from a human right? Okay, listen real close. Of New York's commitment to a new era where every one of our neighbors, even those who have made mistakes in their past, is entitled to dignity and safety and to a home that they can call their own. That's it. Okay, that's it. So did you notice? So he's saying entitled. So owning a house, having a house, that's a right. Okay, now, when you first hear that as a Christian, you might be like, well, yeah, maybe. I don't know, maybe. Okay. Well, here's the big idea, man. Historically, Christians have defined the word right, human or civil right, differently than progressive people have. All right, so for Christians, think about this. We have this in the Constitution that was written by largely Christians. You have the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. We'll talk about rights. Christians will talk about rights like the right to free speech, the right to freedom of assembly, worship, that kind of thing. This is what Thomas Jefferson. Now, here's what I want you to notice. Notice when Christians talk about rights, they're talking about freedom. Freedom from something. So all those rights, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, speech, and worship, that's freedom from someone impeding me doing the thing that God has said I'm allowed to do. Now, what you'll notice is progressives use the word rights and define the word rights very differently. So progressives, they'll talk about rights in terms of things like affordable housing, health care. They'll talk about abortion. Notice this. They'll reframe it as reproductive rights. They'll talk about, hey, man, everybody has the right to an affordable education. So college, free college, quote, unquote, free college, by the way. That's a right. Child care, he talked about. That's a right. Those things are not freedom from someone else impeding me to do something. Those are rights, quote, unquote, freedom to have something. Now, here's the big idea, man. All of those rights. The way that progressives define rights, housing, health care, reproductive rights, college, child care. Notice all of those, quote, unquote, rights. They require something from someone else. So here's a big idea. If one person has a right to have or consume something for free, that means that somebody else has the obligation to provide it for free. That's your problem. So watch this. If it obligates somebody else to do something. If it's actually not a right for you, it's an obligation for them. All right. So what you're going to notice is and what you're going to notice that progressives tend to do is they'll relabel things that Christians would call privileges. They'll relabel them as rights in order to advance a socialistic vision. I don't want to get too bogged down here. What's really happening is this call. It's called choice architecture. What choice architecture is, is when somebody manipulates. The options presented to you to force you to their desired conclusion. All right. So like, you know, you'll have people be like, hey, Carlos, are you pro choice or are you against women's rights? OK, I feel a little boxed in here a little bit. You know, Paul, are you affirming or do you practice hate? You know, back in 2020, it was like, hey, do you support BLM or are you complicit in white supremacy? So you're seeing this now watch this a play that's getting run. Run on you and you don't know what's getting run on you. Yeah. So the way the options are presented is intentionally. manipulating you to a desired outcome now what they'll do now what progressives do is though this is language is whoever controls the terms wins the debate they'll relabel things that historically have been called privileges and call them rights in order to advance a socialistic economic vision so that if you oppose what i'm trying to do we've set it up to where you're actually opposing civil and human rights all right so number one you just got to get like dude there's a difference between a christian vision of rights and a progressive vision of rights all right uh yeah you guys got any thoughts or questions here and then i'll brief thought is that what's interesting in terms of the language is that the way a lot of the times progressives speak is that rights come from the government yes we have created these rights whereas again the constitution is like no no no like we've been endowed by who our creator with an alienable right so even it goes into the whole thing of saying hey when god diminishes what has to become god in his place the government the government is but we're here to tell you what rights you have and don't have so i just think all these things interplay together that's the only comment i have that that's exactly right now you know when this happens we need to rapid fire this when this happens there's some very predictable results hey play that play that next clip of the uh the people so what you're getting ready to see is a clip of people who voted for mom donnie finding out that he's going to raise property taxes he's proposing a property tax increase of 9.5 percent uh so these are mom donnie voters finding out so check this out the mayor with the greatest respect in every campaign speech in every debate where you engage we opened our ears to listen now today accept the words echoing from us now do your job as mayor and leave our taxes out okay all right that's it it's like all right so here's the deal reality's undefeated yeah someone has to pay for stuff so dude here's what happened anytime a social somebody's got to pay for stuff ain't no ain't no such thing there's no such thing as free health care free there's no such thing because you have to obligate somebody to do it so every time a socialistic vision is advanced this is what happens every single time step one is tax the rich step two the rich leave by the way that's what's happening they're all moving to florida and by the way texas by the way if you're here welcome you're just not allowed to vote so number two the rich leave step three uh all the people who are left behind they celebrate the rich people leaving step four oh still needs money step five oh now you're the richest people left so we got to tax you they raise taxes on you step six now you got to pay a lot of taxes step seven meltdown yeah so the the whole socialistic ideology is being surprised by the trade-offs that are inevitable in any system that's all it is okay now here's the other thing christians need to learn to to get here is check this just go with me man progressive think in terms of solutions christians and conservatives think in terms of trade-offs this is really really important progressives think in terms of solutions conservatives think in terms of trade-offs okay so for instance people notice this what progressives do is they'll just see a problem and a lot of times they they see a legitimate problem legitimate problem they'll see a problem and they just automatically think of what's a straight line solution to solve that problem so for instance they'll see man some people don't have enough money problem so then they'll go well this is really easy we'll just take a whole bunch of money from the people who do have the money and we'll give it to the people that don't have the money and problem solved duh you know but what happens so uh progressives what happens is somebody said progressives think about taxes like middle school boys think about axe body spray if some was good more will be better that's the kind of thing you know that's it but that's what ends up happening okay so they don't think in progressives think in terms of solutions but they don't think in terms of solutions but they don't think in terms of solutions but they won't think about the reality of the second and third order consequences that will happen when you implement your proposed solution for instance you get throw up that next um i want to throw up these pictures so second and third order consequences oh wait if we take a bunch of money from the people who generate the most wealth and most jobs one a whole bunch of them are going to leave our state then who again oh number two we still got to pay for stuff so you're seeing this right now new york city mom donnie proposes 9.5 property tax increase good next one california right now is doing the same thing this is watch this what these are are the second and third order consequences that will always happen when you advance a high tax redist wealth redistributive socialistic vision uh california is having the largest wealth flight in california history it's over a trillion dollars of net worth have left california as a you know there's a new proposed tax increase and then the big one i'm a sports guy this is crazy man i don't know if y'all saw this like the chicago bears are it looks like they're moving towards leaving the city of chicago to move to a more conservative indiana it's like this you know shame on chicago steven a smith okay so where progressives just think in terms of solutions what conservatives tend to do is they think in terms of trade-offs well if we do that then what will the second order consequences be second or third order consequences be we're never going to have a perfect system so what's the best system we can get given the trade-offs that are inevitable now you may be going what's it got to do with the bible okay well the biblical category for this is just wisdom yes wisdom is the ability to maneuver the complexity of the world okay so it's biblical category wisdom any thoughts or comments here no go ahead i'm good all right that's great then we'll shut her down it's good wisdom no thank you all thank you thank you carlos all right now the third one is here's the third axiom christians need to get in their head is with governments you always are going to get more of what you incentivize and less of what you penalize so like another way to say this is show me the incentive and i'll show you the outcome okay so so man here's a quick theology of this i just want to do this very briefly so what christians have historically done is christian notice in the bible god created three institutions the family the church and the church and the church and the church and the church and the state and in the bible what you're going to notice is every one of the institutions has primary responsibilities that god delegates to that institution and it's that god-given institution that's supposed to do that thing not the other institutions so like families and these are just generalized this is like kyprian sphere sovereignty for for theologians you know the family is responsible for the the raising of children the discipleship of children you know feeding kid that kind of thing uh and individuals are called to love the poor serve the poor help the poor uh so you got the family you got the church church is historically responsible for things like word and sacrament it's the church's job in society to be a quote a pillar and buttress of the church the truth to function as an immune system for society the church is also tasked with caring for the poor and helping people who are hurting and then the government is a third institution romans 13 book first peter the government's role is justice it's to uh reward the good and to penalize what is evil that's romans 13 first peter now what you're going to notice is christians acknowledge all three institutions and they want every institution individual family church state to do their job what you're going to notice in general is that secular progressive people um they don't uh they want the government to do the role of the individual the family and the church so hey we'll protect you we'll provide for you we'll decide what's right and wrong in society we'll do that you know we'll take care of the poor so secular progressive people want the government to do the role of the individual family and church and what you're going honestly dude what you'll notice is that secular progressives want nobody to do the role of the government so they don't want anybody meeting out man honestly like biblical justice so you'll just kind of notice this in general it's very very interesting so like that's where you get like defund the police hey let's replace uh you know uh the police with therapists yeah it's kind of spirit of lawlessness anti-death penalty that's a good example yep oh nobody should be nobody should be doing that who's that evil sure sure sure that's right okay i love to connect kind of connect the two and the three real fast absolutely real fast i love even like you talk about this is a wisdom issue wisdom is simply the idea of how has god designed the world and reality to work that's right and then how do we live in line with that so even like in the autism of the proverbs it all often connects to wisdom with creation of the world that's that's the idea there but then if you think about it i don't want to be careful not to apply these verses to this but i think there's some connections of how god has designed reality to work including our relationship with him think about the idea of you get more of what you incentivize what did god do in the old testament after he laid down all of his laws he says i put before you what life and death choose life that what that's reward that you may live and then even thinking about hebrews where it talks about if you want to please god two things are required you must believe that he exists and then people forget the second and that he is what a rewarder of those who seek him so actually the way that god is compelling people to obey and to be wise and to seek him is not saying because i'll zap you or else now there are there are consequences but actually his primary thing he does is say i want to reward you and give you life so i'm saying i highlighted those two things because it's a part of how god has designed the world and reality to work so dude whenever so here's a big idea man is when everybody does their job good stuff happens when churches care about what they're doing when they're doing their job good stuff happens when for the poor and when individual Christians care for the poor, poverty decreases and we actually help people. But when the government tries to do the role of the church, the family, and the individual, it's the exact opposite. Because with governments, you get more of what you incentivize and less of what you penalize. So I'll give you an example of this. So for instance, when the government steps out of its justice lane and into the, we're the ones that are primarily going to care for the poor. Well, here's a big idea. You're not solving poverty, you're incentivizing it. And the outcomes speak for themselves. So for instance, in the civil rights era, when you had the explosion of the welfare state and the government was like, dude, we're going to pour billions more dollars into quote unquote, solving poverty. Essentially what they did is they went, okay, we're going to create a policy where if you make below a certain amount and you're not married, then we're going to give you a bunch of, we're going to give you government assistance. Well, guess what you got? You got more poverty and you got far less people getting married. Why? Because you set up policies that incentivized not working and staying unmarried. I'll give you another example of this. Think about this in, in states and cities that allocate billions of dollars towards quote unquote, helping homelessness in states and cities like that. You get states and cities that are overrun with homelessness. You do not solve homelessness. This is a show that thing from the Hoover Institute. Yeah. So like for instance, in the last X number of years, California has thrown $37 billion at quote unquote, solving homelessness. And guess what they got? More homelessness. Yeah. Because again, what you're doing, you're not solving it. You're incentivizing it. Something similar probably could be said about the health, mental health crisis. That in the last, you know, whatever, 15, 20 years, more money has been poured into mental health resources. And now you go to the doctor and you ask, how are you feeling? And then the more money has been put into that, the more money has been put into the mental health crisis. And then the more increase in, you know, depression, anxiety, et cetera, et cetera. That's the government trying to do the role of the home or the church in this case. You're actually creating a commercial for it. And we've talked about this before, but to connect it to a book called When Helping Hurts. These are classic examples of that. So our heart in this is not to help. It's actually to your point of like when conservatives talk about what are trade-offs. We're trying to say, actually, we're trying to do the most help possible. But you're trying to do things in a way that looks like it's helping, but it's actually hurting. It's causing more damage. That's right. What you're doing is helping. Hey, man, there's groups of people in society that are drowning, and you're throwing them an anvil. You're throwing them a feel-good anvil is what you're doing. So let me just last thing. Again, what Christians have got to get good at is connecting our theology to our sociology and our political ideology. We've got to get better at that. So essentially what you've got right here is this really boils down to a difference in an understanding. It's a biblical anthropology. It boils down to an understanding of human nature. So it's Christian theology versus critical theory. In Christian theology, what we understand is that man is inherently sinful. We have a sin nature. So we are by default mode, selfish. We do not by default do the right, responsible, and altruistic thing. So Christian theology understands that because of that, we have to create incentive structures in society that essentially hijack selfish mentality. So we have to create incentives and motives to get people to do the right thing with incentive structures. By contrast, Marxist progressive critical theory, it does not think that mankind is inherently sinful. It thinks that mankind is actually inherently good. And that if, man, honestly, if left to himself, man, if you just treat people nice enough and give them enough therapy, well, then everybody's going to do the right thing and work really hard, and they're just going to do it on their own. So really what all this boils down to is competing, and you're going to have to create visions of human nature. That's it. That's why ideas matter. And everybody's a theologian. That's right. And your theology matters. That's it, man. So here's what I'm saying. We're done. But what I'm saying is, let me just summarize. If you're a Christian and you're watching the news cycle, first of all, watch for moments when something that requires something from someone else is relabeled as a right. Watch for when privileges are relabeled as a right. Number two, watch out for the axiom. With governments, you get more of what you incentivize and less of what you penalize. And number three, do not be somebody that in a simple-minded way just thinks in terms of solutions. We're Christians that understand the complexity of the world, and we think in terms of tradeoffs. Good. Pastor Josh, would you pray for us? I will. Father, first of all, what a privilege it is to be sons of the living God and to walk right into your presence and approach your throne with boldness. So, Father, I pray for everybody that's listening that has had an unanswered prayer. I pray that you might lead them in a path of righteousness for your namesake, that you might show them what's going on, that they would press their head real tight up against the chest of their Heavenly Father and love and serve you. So bless them in that, Lord. Father, we just want to pray for you. We do pray for our nation, and we ask that righteousness, your word says that righteousness exalts a nation. And so we pray for tons of people to get saved, for mass revival, and then for us to walk out as salt and light in this dark world and to shine very brightly for the glory of your Son. So I pray a blessing on these people. I pray a blessing on every church represented. I pray a blessing on our society. I pray it for the glory of Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Amen. Are they free, brother?